Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Episode 101: Digital Banking with Qube
282 Plays3 years ago
Ryan Garvey, our in-house Qube expert, joins us to talk about how easy it is to start finding freedom through budgeting using the accounts and tools from Qube Money.
FREE UPGRADE: To receive a free two-month upgrade to Qube Money Premium, use this link https://tracking.qubemoney.com/SH1k and follow these instructions.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to The Uncommon Life Project
00:00:02
Speaker
Everyone dreams about living an uncommon life, but how we define that dream is very different for each of us. And for most, it's a lifelong pursuit. Welcome to the Uncommon Life Project podcast. We're going to introduce you to people who are living that life or enjoying the journey to get there. We're going to also give you some tools, tricks, and tips for starting or accelerating your own efforts to live an uncommon life.
00:00:27
Speaker
a life worth celebrating and savoring.
Hosts Discuss Personal Finance Challenges
00:00:30
Speaker
Please welcome your hosts, Brian Dewhurst and Philip Ramsey. Hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode of The Uncommon Life Project, where I am your host, Philip Ramsey. And I am Brian Dewhurst. Brian, it's great to see you today. It's great to see you. Thank you. What have you been learning in your life? That's what I want to start out with. Well, I think, not to state the obvious, but that inflation is real.
00:00:56
Speaker
Yeah, that's real. That's real. When you go to the gas pump, you feel that pretty hard. Yeah. Candy bars are a little bit more expensive. Luckily, I've cut out sugar for the last couple of days until, yeah, maybe 40 days is really what I'm cutting it out, because then it's coming back. It's coming back hard. So thanks for that. We have an amazing guest on the show today. I'm excited to introduce him. I'm excited to talk through this, because just like your inflation thing, I think it's going to help. And I think this is the thing. This is what I want to promise you.
00:01:25
Speaker
that this will not get boring. And it could be a topic that people shy away from, but not today. And I promise we won't make it boring. And it's Brian and I, and we have another guest. So who's the guest? Let's get them on the show. Let's go from
Introducing Ryan Garvey: Financial Coach
00:01:37
Speaker
there. We have the one, the only, Ryan Garvey, who's joined Un-Commonwealth Partners.
00:01:42
Speaker
As a financial coach. Yes, he has budgeting expert and guru married father and now You're full-time quit your job for this. So this is a big deal He's jumped off the proverbial ledge folks and now we're waiting for the parachute to open. That's right It's a it's a fun space and time. Yes, it is Ryan Garvey. Welcome to the show. Thank you guys so much for having me It's great to be here
00:02:06
Speaker
Long time listener, first time guest. Okay. Wow. That's very nice. That's exciting to be in studio with you guys today. I know these are the best podcasts by the way. So he is in studio.
Why is Budgeting Important?
00:02:17
Speaker
Uh, and so we're excited to jump into this stuff. Uh, but we are going to be talking about, I would say the frontline of defense when it comes to your money. Yeah. What is it? Budgeting. Budgeting.
00:02:30
Speaker
barf in my mouth. All right. The thing that everyone hates. Yeah. And I think I'm just going to start this podcast off by saying Brian Dewhurst is a believer. I'm all in. You're all in. And like that says a lot to me. I would say that I have been better in the past.
00:02:49
Speaker
and I'm going to get back into it. Because Brian Dewhurst is a believer, so I know there's definitely hope and promise there. And we have Ryan Garvey to kind of help my family through this. So let's just start by stating the obvious. You just jumped off the proverbial bridge. Yes, sir. Wednesday was your last day at your other job. It was. The eight to five, and now he's on the uncommon life. We basically could do a whole show on that, but we won't.
00:03:13
Speaker
And we did do a podcast with Shane Walker talking about cube money.
What is Cube Money?
00:03:19
Speaker
And that's a huge tool that you are going to utilize moving forward, coaching all of your families, helping them get out of debt and start getting traction in their finances. So.
00:03:31
Speaker
tell me how it was the last day of your job when you when you put in your notice did you feel like you were on summer vacation the first day of summer vacation walking away from school yeah like i was stepping out of a classroom and onto the bus to summer camp yep yeah no it's it's definitely been a good couple years of a lot of prayer and um just seeking the lord's will uh i've
00:03:56
Speaker
So for those who don't know, my previous job was in pest control. So I was spraying houses and slaying mouses. Oh man, I like that. That was amazing. Not doing that anymore. But yeah, for the past three, four years,
00:04:11
Speaker
really just been growing in my interest and passion for personal finance, financial independence. Honestly, your guys show has been really instrumental in just gaining more knowledge and really growing in that passion. And so I knew, you know, even in my previous job that not feeling as fulfilled as I wanted in my work and just wanting to wake up and feel on fire in what I was doing and really believe like I was utilizing my skills and my passions and
00:04:40
Speaker
glorifying God in my work and helping people really make any difference in their life. So yeah, I just want to thank you guys for believing in me, giving me this opportunity, and I'm ready to go full force. If I wouldn't have hired you before, I would have hired you after that. Yeah, I was like, man, I'm in. Chills over here from the heart.
00:04:59
Speaker
I'm trying to think like where we get, I think what's interesting, we've all obviously being in this business, and I think I said this on the show with
Cube's Impact on Financial Behavior
00:05:07
Speaker
Shane, I've tried a number of different things to budget. And I think about the processes we use with our business, because I'm actually more consistent at that than I am with my personal. And you know, we largely use Excel in our account.
00:05:21
Speaker
And you know, to then do that personally, I think business owners especially struggle with budgeting because you have multiple budgets, right? You have a business budget, you have a family budget.
00:05:31
Speaker
It's daunting. So we've tried a lot of things. And I think what got me so excited is that this system, Cube, actually forces behavioral change. And it basically is digitizing Dave Ramsey's envelope system into the 21st century. Each husband and wife have their own debit cards. They have their own mobile apps. You can see the entire budget in real time together on your phones.
00:05:59
Speaker
And there is literally nothing like it. Yeah, if you think of traditional budgeting tools like a YNAB or Mint or even Dave's very own EveryDollar, which my wife and I, we've been using for the past three years. They're good tools, but they are inherently flawed because they're reactive. You're spending your money and then you're going in
00:06:23
Speaker
after the fact and you're updating your budget if you even do that. It's very easy to go over every month and that's what we were doing. We'd been able to establish a high savings rate but we would get to the end of the month and be like,
00:06:39
Speaker
by $50, $100 in our groceries, our spending money we went over, and so Q really flips that paradigm because it's proactive. You're creating these spending and these bill cubes, and then you're allocating your money into them first, and then you're just spending from your budget, and that's where the power is really. Right, for sure.
00:06:59
Speaker
There are several things, like, I would say this is kinda like trying to shift, you know, if you're trying to make a nutritional lifestyle change. I hate the word diet, so we'll say nutritional lifestyle change. Because I think this has a lot of parallels to that. This is a lifestyle change. Like, if you've ever really wanted to be on a budget but not feel like you're on a budget, this is it, in my opinion. Because I don't really feel like I'm on a budget, I finally feel like my money
00:07:25
Speaker
is being purposeful and I'm setting the intention of what I want that money to do with my wife. We put the money in there and then you kind of just do the deal. You, you know, a month goes by and so, but it is daunting to make that change. So you've made the change. I've made the change Phillips in the middle of the change. Can you walk our listeners through some of the key components? If you're thinking about this as a change you want to make, you know, and you know, we're shooting this early 2022.
How to Use Cube Effectively?
00:07:52
Speaker
Yeah, so when you first get started with Cube, the thing with Cube is that you use the Cube app and then the Cube card in tandem. So you're going to download that app, you're going to get your card, and then you're going to transfer funds from your existing bank into your Cube account.
00:08:11
Speaker
and then you set up the spending cubes. So you got groceries, gas, spending, money. Just like envelopes in Dave Ramsey's system. Exactly. Yeah, we call them cubes. Yep, yep. And so you set up those cubes and you can set up bill cubes as well for reoccurring expenses, which is great. And then once you've got your money in there, you just start using it. And let's say you go to the coffee shop, you get a coffee, you just open up the app.
00:08:37
Speaker
And then you, I use Apple pay. So I just hold my cube card up to the reader. It processes the transaction and then you get a notification of it. And instantly it's like, boom, your budget is updated. So yeah, all the work is just done on the front end there. And it's super cool. Once you get a feel for it, there's a little bit of a learning curve, but it becomes, yeah, it becomes natural. And then it's just like super satisfying to
00:09:01
Speaker
to have that information updated in real time. You guys have talked through this because it used to be the envelope system with Dave Ramsey was powerful. Yeah, it works. It totally works. It really does work. The problem is you have to be fumbling around in your bag or your purse or your envelope to get the cash out and then pay it, which is just clunky. And so if you think about the other side of it, which it works,
00:09:24
Speaker
But this is just you grab your phone, you click the envelope you want open, and then you swipe the card. You can do that when you're like, hey, I want a large espresso. Okay, they start making it up. You take your phone, click the app, give them the card, and it's done. You don't have to be fumbling with any envelope. Here's another reason why I think it's super powerful.
00:09:45
Speaker
because of the other side of town, your wife could be using the same or a different card and she can be using the same envelope, but she doesn't need to necessarily be right there. She can use the same envelope by clicking her cube and it can be debiting from that electronic envelope or cube. And so that's what's powerful because there's been times in the past where I'm like, okay, that's valuable to do the envelope system.
00:10:09
Speaker
but I do live in 2022 and there is no way. And honestly, like here's real, there's some places that don't take cash. And he's like, what are you going to do now? Like, well, yeah. And like we were doing, my wife and I were doing the Dave Ramsey thing with the envelopes and the other side of it is like, I was going to the bank and pulling out four grand in cash. And I'm like, I don't want my wife walking around with all this cash in her purse. And, um, I want to be really clear for the listener when we say card.
00:10:38
Speaker
Cube gives you, Cube is its own bank account. And you're getting a Visa debit card to that bank account. So it is the same system that basically all of us are using. But it is a debit card. And so one of the objections, one of the main objections that we get from folks is like, you know, if you make a lot of money, you probably think you don't need a budget.
00:11:04
Speaker
But with inflation the way it is and if you want to retire sooner, sub 60, you gotta save aggressively. You gotta have a high savings rate, 20%, 30%, 40%. Or you're investing in other assets that produce cashflow. We've kind of covered that on the show. But the intention of it is, well, I wanna get my credit card points.
00:11:28
Speaker
I'm not going to get any credit card points with that. And the data shows, Shane kind of talked about this, but I want to hit this with you. You've been looking at a lot of the data. You've been talking to a lot of people. You've been interested in personal finance for years. You know, the adage is the data shows if you have a credit card, you're spending 15 to 20% more a month.
00:11:46
Speaker
Cube's research shows that families that do this style, kind of the digital envelopes, cash-based, intentional budgeting, you're gonna be saving three to $400 a month. And so even if you're running, and this is, I would say, maybe high for the average family, but let's say you're running 50 grand through a credit card.
00:12:07
Speaker
and you're getting one or two percent rewards. Are we talking a year? Yeah, a year. Okay, so you say a year. Who are we talking to and how do we get those people? So, I mean, that's like four grand a month, basically, you know, through a credit card, which I don't think is totally crazy, but, you know. That's valid. One to two, even at two percent cash back or you get the airline miles or whatever, you're talking about a thousand dollars. But if you're spending 20 percent more, that means you should have been spending about $42,500 and you spent $50,000.
00:12:37
Speaker
So you're getting 1,000 backing cash rewards, but you overspent by 7,500. Right. Our view is, especially if things are tight or you're not at the place you want to be financially, you'd rather have the $7,500 than $1,000 in cash back or airline miles. Totally. And so that's what the data shows. But think about the psychology, like the psychology behind this. Is that the right word? I think it is. Let's just go with that.
00:13:02
Speaker
When you think you're gonna get more rewards from a credit card, you will spend more money. You will, because inherently you're like, there is a benefit for me to buy this sweet Garmin watch. And the version seven, the new model. The new model. Oh man. So you buy it, right?
Cube's Role in Debt Repayment
00:13:23
Speaker
But if you do it this other way, there really is no incentive. So you're like, well, do I need it or do I not? Right.
00:13:29
Speaker
I think that's really powerful. So if you're telling me that I'm gonna save $300 a month,
00:13:35
Speaker
way better than a 2% kickback. And here's another thing I just want you guys to talk to or riff on. Budgeting is constrictive. Come at me, bro. I want to say this because when we were kind of getting to know Ryan in terms of this role and taking this on, he said something that I want to highlight in the show and then I want you to kind of riff on Ryan. But he's like, you know, budgeting feels, people think it's going to be restrictive.
00:14:02
Speaker
But it's actually freeing. And I was like, that hit me between the eyes when you said that because I was always that guy of like, I'm a spender. And, you know, I was like, I don't want to be restricted. Like, you know, we work hard and want to play hard and.
00:14:16
Speaker
And then, you know, several years go by and you're like, I feel like I should be saving more money than I am, you know? And it's like, yeah, I got to humble myself and figure out this budgeting thing. And then, you know, we, we found cube and it was like, this has literally been the most freeing thing for me financially in the last six months. So I kind of want you to just kind of share with that because I think your perspective is awesome.
00:14:35
Speaker
Yeah, thanks. Yeah, I think there is a common perspective where, you know, budgeting is a four letter word and people don't want to do it because of the misconceptions and kind of that mentality of like, well, if I have to track all my dollars, and then I've got to have the conversation of like, oh, I'm overspending in this area.
00:14:55
Speaker
That's going to be really restrictive. I'm not going to be able to use my money for anything fun. So why even start? Whereas I want to encourage people to look at budgeting and specifically using the tool of cube as a way of take, you're using knowledge to take back the power. No longer is your money dictating what you can do. You're telling your money what it's going to do. Right. And honestly, like once you,
00:15:21
Speaker
Once you have an idea of what your bottom line is and what it costs every month for you to live, like that's truly liberating. Cause then you can see like, okay, what are all these fun ways that we can use our money to invest towards our retirement or to live generously? Go on a vacation. Go on a vacation. Yeah. Oh, I don't have to, you know, spend this minimum spent on a credit card and get these points necessarily to be able to avoid afford a vacation. And let's just fast forward this for a second. Let's say you do, do this budget thing and it works.
00:15:51
Speaker
think about how much more exciting and fun you will have on that vacation when you know it's already budgeted and it's already paid for. Versus the times when you're like, I'll just put it on a credit card. Let's be honest, you're stressed out. Oh gosh, I have to go pay that credit card off. It's a way different feeling. That was the one story I think from Dave Ramsey I resonated with of putting a vacation on a credit card and it's like, is it really a vacation if you're thinking about how you're gonna pay for it when you're back? Yeah, it's so true.
00:16:20
Speaker
Okay so I want you to talk through like let's say like how restricted restrictive is cube meaning let's say I have a budget for groceries for $500 that would be amazing but if I did and like we're going to the grocery store this is at the end of the month um
00:16:38
Speaker
And then I know that my cards probably gonna be for do I have to like mentally calculate like you're throwing a big Super Bowl party or it's Thanksgiving and your groceries come in at. You know 550 or yeah yeah let's just say that like what happened then yes we're just kind of talking about like the practicality of using q on a day to day basis so.
00:16:58
Speaker
Yeah, when you get money into your cube and it's going to go into basically your cube cloud, that's essentially like your savings account. That's like a general checking account. Yeah, is what it is. Yeah. So you haven't assigned it. Exactly. You haven't allocated any of it into any specific cubes. So.
00:17:16
Speaker
Once you set up your spending cubes and your bill cubes, then you'll just do an internal transfer from that cloud into those accounts or into those cubes and then you just use it. So yeah, for your grocery example, you're going to the grocery store and you... You're over.
00:17:34
Speaker
Yeah, you're, you're over. Um, once they ring you up, honestly, it would take you two seconds to go into the cube cloud, transfer some money and then pay for it. And I think a lot of people when they're considering getting started, they have just that fear of being in the grocery line. And gosh, there's a, just can't, there's a queue of like 10 disgruntled people behind you. Like, why is this taking you five minutes? Takes out their checkbook. Like what to pay for a gallon of milk.
00:18:01
Speaker
But honestly, I've had zero issues with being in the moment and using the app. I would get Tourette's. And I will touch on, there is a feature that will alleviate a lot of this stress and it's called Cubeless. And essentially, if you're in a place that, for whatever reason, you're not getting that reception, you need to open up the queue. You're open about two on a road trip, but there's no cell service, there's no wifi.
00:18:29
Speaker
But you need that bottle of water for your kid or something. But they still can swipe your credit card? Well, I mean, they're hardwired into the internet, under the ground maybe the way it was 20 years ago. There's no 5G tower over the top of it. Good point. So, Cubeless is a feature that will allow transactions to process up to a specified amount.
00:18:49
Speaker
without needing to even have a cube open. So that removes the worry of having poor reception or like forgetting your phone and you can really choose what you want that amount to be. So yeah, I just did that setting. I want to riff on this because
00:19:05
Speaker
This is another one of the big objections to Cube, I think. And this actually kind of makes Cube a little bit more like retroactive budgeting in the sense of like it's just throwing the transaction kind of like in a queue. It's paying for the transaction. It's like the grocery purchase or whatever you're buying is going through at the terminal.
00:19:27
Speaker
and it's debiting, you're kind of like, you have the money in your overall wallet, but it's not debiting it from the specific cube. You're doing that after the fact. And I did this the other day just because I wanted to play with it and I was kind of hanging out with my daughter. And so we were going to, you know, go do multiple purchases, kind of like bang, bang, bang, you know, food and clothes and whatever. And so I just did them all cubeless just because I wanted to play with it and it was like awesome. So that's like, you know, you're at the ball game
00:19:55
Speaker
and there's 40 people in line trying to buy beer and you're just like, hey, I need this food for my family. I want this to be super, super fast. You could just do that and it will, you know, you get back to your seat and you code the transaction and you're moving on. Exactly. So, but it's actually a really sweet feature that I think alleviates a lot of people's concern with maybe utilizing cube. Yeah. Yeah, I think so. Okay. That's what I want to riff on here.
00:20:18
Speaker
It seems like we're using that word a lot. Exciting. Riff it up. Uh, so I want to know from a person that does not have a budget, how do they get on this system? Like what is kind of the pathways? Cause right now, and then what's the pathways to get on it? And then what's the ideal scenario for somebody who has a rock star budget? That's what I want to know.
00:20:44
Speaker
So I'd say, yeah, bottom line is you need to know your bottom line. So you need to know what your life costs every month. You need to know your groceries and your bills and other miscellaneous spending. So yeah, if you don't first have a budget, like that's something as Cube Coach, I'm more than willing and able to help you start with. That would be step one. And then kind of going through those steps that we touched on earlier of just downloading the app.
00:21:12
Speaker
getting your card, getting your account funded and then creating those cubes and then starting to use it and seeing the power of it and how it really will transform your financial life.
00:21:27
Speaker
And then what's the ultimate goal? Well, I want to kind of say, we'll go ahead and finish that and then I want to riff on that since we're riffing. Oh my gosh. We're doing it again. Here we go.
Integrating Cube into Your Financial Life
00:21:37
Speaker
Okay. So what's the ultimate goal of Cube? That we would have our whole budget on this thing? Like even my mortgage and my car payment and
00:21:45
Speaker
Everything would be on it or is this like a realistic and I mean do you want you want a simpler life? Yeah, you want to manage? Multiple bank account. I want to tell my money what to do. Maybe exactly take take the power back so control Yeah, that would be the ultimate goal But I would encourage everybody when you're getting started just start with three spending cubes Yeah Get a feel for it under your belt and get comfortable with using it see that it actually works and that it's
00:22:12
Speaker
Really fun to use. So you're not going to be in the grocery store live? Yeah. And what my wife and I have done is like every month or every so often we'll just add another bill. So, I mean, you can be super gung-ho about it and just throw all your bills on right at once. But I would definitely encourage people to just ease into it, get a feel for it. And once you see the power, like you're going to want to get. Again, like anybody who's listened to Brian or knows Brian personally, you're like, he's excited about a budget. Like that's all you need to know.
00:22:41
Speaker
Go do it. For sure. And the thing I would say too on that is start with like a budget envelope or cube. We kind of use those interchangeably. And when you get the app, you'll kind of understand it. But start with one that you both will use. I think groceries is good just because it's like the, you know, it's necessary. Like everyone's buying groceries all the time. And everyone overspends. And everyone overspends. And I don't know what they spend. And then also like, you know, eating out.
00:23:10
Speaker
I think eating out is one of the first ones you should try to get in front of because we're all, you know, we're not making meals six days a week at home. I mean, maybe some people are, but I think the majority are not. And when you look at the grocery budget on top of the eating out budget, I mean, the average family of five in America is over a G note a month, period. So I think those are the two of the first cubes to try to get in front of.
00:23:35
Speaker
And you're typically both using those cubes, you know, depending on, you know, who's going to the store or somebody's got, you know, forgot something or, you know, Billy's got practice and you want to just grab a bite to eat. Uh, I think those are some of the best cubes. And so then I would say, I just got to the point where I was, I w and if you've read our book, shout out a little plug. First off, thank you for reading the book. Okay. Let's start there. That's great.
00:23:59
Speaker
There is a chapter in the book on budgeting, and we basically wrote it with the precursor of getting on CUBE. CUBE wasn't really ready as we were finishing the book, so we didn't really talk about CUBE in the book, but the chapter on budgeting in the book is the legwork to get onto CUBE, basically. And so I had my discretionary budget on CUBE, but I had all my recurring expenses like utilities, mortgage, all that stuff that's like auto-drafted through my old bank account.
00:24:26
Speaker
I actually just met with Ryan, my wife and I, and we just got, he helped us get everything. So now we're running our entire budget on Cube, because again, it's a bank account. So everything you're doing at your traditional bank, you can do on Cube. And now it is like, I'm actually the next level, because now it's like everything is running through one account. And as a business owner and all the different things that we have set up, I had five bank accounts, and it was driving me crazy. And so now I've got it down to almost two.
00:24:54
Speaker
And so that is the goal I think for us. And I'm gonna take it one step further. The two most important numbers in financial planning of like, are you gonna have enough money to retire? Are you gonna outlive your money? Is how much do you spend a month?
00:25:12
Speaker
When are you going to die? Those are the two most important variables in financial planning. Obviously the second one, we don't know, but we can dial in the budget. And we've said this on the show before. I'm going to say it again. I would say nine out of 10 people we meet with when we ask them what they spend a month, they are off by more than 10%. So they're saying, yeah, we live off six, seven grand a month. It means it's probably eight to 10.
00:25:37
Speaker
When you factor in trips, the roof stuff, like the one-off stuff, you know, and so this system I think is to get A, your whole budget on there, and then B is like how much money is hitting your bank account between you and your wife a month? Let's just say that's, you know, $10,000. And then getting all of your budget into cube, let's hope that's less than $10,000. And then what is that differential?
00:26:03
Speaker
So if your budget is 8,000 and you're bringing in 10,000 after tax or net hitting your bank account, now you should be saving two grand a month or investing two grand a month. That is the goal of Cube. That is what we're trying to get our clients to.
00:26:20
Speaker
And now we finally have a tool with cube and a partner with Ryan to help people with that. Right. I want to go back to the funding of cubes. So it does seem like you guys have had some issue and you found a successful way to do it, but to get money into your bank account, into your cubes slash electronic envelopes, what is the best way to do that?
00:26:43
Speaker
Yeah, so there's a couple different options. One is to do a direct deposit of just your regular paycheck. And you can actually get paid, I believe it's two days earlier than if you didn't do it that way. And so you can choose for the full amount of your paycheck to go in or a portion of that. When I first did it, because I, especially when you get started, you need to get just some cash in there quickly, kind of start
00:27:06
Speaker
Yeah, to at least cover a month or two of expenses. So I just had half my paycheck going in there. And then we also did some ACH deposits so you can have some money go through just from your existing bank. Right. Cause it is a bank account. So like you really could deposit your full checks into this and then just kind of use it like that. Or you can use your bank account that you currently have and then ACH it into your cube account.
00:27:32
Speaker
I think that's really good advice because there's another thing in that and it doesn't think that you can even get that much money into it. So don't do those two. Like just do. Yeah, you can fund it through like a debit card. Essentially you're initiating the transfer on Cube side from your bank, but the limits on that are pretty low. If you initiate the transfer, like what Ryan is saying, like through a direct deposit, well, then your checks just going to be deposited there.
00:27:54
Speaker
So it is whatever your check is or whatever percentage you allocate. And then if you do an ACH, which means you're initiating the transfer at like kind of like your legacy bank or your non-cube bank, you can transfer as much as you want because you're initiating that at your bank. That's actually how I fund my cubes. And then we've now converted my wife's paycheck to direct deposit on the cube. So we're kind of now on that step where we're transitioning into just direct deposit into cube. Nice.
00:28:19
Speaker
But I would say for most people, it is gonna be a phased approach.
Maximizing Savings with Cube Features
00:28:23
Speaker
If you're in the position where you just have two, three months laying in cash and you can get ahead of your entire monthly budget, then you could just do an ACH. Once you determine what that monthly budget is,
00:28:37
Speaker
And like that's kind of where my wife and I, mostly we did half our budget, like half our budget's discretionary, half of it was kind of the recurring expenses. And so it was kind of like, all right, let's just get all of our discretionary in there and keep that funded month to month. And then it was more just because I didn't want the minutia of transferring all the, you know, like I have to go reestablish all these payments. So it's kind of daunting in that regard. So we kind of did a two-phased approach. But I would say you kind of almost,
00:29:04
Speaker
it's easier if you can approach it that way, like you can get in front of half your budget or your whole budget. It makes it quite a bit easier, right? Okay, then I want to say let's say I'm on this thing and it's going really well and I didn't use all my money in my grocery account. What does it do next month?
00:29:23
Speaker
Yeah, so you could just keep that money in there and repurpose it for next month. I know there are going to be some new features coming where there will be some sweeps that you can set up automatically. If you've got an investment account, let's say $100 from your groceries remains, you can set up that automatically gets put into that investment account. You can also set up automatic debt repayment.
00:29:49
Speaker
trying to make it as seamless and automatic as possible. And once you set up these systems, you really don't have to think about it much. Right. Because once you be amazed by the results, deposit the money into cubes, it automatically goes into those envelopes, correct? Yeah.
00:30:03
Speaker
Okay, I think one of the misconceptions or I think when the cool things is is obviously budgeting can feel restrictive if you don't have a lot of money, but it's because you don't have a lot of money not because you're budgeting right and so with cube there are certain settings where depending on the sensitivity of this in your family like if you have somebody who is like a really
00:30:25
Speaker
you know, like a real spender and you have some major things to correct, maybe in your marriage and spending, you can use cube to really lock that person down. If you're in a good place in your marriage and spending, you can have the settings in cube to be very flexible.
00:30:40
Speaker
And so it kind of like, you can really tailor cube to what your family needs. That's why I think it's really sweet about it. Like you can use technology to be really restrictive or it can be really free. It kind of depends on what your goals are and what your needs are. And that's what's really neat.
00:30:56
Speaker
Ryan, you touched on a couple things that we're talking about Cuban basically like the beta version. Like this has been out for about six months. The roadmap of what they have planned is really incredible from budgeting and personal finance
00:31:13
Speaker
standpoint, they're also going to be rolling out kids cards. And so I have three kids from teenager to 10. Philip has three kids, you know, just right behind my kids and ages, you have two kids, a little younger, younger kids. So I think to the big part about cube that, that if you're somebody who is really trying to get a handle on debt or you're young, married or whatever,
00:31:36
Speaker
The debt snowball piece is kind of like Dave Ramsey's special. Everybody kind of knows that about Dave Ramsey. Cube is essentially like building that into the software. And so you could have bills set up for all of your debt payments and then the excess each month
00:31:56
Speaker
they're going to set up a sweep to kind of like go after the debt snowball. So there's a lot coming to cube two, um, you know, for different types of families. Right. Okay. So I want to talk about this. So Ryan Garvey, your financial coach, my wife and I, I'm not saying me, I'm just pretending we have a budgeting app. Uh, we're, we're, we're not doing very great with it. Would you ever help us
00:32:23
Speaker
work on that budgeting app that we already know, like, and trust. Would you help us like get out of, like help us in that area? Yeah. So as far as like using switching over to cube, you could switch over to cube or, you know, like, what if they're like, we're kind of comfortable with this one. Can we just help me with this?
00:32:41
Speaker
Yeah, totally. Okay. I just wanted to make sure. So like you are really a financial coach. So whatever you want to do debt snowball, what is it? I think that's why we want you to help people. One, you're personable, you care and it's kind of your passion. So yeah, heck yeah, you will. So that's one. And then the other question I have is you're just not a budgeting financial coach. Like let's say somebody's like, Hey, we really want to figure out,
00:33:05
Speaker
how to get to Florida next year. Like you'd be a perfect person to be like, all right, well let's put a plan together and work through that, right? For sure. Okay. Okay. So let's talk through how people get onto this thing. Like how do they get signed up? Like go through there, right? Yeah. I'm in. What do I do?
00:33:26
Speaker
Yeah, so uncommon wealth partners, we have a sign up link. So you'll just use that link. Well, that'll be in the show notes. That's something that we're going to be promoting. And then once you sign up, you'll get your cards and a few business days. Again, go on to or download the cube app.
00:33:47
Speaker
You can set up your cubes even before you necessarily fund them because it usually, if you do like a direct deposit or ACH, it may take a couple business days as well for that money to process. And then, yeah, once you get started using it and you get a feel for what it's like to use it in your day to day,
00:34:07
Speaker
I'm definitely gonna make myself available We'll be calling everybody that signs up just to get a feel for how it's going for them Anyways that I can help them better optimize the tool because it is since it is new like we've touched on it is evolving It's always improving new features are coming out I'm a part of the ongoing coaches training program. So I
00:34:31
Speaker
I'm in the loop of things that are coming out ahead of time, so I'll be able to coach people on how to use that. Okay, so let's talk through this quick because I think it's interesting. One, you have to use the show notes link to then get signed up for the basic package.
00:34:46
Speaker
we are always promoting the premium package, which is $78 a year for this whole system. Pretty sweet. Once you sign up for just the basic package, there'll also be some notes in the show notes to tell you how to use uncommon to get premium feature for free for two months, basically eight weeks. Uh, so we would definitely have you do that. It's like six, uh, screens that you have to go through. It's kind of complicated, but that's why we're going to put in the show notes. It should be fairly simple. The promo code is uncommon.
00:35:16
Speaker
One word, then you get premium. What is part of the premium? And we would all be advocates for just doing the premium. One, it's not that expensive. And two, you get way more cubes. You can speak to this better than I can. So go ahead. Yeah, I mean, I think the main thing, especially if you're a couple, you want to do premium because that's how you have your joint account. There you go. So you and your partner, you'll see the same screen when you open up the app. Same cubes, everything. It's mirrored. It's amazing.
00:35:46
Speaker
So, and you'll get notifications if your partner spends money, you, it'll just pop up as a text. You know, if, if I go and get a cup of coffee, coffee, or if I buy groceries, that's going to update on, on my app as well as my wife's. Um, and then yeah, you can, you get unlimited cubes, uh, with the premium account, whereas with the basic, you only get 10. And if you use this long enough, especially when you set up your bill cubes, you're going to need more than 10. You're going to need more than 10. Yep.
00:36:13
Speaker
There are some other features in the making that are going to be really exciting for the premium account.
00:36:18
Speaker
So I'd say well worth the money.
Cube's Long-term Financial Benefits
00:36:21
Speaker
And you still have access to Ryan Garvey, if you have any questions along the way. But that's why we want you to use the show notes one, one, so we know who's using this. And so we can just support you along the way. But that's something that we as uncommon wealth feel like it's really important that everyone in budgets and you don't feel constricted and you feel like you want to barf in your mouth. But it actually is, you're taking control of your finances. And it's the number one building blocks of going down this uncommon path.
00:36:48
Speaker
And we talked about it in our book. If you don't know how much is going out and how much you need monthly, I don't know if you should start down this uncommon life because it's daunting. Well, in one of the chapters of the book, kind of the chapter after budgeting, we kind of talk about uncommon banking and just the power of saving after tax. I think a lot of our clients and listeners do a great job of saving like retirement plan, that type of thing. But really, if you want to build wealth and retire early, you got to save after tax.
00:37:16
Speaker
And so in the book, we kind of walk through, you know, saving an extra four or five hundred, you know, six hundred dollars a month and then compounding that over time. Ryan, I know you kind of have just some base calculations. Cube saying on average, you know, the average American family is going to save somewhere between three hundred five hundred dollars a month. Kind of walk our listeners through just that, what the average savings could look like compounded.
00:37:38
Speaker
Yeah, so I know you guys touch on the four percent rule of retirement in your book Basically states like you can withdraw four percent of the entire balance of your account Annually without running out of money and that keeps up with inflation. So That that means for every hundred dollars you cut from your monthly budget That's thirty thousand less that you need for retirement and that's just a hundred dollars times twelve months times twenty-five
00:38:03
Speaker
25 years. 25 years, exactly. The average cube user, if you're saving 400 a month, that's now $120,000 you no longer need to retire. Then if you invest that 400 in a low-cost index fund at 6%, 7% return, in 30 years, that's going to compound to $453,000. If that isn't reason enough to sign up for cube today, I don't know what to tell you.
00:38:29
Speaker
We're not a good fan. The math doesn't lie. Right. I think the other thing we kind of touched on it is like all the other and the reason like Philip and I up until this point in our business we have really not gotten into budgeting like by choice because
00:38:45
Speaker
every one of our clients was using a different method or they weren't doing it at all. And they're fine, they're responsible. I'm not saying like they're in credit card debt or whatever. They kind of just managed it however they manage it, but it was nothing like we could really enter into because everyone has a different app, different process, whatever. This to me is like the first time where we could like really scale budgeting
00:39:08
Speaker
and do it in a really amazing way. Like, I've spent, I would say, when I was actually trying to track my personal budget, and you're doing Excel, you're downloading all the charges, especially if you are using a credit card and a bank account, you know, because you can't run your mortgage through a bank, or a credit card. You know, you're compiling all these transactions, and you have to go ask your wife, like, hey, what is all this stuff, you know? And that feels really restricted. It was a ton of time.
00:39:35
Speaker
my wife and I barely spend one to two hours now a month on terms of budgeting because it's like our cubes are set. Our numbers are set. We can both see it. And then it's more like we're discussing like, Hey, we're going on a trip or we're, you know, we want to go to a concert, you know, maybe it's a bigger purchase or it's outside the normal month to month stuff. And then we're done. And then cube is handling the rest of it throughout the month. Like it's, it is so freeing from a time and complexity standpoint. It is insane.
00:40:02
Speaker
Yeah, it's good. Yeah, you're definitely preaching to the choir. Like that was, except for me, my wife and I, we would have what we referred to as quote unquote money parties at the end of every month. And that was preceded by me going through our Wells Fargo statement and like making sure every single transaction was in our budget. It took me hours. Yeah. And then if we were over, like.
00:40:22
Speaker
I was disgruntled at her for overspending because I spent all this time calculating stuff. But now, like you said, we just look at where our cubes are at, we fund them, and there's different options for how you can fund them. It makes it so easy where you can do the full amount, the balanced, partial amount. You don't have to add anything manually.
00:40:41
Speaker
And like you said, Brian, you're able to lift up your gaze from like the minutia of the day to day and start looking at long-term planning and exciting things. Right. And it's quick. Once you get through this initial part,
00:40:59
Speaker
It is very simple to manage. Like it's kind of blown me away. Obviously that's why I'm so excited about it. And I don't care if your monthly budget is $2,000 or $20,000. If this helps you save, I'm going to speak to the people that are like, you know, your monthly budget is over 10 to 15 grand a month.
00:41:19
Speaker
That means you're bringing in $15,000 to $30,000 a month. If you could be saving an extra $3,000 to $5,000 a month, life is obviously comfortable. But if you're intentional with that extra money and the numbers you just laid out at $400 a month, think of that number as $4,000 a month.
00:41:38
Speaker
And I think you can offer that clarity to you without a lot of restrictiveness. And obviously you have the money you're gonna go do those things anyways that you wanna do, but think how much more transparency you're gonna have. And the reason I bring this up is I was talking to a couple, make significant amount of money a month. And they're just like, yeah, we tracked how much we were spending on just eating out in a month. And it was literally over $1,000.
00:42:00
Speaker
You know, and I'm not like beating them up and they weren't beating themselves up, but it's just like that awareness of like, it took them hours to go figure that out. Whereas if you're using cube, you're always going to know where you're at once you get started. And so anyways, I beat that. Good. I think everybody from uncommon wealth perspective clients as well as friends should be using this system and be utilizing you, right? So I want to thank you for taking the proverbial jump.
00:42:23
Speaker
and helping us try to help people dominate in finances and life. So thank you for doing this. Thank you for being part of the show. I'm excited to once I'm up and running, hopefully I'm just as big of a Gomer as Brian and Ryan. Uh, no, honestly I do. I really do desire to get to that point. And so I want to thank you for even helping my wife and I at this point. So what are your closing thoughts for the audience?
00:42:48
Speaker
Brian, you've talked a lot. So I'm going to let Ryan talk. Yeah. No, thank you guys again, just for the opportunity to be on the show and share about cube and also join your team. Super pumped. Um, I would say maybe close with two things like,
00:43:04
Speaker
I always encourage people to use your money for what truly brings you value in life. So for some people that that's going to be eating out at restaurants like pretty frequently for other people it's traveling for someone it's going on a shopping spree and far be it for me to say you can't use your money for that.
00:43:21
Speaker
But when if it's bringing you value when you understand and you can see the full picture of what your life costs Then you can actually do that with a clear conscience. You can do it with joy You don't have to be awake at night and feel guilty about using your money how you see fit
00:43:36
Speaker
But it will also let you live a much more generous life and give to things that you're passionate about. And I would just say this would play a huge role in thinking about what you want your legacy to be as far as it concerns your finances. Yeah, it's great. Thank you for being on the show. You've been listening to the Uncommon Life Project. I've been your host, Philip Ramsey. And I am Brian Dewhurst. Until next time, go be uncommon. Thanks for listening.
00:44:03
Speaker
That's all for this episode of The Uncommon Life Project, brought to you by Uncommon Wealth Partners. Be sure to visit uncommonwealth.com to learn more about our services. Don't miss an episode as we introduce you to inspiring people who are actively pursuing an uncommon life.