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Invest In Your Health BEFORE Your Wealth with Zach Rodriguez - E104
46 Plays1 month ago
Most people spend decades chasing financial security, pouring energy into savings and investment accounts - and end up sacrificing their best years to burnout, stress, or chronic health problems.
It’s a trap that has serious costs: growing your wealth means nothing if you lose your vitality and miss out on experiences, relationships, and goals that actually matter. Managing money is supposed to build a better life, but traditional financial planning almost never connects the dots between your finances and your physical, emotional, and social wellbeing.
This episode breaks apart old, outdated advice and shows how you can build a healthier, richer life by aligning your financial habits with your true priorities. Instead of waiting for the future to start living, you’ll hear a practical philosophy that balances saving, spending, and self-care.
Zach Rodriguez is the founder of Outlive Financial Planning, a San Diego-based firm that helps individuals and families align their health, wealth, and time in pursuit of a purposeful life. A fee-only fiduciary, Zach brings a holistic approach to financial planning shaped by an unconventional journey - from serving as a U.S. Navy helicopter pilot and surviving a near-fatal crash, to researching the links between environmental and human health. Today, he combines his passion for personal finance, longevity, and wellbeing to help clients build financial strategies that reflect their values and support a life well lived.
“...your attitude towards money is really important in how you view the world.” - Zach Rodriguez
In this episode you will learn:
- Why wealth planning should include both money and physical health.
- How the name “Outlive Financial Planning” links to a broader mission.
- Where most financial advisors miss the mark on healthspan.
- Ways to help families balance today’s joys against future needs.
- How our habits around money mirror those around health.
- Steps for handling debt and building better financial routines.
Resources
- Connect with Zach on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/truewealthzach/
- Learn more about Outlive: https://outlivefinancial.com/
- Read his blog: https://outlivefinancial.com/blog
This podcast was produced by the team at Zapods Podcast Agency:
https://www.zapods.com
Find the products, practices, and routines discussed on the Alively website:
https://alively.com
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Health and Wellness Focus
00:00:00
Speaker
Financial advisors are helping people grow and protect their money, but not having a conversation about growing and protecting their body and their family's physical health. And I was like, this makes no sense. Like number go up on investment account.
00:00:11
Speaker
And then you get to that point and just spend all your money on health care costs to keep yourself alive longer, not necessarily actually getting the quality of life you want.
Guest Introduction: Zach Rodriguez
00:00:23
Speaker
This is the Home of Healthspan podcast, where we profile health and wellness role models, sharing their stories and the tools, practices, and routines they use to live a lively life.
00:00:37
Speaker
Zach Rodriguez, welcome to the Home of Healthspan podcast. Excited to be here. i've been looking forward to this all week. Yeah, this this is going to be a good one and a little different than I think people are used to, but an incredibly important and supportive topic to what we cover in general. But before we jump into that, how would you describe yourself?
00:00:57
Speaker
So I'm a lively, energetic, happy, creative, and surprisingly empathetic man I happen to have been blessed to have been raised by like a tradition, like ah American, Caucasian and Hispanic families.
00:01:12
Speaker
And I have the the blessing of also being a father to two wonderful kids, a third one very soon and an amazing supportive wife. um Yeah, that's how I'd answer that.
00:01:23
Speaker
Well, massive congratulations on that. i was just having coffee with a friend that has a third one coming in a
Longevity and Healthspan in Financial Planning
00:01:30
Speaker
month and a half as well. So just a day of blessings for growing families today. So, you know, we talk about so you know we talk about longevity and of course on the show healthspan that that side not the years side but the quality of those years in it and i think probably the book that got most people understanding this and talking about it is co-written by one of our former guests so it's peter atia and bill gifford so bill gifford it's been on the home of healthspan but it was a book called outlive and
00:02:05
Speaker
And it was very much around health and the psychology and everything of this healthspan side. But you need to be able to fund that life. And so, Zach, you have a business, Outlive Financial Planning, for how do you actually make sure that you can feed yourself and house yourself and everything long term? Can you talk about...
00:02:26
Speaker
How you chose that name and and kind of the mission behind what you're doing. Sure. So last year i was on a, ah yeah, I was actually 2024 time flies. So for 2024, was on a six month deployment on a large, a big deck hand fit in the U.S. Navy, LHD4 USS Boxer.
00:02:45
Speaker
On there, I had a notepad on my computer where i was just writing down if i started a financial planning business, because I wasn't sure at the time if I was going to do it or go work for someone else, um
Integrating Health into Financial Advice
00:02:56
Speaker
what the names would be. And so I was just in a vacuum with no internet, just typing all kinds of names. And one of those names, what it was just like longevity financial planning, health span financial planning. It's too cliche. Just kidding. And so I just kept coming back to outlive and the way that Tia and Bill Gifford defined it. I really just really liked it. I checked when I got back to Internet, like, is there a trademark around this? Can I do this? And so i just so it's a sort of a subtle way for those who are in the you know longevity space and those who are. It's instant like, OK, and I ah already have a understanding of what he's referring to.
00:03:32
Speaker
And so i decided to do it from that perspective. And then just to follow up on a little bit more, I knew ah i decided about a year half ago a year and a half ago, i want to start my own business because i wanted to be introduce Healthspan into the financial planning, investment management conversation my own way, in a way that I hadn't seen other folks do it.
00:03:56
Speaker
And so that's why I wanted to start my own business. And then obviously with the name, because I wanted to lead with, you know, what's important Yeah, I love that. And i love how necessary and of increasing importance it is.
00:04:11
Speaker
But can you talk about before you came to the name, why you thought this was important? Like what what is traditional financial planning? What do people look at there? And then what was the gap you say? Hey, nobody's really addressing this. I need to go step in and do that.
00:04:26
Speaker
Yeah, so before I had an interest in in going into financial planning for my previous like job, I kind of have a couple stops at a few places, and we can get to that later maybe.
Understanding Client Desires through Behavioral Finance
00:04:36
Speaker
But to answer your question, when I was like studying and learning about chronic disease and health epidemics, especially across the Western like society, i was that's kind of where like I came from, and I was in that mindset in academia before I was like, okay, I want to do financial advising, financial planning.
00:04:55
Speaker
And but when so when I started, i i learned about the specifically the fee only financial planning space. where You're not just selling for ah specific like commissions or specific funds or whole life policies.
00:05:08
Speaker
I recognize that there's a decent amount of ah conversation on retirement planning. on and health insurance, on long-term care insurance, and all these like planning for later on for the 30, 40 year olds for their 60s and 70s. And I had just been obviously learning about all this stuff, reading books and consuming content like Outlive.
00:05:29
Speaker
And I'm just like, we're talking about the elephant in the room, like but we're not like addressing it head on. We're basically planning to, you know, or I should say in that time, they financial advisors are helping people grow and protect their money, but not having a conversation about growing and protecting their body and their family's physical health.
00:05:48
Speaker
And I was like, this makes no sense. Like number go up on investment account, choose your IRA, brokerage, however you're creatively getting there to be efficient with taxes. But it doesn't matter because we're not stewarding or like allocating resources in our body.
00:06:03
Speaker
And then you get to that point and just spend all your money on healthcare care costs to keep yourself alive longer, not necessarily actually getting the quality of life you want. yeah I mean, you're probably familiar with the book, ah Die With Zero.
00:06:16
Speaker
I am. And that whole concept of if you're mortgaging your health the whole time to go build this big bank account and saying, OK, because once I retire, I can go do all these things I want and travel the ways I want, et cetera.
00:06:29
Speaker
But you get to the end and you have heart disease and your knees are shot and you can't go enjoy it. What was the point? So it really has to come in tandem. Right. You need to work on both together.
00:06:42
Speaker
You have
Zach's Navy Experience and Questioning Techniques
00:06:43
Speaker
to. And that's honestly why i spend a lot of my energy trying to like focus. I want to work with like 30 and 40 year olds, generally singles or families. And while there's a lot of ah lot of folks that need help, whether they're retirees or pre-retirees, financial help, but also just the health conversation.
00:06:59
Speaker
I just want to be able to like help other people in that stage of life. before it even becomes a problem to just like get ahead of it and be proactive with health and finances. And honestly, just the intentionality, how you spend your time.
00:07:13
Speaker
Cause a lot of us, you know, me included have gone, spent years of our life doing things. It's like, why did I do that? Oh, I know why. Cause I thought I was supposed to be doing that because i was looking to my left and right. Well, if I just kept my eyes on my own paper, turns out this is actually what makes me my family happy in the season. I'm going to do this.
00:07:29
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, it's a, I'm sure there's a tension there cause it's, You can be myopic and focus internally, but then I think a lot of people can only imagine what they've seen before.
00:07:41
Speaker
So expanding your focus also can expand your world of what's possible, right? Different models of life. Oh, wait, there is a different way to do this than what I've experienced personally or what I have seen for myself.
00:07:55
Speaker
And where do you find that balance? Like when you're working with people, how much is them understanding, hey, here's what I want. And you're like, okay, great. You know,
00:08:06
Speaker
but Do you really know? Because did you know there were all these other possibilities too that you could factor in? Where where does that come in with your work? So that's something that I can a little bit relate to. Oh, spending 10 years active duty Navy.
00:08:22
Speaker
And I had a contract for 10 years from the moment I pretty much signed up. I could not leave the Navy unless it was illegally, you know, and then I was AWOL and they come after me. So there was never an option to do something different.
00:08:34
Speaker
So in stepping, like transitioning to the the next step, it's just like, oh, wow, there's a whole nother world, so to speak, like you mentioned. I think the first part is basically asking questions in such a way so that people have the space to what is important to you.
00:08:54
Speaker
And then just being quiet and listening. And then usually after like some sort of like self-discovery or just a honestly a few good questions and awkward silences, people will first tell you what they think they, they think they should tell you.
00:09:08
Speaker
And then they start to think about it. And I think once we think about it, we get closer to exploring like what you referenced, like the the world of possibilities.
Rethinking Financial Goals for Life Satisfaction
00:09:17
Speaker
Yeah. And it's, I mean, I guess how how much digging does it take to get down to what they really want? So just a couple of examples, I think of Tim Ferriss always talks about, i think it's from the movie wall street and say, hey why do you want all this money? What do you want to do?
00:09:33
Speaker
he's like, Oh, want to get a motorcycle and go motorcycle across China. And the person's like, you got to do that for 400 bucks today. Like you, you don't need to go make a ton of money to do it. And I have the same conversation. My daughter's 10 and I want money. I want money. Okay. Why?
00:09:48
Speaker
Correct. Well, cause I want to buy candy. I'm like, okay, what you're saying is you want candy. Like money is just this fiction. We agree that has some value and go do it. But like, you're not going to sit there and curl up with your dollars. You don't want the money. You want the things that it gets you.
00:10:03
Speaker
And so the real question is what are the things you think it's going to get you that you're trying to get to? And so how much excavating does it take to get to those People say, hey, they may have a number. And what they really want is security. You say, okay, well, take me through security. What does security mean to you? And yeah what what is it? Take me through that conversation.
00:10:24
Speaker
It's a, there is a lot of, I love the term excavating that you used. um There is a lot of excavating. And before the first thing I really learned getting into this industry was the art of the behavioral finance and the psychology side.
00:10:38
Speaker
which merged together the heuristics and the money scripts of the stories with that we've basically downloaded from our parents or whoever was raising us pretty much for the age of five, seven. And then that plus the other things that we, the heuristics and biases we pick up along the way, that informs your attitude towards money. And I would like opine that your attitude towards money, like is really important in how you view the world.
00:11:02
Speaker
And so there's a lot of excavating that occurs between, hey you know, why did you call me? Oh, we called you because we want to like retire, get our hands on our retirement. Okay. And then I just keep going. And it turns out while that is certainly, they wanted to make sure they were setting themselves up for retirement or their kids for college or whatever the issue is.
00:11:21
Speaker
There's always like the the work that we do together is a little bit like deeper. And it's honestly super rewarding when clients are like, we called you for a but when you asked us question b we went on a walk together and had a conversation about C and we decided we're going to do d And I was just, and they make large light decisions just about questions that are like adjacent to money or really, i should say underneath the motivation is underneath
Balancing Different Types of Wealth
00:11:53
Speaker
the money. kind of Kind of like you suggested, well, why do you want insert number at insert time?
00:11:59
Speaker
Can you give an example of what those kinds of things are? So for a listener, what the A to the B to the C to the D is, to understand where that journey could go. Because I mean, they could kind of go through some of this practice asking themselves these questions that, because it's going to inform how they live their lives.
00:12:18
Speaker
Oh yeah, I'd love to do that for sure. I can be more specific. So the the couple I'm thinking about now is a couple in their 30s that were maxing out their, one's a business owner, they were maxing out the retirement account. So the solo 401k is for the primary the business owner and then the spouse, because you can do that with the spouse.
00:12:36
Speaker
And so last year, the max was 23,500. And so they were max contributing. so the 401k amount as business owners, and they were actually doing it Roth. So in after-tax way, you can you can also do it a traditional, which would pre-tax way, which side side note, you know just free financial thought for everybody. From your 20s and 30s, usually like general rule, as you're building your income, you want to like contribute to Roth if you're an American and have the capability to do that.
00:13:04
Speaker
Once you get to your like 30s, 40s, 50s somewhere and you're in your higher income earning years, you actually want to think about when you're at that 35% tax bracket, if you make it there federally or above, you want to consider contributing to a traditional account so that you are basically saving like saving that money at the top 35% tax bracket. And then when you distribute it later in retirement, it distributes to the average later. So you kind of arbitrage a little bit. In any case, I'm not having a conversation them about that. I'm having a conversation about the resources they have going towards retirement.
00:13:38
Speaker
And so they're telling me about this and I'm asking them about what's important to them. Just literally like what's important to you now, what's important to the next five years, the young daughter, ats seven years. And and We have a really good conversation for an hour where I basically don't talk about money. I just talk i just ask them questions like this.
00:13:56
Speaker
And then our next meeting, they came back and were like, hey, we were going on a walk with our daughter, like a normal kind of daily walk. And we're going to start we're going to dial back our contributions to our retirement account and start spending the money in this way. And in their case, they're they're very charitably inclined.
00:14:12
Speaker
And they wanted to take another vacation in the year. So they're they're putting it in the, we're giving it to our our church and we're going to prioritize another vacation. So the short-term bucket, if you will, and away from the long-term bucket, because honestly, they're they're on glide slope, if you will, to use an aviation reference for their 60-year-old version of themselves and should like can't afford to prioritize themselves. And there are a few other financial tricks that like or the tactics, I should say, that we we did. But it was not a
Life Reevaluation after Near-Death Experience
00:14:44
Speaker
financial conversation. It was all about, you know, you say you want to be financially dependent by this age. Well, why are you actually going to stop working? You know, Mr. or Mrs. whomever.
00:14:54
Speaker
And then at that point, the husband says, And then the wife looks at him like, no, you're not. And so there are those sorts of conversations about what does it actually look like once you're, you know, once you do FIRE, financial independence retire early. And so hopefully that gives a little bit more detail.
00:15:11
Speaker
It does. And it really, I think, brings in to stark contrast this, that lifespan versus healthspan distinction that again, remind me if you could go say, Hey, I, all I care about is adding years to my life. And it doesn't matter if I'm in a bed and hooked up on a bunch of machines. I just kind of want to be sitting around and nobody wants that. Nobody's setting up for that versus I really want high quality time for all my years. I don't want low quality in the middle. And I think That's where that the die was zero book is interesting because why would you mortgage happiness and enjoyment and living life until you're retired? Which look, none of us has a guarantee that we get tomorrow in the first place. So you need to plan ahead to make sure you're okay, but don't mortgage today for tomorrow. The only time you ever live is in the present. So you need that balance. and I love what that family did of saying, Hey, I don't need to wait.
00:16:09
Speaker
to be charitable. Somebody, oh, once I make this, then I'll be like, you can do it today. And they said, hey, we want to be the kind of people who do it today. And we have this beautiful child and we want to experience these memories and build these memories that she's going to have for the rest of her life. Let's Let's do this extra vacation. we we want to prioritize that. And it's, it's not all one and it's not the, all the other, but thinking through it's, it's this portfolio, like a financial portfolio, the portfolio of your life of what is the balance between what I'm putting in for today and existing experiences and the cushion that I have that longer term. So I really like that.
00:16:49
Speaker
Definitely. So you mentioned was zero and just one thought to add on. And we we talked about how live. One other book, there's a few, but one other book that like kind of i read it in in this time in the formation of my business is Five Types of Wealth. It's a recent book by Sahil Bloom.
00:17:04
Speaker
I actually got to meet at a book signing last year. But as you were talking, i I thought about the time wealth, the social wealth, physical wealth, obviously financial wealth, and then mental wealth. And then just like, you know, I'm just a financial planner, but I understand that building financial wealth is not the way to like, look back and be proud of your life. There are other places you want to allocate your energy and your resources and your, like the emotions we get to experience.
00:17:33
Speaker
And the highs and the lows, you want to put those in you want to spread them out a little bit. And that's different for everybody. And so yeah but that I just wanted to kind of call out that book because I think that Sahil did a good job of articulating the different ways to like evaluate wealth.
00:17:48
Speaker
one reason I started this business is because I am that person that is like very prone to delay gratification. I am the person you described, like, why would you mortgage your health to
Balancing Saving and Spending Habits
00:17:58
Speaker
later? Like that was basically me until I almost died in a helicopter crash.
00:18:04
Speaker
Um, I would say that experience woke me the blank up from mortgaging my family, time with family or sleep to sacrifice for some larger career milestone or praise, accolades, et cetera. Because in the Navy, there's not really a monetary bonus associated with how hard you work.
00:18:23
Speaker
Yeah, and I mean, this is a risk, for everyone. And I think the financial one is the easiest for a lot of people because it's just a simple number. And so if you think of a scoreboard, people like scoreboards, people, this is why when people get out of school, they have a harder time because you're not getting this objective grade. And like, Hey, I know where I stand because I'm getting this grade. And so The number, the money can be the objective thing. Okay, like I know how I'm doing because of this objective number, but it's like you said with Sahil, it's only one of these five different kinds of wealth. And it's very hard to factor ah a numeric number behind your social wealth or your emotional and mental or physical wealth. And so we don't pay attention to it.
00:19:07
Speaker
Right. And the, the analogy i always draw is, you know, the drunk guy is stumbling around looking under the streetlights for his keys and they're like, Oh, is that where you lost your keys? Like, no, but that's where the light is.
00:19:20
Speaker
And so the light, like we're focused on this number in the bank account because that's where the light is. It's the easy thing that I can, I can kind of process it. And we're not focused on all these other things that actually make life worth living because they're harder to quantify.
00:19:33
Speaker
And the fascinating thing, I love talking to older people, whether they're family or not. The fascinating thing is it doesn't matter how rich or poor 70 plus year old is, nursing home, grocery store, you pick the place.
00:19:46
Speaker
Go ask them what they're most proud about or what their biggest regret is. I love doing it because they will almost never talk about money. They will always talk about those other types of wealth or memories that show associated usually with someone they loved or something that they should have done.
00:20:02
Speaker
And it's like, Later on, the regrets you have will probably not directly center around money. Most corporate wellness programs overwhelm employees with too much, or they offer too little to be useful.
00:20:17
Speaker
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00:20:27
Speaker
The outcome? A healthier, happier workforce. A measurable impact for your business. Visit Alively.com to see personalized wellness in action. There's a flip side to all of this for me because that the Die with Zero book and everything, it's kind of assuming there's there's this whole effort to mortgage today for the benefit of tomorrow. We're not necessarily guaranteed tomorrow. You might get sick. You might get diagnosed. You might get hit by a bus, whatever.
00:20:54
Speaker
But if we look at consumer debt, there's a huge portion of the population that's not doing that, right? Like they're kind of mortgaging their future for today. They're overspending, they're they're not planning.
00:21:08
Speaker
And so I would imagine that actually is most people. If you're just looking at the numbers that aren't over saving, they're under saving or negative saving today.
00:21:19
Speaker
And so how, how do you help or advise those people? and And I mean, we see the same with our health too, right? Of, I mean, I'm mortgaging my future. health I'm not going to invest in my future health because I'm going to sit here eating nachos and not exercising today.
00:21:35
Speaker
And so it the same kind of mindset. Yes, there's a group that plans super far in the future. But I have to think the majority of society is not that way. You're absolutely right. The majority of society is exactly it probably is reactive to both finances and health. or We've been talking about someone who's like proactive with maybe health. or proactive with their finances, and maybe we can dial them back a little bit.
00:22:00
Speaker
So you are 100% right. you know And that's why financial education, whether it's Dave Ramsey or whomever popular, caters to that crowd, and it should because those habits are important to...
00:22:12
Speaker
have here's I view it as a seesaw between like basically later you and near you and what you prioritize. whether you're um Whether you are like looking too far in the future or you're like in $90,000 of credit card debt like someone i talked to a week ago and they're retiring and a couple, or like $9,000 in credit card debt. They're retiring about eight years, a teacher and a firefighter.
00:22:36
Speaker
And they're just like, okay, we're ready to get get out of here. Hey, that's awesome. Obviously, a lot of the far majority people find themselves in that situation, unfortunately. But in either case, it's just, it's a misallocation of like resources. And it's honestly a misallocation of like, basically thoughts, number one, and then habits. So the reason that you get to be a use, you rack up credit card debt, or you have too much in your retirement account and you're you in your is the same thing in my opinion. It's they're all habits that started with a like thought. So figuring out why you're making that decision and then changing the habit pattern to, okay, we are going to do auto saving to my savings account or, you know, auto saving to the savings account from someone who just spends money perpetually because they can with their card or the opposite, someone who money's automatically going out to various investment accounts because that's what they think they need to do.
00:23:31
Speaker
Okay, well, why are you doing that? And then you have to, the hard work is in the habit changes, like why a James Clear's book is so like, so not popular. But yes, I couldn't agree with you more. It's still, it's in both situations. It's like a, like almost a worldview change because you have to go from like, both people are keeping up with the Joneses and just, they have just, they're just comparing themselves to different Joneses.
00:23:53
Speaker
Okay, because I was going to ask, what is the mindset? Is it just being someone who is more inclined to say, oh, you know, I need to be safer. I need to have this locked away, like always max out 401k, all these other things, put away, put away, put away, save for the future.
Debt Management and Budgeting Techniques
00:24:10
Speaker
And was having this conversation last night with a friend of... for a college reunion, they asked us to record a thing of what would you go tell your 18 year old self? And my advice was enjoy right now way more. Don't always think, oh it's going to be better next year and the 10 years and and just keep playing for the future.
00:24:29
Speaker
Enjoy right now and and do that better. And so that's, that's what I need pulled back from. What is the story for the other way where the person, cause it seems from the outside in, like you under 20% APR and that, and the other, is it, Hey, I'm going to make way more next year or five years or 10 years. So it doesn't matter. I can just get all this debt now. Cause I can make way more later. What, what are those stories that those people tell themselves?
00:24:59
Speaker
Yeah, great question. The can probably be the same person as a good example. But the challenge is honestly, there's there's like a macroeconomic challenge. And then from just like a wage growth to cost of living, you know, thing.
00:25:14
Speaker
But we can put that to the side and just go focus on the person. The first challenge is individuals haven't necessarily learned great habits to spend what they make. So if you make a little bit less, but you spend more because the people around you are spending more.
00:25:29
Speaker
and ah And pretty quickly with 16 to 27% APR, that can get out of hand really quickly. And the tough part is maybe connecting to the wage growth. it The wages aren't keeping up with necessarily the broader cost of living or the the increase in asset prices, homes, ah company ownership, public or private. And so then you just fall very far behind and have to make very drastic changes, even more so today than 20, 30 years ago because, or even shoot even 10 years ago because of that like disparity. So there's like big picture, you know, that's one reason.
00:26:07
Speaker
Having written a book on stoicism and having a child that I try to talk about the hedonic treadmill and everything, with her, there's this belief of with the keeping up with the Joneses, you see this thing like, oh, okay, I need that thing to be happy and and get it just.
00:26:22
Speaker
But we know there's hard science going back decades and decades that that new car, that new whatever will make you happy for a week, maybe two.
00:26:33
Speaker
And then you revert to exactly where you were before. It becomes normal. It's not great. And so what I find more rewarding and helpful is subtracting, subtract, like what can I give away? What can I throw away? And how little do you actually need? Like I found this.
00:26:52
Speaker
great food that I can cook myself and that only costs as much and it's delicious and I really enjoy it and it's simple super simple and all this space of, i mean, you even hear these billionaires that had all these houses, all this and like, oh my God, I had to get rid of it all. It started on me, it was so much work.
00:27:09
Speaker
And like, they didn't make them happy. They just, it was more more things is more cognitive load. It's more work. And if you subtract, you can start realizing how little you actually need, because it's every time you get a raise, every time you get a little more money, the inclination is, okay, well now I can go spend more, but you know, objectively, it's not going to make you any happier.
00:27:29
Speaker
So could you go the other way? And like, how little do I actually, and whoa, I am at the exact same level of contentment and happiness and all this. yeah Have you had any of those conversations with people?
00:27:42
Speaker
Let's see, have I had those conversations? Yes. I think the most difficult part about that is it's harder to give away in the short term. It's easier in the long term. Because we actually just got rid of but a bunch of stuff in our house to make make mental and real space for the baby.
00:27:57
Speaker
My wife's just, you know, a little bit in of nesting mood and I'm all about it. We took like a SUV load to Goodwill or to or the donation donation store. And because Goodwill has, mean, goodness gracious, you imagine the amount of stuff that Goodwill gets? Like it's bananas. Like that's not a donation store. It's a logistics empire.
00:28:16
Speaker
But anyways, we felt much better after like a week later, but it's so much easier to clean our house, et cetera. But giving stuff away in that like five hours, at least for me, i was like, I don't want to give this away. This is hard. i have to think about this, get off what I'm doing and then go do it.
00:28:31
Speaker
It's much easier to just keep this stuff and accumulate. And I think in the same way, it's easier to just like spend the money on the water filter that you can't afford or ah the vehicle that you definitely can't afford or the home you can't afford or in in the most people's circumstance.
00:28:51
Speaker
And then it's easier, but in the longterm, of course, then you just get further in front behind the power curve. literally literally, can you imagine like 50 years old, i would say decent amount of Americans are in the situation where they have 30 to $90,000 of credit card debt at 15% plus APR.
00:29:08
Speaker
And you're making a salary that's like probably public related. How do you really get ahead of like, that's really tough if you don't kind of like start early and fine tune those habits, but it absolutely is a balance.
00:29:21
Speaker
Oh, I mean, so for someone in that situation, let's let's go there. What are... the first steps. Cool. All right. So before you, if you're there and you're like, okay, i have a $90,000 gorilla on my back or whatever the number is, however you view good debt or bad debt, but you feel your personal stress about some sort of debt or negative cashflow situation.
00:29:46
Speaker
The first step is to understand that that age old advice of doing the same thing and expecting different results is the definition insanity. You have to make aggressive changes, which is my basically advice to the people that I'm talking about and anyone else.
00:30:00
Speaker
You have to be able to make an aggressive change or it's unlikely to get out of that situation. sooner despite some external force happening to you which means you have to move, get a cheaper house, get rid of a car to get a cheaper car, develop a side hustle or do something to get extra money.
00:30:18
Speaker
But it's very simple. You have to like invert the, we spend more than we make. You have to spend less than you make somehow. And you can either subtract stuff from your life or do a mixture of subtracting and then adding some sort of income.
00:30:32
Speaker
That's like the first step. And then you develop automatic processes, automatic bank transfers, automatic debt payoff transfers to then start paying off things that you don't want to pay for.
00:30:44
Speaker
And then in that process, you probably bring down any liquid reserves you have, which are probably pretty low for this person. you You start throwing at debt and you keep those liquid reserves low until the debt's close to being paid off or paid off. And then you can start plus and up savings and then thinking about the future. But basically you get your eyes from the future and you come down to the present and you start just attacking the present thing.
00:31:08
Speaker
On the present, have you played with zero-based budgeting at all? right so you know it's In my book, I had it on the calendar, but it started in the financial world where you say, hey, most people budget. They're like, hey, here's today. And so here's what I can cut here. Here's what I need to add there.
00:31:24
Speaker
Where zero-based is saying, no, like if I was starting from scratch, what do I need to build up? And so there's no baked-in costs. I mean, you're like, well, you know my mortgage is X. I'm like, well, No, zero base. Like how much do you actually need to shelter yourself? And then does that mean you need to sublet or rent your current place? Do you need to sell it? Like, let's build it up and say, okay, I'm living on 63,000 a year.
00:31:47
Speaker
But actually, if I build up from scratch, I could be living on 52. Like there's all this extras that I couldn't be using to pay down this debt. Is that something you've done with people? Zero base budgeting?
00:31:59
Speaker
Yeah. Zero based. Yeah. it It depends on the type of person because I find that I'm own like not natural, but I like to budget from early age. Don't know why. And of course, like my sibling, she's like the opposite and that's great.
00:32:12
Speaker
But, um, I love talking about budgeting in general, but as far as like within my firm, I do not lead with budgeting unless, and I don't really like focus on it unless the clients do as well. Because budgeting is one of those things that people usually like, that's one of their hesitations of talking to people like me. Like you're going to make me budget.
00:32:33
Speaker
And sometimes that's good. But in other circumstances, there's ways to achieve their goals without being a zero-based budgeter and being like, I track every negative and positive credit or debit. And as I was talking with my five-year-old yesterday, I'm just throwing the sock at him. Is that a credit or a debit? You throw it of me. Is that credit or debit?
00:32:50
Speaker
It was fun. But not everyone has to do that. You can be successful without zero-based budgeting, but it is a tactic if you're interested it. Okay. Yeah, that's that's a good point. I mean, back to that psychology, if it it makes you less likely to go into it's right. Like ah back getting the health span of if you think the only way to go get in shape and do fitness is five days a week CrossFit.
00:33:13
Speaker
And like, maybe it's not, maybe you're a 10 minute a day walk person and that's still so much better than zero. So instead of saying you have to do, that's the only way in, or you do nothing, it's finding that soft entry point.
00:33:26
Speaker
Yeah, for here this is really important work. I appreciate you stepping into the space. I do like the homage with the name Outlive Financial Planning.
Conclusion and Contact Information
00:33:36
Speaker
For those listening who want to learn more, kind of contact you, where can they find you?
00:33:41
Speaker
Awesome. Yeah, i've I've enjoyed it as well. Okay, so my have a website, outlivefinancial.com. um You know, talked about live, talked about finance, put those together, um Google that.
00:33:51
Speaker
And then I'm also on several different pretty much every social media under true wealth. Zach has a little bit of a homage to just the there's more ways to be wealthy and focus on than just money.
00:34:05
Speaker
and so i try to talk about that sort of stuff as well and i hope to have relationships with my clients that i measure my success as a financial planner not just in but number go up in retirement or brokerage account but also like quality the health span kind of reference and you know that satisfaction with life um in my like ongoing relationship yeah fantastic i love the the holistic approach the holistic view and the work you're doing thank you zach thanks andrew appreciate it
00:34:36
Speaker
Thank you for joining us on today's episode of the Home of Healthspan podcast. And remember, you can always find the products, practices, and routines mentioned by today's guests, as well as many other Healthspan role models on Alively.com.
00:34:49
Speaker
Enjoy a lively day.