Kim Butler: [00:00:00] we’ve got an epidemic of financial enablement. You have 30 year olds that are still getting rent money from their parents.

It’s sad, and it’s impacting the parents ability to retire. Now I’m big fan of retiring way later anyway, but nevertheless, it’s an opportunity cost that is just destroying these 20 and 30 year olds that have no concept of financial wherewithal because their parents are still paying for their lifestyle. ​

[00:01:00] ​

Josh_DeTar: [00:02:00] Welcome to another episode of the digital banking podcast. My guest today is Kim Butler, the founder of prosperity thinkers. Fascinating. Unfortunately, that’s the best adjective I could come up with in the moment as Kim was telling me about herself. Someone who marches to their own drum, a hundred percent unapologetically just really and truly fascinates me.

And it’s absolutely apparent that is Kim within the first three minutes of talking to her. Her earliest memory of outwardly living out that mantra was in the sixth grade. When she went to her first band class and all the other girls picked flutes and clarinets. Kim? Nah, not about that. She went right for the big [00:03:00] ol tuba.

The thing she saw as the furthest opposite end of the spectrum. Carrying later into life things like, Moving to a town of 427 people in the middle of nowhere, Texas, having an off grid home with solar, a big garden for food, alpacas, and eating paleo slash keto before it was even cool. You see, Kim makes a concerted effort to be mindful of the things she does and the actions she takes and the way she lives her life in just about every sense of the word.

She strives to take ownership of her own life and her own path, but that extends beyond herself as well. So Kim loves the ownership model. And we’re going to talk a little bit more about what that means in this episode, but think things like co ops sound familiar. Anyone listening? So what could someone like Kim possibly be here to talk with me about on this episode?

How about personal financial management? Sounds out of left field, huh? Not at all. Kim wants to see people free from financial stress, set up for success and [00:04:00] educated on how to live happy and prosperous lives. You know, we talk a lot about the role of community financial institutions and technology and people’s financial health.

Today, let’s talk about why it’s so important, how it impacts people and the opportunities we have with some specific examples. Now Kim is not a big fan of the mindset of I only want to give a little, but I want to get a lot. But today all you have to do is give a little time and listen and trust me, you are going to get a lot.

So Kim, thanks so much for being here. Welcome to the show.

Kim: oh, so fun to hear that, Josh, and what a joy to be able to spend some time talking with you.

Josh: Yeah. You know, I’ve really been looking forward to this. Um, and I think a lot of our listeners will kind of understand why once we get started, you know, the topic of kind of personal financial management and whatever label you want to put on that, right. Um, comes up a lot for a lot of different reasons.

I think one, we all, [00:05:00] can objectively admit that like financial education and literacy in the U. S. is not up to par. And so too that kind of lends itself to this is a huge opportunity. And I think one of the big areas we’ll spend some time talking about is why this is such a big opportunity is not just because Uh, of the like very obvious stuff, like it’ll be really nice if we made sure, you know, less people missed their mortgage payment.

Like that’s, that’s kind of a really easy thing to say, Hey, we solved for that thing, but it’s, it’s the downstream stuff, right? Like it’s the, the emotional impact, it’s, um, all the stuff that accompanies that in a positive sense when we solve for those. So, you know, like I said, I think this is a really cool topic to talk about and I think you have a really unique perspective on that.

Um, so before we get started, I think you wanted to make kind of a quick disclaimer, uh, about just kind of your role. And, uh, so I’ll give you the opportunity to do that. Yeah.

Kim: Well, I think it’s often that [00:06:00] people look at individuals in the personal finance space and think that they would use a term like financial planner or financial advisor, and those are appropriate terms for some people. I am not one of them, and though I have been helping people with their personal finances for over 30 years.

I don’t play those legal structured roles. Instead, I am a financial guide and I like to come alongside you where you are today to help you make a difference, to help you, as you were stating earlier, deal with that peace of mind aspect of personal finances. Now, of course it’s still money and we’re going to talk about it.

Nevertheless, Being a financial guide puts a unique perspective on my brain when I’m looking at your personal finances.

Josh: And I think that’s an important thing to call out to you, right? I mean, I, I’ll say it super bluntly, right? Like I get, I get to play the kind [00:07:00] of neutral third party in that. Um, look, don’t get me wrong. Like I, I, I like to make kind of the grotesque statements. Sometimes to make my point, I’m not saying that this is true of everything, but sometimes when that is your job to, you know, advise on finances by selling certain products, there can be different motivations, right?

Right. And so again, I think that’s one of the reasons why I was kind of excited to get connected to you is just to kind of talk about the no BS, no fluff and stuff. Like we’re not here to pitch products. Like, let’s just talk about the impact that having, um, you know, good financial health has on people.

So you said you’ve been doing this for like 30 years. What got you started on this? Like why, why did, why has this become such a hot personal passion for you?

Kim: Well, what actually got me started is when I was in fourth grade, my parents got me a milk. So if you happen to be watching the video, this is a Holstein cow, they’re the black and white kind, which I adore. And we milked, yes, we milked them, my sister [00:08:00] and I by hand. Later, we got a machine, but we, Sold the extra milk.

Are you ready for this? For a dollar a gallon. Now we’re talking. Three quarters of that gallon was milk and a quarter of it was cream and that’s still the price. So all through junior high and high school, I had a lot of money. I mean, I bought cows, I sold cows, I was in 4 H, I won ribbons, I lost everything.

Ingloriously sometimes. Nevertheless, because of that, I was actually able to put myself through college, a private school without any debt or any help from my

Josh: That’s awesome. Good for you.

Kim: It is. It’s really amazing. And my dad who’s still living and in his eighties and still working part time part on the farm. And then he also helps student teachers was really ingenious in providing my [00:09:00] sister and I that opportunity.

So I really have dealt with money from a very young age and a lot of it. You know, when I was in high school, I had tens and twenties of thousands of dollars coming through my hands every year. So in 4 H, you know, you have to learn record keeping and all that. So fast forward to I’m getting out of college.

I was interested in the legal space. I went and did an intern at a law firm and realized, Holy cow, no, thank you. While I was doing that, I stayed with a banker. And so my first job out of college was in the banking arena. Now this is before banks did investments or insurance. It was just checking accounts and loans and a trust department.

But I really enjoyed my time at the bank and the things that I saw. We’re talking people that spent more money driving their car than living in their home, like their [00:10:00] rent was less than their car payment. No judgment, but that’s a little unusual. We’re talking about people with lots of money, people without lots of money, All kinds of different personal financial scenarios for my first three years.

And I really loved helping people with their cashflow and their personal finances. So I went on and I got all of the licenses, the series, six, seven, 63, 65 life insurance, disability insurance, you name it. I had them all. And I worked in that space for a long time and saw even more about the mistakes that people make, the good things that people did.

And then over time, I felt like I could help my clientele better by not having any of those licenses and just coming alongside as a guide. And so it’s such a joy to do this work because, as you’ve stated, personal finance impacts human beings in a big way. So let’s get it [00:11:00] right.

Josh: Yeah. No, I mean, you know, and I’m no stranger to kind of telling some of my story as a part of this. You know, that’s one of the reasons why I became so passionate about credit unions was, was I was saved by a credit union and I made some really dumb financial decisions in, you know, my late teenage, early twenties, uh, years. and I think back to it, Kim, and you’re a hundred percent right. Like I literally had like the stress of my finances, Kim. affected my physical being and I used to get stress ulcers and I remember a period in my early twenties where it was normal to me. Like I normalized that I woke up in the morning and coughed up blood from stomach ulcers. Like that was normal, right? And that was the very large majority of that was stressed over finances. Like how crazy is that that we live in a world where like [00:12:00] that can have such an incredible impact on even your physical well being. So yeah, when we talk about like the opportunity in front of us, like it’s pretty significant.

But I think what I, what I also find really interesting is you were talking about, you know, working at the bank, you get to see a really wide spectrum of this too. Right. And I’m sure you did like had somebody on, uh, as a guest, uh, a long time ago. And they were talking about how, you know, um, just because someone’s smart doesn’t mean they’re smart with their finances.

Right. And like the example of that is we see, you know, doctors that are in horrible financial shape, brilliant surgeon, right. Can’t manage their money, make a couple million dollars a year. Can’t manage it. Right. So, um, I’d be curious to see, like, you know, as you’ve seen kind of that spectrum of people with everything from, you know, the best financial position possible to the worst, to making little to lots, like what are the things that have kind of stood out to you over the years?

Kim: [00:13:00] Well, it’s so evident to me that the foundation of anybody’s dollars, their personal financial space, must be that very boring, liquid savings account. And I Guide people to think of it as both an emergency and an opportunity fund and most typical financial people talk about an emergency fund. Nobody wants to talk about an emergency fund.

That’s a very boring and frankly, scary space, but everybody wants to talk about an opportunity fund. And so I help people get the emergency fund solved as quickly as possible. And some already do and then start to build that opportunity fund because the opportunity fund is what provides us the peace of mind.

And To sleep at night.

Josh: Yeah, you know, um, I think I’ve used this example before too. So bear with me, but I actually really love one of the ways, uh, love him or hate him. But Joe [00:14:00] Rogan made a comment about money and somebody asked him about like, Hey, now that you’ve made a crap load of money, like does money buy happiness? And he was like, no, money doesn’t buy happiness.

But it buys freedom and freedom is really freaking happy. And he was like, so, so yeah, money kind of buys some happiness if you think about it in those terms. And he’s like, you know, now I’m to a point where I’m very free. Like I don’t feel the weight of the world and the pressure of the financial system.

Because while I made money, I managed it well as well on top of that. And so I have that freedom and that stress is removed. Right. And I just always thought that was kind of an interesting way of thinking about it. It’s, it’s more about just freedom than it even is happiness.

Kim: Well, and the cool thing is that anybody can have that freedom, even if they don’t have enough money to not work anymore. Typically, that’s what financial freedom is defined as, [00:15:00] is a money amount or an income amount where work is optional. But let’s look at that a little bit more thoroughly. Financial freedom starts in our heads.

It’s a thought process if we have an emergency opportunity fund, which, you know, for some families is 10, 000 for others, it’s a million dollars. But if we have that foundation and we’re very confident that we can create value in the world every day, Whatever it is that we do, whether it’s our work environment or maybe it’s something else that we could do that would create value to be paid, then we have financial freedom because we know that the basics are handled at least for a few months if needed, and then we go on and we create value and human beings were not put on this earth to do nothing.

You hear and see in those that retire early and you know, the whole fire movement, the financial independence, retire early thing. Oh, my gosh. I mean, those people are going back to work in droves [00:16:00] because without a purpose, their life became horribly boring. So if we have the foundation built, then we know that we can create value in the world and earn an income that is financial freedom.

We just have to see it that

Josh: Yeah. Uh, what’s your take on how much does perspective play into that? Right? Like one person’s perspective of what freedom looks like versus another.

Kim: I think it’s everything. It’s why our company is called Prosperity Thinkers because our thought is what drives our perspective and our thought is Able to shift, just like we know from Carol Dweck’s book, we can go from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset. Well, we can go from a perspective of, I can’t afford it, for example, to a perspective of, well, how could I afford it in the matter of a [00:17:00] moment?

It’s just a thought process. It’s just a shift in our mental standpoint, in our mindset. Which then can lead to a shift with our money. And we’re not talking about riches overnight. There are some very simple things that people. Of just normal American means can do little things. Like you said in the introduction, you can actually make a difference with little things that long term will have a big impact, but it absolutely starts with that shift in perspective.

Josh: Um, okay. I want to, I want to dig into that a little bit more because I think there’s, uh, there’s kind of two separate tracks. I’d like to get your perspective on, um, is, you know, one, how do we need to think about and reshape some people’s perspectives. But also how much do kind of like unshakable perspectives, um, or maybe just different choices [00:18:00] that are all acceptable play into it.

And so, and I’ll give you kind of an example of that because this has actually come up a few times. Um, And, and I used kind of the example, uh, like a couple of different real examples. So I have some friends that do the fire thing, right? And, and they are, I mean, they literally like we’ll eat top ramen seven days a week.

Like don’t do absolutely anything outside of that. They work as hard as they can. They put every single penny into zero debt, building it up goals to retire by, I think like they’re younger than I am. So I make, they’re shooting for like being retired by 40 kind of thing. Right. Um, and then, you know, I have a friend who literally cannot spend it fast enough and it’s just, it’s constantly like, right.

I mean, a 12th credit card’s not that bad, right? Like, you know, so kind of the other crazy end of the extreme and then, you know, right, wrong or indifferent. Like my [00:19:00] approach used to be a little bit more on the conservative long story short, my wife, uh, is a breast cancer survivor that reshaped some of our perspective.

Right. And so, you know, I guess where I’m going with this is, right. Like defining success and your perspective of that can also have an impact on like whether you’re happy with where you’re at, right? So for like my friends doing the fire thing, like it would stress them out to spend money on something.

But for us, kind of given our scenario, I’m like, Hey, you know what? I would get hit by a bus tomorrow and I don’t want to be in a position where I’m like my friend that has a 12th credit card that’s maxed out. But I also want to go on vacation and I want to take my kids somewhere where we build memories.

And so there’s that balance. But to each of those three different groups, right, like success looks different. So their perspective is different. And I would argue that two of the three are somewhat okay, depending on, again, if you’re like, that is [00:20:00] your metric for success, that the thirds probably needs some work.

Um, but I’d be curious to get kind of your thoughts on, on those two things. Like, so how does that perspective shape how you should be thinking about it? And are there multiple different avenues for success? And then if we do need to reshape someone’s perspective, like the third example, how do you go about that?

Kim: Awesome questions. Okay. So on the first part, I think that one’s perspective. Should be defined by themselves and in conjunction with a spouse or significant other, if there is that without a doubt. And to me, the easiest way to do that is to get clear on your values and that will help you define success.

So you can go on the internet and look up a list of values and get 100, 200 words. Go through, chop out, get to 50, look at it again, narrow it down to 20, maybe even narrow it down to 10 if you can. [00:21:00] And then. make an effort to spend your money based on your values. So quick example on the story there. My sister really valued travel when she was younger and she had young Children at the time she would put trips on a credit card.

And take them and do their travel thing. And I would just be like, I can’t believe you’re doing that, but that was an important value to her now over six months or so she would pay them off and she wouldn’t do them very often, but nevertheless, that was an important value to her. So success was defined by that value to her.

I’m one of those people that, and now I’m older. So like right now in my life. I would rather if a bunch of people are out shopping, like we were just on vacation last week, I would rather not spend money on material things because for me right now, one of my values is not material things. I would rather have [00:22:00] experiences and or purchase something big rather than the little stuff that tends to be purchased on shopping trips.

But it’s because I know my values. So defining values, then defining success, and then doing all that you can to work your money towards those values without concern for how anybody else is living their lives or doing their thing, which may mean that you’ve got to be willing to go to Starbucks and buy nothing, or it may mean that maybe gifting is your thing, you know, the five love languages, Well, then you set aside money for gifts that other people wouldn’t normally do because that’s an important value to you.

Josh: like that a lot. Um, yes, and I want to put a pin in, I think, um, that opens up a really big topic I want to talk about next, which is why, like, I’ll say it and then you can decide whether I’m right or wrong or you can defend or whatever, but I think most personal financial management tools and [00:23:00] budgets totally suck.

Um, but I think, I think you’re going to agree with me based on what you were just saying. So we’ll see where that goes. But yeah, if you wouldn’t mind touching on, so, okay, so what if we have to reshape a perspective to some degree? And let’s say like your sister defines success as trips and you’re like, Hey, you know what?

It’s actually okay. If you put some of those trips on credit cards, as long as you’re thoughtful about paying them off and that’s how you create those experiences. But what happens if she’s on the 12th credit card? They’re all maxed out. You know, debt collectors are calling her. How do you reshape perspective and say, Hey, this is no longer, I understand that that’s your definition of success, but it can’t be anymore.

Kim: Well, what’s fun is i’m actually going to answer both issues with the same information. So how we shift our perspective plus How do we deal with let’s just call it cash flow control? It all comes down to habits. [00:24:00] So a lot of times when we’re looking at making a change, whether it’s something that we want to change or something that we need to change, we, we expect this one big thing to come slapping into our environment and make the change.

And that’s typically not how life works. Occasionally it does, you know, the two by four hits you and you’re now changed, but mostly. It’s habits. And what I have found is that if we can install good habits, and I’ll give some very specific examples of this, then the quote, bad habits just end up falling by the wayside.

So a good example in the personal health space is pain. Let’s say somebody’s smoking and they don’t want to smoke anymore. If they’re constantly thinking in their head, don’t smoke, stop smoking, you know, I need to quit this, all they’re going to do is get more of that. But if they will think in their head, I’m going to go for a walk.

I’m going to [00:25:00] eat a salad. Like when I have a desire to smoke, I’m automatically. So this is BJ Fogg’s tiny habits idea. I’m automatically going to eat a salad or go outside and go for a walk. And I’ll just let those good habits expand and shove the bad habits off the table. Then looking back at my notes, that unshakable trait that I thought I had, whether it’s habits around money or habits around health or whatever, gets shoved away because I’m installing so much good habits and this is the key to having good financial management.

Budgeting has literally never proven to be effective. Go ask all your friends that are on mint dot com or quicken or whatever it’s called now that are on. You need a budget that are on personal capital, you know, that all the various apps and such that are out there. [00:26:00] Yeah, budgeting works for the next month or two, but it’s an exercise in futility because this is key.

We still have our income connected to our checking account. As long as our income is connected to our checking account, our habit is to spend and we will, most of us, we will spend what’s in our checking account. And therein lies the problem.

Josh: I want to go back to when you were talking about the habits thing. It made me think about, um, Man, I wish I could recall the book off the top of my head and hopefully I’ll get it before the end. Um, but my CEO read a book and was telling me about some of the things that came out about, um, attaching a habit to a habit. And the example was, and maybe you even know this. The author was saying she was trying to work out more, but the only time she could do that was in the morning. Right. [00:27:00] And so, um, and so she just found a morning habit she already had and she attached working out to that habit. And it was really interesting because, um, it was like right at that same time, Kim, we had put a set of like running lights on my wife’s truck and, um, but it’s a manual little switch. And so many times she would get out of her truck and forget to turn those running lights off. And when I was talking to Siva about this, he was like, attach it to another habit she already has. So literally we just paid attention and we looked at, so she already has the habit of she always puts the parking brake on.

Whether she’s on a hill or not, she always puts the parking brake on. So then she just attached the habit of putting her lights, turning them off when she puts the parking brake on. And Kim, I’m not even kidding. Overnight. She’s never once left the lights on the truck since, right? And so I thought that was interesting when you’re talking about just kind of the [00:28:00] one it’s looking at, you know, trying to create the right frame of mind for habits.

in our finances. Um, and, and how do we kind of attach to other good habits or like you said, in the smoking example, maybe not necessarily make spending a bad habit, but just if we have a compulsive spend or something, replacing it with a better positive habit. Um,

Kim: key there that I think is relative to all of this arena. And that is measuring progress. Looking backwards and measuring progress. Instead of looking forwards into the gap, so Dan Sullivan, strategic coach calls this the gap of where we are to where we want to be, if we’re always looking at that gap, which is obviously always going to be there because as we march forward where we want to be marches forward also, [00:29:00] then we can get into the depression, frustration, fear.

Oh my gosh, I’m never going to get there. But if we’ll turn just for a moment and look backwards at the progress that we’ve made, then we get that sense of momentum and we want to do more of what’s getting us the progress. And if we do that with our money and look at that progress that we’re making, we will get so much better results.

Josh: It’s funny you use that example. I literally today. I was having a conversation with one of the guys on my team and he made a comment and it was really funny. He brought himself to the whole own conclusion before I even got a chance to respond of being frustrated that we’re not where he wanted to be on a certain project by now.

And then he was like, wait, I just looked back and realized how much I was wrong. Holy smokes. We have come so far and it was like an instant mindset shift. And then to your point, like it was a super motivation to go to that next level. So it’s interesting that you use that [00:30:00] as an example. Um, you know, you were saying, so I want to go back to what you were talking about.

One of the fundamental issues is that our income is directly tied to our checking account. Um, can you talk a little bit more about why you see that as a

Kim: Sure. So we’ve got a group that has studied behavioral finance and helped people with a structure that disconnects income from our checking account. For about 10 years. And so we’ve got a lot of statistics around this arena and originally it was done manually. And now, of course, it’s done with an app plus an account environment.

You know, there’s tons of financial apps. That’s not the goodness. The goodness is making sure that your earned income from all sources. So this is for retired people, for working people, for individuals, for spouses, for even young adults, you know, all the way everybody. [00:31:00] Income should go into a separate account and the separate account then should put into your checking account only what you need to live your life exactly as you’re living it today.

And so this budgeting act might be helpful for a month to kind of get a handle on what it is that is necessary for you to live your life. But then if you’ll redirect that income into a separate account, Literally, automatically changing your paycheck, your automatic deposit, et cetera. It will be amazing what that separate account does.

And there’s just a few little critical tweaks that in the short run look like nothing. That in the long run on just a basic family earning like a hundred K a year can be a two million dollar difference.

Josh: Yeah, I think that’s one of the things that’s hard for people to realize [00:32:00] sometimes too, right, is, um, it’s kind of that compounding of time and money. And, and so many times we think, Oh, this is only a couple of bucks here, a couple of bucks there. Um, and you, you are, you’re looking at it at a very short time period.

I mean, I, I talk about it all the time. I mean, I just, you know, I’m one of those people that didn’t really, I got fixed on my day to day. In kind of the mid twenties, but I didn’t start like actually thinking about the future until like 30, you know, and you do, then you look back and like, Oh man, if I’d been smart at 18, like, Oh, you know, but um, but that’s not the way you’re thinking in that moment.

And so it does take kind of that understanding that a little can mean a lot later. Um, now that brings us to, we’ll maybe touch this later. The Also the, the, the bad of that is that sometimes people think, Oh, I just need to put in a little and then like, I’m going to, I’m going to hit the next NVIDIA and I’m going to blow up or I’m going to, you know, buy Bitcoin at 0.

[00:33:00] 002 and now at a hundred thousand sell, you know, 50 Bitcoin. Um, but, but while we’re on the vein of talking about budget stuff, um, I want to talk about kind of your perspective on why you were saying like these mints and things just. don’t work. Um, and, and I want to put one thought process in your ear to get your thoughts on this.

Um, as you kind of talk through that still to this day, uh, one of my most fascinating episodes, obviously until today, um, was with a woman named Merla Vandenacker who’s a PhD student at Warwick University and her PhD study was around the psychology of money. And she talked a lot about how we have so incredibly what you were just saying, like disassociate ourselves from the spend and how we used to kind of like maybe you in the farm, right?

Like literally barter, like I’m going to give you a gallon of milk and I know how much work it took me to get a gallon of [00:34:00] milk. And this is what I wanted to exchange for that, right? So you were probably real precious about that gallon of milk. To now I just tap my watch as I go and like I am so disassociated from how hard it took me to earn that money, what impact it’s going to have.

I don’t even know what’s left in my checking account afterwards. I just tap my watch and walk away. Right. So, um, maybe with that kind of context of, of everything that we’ve been talking about and just kind of the, the mental association people have with money, like why do you think that budgets don’t work?

Yeah.

Kim: first of all, it’s trying to project forward. Second of all, it’s an, Absolute exercise in futility mathematically because our lives operate only about 80 percent monthly. The other 20 percent is a bonus here. An expense there could be like a semi annual car [00:35:00] insurance premium or something like that.

that throws everything all out of whack. And so this attempt to project forward now again, you got to get a handle and know what your monthly expenses are. So if it necessitates a budgeting exercise to do that, then do that. But then start to measure backwards, start to measure that progress. And if you’ll set your structure up properly, you’ll capture some critical differences that, um, Throw budgets off.

One is most people get paid every two weeks, which means two months out of the year, they’re getting three paychecks. What typically happens to that third paycheck gone, right? It just goes into the checking account. It’s gone. We don’t even think about it. Furthermore, some people either with 401k contributions or 403b contributions or social security contributions in the November and December timeframes, they earn [00:36:00] enough money that.

They don’t get to make those contributions, and you could argue that social security is not a contribution, but you don’t get to have those dollars taken out of your checking, your check, excuse me, you don’t get to have your dollars taken out of your check, and so extra dollars go into your checking account.

Again, what happens to those dollars? Gone. Especially because it does tend to be at the end of the year, so you’ve got all the holidays, right? So just those little things. Here’s another one. Um, most people know that their expenses are increasing all the time. However, if you get into a mortgage and you have a 30 year mortgage, which is what we recommend, and you’re not pre paying, it’s just a flat 30 year mortgage.

And even if you do change houses a couple times, which most people will, it’s still a 30 year period of time where that particular bill is flat. And so if you understand that all of your other expenses are increasing and your income is typically usually increasing, if you have the right structure in place, you can [00:37:00] capture that differential, which starts out like a little tiny piece of pie, but grows bigger and bigger towards the crust of the pie, if you will, as you go on through your life, if you have the right structure to capture that differential.

And then again, if you’re using that. Look backwards, focus on the momentum, which gives you more motivation, which might actually cause you to stop before you pull out that credit card or that Apple pay or whatever it is that you’re using that is so disconnected to the money that we earn and just buy, buy, buy, because you can get into your app and see the progress that you’re making.

And get excited about that because the studies show that the dopamine hits for like Amazon and the prime button, did you know that’s their most valuable? Um, trademark is the prime combined with [00:38:00] the, the one push button by now, right? You don’t have to put your credit card in. It’s already in there. You buy now it goes into your shopping cart.

It’s done. Like that is their most valuable asset, or at least it was when the study was done. You know, in the last year or two. Well, when we can acknowledge that that is a problem, we just have to develop an offsetting habit where we don’t have that ability. So Some people, it does take putting their credit card.

Somebody told me they put it in a bag and water and stuck it in the freezer. They couldn’t use it. I mean, they could still do online things obviously, but you know, do whatever it takes to develop the habit, to get excited about your building savings account, not let your only excitement be the, your Amazon buy button.

Josh: Yeah. I mean, I think you, you, you touched on something that is so important, right? Which is, um, kind of going back to what we were saying earlier, like that kind [00:39:00] of that definition of success. Um, and, um, And you get such an immediate dopamine hit from making a purchase, especially if it’s a, you know, typically those frivolous ones that you probably shouldn’t have made is because you really want it.

Right. And so you get that hit. But, um, like how do you, how do you budget for For those kinds of things in conjunction with all the other complexities of a budget, like you were saying, you know, I think that’s one of the reasons why, like I was willing to stick my hand up and say, I don’t think traditional budgets work either is so many times, like I’ve done a lot of them just out of curiosity to see how they work.

Right. And like I did the whole, you need a budget thing.

Kim: Sure.

Josh: this is so stupid. Like it very quickly was there to give me these, um, You know, suggestions and it would say things like, Hey, you know, we see that you spend this much on groceries. You should spend less, right?

Kim: How?

Josh: why or [00:40:00] how?

And yeah, to your point, like it didn’t take into account. Um, I’ll be the first to admit like I do. I don’t know. I probably spend more than a lot of people on groceries. Why? Because the things that are important to me and my family, like I want good local grass fed beef. I want, I don’t want factory farming stuff.

Like I want good vegetables from the farm down the street. And you know what? That bag of carrots is more expensive even from the little local farm than it is from Walmart. And so, but that’s important to me. And so it’s like, good job. You’re saving, you know, in this area, like dining out, I always laugh when I do these budgets, right?

Cause it always tells me I’m doing so good on dining out. Cause my wife and I, we literally can probably eat out three times a year, right? And so it’s always like, you’re doing great on that, but you suck at groceries. I’m like, Hey, whoa, whoa, whoa. Correlation here, friend. Like I suck at groceries cause I’m not spending money here.

You know what I mean? And so I think a lot of times it’s just, it’s trying to be, which it is, right? Like we’re trying to appeal to masses. We’re trying to get a [00:41:00] bunch of people to buy our software for this budgeting tool. So it’s very, very generic in its prescriptions. I want to get your thoughts on, I think the world’s going to change there.

And I think technology is going to play a huge role when you start to look at implementing really, really intelligent, large language model AI.

Kim: Yeah.

Josh: And we can actually get significantly better data and we can actually talk to it and feed it prompts and be like, Hey, okay, help me build a budget. Understanding.

I want you to go back and mine five years of my transactions now, right? I can’t go into YNAB and say like mine five years of transactions and I want you to understand what are my spending behaviors and what are the things that are non negotiable versus, you know, are negotiable. And then I want to tell you how I define success and.

Like that just, it really doesn’t exist today, but I think the technology is coming, but just like having a [00:42:00] conversation with you, right? If all I do is feed it the prompts of what I want it to tell me to do, then I can get it to do that, right? Whereas having a conversation with a real human is like, okay, well let’s peel that back a little bit.

Let’s actually have a conversation around that. Um, but I think that kind of that augmentation of some of the better technology that’s going to quite frankly mine data and look at more examples and have a better ability to forecast than any human ever will be able to plus educating people on how to prompt it and how to take the information that comes out of it.

Like I have high hopes for that personally. What are your thoughts? Yep.

Kim: I believe it’s going to be the combination of both. So the AI capacity will enable so much easier math around our personal finances. And it will, as you stated, [00:43:00] enable us to connect our values to them and then furthermore develop that momentum and motivation because it will know our language. It will also know what ads we should be paying attention to.

And ads of which we are bombarded with today are one of the big problems around spending because they cause us to think that something’s important to us or to think that we, quote, need something and so we go spend. On that thing, our AI will be able to say, I want all the ads about ski jackets because I’m going skiing and I need to buy a ski jacket, but I do not want all the ads around ski boots because I already own them.

Something like that. So I’m excited about that. Furthermore, I absolutely believe that having a human being alongside all that [00:44:00] AI capacity is going to continue to be valuable.

Josh: Yeah.

Kim: And America typically, the general person in America, is not comfortable going to a human being for personal finance work. You know, you have your high net worths that are used to using the financial planners and the financial advisors out there, but a lot of America doesn’t really think that they have enough, quote, money to invest to utilize the services of somebody like that.

So we’ve worked and I’ve worked nationwide since the internet began to help connect people with people because then we get results and that guide alongside enables you to have that conversation that you’re talking about so that our monetary decisions are more habitual, they’re more in alignment with our own values that we’ve set them.

And we know that somebody’s got our backs and can help us strategize [00:45:00] around the disconnects that are there because of math. So, you know, whether it’s that extra paycheck that’s coming in and creating positive or it’s that extra expense that’s coming in and creating negative, we’ve got a strategy and a game plan and we know how to deal with those, both excesses and times when there isn’t excess that we need to solve.

And we know we’ve got somebody behind us to help us do that combined with the technology to pull in all the good values and the structure that is necessary. To make conscious choices, because if we can turn unconscious spending into unconscious savings, we’ve got a recipe for success.

Josh: Yeah. You know, I, um, uh, I’m glad you brought that up in the, like, there kind of needs to be the two pronged approach to it. Right. I, I agree with you personally. [00:46:00] Like I think until we get to like some epic level of crazy technology utopia, which quite frankly, I just don’t want to live in that world. So that’s, I’ll, I’ll put my two cents on the table.

But like, unless we get to that point, I still think there’s always going to need to be a human element involved when we’re talking about helping people live kind of prosperous financial lives and just helping them navigate the complexities of that. But I absolutely love the idea of us bringing in some of these super sophisticated tools to your point to do data mining and math better than any human is ever going to be able to do.

Cause just cause they’re going to have more examples to work from, more data points to touch on. Um, but. Um, but where I was going with that is, is that, you know, uh, there is almost that power of having technology in there because like you were saying, people sometimes don’t want to have the uncomfortable conversation initially with another human.

Right. Um, and a guest of mine a while ago brought up, I want to say it’s a book, um, or it was like a [00:47:00] Netflix, uh, Not in maybe a Netflix, maybe like a Ted talk or something on, um, people don’t lie to Google. And the whole concept was, um, and I’ll use myself as the example, right? Like if I go to my doctor and my doctor’s like, Josh, you know, how many cups of coffee do you have a day?

I don’t want him to judge me. So I’m going to tell him one, right? And then I’m going to go home and I’m going to Google, Hey, It’s 164 ounce cup of coffee. Okay. Right. Because I know Google ain’t going to judge me on that. But what happens is, you know, right now what I get out of Google is Links to a bunch of different sites and maybe I end up on WebMD and that takes me down a whole nother scary rabbit hole.

And I think I’m like dying of tuberculosis or something like, I don’t know, but right, like I’m trying to sift through all this information to decide is 64 ounces of coffee like bad for me. Whereas we get to like the chat GPT world and I just asked chat [00:48:00] GPT and it’s going to actually give me a much more intelligent response.

I can even have a conversation with him about it. But at the end of the day, Having a human that then I could go to and be like, Hey, look, I, I think I need to cut down on my coffee consumption. Right. Um, which if anybody ever hears me say that, like someone has taken over my body, aliens have invaded. It’s a lie.

I don’t care. Definition of success. Lots of coffee. Um, but right. I’m more likely to maybe have that conversation with you and say, Hey, Hey Kim, Ike. I think I do need some help with my finances and I’d like a human to kind of guide me through that. Whereas I may not. Yeah. Yeah, no, you’re good. Keep going. I think you know where I was going with that.

Yeah.

Kim: difficult for us to make a decision about our personal finances and no robo advisor is going to help with the emotional side. The robo advisor is just going to be able to [00:49:00] do the math. And so there’s a funny story. My husband tells, um, he met somebody else, met this guy, had a whole bunch of cash.

Like, oh my gosh, why don’t you pay off this credit card that I see on your balance sheet? And he said, no, that’s my wife’s credit card. If I pay that off, she’ll just rack it back up again. So, you know, shame on her for not realizing the, um, utter futility of that, but nevertheless, the math would have said pay this off, but the guy’s psyche.

And his, his own knowledge of the entire situation said no. And so that’s why the two together are so valuable because we need our apps. You know, they’re right there. They can be motivational for us and we need that third party thought. Especially if you are dealing with a couple, right, where sometimes there needs to be a little bit of an intermediary to come in and be able to brainstorm because they’re not as emotionally connected to the financial [00:50:00] situation at hand.

Josh: Yeah. Um, I think that’s one of my other fears too. And I think that’s why you see especially financial services has been, I think thankfully a little reticent to get super crazy aggressive with, um, you know, AI powered, uh, recommendations, right? Is that I use a super, super, like just very easy example to illustrate the point, but I think if all of a sudden this, uh, you know, AI bot looked at my account and was like, Oh, Josh, like you have 5, 000 in your checking account.

Did you know that the credit union currently offers, uh, you know, a 5 percent CD with a minimum of a 5, 000 open, you’re leaving money on the table. You should move that 5, 000 over to that CD. Yes. Technically I will make more money and my money will be working for me. But next week when my mortgage comes due and I haven’t gotten an extra paycheck since then, I ain’t gonna be able to make my mortgage.

We got a whole different, you know, ball of problems now, right? So we have to be really, [00:51:00] really thoughtful about those recommendations. And like you were saying, like, that’s a really easy example that quite frankly, we can very quickly and easily teach, right? Like some of these tools to not do. But it’s the more complicated scenarios where humans and emotions and definitions of success and all of those things that we’ve been talking about are involved where it really is nuanced.

Um,

Kim: why I think I enjoy my work so much is it’s so fun to be able to bring clarity to somebody that is just a little bit unsure. Like they, they might kind of think they know what they should do or maybe they don’t know. But to bring clarity and specific steps and guidance of this is how you can handle this situation the most economically efficient, like financially efficient, or if it’s peace of mind that’s really driving this situation, then maybe this is the way that you should do it, even though it’s not as economically efficient.

Josh: yeah, well, [00:52:00] and that, so that opens up a whole nother can of something I wanted to talk to you about, which is, um, I mean, even just in what, 50 minutes of recording, which, holy cow, we’ve already recorded 50 minutes. Um, even just in 50 minutes of recording, right? Like we’ve talked about so many layers of complexity to personal financial management and like we haven’t even scratched the surface, right?

We haven’t even started talking about, I mean, we’re just talking about like making some smart financial decisions, not overspending, like defining success. We haven’t talked about things like insurance or longterm planning or, you know, investing or, you know, you name it. This is complicated stuff. We work in this

Kim: and most financial planners go straight to the insurance or the investments or etc. They don’t address the savings component of savings as a noun, like how you store your savings, but also savings as a verb, the act of saving. Putting the money away. That’s going to be [00:53:00] liquid and available to you that you will not lose that must happen on an ongoing basis, no matter what your level of finances,

Josh: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and so that brings me to the point of like this stuff is so complicated. Like how do we, like we work in this industry and sometimes I still feel stupid. You know what I mean? Like how do we expect the general American public who for the most part gets maybe what’s handed down from them from their parents either through being taught or just through observing, right?

Right. And in both of those scenarios, we’re not saying that what they’re getting is right. They’re getting virtually nothing from the traditional education system. Maybe they’re getting something from like a credit union that comes in and does a class every once in a while at the school or something like that.

But I mean, this is the kind of stuff like, uh, you can attest to this, right? So I [00:54:00] did it for different motivations. You can call me crazy, but I did it out of sheer curiosity. But I did, I did my series 766, like all of those same things too. And again, I still feel like an idiot, right? And I’m like I went through all of these legitimate trainings.

I mean, what the series seven is like an eight hour test, right? Like think of how much content you have to consume to be able to just take a test that lasts that long on the content. And I still feel like there’s so much that is unknown to me. So how can we imagine people are able to really understand the landscape of what’s available, some good tips and then how to navigate that without years and years.

Like you’re not going to give this to somebody over, uh, Hey, stop in for a 30 minute lecture on, you know, financial planning.

Kim: right?

Josh: And then be able to understand somebody’s [00:55:00] unique perspective and apply that to it too without giving just generic advice. So that’s why I said, like why I wanted to talk to you, I mean, this is a massive opportunity that I, like, I don’t want to diminish.

There are a lot of people that are trying really, really hard to solve this, but at a holistic level, like we’re not even close to solving this.

Kim: I truly believe that the answer is potentially simpler than we think. And it lies in understanding some very basic things around finance that truly you can teach a 10 or a 15 year old. And as you’ve stated, our schools are not teaching that. If you look at the schools, they have a class on how to pick a stock or something like that, which is interesting, but it doesn’t handle the day to day basics of somebody’s personal finances that should start.

Literally, if we can do it right, [00:56:00] at about age three. So one of my special projects is actually called Prosperity Parents. And in Prosperity Parents, we teach parents to start with a two or three year old child as they’re going through the grocery store, right? And the kid is starting to request the candy or the toy that it’s seeing.

That’s where not just financial education needs to start. But financial competency, education alone isn’t enough. We need financial competency. And what’s so fun about the prosperity parents material is that it’s designed to teach the kids in the family, but the parents usually get. Sometimes more out of it than the kids do.

Because as you’ve stated, we have all these people in their thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, that really never got any kind of financial competency [00:57:00] training. And so it, like I said, not only is it there for the taking. It is broken down into very simple things, and it starts with that disconnecting your earned income from your checking account.

Then it picks up on saving first, right? Like we’ve all known that we’re supposed to save first, but we don’t really know how to go about it. And because in our. Commentary is so much about investing and getting rich quick and all that other stuff. We don’t do the basic things of just building a savings account and then protecting against the.

What ifs right? The insurance arena. So most people, the first financial product that they buy is car insurance, and oftentimes the second financial product that they buy is a mortgage. Now, you’ve got banks out there that are trying to convince people to do, for example, a 15 year mortgage versus a 30 year [00:58:00] mortgage.

Well, the banks are in business to make a profit. So you have to really question when they’re making a recommendation to you, is that best for them or is that best for you? And then the next thing that a lot of people are dealing with is home insurance, and then disability insurance and life insurance.

They get a job, they have all these coverages that they have to pick. And there may be training from human resources or wherever about all the benefits. But I remember when my 22 year old son, first job, was talked into, or tried to talk into, he didn’t do it. Maxing out his 401k plan as a 22 year old. When he didn’t even have a savings account built up.

So here you have a 22 year old that’s human resource encouraged to max out your 401k plan or four or three B if, if you’re in a nonprofit environment. And if he [00:59:00] had done that a few months later, when a tree fell on his house, he would not have had the emergency money necessary. To get a rented room, because of course insurance paid at some point, but it took a while, right?

To live his life while the tree was being removed and the damage being fixed, et cetera. And so the starting point is so simple and it’s so boring and yet it’s so crucial yet. Most of America wants to go straight to investing.

Josh: Well, you know, I think that brings up another point that, um, you, we were talking about like a lot of times people don’t want to talk to other people about these problems. I think there’s also the inverse where there’s a lot of people who really want to tell people what they think they should do. Right.

And the example that I use all the time is like, if you go and search for financial advice on Tik TOK. Kim, do you know the last time I looked it up that, um, actually financial [01:00:00] advice content is in the top 10 most consumed content on tick

Kim: I believe it.

Josh: right? That data is probably a couple of years old now, last time I looked, but I thought that was really interesting.

So I started looking at some of the advice that’s on there. Kim, don’t do it. Like it will terrify you. I mean, some of the stuff that people were saying, I’m like, No, but that, that’s actually illegal, right? Like, but they’re so convicted about it. And what was interesting was I started doing some research on it and, um, And like one kid in particular, I went down this whole rabbit hole was like giving people financial advice and it was all around like investing and crypto and all of this.

And he was telling people about how he bought his Lamborghini and this amazing house. It turns out house wasn’t his. Lamborghini, he rented through like Hertz, um, uh, like exotics rentals for the day just to shoot all this content, had to max out a credit card even just to do the rental, right? Like all [01:01:00] of this.

But then what happens? He made a bunch of money because that video went viral, right? Because he gave all these young kids this great advice, how they could be like him and have this house and this Lamborghini and all this stuff, right? So, like, that kind of stuff terrifies the crap out of me. And I’m like, cool beans.

Like, we have, we have a bunch of people that are really hungry for this information. And, and they do, like, they want to learn. They want to be in a better place. And then you’ve got people that want to profit off of it or to just have whatever delusional ideas in their head that they’ve like solved the system and they’ve got all the information and they just want to tell people how to live their lives.

Right. That’s a really potent cocktail of, we can really screw some people up even worse than they were in the first place by giving bad advice, but being so convicted in your own advice. Right. Or malicious in it, which I hate to say, but like it’s true. Yeah.

Kim: very interesting space. It [01:02:00] amazes me for as regulated as it is. That that kind of thing can go on and believe me, I’ve made my mistakes too. And I’ve seen clients make mistakes and I love to bring the learnings that occurred from those mistakes to the younger generation so that we can cap this thing off and build people that financial peace of mind.

That’s so valuable where we can really simplify their savings, automate their assets. install faith in their financial information and get them the good results that are completely available by just making a few incremental habit changes,

Josh: I, I love that you brought up the, the young age too. I thought you might get a kick out of this. This is like super recent in my life. So I have a, um, he’s now three and a half year old. and a one [01:03:00] year old and my three and a half year old is like crazy talkative and just a obscene vocabulary and so like I’m having these like deep philosophical conversations with a three year old which I think is fascinating but it’s always just interesting to see how his brain works and then what I always find really interesting is like what are they actually learning and absorbing and because of um like my financial mistakes right we’ve tried to be really really Like to think thoughtful about how we set them up for success, how we plan for them, um, you know, the different products that we already have them enrolled in.

And then, but two, it’s the training side of things, right? And so what I thought was crazy was, um, a couple of months ago, I was at a conference for work, um, that happened to be held on Disneyland property. And so I brought the family with me. And we, you know, fly in the morning of the start of the conference is the conference starts that night with the opening keynote, that kind of thing.[01:04:00] 

So we fly in, I help get the family settled in the hotel room, like help my wife build the pack and play, get, you know, suitcases unpacked for the kids, all of that. And then I shower, change, get into, you know, my, my branded work gear and, and I go to head out and Kim, my son says the darndest thing. He’s like jumping on the bed, having so much fun.

I was like, okay buddy, like I love you. I’ll see you a bit later. And he’s like, yeah, daddy has to go to work to pay for the trip. And I was like, yeah. Yeah, he

Kim: three year old,

Josh: Yeah. Yeah. I was like, I was like shocked. They like hit me like a Mac truck. Right. And then just recently, and so we kind of tried to reinforce that.

I was like, yeah, like this, this is going to cost daddy some of his time away from you to go do the things that pays our bills. And that allows us to do these fun trips and things like this. And then just recently, I mean, just the other night, my son was having a conversation with my wife in the kitchen about buying something that he wanted.

And he made a comment [01:05:00] about like how, well, we would need money for that. And so daddy would have to work for that. And I was like, well, that’s kind of a proud papa moment. Like I like it that, you know, at three he’s starting to realize there’s an association with like the time away from daddy. Is what gets money and money is what does these things and he’s already like starting to make that association.

So I guess my point is that it was really validating for me personally that you’re right. Like you can start at three years old to even start to instill some of these habits where he’s starting to understand that. You know, money doesn’t grow on trees. Like it comes from, like, it is, it is a trade off of daddy’s time.

And I was like, that’s kind of cool. Like, and, and to your point, like if we can start to instill those habits now, that’s a heck of a lot easier than trying to change the habit of a 16 year old.

Kim: Oh my gosh. Yes. And so valuable. We actually guide people in our prosperity parents work to install the quarter system for the three year [01:06:00] old whereby you’ve got a clear jar so he can see the quarters and quarters go in there when he does extra things, not when he, it is a boy, correct?

Josh: Yeah. Yeah.

Kim: So yeah, cause you did say son all of a sudden I thought, Oh gosh, that doesn’t sound right.

So

Josh: My one year old’s my daughter.

Kim: um, okay, got it. Thank you. So when your son does, um, for example, making his bed, that’s a part of living in your house, and that’s what he’s supposed to do. But if he does extra things, like maybe helps mom unload the dishwasher, then he gets a quarter. Well, if he then turns around and beats on his sister, He gets a quarter taken away.

Josh: Oh gosh, that poor kid would be in so much debt, Kim.

Kim: it’s potentially very motivational. And then when you go to the grocery store and he wants that thing, you say, let’s see how much you have in your account. [01:07:00] And even if it’s something that you would normally pay for, maybe you split it with him or whatever. But again, you’re going to pay for his basic needs and then, and of course, just think about this as you up level into junior high and high school and whatnot.

Um, you know, if you want the 200 Nike shoes, that’s great. I’ll pay 80 bucks because that will get you a perfectly suitable tennis shoe to play, you know, basketball or whatever. If you want the 200 great earn the money to come up with 120 difference and it makes money not be a scary thing. It makes money and cash flow and the discussions that need to go with it a normal family conversation, which frankly it should be.

You want those conversations to be happening at the dinner table. You don’t necessarily want that happening at the school or fill in the blank where the kid might get values that are not What your family espouses.

Josh: Yeah. That, you know, if I’m being honest, Kim, like that’s one of the weird [01:08:00] things that keeps me up at night. Um, you know, it’s interesting. I’ve kind of used this example probably in other episodes too. So bear with me folks if you’ve heard it, but, um, like my financial position was not a good one, right? And I made a bunch of big mistakes and I really didn’t learn much from my parents.

My dad, really, really intelligent guy, really well meaning, right? But that just wasn’t his area of expertise and he didn’t pass that down to me. My mom was not good with finances at all. Um, and so I kind of carried some of those traits through and then learned later in life my mistakes and started to write those.

My wife is the oldest of three and, uh, same mom and dad have been married for 40 years. Like, uh, they’re just huge age gaps. This is six years from her to her little sister and then another six to her brother. So there’s 12 years in between her and her little brother. Well, my wife was an oops baby in Guadalajara, Mexico, while dad was putting himself through [01:09:00] medical school. Little sister comes around when they’re in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and he’s in residency. So they’re kind of like middle class. He’s starting to get down the student loan debt, that kind of stuff. Little brother comes around when dad is a partner in one of the biggest clinics in Oregon.

Kim: right.

Josh: of them had very different perspectives on money.

Right. And so what’s interesting is my wife had the perspective of like, she ain’t giving up a penny. Right. And, and then she got to watch her other siblings. So she took that. So we were really thankful that like my wife and I kind of came into this with similar mindsets, perspectives, and at least just the understanding that we needed to have conversations about, well, how did we define success?

What did that look like? But even all of that to be said, and the point that I’m making with all of this, is what keeps me up at night, Kim. is thinking through how do I do this right for my kids? Right? [01:10:00] Because a part of me wants to make sure they have everything and they never have to stress about money.

And I want my kids to, you know, turn 18 and I give them a trust fund that lasts the rest of their lives. And if they want to just like surf and you know, eat acai bowls on the beach for the rest of their life and that’s what makes them happy. Like I want to give them that. But I also don’t want a bunch of entitled little dingbats, you know?

And so I like, I wrestle with that and it’s like, how do I make sure that we instill early on those good value systems, the foundations, the understanding and not put them at a disadvantage, but also not entitled them and I don’t know. So it’s just, it, it’s fascinating to kind of talk through this with you and, and just thinking about some of the different ways to create good habits and life lessons early on so that, you know, while I can do the things that set them up for success, hopefully they then carry that [01:11:00] forward.

Does that make sense?

Kim: Absolutely. Well, if you can start young as your Children are, it’s so valuable. And yet I hope lots of families that start when the kids or teenagers or even young adults. I mean, we’ve got an epidemic of financial enablement. You have 30 year olds that are still getting rent money from their parents.

It’s sad, and it’s impacting the parents ability to retire. Now I’m big fan of retiring way later anyway, but nevertheless, it’s an opportunity cost that is just destroying these 20 and 30 year olds that have no concept of financial wherewithal because their parents are still paying for their lifestyle.

And so it’s a joy to be able to offer very specific steps to take, regardless of what age, you know, there’s about seven phases of perpetual wealth, which means [01:12:00] from generation to generation, like what you’re speaking about. And it doesn’t matter the age so much, but the phases all get gone through, regardless of whether you start when you’re in your 20s or in your 50s.

And so it’s fun to be able to work with people through that. And we often serve three generations where we’re helping. In fact, we even have four in one case, the great grandparents, the grandparents, the parents and the children, you know, babies, and it’s So doable. If you can just have some basic values picked, some basic conversations had, and then a space where those are repeated at age appropriate levels, of course, because not talking about it is the worst thing.

And that’s frankly how most families handle it. The parents don’t feel like they know anything. And so no conversation gets had. And the Kids then, you know, when they get into their adulthood are kind of left to their own devices and like you, [01:13:00] some of us stumble into efficiency mode, finally. Others go off the rails one way or the other, neither of which is good, so.

It’s so doable. I really want to impress upon your listeners that There are some very small baby steps could make a huge difference Like I said, just the mortgage thing alone is a two million dollar difference for your normal average half a million dollar home or so And um the ability to disconnect the income from the expense account is just huge and it’s so fun to be able to You know Install just those little things.

They don’t make a big change in your life. There’s not massive learning that has to go on for these to work. And then they get to talk with their children or their grandchildren about it. And, you know, frankly, everybody’s parenting somebody. Maybe it’s your Sunday school kids or your, uh, you know, boys and girls club or whatever it is, your niece and nephew that’s in the area.

If you don’t have children of your own, but to have an approach [01:14:00] around money that is. Sustainable, learnable, transactionable, doable, and have it be motivation and momentum driven. I believe that’s what everybody is seeking.

Josh: I like that a lot. And I like that you use the word like sustainable. Um, I actually think given what you and I were talking about before we started recording about just even like your like health and diet choices, you might appreciate this perspective. So, um, one of the other things that my life has become a little OCD about is like the health and fitness side.

And, um, And one of the, um, one of the personalities that I really love to get some information from is he’s a guy, a PhD, um, uh, in not like nutrition science, but like that kind of vein did a lot of his study on like, um, protein synthesis and all of this. And he, [01:15:00] through that, like decided to become a natural bodybuilder. Because he wanted to experience and like live what he was talking about and all these different things. And, and what made him like notable was he was talking about kind of the theory of just calories in versus calories out. And there was this kind of misconception in the bodybuilding world that to get, you know, lots of muscle, lean body fat, like you had to just eat chicken and broccoli, chicken and broccoli, chicken and broccoli.

And he was like, no, I, he’s like, I could win a bodybuilding competition on Pop Tarts and like it became a challenge. And so he did. And so he literally won a national championship on Pop Tarts, but what he used is to kind of illustrate that point was, and this is where I think you’ll find this interesting was he talked about, um, just kind of you, you can think about almost your diet like a budget.

And he used the [01:16:00] example of, he’s like, okay, so let’s say you make 50, 000 a year and you can barely cover ends meet, right? Should you go out and buy 100, 000 sports car? No, but let’s say you make 400, 000 a year. You have a home. You cover your mortgage, you have good insurance products, you have a good savings account.

Your kids have good college savings funds and they have good clothes and you have surplus capital. Can you go out and buy a 100, 000 sports car? Absolutely. Go for it, right? If that’s a definition of success for you. And he kind of talked about that in the same vein of your diet. He was like, look, if you are 110 pound, person who works a very sedentary job, should you consume a hundred percent of your diet from pop tarts?

No, like you’re not meeting your, you know, [01:17:00] micronutrient goals. You’re not getting vitamins, like you’re not getting nutrients, like your body is going to struggle on that. But let’s say you’re a 250 pound guy who works out, you know, five days a week and has a manual hard labor job and your maintenance is, you know, 3, 500 calories a day.

Can you have 400 of those calories out of a, being a pop tart? Well, yeah, because you also had a really good high quality protein. You had some carrots and, uh, you know, some vegetables and some good starches or whatever it is, right? Like, Your diet is covered. So it’s okay in that sense to use a percentage of it.

And where I was going with all of this is, is back to the sustainability comment that you made. Right. And his point was like, if I just villainize pop tarts and I’m like, Oh, you need to, you know, get healthier or lose weight. You can never touch a pop tart again for the rest of your life. Right. People really struggle with that. Right. And I’m [01:18:00] like, dude, I kind of really want a pop tart. And then if they have a pop tart, they feel like a failure. And so then a lot of times they just, well screw it, like I wrecked the diet, I had a pop tart, it’s all over. I might as well just go have an entire Costco pizza and 16 brownies and a liter of coke while I’m at it, right?

But his point was, like, if I can introduce, like, hey, you know what, maybe, You know, based on your caloric intake and your definition of success and everything, maybe you can’t have the whole pack of pop tarts, but you can have like a half a pop tart and every once in a while and, and that’ll make you happy and that’ll scratch that itch, but you’re still getting all of your necessities in kind of the same thing on the budget side of things, right?

It’s like if we just tell people like you have to live by these, you know, hard and fast rules a hundred percent of the time and there’s no leeway in life, inevitably they’re going to screw it up. Right. And I think that goes back to what we were talking about with the, um, a lot of times these very generic budgets.

Kim: Absolutely.

Josh: to do this, this, this, this, this. And then to your [01:19:00] point, then all of a sudden I forget that my insurance, my auto insurance is yearly, not monthly. And then that big bill hits and it wrecks everything. And then I’m like, well, screw it. Then this budget doesn’t work. I throw it out the window and I’m never going to budget again.

And just put it all on credit cards. Right. But if we teach people some sustainability out of this. And say, Hey, you know what? Like there’s going to be some ebbs and flows and we need to make something that you feel good about sustaining for the rest of your life. Like, can you do this diet for the rest of your life?

If the answer to that is no, then why start in the first place? Right? Give this budget is something. Could you do this for the rest of your life? If the answer to that is no, then you’re never going to sustain it. So look for something that’s sustainable. Um,

Kim: Yep. Sustainability. Automaticity. Right. Make it just as automated as possible so you’re not having to make the decisions all the time. All really good suggestions.

Josh: want to kind of close this with one more topic if you don’t mind, which is, you know, we’ve [01:20:00] talked a lot about just, um, how there’s such a big opportunity, the impacts that it has, how this has been kind of neglected. I think if you look at traditional financial services today, right? And I’m looking at, um, not just big banks, um, and you know, community banks, credit unions, that kind of thing.

Um, There are some fintechs that I think are trying to solve some of these, but not in the grand scheme of the whole picture. But especially if you look at just traditional finance, we really just cover people for kind of the middle stage of life, right? You’re in your twenties. Probably you need your core products.

You need a checking account, a savings account. You might need a mortgage and auto loan and a credit card. Right. And that kind of lasts us from like 20 to whatever, 50, 60, 70, right?

Kim: Yep.

Josh: But like what we were talking about, there’s a huge missed opportunity for youth and education and actually banking them right and getting them into a positive banking relationship with a [01:21:00] financial institution that cares about their success and isn’t just there to sell them products.

I’m looking at you credit unions and community banks, right? Like you, so the good guys in this scenario, right? So let’s get them motivated to do banking with them. But at the same time, we’re also facing the largest wealth transfer in human history, right? With all of the boomers aging out. And I hate to say it in the negative sense, but dying off and all of a sudden, where’s all that money going?

And how is that being? To your point, like what happens when all of a sudden that windfall comes in? Is it, is it really appropriated positively? And then what happens to that banking relationship where a lot of those, um, you know, folks that are aging out of the traditional banking system, the people behind them are not in the traditional banking system.

And you’ve got a lot of people that are in Venmo, right? And I think you and I can probably pretty easily agree on Venmo. Don’t give two craps about your financial position and your success. Right. And especially [01:22:00] not to the level that like your community credit union is going

Kim: Right.

Josh: So I would way rather see that relationship stay at that community financial institution, but it’s not.

Um, so I think there’s a huge opportunity in kind of those bookends of life that’s really not being met right now.

Kim: it is a very commonly known amongst financial advisors statistic that if the patriarch generation passes on, it’s a 90 plus percent chance you’ll lose those assets because the next generation just doesn’t want to do what their parents did. And it is so unique, the space that the community banks and the credit unions operate in because That perpetual wealth thinking that I spoke about, they often have those generations already because it’s okay to bring your kids in, or, [01:23:00] you know, we even have a special account for them or whatever, and it enables the communication to start to happen, which will then not only be generation to generation, but also community organization to generation one and community organization to generation two.

And that is what is going to keep those dollars intact and growing and serving that family.

Josh: Yeah, that’s a good point. I mean, I think that’s one of the underlying themes that I think we’ve talked about without saying bluntly. Which is ultimately I think what we would love to see is, is generational wealth like across a wide spectrum of people, right? And it’s not just generational wealth in the sense that every kid turns 18 and has a million dollars in their checking account, right?

Like that’s not what I mean. I mean wealth in terms of knowledge and freedom and all the things that we talked about, that definition of success and creating that kind of generational wealth. Yeah. And I [01:24:00] think if we can encourage behavior through one, participation, engagement, tools, and technology from community financial institutions, that’s where I think we have the biggest opportunity to actually see that fulfilled.

But in all seriousness, Kim, like my genuine fear, knowing how impactful a credit union was in my life, it like genuinely scares me that a credit union might not be there for my son. Right. And I’m not like, I’m not the normal person. Let’s just be honest. Like most Americans are not sitting there going, I really want to make sure that when my three year old grows up, that they’re doing their business to the community financial institution.

That’s going to care about them. It’s going to care about the commitment to their community. Right. People don’t really think like that,

Kim: No. But I think, I think more, more people are, and something that we talk about all the time is [01:25:00] your legacy and inheritance are what you leave behind. In them, not to them, because a lot of people say, Well, I’m not going to have there will be no inheritance. I’m not going to have a legacy. Oh, my gosh. Yes, you do your values.

Your stories. What you leave in them is so, so important. And so, as you were saying, I think it will be fun to see if maybe the credit union community bank space can combine with the fintech space to do a better job of communicating between those generations where That legacy of values and stories is left in them so that whatever may be left to them can go on and do the good work that it’s designed to do, where, if you pick up on some of the wealthier people these days, they’ll even say, I want to leave my kids enough to do anything. [01:26:00] Let’s see, how do they say this? I want to leave my kids enough to do something, but not nothing. I

Josh: Huh

Kim: I want to leave my kids enough money that they could do anything in the world to serve. Right? That’s what human beings were put on earth to do, but they couldn’t just do nothing. I’m not going to leave them enough money where they could do nothing.

And that addresses your age old, uh, uh, balancing act of, well, you know, I’m here because I struggled. Do I really want my kids to have no struggle? Is that going to set them up for success in their life? The best? I think that’s a valid question to ask.

Josh: Yeah, I you know side note. I think I’ve used this example before too I you know small brain can only retain so much so I use things over and over again, but I love the example of You know when they did the biodome experiment That they were trying to grow tall trees in the biodome and they [01:27:00] couldn’t

Kim: Right.

Josh: over And they finally found out the reason why was there was no wind in the biodome. And so the trees never faced adversity, and they never had to grow strong, they never had to drive deep roots, they introduce wind, they grow trees. Right? I think the same is

Kim: a great analogy.

Josh: right? Like, we have to, yeah, no, I don’t want my kids to face, like, ugly adversity and some of the things that people have been subjected to over the years.

Yes. I want to fight like hell to make a world that that kind of stuff doesn’t exist. But I also don’t want my kids to not understand work ethic and have to like work against something and have to fail every once in a while. Like, um, I think that creates strong roots and creates, you know, good skills.

And again, I think that’s what, You look at like the community financial institutions, right? They’re not promising like, you know, buy this crypto and overnight I’m going to make you a gazillionaire, right? [01:28:00] Like they’re thinking holistically, they’re thinking, um, what’s sustainable, right? They’re thinking about creating the right types of environments for people to grow.

And that’s like my selfish kind of utopia is what you were just saying. Like that marrying of that mindset, that passion for service that you see in community financial institutions coupled with some of this amazing new technology that we have to really empower people from both bookends of life and in the middle to create lasting engagement between generations.

Where, I mean you think about it, like how cool is that if my kids start to bank at a credit union, right? Early on and they have technology to help drive certain behaviors and then they have a parent and an institution that’s driving good foundational fundamentals and values and then they get older and they don’t have to transition out of that.

They’re, they’re right there with somebody who’s been with them from the beginning and then as they go to transition that legacy out, like that [01:29:00] financial institution is still there to be a part of it. Like I know that sounds kind of dorky but like I think that’s a pretty noble aspiration.

Kim: The, the really good financial institutions have been around 100, 200 years and the really good families that develop that perpetual wealth at whatever level. are able to sustain third, fourth, fifth generations. Why shouldn’t those two be paired?

Josh: Yeah, I totally agree. Um, Kim, this has been an absolute blast talking with you. Like I said in the beginning, like you’re just absolutely fascinating. I love the way your brain thinks. And, um, and I say it time and time again, but I think this is what’s so cool about, you know, getting the chance to host this podcast is I get to meet people like you and hear your fascinating, you know, uh, ideas that otherwise I probably wouldn’t have had the ability to.

So thank you so much for coming and being a guest on the podcast. Um, before I let you go, I have two final questions for you if you don’t mind. So first is, uh, where do you go to get information [01:30:00] about what’s happening in the world of finances and, uh, any shout outs that you can give us?

Kim: Well, I am very careful about my intake. So, just like I pay very close attention to what I eat, I pay very close attention to what I read. I do tend to enjoy learning via reading, as opposed to, I know others enjoy learning via watching or listening. So I have sources that I read. They are typically not something that the lay person would enjoy because they’re often very economically based.

And, um, for example, I love, uh, Safedina Moose’s book, The Principles of Economics. It’s like a 600 page tomb of information around the Austrian mentality, which has nothing to do with the country. It’s just a way of thinking around the markets. So that’s the kind of thing that I enjoy reading about and that environment leads to a lot of other people’s [01:31:00] blogs and that type of thing that are not mainstream media.

That I get the bulk of my information from.

Josh: That’s awesome. Um, well, if people want to connect with you to maybe get some of your insight or learn more about, um, what you’re doing with, um, prosperity thinkers, how can they do that?

Kim: Well, I am a prolific podcaster like you are. So, uh, prosperity podcast is available on all the podcast platforms. I’m on most of the social media platforms, including Tik TOK. So you

Josh: So some good stuff out there.

Kim: Yes, you can find me and DM me there and just use Josh’s name or the digital banking podcast, and I’ll make sure to take good care of you.

I also have a website, ProsperityThinkers. com, and most importantly for your community, I have a special offer of a document that surrounds those seven phases of perpetual wealth. So I’m sure you’ll put this [01:32:00] in the show notes because it is long, but ProsperityThinkers. com forward slash the digital.

Banking podcast is where they could go to get that seven phases of perpetual wealth document, which is about 30 pages. And then of course there’s the short read as well goes into what really all that we’ve talked about very thoroughly with a lot of specifics, none of which are product or company related.

It’s just good financial competency training.

Josh: That’s super cool. I love that. Um, cause I think that’s one of the things too, that a lot of times with like these long form unscripted podcasts like this, right? Sometimes you don’t go into that very pointed, I hate to say marketing or sales because that’s not the conversation we’re having. Right. But like marketing or sales pitch of like, here’s the use case.

You should learn this and do this because we’re just kind of talking more philosophically. So I love that you give actually some, some like real world action [01:33:00] items that people can take out of this. So I appreciate that.

Kim: Absolutely.

Josh: Oh Kim, thank you again so much for coming and being a guest on the digital banking podcast.

Kim: You’re welcome, Josh. It was a joy.