Money Blocking for Fun! | Series 6.4

Voiceover Audio: 00:00:00

Welcome to the EnjoyMore30s Family Finance

Voiceover Audio: 00:00:03

podcast. The only podcast dedicated to making life more

Voiceover Audio: 00:00:06

enjoyable for young families by hitting on the financial topics

Voiceover Audio: 00:00:10

that tend to weigh on us, stress us out, and distract our focus

Voiceover Audio: 00:00:13

from simply enjoying life.

Joseph Okaly: 00:00:16

Hello, and welcome. Thank you so much for

Joseph Okaly: 00:00:18

joining me once again on the EnjoyMore30s Family Finance

Joseph Okaly: 00:00:21

podcast, where we're aiming to try to help you take steps

Joseph Okaly: 00:00:24

forward, gain that confidence and really therefore remove that

Joseph Okaly: 00:00:28

financial anxiety that you might have, so you can focus solely on

Joseph Okaly: 00:00:31

making your life more enjoyable. We're entering the middle now of

Joseph Okaly: 00:00:34

our new years series, Setting Your Compass for the New Year.

Joseph Okaly: 00:00:38

As always, if you like what you're hearing, please make sure

Joseph Okaly: 00:00:40

to subscribe, follow us on Apple podcasts, wherever you listen.

Joseph Okaly: 00:00:44

Clicking those stars leaving those reviews it really helps us

Joseph Okaly: 00:00:46

reach the literally millions of other young families out there

Joseph Okaly: 00:00:49

that are just like you.

Joseph Okaly: 00:00:51

So far this season, we've covered a lot, covered setting

Joseph Okaly: 00:00:54

your compass with your spouse, so joint goal setting, then we

Joseph Okaly: 00:00:57

discussed the importance of actually paying yourself first,

Joseph Okaly: 00:01:00

giving some of that hard earned money to yourself, crazy I know,

Joseph Okaly: 00:01:04

to reach those goals that would actually make you happy each

Joseph Okaly: 00:01:07

month. And finally last week, we discussed bucketing your goals.

Joseph Okaly: 00:01:11

So separating out different accounts for each individual

Joseph Okaly: 00:01:14

goal. So you can easily see the track for each goal, you can

Joseph Okaly: 00:01:17

easily achieve each goal. So if you haven't checked out those

Joseph Okaly: 00:01:20

episodes yet, definitely definitely want to do that soon.

Joseph Okaly: 00:01:23

Today's episode is titled Money Blocking for Fun!, where we're

Joseph Okaly: 00:01:27

going to cover easy ways to set money aside, aka what I refer to

Joseph Okaly: 00:01:31

as money blocking for specific things that will increase your

Joseph Okaly: 00:01:34

happiness throughout the year. The goal really for today's

Joseph Okaly: 00:01:38

episode is for you to think of ways to easily do more of the

Joseph Okaly: 00:01:42

things you love without the anxiety that tends to come with

Joseph Okaly: 00:01:45

it. Sounds good, right? If you've ever received a gift card

Joseph Okaly: 00:01:49

to something that you love, maybe your favorite restaurant

Joseph Okaly: 00:01:52

or the movies or really anything else you enjoy doing, you know

Joseph Okaly: 00:01:56

what a great feeling that is. It's kind of like literally a

Joseph Okaly: 00:01:59

free pass for fun. There's no anxiety around the spending or

Joseph Okaly: 00:02:03

the financial outlay or the money you're given because it

Joseph Okaly: 00:02:06

doesn't matter what else is going on for you right now in

Joseph Okaly: 00:02:10

your life. You can go out and enjoy this completely guilt

Joseph Okaly: 00:02:13

free. It's a free pass, it's not your money. This feeling is

Joseph Okaly: 00:02:17

something you can actually feel more often though, throughout

Joseph Okaly: 00:02:20

the year within your own control with something that I call money

Joseph Okaly: 00:02:24

blocking.

Joseph Okaly: 00:02:25

Money blocking is basically a term I came up with to describe

Joseph Okaly: 00:02:28

intentionally setting aside or blocking money for certain items

Joseph Okaly: 00:02:32

that make your life more enjoyable on a more daily basis.

Joseph Okaly: 00:02:35

So for example, let's say that you love getting massages,

Joseph Okaly: 00:02:38

however, you may get them sporadically or there may be

Joseph Okaly: 00:02:41

times when money is tight during the year and you just don't feel

Joseph Okaly: 00:02:44

like you can even you know do that though you really really,

Joseph Okaly: 00:02:47

really may need a massage. Generally when things are tight

Joseph Okaly: 00:02:50

and you're stressed, a massage could probably be pretty helpful

Joseph Okaly: 00:02:54

right? Now, the easiest way to go about this is when you get a

Joseph Okaly: 00:02:57

lump sum. So think of a bonus or a tax refund, somebody hands you

Joseph Okaly: 00:03:02

a big chunk of money, maybe your parents give you money for

Joseph Okaly: 00:03:05

Christmas every year, they gift you money, something like that.

Joseph Okaly: 00:03:08

So for purposes of illustrating this point, let's say that every

Joseph Okaly: 00:03:11

year you have a $5,000 bonus from work. Now normally without

Joseph Okaly: 00:03:15

a plan for this kind of money, which I've talked about before,

Joseph Okaly: 00:03:19

it has a tendency of disappearing. With money

Joseph Okaly: 00:03:22

blocking, what you could do is say take a piece of this bonus

Joseph Okaly: 00:03:25

and buy four gift cards for that massage place that you love. You

Joseph Okaly: 00:03:29

now have one guilt free massage every single quarter. So you see

Joseph Okaly: 00:03:34

what I mean? You can do this with anything to. Hockey games,

Joseph Okaly: 00:03:37

Starbucks, your favorite restaurant, if you set money

Joseph Okaly: 00:03:41

aside money blocking, and buy those massage gift cards. When

Joseph Okaly: 00:03:45

you're super stressed during the year, money may feel tight, you

Joseph Okaly: 00:03:48

could walk right into the massage parlor and say, you

Joseph Okaly: 00:03:51

know, hey, here's my gift card, get a massage, and there's no

Joseph Okaly: 00:03:54

extra outlay for you. You can do this same concept on a monthly

Joseph Okaly: 00:03:58

basis too. I would say it's generally not quite as easy. But

Joseph Okaly: 00:04:02

let's say every month you put $150 aside into what you would

Joseph Okaly: 00:04:05

call a separate vacation account, separate bank account

Joseph Okaly: 00:04:08

that you reserved just for vacations. Now every year you're

Joseph Okaly: 00:04:11

going to have $1,800 to take a vacation to stop, pause, enjoy

Joseph Okaly: 00:04:16

life with your family. So money blocking is all about enabling

Joseph Okaly: 00:04:19

yourself to have more fun.

Joseph Okaly: 00:04:21

So from today's episode, hopefully you're taking away how

Joseph Okaly: 00:04:25

you can adjust how you're going to go about doing things you

Joseph Okaly: 00:04:28

already enjoy. You probably take vacations every year, you

Joseph Okaly: 00:04:31

probably get a couple massages a year. But if you're more

Joseph Okaly: 00:04:34

intentional about setting money aside for them ahead of time, it

Joseph Okaly: 00:04:38

can add a lot more happiness to your life. It can guarantee a

Joseph Okaly: 00:04:42

lot more happiness is going to happen in your life on a daily

Joseph Okaly: 00:04:45

basis. If money blocking every year allows you two extra

Joseph Okaly: 00:04:49

massages, an extra let's say hockey game, make sure you take

Joseph Okaly: 00:04:54

a vacation and let's say an extra daily shot of espresso in

Joseph Okaly: 00:04:58

your coffee for the next 30 years, that's a lot of extra

Joseph Okaly: 00:05:01

happiness that I don't want to be missing out on. And I don't

Joseph Okaly: 00:05:03

want you to be missing out on either.

Joseph Okaly: 00:05:05

So thanks for tuning in today and join us for next week's

Joseph Okaly: 00:05:08

episode called, Yes, There Can Be Too Conservative!, where

Joseph Okaly: 00:05:12

we're going to cover how paying yourself first, separating out

Joseph Okaly: 00:05:16

your goals is all well and good but if you're using

Joseph Okaly: 00:05:19

inappropriate types of investments for certain goals,

Joseph Okaly: 00:05:22

they may take much much longer to achieve or perhaps you even

Joseph Okaly: 00:05:26

may never achieve them at all.

Joseph Okaly: 00:05:28

So overall, if you're able to implement what we covered today,

Joseph Okaly: 00:05:31

that's fantastic. You have less to worry about than before, you

Joseph Okaly: 00:05:35

could focus more on enjoying life. If you are wanting help

Joseph Okaly: 00:05:38

with these things though, where you have questions you need help

Joseph Okaly: 00:05:40

in clarifying, check out the ASK JOE section on the show's

Joseph Okaly: 00:05:44

website EnjoyMore30s.com. That's EnjoyMore30s.com. Until next

Joseph Okaly: 00:05:50

week. Thanks for joining me today and I look forward to

Joseph Okaly: 00:05:52

connecting with you again soon.

Voiceover Audio: 00:05:54

The conversations on this show are

Voiceover Audio: 00:05:56

Joe's opinions and provided for general information purposes

Voiceover Audio: 00:05:59

only. They do not constitute accounting, legal, tax, or other

Voiceover Audio: 00:06:02

professional advice for your specific situation. You should

Voiceover Audio: 00:06:05

always seek appropriate advice from a financial advisor,

Voiceover Audio: 00:06:08

accountant, lawyer, or other professional before acting upon

Voiceover Audio: 00:06:12

any content or information found here first. Joe is affiliated

Voiceover Audio: 00:06:16

with New Horizons Wealth Management LLC, a branch office

Voiceover Audio: 00:06:19

of TFS Securities, Inc., and TFS Advisory Services an SEC

Voiceover Audio: 00:06:23

Registered Investment Advisor Member FINRA/SIPC.