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Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeart Radio.
Good morning.
This is Laura.
Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Today's tip is to figure out what it costs to be you.
How much money is required to fund your life and your family's life in the way you'd like to live it?
When you know this, you can make smarter choices about your finances and know what you need to aim for if there's a way you'd like to live in the future.
Today's tip comes from Bobbi Rebell, a certified financial planner and author of the book Launching Financial Grownups.
Bobbi was a guest on my other podcast, Best of Both Worlds, and she suggested people ask this question.
What does it cost to be you?
In other words, what do you spend across all purposes and categories to lead your life?
Rent childcare vacations, dog walking, gym membership makeup groceries, insurance premiums and everything else.
Now, I know on some level that this is just getting at the old-fashioned concept of a budget.
People who are wise with their money tend to know exactly what is coming in and what is going out.
But I think this question what does it cost to be you is a slightly better way to frame this matter, because it can be more aspirational as well.
Let's say you figured out what it costs to be you.
You have added up all your expenses and recurring payments and 401k contributions and so forth.
The good news is that this amount is slightly less than what you and any other adult household members bring in after taxes.
Excellent.
However, you and these other adult household members would like to start traveling internationally with your kids to see the world before everyone moves out.
Ideally, what it costs to be you in the future will be higher because you're hoping that you as an entity includes two international family trips per year.
So you price this out, add on whatever the taxes would be to gross it up, and now you have a different number.
This is what it costs to be ideal future you.
To live the life you'd like, you need to bring in this new number between the two of you.
So you can start looking for ways to make that happen.
Or perhaps one of you would like to take a year off of work.
When you know what it costs to be you as a family, you can figure out if you can still have that number without one person's income.
Is the other person's income sufficient?
Maybe.
If not, will savings cover it without compromising all other goals?
If so, amazing.
If not, then the family will either have to revise what it costs to be them or figure out ways to replace that income or save it up.
Or maybe the party that wants to take time off work can take a little less time.
But you won't be guessing about what is feasible.
The point is to make these decisions in a more rational way.
Money can be a source of a lot of angst.
But when you know what it costs to be you and what it costs for your family to live in the way you'd like, then you can make mature decisions about how to bring in that amount of money.
The good news is that it may be possible to bring in more money in various ways.
But that is an entirely different subject for a different episode.
In any case, just like knowing where your time goes, knowing where your money goes is a tool that can help you design the life you want.
If you figure out what it costs to be you, I'd love to hear your insights.
You can reach me at laura at lauravanderkam.com.
In the meantime, this is Laura.
Thanks for listening.
And here's to making the most of our time.
Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast.
If you've got questions, ideas or feedback, you can reach me Before.
Breakfast is a production of iHeart Media.
For more podcasts from iHeart Media, please visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hey guys, it's us, the Jonas Brothers.
I'm Joe.
I'm Kevin.
And I'm Nick.
And guess what?
We created our own podcast called Hey Jonas.
We invented a podcast?
Well, we didn't invent it.
We just contributed to it.
We're the first people to do podcasts.
We get to ask other people questions because we're sick and tired of being asked questions.
Well, sick and tired is a strong way to put it, but you know.
Tired and sick.
Tired and sick.
Listen to Hey Jonas on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Just listen.
We don't care where you hear it.
On Humor Me with Robert Smigel and friends, we help make you funnier.
On this episode.
My guests Bob Odenkirk and Kids in the Hall's, Bruce McCullough, try and help the Kazoo Kid and Tazon Day be famous again.
What if there's an alternate universe show where you guys are incredibly popular?
Well, and they could travel up the land doing meet and greets.
They're constantly needed at malls.
Listen to Humor Me with Robert Smigel and friends on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
This is an iHeart Podcast.
Guaranteed human.
