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“Hello, my name is Jesse Meekum with another episode of the Jesse Meekum Show, and I'm here each week obsessing out loud about you getting good at money so you never, ever, ever, ever worry about money again.”From the transcript
Jesse continues discussing the new central question of the YNAB method -- what does your money need to do? -- which replaced the old commandment to give every dollar a job. There are only five ways to answer this question, but it is deceptively deep. One of those answers is "for now," that is, the money needs to be used now, for expenses that are imminent and non-negotiable. The mortgage, water and electricity, groceries (maybe)... but not necessarily all bills. Jesse warns that the "for now" category of answers is easy to get lazy with, and that simply deciding all your bills and commitments need to be paid now doesn't give you true clarity into what your money needs to do.
For instance, let's take groceries. You need food now, sure, but do you need to buy groceries right now? Maybe you have a store of food that has built up in the pantry, that you have forgotten about or are avoiding. You don't absolutely have to buy groceries if that's the case, and eating your stores offers some options with your money that you may not have identified otherwise.
Order Jesse's new book, Never Worry About Money Again: www.neverworryaboutmoneyagain.com
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Get every episode summarized
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The Jesse Mecham Show — For Now. Machine-transcribed; use the interactive transcript above to jump the player to any line.
Hello, my name is Jesse Meekum with another episode of the Jesse Meekum Show, and I'm here each week obsessing out loud about you getting good at money so you never, ever, ever, ever worry about money again. For the next couple few several episodes, I want to maybe give a high level overview of the book, not to promote the book at all, but actually just to kind of get you all familiar with how we're going to be teaching people how to get good at money. And if you've been here a while, you will notice that there are a lot of similarities, but man, there are some key differences that I am so, so excited to dive into with you. Without further ado, let's talk about some things. If you've been around a while, then you know
that we have told everyone all the time forever to give every dollar a job. But we have pivoted to as far as education and teaching goes, a better approach, and that is to ask them a question, or to rather have them ask themselves a question that gets to the same spot as give every dollar a job, but it is better demonstrably. One is because it's shorter and two, it's because it's more invetational, less directive, more invite. And the question that we have people ask now regarding money and it is a deceptively deep, yet also simple question, what is it for? What is your money for? And when you were given every dollar a job, as we all have done for some of us quite a long time, you were doing that. You were deciding what your money is for. Now we're just going to tell people, hey, what's it for? What's it for? And we might even say, what's it for? Think about it like a job. You know, you'd want to give your dollars all a job. We might say that if it fits. We might say,
think about it as if you're a drill sergeant and you have a lot of recruits and you're sending them off to do exactly what you say. I might think of it that way. Any other number of metaphors may work, but we love that what's it for is not a metaphor and we love that it is more inviting. A little more introspective. There's a little more curiosity, a little less rule and more insight perhaps. So that's the first change. You will see me hear me talk about that for the rest of my life. What's it for? I had a friend come up to me who read the book and she goes, hey, Jesse, I was at a barbecue. Jesse, I have a question for you. And I said, yeah, she goes, what's it for? And I was like, oh, you read the book didn't you? And then she was laughing. She's like, yeah, read the book. And I loved it. She said, no, I don't know if she actually said that. She was complimentary, but I thought it was great that she she zeroed on the question. That is how you never worry about money again is by knowing unequivocally what your money is for. And with that one
question answered, your money start money worry starts to disappear. But the answer to that question with its infinite possibilities only has five possible categorical answers. The answers to what your money can be for is it can be for now. For later, it can be for ease. It can be for you. And they can be for change. I want to talk about just for now today. And then maybe we'll dive into the other four in the next couple of weeks. When money is for now, this is the only thing you need to learn or at least remember or just keep retained for today. When money is for now, it is truly for now. If it is not for now, it is something else. So now meaning do imminently like, what does this money needs to do before I'm paid again is a question that we've
often taught people to ask just to kind of get themselves grounded. They have a pile of money in their check and account. What does that money need to do again? That's the question. What does it need to what does it need to do? That's another way of saying, what's this money for? What's this money for? So sometimes we would say with the money, only the money you have on hand, what does it need to do? What's it for before you're paid again? And that before you're paid again, part is when we're talking about for now. What things do you need to pay for right now before any new money comes in? It's a bill that's due. It's groceries that need to go into the fridge. It's gas that needs to go into the tank. If you've got to make sure that you are crystal clear, that money that needs to be spent right now is for things that must and only can happen right now. Don't let options. Don't let flexibility. Don't let any kind of, if there's any wiggle room
to that money, it is not for now. It's any of the others, but it's not that one. So much of knowing what is for now is knowing what isn't. So again, deadlines, absolute and total non-negotiables must have imminently. Those are for now. And if you think about it, if you think about it for just a little bit, I said, I threw out groceries like the fridge might be full. Actually, if you were to really get creative and dig around in the pantry and go back into kind of the crevices back into the depths, you might be like, oh, actually, there is some food here. I just didn't really want to make it. That could be something. So is that grocery money really for now? Yeah, remains to be seen. It is a question that only you can answer. I just want to be absolutely crystal clear that this of all the categories, this one I feel has the most room for people to
kind of be lazy about it and just kind of assume, oh, here are all my bills. They're all, they all need to be paid and not scrutinizing that. Well, does it really need to be paid right now? Are you trying to pay it on the due date? Or are you talking about not having to be paid late? And you guys are like, oh, my gosh, Jesse, you're being crazy. All I'm saying is make it as non-negotiable as absolute just with absolute clarity. This must happen now. Everything else will get taken care of in the other four, but protect that money that's for now viciously so that you are crystal clear about what your non-negotiables absolute must spends are. There's a really important reason for this and it is so that you have crystal clear clarity on the rest of the answers. If you're lazy about it, it's going to get really squishy on you and you won't be able to feel your true priorities come through. You won't be able to feel truly what your money is really for.
You won't push yourself inside introspectively enough to really determine just with absolute clarity of mind, this money can only be used right now for this the end. I want you to just be able to you know, put your hand on a Bible situation and be like, no, absolutely, this is it. That is all I have for today. We'll dig into the others, but for today, just know you're going to start, I hear a wine. I'm going to start having this teach people the same tried and true method, although I'm excited about a few things that are going to be either reintroduced, reemphasized or everything's just kind of reemphasized honestly. It's yeah, there's nothing new. There's a little bit new. Anyway, I'm just super excited about it. So you'd read about this all in the book, but you don't
need to read the book to learn it. You can just listen to these next couple podcasts and you'll learn a good bit as well. Until next time, remember, we're just trying to get good at money. So you never worry about it again.
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