Using Money to Create a More Fulfilling Life

Can you really use money to create a better life? In this episode, we talk about using your financial resources with purpose to create time, space, and freedom for what matters most! Whether that means cutting back hours at work, taking the trip you’ve been putting off, or building in more margin, we’ll talk through ways to align your spending with your values and make your money work for the life you actually want!

For resources, show notes, and transcript, visit thewealthmindsetshow.com/s2e14

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You're listening to The Wealth Mindset Show, where Hixon Zuercher Capital Management's team of finance professionals, portfolio managers, and a life coach, come together to tackle complex topics in finance and retirement planning, so you don't have to. From investment strategies and wealth management, to tax planning, retirement income, and aligning your money with your values and purpose, The Wealth Mindset Show offers the tools to thrive.

Austin Wilson:

All right. Hey, hey, hey, welcome back to The Wealth Mindset Show, where the Hixon Zuercher team helps you manage wealth, navigate retirement, make smart decisions for a secure, meaningful future. I'm Austin Wilson, Director of Investments at Hixon Zuercher Capital Management.

Josh Robb:

I'm Josh Robb, Director of Wealth Management at Hixon Zuercher Capital Management. And we have Chase Rose-

Austin Wilson:

Chase Rose.

Josh Robb:

... one of our advisors here with us. And we're going to be talking about how money can help create time and space in your life. But first, Chase has an exciting story. He had a near brush with death.

Chase Rose:

I did.

Josh Robb:

We haven't heard this. At least I have not heard this yet.

Austin Wilson:

This is brand new information.

Josh Robb:

So I'm excited.

Chase Rose:

Yeah, so I just got back from my bachelor trip. I'm getting married here in a few weeks. So we were in Norris Lake, my brother brought his boat down there and we were doing some wakeboarding. And if you have ever been wakeboarding before, you know your feet are tied into the board and the board floats. So when you're in the water, your feet are floating. And ideally you have a life jacket that can support you, so you don't have to swim and just keep yourself above water without legs. So I was doing that. I hopped in the water, and I had a life jacket on that wasn't actually a legal life jacket.

Josh Robb:

Uh-oh.

Chase Rose:

It was just one of those where if you know how to swim, you won't die.

Austin Wilson:

It's a fashion life jacket.

Chase Rose:

You won't die wearing it, but I almost did actually. So I noticed, I was in the water, everyone who went before me, they were just chilling there, arms hanging out-

Josh Robb:

Floating.

Chase Rose:

... just waiting for the boat to go. I'm trying to stay above water, trying not to die, and I start taking water in. And the rope, because I was trying to tread water with my arms, wrapped around my arm, the boat took off, so I got pulled under the water.

Josh Robb:

Get drug under the water.

Chase Rose:

Yeah. Drug under the water. Sure, yeah. But I started taking in a lot of water. I started panicking and my brother who was driving the boat, whipped around, jumped in and saved me luckily.

Austin Wilson:

So how did that change your outlook on life, Chase?

Chase Rose:

I need more money to buy more time.

Josh Robb:

You need to buy his new life jacket, is what you need to do.

Austin Wilson:

You're already on borrowed time.

Chase Rose:

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Austin Wilson:

All right, well Chase, we're glad you're better. We're glad you're here.

Chase Rose:

Same.

Josh Robb:

One last question. Have you ever done the surfing behind the boat?

Chase Rose:

Yeah.

Josh Robb:

Which I think is really cool.

Austin Wilson:

With no board and no rope.

Josh Robb:

Yeah, because you adjust the trim and you just go off of the wake that's there.

Austin Wilson:

I think that's pretty cool.

Chase Rose:

We were doing that as well. Much less risky when you get drug under the water because your feet free. Yeah, but I have done that.

Josh Robb:

Well, glad you're back. Glad you're in one piece and not drowned.

Austin Wilson:

So yeah, today we're going to be talking a little bit differently than usual. A lot of times we're talking how you can save money or how you can grow your money or how you can plan for the X, Y, Z, but today we're really talking about what money can give you and what money can give you, might be time or options or certain things we're going to be talking about today around that.

Josh Robb:

Freedom being-

[3:15] - How Money Can Give Back Some Time in Your Life

Austin Wilson:

Freedom, yeah. We're talking about how can you use your money to create time, margin, and freedom in your life. So I guess the overarching theme is that having excess money in a really unfulfilling life isn't the goal. That doesn't do anyone any good. You can have a bajillion dollars in the bank and be very, very depressed. And so, money does not cure anything, but it can give you a lot of flexibility. And that's what we're going to be talking about today. So a couple examples, you can have a great job, but if you have no time to enjoy your life, it doesn't mean anything. So what are some examples of having some money that has given you some time in your life, giving you back some time?

Josh Robb:

Yeah, the easy one for me is there's certain, I'm going to use some chores as a broad term, chores that you have to do or need to do that early on I did a lot more of, and then as there was more money to free up time, I traded those off. And a great example of that is changing a car's oil. I think it's good that everybody knows how to do that. It's not too complicated of a process. You get a little dirty, but other than that, it's not hard. And so, in college, I would change my car's oil. Go to the store, buy the stuff, buy the filter, buy the oil, that's all you need, and make sure you have a drip tray to catch all that.

And as I got older, and it takes half an hour, 45 minutes, depending on how tight those bolts are underneath and how often you get it done. But I could take it somewhere and they have a 15-minute oil change. I could be done quicker and I have time to do other things. In fact, where I usually go now to get my oil change, they have a free shuttle service, so I don't waste any time. They bring me to work and then when I'm done, they take me back to get my car. It's as if I parked it all day. And so, it's a trade-off of time for money. So that's my example.

Austin Wilson:

No, I've used that example myself as when I was younger, had less expendable income. Yeah, I did everything on my cars, changed my oil, did pretty much everything I could. And nowadays I can, well, because of where one of my mechanics lives is right by Josh's house. I drop it off, he picks me up, it's done while I'm at work and ready to go after work. So I'm willing to pay. The materials are $20, $30, the labor's $30 or $40, but I'm willing to pay the $30 or $40 to not have to think about it, not have to make a mess in my garage. And so, that's one example. Another one that came to mind is yard. We live in town, so of course I would say in some ways blessed, in some ways we want a bigger yard, but we're blessed to have a small yard. So there's a lot of mowing services and fortunately my friend's son lives down the street and he told me three years ago, probably now, Hey, if you ever want someone to mow your yard, I'll do it. Great. So I started doing that and it's very affordable and I don't have to spend the half hour a week in the yard to mow the yard.

Josh Robb:

And you have to maintain a mower.

Austin Wilson:

I don't have to do anything. It's a little bit of money, it's not that much money, but it's a little bit of money, but it really frees me up to do things that I enjoy or be with my family. Like you said, I think as your life transitions, I think money is more scarce when you're younger and as you get a little bit older, it gets less scarce, but time becomes more valuable and you're willing to give some of that up.

Josh Robb:

What about you, Chase?

Chase Rose:

Yeah. Well, at the most basic level, having the money to buy a car in the first place saves you a lot of time as opposed to walking. But a thought I had earlier before we got into the examples is the headline we have on here is that having excess money isn't the goal. And when we do financial planning, I know oftentimes we always like to have a safety margin that we plan for. And that can be really handy when things come up, like long-term care costs and things like that that happen at the end of life. But we never go through a planning scenario saying, oh yeah, let's just save way more than you need to, retire so much later than you have to and spend way less than you can. That's not what we do. We identify what people want to or need to spend in retirement and then we figure out what point can you survive, can you be financially independent without a full-time job? And that's what we do. So there's never an instance where having excess money is really that valuable outside of legacy planning.

Josh Robb:

And I'm sure you've been in, and I know I've been in meetings where when we get the goals from the client and work through the plan, there's some that have a good score, we then say, "Hey, here's your options. Now you can actually retire earlier or spend more." You're right. We take that excess and then give them value for having that surplus.

Chase Rose:

Yeah, absolutely.

Austin Wilson:

I think people who are doing it on their own might be tempted to just have some number in their head that they need to hit before they're willing to pull the trigger on something, and I think that's a dangerous thing because that number doesn't necessarily have a lifestyle and a goal tied to it, so it's just an arbitrary number and you're-

Chase Rose:

Or something they heard somewhere.

[8:16] - What Does It Mean to be Living the 'Rich Life'?

Austin Wilson:

Yeah, you're just, "I need $1 million, and once I get $1 million..." What does that $1 million really do for you? What kind of life does that provide is the question there. That brings me to the question for both of you guys, and I can answer it as well, but what does that fulfilled, that wealthy, holistic life, not just money-wise, but what does that "rich life" look like for you guys?

Chase Rose:

Yeah, well, think about what our standard here, or I guess what our goal is here at Hixon Zuercher, call it the HZ life. We want to do things that we love with people we love, and having time for other passions as well. Those are the key points and I think that's really important. You have your work that essentially devote your working career to, whether it be one specific company or whether it be the same role in a number of different companies. A lot of people have different career paths, but essentially you are working to essentially allow yourself to no longer be reliant on that job. So you develop other passions outside of your work that you can work towards having more access to or having more ability to spend time doing those things.

Austin Wilson:

What are your passions outside of work?

Chase Rose:

Yeah, I love-

Josh Robb:

Drowning in the lake.

Chase Rose:

Yeah, I love going to the lake and risking my life-

Austin Wilson:

We're going to call it swimming.

Chase Rose:

Yeah, for sure. I've been involved in football since I was in first grade and I played football all the way up through college and ever since then, I'm less involved in football from a physical aspect. I like to watch, I like to play fantasy football, things like that. But that's definitely something that I have in my mind when I talk about having time for other passions, I want to coach and be around the sport, so that's just an example for me.

Austin Wilson:

That might also be why he sank in the lake. All that muscle.

Chase Rose:

I don't know about that.

Austin Wilson:

What about you, Josh?

Josh Robb:

Well, so to me it always drives around I want to feel that I'm fulfilling a purpose. A rich life to me is one that's focused around purpose because I think that's what gives meaning to life is having some sort of purpose and accomplishment. And for me, part of that is around family. I got four kids, my wife, I feel like time is a piece of that, so if I have flexibility, freedom to do things with them, I feel like my life is richer or more successful. And so you're right, time is a big factor of that. And the things we do don't necessarily cost money, but I need money to free up the time. And that's what we'll talk about now. But just recently, the kids have field trips and I try to every year go on at least one of the field trips. It's fun, it's chaotic, but it's something I can do with them and it's a trade-off of time and money to do that, so that's an example.

Austin Wilson:

I think at the end of the day, both factors, time and money are the two limiting factors in life. You're short on one or the other typically, sometimes both to be able to do things, but you just have to be able to pull one to do the other and pull the other to do the one. And usually you can spend one for the other, so it's just a trade-off in everything, in every aspect.

Josh Robb:

Sometimes it doesn't work out. The field trip I was going on got canceled, so when I looked at my time, I had already booked up with client meetings, things like that, the reschedule. So I was unable to do it, but now I have to find another way to fill that up. It's always a trade-off and always an ongoing thing that you're trying to work on.

[11:42] - Using Money to Create Margin In Your Life

Austin Wilson:

So let's talk a little bit more about that buying back of your time. So yeah, you can literally use money to create margin in your life. So we mentioned a couple of things. Changing oil, getting your oil by someone else or doing it yourself, mowing your yard or having someone mow your yard. What are some other things that you can do to outsource things that drain your time and energy or reduce friction in your life? Make things quicker and easier and more efficient?

Josh Robb:

Grocery either delivery or just the pickup. Oh man, that is a time saver and sometimes they don't cost much.

Austin Wilson:

If anything.

Josh Robb:

If anything. And it is a nice time saver. So if you go into the grocery store and you have a list and you walk around pushing that cart, it takes me a good half an hour to 45 minutes of a simple grocery trip and I end up with more things that I shouldn't have in the cart and I get in trouble. But if you pick up the groceries that are already ordered. In and out, five, 10 minutes and you're done. So that's one I think of. And then cleaning, that's one that a lot of people will have some help or support by having somebody come in and clean. And that is, again, a time saver because it's beneficial, it's nice, but it also saves you from doing those things.

Chase Rose:

Here's a common one that I feel like gets missed oftentimes, and this can apply to investing, this can apply to any other passions you might have is paying for someone else to your research for you. So think about as an investor, whether you're doing it on your own or whether you're hiring someone else to do it for you, whoever's managing that portfolio, they're most likely subscribing to some form of research or some form of information that they're taking in to make these investment decisions. Imagine Austin as a portfolio manager, imagine if you have to do your own due diligence on every single company around the entire globe.

Austin Wilson:

Yeah, there's no other opinions out there to lead.

Chase Rose:

Exactly, but also there's just numerous pieces of financial information you have to obtain to make an informed decision. But at what we do at Hixon Zuercher, we subscribe to a Bloomberg terminal that pulls a lot of that data in.

Austin Wilson:

Absolutely.

Chase Rose:

Imagine how much time we're saving on that.

Josh Robb:

It's not just investments. I know a big thing now is car buying. There are, I don't know what the term for it would be, but there are people you can use to help you find and negotiate buying a car.

Chase Rose:

Yeah, absolutely. I mentioned earlier I play, this is going to be a nerdy example, but I play fantasy football and I don't have time to look through every single player in the NFL and figure out are they a good player? Are they a bad player? All the things that, there is a million platforms out there that'll tell you their opinion and you can either get it for free or pay for or one or the other. But that's my example I would say.

Austin Wilson:

Another example is TSA pre-check.

Chase Rose:

TSA pre-check.

Austin Wilson:

That'll remove some friction from your life as you're going through the airport. I like to remove friction-

Josh Robb:

And not remove your shoes.

Austin Wilson:

And not remove your shoes, yes.

Josh Robb:

So it's a win-win.

Austin Wilson:

One without the other. I guess in all of these examples, when you save that time and you reduce some of the friction of things and the stress and the things in your life, that gives you extra capacity for rest, extra capacity for creativity and other meaningful work that you could be devoting your resources to or great time for your family, wonderful things like that, right?

Josh Robb:

Have you ever thought about how your financial choices reflect what truly matters to you? At Hixon Zuercher Capital Management, we believe that integrating your values and dreams with your financial future is key to achieving peace of mind and confidence. When you engage in deep conversations with us, you'll start to see how your money can support the things that matter most in your life. Our holistic approach means that your financial plan is more than just numbers. It's a personalized blueprint that evolves with you. You'll have a dedicated team of professionals tailoring to your unique needs, all focused on crafting and investment portfolio designed to help you achieve your specific goals. Plus our on-staff retirement Life coach offers guidance to empower you towards a fulfilling retirement that goes beyond just financial security. Ready to transform your relationship with money? Join us at hzcapital.com and let's embark on this journey together. Now, back to the show.

[15:43] - Setting Yourself Up Financially to Build a More Fulfilling Life

Austin Wilson:

Of course. So yeah, let's talk a little bit more about how you can financially set yourself up for creating this margin. Let's call it something like a buffer fund or something like that. Oftentimes we're talking about investment accounts and emergency funds, but not everything's about having a return on investment or preparing for the worst. Some money is okay to be sitting there just for peace of mind and flexibility. So talk a little bit about creating a fund for that.

Josh Robb:

We like to have a purpose for everything when we talk about accounts and investments, but Just because like this, sitting in a fund, it still has a purpose, which is the buffer or the guilt-free usage. So I'm okay with that, it's just a matter of lining up your goals. If you're on catch-up mode, you may not have as much flexibility for these type of things, but if you're looking to trade money for time, this is a great way of doing it to say, "Hey, I'm going to carve out some money so I get more time." And it may change your long-term plans, you may have to work a little longer, but if it allows enjoyment while you're doing that, it's probably worth that trade.

Chase Rose:

Yeah, I think just the most fundamental, or I guess the most technical way of looking at this is how you have your bank account set up. You have your checking account that's paying your bills on a monthly basis. You have, a lot of people might call this a dirty fund or a quick fund or something like that, your savings account at your bank. It's not going to do a whole lot for you, but if you need to tap into some funds, that's right there for you. That is peace of mind, that's flexibility. You know that if something happens tomorrow, I can have that money in my checking ready to pay that bill. And then once you get further out from there, that's where you start talking about money market funds and longer-term investments. But yeah, just having enough readily available to give you that peace of mind is really important.

Austin Wilson:

So I guess a way to determine what would be important to use that fund for would be maybe you sit back at the end of a month or the end of a year and you say, "What are things that I did this year that weren't worth my time?" Maybe I have a huge landscaping thing and I spent hours a week doing this and I hate it. Is there a way when I'm sitting after winter's over and everything is done to hire this out for next year, or just look at what you would've gladly paid to have someone else do?

Josh Robb:

Or the opposite is, what did I miss that I wanted to do because I just didn't feel I had the time.

Austin Wilson:

Where can I cut?

Josh Robb:

And so you go look both directions like, hey, I would've really liked to have been able to do X, but I just didn't feel I had the time. What can I do to free up enough time to do that?

[18:29] - Design Your Life Before You Design Your Budget

Austin Wilson:

I guess this brings us back to an overarching thought of designing your life and knowing what you want your life to look like, what's important to you, what your values are before you design your budget, right? Because if you determine your budget before even what's important to you and what you want to do, your money's not going to be aligned with that. So you need to know what's important to you, what do you want to spend time doing? Maybe you have kids, how much time and what involvement do you want to have with their sports and stuff like that. Maybe you're involved with your church or something like that. You've got family out of town. If you have all of these things pulling on you, you need to determine what's most important and allocate your resources to that, not create an arbitrary budget and then try and fit all of those things into where the budget lines up. What do you guys think about that?

Josh Robb:

Yeah, I think for me, knowing... like you say it's all priorities. You create your budget based on your top priorities. Some of it may be savings, some of it may be short-term needs, and then you build out from there. But if your budget is just numbers, it's going to be hard to stick with it long-term. You got to have a why behind what you're doing with that budget. And that's what comes to this, defining what's top priorities for you and then allocating the money correctly.

Chase Rose:

And I actually want to take this in perhaps a different direction. We talk about designing your life and I feel like, I read this book one time, I feel like I've referenced on this show before but I can't quite remember, that has really stuck into my brain. I think I read this probably three or four years ago and I still come back to it all the time. It's a book called, So Good They Can't Ignore You. And essentially what the thesis behind this book is, and I cannot remember the author off the top of my head, but he talked about everyone says, "Oh, do what you love, do what you're passionate about during your life." And that's great. If you have found something that you genuinely love doing and have a passion for, that's great, but that shouldn't always be your priority because that might not always be the best way to set yourself up financially. The thesis behind this book was do something that you're good at, whether you really enjoy it or not. And what you'll find is if you're really good at something and you put the time and effort into it, you'll be able to slowly buy back your freedom.

So if you are working for someone else, but they have found out that they are a lot better with you than they are without you, you can have a conversation with that person five, 10 years down the road and say, "Hey, I really can't, I don't know about working 40 hours a week, maybe I want to work 30 hours so I have time for other things." And if you're really good at your job, oftentimes they're going to let you do things like that.

Josh Robb:

Because they want to keep you.

Chase Rose:

Exactly. So that's the perfect way that I think about buying back your freedom. You can do it through investing and saving. So you're literally you're going to buy time with money by saving and investing to allow yourself to use that to supply your expenses, or you can do it by just be really good at doing what you're doing and then you buy freedom on the other side of that.

Josh Robb:

I like that.

Chase Rose:

Yeah, that's something I wanted to share.

Josh Robb:

And I would say a lot of times if you're good at it, you enjoy aspects of it anyways. Most people are really good at something they hate. Usually that doesn't happen. So you're right, it may not be the ideal, but you may be good at it. And when you are good at it, you feel success and you enjoy that process along the way.

Austin Wilson:

I think that's a little bit of a tangent, but that's where I struggle when I hear people just pushing, follow your passion when you get your job. That works out for some people. I know it does, but ultimately you can find so much fulfillment outside of that too. And so, if you're really dang freaking good at what you do, you can be very successful at it and have a lot of buffer to have your passion outside of work. Now, fortunately, all three of us have our passion in our work as well obviously. Look at us!

Josh Robb:

And again, I think most of the time it'll line up pretty close to where it's at. This all comes down to, again, re-evaluating what's top priorities in your life and adjusting your time and your money to optimize that for you. That's really what this comes down to. There's always a trade-off, always a balance between the two, and it will fluctuate throughout your life. There may be times where you just need to have more time spent earning the money than using the money to free up the time. There's seasons where those things work, but in the end, if you have that, at least the focus, you'll be able to adjust that balance over the long term and be happier for it.

[22:54] - Action Steps to Take NOW

Austin Wilson:

That brings us to a question for our listeners this week, and we can give some ideas for them maybe, but as you're driving down the road listening to this podcast, think of something that you can do this week to create a little bit more time and space in your lives. My example goes back, I continue to say, find someone to do things you hate doing at your house. Cleaning is one of those things. So it is not terribly expensive to have someone come help once every couple of weeks and tidy up your house and scrub your toilets for you. And if that stresses you out to have to do that every week, it's worth the money. That's my recommendation. What do you guys think?

Josh Robb:

To create a little more time and space? It's evaluating which ones are worth it and which ones one's aren't, and then finding the difference. And it's also just sharing responsibility. So if you have roommates or if you have spouses, kids, as a team, figuring out who can do what because there may be something that for me is just not worth the time. But for another one, maybe like, oh yeah, I'm all for that. And you may be able to exchange those things as well.

Austin Wilson:

All right. Well, thanks for listening today. If anything sparked thoughts or helped you think about how you look at your money and your time, make sure you hit that subscribe button because we'll probably hit you with some more in the future. You'll get new episodes when they come out. Feel free to follow us on our social media as well. We're pretty active on there, and we'd love to interact with you and hear from you on there. And if you're ready to invest with us, head over to hzcapital.com and check out our website, check out what we do and maybe we'd be a good fit for each other. We'd love to talk to you there, and thank you for listening. We'll see you next step episode.

Josh Robb:

Talk to you later. Bye.

Thank you for joining us at the Wealth Mindset Show where we tackle the complexities of finance and life planning to help you align your wealth with your values. We hope today's conversation provided value and clarity as you navigate your financial journey. Your hosts work for Hixon Zuercher Capital Management. All opinions expressed by them or any podcast guest are solely their own and do not reflect the opinions of Hixon Zuercher Capital Management. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon for investment decisions. Clients of Hixon Zuercher Capital Management may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast. There is no guarantee that statements, opinions or forecasts provided herein will prove to be correct. Past performance may not be indicative of future results. Indices are not available for direct investment and any investor attempting to mimic index performance would incur fees and expenses that could reduce returns. Securities investing involves risks including the potential loss of principle, and there is no assurance that any investment plan or strategy will be successful.