How to Budget Without Feeling Like You’re Cutting Back – Episode #676

On this episode of The Dentist Money Show, Matt and Lauren dive into the real reasons budgeting matters—especially for dentists. They explore how personal money experiences shape financial behavior, why so many people avoid looking at their spending, and how social media fuels unrealistic expectations. Tune in to learn some practical steps to track spending, simplify finances, and build a budget that reflects your priorities.

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Podcast Transcript

Matt Mulcock: Welcome back to the Dentist Money show, where we help Dentist make smart financial decisions. I’m Matt, and I’m here with one of our amazing advisors. Lauren. Lauren, how are you?

Lauren Kearl: Doing good. Excited. Excited to talk about what we’re talking about today.

Matt Mulcock: I know this. There’s actually a specific reason that you are here to talk about this topic today. We are talking. All about budgeting and, and really broadly talking about cash flow. But I think we wanted to get a little bit more specific into budgeting. And there’s a really specific reason I wanted you here. So for, for those of you that don’t know you, you’ve probably heard Lauren a few times on 2 cents, but people may not know Lauren about you, is you’ve been one of the backbones of our team, truly for like seven years. So, you’re one of our advisors now. You’ve been with us for a long time. It’s amazing that people are starting to get to know you on our content. So, but the reason we wanted, I, I specifically asked you, I said, let’s go, let’s go talk about this because I kind of look at you as like our resident budget specialist. I think it’s something that you really, you really like, you’re really into, I look at you as kind of one of our, if not like, our main kind of budget specialists. I think it’s something that you’re really into. Can you maybe just speak to that a little bit of like, where, where, because I feel like you have like a passion almost for, for budgeting. It’s something you’re really into that you think is really important. Uh, let’s just maybe start there. Like, what is it about budgeting? What’s the history there for you? Or just what, what’s behind that?

Lauren Kearl: Yeah, I think honestly like in the past. Just going way back and getting real personal is my parents were really bad at it. And I think just as a kid, just watching my parents really struggle. my parents were definitely like people who experienced the housing crisis and you know, my parents like. Lost their house, lost their cars. And I just remember watching my parents like spend so much money and then go from that to like the exact opposite. And I think it’s just something that really freaked me out. And I think as a teenager and stuff, like my parents always were just spending lots of money. And I think that I myself. May have gotten some of that, and then sometimes the opposite of that. So I feel like I’ve swung both ways of like, I have to be super, you know, stringent on my spending. And then I’ve been the opposite where I’ve been like, oh, like everything’s okay and just spending. So I feel like the more that I have gotten into finance, especially when I actually originally went to school, I don’t know if we’ve ever talked about this, but I originally wanted to do dental hygiene, so.

Matt Mulcock: Did talk about

Lauren Kearl: I went to, I went to school originally for dental hygiene and paused for a second to be like, oh, like let me just take a budgeting class and see if I like it. It’s probably good information anyways. And after taking that class, I just completely switched everything and

Matt Mulcock: Oh, that’s cool.

Lauren Kearl: Dental hygiene to finance. Um, and it was the right choice for me. And it’s even more fun to be at dentist advisors where I can kind of mesh both of those worlds

Matt Mulcock: Yeah.

Lauren Kearl: But, um, yeah, I think that I just. I just realized that I needed help and helping other people is like a passion of mine that I just want people to feel like they’re in control of that. So it’s probably one of my favorite topics.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. And it totally is. And again, this is why I wanted you to come on, because we, we get caught up all the time in meetings and like we have side conversations or we start talking just as a, as an advisor team and budgeting comes up. And again, I feel like you know so much about it. You’re really passionate about it.

For good reason. As you just highlighted, like the family history and the things that you witnessed. It’s so funny, how like everyone has their own story of money and like how they came to their beliefs and, and their conclusions. And their ideas, and it always comes back, I think to like, or at least I should say, a lot of times it comes back to like those impressionable years of our life that we witnessed things from, like our parents or friends or whatever. So I can totally understand why. You’re hearing that, that the budgeting has become a really important topic for you all. I wanna highlight one thing on budgeting as we get into this. This is something I’ve kind of evolved my views on a little bit. Even like relatively recent, I’ve always kind of taken the stance, and I still do in, in some way I’ll, we can talk about this, but I’ve kind of always taken the stance that like budgets are overrated. That’s always been kind of my approach, kind of this like counter.

Lauren Kearl: Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: Counter approach to the typical financial space. And I’ll just kind of hire or talk about that for a second I think. I think, I don’t love the typical like save a latte a day and you’ll be a millionaire type of stuff. Like I just think it’s a little bit shortsighted and not as nuanced of an approach as I would like. So I think I kind of swung the other way, like, you don’t need a budget, you don’t need to be thinking about that. I’ve kind of found myself more in the middle the last few years and really recently talking about like pretty much all of financial planning at some point or another comes back to spending

Lauren Kearl: Oh yeah. And we talk about it being like the most important number. I mean, you need it in so many like aspects IT

Matt Mulcock: Yes. It is everything, right? It’s everything. It’s, it’s, it’s, your lifestyle is basically everything is predicated off of that and, and getting a handle on what that is. So I think the, and we’ll talk about this later or get more details of like, I think it can go too far when we talk about budgeting and people getting obsessed with budgeting, and maybe you have some experiences with that yourself of like, I think there are some negatives to that, but, so let’s back up a little bit and talk about, uh, the importance of this and kind of like. Overall, introducing this and why it’s important to dentists? I think Ryan and I just talked about this recently. We just did a show on this. I wrote an article on, kind of, why it feels like I’m not a dentist, asking like, I’m making money, but I don’t know where it’s going. Right. I don’t know, like we hear that a lot, like, why does it feel like I’m not making enough money or I’m not like I truly don’t know where it is. I think a lot of that comes down to this topic of not having a handle on spending.

Lauren Kearl: I feel like even like the subject of enough is like such a hard topic too of Yeah. What enough, I feel like is such a strong word when it comes to spending as well as savings. Any of that. I feel like it’s, it’s a huge word to, to define. It’s hard to define.

Matt Mulcock: Yep. Yeah, totally. So I think, I think the first issue here, so again, we’re talking budgeting, we’re talking cashflow, but specifically on the spending side. Um, but I think. I think we’re, oftentimes, and I wanna hear what you think on this, Lauren, but I think oftentimes dentists think, or one of the biggest issues that dentists have with, budgeting or thinking about spending is a couple things. Number one, I think that dentists in general make a lot of money. Our typical or average client makes over $500,000 a year. It’s a lot of money. And so I think with that comes maybe an inherent belief or just even like unconscious, like. I don’t need to worry about spending. Is that something that you, what?

What are your thoughts on that? Have you come across that and seen kind of that mindset?

Lauren Kearl: Oh yeah. Of like people not knowing like what they’re spending at all. I feel like rarely people are talking about. Even like they don’t know their income or their spending. I feel like that’s a topic that comes up all the time of like, if I asked honestly anybody, including like dentist friends, if I’m like, how much are you spending? I feel like nobody ever knows the answer of what that is. Nobody, not even a ballpark. They’re like, I don’t even know.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, it’d be like, I think it’d be like asking, um, somebody like, how many calories do you take in every

Lauren Kearl: Oh yeah, I’d have no idea.

Matt Mulcock: No idea. People have a, maybe a range, but I, I think you’re totally right. I think that’s an inherent issue is that number one, people just don’t know what they spend. And this is backed up by studies. Not even just, this isn’t even like internal to us. We see it play out in real life, but studies show this, that the typical person, whatever you, if they’re not tracking it regularly, which most people don’t, most people spend 25 to 30% more than what they. What they think,

Lauren Kearl: Oh yeah.

Matt Mulcock: Which makes sense. Right? So it makes sense because if you ask someone, so Lauren, to your point, if you walked up to someone and said, what do you spend, what are they gonna do? Like, what, what are, what are they gonna go through in their mind? If they’re not tracking it, what are they gonna like when they, why? I’m just trying to give people an understanding of like, why would they underestimate when, when you say, what do you spend, someone’s gonna have an answer. It’s gonna be under, under, it’s gonna be less than what they normally, or what they actually spend. What are people usually going through in their mind when you say, what do you spend?

Lauren Kearl: I think they just go through the big things, like I think they don’t think about all the little things that that’s put together that I feel like recently we had a conversation about this where. a client sent me their, their budget, right. And it missed the biggest things that were a part of their budget. Which is funny ’cause Yeah, it’s like you think about your, your mortgage and you know, you’re like, oh, okay, I’ve got this and I’ve got this. And you’re accounting for those things, but you forget once a year you have an $8,000 vacation, $10,000 vacation, that’s a huge part of your budget. And people are like, oh, I just, you know, we won’t think about that, but let’s think about, you know, these big things. But that’s a huge part of. Your values and things that you, that are important to you and you, you know, when you don’t think about it for sure, it plays a big part.

Matt Mulcock: It, it totally does. And and you’re absolutely right. That’s exactly what we, what I see all the time is people are like, not even their big stuff, they’ll think of like the regular stuff, their mortgage. Utilities, their car, maybe their car, you know, their, uh, car payment. It’s like really easy to go through those kind of just like in the back of your head and then shocked when we, like how many times have we shown a client, Hey, we, we kind of tracked your, you know, what we do is we take annual spending and then we always encourage people, if you’re doing this, look at the annual

Lauren Kearl: Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: And then you can break it down on an average of month because you just said it.

You’re gonna take a big vacation, you’re getting. You’re going shopping maybe once a quarter or what? There’s things happening. You’re going out with friends. Not every month maybe, but maybe every other month. Like there’s gonna be things that are happening that you’re not tracking on a regular basis mentally. It takes, it takes some effort, to think about this. So I want to take one step back too as we go through this and think about, let’s, let’s broaden out to the overall cash flow. This is what we just talked about in our mastermind meeting yesterday of like talking about the overall cash flow kind of full, that’s redundant, but like the overall kind of cash flow system of a dentist. And then, the main culprits of why a dentist thinks. At the end of the day, like, where’s my money going? Right. I think there’s, there’s three big ones and we’re gonna spend the most time on the, on the one, but I think it’s worth kind of highlighting the three. So when a dentist brings in. When we’re talking about cash flow, their, their gross income, just like what are they bringing home from their practice? Uh, an accountant might call this seller discretionary earnings, but it’s like, what am I paying myself as a W2? And then what at the end of the day, am I bringing home a profit as a practice owner? If it’s an associate, right. Great. It’s just what is your total income before taxes and then. I think the three that get people, most people know taxes.

Okay. Taxes are what they are. We’re gonna do everything we can to avoid them. I think the two biggest ones that people fail to really think about when they say, okay, I’ve made X number of dollars. Where the heck did that all go? Number one is debt. They don’t realize their debt payments are, their debt balance is paid down with after tax dollars. So they’re like, I made all this money, but. $200,000 if it went to my business debt. The other big one, Lauren, that again, we’re gonna focus on the most right now, is spending people, so I wanted to bring that up to say there’s so much frustration and tension that is created for dentists when they’re looking at, like when we show them their p and l or we break down their cash flow. This happens so much where it’s like. Hey Doc, you make $700,000. Like here it is, the number’s on paper and all. Lauren, how many times have you heard this? Literally, I don’t feel like I make that much

Lauren Kearl: Oh yeah. Yeah. So common.

Matt Mulcock: And I think debt again, that’s it. But the other piece of this that, this is where I’ve kind of evolved my thinking is like it’s because you’re not tracking your spending. You’re not actually putting time and energy into. Where’s my money? once it hits home, once it comes to my home personal. Where’s that money going?

Lauren Kearl: Yeah, I think people are often like surprised by that number for sure. Like I feel like whenever I do go through spending with clients, they’re always like, Hmm, I thought it was way lower. You know, it’s, I feel like I haven’t really had a conversation where they’re always like, yeah, that’s totally in line. I feel like they, people are usually surprised.

Matt Mulcock: Always,

Lauren Kearl: Yeah,

Matt Mulcock: Always surprise. I’d say I, I shouldn’t say always. Nine times outta 10. They’re always surprised to the upside. They’re like, wait a second, I don’t think I spend that much money. It’s like, well,

Lauren Kearl: Let’s break it

Matt Mulcock: The numbers are just there. Like, tell us where we’re missing this. We’re, we’re, we’re agnostic to the figures. We’re not putting emotions to this. We’re just saying like, here’s where the, the numbers are. Yeah. So, I think it’s also important. Can Lauren maybe break down? ’cause I think budget is a scary word for people. Think we talk about budget. I think most people, I think it’s maybe one of the reasons I really do believe this, I think it’s one of the main reasons why people are like, afraid of advisors. Um, a they think,

Lauren Kearl: I’m gonna tell to spend less.

Matt Mulcock: I think it’s two things I really do. I think it’s a they think we’re gonna sell ’em some crap, which that’s fair. That’s fair. Um, that a lot of our space is really shady with sales. And I think the other one is they think we’re going to, I think they know they spend too much money and they’re afraid to be exposed to it. Yeah. Like, is that, what do you Yeah, they know. They’re not looking at it. They know it’s something, it’s like the typical, like, I know I should be working out, I know I should be eating better, but like if you shove it in my face that’s gonna make, and you show me the figures, I’m gonna be pretty discouraged or I’m just afraid of those results. Is that, so what are your thoughts on that?

Lauren Kearl: Yeah, I feel like, I totally agree. I feel like we’ve talked about this. I love this story that you, you actually told me the story of the rock and the snake. I

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yep. I got it from Ryan. So it’s just passing down the folklore of da. Yeah.

Lauren Kearl: Well, I really love this story just to explain it. A, a study was done where people went in and played a, a game where if they flipped a rock, there would either be a snake there or nothing at all. If there was a snake there, they got a small shock to their hand. and essentially what the study found out as these people continued to play this game, it got, Predictable when they would know when the snake would be there. Um, and what scared people more. And what the study found out was that people were more afraid of not knowing whether or not there was a snake under the rock versus if they were like, okay, I know I’m gonna flip this rock. There’s for sure gonna be a snake over here with 100% certainty. It was the uncertainty that scared people. And I think that people get that way a lot with spending. I feel like I’m guilty of that too, where I’m like, if I go a while without looking at it, I’m like, oh, I don’t even wanna look at it. I think that people get in that position a lot too. Like same thing with finances is it can, the, the uncertainty of being like, I don’t wanna know what I’m spending so that I can continue to just live and, and not be worried, but it actually makes you feel worse. So I feel like that’s like a good point to bring.

Matt Mulcock: It’s such a good point. I’m so glad you brought that up because I think we do assume that ignorance is bliss, but really all it is is piling up this like weight of mental and emotional burden. We all, this is another this, I think this kind of fits with this. I firmly believe at this point, I think it’s hard to argue. I think you tell me if it is I think it’s hard to argue at this point that we truly have a financial literacy problem in America like. I don’t think that’s the problem. And I think, as I know for our clients, like I don’t think, I think people wanna look at that like, I don’t know enough about this, so I can’t do it. It’s like, no, I think you, I think most people out there, I’m gonna say this, I don’t think it’s that controversial. I think most people out there know. S one step they should take to move themselves in the right direction, in any category of their life. Whether the big ones, let’s say, let’s say the big ones, um, health, wealth, and relationships, I think most people know like, okay, there’s, I know what I gotta do.

So if we’re thinking about money, like people out there, you know, intuitively, whether you spend too much money or you don’t, just generally, right? Like, just generally, you know, like, okay, I spend too much or I don’t. So I think the biggest problem is you, I love that you brought this up because I think people think if I don’t look at it, it’s not there. It’s like no, I think people think that by not looking at it outta sight, outta mind, it’ll somehow either go away or, or whatever. But I actually think to your point, they don’t wanna flip those rocks. They, they, like, you’re, at the end of the day, you’re more afraid of the uncertainty and over time. All it does is make A, the problem worse and B, build more inertia of like taking that initial step. It makes that first step even harder.

Lauren Kearl: Oh yeah. And I feel like every would, like, I’m guilty of doing that too, of like, there’s lots of things with health, exactly what you said of the big things of like, I know what I should do to, to be healthier, but I’m like, ah, I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna think about that. Or, to count my calories or, you know, do things like that. And I’m like, that feels scary. I’d rather just not know. Right. And so I definitely understand like people feeling that way, especially when it comes to budgeting. Or finances everything as a whole.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, just anything. And I think why we wanted to talk about budgeting today is it is such a, and we probably should do this too, like when we talk, so as we were saying earlier, budgeting being this kind of like catchall scary term of like, oh, you’re gonna sit here and tell me that I have to. Track every little aspect of my life and know how much I’m spending and guilt myself. If I spend too much on re my restaurant category this month or whatever. I think maybe we do ourselves a disservice as an industry, meaning our industry, as financial educators and advisors. Of not being more like, nuanced in this discussion and being more, more definitive in our approach of like, what does this actually mean? Like what we’re basically saying is you’ve gotta track, you have to have some system of tracking your spending. You just have to, like, it doesn’t even mean that you categorize anything. You could have like some real, and we’ll get into this at the very end of like, I think a system that could work, but I just think it, it feels scary because people are like, oh my gosh, like this is overwhelming. I don’t wanna track every category. It’s like, no, you just gotta, this could be something as simple as at the end of the month you just look at your credit card bill.

Lauren Kearl: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Matt Mulcock: It could be that simple, but you have to take that first step and you know you gotta do something and you know who you are. Like you do you know who you are. It’s totally fine. I’m not perfect at this. Like we work here, we do this for a living, and I still struggle at times,

Lauren Kearl: I still am like, why did I spend so much on restaurants? I still guilt myself too. So it’s like, you’re definitely in good company. I feel like that’s another thing too, when people hear that, I’m like, oh, I’m in finance. I feel like the first thing people are like, oh, I, I spend too much. Like, I feel like they say something along the lines of like, I do this poorly or I do this bad, and I’m like, sometimes same. I’m like, I, I’m not exempt from that too.

Matt Mulcock: I am so glad you said that, Lauren. Two things happen when you people find out you’re an advisor or you work in our space. Number one, they, this is neither order one A, one B, one A is that they ask what’s gonna happen in the market or your thoughts on the market. One B is they immediately go into like some confession about how much they spend and it’s like,

Lauren Kearl: It’s

Matt Mulcock: I don’t care. Like, that’s okay. You’re not my client. That’s all

Lauren Kearl: I need your, I need your help immediately of like, you

Matt Mulcock: I spend too much

Lauren Kearl: Feel like they think I’m gonna judge them. I’m like, no, no, no. I don’t wanna judge you, I just wanna help too.

Matt Mulcock: Yep, yep.

Lauren Kearl: You’re not alone. I feel like I’ve had to go through my own personal things where I’m like, I’ve done, I’ve made bad Dec. I feel like people think in like my financial life, I’ve never like made any decision, ever that I’ve ever regret and I’m like, I totally do.

Matt Mulcock: Oh my gosh,

Lauren Kearl: Like people are definitely not alone in that. And I’m never here to be like, you should, you have to spend this. But again, like you said, is just show you the data and show you the facts and say. Okay, this is, this is what I see. Like here’s, here’s where we could be better. You know, here’s where we could do it. But I’m like, ultimately that everybody is the driver of their finances and it’s all about choice.

Matt Mulcock: Totally. I love that you said that. It’s, it’s our job. We talk about this a lot as a team, right? Our job is to not judge you or tell you what you have to do or not have to do. It’s not that it’s. showing you the trade-offs of your decisions. That’s really what this comes down to. It’s, it, it’s not even saying like, this is the solution and very rarely in any of this, is this, like you, this is the answer for you. It’s, yeah, it’s, Hey, let’s educate you on what the trade-offs of are your decision. So when it comes to spending, what are the trade-offs of you going and spending $2 million on this house and have they gotten $20,000 house payment, like. That’s okay. Let’s just show you what the numbers show and what that means for your vacation approach, like your approach to taking trips or your approach to your private school for your kids.

Lauren Kearl: Yeah. Or your goal to retire at 50, or

Matt Mulcock: There you go. Yeah.

Lauren Kearl: Use the trade offs and if you’re okay with accepting them, and that’s great.

Matt Mulcock: That’s awesome. Our job is to educate you in the, like you said, try to highlight as much as we can the, the trade offs there. Let’s talk about, The kind of the right and wrong of this or like, the risks here of like getting this wrong versus not like what you gain from actually, getting this right. And we say getting this right, we’re just talking about having a handle on your spending. So what, what would you say, Lauren, are the people, like, what are the risks of not having a handle on tracking your spending? Like what, what would be some things that dentist should be thinking about?

Lauren Kearl: Yeah, I think like just the ability to like, like we talked about before, of like that uncertainty, like I feel like you feel more controlled. Like, I feel like if you’re not looking at those things, like you lose track of when you’re able to retire, you lose track of, you know, where your money is going. And I think that that builds that anxiousness. So I feel like when you’re able to con be in control of that, instead of feel like things are just happening to you and not happening because you’re choosing those things, like it just brings power, I feel like it, it gives you the opportunity to feel power in your finances instead of feel fearful in them. So I think that’s, that’s something that, that you definitely lose, if you will, if you’re

Matt Mulcock: Such a good point. I, I love that you talked about control, and power. I think those are two really, really, Very on point observations of what a dentist gets by taking some time and building a system around this and, and bringing those numbers to the forefront. And just like, just like being like, yeah, here they are. I think you immediately start to gain more control back in your life and in your finances. You mentioned something as well as we were going through this and, and discussing and have a, an outline here. Um, you mentioned something as well as like. What can happen in relationships when it comes to money? I don’t know the exact numbers, but I know it’s a pretty hefty number. I think it’s something like 80% of divorces are, something in that range, uh, have to do with something around money. What are your thoughts or what have you seen as far as like friction or things that can happen in relationships around this?

Lauren Kearl: Honestly, like I can speak to my own, like personal, like views on this too. ’cause being married myself, uh, my husband hates talking about money, like absolutely hates it and it’s obviously my favorite subject. So.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, I was gonna say he, Matthew was like, well, what the heck? You okay? I had to have marry an advisor. Yeah.

Lauren Kearl: Yeah. And Matthew like hates talking about money and so, sorry, my husband’s name is Matthew. So, so he, he hates talking about money.

Matt Mulcock: Fantastic name, by the

Lauren Kearl: I love, right? Yeah. But I love talking about it and so it’s always funny, but I feel like in the past, like in the beginning, I feel like when we were like first married, um, I, this was again when I was like doing dental hygiene, I was thinking about doing stuff like that and um, I didn’t really have like the tools that I had like that I have today in talking about it. And our conversations go so much more smooth when I just present them with the facts. And I just say, Hey, here’s how much we spent on restaurants. Shout out to him. He loves going out to eat for lunch every single day. But again, like I’m just able to talk about the trade offs where I’m like, I don’t care that you go out to eat every single day, but like, can we tweak things like, can you get Costco pizza instead of throwing the Cafe Rio?

Matt Mulcock: Or a dollar 50 hot dog

Lauren Kearl: Straight out egregious. Yeah, right. And rip to their Polish dogs. We miss those. But again, like it’s just, I can present him with like, Hey, here’s just the data and our conversations go so much more smoothly than in the past where I’ve just been like, let’s just talk about money right now. Like, I feel like, and on top of that, I think it gives me an understanding of where he likes to spend, where I can like, make sure to be intentional to allow that. I know he likes spending, uh, to get lunch every single day and like, that’s just who he is. So that’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with that. And I’m gonna. Make sure that he can have those so that he can be happy and, and having his, his time and his lunch, his, his essential star bes drink is getting a pizza.

Matt Mulcock: What’s his go-to star bes drink? Oh, the, well you’re saying He goes,

Lauren Kearl: To his, his equivalent star’s drink is a Costco pizza.

Matt Mulcock: Got it.

Lauren Kearl: Or it might even be Little Caesar. I think his

Matt Mulcock: His latte is pizza.

Lauren Kearl: His, his, yeah, his love language is pizza for

Matt Mulcock: That’s awesome. No, I actually.

Lauren Kearl: So happy. I’m happy for him.

Matt Mulcock: I, I love that you just brought that up, Lauren, because I think when we talk about discussing this type of stuff with your spouse or partner, people on the surface, probably shutter, right? ’cause of what you just said, like one or both parties just don’t like talking about it. But I love what you just went through there and like you can sense that what that conversation, if done correctly, can lead to. Actually a lot of times, not even a discussion necessarily about money, it’s about like, what are you value? What, what are, what gets you going, what makes you excited? And you can start, I’ve actually seen this so many times of how connecting these conversations can be, again, if approached the right way. Like the rule has to be like, no shame, no blame. Like you, you’ve gotta have just like an open conversation about the numbers and be really open-minded to each other. But I actually think this basic conversation can be really uniting for couples. I’ve seen this firsthand many times.

Lauren Kearl: Oh no, absolutely. Yeah, like I feel like when I come to the table that just with the sentence we spend too much, I feel like that conversation’s gonna go a

Matt Mulcock: Oh, that’s never gonna go well.

Lauren Kearl: Than like, what do you think about how much we spend in restaurants? Or like, where do you think that, you know, we can be better? I feel like. It brings opportunities to, to just talk neutrally about it. And if it’s like trade offs and it’s like this is a non-negotiable, this is something I love, then I, I wanna hear that and I wanna know that versus me saying You can’t spend on pizza every single day. I’m able to like know that that’s so important to him and, and move forward with it. I think it. I’m able to frame my conversations in a, in a much better light, and I’ve seen other people do it too. Just knowing the numbers again takes away that fear and uncertainty and that anxiousness about it from the start, where I’ll say, this is just the numbers, and I think that’s great.

Matt Mulcock: Totally. This is not a power play. This is a bid for connection, right? It’s like I want to collaborate with you on. Our finances and do this together as a team. And I really do think if you’re not doing this already and you’re not having this conversation, I think it can actually be super meaningful and impactful for your family, for your spouse and partner. And I, I, I can’t even tell you, Lauren, how many times in the last over 10 years of doing this, when one of, like, we kind of, for better or for worse, a lot of times force these conversations, right? Just the kind of the inherent, result of what comes from. Working with an advisor is you’re gonna talk about money and we, we oftentimes do our best to try to do it together, like with both people. And I can’t even tell you how many times in these discussions around money, around spending, uh. I will hear from one or the other. Like they’ll turn and be like, I didn’t know that. I’ve never heard that. I didn’t know that, like, excites you. Like I didn’t know you were not willing to give that up, like your golfer or whatever. Um, your, your Costco pizzas, like, I think it’s really enlightening when you, when you have these types of conversations.

Lauren Kearl: Absolutely. Yeah. Again, like just opportunities for connection I think like goes such a long way because I feel like on top of it too, like the amount of times that people, you know, think about their money or their lives based on what they see in other people’s lives, you know, like you just, if sometimes assume that you’re like, oh, like I should have that.

But I’m like, if you sit down with your own values. And decide, do I truly want that? I’m like, maybe I don’t. Like I see, you know, people renovating houses and doing all these things and for some reason I’m like, all of a sudden I’m like, oh, I think I need to do that. But have I really asked myself, I’m like, maybe I don’t like doing that. Maybe I don’t like to travel or you know, or do those things. And I think there again, opportunities to talk about that of what do you value? And then making sure our calendars and our checkbooks align with that, I think is super helpful.

Matt Mulcock: I, I love that. And I, yeah, I think, yeah, uh, forcing yourself to have that conversation with yourself and your spouse or partner of, do I really want that? And have a system in place. Like literally, I actually have a friend who told me this. I think it’s amazing of like, literally she’s made a, do I want that list, and her system is, if I, she has something that pops up in her mind and she’s like, I want that. Like in the moment she puts it on her list. And then she goes back to the list like every couple of days or like once a week or once a month. And she’s like, do I really want that? It’s like, do I want that list? And I’m like, that’s a brilliant, super simple idea to just check yourself. Do I really want that? And then we talked about it earlier, like you were just saying, like some of the examples of like, do I really wanna renovate my house or buy a house or, or travel? Take it a step further, a little bit further and say, what do, what would I have to give up to make that more of a priority? I think that’s another big piece of this is like, it’s kind of like the Oliver Bergman 4,000 weeks and it’s like what?

You gotta choose to suck at something to be good at. Another thing, like you gotta choose to give something up if you’re gonna spend a lot of money on, on one thing or the other. But it takes work to actually align, as you were saying. Your, your money with your values. It’s hard. It’s really, really hard.

Lauren Kearl: Definitely a hard thing to do.

Matt Mulcock: Um, what do you think, Lauren, we’ve talked, we’ve already kind of alluded to a bunch of these, but like what, what are some things that come to mind for you of challenges or obstacles that get in dentist’s way? Like if dentists out there is like, yep, totally. No, I need to do this. You’re right. Theoretically, I totally agree with you. And then this podcast is gonna end and they’re gonna go about their day. Like what are the, what are the obstacles or challenges that you think get in dentist’s way of actually like. Do implementing this in their life.

Lauren Kearl: I think like not knowing like where to go. I think for us it’s built in, right? Like as a client of dentist advisors, we give you that dashboard. Um, but some people are like, I don’t even know where to go to get that information. Like if you have like, you know, three different credit cards and, you know, multiple checking accounts and like have, you know, a ton of different things, like where can you go to like even get that data? And I think, you know, rip Mint, mint, mint was one of ’em.

Matt Mulcock: Know that is sad. It’s a bummer.

Lauren Kearl: But I think yeah, just have having a, you know, something that, like either an app or something that I feel like you can. Look at and re like find it out. The data from there is super helpful. Um, some of my favorites, I love Monarch money. I can’t, I can’t shut up about Monarch

Matt Mulcock: You do love Monarch. Yeah.

Lauren Kearl: It is awesome. Um, some other ones I think are like, every dollar is another one that I think a lot of people use. old fashioned Excel sheets. That one feels like a lot of work, but to each their own,

Matt Mulcock: Yeah.

Lauren Kearl: I think just having the availability of like, Hey, where do I, where do I go to find this data? I think is is hard.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. To, uh, I love what you just alluded to of this happens a lot. I think this is one of the biggest obstacles that get in the way. Uh, when you say. Dentist says like, oh, I, I don’t even know where to start.

Lauren Kearl: Mm-hmm.

Matt Mulcock: I think that is a result of being disorganized and having, like you said, multiple cards, multiple accounts that you picked up over the years. Like the unsexy truth that we continue to repeat and we’ll continue to repeat while we’re, as long as we’re doing this, um, is that organization, like all of this is based off organization. You’ve gotta get organized and make this as simple as possible. So. For, unless you’re Taylor Sutterfield, shout out Taylor, we love you and you’re gonna like implement a credit card rotation game of like maximizing points and like more power to him to each their own. And I respect that he does that. I do not want to do that. for pe other than people like that. One of the number one things you could do right now is if you got multiple personal credit cards cut. Of them down to one. Like get to one credit card, one credit card, one checking account, one savings account. On the personal side, like that doesn’t mean your business, but your personal side. Make this as simple as possible. Like the, one of my favorite sayings don’t even know where it originated. I’m not taking credit for it, but is where people think they lack motivation. They really lack clarity, I think. I think people get this paralysis by analysis ’cause they’re just like, like you said, Lauren. Where do I even go? I have no idea. Because you’ve got five checking accounts and four credit cards.

Lauren Kearl: Netflix is coming out of the checking account. That’s like 20 years like so old. It was like your parents’ checking account that they got from you. They’re like, I think something comes outta there, but like, I can’t remember.

Matt Mulcock: Yes. It’s so true.

Lauren Kearl: Have so many things. I feel like this way too in like my own personal life. Like I feel like the more stuff you have, the more stressed you are. So I’m definitely the type where I feel the same about like the more accounts and comp, like complexities that you make in your finances, like the more stressful it’ll be.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, more stuff and more money, right? As the great poet, RIP, biggie Smalls. Uh, more money, more problems. Like I, I really do think one of the challenges for dentists, as we had mentioned earlier, is. The more money they make, the less they think they have to worry about their spending. And in some cases that’s true as long as, I think another challenge that dentists face is they, they lack a system of automation to take this kind of like it’s gonna take some effort on the front end.

But once you put, there’s ways to do this now with technology and systematizing. This is something we do it for clients all the time, is it’s like, step one, let’s get you organized. Step two, let’s clean up this crap. Let’s get you down to one credit card and one checking account, and one saving. Like, let’s get you, let’s get you simplify your life. Just that alone, you’re gonna breathe a sigh of relief and feel like more in control of your money. But then beyond that is let’s build a system for this. So like, let’s bring the information to light. Let’s understand where you stand from a cashflow perspective. Let’s get you super organized. And then the final step is let’s get you a system of automation and, and, and, and I think that, and then it’s kind of like, let’s check in once in a while. Right? If you’re out there doing this on, on your own. Cool. That’s awesome. Then you just check in once in a while with your spouse and partner and make sure that things are still going and you can actually make this relatively simple.

Lauren Kearl: I feel like the automation part is so, like we talked a lot about like burnout, proofing, finances and how much like money and finances create such burnout and automation feels like such a good way to like help with that. On top of the fact that I feel like it’s out of. Sight out of mind, if you will. Um, but also I feel like it will help with those things. Like if you have an automatic savings that goes, you know, straight into it. You’re not looking at your checking account being like, heck yes, I’ve got all of this money that I can spend at, you know, it will help with that because you’re, you’re putting, enforcing that savings, you know, it’ll help that those other numbers fall into place. Kind of like what we’ve talked about in the past of like, you know, budgeting and, and making sure that your savings rate is super high. I feel like it helps make that spending number go down too.

Matt Mulcock: It’s so true. I think. Yeah. You’re so right. There’s so many parts of this. There’s. The simple awareness leads to better behavior. I’ve seen this time and time and time again tracking your spending leads to better behavior. The other thing that you’re alluding to that I think is so, is so great to, to, to focus on is I think the counterintuitive piece of this is that budgeting or tracking, whatever word you want to use, creating more awareness around your spending. I think people immediately think that’s more restrictive. I think they immediately think like. I don’t wanna do that ’cause it’s gonna like make me, it’s gonna hold me back. But what you’re alluding to, and it’s so true, is actually it’s quite the opposite. It actually removes the emotional burden and the guilt around spending when you’re more mindful with it.

Taylor and I just did a podcast about, and I, this will probably come out after that about his article he wrote around vacations and some jarring numbers about, how people, a people going into debt for vacations, um, is pretty crazy. Um, and not only that, like. the mental burden that, and what they call vacation guilt, what that can create for a lot of people. And I think part of this, I truly do think part of that emotional burden and guilt around vacations is people as a result that people just not having a handle of like, can I even afford this vacation? Like, I don’t, I spent money on it, but I don’t know if I can afford it. I think there’s a big part of that.

Lauren Kearl: No, I agree. I feel like having like purpose in your, like purpose in your spending and saying, I have allotted this much to vacations, you’re gonna, you know, go there and be like, I’m good. Things are great. It’ll be even more relaxing and even better vacation than being like, oh, I don’t even know if I can buy this Crystal.

Matt Mulcock: Swipe my card and yeah, see what happens.

Lauren Kearl: Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: it’s so true. It’s this idea that you mentioned so many times is control. It’s clarity. It’s peace. It’s like. It does take some effort. It does take some effort, but, um, I love the Ramit. Ramit Seti, um, talks about this in his book of like, again, people get this wrong. They think that it needs to be about restriction, and it’s really just about prioritization. He says something along the lines of, spend as much as you want on things that you love and cut mercilessly on everything else. I love that it’s what you were saying earlier, like just comes down to priorities. Those. That doesn’t just happen. Like if you walk up to someone on the street and you said, what are your values? Like what do you, what do you value? They’re, most people are gonna be like, I have no idea, or they’re gonna give you the typical answers. It takes an immense amount of effort. I wouldn’t even say immense amount of effort. It takes some effort to. Put some time into like, okay, what do I actually value? Like what do I, what do I really wanna spend my money on? And then second is, am I actually spending money on those things? Like it does take some work because I think the, I think otherwise the result is what you said, uh, earlier, where it’s like, I don’t know, should we renovate our house? Probably like,

Lauren Kearl: Yeah, like I saw the neighbor renovate their house. We probably should too.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. Mimetic desire. Yeah.

Lauren Kearl: Of doing that sometimes of like, oh, like, you know, I wanna go to this specific place, but then my husband will be like, do you actually wanna go there? And I’m

Matt Mulcock: Do you?

Lauren Kearl: Good question.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah.

Lauren Kearl: I don’t, I don’t know if I do.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. I mean, you’re alluding to something too, Lauren, here of like the, the, one of the other obstacles or challenges that we didn’t even hit is in today’s age that we didn’t, our parents didn’t deal with our parents’. Parents didn’t deal with, when it comes to spending. I think people talk a lot about like the inflation of life, right? Just in general. I think there’s some truth to that. I don’t think it’s as bad as people think. I think what we don’t talk about is our expectations of what a good life is nowadays, like our definition of the good life versus 50 years ago, and like social media and those kind of things that you’re alluding to, I think never before has it been harder to really figure out what you want, because the example you just gave, Matthew being like. Do you really want to, like, you didn’t even know about this place until a week ago. ’cause you saw it on social media, right? Like now you are dying to go there. Now you’re obsessed.

Lauren Kearl: No, seriously. It’s actually funny. I was talking to my mother-in-law the other day about she out of nowhere, she was like, I really want bar stools. And I was like, oh, like why? She

Matt Mulcock: Okay.

Lauren Kearl: I dunno, I just want, I just want bar stools. And after talking with her more and more, I found out that somehow Facebook put up a, I don’t even know what to call them, like the, the targeted.

Matt Mulcock: Ad. Yeah.

Lauren Kearl: Ads for bar stools. And like I thought in the moment, I was like, that is so wild, right? Like she had, she had no desire for a bar stool before, and all of a sudden she sees one bar stool come through her Facebook. And now she’s like, I can’t stop looking at ’em. I can’t stop looking at bar stools. And I’m like, where did, where are you even looking at Barsol? She’s like, Facebook. I’m like, you didn’t look at Amazon. Like you didn’t, where? Where is this coming from? So I feel like that’s. You know, they know what they’re doing and they

Matt Mulcock: Oh, they’re, yes, they know what they’re

Lauren Kearl: Or all of a sudden you wake up and you’re like, I think I want bar stools. Maybe you don’t actually want bar stools, which come to find out, I don’t think she really does, but maybe she’ll buy them. I don’t know. We’ll

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. Next time you go see her, she’s gonna have bar stools.

Lauren Kearl: I’ll follow up and let you guys

Matt Mulcock: Yes. If she has bars. That’s such, that’s such a relatable story though, Lauren, because I, I’m sure people out there couldn’t have a handful of examples in the last month if they really thought about it, of how, how that has come up. Some, some small, some big, I’ll give an example. I’ll be vulnerable here. Uh, I all of a sudden. Um, through series of conversations. I bought a new car, like relatively recent, uh, like within the last year and a half. And I’ve been kicking around the idea of getting a different car for various reasons. My car’s kind of already falling apart and it’s kind of bothering me. Um, and so I’ve been having conversations, well, I had a conversation with some people in my family. All of a sudden, some particular cars came up and now I’m like looking at these cars. And I’m like, like I’ll find myself in between meetings. Like I’ll just go like, kind of like, look around. I don’t need a new freaking car, but, and I don’t really, I’m not really a car guy, but all of a sudden I’m like, like maybe, but maybe, and I’m like looking at cars all the time. I absolutely do not need a car. This happens to us all the time. Bar stools, cars, trips.

Lauren Kearl: Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: The environment we live in is, is designed to get us to spend money and so. Again, we have to combat that and it’s not, again, to kind of, as we kind of wrap this up, it’s, we’re not saying to completely restrict yourself from, and like the goal is not to just be completely restrictive. I think the goal of what we’re, what we encourage people to do is just be more mindful. Be more intentional, be more aware of your spending.

Lauren Kearl: Yeah, just say it’s a choice, like I am choosing to spend more and I’m happy with it. Instead of saying, I’ve got no idea.

Matt Mulcock: No clue. Yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s getting to the end of the month or quarter a year and looking at your total spending and being like, where the heck did that go? I don’t even, I don’t even know. Versus, yeah, I took three freaking trips last year with my family and it was amazing. We went here, here, and here, and I have all these memories. I know that my system is set up so I can actually do this guilt free, and I can still say for my future, like, that’s power, that’s control. That’s what people want. It does take some effort there. So as we wrap this up, uh, Lauren, I want to kind of, let’s, let’s, let’s summarize this maybe some, some key points of what we’re talking about.

I think number one being that we have empathy. We know this is a challenge. This the, although it’s a simple concept, it doesn’t mean it’s easy to execute on. That’s most of finance and life, like, we know that it, it, it can be a challenge. And there’s a lot of, and there’s also one thing we didn’t mention is there’s a dark side of budgeting. There’s like the other side of this where it’s like. Going too far.

Lauren Kearl: Yeah,

Matt Mulcock: Right, and like getting too obsessed with numbers.

Lauren Kearl: Yeah. Exactly. Where, you know, sometimes it’s, you know, my, my job, if you will, to say your numbers are good. You can take that vacation, you know, take the vacation now and, and be okay with it versus, you know, versus waiting until you’re 60 to enjoy France or Europe or something. I feel like that’s part of the problem too. But

Matt Mulcock: Yeah.

Lauren Kearl: Again, just being intentional and knowing what you’re spending and that you know things are okay, I think is such a good, good way to move forward.

Matt Mulcock: Totally. And, and, and we’ve, we’ve seen this, we’ve actually had, you know, funny situations with clients where it’s like my biggest, some, I really do have this, some of my biggest challenges with clients, some of my clients is like getting them to actually spend money on things that they said, on things that they said they want to spend money on. But they actually don’t do it. And so we’ll, like literally set goals. I, I’ve told this before, I have a client, love him to death. Had a meeting with them last year to start the year, and they’ve always told me that they want to take a first class flight. They’ve never done it before. And I was like, Hey, this is your number one goal this year is to take a first class flight.

Like, because they’ve, they had all, they had a store behind it. They’ve always wanted to, it’s always been a dream of theirs. I’m like, yeah, let’s freaking go. But again. This can only happen. Like you want to create that problem in your life. And the way you do that is having a system simplifying your life, tracking your spending, bringing, bringing awareness to it. Um, so let’s, I think I want to, I think it’d be helpful to give some people some, a few actionable things. Let’s start first, um. the actionable part of this, of like keeping this simple system, I don’t want this to be overwhelming for people. So as we were saying earlier, I think step one is you gotta get organized. You gotta take the step

Lauren Kearl: Small step.

Matt Mulcock: One, small step of getting organized. So the first thing to do would just be. Gather and understand where everything sits. Like this would be what we consider a net worth statement. all your assets, all your debts, and then track down as part of that is like, where are all my accounts? Do I have, do I have multiple credit cards? And multiple, like, don’t, again, don’t judge yourself. Don’t judge your partner. Just where are we sitting? Get organized around that. I think step number two would be simplify as much as possible. As much as you possibly can. Then step three would be, let’s implement a system for tracking, spending and cash flow. And I’ll say this, Lauren, I wanna get your thoughts on this. I actually think a budget, quote unquote budget could be as simple as this two categories

Lauren Kearl: Mm-hmm.

Matt Mulcock: Savings. So like your savings bill is paid and everything else.

Lauren Kearl: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Matt Mulcock: It could be that straightforward.

Lauren Kearl: Exactly. Yeah, I’m definitely that. I feel like the, the second you add all your accounts, there’s like 60 different categories where it’s like coffee shops and eating out and groceries, and I’m like, food.

Matt Mulcock: Yep.

Lauren Kearl: I’m like, that’s food. So

Matt Mulcock: That’s food.

Lauren Kearl: Definitely agree with that. Well, honestly, like if people do these steps and realize that they’re like. You know, I’m not where I want to be. Then finding a buddy. We are here to help. Like, again, like you said, we are not here to judge you. In fact, it’s like one of my favorite things to do is to help you get to where you need to go. So if you look through those numbers and you’re like, Hmm, I need help, then find that buddy. Whether that’s, you know,

Matt Mulcock: Yeah.

Lauren Kearl: Spouse or, you know, I feel like being alone in your finances and is is difficult too.

Matt Mulcock: Can be tricky.

Lauren Kearl: Huge part in that too.

Matt Mulcock: Totally. I, I think the other piece of this that I’ll, uh, I’ll share, we’ve talked about this before, is having what I call like a, so again, when we come back to this idea and people say. I don’t wanna do a budget ’cause it’s so restrictive. And I wanna do these categories. I think look at this as a funnel approach. So meaning the top of the funnel, like just start at the top of the funnel, which is just start tracking how much you spend, period.

Lauren Kearl: Know the number.

Matt Mulcock: Know the number, it doesn’t matter. And again, the only, the, the easiest way to do that is getting down to simple. I have one credit card, all my spending goes on that credit card at the end of the month, I can just take my statement. I can figure out what my spending is, start there, do that for three months and just be like, can I get a habit of just like seeing what the number is? No judgment, no shame, no blame. Just like, here’s my number. Then if you are having a problem, and you’ll know as you start tracking this, if you’re having a problem specifically around like, okay, there’s what money left over. As our, as our favorite. Christine Yuen says, I’ve got more month than I do money at the end. You know, I got more month at the end than I have money. If that’s, that’s when you start to go down the funnel. You start to triage, then you start to say, okay, I’ve gotta go dig in a little bit more. I’ve done this before, Lauren, I know you have for sure where I’m meeting with a client multiple times, like a month sometimes, or once a month at the very least of like, Hey, we’re gonna dig in and just see. And start getting some traction on this and under, like, take it a step at a time. But the first step is just keep it simple. Just track what you’re spending. So Lauren, any resources or things that you want to mention or, or systems, or, you’ve already mentioned some apps, but any final kind of takeaways you think for people on, on this topic of budgeting and cash flow and, and any of this?

Lauren Kearl: Just like, again, like you said, just keep it simple. Keep it as simple as possible. Like don’t be hard on yourself and just go in with an open mind, and I think that you’ll be happy to find that there are solutions and that if you need help, there are people that can help with it as well.

Matt Mulcock: For sure. Yeah. Oh, there’s so much out there. Again, I don’t think we have a information problem. I think we just, like you said, just keep it straightforward. Keep it simple. And, and like you said, we’re, we’re very much here to help if you’re out there, couple of things. If you’re out there thinking, holy cow, I struggle with this and I know someone else as well in my life that struggles with this. Another dentist friend, uh, brother, sister, someone you know, that’s a dentist that’s like, man, they need to hear this too. Please share this episode. We, we want to be able to help as many people as we can. We, we always help this, this, content and things we put out. This education is valuable, so please share it with someone who you think needs help. Also, if you’re sitting there being like, you know what? I need to take a step. I, I truly don’t know what to do. We are absolutely here to help. Dentist advisors.com, click on the yellow book free consultation button. You can get, one of our, you if you’re lucky, you’re getting Lauren, um, and ask questions and just see how we can help. We would love to help you. So for now, thank you for listening. Lauren, thank you for being here, sharing, sharing all your wisdom and knowledge. Till next time, everybody, bye-bye.

Keywords: budgeting, cashflow, financial literacy, spending habits, dentists, financial planning, personal finance, budgeting strategies, financial control, emotional spending

Saving, Spending