Hello, everyone.

It is Chelsea Fagan, back with another episode of The Financial Confessions. And we have a really thoughtful and fascinating and, in my opinion, exciting topic to discuss with you today with a guest with whom I've collaborated a little bit in the past on YouTube.

And I'll talk more about that later. But first, before we get into our amazing guest, I wanted to talk about our amazing partner with whom we make every episode of The Financial Confessions. So as you guys may know by now, we make every episode of The Financial Confessions in partnership with Intuit, which, if you haven't heard of Intuit itself, you have almost definitely heard of some of the amazing products they make.

They're the makers of things like Mint, which is a budgeting app that I have used for going on seven years now and has completely transformed my financial life. They make QuickBooks, which is a sort of Mint for small businesses, which, even if you're a freelancer, you are a small business, that I have also used for years now and use every day at TFD. They make Turbo, which gives you a super nuanced and detailed view of all elements of your financial health, including things like your credit score, your debt to income ratio, your verified income.

Basically, all of the various pieces of information you'll need to make really informed decisions and help reach your goals. Plus, it's tax time right around the corner. And they make TurboTax as well.

If you are dying to get started on your financial health, I could not recommend Intuit's products more to do it, and you can get started with them at the link in our description or the show notes. So as I mentioned, we have a topic that I find incredibly exciting today with someone that many of you are probably familiar with and on whose channel I have appeared in the past. This is WheezyWaiter, AKA Craig.

Hello. Hi there. How are you?

Hello. I'm very good. How are you?

I'm good. Thanks for having me. Thank you for being here.

So you are in New York, but you don't live here. No, I don't. I live in-- outside of Madison, Wisconsin.

Very cool. And how long have you been there? Because I remember you moved recently.

Yeah. Yeah, I've only been there for, I don't know, five months, six months or so. But I lived in Chicago for 12 years.

And I lived in Austin for a year. So you know, this big, this crazy big city doesn't intimidate me that much. Why only a year in Austin?

Because we had a baby and we wanted to move near grandparents. The baby's grandparents. So that's why we moved to-- because I grew up outside of Madison, Wisconsin.

So as you mentioned, and as some of you again probably know, you make YouTube videos. Yes. And I've been on two of them now, I think.

Yes, you have. Probably soon to be another one. Yes.

And you have kind of a unique approach to YouTube-- which I find really fascinating and compelling, I love your videos-- where you sort of pick one topic per video, and they're often extremely diverse in topic, not necessarily things in which you're a subject matter. And you're just kind of deep dive into that particular topic. Is that fair to say?

Yeah. And in a lot of your videos-- so I did a video about homeownership, as well has one about minimalism. And I think in both videos, it seems to be your way that you very much go into these topics like, I don't really know how I feel.

Yeah. Yeah, because it's absolutely true. That's kind of the kind of person I am.

I'm generally not-- I don't have a-- it's hard for me to form extreme opinions about things I don't feel like I know a lot about. But I feel like that's an increasing rarity on the internet, people who are very sort of like, I don't know, I don't know how I feel about this thing yet. Yeah.

And that's-- it's not like a conscious decision that I'm going to go into this with no opinion. That's just who I am. Like, I'm just someone who doesn't have extreme opinions about stuff.

I don't know. And that's why, in learning, I do form those opinions eventually. Like for instance, home buying, I have new opinions about that after that [INAUDIBLE]..

Tell me. What are they? Well, I think-- I used to think that it was more obviously a good investment.

Like this is what you, quote unquote, should do if you have the means to buy a home. Because your money is going to be most protected that way. Aside from like a housing crash or something.

Right. Which we fully recovered from anyway. Well, I mean, broadly speaking.

But actually, I think it's probably-- it's, of course, a matter of opinion-- but it's probably, you could find just as much benefit or more investing in the stock market and not putting down a giant down payment on a house over the long term. There's value in having the money liquid, so you can spend it at any time, rather than being tied up in property and having to sell a house to get the money. There's lots of other ways that money can be more valuable to you other than being tied up in a house.

I think a lot of people go through that same realization. I think more and more in our generation, especially because so many of us don't have the means to buy a house, there's been that period of having to kind of relearn it from zero, in terms of I think most of us probably grew up being told by our parents that it was unequivocally the right thing to do and that renting was throwing your money away. And I think, I mean, there's definitely obviously some truth to that.

But I think for a lot of people, it does not now feel like the death sentence financially that it used to feel to not own a home by a certain time. And in many cases, like my husband and I, like we very much could buy a home at this point. And it's just at this point not the right decision for us, which I think is becoming a choice people are increasingly empowered to make.

Yeah. And we bought a house and I don't regret it. But I really don't think, if you're just thinking about finances, it might not be the best option.

Yeah. And it's also, I mean, you're in a very different place in your life, in a lot of ways. Aside from having a kid, you've also lived in multiple cities.

You work from home. You have a lot of things that are in the favor of being a homeowner and living in the same place for 10 years, which in many ways I think are the same thing. I think a lot of people don't realize how long you have to commit to a place for it to be a baseline good financial decision.

Yeah. I think people say five years, but-- That's assuming at five years it's a good market. Yeah.

You really don't know for sure. Yeah. And what about-- so the other one I did with you was minimalism.

Do you feel like your opinion on minimalism has evolved since that video? I mean, my wife and I had dabbled in minimalism years ago. So I had thought about minimalism for a long time before doing that video.

I think I realized after doing that video that I'm not so all in on minimalism like I was. I just don't think about it in my day to day life now. I'm much more about just if I need something, I'm going to get it.

And I don't think about, is this minimalism or isn't this minimalism? Now I'm just kind of naturally just doing what I want. I think being, quote unquote, minimalist, or thinking about it for a long time kind of helped me just develop habits naturally.

And what did minimalism used to look like for you, though? Getting rid of a lot of old stuff, getting rid-- I had a lot of stuff that I didn't need. I moved several times, which also helped get rid of stuff.

But I got rid of books, CDs. I digitized everything that I felt could be digitized and then just got rid of stuff. And it was-- This is a theory-- I'm sorry to cut you-- this is a theory I am now developing in real time as you say this.

Is minimalism secretly a way for men to feel masculine about like spring cleaning, which is usually a feminine thing? Like I remember my mom once a year would like go through and like organize and declutter and get rid of a bunch of old stuff. But we called it spring cleaning.

Yeah. I mean, I don't think it made me feel masculine. And it was actually a lot of my wife's encouragement to do a lot of this stuff.

But yeah, I think partly, I was living in Chicago and I was living in smaller space, so I needed the space. Yeah. That's always something that is kind of shocking to me.

Like I've lived in New York now for a long time and lived in an equally big city before that. So like for at least a decade, I've been in cities where you just don't have square footage. And it always really shocks me how many things, like even if you watch HGTV, when people talk about like the tiny home phenomenon or they treat it as some sort of abstract concept or goal or lifestyle choice to live in a smaller space, and it's like, don't you realize that so many people just live in spaces like this?

And that's just called living. Yeah. And I think doing the video also helped me realize that it's really not a thing for everyone.

You can't really universally say that minimalism is one thing. Because there are so many different-- people come from so many different backgrounds and live in so many different places that you can't, I don't think you can make these specific rules about what minimalism is. Has there ever been a video where you went in with what felt like a more formed opinion on something and came out feeling differently?

Well, home buying was one of the examples. But I'm trying to think of another one that was like really eye opening. Hopefully I'm on the road to-- I'm doing one right now about universal basic income.

And I'm hopefully going to learn some stuff. Because I have only read a handful of articles and haven't really thought about it that deeply. I think I've already learned a lot.

I'm about to do one about nuclear power, which I'm going to talk to a professor at UW Madison. And there's a nuclear reactor there. He's going to show me that.

I don't know-- see, I have loose opinions about nuclear power, but again, not that extreme. So it's going to be rare for me to be so eye opened and my eyes to be so opened because I don't have that strong of opinions to begin with. I feel like it's-- I was saying this just before we started filming-- but I feel like it's such a rare thing on the internet now to be so open and comfortable in not having hard opinions on things.

And I feel like people feel compelled to generate them almost, and feel, I think, I don't know if it's like a fear of missing out on the conversation or it's a sense of insecurity. But I feel like people don't feel liberated to be like, I really don't know that much about this thing. Yeah.

I think everyone-- opinions get attention. Extreme opinions are what gets attention, get clicks. Hot takes.

Yeah. And I just don't like pretending to care about stuff that I don't care that strongly about. Yeah.

And it's also hard-- I feel like it's also hard when you-- I mean, god, I feel like once an episode, I come to some moment that's like, Twitter is terrible for society. But it is such a uniquely bad platform for having any kind of nuanced or intelligent conversation. It is.

It's also, I think the importance of it is overblown, though, too. I think the only people who are really talking about Twitter are people who are on Twitter. Yet it's the one I use all the time.

It's when I'm on all the time. But I don't think it's that important, really. It's always really funny, I don't know if this is just my Instagram feed as like a pretty basic woman, but like anytime something horrible is happening politically or in the news, my Twitter feed is like an unbelievable meltdown.

And then you go over to Instagram, and it's as if there are no politics. There is no president, like nothing is happening. YouTube's kind of the same way.

There's hardly any political stuff on YouTube. Well, I follow a lot of political YouTubers. So I probably have an exceptional experience on YouTube.

But on Instagram in particular, like election night on Instagram is just like people sharing their favorite cookie recipes. We were just talking about-- we won't even get into what the thing was, because I certainly don't want to derail the conversation with that-- but we were talking about a stupid thing that was in the news this morning that everyone was talking about. And Craig was asking my opinion on it.

And I was like, my initial-- this is what I felt when I saw it this morning, I was like, I feel like we're not obligated to care about these things. That's true. Especially now I feel like the news cycle is like things that-- you'll be like, remember last week when like-- do you know what I'm saying?

Like it feels like a week out from things it's as if they never happened anymore. Yeah. There's way too much.

But also, maybe they never really happened that much to begin with. It's just that Twitter made it seem like things were happening that really weren't that important in the long run. And way more than any other platform.

I never have that feeling on any other platform. Like I think on Twitter, I uniquely feel like I'm more confused about a topic after I spend a couple hours reading about it. Yeah.

What do you do to get your news? Like are you more of like a newspaper guy, an RSS fee? Well, one of the videos that my wife and I did was we had no internet for a month.

Tell me about this. That was, it was actually great. You didn't use any internet?

Well, OK, there were exceptions. There were rules. I could do-- I can't remember the exact rule, but there was some limited amount of time I could check email, because I had to, because my job.

And I could upload-- because I have a Patreon that I upload to every day. And I wasn't going to just stop doing that for patrons. So I could upload.

But I could only upload. I couldn't download anything or look at anything. I didn't happen to have a nude of you and you had no way of knowing that.

That didn't happen. But yeah, there were certain like limited, limited rules. I could use Maps, if we had to get somewhere.

Like stuff that was just convenient but that wasn't going to draw us into something, you know. Right. But other than that, no internet.

No Twitter, no social media at all. No TV, either. We cut off-- That's not even internet.

I know. We cut-- well, our TV was, Netflix was-- OK. But that's a loose definition of internet.

Well, yeah-- Well, we did it. It's like the 1800s, like your wife is playing the piano by the fire. Basically, yeah.

Yeah. Harpsichord. The house we were living in at the time had a piano in it.

Did you guys play? It was out of tune. So what did you do-- you read books, obviously.

Yeah, I did read the newspaper during that time. And I loved it. I thought it was such a good experience.

And I'm like, why don't I do this all the time? And then when the month was over, I stopped doing it. I have not listened-- I'm not reading the newspaper.

I will say, for what it's worth, a physical paper newspaper is like a particularly inconvenient way to read. What I loved about it was I was actually reading full articles, deeply thinking about them. Because I couldn't just like click onto something else.

Yeah. And I don't know, I just felt like I was more informed about everything. Damn.

And what did you really miss about using the Internet? Nothing. I don't know.

I can't really think of anything. Damn, this is making me feel bad about myself. I went back to it.

And I don't know why I went back to it. Wait. But I'm sorry.

So you couldn't watch Netflix. Could you watch DVDs or something? We could.

We didn't really watch much. So no TV, no movies, no internet. Yeah.

Well, we could-- we could watch DVDs if we wanted to. But we didn't. We didn't really watch much.

Did you play video games? No. That wasn't that hard.

It really wasn't that hard. We did puzzles. We read books.

I don't know. Did you have a child at this time? Yes, we had a child.

OK, well, listen, I feel like if I had a kid that would probably give me more things to do. There were things to do, yes. It was a lot of making sure my kid didn't fall down and hit her head.

Like that was, that was that period of time. Got it. Well, listen, good for you.

Well, so actually that brings me to what I really wanted to bring you on the show to talk about. Because a lot of your YouTube videos are not you going to other people to learn about a topic. Well, that could be part of it.

But it's you challenging yourself to do something for a certain amount of time, usually 30 days. Yes. Yeah.

And I've seen you do all kinds of things, like the internet one, obviously. You did a waking up really early one, I think. You did sugar.

Did you do intermittent fasting? Yes. Oh, I really want to talk to you about that one.

Hmm. Anyway, so you did a lot of these. And what I noticed about them-- so I'm someone who, I do have some issues with cleanse culture that I want to talk to you about.

Because I know we've tweeted about that back and forth a little bit. But what I do notice in a lot of them is you have what seems to be like a pretty commendable amount of self-control. Well, thank you.

And I'm curious. Is that something that you feel like you've cultivated over time or-- talk about your experience with will powering yourself into doing things. I think part of-- it is kind of just some, who I am.

I'm a pretty stubborn person in certain ways, stubborn with myself. So I don't like, I just don't like to fail. So if I say I'm going to do something, I stick to it.

Tying it to a video really helps, actually. Just saying publicly that I'm going to do this, and then having a specific time. Like knowing when I don't have to keep doing it, like 30 days from now.

It's like a light at the end of the tunnel kind of thing. Yeah, that helps. For sure.

If I just say broadly, I'm just going to not drink anymore, or something, then there's no time frame. There's no goal. I feel like I'll cheat more often.

So having the goal, tying it to a video, making it public, for me, it works. It really helps. Because that's a huge level of accountability that a lot of people don't have access to.

Yeah. Like your sugar one has like 10 million views. Yes.

I didn't know that was going to get that many views. But yeah, that one blew up big time. But I did know that thousands of people were going to see it regardless.

And that helps for sure. Do you, in most of the things that you do like a 30-day break from, do you go back to the thing after the break? Most things I, in some form, have improved because of the challenge.

Most things. Like intermittent fasting, I'm still doing that loosely. I'm not as strict about it.

But I eat much later in the day than I did before. And I stop eating earlier in the day. Tell me about that experience.

I'm very curious. Intermittent fasting was one of the most, I would say, one of the biggest improvements. I lost, after a couple months, so in the initial month, I'm not sure how much weight I lost.

But I lost probably like a total of like 15 pounds because of it, which was good for me. And I felt better. I didn't feel as hungry as often.

I felt like I had more energy throughout the day. It may have improved my sleep a little, although I still struggle with sleep. That's a thing I'm working on for the future.

But I loved it. I thought it was good. Yeah.

So I first did IF, I think probably it was four years ago now, just under four years. Because I had reached a point in my life where I was like, I am clearly not living well. Like I definitely, I was at my highest ever weight.

I think I was like 156 or something. And I was completely sedentary. And I was just eating constantly in a mindless way.

Like I never even really felt as though I was enjoying any of my meals. I just was eating because I was kind of bored at my job. And you know, in many cases, like the sun was setting early and it was like time for second dinner.

But so I did it. And for the first year, I was pretty damn hardcore about it, like in the sense that I was very rigorous. Like I pushed-- I did it where I pushed the time window out over the course of, you know, over the course of like a month, where I would do like 15 minutes a day where I was extending my time window so that it wasn't just like really difficult.

But I was also counting my calories. Because I wanted to make sure that I knew exactly what I was putting in. And lo and behold, I ended up losing, I think 30 pounds total, which was kind of a lot on that frame.

Like I went down to 127. And now I'm higher than 127 but still lower than I was. And it's been something that I have pretty consistently followed for, I guess, it's been four years since.

Wow. I definitely eat now-- sometimes I'll eat earlier, sometimes I'll eat later. It's much more just like by feeling now.

Yeah, me too. And I typically, when I eat lunch, will keep it a very pretty low calorie, high protein. And then basically we eat whatever the hell I want every night.

But I even find that because of that pattern, I'm not that like ravenously hungry every night. Like I'm not eating some crazy amount of food just because I can. So it's really been something that's like totally changed my life.

And it's interesting, because on Twitter, especially-- now we're back to how terrible Twitter is-- people will often conflate it with disordered eating, which is a really frustrating thing. But I do think that there is, for a lot of people-- and I never engage in that, because I'm like, even though I personally feel defensive about it, I don't feel the need to push back-- but I will say that I do think that a lot of-- and this is kind of where it gets into a cleanse culture, which I think can be difficult-- for a lot of people, the line between self-control and kind of obsession is really, really thin. Yeah.

I think there is definitely, intermittent fasting might not be for everybody. And there's definitely a danger. But I just, for these videos that I do, it's just, this was my experience, this is what worked for me, and this why I think it worked for me.

And that's all I can say. You know, I'm not a doctor. But this worked for me.

Yeah. And I find, because I totally understand, even if it's not my case, I do understand how, for a lot of people, no matter what the thing is, that idea of having a pretty active and consistent level of control over your body, specifically, like the choices you're making with your body. Whether that's when you're eating or what you're eating or how you're moving your body around.

I understand how, for a lot of people, that level of control can be a very slippery slope into having unhealthy goals with it. And I do think, for a lot of people, for me, the reason that I've always had a difficult time with, quote-unquote, cleanse culture, where you do one thing for 30 days and then stop it, although it makes fantastically interesting videos, is I think for a lot of people it can be almost like a sort of-- I don't want to equate it to like a purge, but it's almost like sort of a confessional thing. It's a, what do they call them, indulgences in Catholicism, where it's like, I have this time where I'm very good and then the rest of the time I can be bad, if that makes sense.

And I think a lot of people have that relationship to it. To things like intermittent fasting? Or to do cleanses, or to do things for a very specific window of time.

Yeah. I mean, yeah, I definitely think that can also be a danger. For me, the goal is to develop good habits, to take that 30 days or a week or whatever I do and try to take something good forever afterwards.

Like my goal is not to just do it to be sensational, to be like, look what I did, this is crazy. My goal legitimately is I'm trying to improve myself. The first one I did was no sugar.

And it was really because I thought I was eating too much sugar. Yeah and my wife thought she was eating too much sugar. So we decided to do it.

I fully eat too much sugar and I feel very defensive around this topic. We were-- for full disclosure, we were talking about this earlier, before we started. But like I definitely, it's like I know that it's like I have not a good relationship with sugar.

Like I have a whole-- I have like four different bags of fun size candy like around my house. Well, yeah, but you see, I'm not here to preach that you shouldn't do that. I'm just-- No, but I shouldn't.

But my approach to these videos is just, this is my experience, this is what I think will improve me. And you can take from this whatever you want. And I do understand that there are people out there making videos that are more like, look how crazy this is, and it's encouraging people to do things they probably shouldn't.

Yeah. I mean, yours always seem reasonable, for what it's worth. Well, thank you.

Like they seem usually like things that could be done for-- like one of the ones that really bothers me-- and this is not what you do, but it is something that a lot of people who are in, for example, the fitness community do-- is like cheat day videos, which I find to be very scary. So these are people who eat an incredibly regimented diet like six days a week. And then one day a week, they will eat like 3,000 calories of, you know, whatever food they want to.

And it becomes almost like a demonstration of how much willpower they can have. So obviously, that's like a pretty extreme version of it. But for yours, it feels like this really interesting balance between you have so much willpower over yourself, clearly, but it never feels extreme or like out of control for you.

And I'm wondering, has there ever been one that you did where you felt like you could not have sustained it if you wanted to? Well, there was a recent one that was going to bed at 7 PM, which was-- That just like ruins your life, though. Yeah.

Yeah, that-- because I mentioned that I have such a problem with sleep, and so I'm trying to figure out how to sleep better, just have more-- What's your problem with sleep? I wake up throughout the night. In general, especially since getting this step tracking watch that tracks my sleep, I did that-- that was for a video about walking 10,000 steps a day.

But it also tracks my sleep. And I'm noticing from that, and also just from my own observation, that I wake up throughout the night all the time. And I'm just perpetually low on sleep, no matter what I do.

So I'm quitting alcohol right now, for another video. But part of the goal of that-- You are on it. Yeah.

But part of the goal of that video is to improve my sleep, to see if the drinking is part of the problem. So far, it doesn't look like it's part of the problem. But going to bed at 7:00 PM, the goal was sort of to shift-- because I always have a tendency to stay up later, too.

But not because I can't sleep, just because I want to stay up. I don't know. It's just bad habits.

But going to bed at 7:00 PM was a way to shift my sleep patterns to go to bed at a more reasonable hour, like maybe 9:00-- OK, but 7:00 PM is like crazy. It is. No, I wasn't- my plan wasn't-- I eat dinner at 9:00.

My plan wasn't to go to bed at 7:00 PM forever, but just to shift it earlier. But it didn't work at all. Like I went to bed at 7:00 PM first five, six nights.

I did get a lot more sleep. But I was in bed-- one night I was in bed for 14 hours and I got like nine hours of sleep. Nine hours of sleep unheard of for me.

That's a lot of sleep for me. But I had to be in bed for 14 hours to get it. Oh, my god.

You're like a toddler. Yeah. And I hated going to bed at 7:00 PM.

Because that's when we put our baby to bed. And then I can't do anything. I'd have to go right to bed.

So I quit. That's the only one that I quit, the only challenge. You stopped.

I stopped, yeah. I mean, OK, but 7:00 PM, like that never would have worked. Like, who can do that?

Although I will say, going back to your early-- similar to the small living space thing, 10,000 steps a day to a New York, you're like, baby, that's just called like picking up your laundry. Right, right. Since being here for the past couple days, yesterday I got 23,000 steps.

Yeah. I actually did a challenge to do 20,000 steps a day every day for a month. And that was only difficult-- like I can do it on aggregate, like over the course of seven days average out to 20,000.

But there were several days that I was just like walking back and forth down my hallway, to just like hit the thing over the edge. Yeah. I will say that the steps thing is something everyone should do if they can.

It is a lot harder when you're not New York. It also depends on where you're from and what you do for a living. Fun anecdote.

You used to live in Austin. And I don't drive. I used to drive.

I will not drive again, for the foreseeable future. But I was in Austin and so I would walk everywhere in Austin. And like I was trying to get my 10,000 steps.

And like it is hazardous to pedestrians in Austin. Oh, yeah. Like I did not realize-- Sidewalk situation, yeah.

It was fucking terrifying. And so many people were looking at me like I was a crazy person. They're like, why is that crazy lady walking down the street?

That's the way a lot of America is, is like, it's not built for walking. But I did it. You feel weird when you walk places, you know.

Listen. But then maybe that has a built-in lesson of like being less aware of what people think. Exactly.

Because you're just the crazy lady walking. Yeah. Yeah, that's actually one of the things I mentioned in the video was one thing you have to get over is feeling like you're doing something you shouldn't be doing.

Because you should be doing it. We all walk. We're built to walk.

But yet there are times when I was walking around a neighborhood in Madison where it's like-- They were calling the cops on you. --like there's no sidewalk. And I'm just walking down the street. And I felt weird, like I felt like, I'm in a, I'm just, people are going to be wondering what I'm doing walking past their house.

But you shouldn't feel that way to walk, you know. You know what you should do? You should strap those little pastel colored like ankle and wrist weights to yourself and just go walk laps in the mall.

Mall walking is actually, when it's really cold or really hot, my wife, when she was pregnant, she needed to walk. We were in Austin. Way too hot.

So we went to the mall and we walked around. I love mall walking. There's a mall at Columbus Circle, I love it.

This could make a great WheezyWaiter video if we could figure out how to retrofit this into 30 days. But I have a thing where I take a lot of red eye flights. I prefer red eye, especially if I'm going to like Europe or something, and I need to fall asleep on that plane.

So I will walk 10,000 steps in that airport right before I get on the flight. Because then, when you sit down on the plane, that chair, that shitty economy class chair, feels amazing and you go right to sleep. Yeah.

That's a great idea. I have a problem sleeping on planes, too. That's a good idea.

It's a hot tip. I mean, sometimes a Unisom helps. But still, the walking is like the biggest thing.

Because it's not just the sleep. You feel grateful to be in that shitty chair. Wow.

To feel grateful to be in an economy class chair. It's life changing. People tweet me now all the time, they're like, I'm getting in my Chelsea steps pre flight.

On the flipside, though, was there ever some challenge that you did that became obsessive to you, or that you became like manic about? None that became obsessive. But one that I, like intermittent fasting, I still love and I still do a lot.

Meditation, I think is fantastic. I always feel self-conscious when people talk about being into meditation. Because like, I can't do it.

Well, there's no right or wrong way to do it, really. That makes me feel worse. What do you mean by you can't do it?

So my husband is very into meditation. He does his whole like meditative practice on, I think, a daily basis. And he like has walked me through the process.

He's like, you have your word that you repeat and it brings you into your meditative state, and he like, whatever. And I've tried it a million different ways. I've used apps.

I've done all this thing. But I just think I have a loud brain. So you just-- your problem is you feel like you can't turn your brain off, you can't turn your random thoughts off?

No. Yeah. Initially I did it every day for 30 days.

And initially, with the goal of 20 minutes each time. And initially it was hard to turn my brain off. I realized I was addicted to thinking about work.

I was addicted to think about the things I had to get done all the time. And eventually, what I did was the body scan, where you focus on each part of your body, starting in the head, all the way down. And that turned my brain off almost every time.

It took a little while, but after like, I don't know, 5 or 10 minutes of doing that. Fun fact, when I was a teenager, I was Wiccan and in a coven. And we used to-- and then fun fact, after that was baptized as an Evangelical Christian.

Like Chelsea was like doing the Epcot tour of religion. Wow. Wow.

Was this by choice? Yeah. Like multiple years at a time, though, not like 30 days.

But yeah, no, I was very-- my parents were very surprisingly woke and very permissive about me-- like they took me to like a little oddity shop when I was Wiccan to get me a wand and an alter and all that stuff. I had a coven. There were three of us.

Wow. Anyway, all that to say, there's a practice in Wicca and a lot of pagan religions where you project to the astral plane, where you can like, it's basically meditation, looking back. And I'm like, if only I had the zest that 13, 14-year-old Chelsea had.

Because I was like, I remember the feeling, which I suppose is very equivalent to true meditation, where you're in a meditative state and you are not at all encumbered by your daily internal monologue. Yeah. I mean, the goal is really just to stop thinking about my anxieties and my stress, everything that is stressful in my life.

And it's really nice when it works. It doesn't work for me every time, either. But it does work.

Do you have tips for people who would love to challenge themselves to do something but don't feel capable of it? Set a time, set a time limit. Just say, I'm going to do it for this amount of time.

And then, for me that just works. Because then I know that I don't have to do this forever, if initially you don't like it. Most things that I try, initially I'm uncomfortable with them.

But because I know there's an end goal, I'm like, OK, I'll just continue. And then after several days, I start to like most of the things that I try. Yeah.

I'm really interested, because again, I think I'm someone who would have probably missed the point of a lot of 30 day challenges. Because I feel like I would just like, if it was sugar, I feel like I would just go out and get myself a sheet cake to celebrate, like [INAUDIBLE]. Well, yeah, but then after 30 days, my wife and I did that and we-- You didn't really want it as much?

Yeah, we kind of didn't want it. I mean-- OK, listen. My wife went back to eating a lot of sugar.

She admits that she's like back to square one now. So it didn't really stick. I feel validated now.

Yeah. To be fair, like, OK, so in the case of sugar, that's a poor example for me, because I'm definitely physiologically addicted to sugar. I probably could benefit from like a detox period.

Say a week. Do a week. I could do a week.

But I do think in general, if it's something that like, like the internet or some facet, or social media, something that is never going to leave your life but you want to have a better relationship to. I'm curious if you've ever done, because I feel like this would be a better one for me to do, like a 5-2 situation. I know a lot of people do this with veganism.

They'll be like, I'm vegan five days a week. Five days a week? Not necessarily on the weekend or week day.

Just like any five days, any two days. I think that would work. But again, because for me, I think it would gradually bleed into just my normal habits I have now, after a while.

Like if I-- I would rather-- for me, I would feel more accomplished if I set a goal of like 30 days and did it for those 30 days, rather than say indefinitely 5-2. Because it feels just too overwhelming, the idea of something, doing something indefinitely. Well, yeah.

And just the fact that it's indefinite, just I don't know, it would just make me want to break the rules more. I'd just be like, yeah, this week I'm not going to do it. This week I'm not going to do it, you know.

Have you ever done a 30-day challenge? Have I ever done a 30-day challenge? I have done-- I've done two weeks of a challenge, or I've done-- this is my new regime.

I am the guy who never eats sugar and works out for this amount of time, and then I spiral into like obsessive behavior that gets bad. I was going to say for you, though, and for me, the thing that works, I think we have very similar relationships with like, I don't want to say compulsive behavior, but like things that we want. We want things now and we get them.

I think something that has helped me is just throwing all my candy out, but buying a whole bunch of dried fruit and things that aren't necessarily better but are better. And then switching from dried fruit to like canned fruit to like fresh fruit. And then I'm eating a lot of fruit.

And then I've got to cut down fruit, which is pretty easy because I can replace it with like peanut butter on a rice cake or whatever. And then at that point, I'm like, oh, I'm not really eating a lot of sugar. Yeah.

So it's the gradual changes for you. Like for me, just 30 days, doing the extreme for 30 days, helps me-- again, it's hard. It's hard to say how much it helps me, because I still eat-- I eat sugar now.

But doing it for 30 days really taught me a lot about what's in everything. Like this has sugar, this has sugar, this-- Oh, yeah. We eat garbage.

Yeah. Yeah. And now I'm just more aware of it and I'm more aware when I'm eating too much, and I can scale it back.

But it's not like-- it's not, I'm not quitting it all together, you know. I was talking about this actually with my colleague before we came here. Because I was mentioning that this is a lot of what you do is these challenges.

You did the sugar one. And I was like, I want to just like, as a first step toward anything, like empty out my kitchen, and the other hiding places, of all the sugar products that I have, like all the candy, the cookies, the cakes, the frozen dessert, like all of that stuff, just put it on my counter in a pile and take a picture of it. Like I don't even have to do anything necessarily after that, but just like just acknowledge it.

Because I feel like, it's interesting what you were saying, Ryan, that like a lot of times the cold turkey/cleanse element, it's still about that thing. Like even if you're not necessarily, even if you're abstaining from it, the abstention becomes its own thing. But I do feel like even if it's that approach that works that's more like phasing out, I think first and foremost, I think we'd all be a lot healthier if we acknowledged that a lot of our habits are bad and a lot of what we take for granted is really not OK.

Like I think obviously New York, it's not necessarily our problem as much as others. But like I think a lot of people don't realize how sedentary they are. Oh, yeah.

Video editing is a very sedentary thing. Like I have to-- and I try-- I bought a standing desk, or a stand so I can stand, put my laptop on and stand up and edit. Even that, like standing for a while is sedentary.

Like it's just, it's rough. And working at home. So I have to consciously be like, I'm going to go out and just take a walk for no reason, which is just a weird concept for people to walk for no reason.

Like I feel weird saying, hey, I'm going to go take a walk. Like, where you going? Just taking a walk.

Like, OK. But why does that feel weird? Because I think so many of our bad habits become social habits, in the sense of like people will look at you weird in cities where walking is not a thing if you're walking, A, because it's unusual and they're like, are they casing a house to rob it?

But also because they think they know that it's bad that they're not walking. So you walking is like an indictment of them not walking. Yeah, which I also don't-- not trying to indict anyone else.

I'm just like, I just want to walk. Yeah. Like I have not watched your sugar video because I feel defensive about all the fucking sugar I eat.

But I know that, and I feel like that's already in and of itself a step in the right direction. Well, I don't-- again, you can do whatever you want. But listen, no matter how much money I'm spending on sugar, I've got to have the right tools to keep track of that money.

And one of the most inevitable things that you are going to have to do with your money, if you are a law abiding citizen, is pay your taxes. Now listen, it is no secret that taxes are often a little bit intimidating and it can be difficult to navigate them on your own. But if you have ever used TurboTax, or even heard of it, you probably know that it is a really, really good piece of software to help get you through the process of navigating your taxes easily and clearly and to get you the biggest possible refund that you are entitled to.

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You can learn more about TurboTax in the link at our description or our show notes. So speaking of money, have you ever done a challenge around finances? Not for a video.

But I might do one for a video. My wife and I did a no spend month. I don't even rem-- it was a little while ago.

I don't remember. And you didn't make a video? No.

This was before I was doing the challenge videos. But man, I shoulda, right? You really should have.

Well, do it again. Yeah, I think we should. It's kind of disingenuous to like pick the right time to do it.

But because we just moved, we bought a lot of stuff for our new house and everything was still kind of like transitioning that. But once that settles, yeah, then maybe just like a no spend month would be great. What did you learn from your last no spend month?

We spend a lot of money on going out to eat. Listen, I feel like that's what most people would discover. Yeah.

But that's something we love to do. And what else? That was about it.

That was like the main expense for us is just going out to eat. Going out to eat, shopping, like my wife does a lot of the buying of stuff. I always hate shopping anyway.

But yeah, that's pretty much it. Don't go out to eat. But then what do we do?

But then, just die at that point. Yeah. Just kidding.

No, but I do, that is one that I feel like is so-- I think it's so easy for people to point to the going out to eat as a really frivolous way for people to spend money. But I feel like at the end of the day, eating food is one of the few pure human pleasures. And for so many people I feel like that's one of the things that brings them the most joy in a given week.

Well, we are doing, we're in the middle of another-- I'm doing no alcohol, but we're also doing meal planning this month. Doubling up. Yeah.

Are you making a video for both? Yes. Oh, nice.

Yeah. But meal planning really affects my wife more than me. Because she does the cooking.

You're canceled. I'm sorry. I'm not making her.

Shunting that domestic labor right onto the wife-- Yeah. She wants-- --who's currently at home in Wisconsin, frigid Wisconsin, taking care of his child. This was her idea for me to come to New York.

I don't believe it. All right. Well.

Well, watch the video, you'll find out. But I will say, doing no drinking and meal planning in a month, that's going to-- it's going to be hard to disentangle which benefits are from which, right, body wise? What, meal planning and no alcohol?

Because I feel like if you lose weight, it's like, from whence did that come? Yeah. Yeah, that's true.

I don't think, like with meal planning, I don't know that we're changing our diet a whole lot. We're just, we have less stress in our day. Because that was a big source of stress was, what are we going to eat tonight?

Uh, I don't know. What do you want? We'll just have a discussion.

And it does stress my wife out a little, because she has to have time to prepare because we're also feeding our baby and everything. And I sound like just like a bad person, don't I? No.

Although I will say, when you first said meal planning, I was envisioning meal prepping, which you're not doing. Not really, no. Some of it's prepped.

Yeah, some of it. But we would go to the grocery store like almost daily just because we didn't know what we were going to eat until that day. See, this is why, like this is more of that like bro-ification of concepts, though.

Because isn't a lot of like meal planning and meal prep, isn't that just leftovers? It is for me. I mean, I cook big batch almost everything I cook, and then a portion out and freeze like the rest of it.

And I feel like my mom did that and it wasn't called like meal prep. And then it lasts like a week? Or like-- No, you put it in the freezer, Craig.

So you cook a big portion, you put it in the freezer, and then you heat it up every night? Or [INAUDIBLE] Not every night. It's just like you now have it.

It's like-- It snows, and you're like, remember when we made soup? Gonna eat that soup. Time to heat some soup up.

Like I'm literally going to do that tonight. I'm going to make like a shit ton of soup and then freeze like eight or-- you know, maybe six portions of it. OK.

I mean yeah, that works. But that's not the way my wife wants to eat. She doesn't like a lot of leftovers.

But again, you don't usually eat the leftovers. Like we'll have one portion of leftovers that's in the fridge that you eat for lunch that week. But then the rest of them go in the freezer and you can eat them like months later.

Yeah. Yeah, it's close. It's kind of like TV dinners, but for yourself.

But we're also trying to not go out to eat a whole lot or-- so you know, the food we're cooking, we can put it away, but then we just have to keep cooking more food, you know. We want to eat the leftovers right away. We're also at home all day.

Oh, she works at home too? Yeah. Oh, OK.

So we're eating lunch at home. So we do need a constant flow of food to happen. Got it.

I don't know. I mean, I feel like it used to be so much more common than it is now for people to be OK with the concept of eating the same meal multiple times in a week. I feel like the-- again, I'm very used to the leftover lunch life.

But I understand if that's not your thing that it could feel kind of depressing. Again, I like that idea. But my wife doesn't like that idea of eating the same meal.

She wants it to be fresh every day. Like, ooh, what's for dinner tonight? And every time's an adventure.

Yeah. So how's it been going with dry January? Not that hard, really.

Except coming to New York, it made it a little more challenging. Because there's so many awesome looking cocktail bars and wine bars everywhere. What are you doing instead for your outings?

I'm just working. Pretty much. You should go like bowling or something.

I should go bowling. Do like a fun little activity. OK.

I mean, like last night, I went out and I had ramen, which was awesome. But that's just eating. That's not an activity really.

That's true. It's really interesting, I was talking about this with a friend the other day, how we, as adults, often become incredibly unimaginative with our social lives as we get older. We're like, do you want to go to, you know, you want to go get some food?

You want to go get a drink? You want to-- I think that's it, for the most part. I think as I get older, I just weigh how much energy it's going to take to go do the thing versus not doing it, you know.

When I was younger, it's like I had infinite energy. I could just go out and do whatever. But as I get older, it's like, I'm going to have to, I have to go-- well, if you're not New York-- go get in the car and drive and then go just hang out for a while, and then I go home, and then like it's going to be too late and I'm going to not get enough sleep.

I don't know. Yeah. I find that that's also part of the reason why, because I do pretty regular workout classes.

And I always do them in the evenings, because I find that like especially in the winter months it's one of the few things that will consistently force me to be outside of the house, move my body, and experience some serotonin after the hour of 5 o'clock. Because otherwise, it's like all you want to do is go home and sit on your couch and eat like stew. Yeah.

But it doesn't help that there's so many awesome TV shows. There's too much TV. I can't.

No more, please. Like I feel like there's, I don't know, I feel like there's way too much, which by the way, and I'm curious to know, when you did not watch TV or movies for a month, you really didn't miss that. It didn't feel like an absence to you.

Really? No, it really wasn't that hard. I'm trying to remember what we were in the middle of watching at the time.

And I can't think of what we were-- oh, we were we were watching a lot of Great British Baking Show at the time on Netflix. It's called The Great British Bake-Off. Yes.

But not in America, it's not. Is that true? I've never seen it.

On Netflix, it's The Great British Baking Show. We were in the middle-- you've never seen it? No.

I just like to condescend. OK. Well.

Wow. Wow. No, no I really, I should watch it.

I love cooking shows. I like it because it's a breath of fresh air compared to any other-- Competitive show? Yeah, because it's everyone's so nice to each other.

Yeah. Have you ever, outside of the steps, have you ever done a workout challenge? I plan to do one this year.

I plan to do-- Don't say Cross Fit. No. No.

I don't-- I don't-- I don't think so. But some sort of strength training. Because I've never done it and I want to try.

I've never joined a gym. You know what I would like to request formally? I'm sure none of you will be surprised.

But there are no-- there are very few men that do it, and it has an enormous amount of benefits, I would say do Pilates for a month. Pilates, interesting. It's so good for the body.

Hank Green does Pilates. I know he does. And so a lot of people-- actually, most men who do Pilates, this is anecdotal, but most men that I know that do Pilates or have done Pilates have gotten into it because a physical therapist or a doctor told them to.

Because it's very, very good for, you know, your joints, your muscles, all that stuff. It really helps like flexibility, posture, all those things. But it's pretty difficult, especially when you get really into it.

And I feel like a lot of men would be surprised at how much it does for them. That is interesting. That sounds like a good video.

Do you want credit for that? Listen, if you publish that bad boy, it should be co-produced by Chelsea Fagan. Wow.

Wow. I want EP status. You want to edit it for me?

No, thank you. Yeah, that actually sounds like a great idea, Pilates. Because yeah, you wouldn't exp-- you don't see a lot of dudes doing it.

No. And I feel like it's also because I think anything that like works on like flexibility or stretch, any of that is just like read as girly, I feel. Yeah.

And yoga, we're going to do yoga for a month at some point, too, which I hope-- Which is good. --I hope helps, people say it might help my sleep problems as well. Listen, I'm someone who's had sleep problems my whole life. And I do Pilates pretty damn regularly, and it really hasn't helped.

But I also-- like, oh, I know a challenge I should definitely do for 30 days, no blue screen in bed. Yeah. I did that with no internet.

Did it help your sleep? Maybe a little. Maybe a little.

That's a no. Yeah. Oh, my god.

Yeah. I'm never going to get better sleep. I don't know.

Like I don't think that's my problem. Because I've gone through periods of time where I'm reading my phone in bed and where I'm not. And I don't see that much difference.

So out of all of the challenges you've done, you think that intermittent fasting has had the most lasting benefits for you. And meditation. And meditation.

Those two are the ones you would try. What is the one that like as soon as you did the 30 days, you were like, glad that's over, never again? Well, the week of going to bed at 7:00 PM, for sure, was definitely I'm glad that's over.

Veganism, I didn't hate it, but it hasn't really had a lasting effect. Do you eat as much meat and animal products as you did before? I don't know.

Probably. I probably do. I mean, I didn't eat a whole lot before it.

I don't eat a whole lot now. But I do eat meat products. I'm more aware of it now, I guess, like I'm more aware of the things that are vegan and the things that aren't.

And I don't know, sometimes I'm more I'm more willing to just try a vegan option. Because a lot of them are very good. But I still eat meat.

My approach mainly was to see how it would improve my health, like how I would feel after going, after having that vegan diet. Did you feel better? Not really.

Oh, my god. Craig, like all of your verdicts are like, no, it was pretty much the same. Yeah.

Except for some, like meditation and intermittent fasting. But I don't know, I felt fine, I felt pretty good. But it was only a month.

Maybe it would've-- It would have taken a while. Yeah, maybe it would have taken longer. But once you get into like the ethical argument or the environmental arguments for veganism, it gets really shaky, like it's hard to-- both sides have good points, both sides, I don't necessarily agree with everything they're saying.

So I don't know. Well, I think one of the things we talk about most on TFD when it comes to any kind of approach to how you budget, because ultimately like outside of bare necessities, your budget is just going to be made up of things that you choose to have in your life. I think a big thing that we like to talk about is really getting super clear about what is a need versus what is a want and what is actually bringing you joy and value and meaning versus what is just something you've become accustomed to or something that might be a passing desire, or even just you saw an ad for something and now you want it.

Do you feel that doing these challenges really help you clarify your own instincts and desires and value? 100%. Yes. Like quitting the internet, for instance, which also involved quitting TV, we still had fun.

We still interacted with each other, my wife and I. And we enjoyed life. And I realized that all of those things, all those other things around, almost none of it matters, really.

What matters is-- I mean, to get sentimental-- what matters are the people in your life. That's really what matters, you know. And the more they do these challenges, the more-- like no alcohol.

Like a lot of my social interactions, especially in Wisconsin, involve drinking. Beer, I assume, out there. Beer, a lot of beer, yeah.

But with eliminating it, I'm still-- like even my family, my parents drink, my sister drinks. They're quitting along with us, which is pretty interesting. But we're still getting together.

We're still having meals together. We're still having a good time. Like those things around us really don't matter that much.

So you feel like those challenges just help you get a clearer sense of what is really valuable in each given situation. And almost every time, which is valuable is the people in your life. That's really it.

Yeah. And I also think, you know, similarly to clarifying the need versus want, I think it's also really important to just feel a huge sense of gratitude. But also, enjoyment with whatever it is that you're doing.

And I feel like if something is a rare and exceptional treat, it is like every moment of that is savored and you anticipate it and you think about it, and it's of real value to you. But if it's something that's done carelessly and frequently, it just becomes-- it just gets absorbed into the dust of your life. Yeah.

I mean, maybe like to make a comparison, like watching a movie that I've been waiting all year to come out, like I want to see this movie and it's so good versus oh, another episode of The Great British Baking Show. Like, yeah, why not? Meh.

Yeah, I had that definitely, I had one specific kind of place that I never got takeout from because I thought their charges were ridiculous for delivery, or delivery, I guess. So I got it for a birthday. And it was like, I had a special bottle of champagne that I was chilling that we had with the delivery.

I mean, you know, we set up this whole setup and we watched a really great movie while we were having this takeout and everything. And it was like the most fabulous experience and it felt so exciting to get this really indulgent thing. And then I got it a few more times throughout the year.

And then I was like, wow, you really just, like, man, you killed it. You killed that thing that was so exciting to you, and now it's worthless to you and it's nothing. It's not even a shadow of what it was to you that night.

Yeah, and it has nothing to do with what it is. It's just how you-- It's just your relationship to it and your life. So as a last question on these videos, what would be your-- aside from setting the time limit, like, let's say you're someone who doesn't necessarily want to limit their challenge to a 30-day, but if there's someone who wants to get a lot of control over a habit or a routine or whatever, what is your advice?

Well, don't be afraid to try things, I guess. I mean, you're eliminating my main things, which are time limit. I had to think about this.

Have a huge YouTube audience which holds you accountable to your goals. Yeah. Would you say that it's more effective to focus really strongly on your goal or to not think about it when doing it?

I think it's I to not think about it, but it's hard to not think about it, depending on the goal. But yeah, I would say it's best to figure out a way to just live your normal life without thinking about the thing all the time. Like quitting alcohol and your friends want to go out to a bar.

I think there's nothing wrong with getting a drink that looks like a cocktail, like getting a soda with a lime in it or something and just pretending like you're still doing it. And that'll keep your mind off of it. And I think that's perfectly legitimate.

Why not? Or like, I'm drinking non-alcoholic beer and I kind of like some of it. Interesting.

Anything to keep your mind off of thinking about wanting to have a drink, or to have sugar or whatever. Find an alternative. Trick yourself.

I have no problem with tricking yourself. Very cool. Yeah, I feel like in the times that I've started things from scratch that were very difficult for me at first, I guess IF was part of it, although I never really ate breakfast, so I was like inadvertently doing IF kind of.

But especially for me starting Pilates a few years ago was the hardest thing I ever did in terms of completely changing my relationship to my body and getting into working out and all that stuff. I think the thing that really helped me at first was to, well, A, dedicate a-- and this is, I think, particularly true if you're starting something-- really clear your schedule and focus on doing that thing, in terms of like, you know, I did several days in a row where I worked with a coach to help me learn the basics, all that stuff. I had no social plans during that time.

It was very much like, I want to give myself this time to really focus on the thing and not feel like I have to shoehorn it into a day. Similarly, if I was going to do, you know, I want to wake up at 5:00 AM every day, I think it would be very helpful to me to like, I am having no social plans that week. Because I don't want to come in at 11:00 at night after a dinner and then still have to get up at 5:00.

I want to give myself every possible advantage to helping that be the case. And then the other thing I found that really helped me in making those changes was giving yourself-- and this is harder, I guess, at a 30-day challenge-- but in general, giving yourself permission to do what you want. And if it's really that important to you, you can do it.

You know, like if it's really that important to you to not go to class, you can not go to class. If it's really that important to you to have a breakfast, even though you don't normally eat breakfast, you really want that croissant, because you're in France, whatever, have the croissant, you know. And then once you have that permission, I feel like it becomes less of an overwhelming monologue.

Yeah. I think you can cheat here and there. Don't feel bad about it.

I think feeling bad is actually very detrimental. Because then you'll just spiral downward. It'll cycle into just everything makes you feel bad, so then you're just going to completely avoid whatever it is you're trying to do.

You're going to give up. That's why I mean, listen, we call it the Financial Diet because the only diet that actually works is something you can do every day. You know?

I thought of another thing to say to answer that question. Oh. Share it.

I try to think about, like I have weight loss goals. I have exercise goals. And I try to think about the type of person that I want to be.

I mean, I don't know if this is healthy or not, this is just what I do. I try to think about, do I want to be the type of person who exercises every morning? Do I want to be the type of person who can exercise and it doesn't hurt?

You know, do I want to be the type of person who doesn't-- it's hard to talk about this stuff-- do I want to be the type of person who doesn't want, who wants to have a healthy relationship with food, who doesn't feel like they've overeaten, or you know, when I look at myself in the mirror, do I want to be happy with what I see? Do I want to-- and again, it's not really about appearance for me. It's not really about sort of an external thing.

For me, it's about just feeling good, about feeling healthy, feeling like I have energy. And I don't know, I just try to constantly picture what-- that doesn't sound healthy as I'm saying it out loud. No, I think it definitely does.

Because I think it's much more-- I mean, I would put it a different way. But for me, it's about I want to feel like I'm steering the ship, you know. Like I want to feel like I'm in charge of the decisions that I'm making, that if I like, I got Chick-fil-A yesterday, which aside from being problematic is also not like the best food in the world for you.

But I can enjoy that for what it is and not feel that that has somehow derailed me because I made that choice consciously, and I'll make different choices tomorrow that will help keep me on a general good path. And I feel like it's an overall sense of like, I think we've all been in places, whether you're looking in the mirror or just moving down the street and walking and you can feel that you're not the way you want to feel. And that, to me, is another way of saying like, I'm not steering the ship.

I'm not making the decisions and setting the terms. I'm letting them be set by, whether it's cravings or addictions or whatever it may be, like something else is steering the ship. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. The way you said it was good. Thank you.

So before we let you go, we have our rapid fire questions-- pew, pew, pew, pew, pew-- that we ask all people who cross these hallowed halls. Number one is what is the big financial secret of your industry? And we'll just make this YouTube.

The big financial secret of my-- well, you're YouTuber, can you answer that? I have a lot of answers to that, but I'd be curious to hear yours. Big secret?

Ooh, I have a really good one that will make you reveal a number, if you wouldn't mind. How much money did you make off of that video that did 10 million views? Do you know?

Somewhere in the 30 thousands. Holy shit. Yeah. [MAKES SIREN NOISES] That is a lot of money.

That's a car. Yeah. That's a car.

Yeah. That's a car. Yeah.

That was very-- that doesn't happen every video. In fact, by far never happens for me. That's exciting.

Well, thank you for revealing that. We love when someone reveals a number for context. Number two, what do you invest in versus what are you cheap about?

I invest in stocks. And I am cheap about clothes. Damn.

Just like a straightforward answer. Out of curiosity, when you say stocks, I hope you're not meaning individual stock picking. I'm not like a day trader, if that's what you mean.

Like mutual funds? Oh, OK, yeah. I was just, in my mind I was picturing you meaning like, I'll take a little Adidas, a little Google, you know, what have you.

Yeah. Not good to do, folks. What has been your single best investment and why?

My investment in YouTube video making. There you go. What's like your tool that you get the most use out of?

I mean, aside from, I guess, it's your camera. But actually, that's a stupid question. Editing software.

What do you use? Adobe Premier. What has been your biggest money mistake and why?

I don't want to go into too much detail, but I invested in making an app and lost a lot of money. Was it you making the app? Co-producing it, yeah.

Got it. Mm-hmm. That sounds like a fraud story, but we won't make you elaborate.

What is your biggest current money insecurity? My biggest money insecurity, I guess, we just bought a house, so I think about that all the time, the money we're putting into that. What if like a tree falls on the roof?

Yeah, we just had to cut a tree down. Man, trees and houses, man. Trees and houses.

But I don't feel that insecure about it. That's just [INAUDIBLE]. It's just like a worry.

Yeah, right. Actually, going back to the investment thing, you don't have to tell us anything about the app, but like what is the biggest lesson that you learned from your foibles in app making? Don't go into anything you don't know that much about.

Well, that's true. Yeah. Can't say I disagree with that.

Number six, what has been the financial habit that has helped you the most? Putting money where I can't easily get it, I guess. Man, your answers are short and sweet, but very true.

Well, I mean, I could elaborate on that, if you want. Well, go ahead. Yeah.

Like the best advice my dad gave me once when I was waiting tables and I was living month to month, I had no savings, was just every shift put away $20. And so I just put it away. I put away $20 into savings for periodically.

And then eventually I would put in way more money than that, because I noticed that I could afford to put away more money than that. And then I saved up like a couple thousand dollars, bought a laptop, started making videos. The American dream over here.

And lastly, when did you first feel successful, quote-unquote, and what does that word mean to you? I first felt successful when I was able to be my own boss. I quit my job to do YouTube full time.

And being successful to me means doing what you love for a living. Damn. Man, concise but powerful.

So thank you so much for coming by and for doing all these fascinating and comical and enlightening challenges. Well, thank you for having me. And if people want more of all of this, where can they go?

They can go to YouTube.com/wheezywaiter. That's my main stuff. I am also on Twitter.

Although as we've discussed, Twitter doesn't matter. But I'm @wheezywaiter on Twitter. I should quit Twitter for 30 days.

That I could do, and should. But that's hard. If you're just quitting Twitter but you're still on the rest of the internet, you might eventually get led to Twitter somehow.

Delete the app. Delete the app, for sure. Yes, I will delete the app.

You know what? I'm going to-- wait, hold on. Delete it right now.

Oh, my god, this is a TFD first. At least you'll have an obstacle to get to it now. You've got to cut in on this.

OK, hold on. All right. We're going to the Twitter.

Ooh, they're all vibrating. And delete. You did it.

I did it! So next time you go to Twitter, you're going to be like, oh, I deleted the app, and you probably won't go to Twitter. Oh my, god.

I've done this before with Twitter. Is this like how the monks feel? Well, anyway, guys, this has been a transformative experience for me.

I got so much out of this. Thank you, as always, for watching, and we will see you next week on The Financial Confessions. I probably won't be here.

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So if you have been wanting to learn more about your own finances and maybe start making some of those bigger decisions, please check out Turbo at the link in our description or the show notes. It's free. [MUSIC PLAYING]