Things to Stop Doing With Your Money in 2025
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Hey guys, I'm Rachel Cruz. I'm George Camel. And this is Smart Money Happy Hour. Cheers, George. Cheers. Delicious. Amazing. Well, this is the show where two friends who have to be money experts talk about what you're talking about. So everything from pop culture, current events, and money. And today's vibes are excellent already, Rachel, because it's the first episode of 2025. I know. It's Happy New Year. We made it. The haters doubted. And thanks for being here. You know, maybe it's a fresh start. Maybe people think, hey, we want to listen to a money podcast.

and start a new trail. A new journey. Yeah. We're all on a journey as we are. And today we're talking about money habits you should leave behind in 2025. Before we get to 2025, all things good and bad, let's share what we're sipping on, Rachel. Yes. It's a frostbite. What a fun drink name. And it's really good. It looks like the milk after you eat Lucky Charms. Oh my gosh, it does. That's so true. And I'm going to call this drink Oops All Booze.

It's a boozy one for being such a fun color. It looks like you'd just be drinking blue milk, but it's not. Oh my goodness. Well, for those of you that don't know, George and I, we are in the personal finance space when it comes to what we talk about in life.

And one of the best parts of our job when it comes to this is just new beginnings. Fresh starts, clean slate, a do-over, whatever you want to call it. Yeah, getting out of debt, maybe investing for the first time, getting that emergency fund in place. We love to cheer people on as they take control of their finances and start rewriting a different story. Yeah, and the new year, it presents itself in that way, right? Everyone's looking for the fresh start. For some reason, January 1st,

It's just a day, but it feels like a blank slate. It really does. Who knows what's possible? Who knows? We have all of 2025. Can you believe 2025?

I remember Y2K. Do you remember Y2K? Yeah. Man, and that was 20... I think I still have trauma from what they said was going to happen. Oh, yeah. Dave and Sharon may have had a few cases of water in the basement. I don't doubt it. Yeah. We didn't know. I was too young to even know. Oh, you were? Well, I mean, I was in like fifth grade. I know. Did you not think like... So I wasn't like a prepper at that point. I just remember everyone being like, the computers can't take a 2,000. They

They can't take it. It's going to crash. Yeah, the banks are going to shut down. Yeah, it's all going to crash. Yeah. And here we are. Here we are, 25 years later. The world crumbled for different reasons. 25 years later, a quarter of a century. Yeah. Yeah.

I was real nervous about what you were going to say. About a decade. And I was like, that's not the right word. That's not the right word. Wow. Oh, man. Well, we're going to talk about, you know, some habits, good and bad, to look at in 2025 when it comes to your money. Well, when you leave behind a bad one, you got to pick up a good one. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know. I'm sure James Clear's talked about that. I'm sure he invented that somehow. I'm sure he did. Father of the habit. Father of the habit. He

He birthed it, birthed the habit. Yeah, so we are going to talk about habits in this episode. It's going to be fun, George. Yeah, we'll call out a few non-money related habits and behaviors that we'd like to see each other leave in 2024. I've got some bones to pick with you, Rachel. All right, I can't wait to hear about it. Okay, George, what's one habit you want to see leave in 2025?

People who are putting their financial goals on the back burner. Oh, that's a good one. It's always a, you know, this is like with investing. Well, I'll just do it next year. I'll get to that later on. I'll save when I'm older, right? That's what people say to themselves. And it's like when you're scrolling Instagram on your couch after dinner and you're like, I'll get up, I'll go to bed at 8.30. 8.31 hits, you're like, make it 8.45. Then before you know it, it's midnight and your spouse is waking up to feed your infant child.

And you're still rotting on the couch like a lowlife. It is weird how time just...

evaporates when you scroll. It's not good. And doing any, I was up late last night watching a Netflix series and I was like, I'm going to regret this in the morning, but I just want to finish it and be done with it. See, I don't do that. I don't have that issue. I'm, I'm. Are you like, the clock hits eight in your. Because I just physically, I'm physically tired. You're turning into a pumpkin. I can't, even if I wanted to try to stay up late, I really can't. Does your body just know or do you have like an alarm set on your phone that says, it's eight o'clock bedtime. No, my body. My body's like.

Good night, Rachel. Wow. Good night, Moon. Yeah, good night, Rachel. Is Winston the night owl? No, neither of us are. He's out. Yeah, we both go to bed in an embarrassing early time sometimes, but we get great sleep, which is why we're so healthy. I'm just kidding. Didn't we just do an episode about your Sonic and McDonald's runs? Yeah, we did. Okay. But you know what? You make up for that with your other healthy habits. That's right. That's right. So healthy habits are great. Okay. You know the one I hope stops in 2025? What's that?

This whole like kind of cool factor of like not really knowing what's in your bank account. It has become trendy to sort of... It's like a trendy to be like, oh my gosh, I don't really know, but we're just going to go for it or like whatever the excuse is. But some people, it's like...

Ignorance is bliss. Their head is in the sands. They don't even want to know what is going on with their money. We got to stop that, y'all. Yeah, I saw the video. The girl said, I don't want to look at my bank account because I don't need that negative energy in my life. Or it's none of my business. Like, it's literally your business. It's literally your business. If you are the business, your business is about to be bankrupt, girl. Yeah. Let's do something about this. So people like to make light of it because I think it's a coping mechanism. Yeah, and again—

Money's not everything in life. Like we're okay to take some lighthearted approaches for sure, right? But when it starts to like become a pattern-

And that's really how you function. You're not just kind of like joking about it with your friends. Yeah, we're going to raise a little red flag. If it's like your personality trait to make fun of how broke you are, maybe you need a new personality. George, stop that. That's all I'm saying. Just like people who make CrossFit or veganism their personality. I think we need a better personality. Yeah, but there are people that like...

work hard and it's like, yeah, it all goes. And then they just like kind of have fun with the fact of like, oh, well look at so-and-so over there doing that. But usually there's some toxic habits that they're sort of just like, yeah, but I'm going to keep my toxic habits. Yeah, if it's justifying it. Yeah. But some people are wise with it. Come on, George. Don't be grumpy. I'm a fuddy-duddy. Don't be grumpy. So grumpy. I don't want to see that in my feed. Okay, we get it. We get it.

Okay, other things to stop doing in 2025, using your credit card as an emergency fund. This one grinds my gears. I bet it does, George. The fact that you think the credit card company is your friend and your saving grace and your little security blanket, and they're going to charge you 25% APR on that purchase when you're in an emergency. Here's my theory. I don't think people think, I don't think people always are like, oh yeah, the credit card companies are for me. I don't think they always think that. I think they believe I have no other option.

And this is it. Like, this is my option. I don't have $10,000. So if I needed to spend $10,000 for an emergency, I could swipe the card. I could just swipe the card. Yeah, they see it as kind of like the last line of defense where we want you to be the last line of defense and to actually say, hey, let's have some goals around this so that the credit card doesn't become the safety net. Because what ends up happening is you have a car issue.

And then you got to fix it with a credit card. Well, your car issue is fixed, but now you have a money issue versus getting the car fixed with money you've saved. And then you're done. No more issues. No more issues, right? And I found there's a correlation between people who get ahead with money and people who aren't getting all these ankle-biter emergencies, always dragging them down, using the card to swipe. And that's why the starter emergency fund is key. Getting $1,000 saved, while it may not sound like

life-changing money, it really does cover those little ankle biters that keep throwing you off the wagon. Well, 40% of Americans can't cover a $400 emergency in cash. So for a little less than half of America...

$1,000 is pretty good. Which means you're swiping that card if you have a $450 emergency fund. Yeah, you're swiping it probably a lot. So $1,000 to start, get that done really fast. Takes most people 30 days or less to do this. Probably next paycheck if you can just hunker down, cut some expenses, sell some stuff. And then you want long-term a fully funded emergency fund once you're out of debt. And that's three to six months of expenses. Yes. I call this like the never go into debt thing.

insurance policy. Because when you have that, you never have a reason to go swipe the card. That's right. That's right. Yes. And that's a great place to be. Like when you get to baby step three and it's done, it's like, oh my gosh, I have no payments and I have a fully funded emergency fund.

I'm good. Like that's where really the stress dies down. In my early 20s, I had the Amex SkyMiles card. Yeah, you did, George. I had the Discover cashback card. Did you get a lot of cashback? No, I was broke. It's like when you think about this, when you're, you know, 20 years old, you're making no money. And you're thinking like, well, this is, I'm going to get a great credit score. I'm going to get some sweet cashback. So I was in credit card debt.

And finally, when I cut up the cards and I took debt off the table, it was amazing what happened. I just made very different decisions. Yes. And I got the thousand bucks saved, got out of my debt about 18 months, got a fully funded emergency fund. And I never looked back. No credit card since. You know, that's a really good point. It's almost like even though the quote unquote, I pay it off every month credit card idea. We see you. We know you're out there. We know you're out there.

If other parts of your money are not great either, like we don't have a big savings account. We do have some other debt over here. You know, you're kind of just like, you kind of got all these like what they call rods in the fire, sticks in the fire. Irons? Irons in the fire. There's a lot of irons in the fire. Been waiting to use the word irons. That's great. I was like rods in the fire. Is this biblical? Spare the child, burn the rods. Oh my God.

That's the line. You got a lot of irons in the fire that aren't great, right? Like you're kind of just managing your money, like barely getting by. It's like, oh my gosh, we got all this stuff. So to completely turn your whole perspective around money, do something drastic, like cut up the credit cards.

And it's not even the fact that you had to depend on the credit cards, because I think some people don't, but they're still paying car loans. They're still kind of managing everything else just to keep their head above water. When you do something drastic with your money, it forces everything else to change. Oh, yeah. So it's kind of a good shock the monkey. There's another phrase for you. There we go. I got that one right. So irons in the fire were shocking the monkey. How about this one? Go. Burn the ships. That's one of my favorites. Wait, wait. Don't burn them, right? We don't. There's some story about they burned the ships so they couldn't turn back.

So there's this like I'm never going back moment. I don't know. It was a great historical thing. Read the book about it. I'm not going to give you a history lesson. The emergency fund is the lifeboat on the burning boat. So burn the boats, get in the lifeboat, and then you're good. You're sailing away to new heights. Wow. We have analogied this to death.

The four people that are left listening are just hanging on for dear life to their little life rafts. Oh my gosh. Gonna keep it going. Okay, the next one's for me. This is for you. Stop buying things on sale just because they're on sale. This is one of my downfalls, you know?

you see a great sale, so you throw in an extra sweater in the cart because it's 50% off. Do you get a little dopamine hit just seeing the word sale? Yeah, and mine's not because I get to save more money, it's because I get more stuff. Oh, thank you for your honesty. It's not just like, oh, I'm playing this great game. She's happy to pay full price. I get more for the same amount of money I was going to spend. More bang for the buck. I'm a quantity over quality. I know it's not like the minimalism cool thing, but that is Rachel all day, all day. Yeah,

day. Yeah, this is a big one. Just because it's on sale doesn't mean it's a good deal. Yep. Everything's 100% off if you don't buy it. And you can go broke while quote unquote saving money. Right? I bought it on sale. I put it on the card. I am Winston. I'm kidding. A lot of people mistake me for Winston when I'm walking around the streets. I have to explain to them. He's a little bit taller. No, this is a good one. It's probably the hardest one to pass up, especially

and holidays and sales and emotional spending, retail therapy. And now the phone apps, like they go to you. The notification pops up letting you know. See, I don't do notifications. What about emails? Do you get the emails? I feel like you're old school. I do, but I do try to subscribe. Unsubscribe? I'm sorry, hold on. You feel like I'm old school?

You just seem like an email newsletter kind of gal. I don't know why that's offensive. I think that's great. Would you rather me say, will you wait for the J.Crew catalog to arrive by pigeon? By pigeon. How do you find out about sales? Yeah, email.

But I do try to unsubscribe. I will go through and unsubscribe because it'll, man. Yeah. It's crazy the amount of emails you get. I love doing that like right before Black Friday. November 1st hit and it was like every company decided, go, go, go, descend, descend. And I just started unsubscribing in mass. Oh, yeah. On November 1st. Because I was like, they're starting their campaigns. Yeah. And you'll get so much. So, yeah. So, don't fall for it. And you taught me this, George, that sometimes these stores...

It's the same price, but they like just say it's on sale or something. I feel like that should be illegal. Well, they have the MSRP or retail price. And so they go, well, it's 40% off. And you go, it's still $78 for this cardigan, even 40% off. And next week when the sale's over, they're going to have a new sale and it's still going to be $78. Yeah. So they use a lot of tomfoolery to trick you, Rachel. Don't fall for it. Don't fall for it. Don't fall for the schemes. All right. Another habit to leave behind, George, talking to myself, comparing yourself to others.

Can I just add with a little asterisk on social media? That's the big one. I mean, man, social media. We always talk about it, but it's just true. I mean, and I think it's mostly Instagram or do you see like Facebook and other places? I don't get on anything else.

I think Instagram is the place you flex. Me too. I don't think Facebook, there's a lot of flexing. It's mostly venting. Yeah. Mostly Facebook groups. That's where I hang out. Okay. Like the neighborhood Facebook group is, I'm like. See, we have a group me Facebook. I get popcorn. We have a group me, the app for our neighborhood. That's pretty hip. Well. You think the guys are in there too? I feel like. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. What are the guys posting? Well, they have a guys group and a girls group. Well, like that was the overall thing.

So they split up. There's a lot of different groups. There's like referral group. There's social group. There's book club group. Are you in any of the groups? Yes, I'm in all of them. Are you like mayor of your neighborhood? What are you doing? No, I just like to go to everything I can. Wow. It's so fun. I didn't know you were like social butterfly in your own neighborhood. Oh, yeah. I started a Bible study in my neighborhood. Got 12 ladies coming.

That is actually shocking. What? I mean, you're a busy mom, you know? Like, that's a lot on the plate. It's every other week, and it's just per semester. It's like six times a semester we get together. Wow. Do you come up with a curriculum? Are you ready for the title of it? Yeah. Jesus and Wine. Oh, wow. So we bring wine.

And we go through it with like a study or a book or yeah, whatever it is. That's wonderful. We went through, are you ready for this? We just finished last night was our last one for the semester. What's the book of the pile that I just went through for the last semester that I'm blanking on, but you love it. Habakkuk? Nope. Oh, Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes. I was going to say Ephesians. I was like, it wasn't Ephesians. We did Ecclesiastes. What'd you think? We went through a book with it. It was, yeah, it was good. I need to read the book. It's called Living Life Backwards. Oh.

Oh. Yeah, you'll like it. Any favorite verses or takeaways from Ecclesiastes you'd like to share with the group? Yeah, since we're talking about comparing others. I like the level of moodiness of Ecclesiastes that kind of gets you down to like, what's really, listen, we're all going to die. Oh, yeah. But then it'll flip around and be like, but be merry. Enjoy your hard work. So I love that too. Yes. It's like Bon Iver into Michael Buble. It does. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a very different way. Yeah.

It's like the Titanic is going down. Let's have a good time. Mm-hmm.

Let the band play. That's exactly it. Dance, be merry. Don't worry about trying to be in control. Like, just enjoy life. So everything is meaningless, so stop comparing your life to someone else's. Yeah, that's right. We'll wrap this all back into stop comparing yourself to others. That is a good one. And it's difficult because even as you, you know, you get better in your career, you get better with money. Well, there's always someone who's nine steps ahead of you that you're like, but we don't have that kind of money. Yep, totally. And we live in this county where Ramsey is.

it's like the 11th wealthiest county in the nation. So the level of wealth here is just mind blowing. Yeah. People are, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So just to- Don't compare. And you talk a lot about contentment. That's a great way to fight the temptation to compare. Yes. You wrote a book about it. You've got a kid's book about it. You've got a journal about it. You're all about it. I need more of it. You are Mrs. Contentment. No, no, but there is a level of peace in life

that is so worth chasing and to have and to rest and be like, life is good. Like, life is fine. Why do I feel like I have to just keep going and going? And having goals and striving for stuff, it's not bad, but it's out of the motivation where that's coming from. Yes. Is what is so important. As someone who's goal-oriented and futuristic, it's harder for me to pause and be grateful and be content. You know, my...

My level of like, oh gosh, keep going, keep going. It's not because I want everyone else to think I'm great. It's not that. It's this feeling of like, oh, but if I go there, get that or do that, accomplish that, something in my life is going to be better because of it.

And that's just... And it rarely is. Rarely is. You go with you. That was, it's one of my favorite quotes. Yes, it's so true. So like get yourself to a healthy place internally before you accomplish any external goals. Yes, I know. So deep. We were building our house and we were moving in. I was like nine months pregnant with Charles. We had a two-year-old and a four-year-old. And we were in the kitchen of our old house.

And it was like a few nights before we moved into our new house. And I remember telling Winston, we're like feeding the kid in the high chair and there's food. I mean, everything is just like a mess. And I was like, I cannot wait to get to the new house. It'll all be better. Well, yeah. And he like looked at me. He's like, babe, just like pick this up and set it in a new kitchen. Move this mess into a nicer kitchen. It's going to be the exact same scenario. Yeah.

Maybe with a different countertop. But that's it. But for real, you kind of have this belief of like, oh my gosh, if I just had that, something else is going to be fixed within me. And it is an empty promise. An empty promise. Not fulfilling. Who knew from a Smart Money Happy Hour podcast you'd be getting such deep life lessons? George, this isn't deep. This is life.

Oh, wow. Sorry, this is just vanity then. It's all vanity. She's been reading Ecclesiastes, clearly. This is where we go. No, no, no. No, I mean like this is the level at which. This is a normal level of depth for you. This is a good. This is very deep for me. George, you're not that. This is shallow waters for Mrs. Cruz. I am deep sea fishing. Getting my lifeboat.

Because your ship is burned. Come with me. I don't know where you bought that boat. I'll row us to deeper waters, George. We're rowing? We're in a rowboat? Oh, that is... Yeah, no, let's have a... You should have went to Rick's Boats and got a nicer boat. What are you doing? You can afford a better boat. Thanks for the callback. I'll sell you one. Thanks for the callback. All right, next habit to leave behind in 2025, paying for subscriptions you rarely use. This one is close to home. And I have an...

I have an honest confession that is also on growth. Oh, fuck off. I finally quit my gym. Stopped paying for the membership. Good job, George. How'd that feel? Dave talks about, you know, when it's time to quit. Like quitting is good if you're quitting the wrong things. And for me, it was the wrong thing in the wrong season. Totally, totally. And so now we got a workout bench. I'm going to start working out with Whitney at home in the garage. Oh my gosh, that's what Winston and I do. Yes.

I said the Cruises do this. You'll love it. It works for them. Yes. And so she's been trying. I found that Whitney is the type that needs like the support of spouse who's also doing the thing. It is a game changer. I'm not great at that. Yeah. Okay. I'm like, you should commit. I don't want to have to commit because you're, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But she loves the accountability of both of us doing the thing. Totally, totally. It'll feel great too. You'll, yeah. That's great, George. It feels good to cut that. Okay. Another habit to drop. Justifying little treats. Yes.

This one's the easiest to justify because it's a little treat, Rachel. I know. It's five bucks here. I know. Seven bucks there. And it adds up. I know. I was telling some of the girls today during content meeting where I was like, man, I missed because of my age, I think.

the brunch era like you know brunch is really cool right now yeah like it wasn't 10 years ago like when i didn't have kids like no one was going to brunch yeah or maybe i just wasn't i didn't know it was maybe i wasn't cool and i think nobody was nobody was inviting you to brunch maybe that was it i don't know but now i see via instagram you center your whole week around people like like girls going out to brunch with their i don't know and i'm like man i miss the brunch era

And I'm like, that's where I would, like, it's those things that I'm like, oh my gosh, I would justify that. Like, if I had the time and the bandwidth all day, like give me a social situation in a restaurant, that would be my little treat. Or like when you're running errands. It's fine, just bottomless mimosas. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go for it. Just add it to the tab. It's just a little treat. It's been a big week. We're going to just enjoy this.

That's a, yeah, it's real. Do you do this when you're running errands? You're like, well, I should stop and get a little treat, a little Starbucks or a little something on the way. You know, I'm nice. We're out, let's get lunch. Okay, so mine's food. I'm not a Starbucks person. I've never seen you darken the door of a Starbucks. I wouldn't even know your Starbucks order. Oh, you ready? Either just a medium Pike's Place black...

Or a chai tea latte. That's it. Pike Place? Well, I don't know. It's the best you can do? Yeah, it's what they have on tap. So the only time I really eat it is at- Get there before noon, get a blonde roast. Is an airport. Okay. So give me the bacon gouda sandwich, breakfast sandwich. Oh, that is a good one. And a Pike's Peak medium black coffee. Pike's, Pike Place. You just keep changing the name on us. But I respect that you drink black coffee. Is that true? Yeah, no cream.

Look at that. That's on growth. Yeah. I did that because... That's a habit to leave behind. Just pouring all of the dairy and sugar you can into your coffees. I do black coffee and Keurig, George. That I think you need to cover up. That's worth putting some cream in. Yeah. I... Yeah. So my little treat is not Starbucks. Mine would be...

grabbing lunch out a little shalotsky's run through if you know what i mean uh we'll drive through action there number one without black olives wow cracked pepper i feel like you keep saying it as if you're hoping someone's gonna like ship you this order or something like be disgusting like shalotsky's appreciate this um

Yeah, that would be mine. And or if I was like at Target, I'd like pick up a sweater or something. That'd be a little treat. Yeah. So I don't know if that's considered little treats, but those are mine. I went to this local coffee shop, very hip.

thinking like, well, I got to try it out. And of course the lattes are, you know, six something. Then you get the non-dairy milk that's an extra dollar. So I walked out of there and I was spending like for two drinks, $15. Oh my geez. And they were fine.

Not $15 worth. Totally. And it just made me a little disgusted at myself for falling for this little treat culture. Yeah, I get that. But it was our anniversary. I get that, yeah. So I thought, if there's ever a day that treats yourself to a little treat, it's our anniversary. Go get the nice coffee. But let us say that we are pro-treats.

As long as it's in the budget, it's not impulsive, and you actually wanted to buy it, and you know what it's doing to your other financial goals. Yes. The problem is like, where'd my money go? And I look at your bank statement, and it's just little treat, little treat, little treat, big treat, little treat, little treat. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's fair. That's fair. That feels like the worst kid's book ever. It's like the worst Dr. Seuss book. Little treat, little treat.

Okay, last one. Letting FOMO control your financial decisions. This is real. Yeah, this is a habit of like, oh my gosh, I just don't want to miss out. So I'm going to go into debt for this thing. I'm going to use my emergency funds to go here or there. Like whatever it is and it's affecting your financial foundation, we'll call it.

This happens a lot socially. You know, like there's the bachelor trip, the wedding, whatever the thing is that's going to be really expensive. You're out to dinner and everyone's ordering this thing and it's going to cost you this much. And you're like, I don't have the money for this or I shouldn't be spending money on this. But you do it because of the, you know...

The surroundings that you're in, your environment. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, it can happen very easily. And I would be guilty of this. This is where I'm like, let's just go. In the spirit of the moment with everyone there, you're like, sure, why not? Totally. So you got to have the boundary in place before you show up. Yes. Know what you're going to spend. Know what's in the budget.

And know how to say no. I love it. Yep. Well, y'all, some good habits to leave behind in 2024. That's right. Because 2025 is going to be a new, beautiful year. Wow. You said it was such confidence and ease. I believed it. Like, that was like 2024 me, is what you can say. Like, oh my gosh, that was so 2024. I remember 2024 me. That was so 2024. This is 2025. And we're doing something new. Okay, what...

What's a habit you're going to break, George? A habit I'm going to break? Oh, my gosh. I think phones is the new thing I need to break. Like, it's just the, you just get used to just pulling out the phone. Anytime, anywhere, for as long as you want. Just open app, close the app, scroll, tap the like button, get out of there, tap another app. I just need to put my phone away more and be more present and get outside more. Before we get to Guilty as Charged, what is in this drink? This is called a frostbite. And why is it blue?

Well, there's an ingredient that has the word blue in it, if that's any indication. That's a good hint. It's got Blanco tequila, blue curacao, creme de cacao, and heavy cream. Okay. So it's a creamy tequila blue drink. I don't know the flavor of blue curacao. Are my teeth blue? Not that I can tell. Okay, good. But thank you for smiling at me. That was very nice. What would you rate this drink?

I'm going 10 out of 10. Wow. It feels like I'm inside of the movie Frozen. If I was out with friends and we were like, oh, let's get like a dessert drink, I'd be like, we should order the frostbite. Oh, yeah. Because it's such a fun... On a crisp night? Yeah. It feels like this is what Elsa would drink on her 21st birthday. If I may. Whenever she gets there, when Frozen 9 comes out, I hope they're having frostbites.

By the fire. That's very nice. Do you know that they think that the ship at which Elsa and Anna's parents died in was actually the ship that the little mermaid was swimming around? Is that a conspiracy? I don't know. But they all connect. Did you know that all Disney movies, they have connections to all of them? I didn't know that. Yeah. Wild. I didn't know you could have real conspiracies for fictional movies. Yeah.

That's amazing. I can find them anywhere, George. That's amazing. Thank you for that fun fact. Yeah, you're welcome. Well, hey, try this drink. The recipe's in the show notes. It costs $2.27. My rating, in case you were curious...

Eight out of ten. Okay, one out of ten out of ten. I'm just exhausted by the dairy drinks. I just... Michael keeps giving us dairy drinks, I know. I'm just never like, you know what I love is a cold glass of milk with some booze in it. So I'm not there yet. I'm not there yet. But it is a good drink as far as dairy goes. Because I'm going to say this, it may be the tequila, but there's like that aftertaste that's great. Yeah. Yeah.

It's nice. It's nice. And I will say, mixologist Michael did an incredible job with the glass. I mean, it's beautiful. It's got the like frosted cranberries with the sugar and simple syrup on there. Which I ate some of. The coconuts that are glued on there somehow with Elmer's. I don't know what he did to this. It's impressive. It's beautiful.

It was so great. So go check it out in the show notes and make it for yourself. All right, George. Now it's time for Guilty as Charged. And this is where our producer Kelly gives us a new guilty as charged question every week. And if we're guilty, we take a sip. All right. Have you ever made an ambitious purchase that went with one of your goals or resolutions that you didn't do anything with? This feels like a personal burn. Yeah.

Almost every goal that wasn't financial, I think. I mean, buying books that I didn't read. I was like, I'm going to read 50 books. I got to buy the books. Oh, no, you bought the books before. Didn't read 50 books. Oh, no, George. Man. That's a tough one. The other one is literally any workout gear or equipment. I was like, well, if I get the right shoes, I'll work out better. But you're about to start a home gym, so you got to use it. We did buy the bench. I have not used said bench so far. Do you have free weights? Yeah.

I have some dumbbells. Okay. I need to up my dumbbell game. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not quite there yet. Yep. Okay. That's good, George. How about you? Yeah, I think the worst one for me, it was a workout. This was like, I don't know, maybe two years ago. And I bought a workout app because of a girl I followed on Instagram swore by it. And I was like, oh, yeah, this would be good. I could do this like by myself, like, you know.

And I went to buy it. And of course, they give you a deal that they're like, if you buy it for a year, it's $149. Or if you buy it for a month, it's $20. So you get a better deal if you buy the year-long subscription. Look at you trying to save money. And I was like, well, of course, I'm going to use it for a year. Yeah. So I bought a $150 workout app. Yep. And? Didn't use it. Oh. And then the worst part of it all. Say it, Kelly. Oh, no. It renewed. Renewed.

To the next year and I didn't know. I just home alone. Oh my gosh. Oh no. What? That is awful. Do you know what I did? The renewal hurts my soul. Oh, it was, my stomach, I literally got, and my stomach dropped. I was like, oh no, no, no, no. No, that was 2022, Rachel. Like, that's like, no, that's not good. Oh gosh. But you know what I did is I submitted it to the Apple store. Oh, for a refund. And they refunded me. Thank you. That is the most George thing you've ever done in your life. I'm not.

That is the life hack. If it charges you, as soon as it charges... It was within 15 minutes. Yeah. Because I got the email. Look at her getting emails. I got the email and I was like, oh, no, no, no, no, no.

And yeah, and it was great. It refunded me and it was fine. So I felt good about myself. I'm really proud of you for even knowing that was a possibility. And you know what else I did? That was so great. This isn't guilty as charged. This is like amazing as charged because I did that. And then the other thing I did was I want to do my steps. I'm into steps right now. Oh, that's right. You just found out that the Apple Health app tracks your steps. That's my story. Yeah. So I downloaded a step app. Did you pay for it? Well, that was the thing. The step app was like, oh, you get 30 days free.

But, you know, whatever, whatever. So I bought it, but it wasn't going to charge me until after the, like, 30-day trial. Well, then I learned that Apple's been keeping my steps, which is another conspiracy theory. They know where I've been for, like, a long time. And I was like, oh, my gosh. But.

But they track my steps. So then I went through George and I canceled my trial of the other app so I didn't get charged. Wow. I felt very responsible. That really is growth for you. I know. I felt good. It felt good. Also, you should just text me before you make any life decisions so I can show you the better, easier, cheaper way. And it's free on the Apple version. It is free on the Apple. It's great.

It's great. This is really good. Yeah, the other things are like we bought a Peloton during COVID. Never used it. Sold it for us. That was the hot thing. Where have Pelotons gone? I feel like they kind of...

Then there was the portable treadmill. It's just like a flat little nice little treadmill. Okay, I thought about doing that for the winter to get my steps in. I should have sold you the one that we never used. Was it good? It was great. We just never used it. Okay. And so then I was like, we're going to sell it. Yeah. And so there's a lot of things that we buy and then sell for a loss and then go, we'll never do this again. And then we go do it again. Man, the workout industry makes a lot of money. Oh, yeah. Well, they can prey on your insecurities. Out of like good intentions. Yeah. Yeah. Good intentions is a great business model. Yeah.

It's great. So good. All right. Okay, George. Well, if you guys have any fun guilty as charged questions, send them our way. We're on social. Just DM us. We look for them because they're always fun when they come from you all. And make sure to follow us on social. Subscribe to this. Share the episode with friends and family.

And make sure to check out our episode on how to start becoming a millionaire in 2024. So we're going to go back a year, but all the advice still applies because we talk about timeless money advice, don't we, George? That's right. It still works year after year. Yep. And so we'll see you guys next Thursday on an all new episode of Smart Money Happy Hour.