Aim For Progress, Not Perfection. Garit Boothe

Bob: [00:01:00] Welcome to another episode of Money You Should Ask. I’m your host, Bob Wheeler. And in this episode, we’re going to explore, question, examine, converse, dig deep, expose, laugh and cry about the money beliefs, money blocks, and life challenges of our next guest. Turn up the volume, listen, learn and laugh.

Well, our next guest is Garit L Boothe. He’s a marketing professional who specializes in doing search engine optimization, S.E.O., for those of you like me, who didn’t know, for financial tech companies, he’s also an avowed money nerd and writes about personal finance on his blog.

Digital honey. Not money, honey. Honey, and money sort of go together though. He lives in Utah with his wife and two kids. Garit. So great to have you.

Garit: [00:00:47] Glad to be here, Bob. Thanks for having me on.

Bob: [00:00:48] So I have to ask you, what is an avowed money nerd?

Garit: [00:00:54] Yeah, so growing up, I was, I think blissfully at least consciously unaware of a lot of, a lot of things about money, but, but then I kind of was a late bloomer and all of a sudden I got really interested in the, in the subject.

I studied economics in college. I talk about money too much with my family and friends too much, right. Not for me, but for other people. I have my own blog talking about it now. And I’ve read a ton of books. In fact, I was looking over your Preferred Booklist and you have a couple of the ones that I personally like on there as well,

Rich Dad, Poor Dad and Secrets of the Millionaire Mind. So I thought I’d show him off here because I think we’re very much in sync. Yeah.

Bob: [00:01:33] And so when people see you coming, do they go, Oh My God, here comes the money nerd is going to ask questions or he’s going to share information?

Garit: [00:01:40] Well, see, I’m, if you like take that introvert extrovert test, I’m an extreme, by default, I’m an extreme extrovert.

So 10 years ago, I would have liked, maybe asked you how much money you make and how do you like your career and stuff like that. And if, and if you, if I could tell you, weren’t telling the truth, I’d ask, you know, I can tell you don’t like it, but now see I’ve, I’ve kind of, I’ve learned to be socially appropriate.

Bob: [00:02:06] Socially appropriate. That’s good. And do you share, do you have, do you share with your friends, like your financial failures or, or, or things where it was a little bit of a miss or do you just focus on the good stuff? Like, do you bear it all? How does that go?

Garit: [00:02:21] Yeah, I mean, I definitely have so if we go back like, like I said 10 years, so I’m in my, I’m in my 30’s,

so I was actually in Argentina doing a mission for my church for two years. And then when I got back, when I was 21, that’s kind of when I think of as the beginning of my adult life. And I made a series of dumb mistakes and my friends all about them. So got into credit card debt. Didn’t pay it off.

So it ruined my credit or just, sorry, I didn’t pay it back. So I ruined my credit, so I know, I know what that’s like to have debt collection people calling you. Went from job to job, worked a lot of crappy minimum wage jobs. Cause I dropped out of college. But I was able to turn it around and now I have a successful small business.

So you know, and I learned a lot about credit to having to fix it. So yeah, I made a lot of dumb mistakes, but It’s a, and it’s a little bit easier to own when you’re doing better after the fact, but I’ve always been an open book. Definitely.

Bob: [00:03:15] Absolutely. And let me ask you this. So when you went into debt and then you had that experience is, and now that you’re this money nerd and you do all this reading and sharing, when is it okay to go into debt?

Because debt may not always be a bad thing.

Garit: [00:03:29] Yeah. Wow. What a great topic. So. I’m actually writing about, I actually have 2 posts them out to publish about this on my blog, because it’s something I think about. And if you look at like, we always talked about reading, there’s a guy, Robert Kiyosaki, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, right.

He talks about good debt and bad debt. And I’m very much in that camp. I think that, you know, if you have debt for a house, a modest house, not like a, he, you know, not maxing out whatever you can afford, but a reasonable house, reasonable car, and then investment back debt. Maybe if you want to buy a, a cash flowing business or a piece of real estate that’s cash flowing.

I think that’s smart. And maybe even of course, for you know, student loans, if you’re studying in a career that will pay off and not like an art history major or something, I think that’s all good debt. Bad debt, of course, being like consumer credit card debt and you know, all that kind of stuff.

Some people are more kind of in the Dave Ramsey camp where like all that is bad, no matter what. And I’m, that’s not for me, but I, but I respect that also at the same time that it appeals to a lot of people who have trouble with that.

Bob: [00:04:40] Yeah. I mean, I think debt is an interesting thing. It can actually serve us and it certainly helped leverage many companies to launch that would have never gotten the chance had they not had the ability to get.

You know, get financing and incur debt. But then I think, you know, we’re folks that are charging groceries or, or staples on their credit cards. They’re really paying in the long run, maybe even double what they’re paying because those credit cards interest rates can add up so quickly. I’m amazed at how many of my clients have

little awareness of the actual interest rate that they are paying. And when I work with people, I’ll say, well, pull up your credit cards. Let’s look at the interest rates, 25%, 19%. Right. And yeah, it’s not 2% people for…  It’s pretty high interest rates. And so it’s really important, I think, to be mindful and respect that debt can accumulate just like compound interest in savings can work in your favor.

Compound interest on debt can actually be really detrimental.

Garit: [00:05:44] Totally. And I think you have to know yourself. You know, I’m the saver. So even though I got into some credit card debt, it was really, I wasn’t like buying everything in sight. It was just because I was flaky and I went from job to job and I had periods of unemployment and like during the great recession.

And so it was my flakiness and not working that was really the root of the problem. Now, should I have gotten into credit card debt? No. I probably should have found another way, but But I think, you know, now I have credit cards and my rule and my belief, if you will, is credit cards are for building credit.

That’s my belief.

Bob: [00:06:19] Right.

Garit: [00:06:20] I have credit cards for myself. I have credit cards for my business. I do have one credit card for getting points. I run my business expenses through it, but I pay it off immediately. And it’s only stuff I have cashflow only ever. So I have that strict line of discipline and it worked for me because I know myself, but like some people and you know, my dad is, was this this way.

And I think he’s at a point in his life where he could admit it. He’s he’s a spender. You know, he loves all the, he had like this nice collection of pins when I was a kid and he loves to fancy cars and, and some people have to have the latest iPhone and, and the best, you know, whatever they can buy, the newest clothes.

And you know, I’m never a guy, probably, I mean, maybe if I make enough money, but at this point in my life, I’m not a guy who’s going to go out and buy like a $300 shirt. It doesn’t appeal to me, but I had coworkers, my, my former job. They’re like, oh man, look at this designer shirt. And I’m like, that’s a,

that’s a t-shirt dude. And they’re like, no, it’s not. Look at this designer signature on it. And so you gotta know your self.  And what you’re good at and maybe where your struggles are.

Bob: [00:07:25] No, I think that’s so important. Yeah, me, I buy the inexpensive clothes cause it’s going to be ripped, ruined or dirty, like after the second wear, I just can’t help it.

So, there’s no point in spending the money on those kinds of things. But, and I also, like what you’re saying is it’s important about knowing yourself, there’s no right or wrong, whether you’re a spender, whether you’re a saver, it’s really about what do I want? And then why do I want it? And I, for me, that’s always an important question is the why. I want the fancy stuff

cause it makes me feel good or I want the fancy stuff. Cause people will like me or I like fancy stuff because I’m rewarding myself. Like they, they might all look the same, but the energy around why we do things can be completely different.

Garit: [00:08:09] Yeah, I totally agree. And I think if we, if I look at my own problems, the root of my own issues, where , and I’m just gonna say it, I’m kinda like, I I’ve been kinda one of those typical millennials where

you know, there’s this Tyler, Tyler Perry movie where the Medea character was like, all you kids born in the eighties don’t… you know, think you don’t have to work. And I laughed at when I heard that line because I’m like, no, guilty as charged. Which isn’t to say I was always studious. I worked hard in school and had a lot of extracurriculars.

And then as an adult, I think I just had a, I took a little bit of time to find my place. My ideal career. I was good at academics, but I, I don’t for whatever reason, college didn’t really jive with me. And so probably I should have finished, but I didn’t. And you know, I tried a lot of different jobs and a lot of, you know, I did restaurant work.

I did outdoor work, and landscaping. I’ve done, I’ve done sales. I worked with attorneys. I didn’t like any of that. At least for a career. So maybe by process of elimination.

Bob: [00:09:14] Yeah. Well, see, what’s the great, I mean, I think that’s great. And again, knowing yourself. For me, I needed a safety net. I needed, you know, initially I was going to be a lawyer.

And then when, and then I was like, oh, I don’t like lawyers, but I was taking accounting. So I could become a CPA because I was taking accounting to help my grade point. And it was something that was easy, but I was very like, I don’t have a safety net. My parents did not have a safety net. I did not want to be…

And so maybe that was partially based in fear. But th that was for me a driving force. But, but going back to that piece that you said about the Medea character, what do you think if you think about your mindset that said, oh yeah, I’m one of those people that doesn’t think I have to work. What do you think attributed to that?

Do you think it was because your parents provided or, or was it the media, like, do you, if you think about it or there’s, because I think there’s a lot of millennials out there that resonate with this and probably some older people that are like, yeah, they don’t. And I’m wondering if, just from your journey, what you think might’ve contributed to that.

Garit: [00:10:16] Well, it’s actually interesting because when I was a senior in high school, the school newspaper said like I was most likely to be president or whatever. So I was always very ambitious and hard working. But I think when it came to working a job, I felt a distinct lack of purpose. I couldn’t have articulated at the time.

And I didn’t know that, but I, I didn’t feel fulfilled. And I thought, and eventually I thought, well, and one of the reasons I got interested in money was I thought, well, if I can make a lot of money, I want to have to work.

Bob: [00:10:48] Right.

Garit: [00:10:48] But what I discovered was, I mean, this is so obvious, right. But to make a lot of money, you have to work really hard for a long time, years, and years and years.

And then. And if you’re going to work hard, you’re going to need, it really helps if you have something that you like.

Bob: [00:11:03] Right.

Garit: [00:11:04] And so I changed my belief from, you know, work is drudgery to work as fulfilling and it brings purpose and it’s satisfying. And, and once I made that shift and I just accepted, you know, this is a good part of life.

It changed everything. And I would be remiss if I didn’t say, I didn’t really turn it around until I had my first kid. So my daughter was born when I was 29 and a half. And that kind of was like my moment where my bridges were burned, my boats were burned and I had been fired three times from jobs in my twenties.

I just took a psychology test and I, and I rate very high on disagreeableness. I’m not afraid to speak my mind. And so employers don’t always like that.

Bob: [00:11:48] They don’t.

Garit: [00:11:49] So, yeah. And I was fired, I was fired from three jobs in my twenties and the, and the last time I thought, okay, this is a pattern. But then when my daughter was born, my wife quit her job.

I thought I can’t do this anymore. And, and I, and I just, I committed. I said, you know, I’m going to sacrifice. And I don’t know if it’s also around because it’s around the time I turned 30, but I think it was having kids because I said, you know, I can’t let this ever happen again. And it doesn’t matter. How long a day I had, if it was horrible, if I don’t like it, if the people around me are all jerks, they treat me like crap.

It doesn’t matter. I’m sticking with it. And it’s not like I worked horrible jobs either. I had these nice cushy white collar jobs, but it just helped me get through the difficulties and the sacrifices I had to make. And looking back, I think, geez, like. I was such a baby and these, you know, learning to not be a flake, that’s it, to be totally honest with you is what I had to do.

And growing up and adulting and all of that, it was hard at the time, looking back at all, that was easy, but I think whatever challenge you have that time in your life, you have to throw yourself into it because for you at that time, it’s hard even though maybe for someone else that isn’t.

Bob: [00:13:03] Yeah. And I wonder how much of that ties back to purpose.

You know, when you were talking about wanting to have purpose, when you have a kid there’s a, there there’s a, a heightened awareness of purpose of there’s somebody else that’s relying on me in a way that other people don’t, you know, your friends your, your spouse, your boyfriend, your girlfriend, whatever they can, they’ll be fine without you if they have to be right.

But a little kid is looking up going, hey feed me, give me some information, help me out. And so I wonder if you, you know, I know, cause I’ve heard a lot of people say, you know, as soon as I had kids, life shifted. And which is awesome. And I think for people that don’t have kids or for people whose kids have grown up, still being able to find a way to motivate that purpose for ourselves.

Cause sometimes it’s always easier to advocate when there’s somebody else like, oh, I’ll defend them to the death, but me. Yeah. I’ll take a back seat. And so how can we keep reinventing our purpose and keep reigniting our passion to, to show up.

Garit: [00:14:09] Yeah, that’s a great question. And maybe in 30 years, I’ll have a good answer for you.

You know, I, I don’t know, although I will say one of the great things about, that I can see, and about people in the advanced stages of life is, you know, you’ve, you’ve had all this time to build a character, right? You, you have habits that you’ve built over years, and if you’ve made wise choices, I think there’s a momentum there that, that can help carry you through.

And, and hopefully you have maybe some kind of a nest egg built up that gives you, you have skills, you have maybe a little money and, and that gives you the ability to contribute to society at a, at a higher level. Maybe that looks like mentoring, the people that you work with that are younger, or maybe that looks like, I don’t know, getting more involved in your grandkids life.

I don’t know, but I think, you know, there’s advantages and disadvantages to every part of life. And I think that’s one of the advantages to having some age and experience.

Bob: [00:15:06] Absolutely. Do you talk with your children about money?

Garit: [00:15:10] I mean a little, my kids are 5 and 2. So not much, but let me, my, my five-year-old daughter we have like some toy like dollar bills and one of the games she likes to play is store.

So we’ll have a pet store or a toy store and the customers will give her money. And so she gets familiar with numbers and she gets comfortable with the idea of handling money and people paying. And, and I, and I, so my first job right out of high school, I needed a little money. I did one year of college and I needed a little money for it.

And so I did sales, door to door sales. And I wouldn’t want to do it for the rest of my life, but I am grateful for that experience that I had in sales. I did it for a few years. And so maybe it’s also kinda my subtle way of getting her into sales. So learning to communicate. So I’d say, you know, we have a little doll say, oh, I like this, this toy.

Could you tell me about it? To get to kind of plan her mind an idea of how to communicate with people and talking about money is, okay. So I’ll say we planted a few seeds and my wife and I were very much in sync about money. So I think a lot of it was, I was reading all the, a lot of this stuff when we were dating and kind of learning a lot of this for the first time.

And I would even give her books. She’d read it and we talk about it. So that’s one thing I’m grateful for in my marriage is generally, you know, we’re all on the same page. And so talking that makes it talking that makes it easier when it comes to talking to our kids. And I’m sure we’ll progress.

Well, the one thing I want to say is as they get older, one of the things I don’t like about our society is there’s a disconnect I feel, many times, not for everyone, but many times for between what you learned in school. And maybe this is one of the reasons I like the Rich Dad books, what you learn in school and what you do for career.

And I Excel in academics, but I’m like, I’m not going to have a career as, I mean, I don’t know a lot of these academic subjects there, aren’t very many careers for those things. So love and you know, a lot of people just get their first job when they’re a teenager. And it’s like some kind of a crappy, low wage, minimum wage job.

I don’t think learning to work is a good thing, but I feel like what I love to do for my kids is maybe teach them a little bit about entrepreneurship. Let’s set up a lemonade stand and let’s, let’s mow some lawns. And that was stuff, by the way, I started doing when I was in my early twenties, because I was, I was so young too.

I started mowing lawns when I couldn’t find a job. This is back in 2009 and the great recession, my hometown, Modesto.  So I just started mowing lawns. I had a little bit of sales skill. And that was good for me. And I think that kind of a thing, learning to think about money that way, I think would be very beneficial, even if she ends up having a job and not being an entrepreneur.

Bob: [00:17:56] Yeah, I think that’s so important and, you know, college isn’t for everyone. And so I think it’s so important that it’s not, oh, people that don’t go to college are failures, not at all. I mean, even Steve Jobs I believe dropped out and never quite finished. But It’s important to do what you love. And even in accounting you know, you go to school and you do four years of learning all these things.

You take this test and then you take everything, you know, and you forget about it because it doesn’t apply in the real world. People that take the exam out of college have a much easier time passing the exam than people living in the real world, taking that exam because the questions only work theoretically on a lot of stuff, right.

It just doesn’t, just doesn’t translate into real life. You know, I can, I can appreciate about, you know, you probably saved yourself a lot of money, a lot of debt.

Garit: [00:18:45] Well, I’m glad, I’m glad that I landed on my feet. I think at that time it probably would have been a wise. I mean, I went to the George Washington university in DC.

I was on scholarship. I think for me personally, it would have been smart for me to finish, but I just didn’t, I just didn’t know what it would lead to. So I went to South America and when I came back, I wasn’t really sure which path I should pick up on. So I wish that I had been less flaky. But you know I I’m really happy where I ended up.

I worked in search engine optimization, SEO, as you mentioned, I love it. It’s a weird niche, but it’s right for me. And I get a chance to do what I enjoy.

Bob: [00:19:24] Yeah. And I, you know, it’s funny, I, when I was first getting into podcasting and a website and blogs and all that stuff, and people would talk about their SEOs and I’m like, I know about CEOs and I know about CFOs, but I know what these SEO’s are.

Who are they? Who are they? Because I didn’t, I couldn’t quite follow it. You know, I’m one of those people like, wait, am I hashtagging? What’s the @ sign,, like all of that stuff. Even now, like glad other people understand it. It is, you know, it’s just not my thing.

Garit: [00:19:53] Yeah. It’s a strange, even for people that work in marketing, they kind of like know about it, but they don’t really know like, like the clients that I have, but they know about it, but they don’t really know what it is.

And I knew this is what I like to say to my family and friends. I knew it was the right niche for me because I’d start telling other people about it and they start falling asleep. So I thought, well, if this is something that I like, but other people don’t like,and it pays, it might be a good niche for me.

Bob: [00:20:21] There’s not a lot of people just clamoring to get into the, into the market. Now, with your current situation, you’ve got your business. You’re hoping to encourage your kids to be entrepreneurs. Do you and your wife budget, do you and your wife have regular conversations around money and do you set goals?

Garit: [00:20:43] So, yes, we probably don’t talk about it as much as we should. My wife has a spreadsheet, so one of the Rich Dad ideas that I liked was keeping your own personal financial statement and your statements, your own personal balance sheet in your own personal income statement. So my wife has a monthly spreadsheet.

That’s shared with me that has a recurring expenses and our income, and how that changes over time and, and so, I actually went out into business for myself, last August. Wasn’t the first time that I had done that, but it was the first time it’s been successful. What we did when I had a job was, you know, whatever we just agree on, this is the amount of money we live off of, you know, it’s automatically deposited into our checking account.

We have a savings account with another bank, so we can’t see it when we log in, that’s automatically deposited,

Bob: [00:21:33] Important.

Garit: [00:21:34] And that’s just an automated savings is just how we’ve always done it. So, all the money that’s in the checking account, we can spend it. We very rarely need to pull extra money in from savings.

Like maybe once every other year, because we’ve gotten a good groove with how much we spend on groceries and other things. And I, when I look at my savings account and I see it going up, I feel, I feel great about that. I’m a saver. I, I enjoy that and she’s a little bit more of a spender than me. But she’s very disciplined, I think.

And so, you know, we’ll, we’ll have little indulgences, but it’s always within that monthly amount, we don’t overdraw our checking. So that’s, that’s on the macro level. That’s what, what’s what worked well. And we’ll review the spreadsheet maybe once every three to six months. I should say we, together.

That’s what I said. I should probably talk with her more about it. But generally speaking things are trending in the right direction. So I don’t worry about it. Now that I have a small business we’re living off of the same amount we lived off of with my job, and we’re still trying to figure out, okay, how much money am I really making?

Because there’s fluctuations, building good reserves business and personal wise. And so even though we’re still living off of that same amount, we’ll make adjustments as we go. So that’s how we’ve managed it. And it’s working out.

Bob: [00:22:50] And so I’m wondering if you have any life goals that your wife doesn’t share, like if you’re setting goals, but is there anything like, you know, I want this, she’s not, she doesn’t want that.

And how do you, how do you work that out?

Garit: [00:23:04] Yeah, so, you know, when we were dating and before we had kids, we would talk about dreams and goals and that kind of a thing. And. And I was like, well, I want to live on the beach and I want to be rich. I want to get rich. I, ever since I started learning about money, I just kind of decided I want to get rich.

A lot of people feel uncomfortable with that kind of language. So I don’t use it. But to me, because I think money means something different to everyone. And to me, getting rich just means I’ll have more ability to do the things I want to do.

Bob: [00:23:40] Right.

Garit: [00:23:40] But I think some people associate that with maybe greed or lust or other things like that, but that’s not how I think of it.

And so my wife is very much in alignment with that. With my, in fact she’s more, I think she’s more willing for me to take risks than I am. And so in that sense, she’s a perfect wife for someone who wants to be an entrepreneur. In terms of like, but I would say one thing that I do really want right now is finally kind of, you know, I work digitally, COVID is a perfect time, you know, to move digital.

I work  from home and I’d like to move to the beach. I live in Utah, no beaches here, no beaches. So I’d love to just live on the beach. And I’m originally from Northern California, but the California beaches are pretty expensive. So something like Florida would be perfect for me. And with where we are with little kids, my wife just isn’t quite ready to make that move.

So that’s one thing that we’re negotiating on. Should I say.

Bob: [00:24:34] Yes, still in progress? Well, you’ve got the ocean behind you, so you’ve put the beach and the ocean in your presence. So now you just, as a matter of just manifesting it into reality.

Garit: [00:24:46] Exactly.

Bob: [00:24:47] Well, we are at our fast five, so time goes quick and I want to, I have five fast questions that we just top of the mind.

And we’ll go from there. So, first question, what’s the nerdiest thing you’ve ever done with your money?

Garit: [00:25:01] Done with my money, that’s kind of a hard one. The nerdiest thing. I don’t know, buying personal finance books counts. Does it?

Bob: [00:25:12] Some people probably think that’s nerdy. I mean, a nerd would not think that’s nerdy. I don’t think that’s nerdy, but I think a lot of other people, yeah,

Garit: [00:25:20] Maybe buying too many personal finance books.

Bob: [00:25:24] You can never have too many. What have you learned from life from your kids?

Garit: [00:25:28] Hmm. From my kids. Delayed gratification.

Bob: [00:25:31] Wow. That is, that’s important. That is so important.

Garit: [00:25:35] Something I’ve been working on. Well, since I’ve had kids, because you know, when they wake up in the middle of the night as babies and you got to go feed them or change them or whatever, that hurts. You know, seeing a petulant child be how they are sometimes I think to myself, you know, how, how am I like that? And maybe a different way. There’s times where I kind of throw a fit emotionally about thought, you know, maybe this isn’t such a big deal as it seems at the moment.

Bob: [00:26:00] Yeah, no, absolutely. If you were a superhero, what powers would you have?

Garit: [00:26:07] Superhero? I always liked Cyclops as a kid who was cool laser eyes, but that’s highly destructive. I think, I think you know, not having to be a warrior, I maybe would… to fly, definitely to fly.

Bob: [00:26:24] That’d be cool. Yeah. Then you don’t have to worry if you don’t bring your parachute. Life is still good.

Garit: [00:26:29] You know, it’s funny. Cause, cause you’re a guy who likes to talk about psychology when I was working for other people. I’ve always wanted to work for myself when I was working for other people. I had this recurring dream that I was flying, but I kept getting pulled down to the ground and I, and I told my wife about it and she goes, what do you think that means?

And I, I really hadn’t thought of that until she told me. And then I realized, oh my gosh, this is a recurring dream I’ve had for years. And, and then I, when I went into business for myself, I don’t have those dreams anymore. So emotionally, I feel like I’m flying,

Bob: [00:27:01] You’re flying. I love it. I love it. What’s the thing, what’s the favorite thing about your career for you?

Garit: [00:27:08] Well, I like that there’s a mix of what I do. So if I’d finished my bachelor’s degree, it would have been a double major in political science and economics. And the poli- side was a lot of writing and the econ is more like analytical math type stuff.

And so in my current career I have a mix of those two things. So there’s the technical side of SEO looking at website code and stuff like that. And then there’s a more creative side with, I work a lot with writers.

I look at their work and help them decide what to produce and the quality thereof, and I’ve actually produced so my own videos. So that mix of the analytical and creative is fun for me.

Bob: [00:27:44] So fun. What’s a valuable life lesson that you’re learning right now.

Garit: [00:27:48] It’s it’s along the delayed gratification theme of sacrifice. So I had actually started businesses before. So like I mentioned that mowing lawns when I was 23 and I think it was making like a thousand bucks a month or whatever, but I was living at home.

So it was okay. I probably could have built it up a little, but other opportunities came my way and I, and I just kind of left it by the wayside. Cause I didn’t want to, I didn’t want to sacrifice there’s too much work. So then I tried an e-commerce business years later, selling essential oils, direct from a website to a person.

A friend even invested a little bit of money in it. Like I said, I’m not afraid to ask for money and maybe I should’ve been because I wasted his money to be totally honest. And then that wasn’t, that wasn’t a good feeling, but I was learning. I was doing on the side of my job, my daughter was, I think it was 1  or 2,

so I do it in the night times when my daughter went to bed and I would stay up late and I was using caffeine to give me energy. And I, and I wasn’t sleeping very well, which in retrospect I learned was because of the caffeine. And I got sick because I wasn’t sleeping enough and I just, I just gave up, I couldn’t, I couldn’t push through it.

And so this last time around little, over a year ago, last January, I made the decision. I’m going to do this and I use  caffeine and moderation made sure I got enough sleep. So I didn’t get sick. I actually didn’t realize it until just recently, but two weeks after I made that commitment, my best client, who’s still with me, signed up on board.

It was and then I had, I had more clients, more obstacles. Some of them quit on me, but it was from when I made that decision. It was six months until I could go into business for myself and I was able to replace my job income. And it was a long six months working, both my job and the business on the side, but that was delayed gratification.

It was a sacrifice, but I’m glad that I did it.

Bob: [00:29:51] Yeah, that’s awesome. And that really ties into maybe my next question is cause we’re at the M and M moment money and motivation, sweet spot. What is a piece of financial advice or wealth wisdom that you would offer? And I feel like that’s sort of been a theme here, but what would you say to people out there listening?

Garit: [00:30:07] I actually was reading some of your book, like about your story about your grandparents thought they had to give you money to spend time with you. That was so interesting to me because I don’t think like that. I thought, I thought your grandparents were just giving you money. Cause because they loved you.

And then your whole point of the story was no, no, no. They wanted to, they just thought they had the bribe you. And so I, not a person who has like feelings of like, oh, I’m not worthy or stuff like that. But I’d say one. I think anyone, if I could do a reverse promotion and promote your book, I think if you’re a person who’s listening, you know, and you maybe feel like you’re not worthy, or maybe you think that money is greed is, is too much money makes you greedy or something like that.

Like one of my brothers, I personally believe that’s something that he thinks that, you know, is that rich people are immoral. You know, work on that. I think, you know, lean into that, dig into that and maybe try to deal with some of those underlying beliefs that maybe just aren’t true, that are holding you back.

I have a friend who is an entrepreneur who told me that, and he, he started doing group therapy and it wasn’t until he started doing it, that he realized this he would take a business to the brink of success and walk away. And I thought that was the strangest, most bizarre thing. But then he realized he had some strange beliefs that maybe I don’t deserve money and I don’t deserve success.

And it wasn’t until he got past that, that he could just have, was able to accomplish his dreams. So that’s one thing. For me personally, it was, I had a thing that was holding on and that was, I just wasn’t willing to sacrifice and put in the work. And I think a lot of people have a thing where it’s like, maybe it’s your health.

Maybe it’s your mental health, maybe some kind of. Like with me, it was maybe you were just been, you’ve been too lazy. And a lot of times the root cause is something that has nothing to do with money, but once you fix it, your money problems go away. And I think my advice is just whatever that problem is just lean into it because it’s hard in the moment but once you get past it, your life is on a new level.

Bob: [00:32:23] Absolutely. And, you know, I think it really ties into sort of what I’ve been hearing you say through this whole conversation is like the delayed gratification piece, right? Putting putting in the time now and reaping the benefits a little bit later.

And also whether it’s conscious or not There’s a lot of curiosity of being open. Let me know more about this stuff. I want to read about books. I want to like, what can I make work? Okay. And then the thing that you said really, that I think is so important for so many people, even though people will say it’s such BS, I don’t believe mindset when you can turn around and say, I, I love showing up at my job, or I love that I get another chance to live on this earth.

Like that’s about gratitude and that’s about changing the mindset from, oh, I don’t have this to look at all the possibilities. Look at all the things that I have. Look at how abundant my life is with relationships, with travel, with work. And I think we, especially in this country lose sight of the fact.

Of how abundant and wealthy we are compared to the rest of the world. And so I think it’s just so important to just keep being open, being curious, learning from our mistakes, not beating ourselves up, but just keep moving forward.

Garit: [00:33:39] I totally agree. And you know, when I was in Argentina, I was in Northern Argentina. The first place I was, I kind of moved around within the same zone. And the first place I was in was very, very poor rural community.

 People literally, a lot of the people literally sleeping in like dirt, dirt floors, little shacks, the kind of thing you think of when you think of impoverished South America, literally like kids that had holes in their clothes, like bad holes, like such that kind of like naked.

And you know, we don’t have that kind of poverty in the states and. I think that’s why I say wherever you are in your life, just focus on what your problem is and getting to that next level, because we all come from different levels where we, wherever we are in the world and maybe for a person like that, you know, getting one of the tract houses that has ceramic tile floors and running water is, is a goal for a person like that.

And for me, I’m at a different level, but I think. You know, we all have our problems and our obstacles and just making, making progress, not perfection, making progress is, is what will get you there because I have hard days in my business now. And sometimes I think so something that gave me pause was about quitting was, I didn’t know this, but I had a coworker who took six weeks of vacation last year.

I learned that right before I quit my job. And I thought, I didn’t know that was on the table because it was never clearly communicated to me. And I thought. I’ve never taken more than two weeks of vacation in a year. And I thought, man, do I really want to give this up? And there are days where I have hard days in business where I think maybe I should have stuck with that job and taking those six weeks of vacation, you know, what’s the matter with me.

But, but then I remember I’m making progress. I’m going in the right direction. There’s going to be hard days. And so it’s okay. It’s worth it in the longterm.

Bob: [00:35:29] Absolutely. As long as we get a chance for another breath, we have a chance to do things better. So always opportunity. Where can people find you on social media or online?

Garit: [00:35:40] So you can find me at my personal finance website, digitalhoney.money.

Bob: [00:35:46] I Love that.

Garit: [00:35:47] Yeah. digitalhoney.money. We’d love it if you sign up for my email newsletter, I’m talking a lot about credit right now, how to build your credit and personal and we’ll be soon, releasing some stuff on how to create your own personal finance statements. If you’re a money nerd, it could be very useful.

Bob: [00:36:02] Money nerds and non-money nerds, go check it out. So you do SEO. Where can people find you? If they’re looking for an SEO specialist wanting to get help with the optimization, how do people get you?

Garit: [00:36:16] Yeah. My website is garitboothe.com. Look, look in the show notes for my, the strange spelling of my name, garitboothe.com. And I’m also on LinkedIn.

Bob: [00:36:25] Check it out. And I want to say to our listeners, please, don’t forget to share the love .Like  follow and share on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram search for Money You Should Ask, all one word. Subscribe to this podcast on your favorite podcast player, or visit Apple podcasts and search for Money You Should Ask or click on the link in the description.

If you’re watching this episode on YouTube, don’t forget to like comment and subscribe. For more tips, tools, or how to learn, how to have a healthy relationship with money visit themoneynerve.com. That’s nerve not nerd. I am a nerd. Garit, thank you so much. It’s been such a great pleasure having you on today.

Garit: [00:36:57] It’s been a pleasure. Thanks for having me.