Join Up Dots Around Money. David Ralph

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, David Ralph is the extremely attractive host of the top ranked online show. Join up the dots, Join Up Dots where I was just recently a guest. In each episode, he takes his guests on a journey of discovery. Following the words of the late Steve jobs from birth to today and back again, David joins up the dots of his guests lives highlighting their failures and successes with more than a few laughs in between.

Bob: [00:01:41] Join Up Dots has gained a massive audience in over 160 countries with its fun and quirky style. David is an ex corporate trainer with a wife, five kids, three grandkids, a cat, and originally a snail who is now officially dead. David. Welcome to the show.

David: [00:01:59] Oh, it’s lovely to be here. Mr. Wheeler. We finally got it going. And you almost did the fatal, the fatal thing that people do by throwing in join “THE”dots. It’s the one thing that drives me mad.

Bob: [00:02:14] Yeah. I, I wondered if people sort of add that extra thing in there. Let’s just add that word. It’s not there. The, ‘the’ is silent.

David: [00:02:21] And the, the thing that annoys me most, if I’m being really confessional now is the ones that say, “Oh, I love your show. I’ve listened to every episode.” And then they call it, Joined Up The Dots and I’ll think, well, I’m not sure you’re listening to the right show but, okay.

Bob: [00:02:38] Well, there happens to be another show called Join Up The Dots.

David: [00:02:42] .Yeah.

Bob: [00:02:44] So I have to ask you this. So you are an ex corporate trainer. Does that mean you teach people how to live in cubicles with excitement?

David: [00:02:54] It’s funny actually, you’re, you’re not far away from it. It was more the fact of teaching people how to get out of the cubicles. And th there’s a weird story. One of the last things I did, I had an induction course and in England, we used to have do this. A course called induction where people would come in and you would teach them how to be a member of staff.

And so they’d stay with me for five days and then they’d go off to the different teams and do their thing. And the very last one, I’d kind of lost my mojo for the business. And I had 15 people that came in on a Monday morning at nine o’clock and I said to them, “Look, it’s great for you to be here. It’s really wonderful.

Company, but don’t stay here for more than six months, you know, use it as a stepping stone to go off and do something else, and you can go off and do something else.” “Cause you’re brilliant, sexually attractive people. Go for it.” And of those people, only two came back from lunch and all 13 of them quit anddecided that Itheycould do something else.

And so it wasn’t my best day in the office, but it was the day when I realized I have to be an ex-trainer.

Bob: [00:03:59] Or they were going to make you one anyway.

David: [00:04:01] Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Bob: [00:04:04] Now when you were like five or six years old, did you say I want to be a corporate trainer? Like, was that the vision?

David: [00:04:11] No, it wasn’t. And actually, this is really weird, but I found out recently my, my mum and dad have lived in the same house, for like 150 years.

And so I grew up in this house and you know, when you leave at the age of sort of like 20, 22, you leave some stuff. Just so that you’ve never moved out. So there’s a toothbrush there and there’s some t-shirts and stuff. And there’s probably my, my program from Huey Lewis and the news concert, 1987. And I went back and cleaned out the loft and I found a load of cassette tapes that we used to have in the eighties and the seventies.

And I realized I used to go around to like the bank manager and the butcher and, you know, proper adults, with a tape recorder and interview them and it was real fascinating, but I had all these little tapes of my little nine year old voice, eight year old voice, and now 30, 40 years down the line, I’m doing it for a living.

So it was a real Join Up The Dots moment. So, no, I didn’t plan to be an ex-trainer, but it seemed to be, but I planned to be a podcaster, but I had to wait 40 years until podcasting became a thing.

Bob: [00:05:17] We all have to wait for. Good things to come. So you waited 40 years to become a podcaster. So it was, it was there, even though we didn’t even know the concept existed, right. It wasn’t even,

David: [00:05:28] it, it, it, it was an itch that had to be scratched. Basically. Once you get to that point, you’ve got to keep on scratching.

Bob: [00:05:37] You got to keep scratching. Cause the itch keeps coming back. Keeps coming. Now, did you have brothers and sisters? Were you an only child? Did your parents say, do whatever you want or did they tell you to go be a corporate trainer? Like what, what was growing up?

David: [00:05:52] Growing up was job for life. You know, I went through the education system, basically doing the courses. I wanted to be the next Wham, basically I wanted to be a pop star and my mum wanted me to work in a bank. And so when I came through the education system, I said to my mum, and I remember this distinctly, I’m going to take some time off.

I am gonna, you know, I’ve, I’ve been learning all this time. I’m going to take some time off. And she said, “no, you’re not. You’re going to get a job.” And she actually wrote the job applications for me and sent me. And unfortunately I seem to be quite good in interviews and I got the job. So I ended up working for a high street bank and I walked up the steps and thought, “Oh my God, I’m going to be here six weeks.”

And I did 10 years until I had enough. And then I left. And I went into insurance. I am the most boring person. I did 10 years banking, 10 years insurance until I thought I can’t do anything anymore. And I sort of left. So, no, I didn’t have any plan at all. It was very much that my parents kind of drove me where I went and I didn’t have any ambition.

I just kind of floated around for that a couple of decades getting drunk, listening to music, going to concerts and, you know, getting drunk again, really.

Bob: [00:07:06] Well it’s, I mean, at least you had the getting drunk part. I mean, it sort of feels like a 20 year sentence. It like, you did time, you did the bank, you know, it wasn’t like I experienced life at the bank.

David: [00:07:18] No, I didn’t experience anything. I met a lot of nice people. And I think we can all say that. And I think whenever we leave an organization, we always say, “I won’t miss the company, but I’ll miss the people.” But what it did, it taught me funnily enough to how to podcast. Cause one of the things I had to be was a cold caller where you’d pick up the phone in the old days.

And these were the phones with the curly wire that you actually sort of hooked under your neck. So there was no head phones and stuff and and phone people up and try to sell banking products to them. And it was, I look back on it now and I realized it was one of the greatest podcasts training.

Because when you do a podcast, you literally have to connect with a complete stranger and make it seem like you’ve known them all your life. And and so I can hark back to certain parts of my career and think I probably wouldn’t be where I am now without it. So it wasn’t wasted time. It was just time, but I didn’t know what I was doing.

Bob: [00:08:14] Exactly. You were just in training and you just didn’t know it. So yeah, that works. That works. And when you were growing up, did your parents talk about money? Like they talked to, obviously they said, go get a job for life. Do the smart, you know, do the stable thing, but did they talk about money? Did they tell you how much money they had? Did they give you…

David: [00:08:32] I had to work for everything and so we didn’t get any allowance. So if I mowed the lawn, I’d get something. If I made a cup of tea, we used to have this thing called the productivity scheme and there was a, like a chart up on the wall where if I made a cup of tea, I’d get two Pence.

Which is like nothing. Now my kids won’t even get out of bed for 20 pounds. I this this was 2 P, and if I washed a car, I’d get a little bit. So if I, if it was like slave labor and I worked in a sweat shop all week for my parents, I could get to about three pounds, you know, which was an awful lot of money, but no, they never talked about money because my mum was always totally skint.

There was no money about. No money about, and we were always really, really skint., Funnily enough, well, not funnily enough, my mom’s now had a stroke and so I’ve become controller of their finances. They got loads a money! Can’t believe it. Their account is jam packed with thousands and thousands of pounds. But certainly when we were growing up, it was always said to us that we were skint and we couldn’t afford it.

Bob: [00:09:36] So, is there a little revenge spending going on right now to make up for the past?

David: [00:09:41] Well, I still I’ve listened to quite a few of your guests and they have similar outlooks. I was listening to your show, Leisa Peterson, who I know quite well. And she was saying the same thing as me. Even when you have money, if you’ve grown up without any money, it’s very difficult to spend it.

You are almost programmed to think your skint. And so now, the only thing that I really spend money on is when I go on vacation and it’s like, and I’ve thought about this. And I think we spoke about it on my show. And it’s that feeling of, nobody’s here who knows me. I can be a bit flash with the money where,

Bob: [00:10:20] Yeah.

David: [00:10:20] In my own country, I’m quite happy to walk around borrowing clothes off of panhandlers and vagabonds. So it’s that sort of cover it, but yeah, there’s, there, there is a funny thing with money that I’ve got, but even though I’ve got money, I kind of tell the wife that I haven’t got any money and that that’s got to come from my mum. Cause that’s what she did to me.

Bob: [00:10:42] And when you go on vacation, do you put it on a credit card. Do you know how much you’re going to spend on a vacation or is it just a, like, let’s just let it fly by the seat of the pants.

David: [00:10:53] It’s crazy balls time. It’s, it’s just that the, my family always say, ‘I don’t understand it. You’re so tight at home, but on holiday you go like mad.”

And I just think that when you’re on vacation, There’s nothing worse than somebody saying, no, you can’t have an ice cream and you can’t have this, you know, they pay all this money to go somewhere, and experience, so, no, I kind of have a mental tick list where I’ve, I kind of manually tot it up.

So every time you have a McDonald’s or something, i think, okay, that, that’s, you know, I know what I’m spending, but I don’t really care.

Bob: [00:11:28] No, that’s awesome. I, so I grew up in a big family, so when we went on vacation or even going to Disneyland, we had our packed sandwiches that we had to smuggle in. We go to the movies, we have our own homemade popcorn, like we never got…

David: [00:11:43] We all do that. And the hottest day of the year, the kids are wearing overcoats so that we can stuff, drinks and sweets in from the shop down the road, before you go in. Yeah. So, no, we all do that.

Bob: [00:11:55] Oh my God. I was like, “mom, why can’t we just buy a soda from the place? No, no, we have our own. Just let me get it out of my purse.” Oh my God.

David: [00:12:03] I’m still, I’m still like that to today. I’m not paying those prices. Yeah, because yeah, once again, it’s weird really, because you can afford it, but I can’t justify spending more on the food than , seeing the film.

Bob: [00:12:17] Exactly $8 for a water. And how much, since you have kids, how much help should kids get financially? Young and even into adulthood.

David: [00:12:29] This is an interesting thing, because I think that they should get support. But if your kids are really, really lazy and won’t do anything, then I don’t think they should get anything at all. So I, I heard like Paul McCartney saying, you know, he wouldn’t buy his daughter a second hand Volkswagen beetle because he felt that she should earn it.

She should work for it, you know, and I totally understand that. If you’ve got money, you shouldn’t just give it to your kids. But kids nowadays might, maybe it’s just my kids, as I say, they won’t do anything unless it’s for a King’s ransom, you know, where the hustle that I had to earn my 3 pounds when I was a kid, seems to go out the window it’s it’s case, you know, they won’t like get out of that bed for 20 pounds, where I will sleep with someone for 20 pounds, you know, I, I really don’t care.

Bob: [00:13:21] That’s… hey, 20 pounds is 20 pounds.

David: [00:13:23] Yeah. Yeah.

Bob: [00:13:24] Put it in the bank. And now do any of your kids want to be like social media celebrities or influencers, or are they going for the job for life? Or are they going to follow in your footsteps?

David: [00:13:35] My son’s going through university and he’s doing film and media editing. So he wants to be in the kind of movie business. Which is great because even if you don’t get into the movie business, you can make videos and films for local companies and stuff. So he’s learning skills there. I, my daughter is very much into performing arts. But they all are always on Tik Tok.

Totally. They were obsessed with Tik Tok. I don’t know a tick from a tock, basically. I I’ve got no idea what this platform is, but there’s a big draw. So they do really focus in on social media, but not Facebook. My wife’s on Facebook all the time. They don’t go near Facebook. It just seems to be Tik Tok, but they seem to watch.

Bob: [00:14:16] And when you met your wife, did you two talk about finances? Like, did you ask her her bank balances? Did she ask you if, if you were a good investment, like, was she taking a gamble?

David: [00:14:26] What a stupid question to ask Mr. Wheeler. I don’t, I don’t talk finances with my wife now. And it’s funny I should have. When I first met her, I realized that she was a lovely person, a great person, and she was three grand in debt.

And I lent her three grand before we were together. Before we were anything, I said, “look, you’re working hard. You’re doing a, another job to try and pay off your debts. I will give you 3000.” And now we’ve been married 30 years and she still owes me £972 .65. She hasn’t paid off this debt and she says, “Oh, I’ve paid it off in other ways.”

And she just kind of written it off. But what I should have said to her is. Why are you in this debt? Because 30 years down the line, I can see why, cause she’s as bad now with the money as she was then, you know, being totally transparent. We had a joint account for about three days until I realized that we were going to be totally skint if I allowed her to just dip into the family bank account.

And so we’ve had, we’ve had separate finances since then. She has her money and I, I run the house because otherwise it would just be a free for all. She’d, she’d be like Imelda Marcos with like 600 pairs of shoes and 700 bras.

Bob: [00:15:45] Well, you know, you gotta have two for every day of the week.

David: [00:15:48] Well, I do. Yeah. I’m trying to cut back.

Bob: [00:15:50] Yeah. So even now your wife, you don’t talk about money, but do you budget, do YOU budget? Do you plan things out or do you just work from the premise, we don’t have any money?

David: [00:16:03] No, I, I very much. I budget things out. I, I like, I love a spreadsheet. And I like to pay myself first. That’s one of the things. So I have six pots basically, but every bit of money that I earn, I put onto a spreadsheet and it tells me to put 20% in here, 20% in there, a bit for my tax and stuff.

And then I operate from what’s left and, I’ve always done that. And so it’s, it’s very difficult to budget and save when you’ve been used to spending. But when you’ve come from an environment where you was always skint, you had no money. It’s quite easy because you don’t need a lot to sort of operate.

So that’s what I do. I very much budget and I look at it and I’ve got like a pot for Christmas and holidays and things like that. And I’ve got another pot for a tax and another pot of whatever. And I split it up very much on there. And religiously, I do that, you know, and I, I like playing around with the figures and changing the percent and thinking, Oh, in five years I will have this amount.

If I keep on saving at this rate and 20 years I’ll have that. I, I like doing these little sort of calculations on there. And then do you celebrate when you hit the benchmark? I do personally, but I don’t tell her about it because if, if I talk, if I told her about it, I wouldn’t be hitting that bench mark..

Bob: [00:17:27] That’s right. You’ll have to pay for the celebration.

David: [00:17:29] Yeah.

Bob: [00:17:29] Do you have, do you have any financial regrets? Is there one financial thing you did that you say, man, wish I hadn’t done that.

David: [00:17:36] Yeah, there was, there was one. Stocks and shares. I was up in the city of London so I got involved in stocks and shares.

That was my sort of game. And you have to keep your eye on the ball, with  stocks and shares. You have to know when to sell. And I bought some shares in name of Millwall football club, which are football club in United Kingdom. And they’ve always been quite a low level, but where they’re based is prime location.

And so this guy told me you should buy shares in Millwall football club. And I bought them at  0.5 P and on one day they got into the FA cup final and played Man United. And they went up to 11 P on that day and I lost about 500 grand. It just didn’t dawn on me that I should be selling them.

And and that, that’s my biggest financial regret. I look back on that and think, Oh my God, you know, that, that that would have been a windfall and such an easy windfall, but I didn’t do it.

Bob: [00:18:32] What is your favorite place to invest money? Is it real estate? Is it stocks and bonds? Is it. Cryptocurrency?

David: [00:18:40] Land! No, I don’t understand crypto. I don’t understand Bitcoin and all that kind of stuff. But I do understand the land and I do understand, but buying land in positions where other people might need it in the future will always pay you back. So I’ve got one or two plots of land scattered around which I’ve bought, which will be quite valuable, sort of in a few years time.

And yeah. I kind of, I’m a bit lazy. So in the old days I loved it because there was good interest rates and you could put the money in and you get a good return and it’s quite safe. Nowadays interest rates are negative. You know, the countries are in debt. I’m going to ask you this a question because your money man, I can’t answer this.

The United Kingdom over 275 trillion pounds. Okay. They owe it so who’s given it to them because I don’t, I don’t imagine America has got 270, you know, who’s got that amount of money. And my second question, if they’re a government, why don’t they just print a load of money and give it back to them? Why, why are we in debt?

Why can’t we, why can’t we print money up?

Bob: Well, we can print money up, but just that’s what we’re doing here in the USA right now. We’re printing and printing and printing and printing, but eventually people are going to realize, it’s just paper. We’ve all agreed that it had a value, but as we keep printing more and more, it starts to have less and less value.

David: Oh, is that, is that how it works? So that’s, that’s what we were just in debt until my great, great, great granddaughter, you know, passes away where we’re never going to get out of this debt.

Bob: [00:20:18] We’re never going to get out. We probably need to do a whole reset everywhere, but that’s probably not going to happen either.

David: [00:20:23] Imagine it. 270 trillion and I couldn’t compute that number.

And so I saw it and they worked it out, you know, it’s like a thousand thousand billion or something and you think, yeah, that’s mad and somebody lent them that. So, you know, the Donald Trump’s got a few quid. Has he lent any?

Bob: [00:20:45] Donald Trump is still trying to get loans. I don’t know that, everybody’s dropping him at the moment, so I don’t know that he’s going to be somebody that’s lending out the money.

David: [00:20:54] Oh, he’s, he’s lovable ole Donald. I, I laughed every day for four years.

Bob: [00:21:01] You laugh and cry. Hmm. What do you talk to your kids about with money? Do you actually have, you don’t talk to your wife, we’re clear. You don’t even know what you’re having for dinner, but, but, but do you talk to your kids about money? Do you encourage them.

David: [00:21:19] It;s funny, I encourage my son to be a bit more generous. My son that is so tight. You know, he’s got the nickname squirrel because he buries his money and we never see it again. And he’s, he’s starting to just understand that it’s actually quite nice to be generous to his mom on mother’s day and you know, and that kind of thing.

My daughter, who’s just turning 16. She hasn’t got a job. And she doesn’t need a job really at the moment. And so she hasn’t really got money worries because she comes to the bank of dad. So if she has to buy a present for someone it’s me, who pays it, you know and I think they’re quite clued up, really, my kids with money.

But I think it’s as bad being tight as it is being, you know, as a spender. I think that there is a happy medium if you’re buying the right things. You know, he had a girlfriend, there was his first girlfriend and we said, you know, are you going to buy her a birthday present?

No, we said you can’t not  a birthday present, you know? And it was like him coughing up a lung or something, you know? So so he’s never going to be skint.

Bob: [00:22:25] And does, does bank of dad have a high interest rate? Or is it zero interest rate?

David: [00:22:31] Zero. It’s probably negative interest rates. Yeah. I don’t think I will see that back again, but you know, it’s what you do, isn’t it?

Bob: [00:22:39] It’s what you do. It’s what you do. Well, we’re, we’re getting close to our fast five moment. So I mean, I asked you these fast five questions. You don’t have to think too long on them. We thought hours on them, but, but you just take a couple of minutes. Aside from necessities, what’s the one thing you cannot go a day without?

David: [00:23:00] Air.

Bob: [00:23:01] That might be a necessity for some people, but I hear you. What song would you say best sums up your life?

David: [00:23:07] Happy Talk by Captain Sensible. There’s a real rubbish song in the United Kingdom and it got to number one and you know, when a song so rubbish, it’s actually good.

Bob: [00:23:17] Yeah.

David: [00:23:18] And I think happy talk, is the song that I will play at my funeral as much because it would wind my wife up as anyone else.

Bob: [00:23:27] That sounds good. And you’ll have land to bury yourself in just in case you’ve run out of money.

David: [00:23:33] So, well, I’ve got this plan, I want to be put on a catapult and just twang and the force of me hitting the ground will just bury me. And so it would be like the 4th of July where we set up a few fireworks and just twang me up into the air and see where I land.

Bob: [00:23:50] And that’d be, that can be fun. If you… what’s the strangest thing you’ve ever eaten?

David: [00:23:59] Probably the dinner I’m having tonight. When I get home, I imagine .Strangest thing I’ve ever eaten. God, I have eaten some weird things. I did eat Buffalo once in America and I wasn’t convinced whether they were actually Buffalo.

You know, I was wondering it was just the name. I’ve had some weird things in America, to be honest. If you do a road trip, you don’t eat healthily to say the least. So yes is true. That’s certainly some weird stuff over there.

Bob: [00:24:23] Yes. There is. If you could teleport yourself, where would you go and why.

David: [00:24:27] I’d come over there? And so we could do this live and I could, I could reach out and touch you if you know, we’re not saying hashtag me too, but I, I’d like to touch you.

Bob: [00:24:41] Connection ,connection. What, what is one of your favorite memory memories around money?

David: [00:24:46] I think the last holiday that we had, because since then we’ve gone into lockdown and we had a great three or four week holiday through New York, through Pennsylvania up to Niagara falls. And it was just a great holiday..

All four of us, my family in a car, the last two kids. It’s happy memories because you see it so much on the TV, and the kids go,. “Oh, I’ve been there. Oh, I’ve been there.” You know, and I like that, that they’ve connected those good times.

Bob: [00:25:13] That’s cool. That’s cool. I think traveling and family experiences, it can be a really nice thing. Sometimes they can be really painful, but for the most part, I think that’s I like those family memories. So we’re at our sweet spot, our M and M moment, our money and motivation. Can you give the listeners a practical financial tip or a piece of wealth wisdom that you’ve learned along the way?

David: [00:25:35] Yeah, I said it earlier. Pay yourself first. Don’t try to say what you’ve got left because you’ve never got anything left. Just look at what you’ve got. Knock off 20% and then live on what you’ve got and you will live on what you’ve got and that’s the thing. And then you could make it 25% and 30%, and you’re still be able to live on what you’ve got left, pay yourself first and then leave it.

Non-negotiable keep on adding to it, keep on adding to it. And once it gets to a certain point, if you do see an investment that you want, then go for it. But don’t think of it as just our dip into that whenever I want. That’s gone, that’s gone money, that’s future money.

Bob: [00:26:13] Yeah, no, I think that’s true. True. And I, you know, what I’m hearing you talk about is not obsessing about money.

Not like trying to be the richest person in the world, but like having enough to have your needs met having enough to have your wife’s needs met and, and actually doing what you love, like you were doing corporate stuff and it wasn’t, it wasn’t feeding your soul maybe so to speak and looking for those things that actually make you happy.

And, and. And not what I’m not also hearing is lots of anger at your parents for not talking about money or not giving you all the stuff. It’s like, Hey, I’m learning this as I go. And.

David: [00:26:52] Yeah. I think actually, you know, when I left corporate land, I was on a good salary and I was obsessed with replacing that salary through my entrepreneurial ventures.

And it was harder than I imagined. And it was, it was quite difficult. Now I would rather be the poorest man in the place. As long as I’ve got freedom and time and the ability to do what I want, that there was a time that I was obsessed about if I got it, this amount of money I needed to get this amount of money.

And I think it was an ego metric more than anything else. So yeah, I could say to people, yeah, I, wasn’t an idiot leaving my job. I’d done really well for myself. And now. I’ve done really well for myself. If on a Monday morning when everybody else is traipsing off to work, I’m sitting there watching Netflix, sticking biscuits and cookies into a cup of coffee.

You know, just because it’s it’s that time. So I had turned 360 in the last, probably five years from being money driven to freedom driven.

Bob: [00:27:53] Yeah, it’s so important. I’ve worked with so many people that have reached their financial goals, made all this money and they find they’re not happy. And for me, I’d rather have happy than rich.

I enjoy money. But I’d rather be happy than rich.

David: [00:28:07] Yeah. I’d like to be happy with a rich wife

Bob: [00:28:12] And then she could spend it, whatever she wanted and then it would be a joint account.

David: [00:28:16] Yeah, there you go.

Bob: [00:28:17] There you go. Where can people find you on social media and online?

David: [00:28:21] Just Google, go to Google and type in, Join Up Dots, not Join Up The Dots, but Join Up Dots and you’ll find me. Google’s a good place for finding things. So, yeah, you’ll, you’ll find me there.

Bob: [00:28:30] Google makes us all smarter people.

David: It does.

Bob: So, to our listeners, don’t forget to share the love. You can follow us, or like us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, search for Money You Should Ask, all one word. Subscribe to this podcast on your favorite podcast player, visit Apple podcasts and search for Money You Should Ask or click on the link below.

If you prefer to watch our episodes, head over to YouTube and subscribe to our channel. For more tips, tools, or on how to learn, how to have a healthy relationship with money, visit the moneynerve.com. That’s money nerve N E R V E not nerd. David. It’s been so awesome having you here. I’m glad technology worked again and wishing you the best. Thanks so much.

David: [00:29:09] Thank you very much, Bob. It’s an absolute pleasure.