Melissa Browne

So which is why that diet budget, I think people get that concept.

And I'm not saying that you shouldn't understand how much your life costs.

That's so important.

And I talk about that in the book.

And I talk about habits that where you can

both use different bank accounts and automate money to different bank accounts so that you don't have to use the budget.

But budgeting down to the minutiae of how much am I going to spend on gifts?

How much am I going to spend on hairdressing?

For me, understanding how much your life costs and understanding what goals you're excited about.

So not goals your peers think you should have or your family or society.

goals you're really excited about and motivated to act on, that's more powerful than a budget could ever be.

And then it's setting up the great financial habits that support those goals.

Yeah, so money story and money environment and money type, definitely.

But you're right, it is understanding that, you know, especially in our comparison culture where you look across and, oh, well, they've got that and they're at my age and stage, maybe I should have that too.

And we all carry around a personal spending device in our pocket that used to be a phone and

where we're on social media following people who are being gifted products that we're then compelled to buy.

And that's that nurture versus nature.

It's both the money story you're telling yourself around what you should have and where you should be at and what success looks like for you versus your nature, which, as you said, might be those compulsions around how you innately behave.

And in the book, I talk about the marshmallow test to kind of illustrate that a little bit, where that well-known test where researchers placed a marshmallow in front of kids and then said, right, when I come back, if you eat a marshmallow, we'll give you another one.

And some kids, no problem.