Are you tired of living paycheck to paycheck? We’re exploring the four cultural influences that might be keeping you stuck in a financial rut.
“If you feel like there is no clarity as to how you’re gonna become more financially free, you’re stressed out with your money, that is why I wrote my book, to give you hope and a road map to financial freedom.”
Table of Contents
Stuck in a Financial Rut?
A financial rut is a situation in which someone has difficulty managing their finances and feels stuck in an endless cycle of debt. It can be caused by a number of factors, including job loss, poor budgeting habits, overspending, or lack of savings.
Being stuck in a financial rut can lead to feelings of stress, anxiety, and even depression as people become overwhelmed with the burden of money worries.
The good news is that there are steps you can take to get out of your financial rut and regain control over your finances. Taking the time to create a budget, reduce spending and start saving will help you climb out from under the weight of debt so that you can begin building wealth for yourself again. With the right plan in place, it’s possible to break free from your financial struggles and gain back control over your life.
In this episode, you will learn the following:
1. What it looks like to be working within your passion
2. The four cultural influences that might be keeping you stuck in a financial rut
3. Practical first-steps to free your financial mindset
14 Steps to Financial Freedom
Bruce Scott’s book, 14 Steps to Financial Freedom, is a resource for individuals looking to gain greater financial freedom. It provides the tools and strategies to help those who are struggling with overwhelming debt, allowing them to find clarity and reduce their financial stress. Through easy-to-follow advice and comprehensive guidance, this book offers a step-by-step approach to managing one’s finances and getting out of debt. It outlines how to create a budget, save money and invest for the future. It also provides tips on avoiding costly mistakes and overcoming bad habits that have caused financial difficulty.
This book is designed to make managing finances easier so that individuals can be happier with their money situation and more relaxed knowing they are on a sound financial footing. With the help of this book, readers can get out of debt and have more freedom in their lives to pursue the things that bring joy and fulfillment without worrying about money. This book is a must-read for anyone struggling with their finances, as it will help them gain clarity on how to get out of debt and achieve financial success.
You can learn more about the book and supporting course at 14stepstofinancialfreedom.com.
Bruce Scott
Bruce Scott, CPA (Colorado), MBA (Finance), FCA, FCCA, is an international personal finance specialist, a certified public accountant (Colorado), a chartered accountant ( Jamaica), a chartered certified accountant (UK) and creator of the online course 14 Steps to Financial Freedom.
His vast knowledge of money management and his strong belief that financial intelligence leads to financial independence have led him to coaching clients one-on-one on strategies and behavioral changes required to pursue a path of financial
freedom and resulted in the development of his 14 Steps to Financial Freedom course, available online and in person.
Born into poverty, Bruce grew up with a strong ambition to educate himself. He became one of the youngest persons ever to qualify as a chartered accountant in the Caribbean at 21 years old and one of the youngest partners in the history of PwC Jamaica at age 32. His excellence in the field of accounting was featured in the 2014 book Profile of Excellence: Strategies for Extraordinary Achievement from 25 Years of Interviewing Remarkable People by Ian Boyne and Glenford Smith.
Bruce currently serves on three boards, two of which are not-for-profit entities. He is a member of three professional accounting bodies i.e. the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Jamaica (ICAJ), and the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), in the UK. He is a former president of the ICAJ and a former board member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of the Caribbean (ICAC).
A dedicated Christian, Bruce likes to share his faith, especially in a cross-cultural setting. He and his wife, Suzette, have three sons, John, Justin, and Jared. Bruce plays golf as well as football (soccer for the Americans) with his youngest son—and is a
budding piano player.
Chapter Summaries:
00:03:45 – Discovering and working within your passion
00:07:36 – A message to parents about letting their children flourish
00:12:27 – The Four Horsemen to Savings (4 cultural influences that keep you in a financial rut)
00:18:53 – What we need to know about “net worth”
00:25:47 – First steps to take to get out of a financial rut
Resources
Subscribe on your favorite podcast player.
You can learn more about Bruce Scott and 14 Steps to Financial Freedom at 14stepstofinancialfreedom.com.
Other episodes and articles you’ll enjoy:
Scott Alan Turner From Money Moron to Financial Rockstar – BtR 103
A CentsAble Chat with Personal Finance Coach Bobbi Olsen – BtR 221
Exploring God’s Design for Marriage and Headship with Pastor Scott LaPierre – BtR 345
Connect with me:
Instagram: https://instagram.com/beyondtherut
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/beyondtherut
Twitter: https://twitter.com/beyondtherut
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jerrydugan/
Loved this episode? Leave us a review and rating on Apple Podcasts.
Transcript
BtR 355 Bruce Scott
[00:00:00] Bruce Scott: You’re on a mountain of debt, you feel like there is no clarity as to how you’re gonna become more financially free. You’re stressed out with your money, not because I wrote this book. I’m saying to you that this book was written first to give individuals who can’t imagine how they could get out of their financial situation.
[00:00:20] Bruce Scott: It’s a roadmap. It’s it’s, it’s show. It sheds Hope that, that here’s a path. And once you see the path, you’re gonna start feeling less.
[00:00:29] Jerry Dugan: Hey, Rutter Nation! Welcome to Beyond the Rut, the podcast that shares encouraging stories and practical tools to help pull you out of your rut into a life worth living.
[00:00:39] Jerry Dugan: I’m your host, Jerry Dugan, and in this interview based episode, we’re going to be joined by C P a Bruce Scott. He’s also the author of a new book, 14 Steps to Financial Freedom, simple Strategies to Grow, protect, and Sow Your Money At Any Age. Now, we’re talking about more specifically, What are the four cultural traps that.
[00:01:03] Jerry Dugan: Keep you stuck in a financial rut in your life and hold you back in other areas of your life. So what are those four cultural influences that we face every day, whether we know it or not? We’re gonna bring those to the forefront and give you some practical tools to help combat those cultural influences.
[00:01:20] Jerry Dugan: Because if you can achieve financial freedom, You can also better support the other areas of your life. Now, that’s not to say that financial freedom is the only way to fulfillment in life. It’s just one of the five F’s, faith, family, fitness, finances, and your future possibilities. So sit back, relax, grab a notebook in a pen.
[00:01:40] Jerry Dugan: Here we go. All right. Hey Bruce. Thanks for calling in from Jamaica. How are you?
[00:01:46] Bruce Scott: I’m very good, Terry. Thank you so much for having me on the program. How are you doing?
[00:01:50] Jerry Dugan: Oh, I’m doing well. Thanks for asking. I, you know what? My guests usually don’t ask me. Oh wow, wow. Okay. I gotta write like 300 plus people.
[00:01:57] Jerry Dugan: I’m like, dude, you’d never ask me how I’m doing. No, I’m kidding.
[00:02:01] Bruce Scott: Warm. The warmth of Jamaica.
[00:02:04] Jerry Dugan: There you go. It’s that, that what do you call it? Manners. Courtesy. There we go. That’s the word I’m looking for. Yeah. Courtesy. Yeah. Awesome. So we got connected through a company called Book Launchers and so Sarah Bean and her.
[00:02:16] Jerry Dugan: And I love Book Launchers. They know I love them because I talked about them at a podcast movement conference that there are only a few PR firms like three that I actually trust that when they say This person should be a guest on your show, I already know before I’ve read the bio, the one sheet.
[00:02:32] Jerry Dugan: That they’ve already done their work to match you and I together, that, that you, Bruce, have a message that’ll reach my audience that is looking to get unstuck in a rut, either in their faith, family, fitness, finances, or their future. And you kind of hit all the, all the boxes. I mean, you’re not gonna tell them how to like, You know, bench press more weight or anything, but you, you hit the other areas, you know, finances being the core of it, but you know, you, you tie in your faith.
[00:03:00] Jerry Dugan: If, if you got healthy finances, you can support your family better, that stress goes away, which is actually good for your mental health and, and emotional health, and then you can invest in the future. Really cool that they did their homework on that. So we’re connected because you just published a book called 14 Steps to Financial Freedom simple strategies to grow, protect, and sow your money at any age. I love that GPS is highlighted right there. Gps your money. Yes. Yeah, cuz I mean, a lot of people aim for.
[00:03:29] Jerry Dugan: And they hit it with amazing accuracy. And here you’re talking through how to create a plan and tell your money where to go and, and get it to work for you. And I, I love that. But you didn’t work your whole life as an accountant or a financial planner cuz you had a childhood in there and, and growing up.
[00:03:45] Jerry Dugan: And, and I saw in your book that it, it’s not like you had a silver spoon in your mouth either. So tell us a little bit about your experiences with money before you became a cpa.
[00:03:55] Bruce Scott: So I was gonna jokingly say I never had a silver spoon. I never had a spoon in the first place.
[00:04:01] Jerry Dugan: Oh, the things were took for granted.
[00:04:04] Bruce Scott: Yeah. I grew up in downtown Kingston in a place called Southside. And it’s known for gang violence. It was, there was a famous shootout, I mean, not anything to brag about. And five people died in a massacre, a dance party. And I. On a road parallel to go street, I actually heard the gunshots. I heard, I knew somebody who got shot.
[00:04:29] Bruce Scott: My grandmother was a dress met and we had, she had 12 kids, including my mom. And we had like two rooms for 12 kids plus their children. And in order to fit on the, I remember the house. The house had lots of beds. And in order to fit on the bed, for those who don’t know, you have to sleep head and tail.
[00:04:49] Bruce Scott: Yeah. And yeah, that’s how you fit on the bed. So that’s my upbringing. But the thing, Jerry, is that I used to follow my grandmother to the. To sell her garments, and I used to take a country bus with her and I saw all of that stress, and it was in those moments, in those years, I, I reasoned in my heart that I would find a way to improve our financial situation.
[00:05:12] Bruce Scott: I became obsessed. With, in Jamaica we have an expression that says . I became obsessed in stop being broke. And I also recognize that education was the tool, one person, education is the power of the palace. And that’s what I, I, I saw as my vehicle not having a big brand name to my family. We never had a family business.
[00:05:36] Bruce Scott: And that’s when I found my love for accounting and I determined in my. And I was gonna use the vehicle of accounting to help me to get to the land of financial freedom because I saw all the poverty and the stress that my family was going through.
[00:05:50] Jerry Dugan: Yeah. And what was it that you saw? Cuz you know, typically when we make a big, drastic life change, I mean, it happens on the inside, but there’s something on the outside that we saw that gives us that hope.
[00:06:00] Jerry Dugan: Like I can go after that and or something like it. So what was it about accounting that you saw that said, I’m gonna go after that? That’s my
[00:06:07] Bruce Scott: vehicle. Yeah, you. That’s a huge question. So when I talk about what drives me, I break it down in two parts. So I talk about obsessive desire. Mm-hmm. Where I look at the end from the beginning.
[00:06:19] Bruce Scott: So I knew I wanted my family. To live a better life financially. So that was my big engine that drove me. But then I also realized I need a vehicle to get me to that land of financial freedom. And so what I did, and I’m saying it in a very organized way now, but at the time it was just, The Holy Spirit. It was just a raw battle.
[00:06:39] Bruce Scott: I realized I was good with numbers and so I did my research and I reasoned that if I’m good with numbers, I should find a profession. And I did a lot of research and I found accounting and I said, okay, accounting can become the vehicle that gets me to my goal of financial freedom. So I have two passions, one for the outcome.
[00:06:59] Bruce Scott: And the second one for accounting. And I’ll say to anybody that’s listening, the easiest way to make money, and this is almost a cliche, but you’re hearing somebody who has lived it, the easiest way to build wealth is to find something that naturally aligns with your habit, your habit, your hobbies, and your passion.
[00:07:17] Bruce Scott: And then you will probably never work another day in your life. And that’s what I found in accounting. And I know in the book I talk about parents who superimpose. Vicariously want to live. Wanting to become the doctor, the kid, to be the doctor that they’d ever became. I have an amazing story in the book about that.
[00:07:36] Bruce Scott: So this is also a caution for parents. Let your children be, let them flourish where they are and they will get to the pinnacle of that particular thing. I argue that whatever you love, Make sure that it’s at least able to help you to save money, because without savings, you will not be able to journey towards land of financial freedom.
[00:07:58] Bruce Scott: Long answer, Mr. Dugan, but thought I’d just keep on going there.
[00:08:01] Jerry Dugan: It was perfect too. I remember reading that part, that story about the the friend of yours who was You know, kind of doctor Yeah. To, to be a doctor and didn’t want to be a doctor. And I was like, but he hasn’t met me yet. How does he know?
[00:08:14] Jerry Dugan: So that, that was my mom’s dream was for me to be a doctor. And I was a pre-med student who, oh my, I graduated like a 2.1 gpa, but I was tutoring people to get A’s and B’s in the same class. I was failing. So my faculty advisor knew this guy does not wanna be a doctor, so much so that he’s sabotaging his grades to make sure he doesn’t become one.
[00:08:34] Jerry Dugan: The cool thing about your book is you didn’t just write it for one demographic. Like, you know, there’s me, there’s the guy that’s in his forties, he’s in midlife, and it’s like, okay. Seriously, how do I get financially free? And I could see a lot of benefit for me out of it. And then you add an extra message there for kids who are in college, kids who have just gotten outta college, kids who are about to go to college.
[00:08:55] Jerry Dugan: Like, Hey, what should you be thinking about in regards to money right now? And I love that message probably because I have two college aged kids, you know, 19 and 21. It’s like, gosh, kids, here are my mistakes. Boom, here’s Bruce’s book. And you know, he’s speaking specifically to you. And so you might see your, your sales numbers tick up by two as I give ’em a copy each of them.
[00:09:18] Jerry Dugan: And Exactly. It’s just, I, I love that. Like you’re thinking about who needs this now, who’s gonna be desperate and want know this? What are the 14 steps? But then you’re also like, okay, out there in the world are young adults. Also wanna break the cycle of poverty in their family, or they want to make sure they don’t become broke when they get outta college.
[00:09:38] Jerry Dugan: Yeah. Here are 14 things you can do. With the income or lack of income you’ve got here. Here’s some small things you could do now that are gonna compound later on. And yeah. So I love that you’ve formatted the book that way.
[00:09:51] Bruce Scott: Can I say quickly how I ended up doing that? Yeah. Jerry, I was gonna ask, so perfect.
[00:09:58] Bruce Scott: I’m g rearing to go. Jerry, I’m rearing to go.
[00:10:00] Jerry Dugan: Please can read mines too. Time travel and read mines. We got extra gifts here.
[00:10:04] Bruce Scott: So I never sat under a tree. Dreaming that one day I wanna walk past the glass store of a book, the glass window of a bookstore and see my name, Bruce Scott, c p a author.
[00:10:16] Bruce Scott: I never had that dream. What drove me to write this book was a lot of young persons, whether it’s church or just work, or people that know me as an accountant, telling me about their money worries, their debt, mountains, their struggles, and every single time I would give them the treatments as to how they can turn their situation.
[00:10:34] Bruce Scott: And I make reference this in a book, they, they would say, Bruce, if I knew what you’re telling me 15 years ago, I’m gonna use your term Jerry. I would not be in this route today. And I went to my high school, Al. Having heard this so many times, I said to the principal, I need to get in front of your 12th graders and even teachers.
[00:10:53] Bruce Scott: And I started teaching the content of this book, and it’s a present course at my high school, Amma Mater College. I teach it for free. I give cash prizes to the top three students. I’ve built up multiple choice questions that they do, and that’s the driver. So when I decided to write the book, because I wanted the message to go out much faster, I was able to bring in, like you said, Working adults.
[00:11:17] Bruce Scott: That’s the term I use and the full-time students, and I’ve even got outta my way at the end of each chapter to give money journal assignments for working adults and for full-time students so they can connect and apply the principles. Learn. At the end of each chapter. Too much passion here, Jerry, but oh man, I hope you love it.
[00:11:35] Jerry Dugan: Yes. And I, I wanna tell everybody, if you are wondering to yourself, what is my passion? I don’t even know my passion. You just heard a taste of it here from Bruce. And that is, he’s willing, he loves it so much that he went to his alma mater, his high school, and he teaches it free and free. Yeah, free and, and you do it on a regular basis.
[00:11:54] Jerry Dugan: You care more about the outcome than how much you can earn off of it. But you’ve found a way to also earn off of it as a cpa working for a major organization
[00:12:03] Jerry Dugan: now early in the book you talk about, four cultural influences that are right there that are probably getting in this, into this rut in the first place. I know I mentioned it in my book a little bit specifically around the monthly payment and keeping up with the Jones’s, and I just took two of them from you, but.
[00:12:20] Jerry Dugan: Tell us the four cultural influences that get us my financial rut. There we go. And I’ll shut up cuz I was stealing your thunder. Oh, sorry
[00:12:27] Bruce Scott: Mr. Jerry. So, cause of my Christian view, you notice in the book I use a lot of biblical imagery. It’s kind of subtle, right? So, but in this section of the book, I call it the four Horsemen of the savings.
[00:12:38] Bruce Scott: Crisis. That’s another characterization for the four cultural influences, but before I quickly identify them, the reason why we need to find them and treat them is because they will cut the legs from under you in terms of your ability to save money. The book is big on the awareness that we need to learn to save money because it is the fuel that will drive us along the road to financial freedom.
[00:13:03] Bruce Scott: So these four culture inferences, that’s why they’re so destructive. Number one, a culture of instant gratification. I want it now fast food, fast, instant, everything, but when it comes on to finances, you can’t be like, Coffee. Nothing against coffee. You have to be like the bamboo tree. You have to be patient.
[00:13:21] Bruce Scott: The scripture says you put money little by little and you watch it grow. You cannot have instant gratification in your car. You need to take instant gratification out and embrace defer gratification, which is what savings is all about. The next one is people buy stuff based on how much is the monthly payment.
[00:13:40] Bruce Scott: You walk into a store. Look, the store owners, they’re in the business of selling their stuff. I have nothing against that, but you need to be, I. You see this thing you, you walk out with paying a hundred dollars a month over 15 years, 10 years. When you look at the interest that you’re paying out, that’s revenue in terms of savings.
[00:13:55] Bruce Scott: So wait, it’s okay to wait or you can go for the shortest period that you can afford. Number three, it calls you a lack of financial intelligence. Many people make money mistakes. I know somebody was comfortably paying a minimum balance on their credit card thinking that it was okay. People need to. In themselves in the first chapter.
[00:14:14] Bruce Scott: I call it the greatest financial investment you will ever make. It’s an investment in your mind, in your time, and your financial legacy. And the last one is very famous, a culture of keeping up with the Joneses. In the book, I argue, the Joneses left town a long time ago, and you don’t even want to know where they live.
[00:14:32] Bruce Scott: Do not look over the fence. Learn to be. Exercise of attitude, of gratitude and be amazed to see how, how good life is. So those are the four cultural influences. If you can manage them, you’re gonna save more money and you’re gonna accelerate your path along the road to financial freedom.
[00:14:50] Jerry Dugan: Yes. And the one keeping up with the Jones is cracks me up the most because as Dave Ramsey says, we’re spending money on things that we don’t really want to impress.
[00:14:59] Jerry Dugan: People we don’t really know. And it blows my mind. Probably keeping up with the Jones is, is not from a place of security and confidence. It’s, I want people to be impressed by me and and what does it cost us? I mean, you pointed out it’s the crisis to our savings cuz we’re spinning it all on stuff to impress others.
[00:15:18] Jerry Dugan: Yeah. And, and
[00:15:19] Bruce Scott: with the social media channels that exist. It is, even in the book I talk about Jones’s disease. Mm-hmm. And you know, you’re infected when you feel like you have to spend money that you don’t have to post stuff to create a certain impression. I talk about impression management and how some people feel like they have to let other people feel that they are successful and they, they, you know, they, they get into debt to, to have this facade.
[00:15:43] Bruce Scott: No, you’re right. If you’re gonna be financial free, it starts with a clear picture of, I don’t care what you. I’m thinking about my lane and my budget and my financial goals and my family and that’s it. I bought a BMW recently. I could have bought a brand new one. Why am I gonna buy a brand new car when I could save like 30, 40%?
[00:16:03] Bruce Scott: And I didn’t care if somebody could figure it cause a used car. Yeah, you need to get to that state of mental comfort. If you’re really gonna go down to the road of financial freedom.
[00:16:12] Jerry Dugan: Yeah. My family didn’t understand for the longest time why I will never buy a brand new car off the lot. And now they know my kids are adults now and they’ve, they’ve seen like the brand new car loses $5,000 in value or more the moment you drive off the lot.
[00:16:26] Jerry Dugan: And so like our most recent car right now it’s paid off, which I love and. We bought it used, it was like two or three years old when we got it. Very low mileage. It’s a Toyota Avalon and I tell you we love it cuz it, it’s nice the seats have heaters and we live in a place now where it gets cold in the winter.
[00:16:45] Jerry Dugan: Like, I didn’t think I needed a leather seats with a heater, but it’s like, oh, this feels good in the wintertime. Yeah. You know, I’m in my forties, it’s like, oh, this makes my back feel better. Okay, good. Right, but. The, the point I drove home to my family though, is one, we’re in a place where we could buy that car.
[00:17:00] Jerry Dugan: But two, and my son knew this cuz he, he loves cars and he’s like, dad, that car. Brand new is like $10,000 more than what you paid for it. I was like, bingo. I let somebody, and this was like a previously owned car by the government. I was like, I let the government pay full price. They only put 30,000 miles on it and they sold it to me for 30 or yeah, 10,000 less than I would’ve paid if I bought brand new.
[00:17:22] Jerry Dugan: And it was a government car. They took care of it. And I don’t know where that car, I mean that car’s blinged out. I’m like, wow. Yeah. And
[00:17:29] Bruce Scott: I. The thing is there, we have nothing against brand new cars. If somebody can afford to take the hit and they have a dream card, then that’s a personal choice. Yeah.
[00:17:37] Bruce Scott: You know, we’re just making an argument that if you wanna maximize your savings, then it’s something to think about. But if you wanna go with your brand new car and you understand the implications, I made that balance in the book. Yeah. And go for it.
[00:17:48] Jerry Dugan: Yeah. And you know, we got that car cuz I mean, one, my wife loved it and but like, we never posted about it on social media.
[00:17:56] Jerry Dugan: Like, hey, look at our car, you know, now bow to us. We’re like, you know, it’s, it’s a car. It does what it does. But it, yeah, it’s. Getting what you need for what you needed to do and, and not worry about what other people think about it, I think is really huge. And just getting that, getting past that. But you got these other three that are important, like instant gratification, that dopamine fix.
[00:18:14] Jerry Dugan: Huge. Thinking beyond the monthly payment cuz that’s how you get. Stuck. That’s how you get stuck in the rat. The rat race is all of a sudden your paycheck is like ballooned out to these monthly payments and now you can’t leave that job that’s so toxic that it’s taken a toll on your, your health. Whereas if you think about beyond that monthly payment You now got freedom of movement, not just financial freedom.
[00:18:37] Jerry Dugan: Like I was able to leave a job a few months back because we don’t have everything swelled out to a monthly payment. And, and it’s like, exactly. I, I love that freedom. You know, we’re not even at a point of like saying we’re financially free. We just had the freedom to leave. That environment and it’s huge.
[00:18:53] Jerry Dugan: Guys, I hope you’re paying attention to what Bruce is saying here and what, I’m just going gaga over. Now. One of the things you talk about in the book is like, once you realize these four influences, like the great first step is to figure out your net worth to kind of give you a scorecard. I, I know a lot of folks, I, I try not to cause I don’t like the number, but cuz that number used to be negative with a bunch of numbers.
[00:19:15] Jerry Dugan: And now it’s closer to zero. So it’s like, okay, I’m at a wash, but now I want to get a big positive number. But what, what is net worth? How do you calculate net worth?
[00:19:23] Bruce Scott: Great question. So net worth is the measure of determining how wealthy somebody is, and it’s literally looking at what the person or the household own O w N now versus what they owe o w E.
[00:19:38] Bruce Scott: So if you’re what you owe, like your mortgage, your car loan, your student loan, if those are greater than what you. You have a negative network, which is not good. It means that if you were to sell all of your assets, the thing that you own, And you try to settle your debts or your liabilities, you would fall sharp.
[00:19:59] Bruce Scott: That’s why a negative net worth is not good. A negative net worth also shouts that you are living beyond your means. Your expenses are more than your influence, and that is gonna be your downfall. And so there is that link. And so because you’re spending money on your. You have to fund or borrow each month, usually from a credit card to pay for that difference.
[00:20:24] Bruce Scott: And that’s why your liabilities are what you owe keeps getting higher. That’s part of the self assessment. So if somebody sees that they have a negative network and they also do their income expense statement, they’re likely to see that they’re living beyond their. That is the awareness. That is the reality check.
[00:20:46] Bruce Scott: That is the first step along the road to financial freedom. Where am I today? Once you know where you are, then you are now in a position to treat yourself. You go to the doctor to do your MRI scan, you do your psa, your blood sugar. Once your doctor sees that your blood sugar is high, then the doctor is gonna set a treatment to bring the blood sugar down.
[00:21:08] Bruce Scott: Your network is negative or low, then you need some treatment. And that’s where financial goal setting becomes important. But one other quick thing about network. A lot of people see people in their fancy cars and assume that they’re wealthy. And in the book I made the argument that is not how much, not so much how much you earn.
[00:21:27] Bruce Scott: But it is more what you’re able to save and invest. Somebody with a high income one 50,000 a year who spends more than they earn will have a negative net worth. And I talk about a school bus driver who made 38, 30 9,000 and was a millionaire by the time she was 60 because she spent far less than she earned.
[00:21:49] Bruce Scott: So you want a billion net worth save money. And even if you make less than a higher income person, your net worth could be a lot bigger.
[00:21:59] Jerry Dugan: Yeah. And net worth how does that compare to like somebody’s actual worth as a person?
[00:22:05] Bruce Scott: I love it. I love it. So your net. Is not to be confused with your human dignity.
[00:22:12] Bruce Scott: You’re created in the image and the likeness of a holy God. Do not think that you were bought with corruptible things, but you were bought with the precious blood of Jesus. So there is no question. So don’t link your self-esteem with your bank account. It is a natural thing to do, but they’re completely different.
[00:22:29] Bruce Scott: And this is also a word for married couple. You might be a husband. And you make less than your wife and you automatically start to feel that you’re paying second fiddle. Our headship role as men, and I’m not talking dictatorship here, our headship role is not determined by the size of our bank account.
[00:22:44] Bruce Scott: It’s determined by just that divine order that God sets in place. So if your wife earns more money than you, then chair her along in Jesus’ name and help her to be the best wife and to earn more for the family. So there is, there is, and. There is a part of us culturally, let’s not play games there. Right?
[00:23:03] Bruce Scott: There’s a part of us culturally as men where you have that natural instinct that you want to earn and, and the Bible says if you don’t take care of your family, you’re worse than un unbelievable. But don’t confuse earning less than your wife as you having less work. Right. As long as you are trying What?
[00:23:20] Bruce Scott: What gets me upset is men who have no sense of trying, and I’m saying they need to get off their blessed assurance and. Demonstrate that that attribute that God gave to Adam when he says, protect the garden. Guard the garden. Keep the garden. He had the garden before the woman. And so we know clearly that it’s our responsibility, but don’t confuse the sizing of the bank account, which is human dignity and your worth.
[00:23:44] Bruce Scott: I love
[00:23:45] Jerry Dugan: that. I knew you were gonna go there because I read it up for your book and listened to some interviews you’ve done. I, I didn’t know you were gonna give us the bonus content on Headship, which is like, yes, I know what, I know what other episodes. To link back to this where we talk about headship, cuz that is huge.
[00:23:58] Jerry Dugan: That’s a big, big passion. Part of mine is as well, it’s like not confusing, you know, headship with, I’m the ruler in You Must Obey. And I love that and it’s, yeah, net worth is really just a scorecard. Where am I financially? Bottom line. Boom. But I, I know, and I went through this myself where I thought my actual worth was tied into my net worth and, and cuz you know, the language was confusing like that at first when I was younger, but now I understand.
[00:24:25] Jerry Dugan: No, it’s strictly a scorecard. That I’ve got more assets or less assets than I have liabilities. And it, now, I looked at it in terms of what can I leave my family? And when I saw it as that net worth is really just what my assets are worth or not. And it gives me a, a snapshot of where I am financially as far as financial health.
[00:24:44] Jerry Dugan: It’s not. In any way indicative of who I am in, in God’s eyes. And I love that. And I love that added bonus though. Like, what if my wife earns more than me? So what, you know, support her, cherish her.
[00:24:56] Bruce Scott: And so what, so what? And, and wives need to understand it too, because some ladies subconsciously otherwise feel like because they earn more, it gives them some sort of ascendancy and that’s where the whole submission comes in, right?
[00:25:09] Bruce Scott: The pocket, again, it works both ways. Yeah. The size of. Bank account or your paycheck doesn’t elevate you to the headship role as a woman. The submission is still there, and there’s a whole discussion around people who pool money versus they have their separate bank accounts, you know? But that, that, that’s a whole nother thing there.
[00:25:29] Bruce Scott: But yeah. But just to say that it’s equally important for a man and a woman. To understand the size of the paycheck doesn’t change the divine order. Yeah,
[00:25:37] Jerry Dugan: I love that. Now so far, we’ve talked about your background. We talked about those four cultural influences net worth, and how that’s a great first step to take and not to be confused with personal worth.
[00:25:47] Jerry Dugan: You guys got the bonus content on headship just now. Now what are some next practical steps? Cause we’ve still got some time here. What are some practical steps? I’ve just figured out my net worth. What do I do next to get myself out of a financial?
[00:26:00] Bruce Scott: Yeah, so, so the net worth is like the, the x-ray, but I argue that you want to drill on a little bit further.
[00:26:06] Bruce Scott: So if your net worth is low or negative, it’s a sign that your financial health indicators are not good, and I get into 10 of them, which we obviously won’t have the time to get through here, but I talk about. Life events. Every stage of our lives will have some financial implication, right? So your kids will wanna go to college, we’re gonna get to retirement age one day, and you’re gonna want to buy a house.
[00:26:28] Bruce Scott: You wanna buy a car. So you have to test how prepared you are financially for dealing with all of those. How much are we spending on debt on a monthly basis? And so it’s, it’s the net worth, yes. But we need to drill down and do those more specific tests and. If those tests are below the benchmarks, for example, your debt to income ratio is a very important test.
[00:26:51] Bruce Scott: It’s almost like your blood pressure if you are above the target, which is about 43 to 50% debt to income ratio, my total monthly payments as a percentage of my gross income, you don’t want that to be more than 50%. But if you have that at like 60% and remember the question I’m answering, what are the, the quick steps?
[00:27:12] Bruce Scott: Yes. So you need to understand where you are. How healthy am I? If I’m weak with my debt management, I’m in a debt mountain, my d t i, my debt to income is greater than the benchmark 50%. Then that leads us to, I need to set a financial goal to bring down my dti. If I see where I don’t have an emergency fund, that’s the treatment is to go and build an emergency fund and you write down those goals to fix the weak areas in your financial health indicators.
[00:27:45] Bruce Scott: But Jerry, none of those goals will come to life until we are able to either increase our saving. Or start to save money. So I have a chapter, it’s called Budget to Save, learn from the Ants, and Be Wise, the Ants Store stuff in the. The other stuff in the summer, knowing that winter is coming, metaphorically speaking, we need to store, we need that cash to attack our debt mountains, to increase our retirement savings, to invest in our college fund and to give to our communities.
[00:28:21] Bruce Scott: It’s all about savings. I get into the TT C method of how to save more money in the book because a lot of people are stuck and they don’t know where to turn. I give a four step simple. How to save money. I’m gonna pause there. A lot of energy bubbling through the phone.
[00:28:38] Jerry Dugan: And, and the tt c i method guys is track your expenses, trim where you can you know, those extra subscriptions, those extra expenses that you really don’t need to have.
[00:28:48] Jerry Dugan: And then if it’s not enough, chop the stuff that you gotta chop and, and endure for a little bit. And then increase your income. And I know for me, like we increased our income by getting rid of monthly payments. It was like, wait, why are we paying a car? Let’s get rid of the car note. Well, how do we do that?
[00:29:03] Jerry Dugan: We pay off the car. And, and so we had sold our house when the market was like really booming. We had a big influx of cash. Our plan was either a, use the house as a rental or free up expendable income. And what we found was we could either generate $200 worth of passive income or we could generate $1,500 a.
[00:29:23] Jerry Dugan: Of income if we paid off our debt. And I was like, let’s do that. And, and it, it brought our expenses down so much. It’s part of why I was able to leave my job a few months back. It was like, yes, we, we don’t have debt to pay off. We don’t have all these bills to pay. We just have to worry about rent electricity and internet, you know, and a few other things.
[00:29:41] Jerry Dugan: Yeah. And I know that
[00:29:42] Bruce Scott: feeling. Oh, it’s, that’s a good one. Have no, no mortgage. Yeah. You know, no credit card, nothing. And that, that, that, I mean, I know Dave Ramsey is the king on personal finance. Dave Ramsey says, when the debts are paid off, even the grass under your foot feels different. Yes. And he’s right.
[00:29:59] Jerry Dugan: It’s like you can walk off a job where, where are you going? No bills to pay. This job sucks. He’s, I’ll see you guys later,
[00:30:07] Bruce Scott: but you need to learn to save money. I talk about that a lot. Yes. You know, so, yeah.
[00:30:12] Jerry Dugan: Yeah. I mean, that’s ultimately the thing that allows you to. Pivot in life is you’ve got that nest egg there that you can draw from and you put right back into it once things have settled back down.
[00:30:22] Jerry Dugan: Whereas a lot of folks don’t have that, and they rely on, they can’t. They, they can’t because they’ve maxed out their credit cards, they’ve maxed out, they’ve taken out loans, and they’re just so spread thin. Leveraged in debt that they can’t. And when you don’t have that debt, when you have that nest egg, that emergency fund, you have freedom of movement in life.
[00:30:41] Jerry Dugan: And I love it. Guys, Bruce’s book is called 14 Steps to Financial Freedom. You gotta get a copy for yourselves. I know it’s available on Amazon. Where else can they get the book if they don’t wanna buy it from Amazon?
[00:30:54] Bruce Scott: Yeah, it’s everywhere. It’s on Amazon. It’s on Barnes and Noble opera books. Chapter, it’s, it’s literally everywhere you can think of, thanks to book Launchers who helped me to get such a wide distribution.
[00:31:05] Bruce Scott: And we also, I also have an audiobook version. It’s, it’s not just Audible, it’s audiobook for just about any other platform that has an audiobook. I use some Find a Way voices to do the distribution there. Oh, love those guys. And I have a much very wide distribution network work. If you’re into hard copy, hard.
[00:31:23] Bruce Scott: There’s a hardback if you want to e-book. There’s Kindle, and not just Kindle, like Amazon’s Kindle Bank e-book for bonds and Nobis equivalent. It’s in every format, just about everywhere. And my website is one four steps to financial freedom.com. That’s a number 14 steps of financial freedom.com. I have a free help test that you can do to test quickly where you are diagnostically speaking and have a work.
[00:31:48] Bruce Scott: That you’ll get if you put the receipt that you bought the book, and you’ll get a link to download a work work that will help you to work through those many journal assignments.
[00:31:55] Jerry Dugan: Nice. I love that. And, and before we go, Bruce, any final words of wisdom for those listening in?
[00:32:01] Bruce Scott: My final word of wisdom is if you’re listening to me and you feel like you’re on a mountain of you feel like there is no clarity as to how you’re gonna become more financially free, you’re stressed out with your money, not because I wrote.
[00:32:16] Bruce Scott: I’m saying to you that this book was written first to give individuals who can’t imagine how they could get out their, their financial situation. It’s a roadmap. It’s it’s, it’s show it sheds Hope that, that here’s a path. And once you see the path, you’re gonna start feeling less stressed and it’s broken down in a very simple performance.
[00:32:36] Bruce Scott: So the 14 steps are split across, grow your money, nine steps, protect your. Estate planning insurance. And so your money giving and helping others to be free, and that’s why we call it gps, your money Grow, protect Soul. Very easy to remember. So just think as you’re walking, you have your GPS and it gives you a sense of direction.
[00:32:56] Bruce Scott: That’s what the book is doing. It’s hope. It might take you six years, but at least you have hope and you don’t have that hopelessness. That’s what I’m trying to do, give you a sense of hope. And here is a living testimony. I wasn’t always like this. Those strategies. And you can trust them and you can read the testimonials online and the reviews.
[00:33:13] Bruce Scott: Go, go for it guys. Yes.
[00:33:15] Jerry Dugan: Sound advice in this book, guys. I’m not even doing everything in this book and I’ve seen so much benefit and this book is reminding me. Okay? Don’t forget the rest of the picture here of what can help build that freedom you’re looking for. So get a copy of that book, guys.
[00:33:29] Jerry Dugan: Bruce, I’m glad we were able to get on here. Sarah, thanks for connecting me with Bruce. All right
[00:33:33] Bruce Scott: guys. Thanks. Bless.
[00:33:37] Jerry Dugan: Now I hope you got encouragement, inspiration, and some practical tips from this conversation I had with Bruce Scott. Now, we talked about the four cultural influences that’ll keep you stuck in a financial rut.
[00:33:49] Jerry Dugan: We also gave you some tips on how to get out of those financial ruts and a a lot more bonus content. We also shared with you, Bruce, Upbringing in Jamaica, in poverty, and how now he has learned so much, been certified in so many ways and helps individuals and families, whether you’re in college now or you’re later in life to find that financial freedom.
[00:34:10] Jerry Dugan: So hopefully you found some tools, some takeaways. I’d love to hear from you, and if you want more now, if you want to. Touch in, you know, touch base, touch in with me. What, what, what if you wanna touch base with me, send me an email info beyond the rut.com. Let me know what you got out of this conversation.
[00:34:29] Jerry Dugan: If you wanna get more information about Bruce, about his book about related topics around financial freedom that we’ve covered in Beyond the Rut, the podcast, go to the show [email protected] slash 3 55. Now if you just wanna get unstuck from a rut in life in general, go get my book Beyond the Rut, create a life worth living in your faith, family, and career.
[00:34:52] Jerry Dugan: It is available on Amazon as an ebook, as a paperback and an audiobook, but I’ll let you know if you buy the ebook or the paperback. You get the audio book for free. So there you go. Now, I hope everything about this episode has helped pull you out of your rut in some way, or you know somebody who would benefit from this.
[00:35:12] Jerry Dugan: If that’s the case, share this episode with somebody you know that helps grow this show, but it also helps impact the lives of others, the people you know. In fact, now I’m glad you joined me for this episode and I look forward to joining you again on the next one. But until then, go live Life Beyond the Rut.
[00:35:28] Jerry Dugan: Take care.
