Episode 32 - Bucket Lists, Balance, and Building Wellness
What’s on your bucket list? Whether exploring far-off destinations, creating stronger family bonds, or getting your finances in shape, this episode is your guide to dreaming big and making it happen.
Host Deb Meyer shares how a simple New Year’s Eve conversation about bucket lists sparked fresh ideas for setting goals that truly matter.
In this episode, you’ll discover:
The surprising link between financial health and overall well-being.
How stress in one area can ripple into another—and what to do about it.
A three-step framework for financial wellness: shift your mindset, adjust the plan, and center yourself with prayer.
Ready to make 2025 your best year yet? Tune in for stories, strategies, and a fresh perspective on achieving balance and purpose.
Listen in to learn more
(00:55) Let’s Talk Bucket List
(05:01) Struggling With Work-Life Balance
(17:03) Adapting Your Financial Plan
Resources
Nerdwallet: What is a Good Credit Score?
Jon Acuff’s NYT bestselling book Soundtracks
Fr. Timothy Gallagher’s book Discerning the Will of God
Spiritual Direction with Meritt Petrone
Connect with Deb Meyer
Website: WorthyNest.com/podcast
Full transcript
Deb Meyer (00:00.846)
Hey there, I hope you had a wonderful New Year's and Christmas with your family. We actually got to go down to Florida. If you recall, we started the podcast when I was living in Florida and then moved to Missouri about halfway through 2024. And now we're here early January 2025. Just got back from about a week and a half trip in Florida. Got to see our old friends and family.
Of course, my dad lives down there so it was a really great time and I hope you had a nice wonderful restful holiday season as well. Alright so I wanted to devote today's episode to my friend Dayna. She gave me a great idea when we were sitting having dinner. She and her husband Dan and my husband and I were having dinner on New Year's Eve without kids. We got some friends’ help on watching the kids.
And she talked about a bucket list. I have had a bucket list in the past, like a loose bucket list, but I hadn't really thought about it until she brought it up and she was talking about it as a way of connecting with her kids. They have a blended family, and one of the hardships of having a blended family is connecting with kids that aren't your own biological children.
So she was talking about how two of his kids warmed up to this idea of a bucket list. And, it just got me thinking, what's on your bucket list? What, are some of the things that you really want to do before you pass away? And for a lot of us, travel might be high on the list. At least that's high on my bucket list. I have very specific places I'd like to travel to.
But for some things it might be, you know, a simple, not very costly … milking a cow or taking a long drive from the coast of California to the coast of New York. Something like that. Yes that does involve some travel but you could probably do it a little more cheaply than going to Europe. Anyway I hope you start a bucket list if you don't already have one.
Deb Meyer (02:25.612)
I'm also going to share a couple of things that I think are important when you're crafting that bucket list to think about what some of your goals are for this new year. For a lot of us, it's saving more money. And if we have some kind of purpose behind those goals, that can help accelerate the forward momentum we have in reaching them.
So one of the things I also want to share is just how financial wellness and physical wellness are correlated. A lot of the new year is all about getting in shape, crushing those fitness goals. But I think this is also a good time to be thinking about financial fitness and what are your habits that are either helping you succeed in the new year or preventing you from succeeding. So I'm gonna give some tips along the way here just to encourage you on this journey. Fresh year, fresh start, and hopefully you'll gather some good feedback from this episode.
All right, when you feel out of shape, is it easier or harder to accomplish your goals? Well, if your answer is easier, you're one of the few. I don't know how you do it. But for the rest of us, our experience is usually that our body's functionality has a huge impact on how well we reach our goals. As in sold bodies, we can't ignore what our bodies need without serious consequences.
Think about stress management for a bit. That's critical to your physical health and being physically and emotionally unhealthy actually makes financial wellness that much harder. It becomes harder to take that difficult action toward the life that you truly want. So I really do want to stress like as you're embarking on this new year, it's important to be thinking, I want to get financially healthy. I also want to get physically healthy if I'm not already.
And that's been a struggle even for me in this move. I've gained a couple of pounds. I've been going to the gym, but my eating and dietary habits haven't been as strong. So I'm right there with you in the trenches trying to figure this out. Let's just think about some of the documentation like in medical literature. we think about lack of sleep or a sedentary lifestyle, poor nutrition or ineffective stress management, that can often lead to poor mental health outcomes.
Deb Meyer (04:49.838)
It also affects our ability to make really smart decisions, including financial ones. And that leaves us stressed about money. Wealth-building strategies like financial independence or early retirement can be all that much harder to obtain. Do you see where I'm going with this? There's no question that physical, emotional, and financial health are intertwined. Now let's think about the following scenario. Let's suppose you have a goal of getting promoted at the company you work for.
You've been working hard, but unfortunately you and your spouse are discovering that new house you bought was not the right financial move. Guilty as charged. Our house has had a lot of unexpected expenses since we moved in in July of last year. That initial excitement of owning a home has given way to anxiety, sleepless nights, just general fatigue, right? You find yourself ruminating, full of fearful thoughts about making your next mortgage payment.
You've been losing sleep, have a serious caffeine dependency, maybe always having to get that next cup of coffee or caffeinated tea. It's really hard to get out of that cycle when you're in that state of energy depletion. And because of that, you might have difficulty concentrating. So at work, you're frenzied, less engaged. You're not on top of it as much as you'd like to be. And that could cause your productivity to drop and
When you think about it in that perspective, mean, other people start to notice too, if your energy is depleted, they're going to see, okay, you might not be performing at your best ability. So that boss that's responsible for deciding whether you get promoted or not, maybe he or she is going to pass you over for the promotion and the raise that you were hoping to get. Now, hopefully this hypothetical scenario shows how an unwise financial decision can impact your overall sense of well-being because physical consequences create obstacles to achieving your goals.
You can either make a comeback from a poor decision or you can spiral into an even worse situation. And in my experience as a family finance expert, I really want to help parents reverse this trend of feast or famine, right? Instead of yo-yoing between this exuberant risk-taking and paralyzing anxiety, there is a middle path. And it's a path of prudence and patience.
By taking that emotionally mature middle road, you can live richly even if you aren't yet rich in financial terms. But finding that balance is not easy. Building wealth does take effort and it also takes intentionality, but also a holistic approach. So I want to offer three key steps I think that are important to achieving your goals of financial wellness. First though, let's take a deeper dive into that connection between financial health and physical health.
So the American Psychological Association released a Stress in America survey of 2023 and they showed a 10 % increase from 48 % to 58 % in chronic illness from 2019 to 2023. Now that's four years and obviously 2020 was a pretty rough year for everyone in America or even globally with the COVID outbreak. But finances actually remain a top stressor.
And they're saying over 77 % of 35 to 44-year-olds report money as a significant source of stress. So I find it pretty interesting when we think about financial stress that it really is continuing to be a top stressor. And that's why I'm here to try and help you not feel as financially stressed.
I also find it pretty interesting that over 70 % of American adults are considered overweight or obese according to CDC statistics. That same percentage of Americans have at least one credit card. Now I'm not saying credit cards are intrinsically evil. That's not what I'm trying to say at all, but charging the card when you don't have a solid plan to pay it back, that's a pretty vicious cycle. And if you have an excellent credit score, which is defined as 720 or higher,
Deb Meyer (09:16.662)
That's a key to financial wellness. So if you're looking for more resources on improving your credit score, NerdWallet has a really great resource that I can link to in the show notes. But I just want to share the biggest factor for improving your credit score is payment history. And that means consistently paying your bill in full every time on time. And really, if you think about it, lack of discipline in one area, whether that's financial or physical, can impact these other areas of your life.
If you miss paying the credit card bill this month, you might dig into a pint of Ben and Jerry's ice cream when you see that staggering interest charge and the penalty of the following month. Or maybe you want to go to the gym, you have every intention of doing that, but then when you see the upcoming furnace repair appointment tomorrow, you get a little bit nervous and say, “Hey, I think I'm just going to stay here.” Be a little less active.
Letting anxious thoughts run throughout your head can result in missed opportunities, especially at work. Now, studies and polls only go so far. Rather than totally relying on statistics and hypothetical scenarios, I'm gonna tell you a little real-life story. My struggle with wellness started after my family and I took a trip to Spain. We got to spend three months in Spain in 2018.
And it was amazing. Honestly, I didn't always opt for healthy food choices and I gained several pounds living abroad and then struggled to get some of that weight off when I returned back. Now some of that weight gain could be blamed on food access. Like restaurants often didn't serve a lot of vegetables with their entrees, but we could have also eaten out more in the Airbnb rentals we were using.
Especially if you think about the financial implications of eating out, it was very expensive as a family of five. And oftentimes we would go and get ice cream or other sweet treats while exploring the city. You know, even though it was a three-month-long thing, we treated it much like most people would treat a vacation, right? You just kind of let things go by the wayside and don't have a lot of prudence to stick to a healthy eating plan.
Well, and even though we were using walking and public transit for the bigger Spanish cities that we were in, I didn't actually belong to a gym. And, you know, that's just not enough to really, even though I walked a lot, it wasn't really enough to combat the unhealthy eating habits. So it did take a long time to readjust when we returned from Spain to the U S and there was a much faster pace of life here in the U S.
Deb Meyer (12:54.05)
So it took more time demands. I didn't feel like I had as much free time to go and work out or prioritize wellness. And I mean really if you think about it any kind of prioritization, it takes dedication. Now I do exercise regularly. Again, if we think about this link of you know financial and physical it also really impacts our emotional health, too.
I know when we originally set out to go to Spain, we wanted to make this work for our family and our kids were young at the time. Both of us working wasn't going to be an option. And my husband was in a traditional role, so they wouldn't have let him work remotely at that time anyway from a foreign country. We went down from two incomes to one. And my husband, Bryan, did care for our kids during that stay in Spain while I continued to run WorthyNest on a remote basis.
When we came back to the US, Bryan started a job search, but it took much longer than we had expected. That financial stress of just having the single income took an emotional toll on both of us. And I experienced a lot of anxiety. I did my best to manage it, but honestly, like once Bryan found that next role, I was so relieved. It was a scary time.
The three key steps I want to talk about here to financial wellness and even overall health, they've helped me personally, especially through some pretty difficult transitions. And I want to share those in the hope that they'll be helpful for you too. All right. So first is to develop some new soundtracks and good life habits. And I have to credit John Acuff. He's a New York Times bestselling author.
He actually enlisted the help of a researcher, Mike Pesley, who has a PhD, to survey over 10,000 people about whether they struggle with overthinking. Guess how many said yes. It's a very high number. Over 99.5 % of survey respondents said yes, that they struggle with overthinking.
Deb Meyer (15:08.363)
Now, if you want to dive into this book, it's called Soundtracks by John Acuff and it's really great because it kind of turns that overthinking from a super problem into more of a superpower. And I remember years ago when he released it, I actually received an advanced copy of the book. I read it in less than a week. It was that amazing. So think about the soundtracks that could be playing in your head right now. Maybe it's something like “I'm not good with money” or “I'm not disciplined enough to make smart financial decisions.”
These are lies that you have conditioned yourself to believe over time. What if you replace those limiting beliefs with positive mantras? Here are some examples. I can learn how to better manage money or reaching my financial goals as possible with the right coach and consistent effort. Remember the earlier example where
Anxious thoughts led out to losing an opportunity at work. Maybe those thoughts sounded like, “I can't believe I made such a stupid decision. I'm such an idiot. I shouldn't have let my spouse talk me into this. I have no clue how we're going to pay the mortgage next month. What if we lose the house? What if we go bankrupt?”
Just hearing that. Don't you feel your blood pressure rising?
What if instead these thoughts went a little like this:
“Man, buying our house was probably not the wisest thing. While we can't undo our decision, we can make this a personal growth opportunity. God loves us and we trust in him to provide and take care of us. Tomorrow, maybe we can brainstorm some side hustle ideas. And I'm going to take personal responsibility and really try to stand out so I have a good chance at the promotion. Everything will be okay.”
Which of the two soundtracks do you think will produce better results? My bet? The second one.
Deb Meyer (17:19.424)
Mindset really matters and you get to choose what kind of thoughts live inside your head.
Deb Meyer (17:28.504)
Beyond mindset, good life habits are also crucial to attaining your goals. Take small steps to reverse any less-than-desirable financial habits. So if you struggle with debt, consider the debt snowball method. This is where you pay off your smallest debt first, the next smallest debt after that, and continue with the process. You build momentum with each incremental win.
Deb Meyer (17:58.434)
When you're feeling more confident about finances, you can easily improve in other areas of life. You'll free up time and have energy to invest in relationships, whether that's self-care or relationships with others that you enjoy spending time with. Spending money on a massage or a date night won't seem as worrisome. Improving your physical health will also come naturally. Want to run a 5K or a half marathon? You've already exhibited self-discipline with finances. And you can use that same discipline to create and adhere to a training schedule.
If you need to buy gear for a triathlon, you won't be as concerned with the financial outlay. Focus on the goal, which is in this case completing the triathlon, and then trim other less meaningful expenses in your budget. Just remember to keep the fitness goal fun.
So I remember one of my clients at WorthyNest took calculated steps to improve his financial decisions and then he also got in better physical shape as well. He was underinsured and received an unfavorable health rating for life insurance. So the insurance premium was his primary motivator. He overhauled his diet, created a rigorous workout plan, and lost a significant amount of weight. Now that is power through purpose.
All right, step number two, monitor and possibly tweak the financial plan. Even the best laid plans need to be reevaluated occasionally. If the debt snowball method isn't working for you, maybe switch to the debt avalanche method instead. That's where you pay the debt with the highest interest rate first, regardless of the balance. In debt snowball, you're always starting with the smallest debt possible, but in the debt avalanche, you're focusing on the interest rate itself.
Or maybe suppose you have a good cash flow plan, but know you should be saving more for retirement. You could start contributing an extra $100 per paycheck to a company-sponsored 401k plan. Two months into the change you realize you're pulling money from your family's emergency fund to pay for living expenses. Now maybe that's gone a little too far so consider cutting the goal in half and elect maybe $50 per pay period instead. Here's the key you're not locked in to your original plan.
Deb Meyer (20:17.484)
You can change things that aren't working and make adjustments according to how your life unfolds. There is no perfect one-size-fits-all financial plan. Your financial plan needs to fit the needs that come up in whatever life season your family is experiencing.
My third tip, pray about it. Accepting mistakes, excuse me, unexpected setbacks, and our own imperfections is hard. But the pursuit of holiness doesn't just involve striving for virtue. It involves acceptance, letting go, and surrendering.
Most people know the shortened version of the Serenity Prayer:
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.
Now I think the rest of the prayer is even more profound. It adds greater dimension to the meaning of those first four lines:
Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time, accepting hardships as the pathway to peace, taking as He did this sinful world as it is not as I would have it, trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His will so that I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him forever and ever in the next. Amen.
It's so easy to feel like a victim when we struggle. God does have a plan for your life, but He also gives you free will. While circumstances aren't always under your control, what you decide to do at that moment is within your control.
Deb Meyer (22:12.798)
After some prayerful reflection, choose the path to which God's calling you. Now there are some great books on discernment. One Catholic resource that you might find helpful is Father Timothy Gallagher's Discerning the Will of God, or perhaps see a spiritual director. I see Meritt Petrone and I'll link to her in the show notes. You can rely on the Serenity Prayer or another prayer that speaks to you to turn toward God rather than away from Him.
I especially love the scripture verse. It's from 1 Peter chapter 5 verses 6 to 7. Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God so that he may exalt you in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. God really does care for you. He wants to be involved in the messy details of your life. The life on earth isn't easy.
It's through faithfulness and perseverance that we make progress.
So I hope this episode really inspired you to think creatively about ways to enhance your overall quality of life. Financial wellness often translates into physical and emotional health. If you're struggling with finances, chances are your body and mind are struggling too. All right, so here's the summary. Three steps to financial wellness are number one, develop new soundtracks and better habits. Two, monitor your financial plan and tweak it as needed.
And three, pray about your struggles and decisions. Although money can't solve every problem, money can buy happiness if you spend it wisely. And there's a good study from Dr. Elizabeth Dunn to support that. Learning wise financial decision-making skills is crucial for living an abundant life. So I hope this was helpful. Thank you so much. Enjoy your January!