How to Live a Stress-Free Financial Life with No Worries by Jared Dillian

Jared Dillian’s “No Worries: How to Live a Stress-Free Financial Life” is a game-changer for anyone seeking to break free from the shackles of financial anxiety. Dive into this transformative book and embark on a journey towards a worry-free relationship with money.

Genres

Personal finance, self-help, investing, money management, budgeting, financial planning, wealth building, mindset, stress management, personal development

In “No Worries,” Jared Dillian offers a refreshing perspective on managing personal finances and achieving a stress-free financial life. Drawing from his own experiences and expertise, Dillian provides practical strategies and mindset shifts to help readers break free from financial anxiety.

He emphasizes the importance of taking control of one’s finances, setting clear goals, and adopting a proactive approach to money management. Dillian covers various aspects of personal finance, including budgeting, investing, debt management, and building wealth. He challenges common misconceptions and offers unconventional wisdom to help readers make informed decisions.

Throughout the book, Dillian strikes a balance between practical advice and psychological insights, recognizing the emotional component of money matters. “No Worries” serves as a comprehensive guide for anyone seeking to improve their financial well-being and achieve peace of mind.

Review

Jared Dillian’s “No Worries” is a must-read for anyone grappling with financial stress. Dillian’s relatable writing style and personal anecdotes make the book engaging and easy to digest. He demystifies complex financial concepts and provides actionable steps that readers can implement immediately.

Dillian’s approach is holistic, addressing both the practical and emotional aspects of money management. He challenges readers to confront their limiting beliefs and empowers them to take control of their financial destiny. While some of the advice may be unconventional, Dillian backs it up with sound reasoning and real-life examples.

“No Worries” is not a one-size-fits-all solution but rather a framework for developing a personalized financial plan. Dillian’s emphasis on mindset and behavioral change sets this book apart from other personal finance guides. Whether you’re just starting your financial journey or looking to fine-tune your strategies, “No Worries” offers valuable insights and inspiration. It’s a transformative read that has the potential to reshape your relationship with money and pave the way for a stress-free financial future.

Recommendation

Millions of people experience crippling financial stress, struggling to pay bills and build security. If you’re one of them, former Lehman Brothers trader Jared Dillian offers hope. When you’re financially floundering, the idea of freeing yourself from money-related stress might sound like a fantasy. But by changing your money mindset and the way you approach financial decisions, you can make financial security — and even wealth — a reality. Dillian’s book might not help you make the cover of Fortune, but its insights can help you stress less by getting control of your finances and seizing more possibilities.

Take-Aways

• To live a stress-free financial life, shift your mindset about money and your approach to financial decisions.
• Don’t deprive yourself of life’s small pleasures. Instead, make smart financial decisions where it counts.
• Stop viewing the amount of money you can earn as fixed, and start seeing it as potentially limitless.
• Embrace healthy, balanced saving and spending habits.
• Set goals to build an emergency fund, grow your liquidity, and avoid credit card debt.
• Make sensible, conservative decisions about purchasing a house and a car, and when funding your education.
• To manage the risks of investing, follow a structured approach to building a portfolio.
• Dream big. Expand your beliefs about what’s possible in your financial life.

Summary

To live a stress-free financial life, shift your mindset about money and your approach to financial decisions.

If you, like millions of others, experience stress about money, reconsidering how you think about and approach your finances could make a positive difference. You won’t be able to eliminate financial stress from your life completely — some stress will accompany the growth process as you learn to make better financial decisions. But you can significantly reduce the intensity and impact of financial stress on your life.

“Money is a choice. We all get to choose how much money we have.”

You might need to change your mindset about how you obtain money. Money-making opportunities arise all the time, and you control whether you seize these opportunities. To think bigger about money, start by entertaining possibilities such as asking for a raise, working longer hours, taking on a side hustle or a second job, or moving to a better-paying job. You might also be able to increase your income by learning new skills or starting a scalable business — something that doesn’t require substantial resources to grow, such as an internet newsletter.

It’s perfectly fine to choose a life path that doesn’t result in accumulating wealth, such as caring for children or working as a government employee. But even in this case, you still have agency regarding your finances. Ultimately, becoming wealthy requires a shift in how you see yourself: Embrace the fact that you want wealth, and start viewing yourself as the kind of person who could become wealthy if you put in the work.

Don’t deprive yourself of life’s small pleasures. Instead, make smart financial decisions where it counts.

Some financial experts counsel cutting expenses as the way to get rich. In reality, an austerity program — denying yourself the pleasures and everyday luxuries everyone else enjoys — won’t help you become wealthy. If feelings of deprivation characterize your experiences with money, you’ll develop a distorted, negative perception of money and an antagonistic relationship with it. An ethos of austerity can even lead you to give up on your dream of becoming wealthy because it feels too hard. If you do manage to become rich, you’ll likely make yourself miserable in the process — and spread your misery to everyone around you.

“The price of a can of soup literally does not matter, and you can stop spending five minutes staring at all the cans of soup in the grocery store to find the cheapest one.”

You won’t reduce your money stress by stressing about the small daily decisions you make — for example, whether you buy a morning latte or not. Rather, financial security depends on getting just three major decisions right: purchasing a house, buying a car, and taking out student loans. That said, if you have a spending addiction and compulsively make big purchases, this advice alone won’t help you. To overcome a spending addiction, you’ll probably need the assistance of a trained expert, such as a psychotherapist.

Stop viewing the amount of money you can earn as fixed, and start seeing it as potentially limitless.

Switch from a mentality of scarcity to one of abundance. Imagine serving pie to a group: A scarcity mindset would make you worry about whether there are enough slices for everyone, but an abundance mindset would lead you to think of serving a bigger pie. Focus on the potential of your finances — the upside. Stop viewing the amount of money you can earn as fixed, and start considering the possibility that the amount you could earn is limitless. That said, the choices you make can and will affect your actual potential for wealth. For example, if you’ve chosen a career as a teacher, you’ve traded the potential to earn limitless amounts of money for something that means more to you.

“Upside is the idea that there is potentially no limit to how much money you can make.”

Many believe wealthy people have simply been lucky. That’s not true. Luck doesn’t find you — you find it. Most people who’ve built fortunes have placed themselves in situations that exposed them to what appears as luck. Life-changing opportunities to generate wealth often result from chance encounters. Rather than work in isolation, make connections and build your network. Think like the CEO of a profitable corporation regarding your finances: Set a goal of entering a period of growth, and find ways to generate income instead of focusing on expenses. This will mean taking risks. Maybe you launch a new business on social media, for example, or interview for a new job, even though it might mean you’ll have to leave your comfort zone.

Embrace healthy, balanced saving and spending habits.

The process of managing your money involves balancing saving and spending. Avoid being too far on either side of that spectrum: Don’t be too stingy — for example, by not tipping enough — but don’t splurge all the time either. Aim to strike a balance between the two extremes. A balanced approach to your finances will help you build healthier relationships with those you care about, too. Stinginess could cause your family to feel embarrassed about your behavior, and high spenders often choose to hide their splurges from their spouses.

“The dude that is living in his 1,200-square-foot house with the seven-figure bank account will die with that seven-figure bank account and never derive any enjoyment from his money.”

Many young people choose an ascetic road to riches, embracing the so-called FIRE approach: “Financial Independence, Retire Early.” This system involves committing to 10 to 15 years of extreme frugality — for example, living in a van or a tiny home — while aiming to save lots of money. Then you retire and try to make the savings last for the rest of your life. This system forces you into a monastic way of living that entails neglecting your material needs. It goes against human nature — unless you genuinely want to be a monk, which most people don’t.

Big spenders do the exact opposite: They spend too much money — money they often don’t have — and end up suffering consequences such as falling behind on their credit card bills. For these people, excessive spending might stem from a desire to emphasize their generous nature. Ironically, when these folks fall behind on their bills, they end up in a position of austerity that brings an end to their generosity. Find the middle ground between stinginess and overspending by balancing saving and spending across your life. In the first half of your life, aim to keep expenses down, reasonably, while you accumulate assets; in the second half, you’ll shift to spending your savings on things you genuinely enjoy — all without ever going to extremes.

Set goals to build an emergency fund, grow your liquidity, and avoid credit card debt.

Establishing your emergency fund should take priority as your first financial goal. Aim to keep enough money on hand at all times to cover at least six months of expenses in case of an emergency. As you build your financial wealth, you should ideally maintain 20% of your net worth in cash, always available — not only to draw from in an emergency, but also to enable you to seize opportunities and build a healthy financial portfolio. Don’t keep all your cash in the bank; stash about $5,000 to $10,000 in a safe place at home. Aim to expand your liquidity — that is, the amount of cash and cash equivalents on hand — to ensure you can always respond quickly to life’s demands and opportunities. Keep a portion of your investments in stocks you can sell easily, providing a ready source of cash.

“Having a bunch of assets makes you very fragile. Having a large cash position reduces your fragility. It makes you indestructible.”

Debt represents one of the primary sources of financial stress. As you work to reduce it, remember that all debts are not equal. Prioritize paying off students loans, then tackle your credit cards, and leave your mortgage for last. Be careful with credit: Pay off your credit card every month so you avoid being drawn into a destructive cycle of debt. If you accumulate so much debt that you have no hope of paying it off, bankruptcy isn’t necessarily your worst option, even though rebuilding your credit after a bankruptcy will take a decade. The alternative — suffering under an unmanageable weight of debt for years, paying punishing amounts of interest that suck up all your disposable income — might be a worse fate.

Make sensible, conservative decisions about purchasing a house and a car, and when funding your education.

The single best way to ensure your financial freedom is to make smart decisions regarding the three biggest purchases you’re ever likely to make:

1. Your house — A home purchase will likely be, by far, the most significant choice you’ll make in your financial life. Avoid making an emotional purchase, and don’t spend more than you can reasonably afford. In general, never expend more than a quarter of your income on costs related to housing, and buy a house only when you can afford to finance it with a 15-year mortgage.
2. Your car — If you’ve been eyeing a BMW but can comfortably afford only a Toyota Yaris, choose the Toyota and avoid an ego-driven choice to go into debt to buy the BMW. Transportation costs should never absorb more than 10% of your income. Don’t pay more than a 6% interest rate for a car loan. Despite what you might have heard, using ride-share services like Uber and Lyft might be cheaper than owning your own car, depending on your situation. Do the math before you make a purchase.
3. Your education — If you won’t be able to pay your student loans off within 5 to 10 years of graduating, your education is too expensive. Before you invest in an expensive education, carefully consider the market you’re entering. For example, as big hospital systems acquire medical practices, doctors and dentists increasingly work as employees instead of owning their own businesses, which means the financial rewards of these careers aren’t what they used to be. If earning a graduate or postgraduate degree has left you holding considerable debt, the only way out is to earn an adequate salary. For example, if you spent $300,000 on your education but earn only $60,000 a year, you must move to a position that pays at least $200,000 annually.

To manage the risks of investing, follow a structured approach to building a portfolio.

Aside from debt, risk — the possibility that you might lose money — is a primary source of financial stress. Manage investment risk wisely by understanding volatility, which is the measure of how much an investment’s value fluctuates over time. For example, a bank account typically offers zero volatility, bonds tend to be slightly more volatile, and stocks can experience high volatility. Risk and returns tend to go together. You likely won’t earn a lot of money through low-volatility investments, such as bonds. By contrast, investing in highly volatile assets, such as tech stocks or bitcoin, could bring significant returns — but they could also cause you extreme stress. Manage the risk of your investment portfolio through diversification: Spread your investments among many different investment vehicles to ensure you won’t sink financially if one of them tanks.

For a simple, low-stress investing system that will grow in value, consider the “Awesome Portfolio” approach. This approach has five components:

• Stocks — Invest 20% in stocks. Your best bet is the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund (VTI).
• Bonds — Put 20% in bonds, such as the Vanguard Total Bond Market Index Fund (BND).
• Cash — Maintain your liquidity by keeping 20% of your money in cash, ideally in a money market mutual fund.
• Gold — Invest 20% in gold, one of the safest places to hold your money.
• Real estate — Invest 20% in real estate by owning your home or by investing in an index fund of companies that hold real estate, such as the Vanguard REIT Index (VTQ), which is an exchange-traded fund.

Consider placing all your investment money in an Awesome Portfolio, or reserve up to 10% for taking calculated investment risks.

Dream big. Expand your beliefs about what’s possible in your financial life.

As you develop a healthier relationship with money, you’ll start seeing that things that always seemed out of reach are now becoming possible. Imagine reaching a place where you can comfortably express your generosity by paying for meals when you go out with friends, without feeling stressed about picking up the bill. Think bigger, and imagine paying for your child’s university tuition gracefully, without constantly reminding your family of your hard work and sacrifices. Think even bigger and imagine buying an $80,000 car, without feeling anxious about the purchase — because you’ve built a solid financial life.

“Save judiciously, pay down debt, own assets, and nobody can tell you what to do. Nobody can touch you. You’re untouchable.”

People who own their own house, maintain financial liquidity, pay down their debt, and invest wisely don’t just prepare themselves for whatever life might throw at them — they also gain the freedom to pursue what makes them truly happy. You can, too. If you change your mindset and start making better financial decisions, ultimately, you’ll find freedom from financial worries, and freedom to live the life you want.

About the Author

Jared Dillian is a former Coast Guard officer who became a trader at Lehman Brothers. He’s the author of Street Freak, a story of Lehman Brothers’ 2008 bankruptcy, and the novel All the Evil of This World.