620 | Book Club: Happy Money — When Is Enough, Enough? | Jillian Johnsrud & Ginger

Jillian Johnsrud (0:00)

It's here.

Ginger (0:02)

It is Book Club Day. Today, we're talking about the book Happy Money by Ken Honda. I'm Ginger, and I'm joined today by Jillian Johnsrud, someone you all know because you read her book Retire Often, and immediately started hoarding cash for your mini retirement in the future. Or was that just me?

I want to share a little bit of an unhinged, as the youth say, mental framework that I've been working with lately. Jillian, you can tell me what you think about this, and I promise you guys this is all going to come together here, and then we're going to talk about the book. My new way of thinking about things when something happens that's not how I want it to happen, is that I'm trying to move from negative to positive instead of my old way, which was moving from negative to neutral. So let me give you an example.

Let's say you're going to a party. Does anyone go to parties anymore? Let's say you're going to economy, and you're really excited about going to economy, and you have all of these friends that you're going with. And right before the event, all of your friends who are going, tell you they're not going to go, they can't make it. And you are going to be the only one, you're not going to know anyone there. So before, I might be like, this could be okay. Like this does not have to be horrible, right? It's not going to be this great thing that I was envisioning this wonderfully fun social event, but like it could be okay. So my new thing is, this could be great. This could be the most fun social event, actually, because this thing has changed and I don't know what's going to happen. And this could bring all sorts of different possibilities that I hadn't envisioned.

I have had some luck with this. I think it has made my life better. And so as I was thinking about Book Club today, I was a little worried because I did not love this book. And also, it did not occur to me, honestly, it did not occur to me that I should read the book before I recommend the book.

Two thousands of people. Because I have read so many books in this genre. They're all fine and great because even if they're not my favorite, I really learn something or it gives me an opportunity to just see someone else's perspective or someone else's story. And so I'm like, I can get something from almost any book in this genre. So you know where I was coming from. So I saw this book on the lists of like, what are the best personal finance books? I'm like, this is going to be great. We're going to because I'm going to learn something from it. And then I read it and then I started to read it and I started to get really nervous because I don't know if there is a lot of really useful content.

It is like the definitionally like it is wide but not deep. He talks about a lot of things with not a lot of depth. So I really started worrying that I had asked a bunch of people to read this book. And then I started worrying about like, what are we going to talk about about this book? But you guys, let's use the new framework because I think maybe this could be the best book club episode ever. And with that, welcome to ChooseFI.

Jillian Johnsrud (3:48)

Before we get started, I keep this podcast entirely ad free for two reasons. First, this is a FI podcast and I don't want to promote products that I don't want you to buy in the first place.

Ginger (3:57)

And second, I really like the clean listening experience of a show where you don't have to fast forward ads. To keep it ad free, all I ask of you as a listener is, the next time you open a Travel Rewards Credit Card, go to choosefi.com/cards.

Jillian Johnsrud (4:11)

And with that, on to the show.

Ginger (4:16)

Jillian, how does it feel to be on the greatest episode of ChooseFI that has ever happened?

Jillian Johnsrud (4:22)

I think I'm ready for it. I feel so prepared to just make it the greatest.

Ginger (4:29)

Yeah, you were the right person to bring on the show for this.

So you just heard my first impressions. I want to hear your impressions, but maybe we should give a brief little overview for the people who were wise and did not pick up the book Ginger recommended, who did not read the book. What do you think is the thrust here? What's the thesis of this book?