Mastering Money Transformations

Our 2 Cents – Episode #199

Mastering Money Transformations

In today’s episode of Our 2 Cents, Gabriel kicks things off with a couple market updates and a message from the Surgeon General. Later, the Lewits dive into shifting negative financial thoughts into a more positive and empowering mindset. Listen in now using a link below!

1. Gabriel’s ‘Quick Hits’:
   • Discover how the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) implemented a groundbreaking rule to eliminate medical debt from credit reports.
   • Gain insights into the Fed’s latest advice for the stock market.
2. The Surgeon General’s Heartfelt Message:
   • Hear what Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has to say to Americans citizens about safeguarding your well-being.
3. Money Transformations:
   • Learn how common negative thought patterns can be transformed into actionable financial strategies that lay the foundation for lasting success.

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Podcast Transcript

Announcer: You’re listening to Our 2 Cents, with the team from SGL Financial, building wealth for life. Steve Lewit is the President of SGL Financial, and Gabriel Lewit is the CEO. They’re here to discuss all the latest in financial news, trends, strategies, and more.

Gabriel Lewit: Welcome back, everybody. It is Our 2 Cents here with Mr. Steven Lewit and myself, Gabriel Lewit.

Steve Lewit: I’d say hello, but I’m trying not to cough.

Gabriel Lewit: Well, yes, you don’t want to cough on the opening of the show, for sure.

Steve Lewit: Yeah, I kind of got stuck there. I said here’s the opening of the show, I’m ready to say, “Hi, everybody,” and I’m going to cough.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, well we are-

Steve Lewit: That’s like having a sneeze right in the middle of something important.

Gabriel Lewit: You don’t want to do that. Well, we are hoping you are doing terrific out there. I know today on the day we are recording this, it’s something like 10 degrees. So my feet are freezing down here by the floor trying to tap them around to warm them up here. And I think it’s going to warm back up and then get colder again and then warm back up. It seems to be the MO for our winter here in Chicagoland area. But wherever you are listening to the show, we again hope you’re doing terrific and having a wonderful week and of course weekend, depending on when you’re listening to this.

Steve Lewit: Yeah, and I hope you don’t have anybody in the fires in LA, which are really just horrible.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, those are just not ending. And yeah, it’s going to be, gosh, billions of dollars to rebuild and it’s going to have impacts on insurance costs, obviously altering the courses of people’s lives. A very, very challenging time out there. So our hearts do go out to… We have clients in that area in California.

Steve Lewit: We do. We do.

Gabriel Lewit: We are thinking of you, of course.

Steve Lewit: None near the fires.

Gabriel Lewit: I’ve got a couple.

Steve Lewit: Oh, do you?

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, we’ve been talking with them.

Steve Lewit: They didn’t lose a house though?

Gabriel Lewit: Not yet. Not yet. But close. Yeah. All right, so well today we’ve got I think a lot of interesting things to talk about here and share with you. Of course, it is a new year. Last time we talked a little bit about some new year mindset shifts that you can employ. And I think in this theme of new year, we’re going to continue to talk about some things here today that I believe will set you up for a terrific year in 2025, financially speaking and otherwise.

Steve Lewit: Did you break any of your resolutions yet?

Gabriel Lewit: Well, I just had two cookies here at lunch.

Steve Lewit: Yeah, you did.

Gabriel Lewit: I don’t know if that was part of my resolution. But they tasted delicious. They were Girl Scout cookies because it ’tis the season to buy Girl Scout cookies.

Steve Lewit: So, is there such a thing as resolution breaking Friday? Is that the second Friday in January? I heard that some place.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, maybe, maybe.

Steve Lewit: Could we look that… Oh, we can’t look that up. We don’t have out computer.

Gabriel Lewit: I was going to ask you what your favorite Girl Scout cookie flavor was, because I know our listeners would like to know this.

Steve Lewit: Oh, they went so fast. My favorite, it was in the green box.

Gabriel Lewit: The green box, the Thin Mints? The regular old Thin Mints?

Steve Lewit: No, no, it’s got the little chocolate on it and the coconuts and stuff like that. Which one is it?

Gabriel Lewit: Samoas?

Steve Lewit: The Samoas are the best. So I had a couple yesterday and I went this morning Samoa hunting. And guess what? There were none. We have more?

Gabriel Lewit: We hid some extra.

Steve Lewit: Where?

Gabriel Lewit: We didn’t put out all the boxes at once because we know we have ravenous [inaudible 00:03:30].

Steve Lewit: Producer Kate, why don’t you go get us some Samoas?

Gabriel Lewit: Well, no. Well, I also recently discovered that I really like the lemon ones.

Steve Lewit: The lemon ones are pretty good.

Gabriel Lewit: They have these nice little inspiring quotes on them that said, “I am creative.”

Steve Lewit: Yes. Yes, yeah.

Gabriel Lewit: Yes, I like them. Okay, well let’s talk about a quick, important item that I think could impact many of you out there listening. This is just a little snippet here. There is a major rule change, the federal rule that will now remove medical debt from your credit reports. So there are millions of Americans out there that suffer from medical debt that is listed on their credit report. And this rule that will be put in place here would potentially erase 49 billion in unpaid medical bills from impacting nearly 15 million Americans. And this is based on the-

Steve Lewit: Now let’s be clear, they’re not erasing the debt, they’re erasing the reporting of the debt on your credit report.

Gabriel Lewit: Yes. But people that are already struggling from medical debts don’t need to see their score dragged down, which impacts their ability to get better rates on mortgages, cars. They still need to be able to live their life. And this is aimed at helping those folks-

Steve Lewit: Live a life. Yeah.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. Be able to do a better job at that. Okay. So yeah, so I think it’s a very interesting thing just to be aware of in case you happen to have medical debt on your credit report. This will hopefully be a positive benefit for you.

Steve Lewit: When does that go into effect, Gabriel? Can you find it here?

Gabriel Lewit: Oh, let’s see here. It does not say. It says… Oh yeah, March.

Steve Lewit: March.

Gabriel Lewit: March. Okay. But it could be, of course, unfortunately in our world, could be delayed by legal challenges it says here, it remains to be seen, but step in the right direction.

Steve Lewit: Cool. Good find.

Gabriel Lewit: Okay, so that’s kind of a snippet there. This next one could be a snippet or it might turn into more of a conversation. We’ll see how your thoughts are on this, okay? The title of this here is The Fed Official Delivers a Blunt Message to the Stock Market, Which Promptly Ignores It.

Steve Lewit: You think?

Gabriel Lewit: All right, so let me give some details here. The Federal Reserve governor, Lisa Cook on Monday, January 6th, gave one of the bluntest warnings an official at the Central Bank has ever delivered about the stock market. I’m going to read it here for verbatim, okay? “Valuations are elevated in a number of asset classes, including equity and corporate debt markets where estimated risk premia are near the bottom of their historical distributions, suggesting that markets may be priced to perfection and therefore susceptible to large declines, which could result from bad economic news or a change in investor sentiment.”

Steve Lewit: Yes.

Gabriel Lewit: And the first part again says, “Valuations are elevated in a number of asset classes, including equities and corporate debt markets.”

Steve Lewit: Which is not new news. Everybody knows that that’s an investor that prices on the market are very high.

Gabriel Lewit: But what is rare is to hear this directly from-

Steve Lewit: Hear it from the Fed.

Gabriel Lewit: … somebody in a higher level position inside the Federal Reserve,

Steve Lewit: Yeah. Whose actions affect the market directly. So that was not intended as an idle-like, “Oh, I’m just going to make a statement.” There was something coming out of that that’s saying the Fed… And this is the problem with the Fed, is when we listen to the Fed, we think they have information that we don’t have and they probably do. So if the Fed says, “We’re not going to lower interest rates,” and then someone comes out and says, “Hey, we think the market is really priced too high,” what are they really saying? And that’s what the market did not listen to.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. And of course it’s had a little bit of struggle just in the last couple of weeks, so maybe it did listen to it just a tiny little bit there. This is being compared to in 1996, the former chair, Alan Greenspan warned of irrational exuberance in the market leading up to four years ahead of what ultimately turned out to be one of the biggest market crashes, the dot-com burst of 2000. And people are saying this could have similarities there. Now, obviously it did take from 1996 to 2000 for Alan Greenspan to be proven right. Okay, there’s a delayed reaction there, but at the time he wasn’t wrong. And some feel, quite frankly, Lisa Cook here may not be wrong either. Whether or not that really materializes here this year or next year, there is very much data that says we are reaching an inflection point here where market valuations are extremely elevated again in a number of asset classes.

Steve Lewit: Yeah, I remember those conversations back in the ’90s when the dot-com era was just going through the roof and everybody… It was the same feeling. You could not not make money in the stock market. Yeah. Everybody was a genius.

Gabriel Lewit: This is saying here that stock market valuations are high by historical standards is undeniable. The S&P 500 had its second straight year of over 20% gains.

Steve Lewit: Incredible.

Gabriel Lewit: Which is-

Steve Lewit: Incredible.

Gabriel Lewit: … pretty unusual historically. According to Goldman Sachs, the S&P 500 relative to its book value and to its sales is two standard deviations above the average of the last 10 years. So again, overvalued two standard deviations means pretty far outside the norm range.

Steve Lewit: That’s exactly right.

Gabriel Lewit: Robert Shiller, he’s an economist, he has a cyclically adjusted price to equity ratio called the CAPE ratio. It’s hovering around 37, which is near the highest level since the dot-com bubble burst. And it measures the price of the S&P 500 divided by average corporate earnings over the previous decade. And the argument around the CAPE ratio is that it smooths out cyclical variations because of that 10-year trailing corporate earnings analysis, okay? So what does all this mean? It doesn’t mean there’s an imminent market crash. I’m not saying you go out there and sell the cash today.

Steve Lewit: Gabriel, you have the other side of the picture. When you have Vanguard and Morningstar and a lot of the big banks projecting at 10%, they don’t think it’s going to be a great market, but they’re saying we could expect a 10% increase in the market this year. So you’ve got both. You’ve got the warning on the one side and the big cloud is there, but whether it’s going to rain or not, we just don’t know.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, exactly. And I think that is-

Steve Lewit: That was a great analogy.

Gabriel Lewit: Yes.

Steve Lewit: You have to acknowledge that was. It’s like one of yours. I mean, yours is always football, but not-

Gabriel Lewit: Not always football.

Steve Lewit: Well, it’s usually football.

Gabriel Lewit: I have a few dozen analogies.

Steve Lewit: Yeah. It’s like this big cloud… should I say it again?

Gabriel Lewit: Sure, if you-

Steve Lewit: It’s like this big cloud, dark cloud, but we don’t know if it’s going to rain.

Gabriel Lewit: There you go.

Steve Lewit: Yeah.

Gabriel Lewit: Beautiful analogy.

Steve Lewit: Thank you.

Gabriel Lewit: The beautiful-est.

Steve Lewit: Yeah, no. Get one once in a while.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. So I just thought it was interesting. My goal always when I am researching things to discuss on the show here is things that are interesting, new perspectives, other data points for you to consider. Obviously nobody has that crystal ball about the stock market, but I use this analogy, okay, a sprinter can sprint for only so long before they need to take a breather, right?

Steve Lewit: Yeah. I don’t know where you’re going, but I like the cloud better.

Gabriel Lewit: Well, the market is the sprinter, okay? They sprint, sprint, sprint, sprint, meaning they’re doing really fast, really good. And at some point they’ve got a slow down.

Steve Lewit: Yeah, I kind of look at it differently. Like the market is a long-term investment rather than a sprint because the market goes up and down periodically. Look, it went down in 2022.

Gabriel Lewit: The sprinter pausing is going down.

Steve Lewit: Oh, is that what it is?

Gabriel Lewit: That’s the analogy.

Steve Lewit: Okay. It’s great. I love that.

Gabriel Lewit: Meaning it can’t-

Steve Lewit: I love that analogy.

Gabriel Lewit: To give that some data points, because I refer to this a lot, over the last 15 years the S&P has compounded at about 15%.

Steve Lewit: So, if you’re a client or you’re just a listener out there, what does all of this mean to you?

Gabriel Lewit: Well, the long-term average of the S&P is 8 to 10% depending on the exact timeframe that you reference it over. So if over 15 years, which is a pretty sizable timeframe for measuring market performance, if the average over 15 years is 15%, what do you think the forward looking likely returns of the market is going to be? If it was 15%, then you’d be saying the market’s now starting to average closer to 15% over really, really long-term period-

Steve Lewit: Which denies the history. Historically doesn’t support it.

Gabriel Lewit: Historical data doesn’t support that, okay? So that’s my example of a sprinter. It’s sprinting much faster than an average jog. And at some point, a sprinter’s got to take a breather, can’t sprint forever, right?

Steve Lewit: Yeah. Or the averages have to come down.

Gabriel Lewit: That would bring down the average.

Steve Lewit: Well, I mean even it could be positive. You could have years of a 1 or 2% rate of growth.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, bringing the average down doesn’t always mean you have a negative return.

Steve Lewit: Mean a loss. Exactly.

Gabriel Lewit: But yeah, you would have to have either a big loss would bring down your average returns, a 2% year would start to bring down the average return a little bit, right? But that’s the idea is that people, this irrational exuberance comment tend to believe, “Okay, your market’s just going to keep going up,” and at some point it will go down. We don’t of course know when, but we are just ensuring that everyone that we talk with are thinking about these things and is prepared for this when it does happen to their portfolio.

Steve Lewit: And technically, Gabriel, because you talk about it often, that’s called reversion to the mean.

Gabriel Lewit: Yes.

Steve Lewit: Everything eventually returns to its average. And we don’t like to admit that when we’re doing well, but when the plane takes off, eventually it’s going to run out of gas and have to land, which is a similar analogy to the sprinter that has to stop and take a breath.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. Look, some of you out there are probably saying, “Well, Trump is about to take office. He’s going to do great for the economy.” And I really hope he does. Look, these predictions are just predictions, right? And valuations are valuations. They will ultimately do what they’re going to do. Of course, we want the market to go up, but at the same time, we don’t want to be caught unprepared if these things do indeed come to pass.

Steve Lewit: Yeah. It’s very psychological too. There’s something called the VIX Index, which is called the Fear Index. And that index has been riding pretty low up until the last few weeks, all of a sudden it spiked very high. So we’ll see where that goes because that’s also an indicator if people are afraid of the future, the market tends to not perform as well because people are afraid. So they start going to cash or to bonds or something else.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, yeah. So lots of data points out there. Hopefully you found that interesting. I think it was very interesting to read. And again, you ever want copies of any of these articles that give us a jump off into our discussions here, you can email us info@sglfinancial.com and we will of course get those out to you. Now folks, while we were talking, Steve continues to put his apple, Izze right in my hand space on the table.

Steve Lewit: Wait, wait. Do you have hand space?

Gabriel Lewit: It is in my… You know? I can’t wave my hands. I’m going to knock over your Izze.

Steve Lewit: Here’s the problem. We’re on a podcast. Nobody can see Gabriel, yet he talks with his hands on the podcast.

Gabriel Lewit: I am an emoter.

Steve Lewit: And he waves them all over the place, right into my Izze Sparkling Apple.

Gabriel Lewit: Which is spot… I can’t even put my hand out.

Steve Lewit: I’m going to move it.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. The problem is he’s a lefty, so it’s near me.

Steve Lewit: It’s not a problem. I will let you wave around. Like everybody else.

Gabriel Lewit: Lefty is only a problem if you’re next to a righty.

Steve Lewit: Well, I’m going to try emoting with my hands now that I’m talking and see-

Gabriel Lewit: It doesn’t work for you. I think it works for me.

Steve Lewit: You know what’s interesting, in public I talk with my hands, but not on the podcast. I just noticed that.

Gabriel Lewit: Who knows?

Steve Lewit: Yeah.

Gabriel Lewit: You just learned something about yourself.

Steve Lewit: I did.

Gabriel Lewit: All right, now, Producer Gabby is giving us a hard time, so we got to keep going here. Okay. We got good stuff for you. Don’t worry. Okay, well, the show here, of course is not just about money. We also periodically delve into the topics of health and wellness and meaning and purpose. Some of the core philosophical… Philosophical. Sometimes you just want to say words differently, right?

Steve Lewit: No, I think your hands got in the way of your lips, that’s the problem.

Gabriel Lewit: So, some of the other phil… I give up.

Steve Lewit: Philosophical.

Gabriel Lewit: Philosophical, thank you.

Steve Lewit: You’re welcome.

Gabriel Lewit: Now my brain, my neural pathway is going in other directions. Other topics, okay? So there was a really interesting letter here that was written recently by the Surgeon General of the US, his name Vivek H. Murthy, I believe, if I was given the proper name here. For him, he’s going to be ending his two terms as Surgeon General. And it was interesting because he wrote a letter to his fellow Americans. And if you’d like a copy of this letter, you let us know and we’ll send it to you. It’s short. But I thought it was really interesting.

And he starts off with a story of his father growing up in a farming village in India, and how he never felt emptiness when he was in his rural farming village until he left it. And he was reflecting about this. And in his father’s village, people took care of each other. They shared food, they helped each other, they watched each other’s kids. And it was a very close knit community. And people really bonded. And he’s assessing and he’s trying to reflect on this question, what are the causes of the unhappiness and the challenges that he’s finding with people very frequently across the country here in America? And why it’s so important to try to get to the root cause of that question. Okay, so I thought this was interesting. I don’t know if you think it’s interesting.

Steve Lewit: I do. I do.

Gabriel Lewit: Okay. So here’s a couple key tidbits here from his letter. There are well-known contributors to stress and discontent, of course, economic hardship. It’s part of why we focus so much on money with our clients and how really its purpose there is to be fuel for your journey to help avoid that future feeling of economic hardship if you can save sufficiently for retirement.

Steve Lewit: And fear about the future.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, worries about the future. Negative headlines that are dominating all the social media feeds everywhere.

Steve Lewit: Well, all the feeds always produce negative headlines. Why? Because that’s what attracts people’s attention. It’s the fear-mongering that happens in our country, and there’s a tremendous amount of it.

Gabriel Lewit: There is. And that can impact people. And so what he says here is after years of reflecting on things that he’s heard, reviewing scientific data, talking with researchers, here are his three essential elements that fuel our fulfillment and well-being. Some of these may or may not be a surprise to you. Number one is relationships. Okay. Number two is service. And number three is purpose. Okay, relationships, service and purpose. Now, often on the show we talk about what is it like to retire, right? Do you have a vision for that?

Steve Lewit: And what is your purpose?

Gabriel Lewit: We’ve talked about stories and shared stories of people that have retired and found that they lack social connections. They lack meaning. They lack purpose, a sense of purpose. And this is interesting because this validates that based on his research, that those are the three core essential elements to happiness here is, again, relationship, service, and purpose. So he gives some examples. Service, whether it’s formal volunteering or even informal, small acts of kindness is all about helping each other. And if we can all start doing that a little bit here, a little bit there, it can help us individually obviously do some good for the world, but also give you a sense of direction and meaning. Okay?

Steve Lewit: Yeah. I was going to tell a story.

Gabriel Lewit: You certainly can, if you’d like.

Steve Lewit: Yeah. So I’m in California in the hotel. So I took a week off to go to California, get some sun and warm weather, and I wound up in the hotel, it was 50 degrees and overcast for seven days. And I’m sitting in the hotel and I’m writing. And this guy is sitting next to me and he’s on his phone. We’re in a coffee shop room. And then what he does on his phone is he puts it on speaker so that he’s having this conversation with somebody and he’s really, really loud. So very nicely, I thought, I kind of said, “Sir, could you lower it down?” And he barks at me. He says, “You know, I was here first. If it’s too loud for you, you should move.” And really he attacks me.

And I don’t know what got into me, but I just looked at him and said, “I’m sorry you’re so angry. Have you been angry for a long time?” And it stopped him cold. And he hung up on the phone and he said, “Well, if you lived my life, you would know how angry I am and why.” And I said, “Well, tell me about it.” And he did. And he told me his story of being in Vietnam and killing people and PTSD and all of that. By the time we finished that, we were good friends. And that was just a little, instead of getting angry-

Gabriel Lewit: I was trying to figure out where you were going with this.

Steve Lewit: Well, instead of, again, when someone jumps-

Gabriel Lewit: So, guy was being rude and you chastised him. Like, “Where are we going with this?”

Steve Lewit: Well, the guy was being rude. I could have easily been rude back and said, “Stuff it,” or something like that. But that little kindness of his anger or recognizing it changed the whole dynamic.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, that’s cool. I think it was very cool.

Steve Lewit: That’s a random act of kindness. I love that.

Gabriel Lewit: Well, it says here, yeah, one third of adults and about half of young people are struggling with loneliness. People are not really engaging with each other as much. Obviously the easy thing to blame their social media and TikTok, but it’s probably more deeper than that. Okay?

Steve Lewit: Well, it’s not only young people, but old people.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, no, this is just exactly, right. And ultimately he’s saying the things that people are tending to focus on, of course, are very different. Fame, wealth, power. These things seem to be what most people are prioritizing. Popularity on social media or with your friends. But those, again, aren’t the things that really drive fulfillment. So he ends, it’s a cool little letter, again. He ends saying, “Take one action each day to help somebody reach out to a friend. Check on them. Be intentional about having conversations with friends, our children. Try to cultivate purpose. And doing more service-wise for other people.” We do that as a company. We were talking about some of our goals for this year. Do some more community service outings here as a company. And maybe if all of us just do a little tiny bit, we can help bring some happiness and improve little parts of this world.

Steve Lewit: Yeah. What I liked about this letter, Gabriel, is that it’s not preachy. It’s not like he’s saying like preacher is going to tell you what to do. This is really from the heart.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. Just his little send-off farewell.

Steve Lewit: And it feels that way.

Gabriel Lewit: And it seems like he really did-

Steve Lewit: It’s very sincere.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, yeah.

Steve Lewit: So, if you’d like a copy of this folks, just let us know.

Gabriel Lewit: Indeed. Okay, well I thought that was a little bit inspiring in this theme of new year and things we can do. We’re going to end with switch back to a little bit of money transformations here. And I think this is part of how do we reposition how we think about money? And we talked a little bit about just big picture money mindsets last time. But we can also break this down into smaller little things, negative thoughts, turning them to positive thoughts. And maybe I sound like a, I don’t know-

Steve Lewit: Like a Susie therapist.

Gabriel Lewit: Like a little therapist here today or something. But yeah, do we have negative thoughts? For example, “Man, this debt is killing me.” And sometimes we think about things very negative. It depends on the type of debt obviously. But if it’s something like your home or mortgages, you can remind yourself that that debt is helping to create for you a long-term wealth accumulation, a better future. Again, just trying to take a negative spin on something and how do we make that a positive attitude focus for us going into the new year.

Steve Lewit: Well, you know, how you frame something is very important. If you frame everything as being the glass is half empty, “I’ve got a problem, the world isn’t being good to me, people should be nicer to me and I’d be happier,” it’s disempowering. It doesn’t help. But if you can frame it okay, you have debt and say, “Okay, well I really enjoyed spending that money,” which is the nice part about debt is that you enjoyed it. At least I hope you enjoyed it. But now, “Okay, now I got a challenge, I got to fix that.” But it’s not a negative thing. It’s not a critical like, “God, I’m such a bad person, I made a mistake.”

Gabriel Lewit: Well, I think these are things that can very easily be negative and we’re trying to turn those negatives-

Steve Lewit: Into a positive.

Gabriel Lewit: … into positives, yeah.

Steve Lewit: The tendency is to take it as a negative and be very judgmental about yourself. “I shouldn’t have done that. That was a big mistake.” Yeah, but we all make big mistakes. And the question is, okay, what are you going to do now? How are you going to look at it now?

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, another one would be, “Gosh, I don’t make enough so I can’t save or invest anything or I can’t save or invest as much as I like to. So what’s even the purpose?” Some of these are defeating thoughts. So if you can only afford to save $200 a month, you know, do it, right? Yeah, maybe you’d like to save 500 a month or maybe if you want to save 5,000, but you can only afford 2,000, if you’re in a better spot there, do that, right? But make that your habit and say, “Okay, well this is what I can’t afford to save,” as opposed to, “I can’t save what I’d like to save.”

Steve Lewit: Yeah. I think a lot of this comes from our tendency as human beings to compare ourselves to other people. In other words, we don’t look at what we do and value it based on our own merits. We say, “Okay, I can save $10 a week, but that’s really terrible because people are saving hundreds and thousands a week. So I’m not doing a good job.” When you indeed are doing a doing a… You might be doing a great job.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, exactly.

Steve Lewit: And we don’t value that.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, some people say, “Gosh, I hate taxes. They’re too complicated. Chews up all my income.” Well, one of the funniest things, I get some people that really, really hate taxes, and I say, “You know, if you’re paying a lot in taxes, you’re making good money.” Right?

Steve Lewit: I have no pity for you.

Gabriel Lewit: Well, it’s just a minor little shift. I mean, yes, we can work within the confines of the tax system, the IRS code, we can certainly pay less. But also just put that perspective out there. That means you’re probably doing pretty well, right?

Steve Lewit: You’re very fortunate. You’re very fortunate. Because a lot of people are not making a lot of money.

Gabriel Lewit: “Budgets are restrictive. I hate budgeting. It just stops me from spending money on things I want to spend on.” That’s another common refrain when it comes to budgeting for your plan. A positive version of that, again, turning negative to positive, a budget actually helps you ensure you are spending your money on the things that are important to you.

Steve Lewit: And it gives you freedom to spend because you know you’re going to be okay. It’s like, “Okay, I’m going to jump in the water, the deep end,” but if you don’t know if you can swim or not, it’s very dangerous. So these budgets create conditions that actually give you peace of mind and give you more confidence.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, another one would be, I hear from time to time, and this will probably be our last one for today, but “Gosh, investing is too complicated. I’ll never understand this stuff.” I think that’s a very common mindset for people that aren’t growing up with this kind of background. They don’t teach you personal finance and investment courses necessarily in college or high school.

Steve Lewit: Never.

Gabriel Lewit: So for many people, these things are very, very new. And what’s new can seem scary. And people then just kind of give up on learning. And I think bit by bit, whether it’s listening to the show over the course of 2025 or going through past episodes, reading books, coming to talk with an advisor at SGL Financial, we can start to help you feel educated bit by bit, feel more empowered, and change that into, “Hey, I will figure this stuff out. I’m going to figure out how to really take charge of my financial future here, figure out this investing stuff and put this to good work for me for my future.”

Steve Lewit: Yeah. And you can set goals that are not… It’s not like you want to become a financial advisor, but you can set a goal, “Hey, I’m going to learn what cash flow is about. I’m going to learn what it means that the Federal Reserve raises its rates. What does that really mean? Why am I concerned about interest rates going up or down?” Just learn little pieces and over time you’d be amazed at how that adds up to a body of knowledge that you can really put into your own finances. Or when talking with friends or at a party, you have stuff to talk about that normally you would check out and say, “I have no idea what they’re saying.”

Gabriel Lewit: Yes. Yeah, exactly. So keep those things in mind, right? Throughout the year, throughout the week, the days if you have negative thoughts. It doesn’t even have to be about money. How do you turn those into positive takeaways, right? Do a little bit of 180 reverse and move back in the different direction. And I think bit by bit, that should hopefully help you feel more in control and empowered to take charge of things positively in your life.

Steve Lewit: Well, the research shows that the brain, our brains create pathways and they keep creating pathways based on how we think. So if you’re a negative thinker in posture things always in the negative, those pathways get created. But if you start thinking positively, there are new pathways in the brain that actually get created and all of a sudden it reaches a point where, “Hey, I’m not that person anymore that’s always negative because I’ve created these new pathways.”

Gabriel Lewit: It’s like shoveling a path through all the snow that we don’t have here.

Steve Lewit: What snow? No, we just have salt on the roads.

Gabriel Lewit: Once you shovel that path through the snow, you got a nice easy path to walk down the next time.

Steve Lewit: I just want you to know, Gabriel, I think I have the dirtiest car in the parking lot.

Gabriel Lewit: I tell you, I looked at the forecast, this was I think Saturday, no snow anywhere, okay, on the forecast. So I go get a car wash and then the very next day it snows and the salt everywhere and it just… Come on. You know? What can you do?

Steve Lewit: What can you do?

Gabriel Lewit: All right, our friends, we appreciate you joining us for the show. If you have questions about your financial retirement planning, tax planning, of course tax preparation, it’s that time of the year start to gather up your tax documents, we can help you with your tax preparation, of course, here at SGL Financial. You can go to our website, www.sglfinancial.com, click Contact Us or call us 847-499-3330. And we are here to help you in whatever way big or small that we can.

Steve Lewit: We sure are.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, so have a wonderful rest of your week and we will talk to you on the next show.

Steve Lewit: Stay well, everybody.

Gabriel Lewit: Bye, guys.

Steve Lewit: Stay warm.

Announcer: Thanks for listening to Our 2 Cents with Steve and Gabriel Lewit. For any questions about your finances, give SGL a call at 847-499-3330 or visit us on the web at sglfinancial.com, and be sure to subscribe to join us on next week’s episode.

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