Get Smart with Money

Supposedly an "informative documentary... on managing money", Get Smart with Money instead offers more reason not to move to or live in the United States. We have a waitress who makes $4000 a month, spends almost $200 a week on takeout, then claims to have no money left to pay for anti-depressants. Which is more damning, that or the fact she thinks the only way to deal with her anxiety and depression is to take medication? Next we have a young mother who is deep in debt with a penchant for impulsive spending and it does not occur to her that she should trade retail therapy for actual psychotherapy. Then comes the NFL athlete who earned more with his first professional pay check than most people on the planet earn in a lifetime crying that he has financial worries. Finally the stay-at-home dad and his life-coach wife whose issue is her curiously skyrocketing income from empowering women and his apparent joblessness? These sound like manufactured difficulties to me and insulting to those facing real hardship.

It is difficult to have sympathy for these people because they are so swept up by the ideals of financial and material success in their society that they do not take pause and ask themselves what they actually value in life. Unfortunately, they are no closer to examining their own values and definition of success when they have these dubious experts impose their values on them. If it was so easy making money by investing, there would not be poor people left on this planet. Where there are winners, there will always be losers; for some to gain, others have to lose. This is simply the way the world works. It is ironic that one of them pointed out that money is a "tool". If it is indeed a tool, what explains their obsession over it and the idea of early retirement? Instead of taking advantage of one's talents to make money, they could focus on living a self-actualised life led according to one's values. I would argue that it is the collective obsession with wealth that is making Americans mentally unwell. They have so much compared to other parts of the world, but yet remain so deeply dissatisfied.

Okay, so what I believe is this is movie made for beginners who are having difficulties or may be struggling in their jobs like me or may be they are made for something else in their profession so the people commenting bad or negatively about this may be at different level of their financial freedom. For me It was Okay movie because I already figured out my future income source before watching this movie just got pumped up by watching this that am on right path.

So big congratulations to people who already have figured out their profession and already at next level of their financial freedom.

Cheers to all!

The show is ok. However it always drives me nuts when I see these HUGE cars for just 1 or 2 people and the DAILY takeout orders and then the same people complaining about money. It's just not serious. Also, 300$ for a phone, monthly.

Yes, we people live in different realities. And yes, it's completely possible and achievable to live within your means and save. This feeling of freedom can not be compared with anything.

And no, a family of 3 doesn't NEED more than 2 bedrooms. A family of 4 doesn't NEED more than 3 bedrooms. Anything more is done for boasting how successful you are. Not for upgrading the quality of your life. You just have more rooms to take care of. More cars to maintain. More clothes to store. You get the point.

The good:

• It is well edited. Especially the intro I found.

• It has a few good, but general advice like only spend money on what you need and try making your interest or what you are good at your job and maximise your earnings that way, focus on cutting costs on the big thing first like housing and invest on a regular basis on an index fund (the last one is a great advice IMO. I generally use ETF's in a world based index with a low monthly fee).

The bad:

• One adviser recommends doing side hustles and gig work. Surely this point must be sponsored by big business. Maybe you could in the short term work extra to pay of dept, but it should not be a long term plan. Also if your regular work pays better than gig work then do more hours if possibly at your regular job.

• The documentary seems very setup and controlled. I wouldn't be surprised if many were paid actors and a lot of the footage was reshot many times to make a polished and visually nice looking documentary.

• A lot of emotional fluff. I am not American so I am not used to all these emotional segments in TV shows and documentaries.

My recommendation: Not a must see, but if you do watch it do it so sped up 1,5x and be ready to use the skip 10 seconds button. Especially during the emotional fluff bits.

If you don't care about your finances, just want to complain about not having money and do nothing about it, read the negative reviews and you will find lots of sympathy.

If you do, watch the documentary and pick up what could be used for your own life's scenario.

In terms of the quality of the documentary, you have to realize that you won't learn from anybody how do deal with your personal finances because as the name suggests, they are personal. What this video does is teach you about financial literacy, and in this category I have to say it's one of the best out there. From the get go I was skeptic on for how long they would follow up on the various cases they show, since in financial literacy it doesn't work to just give someone advice and expect everything to go smoothly. So following up until one year later is a reasonable amount of time to get an ideia of how its working out.

To really show you how to get better with money in a film, they would have to follow these people 24/7 for 5 years, so you realize what the mindset around good financial decisions is.

What they have done instead is give you some examples for you to look into financial literacy a bit more in depth if you think it makes sense for you.

They should do more documentaries like this, even if it just helps a couple of people at a time.