As inflation hit 9.1 percent last month, Americans are looking for answers on how to save money and get their financial life in order. Bob Lotich is the author of “Simple Money, Rich Life: Achieve True Financial Freedom and Design a Life of Eternal Impact,” which gives readers tangible steps to tackle their money woes.

Lotich spoke with me about his own financial journey, what middle-class families can do to combat inflation, and his advice for young people looking to get themselves out of debt. His optimistic money mindset focuses on giving, which provided an unconventional perspective on the current economic situation.

Please note that this interview has been edited for grammar, length, and clarity. 

Cameron Arcand: There are a lot of personal finance books out there. What makes this book different?

Bob Lotich: I think the biggest thing that we try to do is we’re trying to make it simple because I worked in the financial industry for a long time, and I have found that so much of the financial world and industry tends to make us or lead us to believe that doing well financially has to be this really complicated thing. You have to have a degree in finance and all this stuff. The reality is that the fundamentals are actually pretty simple.

They’re pretty simple to do, pretty simple to master. And really, if you just do the fundamentals, you can have a very successful financial life and that’s the goal of what we’re trying to lead people to.

CA: Now you mentioned some of these fundamentals and the book talks about this idea of a formula that helped you change your financial life. Can you describe, using your own story, what that formula looks like and what people who are maybe struggling right now, who are looking to make some changes should be taking?

BL: It helped me frame my thinking about money. It comes from a John Wesley quote, an old preacher from a couple of hundred years ago. He said, “I earn as much money as I can. I save as much money as I can.”– by that he meant reducing expenses- “So that I can give as much as I can.” He saw his giftings in being able to speak and being able to write as a means to honor God with his giftings, and use that to earn money so that he could give and make an impact on the world.

That’s the framework that we are leading people through in the book, we’re helping them earn more money. We’re helping them reduce their expenses by being a little more strategic with their spending, you know, ultimately so that we can be in a position to be able to give more and impact the world around us. That’s the formula that we followed for all these years.

CA: Now, more specifically with inflation, a lot of middle-class families are struggling to get by. The cost of necessities and different things is really taking a toll on them. What’s your message to people like that who were maybe once doing okay, but now they’re trying to make ends meet?

BL: There are a couple of different things you can do to fight back against what’s going on with inflation. One thing that I’m encouraging people to do is, if possible, stock up on items that you regularly use. Think about this: you can buy something at today’s prices that is likely to go up. When it comes to food or canned goods or even meats if you have a deep freezer if you can buy some of those items at today’s prices, and especially if you have the opportunity to buy them on sale, you can get them a whole lot cheaper, and it’s actually a pretty good investment. If you just are continuing to buy things as they roll out […] it’s gonna be more expensive.

CA: What you did personally, that can translate to people who are in college, getting out of college, or maybe they’re already in the working field but are struggling to get out of debt?

BL: In our case, our debt payoff story was pretty remarkable. We’ve had a couple of different iterations of it, but both times when we were paying off debt, the thing that we felt like we should do is actually give. It seems so counterintuitive, but in both instances when we were paying off all our credit cards and car loans that season, we were working on paying off our mortgage, and we began giving extra as an opportunity to not yield to the debt. To not be afraid of the debt, and to make a determination of the thing that was most important to us, which was actually giving.

By doing that, in each instance, we ended up paying off those debts years faster than we would have. It’s very counterintuitive where I’m not necessarily prescribing that for everyone to do, but for us, it’s been really interesting watching that and the results of that leading first with giving rather than leading with meeting our own needs and paying off our debts, you know?

CA: My last question for you is when people are starting to get their financial life in order a lot of people are like, “Okay, this has to be the most miserable experience ever.” But how can people have fun while doing this?

BL: So much of personal finance is about all these rules of what you shouldn’t do with your money. When you understand that personal finance is personal and there’s no one size fits all rule or approach for all of us- that’s when you begin to approach it that way you realize I should be able to design the financial life that I want.

You should be able to spend money on the things that are important to you, but what that requires, you know, and this is one of the things that we’re always trying to help people with, is that requires you to identify things that you don’t care about or the things that you even care about and cutting those in lieu of the things that are really important to you.

You can free up a lot of cash to spend on things you actually do care about a lot. I’ll give you a quick example. We drive a little bit of an older car because I’d much rather be driving a car that’s five to seven years old and take my wife out on a nice dinner four times a month and spend four or five hundred dollars on eating out than I would on a brand new car payment. For some people, it might be, “I’d rather spend four or five hundred dollars a month and have a brand new car and eat macaroni and cheese every night”. For some people that might be the thing.

But for us, I don’t really care. Car is just “A to B.” I’m completely content with the paid-off five-year-old car. We would rather go for a nice dinner. So whatever the things are important to you have to identify those and the things that aren’t important, just cut them out of your lives because they’re not needed.

“Simple Money, Rich Life,” is available for purchase on Amazon.