How We Money: Overcoming the Odds

Our first ever live podcast recording is full of deep emotion, plenty of laughs, and a lot of heart. From surviving on government assistance programs to taking loans from their 10-year-old son, here's how Dell Rapids, SD, couple Jenn and Mike Reecy overcame all odds — and how they money.

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Transcript

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- Faith, family, and finding a way. Welcome to "Common Cents on the Prairie"™, a podcast dedicated to helping you demystify the sometimes complex topic of money. I'm Adam Cox, head of Wealth Management for The First National Bank in Sioux Falls. We're a community bank based out of South Dakota. In this podcast, we share expert insights from around the country and stories from our local community to arm you with the tools you need to make better financial decisions. Because the truth is, the more we talk about this stuff, the better off we're all going to be. Welcome to another episode of"Common Cents on the Prairie." In this month's episode, I'm joined by my very good friends, Mike and Jenn Reecy. This episode is special for a few reasons. First, Mike and Jenn are some of my very best friends, which made this episode especially fun to prepare for. Second, this is our first time filming the podcast in front of a live audience. So if you normally just listen to our podcast, I would encourage you to watch it this time around on our YouTube channel. You're in for a real treat. Third, and most importantly, Mike and Jenn's story is absolutely incredible. Two amazing people overcoming the odds. From struggling to make ends meet and surviving on government assistance programs, joining the military to see the world and get an education, to finally achieving some breathing room financially, Mike and Jenn have been on quite the journey. You'll hear some laughter and you'll see some deep emotion. Their story inspires me, and I know it will inspire you too. So if you're out there today needing a story about overcoming obstacles, or if you know someone who is, this episode is for you. Please enjoy my conversation with Mike and Jenn Reecy. Well, thank you everybody so much for being here tonight. This means the world to me that you're all here and Jenn and Mike as well, obviously, to support them and their story, and their opportunity to share it with us and with the world. So for those of you not familiar with the show, we have been doing it for a little over three years now, and we have a range of topics that we talk about. Some are technical, some are not so technical. And the ones we get the most feedback on are the ones that are not so technical, kind of like tonight. You know, I think one thing that I've learned in my career in wealth management is personal finance is very, very personal, but that unfortunately is not stuff that we talk about very often, and I think that's a shame. And so what happens is, I think a lot of us feel alone that we are the only ones that have dealt with something. And my hope is by doing episodes like this that we see that there's lots of people that that deal with this stuff. That personal finance, whether you have a ton of money or very little money, it's a universal thing that we all deal with. So with that, I'm excited to share their story with you tonight. So you ready to go?- Ready?- [Adam] All right.- I hope so.- Let's do it. All right, Mike and Jenn, welcome to the show.- Thanks for having us.- Thanks, Adam.- Absolutely, so, you know, I like to do icebreakers to start off my episodes, and normally I talk about music or movies or something like that. But we know each other far too well for those trivial matters. Most people here probably don't know, we have been on vacation together.- We have.- Yeah.- And I am well known for being a total stick in the mud. So-- Really?- Yeah.[Adam and audience laughing] What a surprise, right?- [Mike] Yeah.- People here know that know me are chuckling. So if we were going to go on another vacation and I didn't get a vote, where are we going and what are we doing?- How come you don't have a vote?- Well, 'cause I'd turn it down.- Oh.- Well, that's a good thing he doesn't have a vote.- Yeah, that is probably good, yeah.- Okay, so I think we would do really well on a cruise. So I think the Hawaiian Islands. We'll fly out of LA, and it'll be great.- Yeah, cruise?- 10 days, 12, maybe 14.- Okay.- Captive on a boat.- Stuck on a boat.- Yes.- That's what I heard.- Right?- Yeah.- I just think of all the activities we can do.- Yeah. Right. Diane, what do you think? Yeah, no, she said no, sorry. Sorry, aw.- Aw. Well, you don't get a vote, so there we go.- I would've said yes, but no, sorry.- Okay. All right. Well, fair enough.- Yeah.- Guess we're going alone.- So the two of you born in South Dakota, raised in South Dakota. Tell me a little bit about your background and if you can remember, what's your earliest money memory?- I grew up in Del Rapids, grew up on a farm. My parents built a business themselves. I can remember my earliest money memory was I would always work in the summer, you know, when I was in grade school and all of us kids, there was five of us, we went to Catholic school. And so it was a little amazing each and every year that the amount of money that I earned was just enough to pay for school every year.[Adam giggles]- [Jenn] Tuition.- Yeah, so tuition would roll around in August and it'd be like,"Oh, there's money showed up at my account," and it would be swiftly taken away.[Adam laughs] My parents were trying to teach us, hey, the value of work.- Yep.- It was about hard work. It was about contributing too.- Yeah, awesome. Jenn, what about you?- Yeah, farm kid as well, and as much as I dreamt of everywhere but the farm, there was a lot of work to be done. And I remember always having a job to do, whether that was walking beans or even bean bugging, which my brother's in the crowd and may have got upset with him one day and sprayed him in the face with some chemical, that didn't go over well. We lived in a small community and everyone took care of each other. So we were babysitting around the clock, it felt like, either in our home or away from it. Just always having work to do, but never really knowing that that amounted to anything. There wasn't an allowance, there wasn't, you always felt cared for, you always knew that you were provided for, but you didn't realize how much that wasn't talked about.- [Adam] Yeah.- I knew it in my dad's face. You could tell it in the energy in the home when things were tough during the 80s. Now we know, and you look back and you go, you have a greater appreciation for what they were working through in those tough times.- Yeah.- So taught us a lot about, when you reflect on that, the perseverance it took. And I think that's going to help with our story here tonight.- Sure. Mike, what was your experience with money like growing up?- My experience was, so my parents had their own business and I just, my mother was a math teacher, so she was educated. She was one of 11 children. And so I remember her in our business, my parents' business, she was the one that did the books. And so she knew what we had. And more importantly, she knew what we didn't have too. So I just remember her being really integral and they owned their own business. And so, you know, it was 24/7 every day. They lived it every day and then they brought it home too, which was hard.- Yeah, yeah, yeah. Jenn, how about you?- Well, I remember going to the FSA office. I remember sitting there quietly trying to understand what was going on, but you knew there were things going on and then there was a very quiet car ride home, or pickup ride. Mom would often tell us we were going with dad today. And that was usually running errands and visiting with a lot of people. It felt like we were always around others that were likely the conversations I'm thinking were talking about the same things. It was hard.- [Adam] Sure.- And I remember standing in government lines to get your cheese and your powdered milk, but you didn't know any different. And so I just assumed that was like everybody else.- Yeah. So when you don't have a lot, sometimes you have to get pretty creative. Jenn, tell me a little bit about your first car and why'd you get such a good deal on it.[Jenn laughs]- Yeah. Well, I think this is, again, one of those coffee talks that my dad would have as he is driving around in the mornings, checking cattle or whatever it was he was up to. I believe I was going into my senior year, and at that point I had saved up enough money that I thought I could go get a car'cause I knew I was going to college, I had already joined the military, had a plan, right? And I saw this money and I'm like,"Okay, finally I can go out and afford to get a car." Well, I didn't actually get to pick out a car, I got to go write a check for a car that my dad had already picked out with his buddy. And so we got it home and there was this awful smell in it. And my mom was the queen of Clorox. Her CB handle was Mrs. Clean. And several in the room probably remember that, but we could not get that smell out. So she would whisper to my dad,"I think someone died in there. I think someone died in the trunk of that car."[Adam laughs] And I knew she was saying it, and I still had to get in and drive that car. So it was-- It was a good deal, Jenn.- Yeah.- It was a good deal. I had never wrote a check for $2,500.- People die in their trunks all the time.- Yeah.[audience laughs]- People die in the trunks at, what are they, the auctions.- Yeah. Do you use the trunk at that point?- [Jenn] I think it came from an auction.[Adam laughs]- Yeah.- It was a good deal.- It was a good deal. Yeah. Well, speaking of high school, you two were high school sweethearts. And then after graduation, Jenn, you decided to join the military and you were going to go to basic training. Mike, you were going to go off to college. And then Jenn, when you came home from basic training, something happened, two of you got pregnant. So how did your lives change at that moment?- We grew up fast.- [Adam] Yeah.- Yeah, there were some big decisions to make. I just don't really remember anything other than we're going to figure this out. We just knew we would figure it out.- Yeah.- And maybe Mike was a little more nervous, but I had, you know, a glass half full kind gal.- Yeah, I don't think we knew any better. We were kids at that point, really, honestly. So you hadn't experienced a lot of what could be, and so you were stuck in what was, and we were raised to figure things out. And so that's what we did. I think it went really quickly as I think back on it. It wasn't something that you pondered on, it was like, "Hey, well this is sort of the, you know, these are the choices that we've made. You know, it's up to us to figure it out." And it wasn't, I remember thinking like, we weren't expecting somebody to figure it out for us or to, "Hey, we'll provide this for you in order to get you through that." Not that people maybe weren't willing to do that, but we never asked and we didn't expect it. And so I think in hindsight, it really shaped, you know, how we sort of viewed the world and the choices that we made going forward.- Sure. What did your mom say when you told her Jenn was pregnant?[Mike chuckles]- I remember it well.[Adam laughs] Yeah, I remember exactly where it happened.[Adam laughs] Yeah. She said to me first, she said,"Well, how did that happen?"[Adam and audience laughing] And I said, "Well, mom, you know, you had five kids."- Yeah.- And then, you know, I don't know, it was the same conversation, but it was shortly after that, she said, "Hey, you know, this is the big time in your life. Like, don't run out and get married. Just don't do it." And it wasn't because she was, you know, saying Jenn wasn't a great lady, it was that,"Hey, this is a really important decision in your life." My mother's, for those that know her, very practical lady. Love her to death for it, but she was thinking about what might be in the future. And she wanted us to have the best, you know, what she thought at the time, and we did too'cause we didn't know what might be in the future. And so we did get married.- Yeah, you did. Yeah.- Obviously it was, I think a couple months later, I proposed. But again, we were kids. We weren't expecting somebody else to figure it out, we just had enough faith, and we thought we could figure it out.- Yeah, I don't know that we ever thought different.- No.- What were those early years of marriage like? What'd you do for work? You snickered.[Adam laughs]- Yeah.- When did we not work?- Yeah.- Well, I was in the military, and I always believe that you're passed on from one great mentor, one great person to the next and they had my back, and this was my new guard family. And they always found a way for me to have an extra guard drill or extra days. They helped care for the kids, they pushed me beyond limits that I didn't know were possible because I was pregnant. I always believed we'd figure it out, but I didn't know how many wonderful people were surrounding us during that time. So when I wasn't in school and finished early, trying to, you know, beat the clock and get a job, but then just worked constantly at the military, nights, weekends, whenever I could.- Yeah.- And every summer. I was a recruiter, shocking.- Yeah. With your personality?- I know.- Weird, yeah. Yeah, weird.- So I think one of our funniest stories, I think, is we shared one pair of work pants. A pair of Wranglers, size 28 inch waist. We could not do that any longer.- Yeah.- Yeah. I had 28 inch waist when it was third grade too.[Adam and Jenn laugh]- But you just worked all the time. So the kids, even when we had the kids, they went in the back of the pot and like trucked, and you just always found an odd job to do. We weren't afraid of getting out and throwing the square bales.- Well, we just knew what hard work was. And so that's what we knew, and so that was our path or that's what we decided to do. Maybe back up, it was really important we decided early on, after Jenn got pregnant, she was going to school at that time, we decided, "Hey, you have to finish school." It wasn't a thing where we said that she should quit. We knew I think indirectly that education was going to take us places.- Somewhere. Yep.- Because we, again, just didn't know. But we knew that that was really, really important. And so what I did, I was working for my parents at the business, which I enjoyed. And then I had started a small farming enterprise on the side, so I did that on nights and weekends. Somewhere along the way I acquired a truck and started doing that too. It was really just all about trying to generate revenue.- [Adam] Sure.- And it was all about, you know, if there was opportunities and there was time to do it, you know, if that meant that you slept less, then so be it. That was the gift we had or the skill we had at the time in order to try and get us where we hoped we might get.- Sure. And how were those early years financially?- I remember getting the bills, and I would always write on where the stamp would go, the date that it was due, because I knew I couldn't send it, you know, because we didn't have the money. So it was really difficult to see that. And again, we had a great support system from our families, but it wasn't a handout. And so it really shaped and formed, it was just really difficult, but it made us really choose what we were going to spend our money on too. So many of the things that we do today seemed so far off and so like unattainable, I think.- Yeah. I remember, Mike, you telling me at one point, during those early years that you were frustrated a lot. What were you frustrated about?- Yeah, I looked around. You had the work ethic. You just, at the time, didn't have what I felt like were the connections in the business that, I wanted to farm, that that's what I wanted to do. And I knew if I worked hard, or at least I thought if I worked hard, I'd be able to make that happen some way, somehow. And it was just really difficult because I saw others get opportunities that I was either friends with or knew and it was really because they were connected in some sort of fashion. And I was frustrated because I didn't feel like I was, I felt like an outsider. And at the time, it was really frustrating. But in hindsight, again, it's one of those things that I think propelled us to a place. Had we not had that experience, we certainly wouldn't be sitting here talking to you today.- [Adam] Yeah, right.- And I just remember being embarrassed.- Yeah.- That was probably the hardest. We couldn't give our kids what we would've liked, but it was okay. Or going to the grocery store with your WIC checks, just the little things that you dreaded having to stand in those lines or recognize you're getting government assistance to make it, but we did it.- [Mike] Yeah.- Or at least we think we did.- Well, I don't know. I think we just didn't know, you know? We're super thankful those programs are out there because it really propelled us. It gave us a lifeline that we really needed at that time. But it created an awful lot of drive-- [Jenn] Yeah.- In us too-- Yeah.- To not do that.- Yep.- And not make our kids feel like they didn't have it all, so we created it in other ways.- [Adam] Sure.- Yeah.- [Adam] Yeah. You mentioned community, you weren't doing this on your own. How important was your community at that time?- Everything. There was never a no on the other end. There was always,"Okay, and we can probably help with that." And I didn't realize how we were moving so fast. It just felt like we were always looking for-- Yeah, what was next?- We got to get to Friday. I mean, we had great families, great parents, great friends that are in this room tonight, thank you all, that helped lift us and helped lift our family and did more for us that we probably didn't slow down long enough. We were moving fast. We were sleeping fast and moving fast in order to get along. And the faith community our kids got to grow up in probably formed them and formed us. I feel like we had kids so young that we grew up so close because that's what you had.- Well, I think we grew up together.- Yeah.- Yeah.- [Adam] Yeah. So I know one of the most impactful moments in your lives, and this will probably be a tough question, you were farming and that was a dream you had, something you wanted to do. And you guys were working really, really hard. You were on the treadmill, but at some point you realized something had to give. And in this case, the thing that had to give was farming. So Mike, how did you arrive at that decision and what impact did that have on your family?- Yeah. It came pretty quickly, as I think about it. It was sort of lingering in the background. I remember waking up one morning and I can't even remember what it was, but one of the tasks I needed to do that day. And it was something that I had always really enjoyed doing before. And on that day, I just didn't want to do it. Like, I was like, "Oh, this is just another thing to do. Like, I don't want to do it." So that started an upswell and honestly, from a financial point of view, we were, you know, the farming enterprise was not doing well. It was propelling us to a place where either we had to make a decision how what we were going to do or somebody else was going to make it for us. And part of what helped us get there was, I mean, we were banking at this bank at the time, had a great loan officer that, you know, asked some really good questions and helped get us there a little quicker than perhaps we would've got there on our own, so we're eternally grateful for that. But yeah, so I think I decided, it was 2004. Yeah, it was a February. And I decided, "Hey," we had gone on a trip, the first trip we'd ever-- [Jenn] I was on deployment working.- Yeah, yeah.- That's one of my favorite.- Yeah. Yeah.- And you came and met me there.- All right.- How about that?- All right.- That was our kind of trip.- I went on a trip.[Jenn and audience laughing] You were working. So anyway, we went there and that was the first time, I'd ever been on an airplane. I was 29 years old and we spent a week there and we had some really good conversations while we were there. And so anyway, I came back kind of things were snowballing a little bit and I remember it was like,"Hey, we need to make some decisions here." And when we were in Hawaii-- Hawaii was my deployment.- Yeah, yeah.- Tough.- Yeah, yeah. She was working.- I was working.- Yeah. So Jenn, while we were there, she said,"Hey, you know, maybe you should join the Guard." And I remember looking at her like, "You are crazy."- [Adam] Yeah.- Like, I mean-- It was the best family.- Yeah.- [Adam] Yeah.- Yeah. And so I'm probably getting the dates a little wrong, I think it was February, and like 30 days later I joined because it was just at a place where, you know, you knew you had to do something and you were sort of looking for an out. And honestly for me, I was sort of grabbing at straws, right? So I knew that created a lot of challenges. I was working for my parents at the time. It was an integral part of that business, but I knew I needed a change. And so I think it was the end of May, it's Lane's birthday.- Lane's birthday.- Yeah, I got on the plane for the second time and had three kids at home and I left and went away to basic training, was gone for six months. And for me at the time, I remember the first couple days I was like,"I have no idea what I've done. Like, this was the most terrible decision ever."- "What have I done?" Yeah.- I made beds for a whole day.[Adam laughs] Like who does that? I mean. But anyway, so I went away and I did that. It allowed me, after I came back, when I came back, it defined success completely different than when I left. So for us, it was absolutely the right thing at the right time and had absolutely no idea that it was either, yeah.- I'll say that too, we knew something had to change. We could not continue in the grind that we were in. And although we just kept making it, like we just figured it out again. We just had to figure it out. We knew that the military was a family. It had the values that matched ours.- [Mike] Yeah.- And they've been a support system all the way through as well as many cherished friends that are in the room and family that gently held up the mirror to help us understand that perhaps, there's more out there for us.- Sure.- And education was the gift that helped us be able to open the door to opportunities, as well as the military experiences. Those are such broadening opportunities that you can't replace 'em. And the relationships, I could call anyone around the world right now and know that they had your back.- [Adam] Yeah. Well, that's interesting that you've both spent time in the military as part of your careers. Is that the reason why, just to broaden your worldview and define opportunities differently than you maybe had here at home?- So I tried to join when I was 16. You can't, by the way, by the way, because all I wanted to do was get off the farm. And I had a vision board from, I would say it was probably about seven, eight years old. It had a little red car on it. It had big cities, it had lights, and now I have a little red car. I knew then that there was something more. And I think that's why I always fought against the farm. Not that I don't cherish what I learned there, but fought against it, and so the military was my way out. I knew I didn't have any money. I knew my dad had told me,"You're going to go to school, you've got to figure out how to pay for it." I just figured, "Parents did that, right?" But they don't, so I'm like,"Well, that's fine. I can do this." So I go to the recruiter and never knew my dad was in the military. Turns out it was the guy he went to basic training with. So from then on, I was taken care of. Like he was very helpful, but it was really about the opportunities, the relationships, and to say I did that or the next challenge. We didn't back down, it didn't matter.- [Mike] Yeah.- We just kept finding something that would be fulfilling and keep our purpose and take us to the next. We always knew that there was opportunity if you worked hard.- Sure.- It was really the same story for both of us. It was our ticket to get education. That was the original reason why I joined'cause they would pay for the majority of school. And frankly, we didn't have the money, and I knew I needed some sort of income while I was going to school, and that helped bridge that gap. So it ticked enough boxes for us that at the time, it allowed us to survive long enough to get to what was next, yeah.- I've heard you guys talk before about a dynamic that you both had growing up, where even when times were tight, you still really didn't talk about money. So fast forward a little bit and you've had your own family. Did you carry on that dynamic or did you do something different and why?- Yeah, I was adamant we didn't do that. If anyone knows me, I can be rather strong at times and I just did not want to not to understand the finances. You could do the basic principles, but I wanted to know more and have control over that, right? If I'm bringing in this, I'd need to know where it's going and how this is working and what we can invest in, another story. But we just knew that, again, we just had to figure things out, and we did. But it was definitely us educating our kids along the way.- Okay.- I was-- So your kids saw those conversations?- They grew up with us, so they heard the kitchen talk. They knew, they always had visibility even as they were growing up as teenagers into what everything looked like. We made sure of that.- Yeah. I mean, some hard decisions were made. You know, we both grew up on a farm, we thought that was going to be our home. We had bought a place that we thought was going to be our forever home. And we lived there seven years and we sold it. We moved to town. I'd never lived in town my entire life, and no, Jenn, neither did you. And so for us and for our kids, it was completely, they knew 'cause we said like,"Hey, we have to do this. This is the right decision for us."- And I felt that it was important that they understood why those decisions were being made.- Yeah.- And we rested very firmly in faith around, as young children, they knew, God first, family second, career third. Now those get out of whack from time to time, nothing's perfect. But in order to achieve that, you have to have this balance. And I just say that we made sure that there was transparency enough so that they would know why we were making the choices we were making.- Yeah, and we tried to instill that work ethic too. Like, "Hey, you know, you have to figure out things for yourself because people aren't going to do that for you." And in today's world, if you're willing to talk to people, you can get along with people and you have a work ethic, sky's the limit. But you have to put in the effort. You can't expect somebody else to do it for you. And so yeah, we talked about that a lot.- Tell me about the Bank of Lane.- Oh. So Lane, he was our bank for several years because-- [Adam] And for everyone's benefit Lane is your son.- Lane is our son, our oldest son. And from the time we moved to town, so this kid could not not work, I guess is the best way to say. He got kicked out of daycares because he was working too much and ended up always at the farm store.- [Mike] Yeah.- Or in the back of the truck.- [Mike] Or with her dad.- Or with my dad and my brother. And dog poop, 10 cents a pile, I believe. He started a lawn mowing business at the age of 10 after he got home from junior football, then he would start mowing lawns. I mean, he just couldn't not work, which was a beautiful thing for us to see. And he accumulated quickly. And because we didn't spend, that was pretty much the rule. You're not spending the money, it's going in the account. There really wasn't a choice. And when times were tight, Lane floated us and Lane knew it. We told him, "We're going to need some help." And Lane had that little reserve that allowed us to get through that next bill that came in the mail.- [Mike] Yeah. I think we paid him pretty good interest too.[Adam laughs]- I think we did.- Yeah.- I think we did.- One of the themes that has emerged to me as I've gotten to know you and gotten to know your story is this idea of never being content. And you know, I know maybe all the time growing up, you didn't always have the best financial modeling or role models and you certainly didn't have a headstart on anybody, but you never let that define you. Where does that come from?- I just think it's a part of the fabric of who we are. I don't think I'll ever be someone who can rest on my laurels, so I'm not quite sure what that means. But there's always someone who has lifted us up that I feel like there's a way for me to open a door, there's a way for us to create those relationships, those connections. I believe that's one of our greatest gifts is the people in our lives and what you can do when you're in it together. And I just feel so fortunate for that abundance that we get to share.- Yeah, I remember when we were first married and for quite a long time, we'd go to church and we'd pray for perseverance. Like we talked about that a lot. And then it became,"Well, hey, now we need to pray for the ability to be good stewards of the gifts we've been given." And so it's just funny how that sort of evolved over time. And I remember it well in church and knowing like,"Hey, like, this is different than it was before." But Jenn would say that content is a swear word. I remember us having that conversation.[Adam laughs]- My mother would always tell me, "Just be happy."- Right.- Just be happy.- Yeah.- Just be nice, right? And to me it was like, "Just be nice? Like I get that part, but there's so much more, right? That we can go and do." And it doesn't mean standing by or being passive, I think you have to go after it. And I just believe that's the way we're built.- [Adam] Yeah, for sure. You two were in the grind for a long time. When did it feel like you finally had a little more breathing room financially?- I think it was about 10 years ago. I'd been in finance. So when I got out of college, I got into finance. About 10 years ago, got in with a great company and just did a better job of negotiating when I left and went to that company. And so we had attained a level of earnings that we only thought, you know, we might get to when we were at 65, but we didn't know. We didn't have somebody telling us,"Hey, I think you could do better than this." But at that time, you know, we were living in town. We had done pretty well, we'd paid some things off, and so, but we had enough to kind of like say, "Ugh." Like, you know, like that conversation earlier about praying to be good stewards of the gifts.- [Adam] Yep.- It kind of happened all about that time, and it was because we still had the mindset that we had nothing, but yet we had income that was at a different level than we were certainly used to.- As a teacher, I remember coming home with a check, I think my first contract was 18,000, and militarily, we were talking about this earlier.- Yeah.- My first check was $97-- A month.- A month. And Mike couldn't wait to go invest it. And at that point I'm like, "Say what? Because we have some other things we might want to consider." But early, early on, Mike said,"No, we're taking $50. We're going to up that." I wasn't all in, let's just say, at the beginning, but glad that we did.- Yeah.- Well, this is a personal finance podcast, so I'd be remiss if I didn't ask about investing. How important has that been throughout your journey?- It's been really important. I think as somewhat dispute, that's a delayed gratification thing for us. So you put that money in there, you don't expect to take it out. In a lot of cases, the money we're putting in, we can't even take it out.- [Adam] Yeah, right. So we could, but it'd be a heck of a penalty, which I'm glad that's there, to be honest with you. But for us it was, hey, we went from a place, and we've talked about this a lot. We spend so much time on the urgent, the important things for what we think they are and less time than we think we should on what really matters. And so we want to be in a place where eventually, you know, long before we can't do something, that we have the ability to do some things that matter to us. And that investing piece of that has really allowed us to see that in the future and make it more real. I've told Jenn a couple times that retirement is romantic.- Yeah, it is.- [Mike] Yeah.- Absolutely.- [Mike] Yeah, yeah. And I really believe that. We're just hoping that someday sooner that we get to pick when that is, right? And not when somebody else picks it for us.- Yeah.- When you got a little breathing room, what was one of the first things you splurged on?- We went to a U2 concert.- Nice.- Joshua Tree tour in Tampa and brought the kids. Well actually, Kylie bought the tickets for us, our oldest daughter, our only daughter, but oldest. And she goes, "Don't worry, I used your credit card."- Nice.- That was sweet.[Adam laughs]- Yeah.- But she did get us great seats.- She did. It was pretty good.- We actually went down there with the thought of,"We might move here someday." We really considered Florida for a long time.- Yeah, we looked at a few houses even.- Yeah, we even went and saw some houses. But I don't know.- You got to dream.- I would say it's the friends and the family that keep us right here.- [Adam] Yeah, for sure. So along your journey, what have been some of the lessons you've had to learn the hard way?- You know, early in our career, we owned our own business. And so, you know, when I thought about money, it was all about leaving that decision to somebody else or feeling like, hey, if I went to the bank and they told me yes, then this must be a good thing for me, right? I had a poor appreciation for the things that I do today'cause that's my job today. That's what I do is I lend money. So I think back, we left a lot of those decisions, and quite frankly, some of our happiness, whether we were going to be in a good place or not up to others. We learned that that's not the best way to do this. And the other one is that you have to really think about the people that you surround yourself with too. I think we've said it a couple different times, but we've been super blessed with a number of people that in certain times in our life, it taught us to be parents. They've taught us to be good Catholics. They've taught us to be, you know, good husband and wife. And so for us, it's those lessons, you just don't, well, even the podcast here has really allowed us to reflect on a few things that, you know, I think we knew in the background, but we hadn't really reflected on, so it's been really good.- Throughout all your time together and your relationship and the ups and the downs, what's kept you going all these years?- The vision, really. Again, I'll go back to, I can always see where I want to go, where we want to go, where maybe we'd like to have our kids go and we want to create those opportunities, and the best way to do that is to keep growing. And I think we're gritty, I think we've got a lot of hustle. I think that we aren't afraid of a challenge, and just at the end of the day, you've got to have that bedrock again of faith. You got to have a strong friend group to lift you up and be those role models. Honestly, I look at so many of the people around us and who have really handed us off again from one to another, or been there when you didn't know. You just didn't know, but they had your back, and we could pull out several different examples of even our local gas station in town opened up a charge account for us back in the day.- Yeah.- And we knew we couldn't pay that bill at the end of the month, but we could put something towards it. And you know, there's so many examples that there was always someone willing to support you, it just wasn't always necessarily in the financials. It was really understanding that they were here, they've got your kids, they're running to events, we're deployed. It just changed.- Yeah. I mean, what kept us going is we had three kids. I mean, we had to figure out, you know, you had to. Yeah.- We believed we could.- Yeah.- And we saw progress, right?- Yeah.- We could see that you put this in, you get this back. And I would say we've always found ways to celebrate that in little ways. Whether it was a picnic in the park.- Yeah.- Like we made it through this week, we're going to go have peanut butter and jellies with dad over the lunch hour, or just the energy that came when you gave it over and you just knew that if you trust and you put the energy and the time in, you do good by others, good people find good people.- Right.- And you make it.- As we sit here today, what are you most proud of?- Definitely our three children. We didn't screw 'em up, I don't think.[Mike laughs] That has-- We probably should ask them that, I guess.- Yeah, we probably should, or the others around them. But I would say to see them get a start in life beyond what we did.- Yeah.- And I wouldn't change anything, but I would say it definitely didn't have to be so hard all the time, or at least feel like that. But I would say definitely our kids, that rises to the top for me.- Yeah, I think for me, yeah, definitely our kids. The second one is that we didn't let difficulty define who we were, we didn't let a set of circumstances that, you know, could have derailed, you know, our relationship, you know, could have derailed so many things. We just unconsciously decided like,"Hey, we're not going to allow this to define who we are in the future and where it's going to take us to."- Yeah. Last question for you. Let's talk to the young couple out here who is listening to this and may be struggling like you did, what advice would you give them?- Number one, align your family values. Know what you stand, know where you're going. Don't be afraid to talk about it, don't be afraid to have emotion around it, right? Like, it's okay. And that path changes as ours did.- Yeah.- But you had each other. Well, first of all, you trust in the way that you're supposed to be going. And then you continue to develop yourself. Find new friends, resources. Don't be afraid to try new things. Don't be afraid to go away. Don't be afraid to-- Yeah.- Go broaden your horizons. Get out of where you think you are today, that box doesn't exist.- Yeah. The three things that come to my mind is that for us, what really propelled us was education for us. I remember telling my mother, I'd gone to college for one year, I told her I was going to not go back. She was very angry with me, but the happiest day was when I told her I was going back and that it was, well, 10 or 12 years in between. But I just remember the look on her face when we said that. So the second piece is that it's the people that surrounded us. You know, we had the blessing of having some great people that surrounded us that we aligned ourselves with because we knew, or we had an inkling, they trusted us and we kind of met them halfway. And the third piece was that the military took us to places that neither one of us could have gone. Not only physical places, but mindsets that really adjusted where we were going to go and how we viewed success. It just really, really transformed who we were as individuals and as a couple.- Yeah, define your belief systems because your behaviors will follow and you'll become who you are today. When you know where you're going, don't let someone else tell you the path that you're on.- I don't think we could end it any better than that. Thank you both so much for doing this. I appreciate the heck out of you and thank you for sharing your story.- Thank you.- [Adam] Yeah.- Thank you.- Good job.- It's an honor.[audience applauds]- It was good.- And they're still kissing, that's great.[Jenn laughs] So just a couple housekeeping things, Maggie mentioned some of these when we started, we had the easy job tonight. We just had to show up and have a conversation. Whereas my mom would say, visit in the living room we have set here. There are a lot of people that made this event possible.- Right.- A lot of volunteers. Our partners at the event company. Nate, Skye, Renata, Stacy, Mike, thank you also very much for doing this and for making this event possible. Secondly, if you have a great money story and you'd be willing to share it or you know someone in your life that would make for a good episode, I'm always looking. Apparently I'm a content creator now, so I am always looking for other stories. So if you know anybody, I would appreciate that. And finally, the bar's can be back open at least for a little bit. So we encourage you to hang out, I know it's a school night, but if you can hang out for a little bit and chat, we'd love it. And if you stay long enough, Jenn will probably invite you to an after party.- [Mike] Yeah.- How about this guy? Let's give an applause to this guy right here, yeah.- Thank you. Appreciate it.[applause]- Thank you.- [Adam] Yeah, thank you. Appreciate it. I hope you found this helpful. If you did, please subscribe and share with your family or friends. If you have a topic you want us to cover in future episodes, send us a note through our website. And if you're at the point where you want an expert opinion on your finances, reach out and we'd be happy to start a conversation. And remember any comments, insights or strategies discussed on this podcast are intended to be general in nature and therefore may not be suitable for you and your situation, whatever that may be. Before acting on anything we discuss, please consult with your attorney, CPA and/or your financial advisor.