Hello, and welcome to the accelerate, your legacy podcast, where we talk all things, money and money mindset. My name is Laura Sexton. I am a trusted financial coach and money mindset specialist. My goal with this podcast is to encourage and inspire you. As you set out on a financial journey that eliminates stress and amplifies freedom. Today's the day you stop paying for your past and start saving for your future. If you're looking for more peace in your finances and margin in your budget you've come to the right place. Hey accelerators, you know, towards the end of June, I asked some of my friends how being debt free had impacted their lives. If you didn't see that message, that means we need to get better acquainted on the social media. If you are on Instagram, I would love to be your friend. Go on, click on over. I'm at Accelerate Your Legacy and I would love to chat with you. I do polls occasionally in my stories and I ask questions and I just wanna hear from you. So if you were there, please go be my friend on Instagram and then next time I ask one of these questions, maybe you can answer as well. So the question I asked was how being debt free had impacted their lives? One of my friends mentioned that they live without credit cards, and they were surprised, but they haven't run into any challenges yet. Now, they did mention that, they haven't tried to rent a car yet, and we have heard some horror stories about rent a car because some places just don't wanna take your money, which is bizarre to me. But if you've ever had that problem and you just wanna skip it all together, Turo is a great place to go. I am not sponsored. I wish I was. I love Turo. I use them all the time when I'm traveling. T U R O, Turo. They also said that they're living in New Jersey and it's a really high cost of living state. The housing market is discouraging to them. Now, this has little to do with a mortgage. It has more to do with making their money work for them. You see, they don't wanna be people that just work to make money, to spend money. They wanna be people that work to make money, to live the life that they wanna live. So sometimes living in a high cost of living area means you're gonna have to be more intentional. You're gonna have to make better decisions. You're going to have to really think about what it is you want and how to get that. I live in Southern California where. The median house price in our town is double the national average. In some places near me, it's tripled to quadruple the national average. When this friend told me that they were now living without debt, they were now living without credit cards and they expected to have problems, and they were surprised that they hadn't. Being debt free. Has not impacted their lives in the day-to-day operation of spending. It has simply made them more intentional about how they spend their money, and it has not caused them to not be able to get a mortgage. Isn't that crazy? I don't know if you guys have heard, but we are looking to get a house and we have already sat down and talked like, Hey, we have no credit score. What's this gonna look like? And let me tell you a no score loan. Not a problem. They're gonna make the loan the same way they did in the eighties, back before F I C O was even a thing. And they're gonna look at how worthy we are, which makes me feel even better. Like I'm not a number, I'm a person and I have real statistics and things that you can look at and see how good I am at managing my wealth, not how good I am at managing debt. Just gonna throw that out there. All right, so, another friend, said, I'm gonna read this to you verbatim, and said we wanted our home to be centered around each other and the kids. We wanted to not have to stress and worry about money. If we had a bunch of debt, I would have had to work, and me being home with the kids was more important for us. What this person is saying is that, Being debt free allowed them to live the life they wanted to live. That's the whole point, guys. The whole point is to be debt free so that you can live abundantly, live in the life that you want to create for yourself, not somebody else's life. Not chasing the fico, not trying to be what everybody else wants you to be. Be who you are, do what you want to do. For this person, what they wanted to do was have her stay home with the kids, have a family that was full of laughter and love and light, and she and I talked about it a little more and she said, you know, I, if I had a bunch of debt, I wouldn't have been able to stay home. I wouldn't have able to do that because I would've been having to work to make payments. You should never have to work to make payments. You should work to save up money to go on a wonderful trip or work to enjoy your life. You should not have to work to make payments for decisions that you made in your past. I just love that this person, I asked, you know, how has being debt free impacted your life? And she said, we didn't get this life because we were debt free. We chose to be debt free because we wanted to live this life. And that, to me, was mind blowing. They knew what they wanted. They went after it. They got it. And they made money work for them. You sensing a theme here? I had another person that said, we have been married for 30 years and for the first 20 we were in and out of debt. We only got to the point we are now by sharing the responsibility of finances. Hmm. Sharing the responsibility of finances. Let's read on my husband did what he wanted. Not really understanding how his choices affected our overall financial health. She had managed everything, so how could he really know that what he was doing was negatively affecting them? He couldn't because he had no idea. This goes back to my point from last week. You have to make sure that you are both handling the money. It can't be one person does it all, and the other person does whatever they want because you're going to grow to resent each other. You are going to have money fights more often. I can't stand when people say, well, we separated our money so we don't fight more now. No, you separated your money because you weren't dealing with the issue of why you were fighting in the first place. You decided to take away the intimacy of having those conversations, and instead, you were treated to your own corners thinking that you're saving things. But what you're really doing is you're tearing a fissure in the middle of your relationship and don't do that. Come together, have those hard conversations, have that fight if you need to. I said something a couple weeks ago at the Ramsey event and I, I asked people, I said, how many of you ever fought with your spouse? And, you know, everybody raised their hand. I said, how many of you have wanted to fight with your spouse? And I was so thrilled when multiple people raised their hand because I was worried it was just me have the tough discussions. And see how much deeper your relationship will become. That first friend that I told you about lives abundantly by making her money stretch to the future. My second friend lives abundantly because she was free to make the choices to better her family. And my third friend is free because she and her husband are on the same page. Abundance abounds. When you're in this together. To live life more abundantly, take debt off the table and focus on your future. I say it all the time, guys. Stop paying for your past start saving for your future. Next month we're gonna start having guests on the show. If there's something that you wanna talk about, something you want to have me discuss please reach out. If you wanna be a guest on the show, reach out. I would love to have a conversation with you. You don't have to be an expert. You can just have a question. Let's dive into your question together. I would love that. All right guys. That's it for this week. Go out and make a difference. Thank you for spending some of your most precious resource your time. Working on yourself today. But don't just listen to the show. Implement something you heard. If you found a piece of today's show, valuable chances are you have a friend who will too. So please share this with them. And please rate and review the podcast to help spread the word. Remember the legacy you leave is not just dollars and cents and a bank account, but the tools, habits, mindset, and reputation you leave behind. If you have questions or need encouragement, send me a DM on Instagram at accelerate your legacy. Or check out the resources listed in the show notes. I'll be back next week. Bye. For now.