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 today, we are going to be talking with Meredith Fletcher. She is a wife to Travis and a mom to two little girls, Arden and Piper. We're going to be talking about how money was a struggle for her growing up. But also, it was never talked about. When she and Travis realized they were just treading water. They decided to make a change. How did they do it? Let's dive in. Meredith, I am so excited to have you on the podcast. This is going to be such a really fun conversation, the two of us getting to talk about all the fun money things. But the first question I want to ask you is, is there a person in your life that has left a legacy? Thank you Merci. See For you that you want to emulate.
Meredith Fletcher:So, yes. And thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. I, so for me and my husband, both, I think that as far as a legacy goes, we both grew up in homes that struggled, that didn't have. Like money did not come easy. It just seemed like money was a struggle throughout our, both of our childhoods. And so, kind of from there, once we got married and we bought a home and we started to go through kind of that process of just like, what do we want our life to look like? We both realized that we. We're heavily impacted by that as children by, you know, knowing that your parents both, struggled and, and so we both wanted to make sure that when we had kids that that wasn't something that we had to deal with. And so that made a huge impact on our lives and both of our parents worked so incredibly hard. I mean, my, my mom, especially. There were so many times when I can think of. Where money was such an issue, but man, she worked so hard and, and she would work so hard not to ever put anything on a credit card and to have it. She still, to this day, she writes everything in her little checkbook and she knows exactly what is coming out of her bank account and exactly how much money she has. I mean, she still does that to this day. And then on the same side of my husband, you know, he played competitive soccer growing up and all of his brothers did as well. So his parents both. really sacrificed to make sure that they could continue to do that. But as a kid, I mean, you do feel that, that strain and that pressure, and it just made us realize that that's, we just really wanted to try our best to set. ourselves up for our Children, you know, going forward because, it does get more difficult. I think for them, as each generation goes on, you know, houses aren't 20, 000 anymore, so it's more important for each generation to To create a legacy for their children going forward so that, you know, when we pass away our kids, I know that they will be set or even before we pass away, saving for college or, or, you know, making sure that we help them make good decisions because money wasn't talked about in my family. I'm not sure how much it was in my husband's, but it wasn't talked about really. I was kind of left to my own devices in terms of school and, you know, and things like that. We really want to make sure that we instill that in our children and make it a conversation in the house from a young age so that they know like, hey, this is how you can do things. And I really think that if you can, if you can set it up from a young age, you know, that's my biggest regret is not starting sooner. If you can start so. So much sooner, you know, in your early twenties, you can really set yourself up more so than, anything from 20 to 30, you can really set yourself up to, have a great retirement and a great future. It's, you know, all that time that doesn't mean to say that you can't start at 30 or 40 or 50, but, but man, time is everything like in terms of setting yourself up for retirement and building that legacy.
Laura:Yeah. I mean, you hit on so many points that I, I want to go back to. One of the things I want. To know is when you and your husband did start working on this, what was it that caused you to decide, like, hey, let's go all in and let's. Be weirdos that do this debt free life thing, like, what, what caused you guys to jump on that train?
Meredith Fletcher:Yeah. So, we got married in 2011. We bought our home in 2013. We had our, our daughter shortly after we bought our home in 2013 I'd say it was probably late 2014 that we kind of, that, you know, I kind of realized that we were treading water at this point, we were trying to make really good financial decisions. We were putting money in savings each month. We were Trying to pay on student loans. We were trying to contribute to retirement. You know, we were doing all these things and I had since I had my daughter, I'd spent a lot of time on Baby Center. I don't know if you ever did that when you were a new mom, but I spent a lot of time on Baby Center, you know, researching like all the different milestones and everything like that. And I came across the. debt free boards that we are debt free. And and they were both based and there were two boards, family finances, I think was one, and we are debt free. And they were both based on Dave Ramsey's principles. And I never like heard of that, but I started kind of following along and like reading them and and seeing, you know, examples, real life examples of. of, you know, what can happen if you follow this plan. And so I just started looking into it more and I got into the podcast and, and that's kind of when I realized that we're trying to do all these things, but we're trying to do them all at once. So we're really not making any progress. And so we're just kind of treading water. And I, I brought it to my husband who is always. Finance minded, but also takes a step back. He's like, you're good to handle it, but how are we doing? And he would check in and, he would look at savings and see how things were going, or whatever. And I was like, Hey, what if we tried this? I just kind of said, what have we, instead of trying to do all these things, what if we focused on one thing, which was just the debt. And at the time, you know, we were normal. We had car loans. We had furniture loans, we had new appliances at Lowe's, you know, we had in the student loans. I think he had about 30, 000 in student loans. You know, we had all these things and I was like, what if instead of doing all of them, all the things we focused on one each time and we, we snowballed it. So I started explaining it to him and, and everything. And he was, he was like, yeah, I mean, that sounds, that sounds fine. He was always happy with like. Paying off the debt, but like, I'm the spender in the family, but I'm also the nerd.
Laura:Oh, perfect.
Meredith Fletcher:I love to run the spreadsheets. Currently I'm like looking at my second screen right now and I have a spreadsheet out to like end of 20 24. I love to analyze those things, but but yeah, so that's just kind of where we began. He was on board from day one and we just and then we both started listening to the podcast. Anytime, you know, we traveled to Tyler to see family. Because we live in Houston now, we would put it on and listen and you know, I still, to this day, listen every single day, but, you know, I was going back and listening to everything trying to just get a grasp on the whole concept. And I mean, we really just ran with it and we paid off everything and the loans and it just really snowballed to First, our first goal with the house. It was The situation where we were incredibly fortunate, we made all the worst mistakes, incredibly fortunate that by, by God's hand, they worked out and you know, we bought our home with the FHA loan. So we had a private mortgage insurance. So our first goal with our home was to get that dropped. And with bank of America, you could drop it in five years. If you paid on time and you had paid it down to like 22% of the loan to value ratio. So we, that was our first goal. And we did that and right as of March of 2018, we'd gotten that, which was five years exactly to when we closed, got that paid down, got that PMI taken off. And then we then we look and we built our emergency fund and we built it up and we were like, what if we paid off the house I think we can do this. And that kind of began our next goal. And so you know, that's just kind of the long story short of everything but You know, I think having goals, no matter what stage you are in this process, having those goals as a married couple and doing it together, I mean, it really changed our marriage completely. I mean, we're married 12 years this September. And when we started this, I think we were about roughly four years in and, I kind of think sometimes when you get into that four or five, six years of marriage, things can start to get a little crazy when you start to have kids and you know, and then your finances and everything. And instead of going in the opposite direction where things start to unravel going through this together really just strengthened everything and solidified it.
Laura:You have to work together, you have to be doing it together. Otherwise, you're going in different directions and you can't make the progress you want to make. I'm fortunate enough that I get to watch a lot of the things that you guys do and, and a little bit of this because we are friends on Facebook. Meredith and I were in church choir together forever ago, which I don't know how, I don't know how we got old. At some point we did. It's fine. But when we're together, we're all 16 again but I've been fortunate to watch you guys. Yeah. Tell little bits of your story online. Are there people that come and ask you like, okay, I see you sharing about your debt free journey or see you going on, you go on some pretty awesome trips.
Meredith Fletcher:Yes.
Laura:Do people come and ask you and they're like, Meredith, how do you do this?
Meredith Fletcher:Yeah. Yeah. You know, over the years we've had a lot I try, it's, a funny dance to do with, with close friends, close family, things like that, where you don't want to, if you ask, I will tell you and try not to beat you over the head with it. It's kind of one of those things, when you've gone through something wonderful and amazing has changed your life, you want to tell everybody. But a lot of people aren't ready to hear it yet. So we just tried to show like, Hey, look what we're doing. It's so great. You could have this too. It's really not as difficult as you might think. But yeah, over the years, we've had I've had a couple of people come and ask me questions about it and, and what we do. I've rubbed off a little bit on family and friends, you know, just habits and trying to get people thinking about it because I think sometimes like awareness that that's literally the first step is just to sit there and go like, wait, if I actually really look at what we're doing and what we're spending, that's like a big part of it. Cause a lot of people go day to day, they spend money on groceries, they go out to eat, they do this, they buy on Amazon and they just don't even realize. You know what they're doing. And so then when you actually sit down and break down the numbers and stuff, it that awareness is the very first step into, you know, taking that huge jump into changing your life. It's a process, but we've had a lot of support. I've had a lot of people who've told me that's great for you. I don't think I could do that, but that's the thing that drives me the craziest is cause I'm like, if I can do this, if we can do this. Anybody can do this because we don't make a lot of money. That's what I always like to tell people and encourage people about is me and my husband, we are, we are solid middle class like lower middle class. Like we just do not make a lot of money. And I don't think a lot of people realize that. And we lived to this day, 50% of our income because we save. We're trying to save and we continue to try to save but we also don't feel like that we are depriving ourselves. I think it really, this whole process really changes your mindset of wants versus needs. And for us, vacations are really important. My husband has a side hustle that pays for like the vast majority of all our vacations. So he just has a little fund and yes, that's what I'm so grateful for him because he really he's really worked hard cause he loves. To travel and loves to take the girls on trips and Disney World and, you know, all those things and and we just both, we love to take a couple of vacations a year. It's really great to be able to do that because it definitely wouldn't be like that if, if we were still just treading water, like we were.
Laura:Well, it's funny because you mentioned that growing up money was a struggle in your home and person on the outside. I never would have thought that looking at you guys growing up. We struggled financially and I didn't even know it living in my home. Right? Because every, there was a lot of show. Happening, especially on on our side, there was a lot of let's just put credit card and we'll just see what it looks like. So, you know, having gone from okay, here's life. It's a struggle. And now you have 2 daughters, what are you intentionally changing? You're taking from your childhood and you're like, I'm not going to do it that way. And we're going to do it this way in our home.
Meredith Fletcher:Yeah. It's a difficult balance of wanting to give your kids everything. When you become a parent, you always have these thoughts of, I won't do it that way when I'm a parent and then you become a parent and you're like, wait a minute. So, you know, it's a very intentional conversation. We always tell our children. With anything that we have going on, we have an older home. So we do frequently have some issues pop up here and there. And so, you know, we are very honest with them. Oh, I try to be very honest with them from a young age of what things cost. Like the electricity costs this much. That's why you need to turn the light off, just things like that. And but also don't want to put the burden of that on them. I'm always very clear with them that me and daddy have made very smart decisions with our money. So we don't. struggle. But, but because of that, we are very intentional with our money. We can afford this, but we want to do it this way. It's just a constant conversation and, like when our daughter, our daughter's 10 years old. And so while it feels like college is still a ways away, I know it will be here before we know it. So it's a constant conversation of college and what that's going to cost and what your options are. I just think that's the most important part. Conversations were not had when I was growing up. And so, you know, it's just, it's just the best thing you can do for your children is to be honest with them, to show them. And just to be clear with them on what things, you know, how things work in the world and go ahead and give them a leg up and in this so that when you send them off, they're not just going, well, I guess I need to get a credit card. I guess I need to build my credit. You know, that's, I think that's what the world's telling me. And, I'm like, no, here's what I'm telling you. You can do all these things and it doesn't have to involve a credit card and, you know, doesn't have to involve debt. I just think that just the conversations just go such a long way.
Laura:Having the conversations from an Early age. So they know that when they're confused, you have the answer or the ability to find the answer and they can come talk to you about it. In college, I didn't know that you had to pay back a credit card.
Meredith Fletcher:A lot of times people just don't think about the conversations that, that you should have. I mean, like I got a full scholarship to college. I had no idea what that even meant. I had no idea the impact that would have on my life. You know, and it was a very, and I, all I did was write an essay and and it was a scholarship that a teacher had found for me. No one else applied for it. And so I got the whole thing. It was supposed to be a partial scholarship, but I was the only person who applied. So they gave it all to me. And I think that goes to show you that these conversations aren't being had. All this wealth of information is out there. And, If you're not going to look for it, it's just gone. It's amazing to me what just those small conversations and those small little steps and things that you can take on day to day life. You know, my, my daughter jokes to me. That we listen to Dave Ramsey all the time, you know, it's already become like a thing in her mind. Like, you know, it talks about retirement, all this kind of stuff but I'm glad to see that it's already something that she's listening to. You know, even without me realizing it, but you know, it's starting to have a little impact on her.
Laura:Every time I started listening to it, I started telling my kids, I'm like, this is uncle Dave. This is uncle Dave. Like, we're just gonna put it in there. Like we have to listen. My kids are, can we, can we put something else on? Can we listen to Encanto music again? I'm like, no, but it's, it's funny because to me, it's always something different. It's always something new. My husband's like, they answered the same way every time. Follow the baby steps. Every time. That's all they say. And I'm like, no, it's different. It's new. It's exciting. My kids are like, it's always the same. Like, you just want to listen to frozen over and over and over again. Like, that's always the same.
Meredith Fletcher:You want to listen to the actual same thing. This is different. Okay.
Laura:But I love it because. It's countercultural. I think that's part of why I really enjoy it because the world says, you need a credit score. The world says you need bigger and better. And what we're teaching our kids is patience. We're teaching them to be content with what they have. And those are things that are very countercultural. I love that because we are not of this world, right? We have a higher ultimate goal. And so what we teach our kids with money ultimately has an effect on their spiritual life later.
Meredith Fletcher:Yeah, I mean, it's all God's anyway. So what we choose to do with it, to honor God. And, you know, I think those are the things that, you need to teach your children from a young age. Because it's just important and it begins those milestones, those stepping stones to, help them understand money and the meaning of it. And, just what it can do for you in the longterm and then how you can use it to honor God. I mean, it's, yeah, it's, it's the foundation for sure to everything.
Laura:And We went on to talk about being in church choir together, a program called Praise Alive. We talked about how amazing our church was growing up and how that inspired each of us to seek out churches with thriving children's programs. One of my core values is that life change happens in relationship. That's why I do financial coaching. That's why I'm a part of multiple groups because I want to grow and expand my stuff and I want to be able to help other people grow and expand in their finances. So. For me, these things go hand in hand. Where we grew up in 1 type of relationship and we're learning how to create the parts that we like in our future and let go of some of the things we didn't like, like you and I both grew up in households that didn't talk about money. I don't like that part. So I'm going to change that. But we grew up in households where our parents loved us and did the best that they could for us. And I'm going to take that and I'm going to move that forward with my kids. Right. So we, we take and we change and we grow and so this is all full circle and I, I just want to say again, thank you so much for coming and talking about this, because sometimes being debt free is super weird. And people are like, nobody does this. And I've heard people are like, do you even know people that that are debt free? I'm like, yes. It's not just me. There's a whole, there's a whole group of us. It's okay. But as, as we wind down this conversation, I am so thankful for you and for the fact that you were willing to share all of the good stuff and like have conversations with people when they come up and ask you. I love watching the videos of you and your kids having a great time and going on these super cool vacations. And I'm like, I want to be like Meredith when I grow up. I'm very, very thankful and I want you to know that I, I see what you were doing and I am so appreciative and I know that your kids are watching. I know that your friends are watching and they all see a positive influence in you.
Meredith Fletcher:Thank you. You know, that's 1 thing that you hope that you show, as a Christian as someone who, has gone through the debt free journey and things, you can only hope that your actions and, how you show your life will impact someone in some way. It's nice to hear that, you do see it and maybe you do make a difference. I know it doesn't seem like it sometimes, but I actually am more of a private person but I do love also though, to talk about the things that has just made such a huge impact on our life. I want people to know you can do it. Like it's not as difficult as you think. It's a hundred percent possible. You just have to have a little bit of self control, a little bit of self control and awareness and to stop, to sit there and stop being a victim and say like, Oh, you know, I can't do anything because of this. Like, no, you gotta take control and you can do it. Because that's all that we did. It's just that simple and that's what I always want to tell people and be clear with people because I've had so many people tell me, you know, that's great for you, but I can't. And I'm like, yes, you can. You actually can.
Laura:Well, that's, that's what I'm hoping to do with my podcast to show not only can you do it and I don't like the word should, but you should let's do this. Like let's, let's make your life easier as opposed to treading water. You said, you said at one point you guys felt like you were just treading water and you weren't really getting anywhere. Like if we're going to swim the channel, let's go.
Meredith Fletcher:Exactly. And I mean, like, you know, when you have kids, they say the days are long, but the years are short. And it's like that when you're paying off debt, too. I mean, you may think that, gosh, this is going to take forever. I think from start to finish for me and my husband, it was about four or five years. But when I tell you it went by in a blink, When I woke up one day, I would lay my head at night and dream what it felt like to not have a mortgage. I would sit there and just think about it. And then all of a sudden that day came. And then now we're two, we're almost three years out from when we paid off our mortgage. It goes by so fast. So don't let the prospect of this is going to take us two years or five years to ever discourage you because you will wake up five years from now, and it'll happen in a blink and you'll go, what if I had started that day.
Laura:It's going to pass. Anyway, we might do it.
Meredith Fletcher:It is going to pass whether you like it or not. And it will pass quickly. I would say probably that first month is the hardest where you're sitting there and you're changing your habits. But after that, man, once you really begin like that, it just goes by in a blink.
Laura:Well, now that you have preached a sermon, cause it was really good. We're going to go ahead and end it there, but everybody, she just told you, you can do it, you have to want it. And you have to, you have to struggle for a short period of time to be able to get it, to be comfortable, to move forward and live the life that you want to live. So, Meredith, thank you so much for coming on my podcast today. I am so incredibly thankful for you.
Meredith Fletcher:I've just enjoyed every minute of it. It's been wonderful. I'm so glad you called me about it. It's so great.
Laura:I had originally asked Meredith if she would come on a full year before I even started this podcast. I knew her story would inspire someone. And if that someone is you, please share this episode with your friends. And if you have a second, please rate and review the show. That's it for this week accelerators 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.