Growing Together
Step into a virtual garden of spiritual growth and community connection with the "Growing Together" podcast. This podcast is a nurturing space for individuals seeking to deepen their faith, cultivate relationships, and explore the boundless beauty of a shared spiritual journey.
Each episode of "Growing Together" is a breath of fresh air, where Pastor Michael, Syd, Nic, Pastor Holly, and Pastor Roger try to navigate the twists and turns of life while staying rooted in faith. Their warm and inviting presence makes you feel like you're sitting in a cozy living room, engaged in a heartfelt conversation with old friends.
Diving into topics ranging from personal growth and self-care to building resilient relationships and fostering a sense of community, the podcast aims to equip listeners with the tools to nurture their faith in all aspects of life. Through scripture readings, open discussions, and interviews with experts in various fields, "Growing Together" provides a holistic approach to spiritual development.
Whether you're a lifelong believer, a seeker on the spiritual path, or simply someone curious about how faith can shape lives, "Growing Together" offers a welcoming haven for everyone. Tune in during your morning routine, while taking a leisurely stroll, or even during a quiet moment of reflection – the podcast fits seamlessly into your daily life.
Join the "Growing Together" community and embark on a journey of discovery, growth, and genuine connection. In a world that can sometimes feel disconnected, this podcast reminds us that nurturing our faith and cultivating meaningful relationships can lead to a life that's deeply fulfilling and spiritually abundant. Subscribe now to start your journey of growing together in faith and fellowship.
Growing Together
Financial Freedom!
What happens when you gift your spouse flowers, chocolates, and a sympathy card for your anniversary? Kick off this episode with a chuckle as we recount our 13th-anniversary gift-giving antics, where a mischievous card choice led to unexpected self-pampering. We also tackle the unpredictability of online shopping with an update on the infamous Elvis jumpsuit that's been lost in transit for what seems like forever. Plus, we're reaching out to you, our listeners, for fresh podcast topic ideas because, frankly, our brainstorming hats might have gone on vacation without us!
Shifting gears, we venture into the realm of personal finance with tales of hearty meals and the accidental discovery of appetite suppressants! The journey towards financial accountability is both hilarious and enlightening as we share experiences from facilitating Financial Peace University classes. Learn from the stories of various participants, including Dawn, who brave the challenges of sticking to a budget while avoiding the siren call of caffeine. We touch on the importance of financial education, budgeting, and how sneaky Starbucks runs might just be the silent villain in your quest for financial freedom.
In our final segment, we tackle financial stewardship with tales of McDonald's shifts, debt reduction, and the infamous (yet effective) debt snowball method. Our conversation covers the pitfalls of credit card reliance, the high stakes of bankruptcy recovery, and the spiritual growth that comes from financial peace. With personal anecdotes about money management in relationships, the adventure of bankruptcy, and the joy of living debt-free, we explore how financial decisions can be transformative. So, grab your headphones and join us for an episode filled with laughter, learning, and life-changing financial tips!
Well, if he did, well, now I'm going to.
Speaker 2:It's strange how people get into that, how you know, it's this tit for tat like oh, you bought this, so I'm going to buy that. You bought yourself this, I'm going to buy that. Now, of course, I do the same thing to my wife all the time. Today is our anniversary, and so I bought her flowers and a box of Koblenz chocolates and a card which, by the way, was a sympathy card, not a joke.
Speaker 2:It was like, well, 13 years, like somebody got to feel bad for her right yeah, I guess oh, I was gonna do a sorry for your loss and just put you know you just imagine the life you could have without me because caitlin has said that exact yeah yep, sorry for your loss.
Speaker 2:Um, but I bought her stuff for our anniversary. She didn't get me anything, which we never buy each other anything. So then all day today I've been after I'm like well, I didn't get anything for our anniversary, so I'm gonna go buy myself something nice. So like there's, you know what I mean. Like it's just what we do. So well, we haven't found anything yet. Well, we can cover finance because we're already recording about it. Oh, we're recording.
Speaker 5:How long have we been recording?
Speaker 2:No one's paying attention.
Speaker 3:I know.
Speaker 2:They didn't even see me click the button. No, didn't even see me, and I thought I was nice.
Speaker 3:Oh man, None of us really had our gear on.
Speaker 5:Nobody was set up. I still have my coat on. Nobody was set up.
Speaker 2:I still have my coat on. Nobody was set up, nobody was ready, so just to loop all the listeners in. You know, we've been doing this for three years, this group for two. We're really running out of topics. So anybody that's listening that has an idea, send it to us, because we don't know.
Speaker 4:Is there something you would like us to discuss?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Send her on.
Speaker 2:This isn't the end though.
Speaker 5:No, no, no, no, we'll talk about same stuff twice.
Speaker 2:Roger almost made us yeah roger's trying to make us actually, though, in fairness, his was about finances so roger was ahead of us. Roger was ahead of us. It's about time uh, yeah right.
Speaker 2:First time for everything. Jumpsuit update. I emailed Pro Elvis last week and I said, hey, following up on my jumpsuit, because it didn't fit, I had to send it back Now. Originally, when I shipped it back, it was supposed to make it on January 3rd. Okay, on January 3rd, okay. She told me she could have it back to me by January 10th for a show that I had, because I had kind of already pre-planned to use that jumpsuit for that show, because it's a group of people who have seen almost every jumpsuit that I have, so I like to keep it fresh when I go to see them.
Speaker 2:Well, when we realized that was going to be a hard turnaround because UPS was running about a week out, I said, hey, take your time, get it back to me as soon as you can, but I'd rather it be right than fast. So I emailed her last week because I hadn't heard anything from her and she's like oh, hopefully it'll go up by the end of the week. I got notification on Monday that it had shipped, so no Tuesday, that it had shipped yesterday, so it's supposed to be here next Tuesday, next Tuesday. So we'll see. I don't have high hopes.
Speaker 5:So about a month and a half late, yeah.
Speaker 2:Another update, though, on jumpsuits is my peacock fits again.
Speaker 1:Not because of anything I did, but because I have a wonderful seamstress.
Speaker 2:Take a little bit out here and there, a little bit out. No, no, no, no, she said listen, I've let everything out that can be let out Like you grow anymore. It's over, it's over, she said.
Speaker 4:I double sewed the butt and the crotch because I'm sure Elvis heard that a few times. I'm sure, sure, yeah, you're going to at this point, it's your problem not my problem but she's wonderful.
Speaker 2:I sent her a um a text and asked her how she was doing, and she said everything's well. She was going to let out one more dart for me so that it would give me just a little more breathing room. But once that dart is out, it's over, that's it. Ain't nothing left. So hopefully that'll all shake out in the end, jenny Craig.
Speaker 3:Jenny Craig.
Speaker 2:Well, I keep telling Alyssa, I just need to get me some Ozempic or something. I don't know, because I honestly don't have the willpower Listen. Yesterday at work this is not a joke Yesterday, while I was at work, I got to work a little bit late cause the contractor came for the basement yesterday so he was there for a little bit and so I got probably nine 30. I got there by nine 45. I'd had a can of Campbell's hearty soup. I was so hungry, Do?
Speaker 5:you have breakfast at home on your way there?
Speaker 2:No, because typically I'm out of the house by seven, so usually I can grab a hotel breakfast or something, but like so I didn't. Yesterday morning, yeah, I had a can of Campbell's hearty soup, which is like they're big cans too, Ate that whole thing by 1030.
Speaker 2:I was having. What did I have at 1030? Oh, a bowl of instant mashed potatoes. By noon, it's not a joke by noon I had had a whole pouch of tuna, and then there's tuna pouches. I have a squeezy thing of mayonnaise. I just squeeze the mayonnaise inside of the pouch, mix it up and eat it right out of the thing. Well, cause I can't keep bread, it'll go stale too fast, right, so just eat the. Eat the tuna right out of thing. Um, and then got home and Alyssa had made uh, it's like a chicken and noodles. It's not a soup, it's kind of like a casserole, but it's in the crock pot, it's hard to describe Delicious. I ate every bit of it, every stitch of it.
Speaker 4:Do they call it when you put the uh Doritos in with the lettuce and the is that walking taco?
Speaker 3:Taco Walking taco, I thought it was going to be go tacos, tacos.
Speaker 4:I was going to say you could go fish.
Speaker 2:Crackers in there. That's a good one. Yeah, what are you having for lunch today? Go fish. I have been so hungry, and so Ozempic is actually used for people with diabetes Is that correct. Yes, but it's supposed to suppress your appetite. Is that true? I don't know this to be fact. It's just what I understand. I'm like I need that at this point because I am so hungry all the time.
Speaker 6:I can hook you up with the girl that sells compound. Oh geez, oh geez.
Speaker 2:So then I was obsessed. Now I'm obsessed with the word semiglutide.
Speaker 1:Oh yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like just, it's a fun word to say, but it's like Ozempic, yes, same idea, Right, yeah. So I like to say semi -glutide, is it a generic?
Speaker 1:It is a generic, but I'm not sure if it's.
Speaker 2:I think semi-glutide is different than what Ozempic is like. The actual drug is different. Uh, but also, have I ever told you guys about, like my hypochondria? I don't really have hypochondria, but when I watch a television commercial for something I've always got it Like I've got mesothelioma, restless leg syndrome, and once I've heard it and it's a good one, I love him. I love him. I don't remember what we were doing. Listen I. I were doing something. I said I think my mesothelioma is flaring up. She's like shut up. I drive her nuts.
Speaker 5:I started this week like doing the late or the fasting, where you don't eat till noon, which it sounds terrible, but if you do it you're less hungry and I'm telling you you are less hungry. That's why I was asking, because anytime I eat, like first thing in the morning, I'm hungry an hour and a half later and then it just doesn't stop.
Speaker 2:Listen, but I don't know that I could have waited until noon to eat. Well then, wait till 11. Like I felt like my stomach was eating through my body, I was pretty sure it was going to attack my kidney and just. And you can still have your coffee Well that's good, because that's not going to stop me ever A lot of things in life that you can tell me not to do. Not have coffees not on the table, not at all. All right, that's it. That's all, folks, badeep badeep, badeep.
Speaker 6:Well, we picked this subject because you're doing the finance classes.
Speaker 2:Financial Peace University. How's that going Whoop, whoop, shout out to Dave Ramsey. We're only in week two. Alyssa and I are facilitating. We have six couples and Dawn is there by herself. Fun, just fun fact about Dawn too, by the way. Typically, when you take it as a couple, your partner is your accountability partner. Dawn obviously does not have an accountability partner, so it's recommended to use a friend. However, she was told directly she's not allowed to use Beth because, Beth is not a good accountability partner.
Speaker 2:Beth's, like your free spending category is not high enough. Where's the goodwill category?
Speaker 6:I can't get her to goodwill.
Speaker 1:If there were just enough hours in the day. Oh geez.
Speaker 2:But no, it's going really well, so we talk about.
Speaker 5:But wait a minute. Who is her partner then? Who is your partner? Do you have an accountability partner? I do not.
Speaker 2:She does not. But here's the thing, and just going around the room, you know who's going to make it and who's not going to make it, just by the way that they act and the way that they talk. Okay, there are some people who are like I'm doing this, I want to be debt free, I want to be able to live and give like I never have before. And then there's some people who will just argue every step of the way.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Make an excuse as to why we can't do this, Make an excuse as to why we can't. So you can kind of like run around the room and just know Dawn, I don't have any fear about Like she gets it, and she's not in a place where she's like, oh geez, I don't have any money. Hers is more about learning understanding so that she can then coach her children and her grandchildren into being financially sound and stable. So there's a difference there, yeah.
Speaker 1:I do call my brother a lot, if you know, if I have questions about anything, he has always invested. His in-laws taught him very well you know, because my parents didn't talk about finances, but his in-laws were very, very frugal and very good, and so he knew exactly how to invest.
Speaker 4:Well, that's my question is if you, if you weren't raised on that mentality, like if you didn't have that help along the way when you're first coming up and you're buying your first car, buying your first home or just finally moving out of your parents' house, getting an apartment, once you've established those bad habits, what are the main tools for a young person, middle-aged person, to be finding? Like okay, like I gotta, I gotta get things together here?
Speaker 5:I'll say, doing what I've been doing, chase, and I see a financial coach, so that kind of keeps it accountable, like having that and it might help.
Speaker 4:So how often do you get coached?
Speaker 5:um, at first it was monthly when we started and now it's like quarterly.
Speaker 2:I think the question, though, more importantly, that Nick can correct me if I'm wrong is how do you realize that crap? I've got to do something.
Speaker 4:I mean because like you don't have any money. I've worked hard this week. I deserve this. Well, that's fine, and you can keep saying that to yourself. I've been there, done it. I had a bad day, I had a bad day, I had a bad day.
Speaker 2:so, yeah, I'm gonna go do that because I gotta do something. It's perfectly fine to say that to yourself as long as it's budgeted, as long as you know that you can afford it. So, alissa and I, today was our anniversary, and you know what we did. We spent our whole day doing this today laundry, no, no we actually we went out rolling change we spent our whole day at thrift stores oh yeah, because we wanted a copy of Scrabble Jr.
Speaker 2:Adeline desperately wants to play Scrabble and she can't play Big Scrabble yet because she doesn't understand it. So we wanted Scrabble Jr. We hit every thrift store we could find to find a copy of Scrabble Jr, found it in the first thrift store for $2.50. Do Jr founded in the first thrift store for $2.50. Do you know what we would have paid for that retail? 20 bucks, paid $2.50 for it, and we spent the whole day doing that. I think. Take out lunch, which we account for lunch every Sunday, her and I anyway, which we aren't doing because of Financial Peace University. So there's plenty of money in the budget for meals, I think all day today in the thrift stores. We probably spent less than $30 all day and came home with a lot of stuff.
Speaker 6:Did you go to 72 cents a pound?
Speaker 2:No, no. We went to Harvest Thrift in Wilmot because that was where Alyssa wanted to go. She'd never been there. And it's two buildings, it's like two separate buildings.
Speaker 5:I've been hearing a lot about that it's nuts.
Speaker 2:Then the one in Dover we didn't go there today because she was there yesterday.
Speaker 6:Are they now?
Speaker 2:open. Yes, the one in Dover opened on Monday, I think. Long and short of it. We went a lot of places. We came back with a Lego table for the kids for in the basement when the basement is finished, Like got a lot of stuff. I paid $6.50 for that table. I said to Alyssa, if that table is complete garbage when we get home if somebody stands on it, breaks it or whatever, Throw it in the trash. $6.50 would have been more than we would have spent on McDonald's for breakfast.
Speaker 4:Okay but now throwing out the challenge flag. So you went to all these thrift stores just to get this Scrabble Junior, okay, so you're like, okay, if we find it for $2.50, great, you know, we saved $18.
Speaker 2:But then you buy more stuff, but it was in the budget. But then we bought more stuff. You buy more stuff, but it was in the budget.
Speaker 4:We knew that it was okay to spend x amount but I think there are a lot of people who are they have that mentality like okay well, we're just gonna for the price of the board game.
Speaker 2:I got 10 things yeah I would have paid 20. I only paid two, so now I can spend 18 more I saw something today that okay so.
Speaker 4:So how are you? Um, like I'll be honest, like with my wife? She is just so centered on finances, like she's so good at it, then for me it's easy, because I just she does tells me to do so you, she has been that way since she has been. Yeah, but the her it's a natural thing and to I'm like without her.
Speaker 2:I would be that person that would go and spend, I would get on eBay and buy things I don't need. Right, okay, when I was young, I never budgeted.
Speaker 4:So if you have a couple like that, or-.
Speaker 2:You have a spender and a saver.
Speaker 4:Or if you have two people that are both spenders, what are you doing to what's like the first steps to get those two to see things?
Speaker 2:So the very first thing that they have to do is they have to realize that it's a problem. And I am the spender in my wife and I's marriage and she is the saver, so we've always been that way. However, there is also two terms that Dave Ramsey uses. You have the free spirit and you have the nerd, the nerd. Okay, the nerd loves the budget portion. They love the money, they love to be able to look at it. The free spirit is kind of like eh, I don't care, but a free spirit can also be the saver and not the spender. So it's.
Speaker 2:They sometimes can be backwards. It's not often that you have two people in a marriage who want to spend, because those marriages usually end badly because money problems are the number one cause of divorce in America, and so when two people who can't manage a budget or can't manage money together, they typically end up separated because it never gets better. So it's very seldom that you ever have that. It can happen, but somebody at some point has to wake up and realize this doesn't work. We're living paycheck to paycheck or, like Dawn said earlier, it's exchange day, not payday. When I get paid and 70, 80% of my paycheck goes back out in payments, that's a bad day, and so the realization doesn't start until somebody wakes up and says we can't keep doing this because we can't make our mortgage, we can't pay rent, we can't make the car payment. That's the biggest part, is the realization. It was really hard for me to realize that I was the spender in our relationship because I'm also the breadwinner and so I'm entitled to spend that money right?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I'll tell Margie that one.
Speaker 2:Well, that's what I'm saying. It's easy to think but it's hard to be realistic, because when you have to make a mortgage payment or a car payment or pay the gas, water, electric, whatever it may be, I don't have a right to spend it just because I've earned it. I have a responsibility to care for my family first.
Speaker 1:Well, and if you're going to use a credit card, you better be paying it off at the end of the month.
Speaker 2:Don't be carrying that over and accruing all of that, all of that even better, just don't use a credit card exactly alissa and I unless you're like financially stable and know what the heck you're doing.
Speaker 5:But most people don't well.
Speaker 2:But here's another thing with young people they get that credit card and they get, say, a three thousand dollar we just need to play the dave ramsey course and they'll play the video, you know, and they'll think, yeah, think yeah, 200 bucks.
Speaker 4:Yeah, $500. Yeah, $800. I'll pay it next month. Before you know it, it's maxed out. Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:And sometimes maxed out is only $400 or $800 because they don't get a large credit line, right, but you can't afford to make that payment. We were talking in the Dave Ramsey class. This is. It's ridiculous how, when you think about this so he has a list of excuses people use as to why they should have credit cards, or a list of excuses on why I can't save. Okay, and one of the things is I use my credit card to get the points.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:Alyssa and I are like that Like if a card comes out where you can get 5% cash back, we'll sign up for that card, put everything for an entire 60, 90 days, whatever that period is on that card, but we pay it off every month. Well, the problem is is we have a TJX credit card. Okay, you get whatever cash back for every hundred dollars you spend. You get a dollar, something like that. So we get a $10 gift certificate at the end of every month to use however we want at TJX. So we we got our $10 gift certificate or ten dollar thing in the email, but we forgot to make payment. 32 late fee.
Speaker 5:That ten dollars that I got I just lost plus twenty dollars, because I just did that at cole's.
Speaker 2:I was like how obnoxious and it feels like so defeating. When that happens, yes, and there's nothing you can do, you just eat. Now. Sometimes, if it's been once, like every year, you can have them wipe away one late fee, but oftentimes they won't if you don't have an outstanding balance, because they're not collecting your money otherwise. And so, basically, for me, what it has boiled down to is we're just not using credit cards anymore, so we re-debt snowballed.
Speaker 2:My wife and I have been out of debt for a long time, generally speaking. I mean, we still have her van, but we are determined that we're going to pay that thing off before it's due to be paid off. We're already a month ahead. So in our app it tells us like, hey, you're going to pay off your car a month early. We're going to pay it off in half of the time. That is our goal, because we know that once we do that, I think her payment is 500 bucks a month, probably a little under that. I think we pay 500 a month, but it's like 410 or something like that. If we could pay that off in half the time, I have 400 extra dollars a month that I can spend on whatever I want, on whatever I want.
Speaker 5:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Yep, and no person or family can live in this world without debt, not true. Well.
Speaker 2:I don't know.
Speaker 4:But I have to say though Millionaires can who Millionaires? I don't know. They got to have some debt.
Speaker 2:No, they don't. Why do they have to have debt?
Speaker 4:You'd be surprised. They choose to have debt they don't have to Right.
Speaker 2:Okay, they don't have to.
Speaker 4:For.
Speaker 1:Alyssa and I I chose to go buy a vehicle.
Speaker 4:I'm not going with the million, I'm talking everyday people.
Speaker 2:Alyssa and I wouldn't have to be in debt Other than our mortgage. We would not have to be in debt. But we make bad choices that put us in debt. I'm saying there on it, so I'm giving my hard-earned money to somebody else. So the only justifiable debt that I will say is a car payment and a house payment, and even Dave Ramsey will tell you those are not justifiable. He'll say it's fine, like we understand it. We understand that there's a need for it, but pay off your car early and every extra payment that you. Let me Google this real quick because I don't remember the exact statistic.
Speaker 1:But on a home loan, yeah, my son's a math guy. He works it out for me all the time. Mom have you paid an extra payment yet Mom have you. You can be out of debt seven years sooner, or 12 years sooner, or he's always figuring it out for me.
Speaker 2:Looking at this real quick If you pay an extra $100 a month on your mortgage, you can pay off your mortgage four and a half years early and save $26,500 in interest An extra $100 a month. Now the trick is is some loan companies make that virtually impossible, because if you just put an extra $100 on your payment, they don't apply it to the principal. What they do is they apply it to the next month's payment, and so they don't allow you to do that. You have to actually call and tell them you want that.
Speaker 1:I want it to go on.
Speaker 2:I want that on the principal and they do that on purpose because they don't want you out of debt. So good debt and bad debt, I would say. There's justifiable debt and then there's ignorant debt, and ignorant debt oftentimes happens because we aren't taught any better. How many of us got a finance class in school?
Speaker 5:I did.
Speaker 2:I did not. I took business math my senior year of high school, which everybody made fun of me for, but you know what it taught me? How to balance a checkbook.
Speaker 5:And you do. You want to know something crazy. I think this teacher was like a year and a half, did the personal finance because it was a semester, so he did like three classes, like I was one of the three and he taught Dave Ramsey.
Speaker 2:Yeah, aaron told me the same thing. He took a personal finance class in high school and it was Dave Ramsey style Mm-hmm. So Dave Ramsey is seven steps? Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 2:Step number one is baby. Step Number one save $1,000. Put $1,000 in your savings account and you want to do that in under 30 days, as fast as humanly possible. That is your emergency fund. So in the event that you need a tire on your car or the event that a water line breaks at your house, you have $1,000 to cover whatever is there. Line breaks at your house, you have $1,000 to cover whatever is there. Now if in that 30 days you spend that on an emergency, you have to put that back. You have to build that back up. The goal is to always have $1,000 in there.
Speaker 2:Baby step number two is to snowball all of your debt you pay off. You don't get to make extra payments on anything. There's no extra spending. Basically, you go to bare bones and take your smallest amount of debt first you pay it off. So let's say you have a credit card that has $1,000 on it. Your minimum payment is $45. You put $45 plus anything extra that you have hanging out Like, let's say, I have an extra $100 this month, I'm going to put $145 on that card. You're going to make the minimum payments on all your other cards. You're going to take everything and you're going to attack that first one. As soon as that one's paid off, you're going to take the minimum payment on that card, the 45 that you were making plus the 100 that you had, so now 145, plus the minimum payment on the current card. So maybe we're at 190 now and we're going to pay that one off. And we're going to keep compounding that until we get to the very last one, which typically for most people is their car payment. And you're going to pay off that one medical debt. Maybe, if there's a large amount of medical debt, you're going to pay off all of those before you're allowed to do anything else. Now that we were watching class, there was a lady and a husband, there was a guy and a lady on there. They were almost $500,000 in debt, not including their mortgage. Seven and a half years. They paid it all off. That's insane.
Speaker 2:But they talk about gazelle intensity and if you want it, you will do it, you will chase it, and the concept is the cheetah is always faster than the gazelle, the cheetah being the bank, the gazelle being you and you're just running from the cheetah constantly and the cheetah just desperately wants to hold you down. But the gazelle being you and you're just running from the cheetah constantly and the cheetah just desperately wants to hold you down. But the gazelle has a stronger endurance. The cheetah can run faster, but not for as long. So eventually the cheetah gets tired and the gazelle keeps moving. If you want to be out of debt, you have to move with gazelle intensity. You have to be constantly working to pay off those debts. Alyssa and I re-debt snowballed. We haven't put them all on physically, on paper yet, but like she pulled up what she knows that we have and I've got what I know that we have and it's nuts how much money we have in debt. You don't cause. You don't realize how fast it happens. Yeah.
Speaker 4:But basically you're saying in the beginning you got to go on a financial fast.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, yes so you have somebody budget too, because if you don't know, if you don't know what you've got and what you are actually spending.
Speaker 2:So one of the couples in the class um, the husband and wife aren't both taking the class, it's just the husband right now and because the wife isn't able to be here in the evenings. And he was saying that they buy three Starbucks a day at roughly $6 a Starbucks. And three a day, three a day, seven days a week, seven days a week Per person. No, just one of them, the couple.
Speaker 4:They get three Starbucks a day. Okay.
Speaker 2:Seven days a week and they can't figure out why they don't have any money. We did the math on it and it's almost $500 a month. $500 a month on coffee Learn how to make coffee at home.
Speaker 4:Starbucks coffee nevertheless.
Speaker 2:And the problem is it's not likely even a coffee. It's a fruity drink of some sort that you could probably get on Google and figure out how to make at home. The problem is we don't want to think about what we're spending because it's well, it's only $6. $6 three times a day, like when you walk into Starbucks and they know you by name $6, $6, $6, $6, $6, $6, $6, $6, $6, $6, $6, $6, $6, $6, $6, $6, $6, $6, $6, $6, $6, $6, $6, $6, $6, $6, $6, $6, $6, $6, $6, $6, $6, $6, $6, $6, $6, $6, $6, $6, $6, $6, $ to get back and forth to work. Can we carpool? Can we take this vehicle less because it uses more gas? Like looking at figuring out how we can limit each of those categories.
Speaker 2:And Ramsey does a zero base budget. So basically, what they want from you is the bottom line of your budget needs to sit at zero dollars. That doesn't mean you have zero dollars. That means that you have told every dollar where it's going. So your first line is always giving. Your second line is always saving.
Speaker 2:How much am I giving? So if I make $1,000 and I'm giving 10%, $100 needs to go to my tithe. Then my giving should be at or my saving should be at 10%. Now that's assuming you're done with baby step one and we're working on baby step two. Now you don't have to save that right then you actually should be using that to apply it to your debt snowball. But you're looking at that number as this is what we have extra.
Speaker 2:And then you go through every line item and if you're saying at the end of the month, I don't have enough money to pay the gas, I don't have enough money to pay the electric, that means your extra spending money or your going out money or your Hulu subscription or your Netflix subscription they're gone. That's it, they're gone. You don't get to. And he always talks about ish, you can't do it, ish, you can't do it halfway, you can't. You can't negotiate what works and what doesn't work. Some people say, well, I have this couch from Rent-A-Center. I have to keep the couch. No, you freaking, don't Send the couch back. Sit on the floor, get some lawn chairs. There was one lady who said she didn't have any furniture in her house for almost seven years.
Speaker 1:People would ask her how long have you lived here?
Speaker 2:Yeah, she said just because it wasn't a value to her and I was going to say.
Speaker 4:Probably one of the bigger challenges in this day and age is everybody wants the latest update.
Speaker 2:Yep, whether it's your phone Talks about that too the watch you know all these things.
Speaker 4:Everybody feels like they have to have.
Speaker 2:You got to keep up with the neighbor, you got to keep up with the Joneses. So I mean.
Speaker 4:I can imagine the amount of money you spend just to keep up.
Speaker 2:Now the crazy part is when you think about the debt snowball and you actually put your eyes on how much money you owe other people, you're surprised at like, what have I done to myself? Because the Bible tells us. How does it say it? The borrower is slave to the debtor. So every person that you owe money to you're kind of their slave. If you don't make your payment on time, you're going to pay them extra for that. If you don't, whatever. Now what's even harder for me to understand is like how we borrow money from individuals Like I'll go like oh man, you know what. I'm really strapped this weekend. Can I borrow a hundred bucks and I loan you a hundred bucks and then you go get three Starbucks this week. Or I loan you a hundred bucks and you go do you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Like you better be able to give it because you never get it back, that's exactly right.
Speaker 2:That's exactly right, and the hard part for me, though, is that my heart is always like today, Alyssa and I bought cat food for some people. In that thing, I always want to give. Um, we helped a couple with their electric, but we always want to be able to give. But there are times that we don't always give and we make agreements, but when people don't follow through on that and you look, you're looking and going, wow, why are we doing this? Like when we know that people are not making good financial decisions, it makes it really hard to like wrap your head around. Why do people borrow money like that when you know you can't pay it back? Why and we do it because it's easy we borrow it and then we hope that that person gets mad at us and we never see him again in the rest of our lives.
Speaker 4:You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Because now I just got that money for nothing, it's true, and maybe we don't actually want them to be mad at us, but it becomes uncomfortable. Those relationships become awkward, right.
Speaker 1:Very much so.
Speaker 2:I don't loan money to family. I will gift money to family I've. I will gift money to family. I will not loan money to family. Um, alissa's sister, my sister-in-law I don't know why I always do that it's my sister-in-law, alissa's sister, her stepson, was in a traumatic injury at work. Her and her husband were both off of work, at the hospital with him for an extended period of time.
Speaker 2:And I was driving home one day and I called Alyssa and I was like hey, I feel like you know, we probably need to help your sister out. We probably need to give her a little bit of money to. And she's like well, yeah, I was thinking about it too. She's like what do you think? And she gives me a number and but they've got gas, water, electric. They have to have gas back and forth up and down. And I said to her I said you know, we need to give them. This is what I feel like we need to give them. She agreed, we took cash out of the bank, we put it in an envelope, we drove to her work and I handed it to her and I said but if you tell anybody that I gave this to you, I will call you a liar Because I didn't want Alyssa Brothers to know that we have the ability to give because then everybody wants right.
Speaker 2:And so both her and her husband called and texted me and said we can't accept this, it's too much. And I said, no, you can and you will, because otherwise you're not going to pay your bills Right. Like his recovery is more important to us than that. That was a gift. Never want to see it again. They both smoke and they drink. It doesn't bother me a bit. Do you know why it doesn't bother me? Because I walked into that knowing that it was a gift yeah.
Speaker 2:It's always uncomfortable when I to us and asked yeah, and that's a fair point, and so. It's just really hard sometimes whenever you're in those situations and you're trying to navigate it from an emotional standpoint after the fact. Right, yeah, so that's a challenge. But it's also when you're looking at finances from that debt snowball standpoint or from that standpoint of how do we pay our debt back. You have to decide what is the most important thing to pay back. You should always go from smallest to largest. But at the same time, if your car is broken down, sometimes that needs to be your priority, right, like we might have to ish to get the car fixed so I can get back and forth to work, so that I can afford to finish that snowballing, because if I don't go to work I'm going to lose my job. I lose my job, I've got no money. I've got no money.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:All of this is for not.
Speaker 1:And how willing are you to pick up an extra job?
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:That side job so you can start to pay off more quicker.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 5:Yeah, DoorDash Instacart.
Speaker 2:Go to McDonald's and work a six-hour shift in the evening. I promise you McDonald's ain't going to turn you away. I don't care who you are. Mcdonald's will take just about anybody. And I'm not being mean to McDonald's. They need the help right.
Speaker 2:And so if you could go work a couple of hours at McDonald's where you can come and go. You're not. I don't have to be a supervisor, I don, I have to be. If I can, just may I take your order and punch it into the little screen Like, come on, and even if I'm making minimum wage, if I'm doing that three or four nights a week and I'm bringing home some extra cash, that's now either going to the savings account or to the debt snowball. Lord, have mercy. You're doubling your chances of getting out of debt.
Speaker 2:But the problem is is the world teaches us that we should live in debt? Yeah, the slogan is I want to live like no other, so I can live like no other. I will live with no furniture, I will live with one car, I will live with an old TV, I will live with whatever the oldest iPhone that I can get in order to be able to get out of debt, and then I can have the biggest TV and I can have all of the nicest things because I can pay cash for it. I can go and pay cash for it.
Speaker 1:And I was taught that growing up as a child, my dad, that was his belief If you didn't have cash for it, you didn't need it. You might want it, but you didn't need it. So we weren't raised with credit cards.
Speaker 2:My dad was not a credit card guy, so that's instilled by your parents. But we don't talk about finance. That's the most we say. And then you grow up and a lot of times you go to college. First thing that you see whenever you go to college is those credit card tables set up where they're getting these college students to sign up for credit cards, and again small limits where they're getting these college students to sign up for credit cards, and again small limits. But once they've got you, they got you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I got my first one, my senior year Fashion bug. I had to have that. I had to have that leather jacket that fashion bug.
Speaker 2:It's crazy to think about and I just go-.
Speaker 1:I think it was a $400 limit, oh geez, how much was your leather jacket?
Speaker 2:200. Jeez, but still you're 50% maxed out on the card. So then, the first thing that happens, you're already 50% and they don't want you more than 20 or 30% of your credit line credit limit. Cause you go more than 20 or 30% of your credit limit.
Speaker 1:your risk and you know I was only making the minimum payment back then I was working as an aid, making 365 an hour, certainly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So I was making. How much did I pay for that coat?
Speaker 2:Yes, exactly by the end of the time, by the time you paid off that coat. It's the same with Rent-A-Center. Anybody who's renting stuff from Rent-A-Center, take it back now. You don't need it. I don't care what it is, you don't need it. It's washer and dryer. Go to the laundromat. It is cheaper for you to go. I don't have time to go to the laundromat. You'll find time. If you realize how much money you're losing, you will find. Go buy a used washer and dryer.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, you don't need a brand new one. I did that yeah.
Speaker 2:You don't need bought a used one. You know why we bought a used one so that we could buy a brand new one when we bought a new house, like we knew what we wanted but we couldn't afford it at that time. So sometimes you make a sacrifice. Yeah, we jokingly, because Alyssa doesn't really.
Speaker 3:She stays at home with the kids Now.
Speaker 2:They have piano and they have soccer or football practice Good Lord, basketball practice, gymnastics, all of those things. I'm like let's just sell your van and only have one car for a while. She looks at me. She's like are you a fool? She said, first of all, not all seven of us can fit in your car, but we're also less than a year from paying it off. Why wouldn't we just really attack that payment and pay it off? And I'll tell you it feels so good. So we're out of the cycle. On Dave Ramsey.
Speaker 4:So what happened.
Speaker 2:We put our thousand dollars in savings account, we snowballed our debt, we were debt free, moved on to baby step number three, which was to have three to six months of expenses in the savings account. So we're already there. We've already got that. The problem is is we built up debt again, so now we've got to go back to baby step number two before we can start investing. So, and then we really screwed that up, like, so we had a I mean, we had a genius plan. We were going to be out of debt in three or four months, like we had this plan. And then, yeah, seriously, it was genius. It was genius, it was going to work and we knew we were going to be able to do it. And then I gave back half of my church salary to the church. Why would I do that?
Speaker 1:Because the church is indebted.
Speaker 2:I know I know Tithe people tithe yeah, because the church is in desperate need. I know I know Tithe people tithe yeah, tithe people. Write your checks PO Box 230.
Speaker 6:Jarvie has done the Dave Ramsey and that first year we were married I'm telling you it was about divorce court Because we did the envelope system. Oh yeah, and it was horrible.
Speaker 2:But was it better to have the fight up front?
Speaker 6:It was.
Speaker 2:It was better to say I don't like what you value versus what I value than to get to the end of this and go. We're flat broke and I hate you Because that's what it boils down to. When you get to the end of the rope, when you are just flat broke, there's no money to spare. We're fighting over whether or not we're going to buy milk or sweet tea and we don't know whether or not we're going to be able to put gas in your car or my car, and I just can't stand to look at you anymore, right, right, we finally come to peace with that.
Speaker 6:Okay, these bills are your responsibility and these are mine, that's exactly how we do it, and I have my money. He's got my money.
Speaker 2:He's got his money, we I've got my money, that's I I can save a little bit, but I'm not saving like he does and that's what you have a 401k at work, yes, and they match that and you, you max that out plus some, yes, so you're still doing, you're still making smart, long-term, yeah decisions. You're not just going well, I don't have to save because he's saving. I don't have to to invest, because he's investing. You're still being responsible, but your your budget just has a little more fun money than maybe his has.
Speaker 6:And you keep the health insurance. I keep the health. I paid for the health insurance.
Speaker 2:Make him pay his half.
Speaker 6:He might, he might make me my my own car payment. Oh yeah, Never mind, Never mind.
Speaker 2:Never mind.
Speaker 6:And I don't put my own gas in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, never mind, don't, don't, don't upset the apple cart.
Speaker 3:There's no reason for that you always try to cause trouble. I know, I know.
Speaker 6:But he has done that system and it works. Where him and I will have a little bit of spat now and then, yeah, it's like when we want to go on vacation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's what Nick was just getting ready to talk about.
Speaker 6:He's like well, you get a paid vacation and I don't Right, you're self-employed, okay, pay yourself, beth, I'm like looking at a mirror right now you can pay yourself okay.
Speaker 5:Yeah.
Speaker 6:Well, it just don't work that way. You just don't understand. When I take a week off, I lose X amount of money.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 6:And you're not.
Speaker 2:I'm like it's just that's why I work extra hours, so I can take vacations.
Speaker 4:So, nick, you were getting ready to say that vacation. Well, I think vacation could be another problem for people as far as spending, because you think, well, we got to take that vacation every year, we have to do something. We're gonna get. I'm gonna get mean um my wife. You know, over the past couple years, like we're going to maine this year, so we've already found um our airbnb, so we know how much it's going to cost up front, so we know how many people are going and we pretty much already paid the deposit up front with cash, like we didn't put it on a credit card.
Speaker 2:Good for you.
Speaker 4:So we have a little more to pay, I think in September.
Speaker 6:Yep.
Speaker 4:So yeah, her mindset is whatever vacation we're taking, we're not just going to throw all the expenses on a credit card.
Speaker 2:Just hope for the best. We're going to pay it off with cash now.
Speaker 4:And before the vacation we're going to have a budget. So by the time we get to vacation, it's going to be paid Plus we should have cash to spend when we're there. We should have cash to spend when we're there. We're not just going to plan the vacation and then we'll pay it with a credit card when we get there.
Speaker 2:So I completely agree with that. This is a falsehood, but it's a falsehood that I live under. When we go on vacation, everything goes on one credit card Goes on our Discover card or Huntington card, whatever, and when we get home we know that we've got the cash to pay it off. But I feel like I have to have the security of that credit card so, in the event that there's bank fraud or something like that, that I'm protected. Now, that's a lie that your debit card is equally as is protected. But if, for some reason, they drain my bank account or my savings account or whatever, I'm going to freak out.
Speaker 1:Oh, I would too.
Speaker 2:And so that's why when we bought our first house, we had all of our savings was in our online discover savings account substantial sum of money in this online savings account that we had been building up the down payment for this house. The problem is it takes like three to five days to transfer that money out of that account, which we did that on purpose, because then we couldn't spend it right. If I was like, oh, that's five hundred dollars, we'll just take it out of the savings but you have to wait, I have to wait three to five days now I thought about it and I don't want it that bad.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't want it that bad. The problem was was somebody hacked my email, got all of the documents that I had sent to our loan officer my social security card, my driver's license. They got into my Huntington account or into my Discover account and they took money out of our savings. Now, fortunately, we got it all back, but in the midst of buying a house, having to tell them I've lost my down payment and discover is going to give it back, but this is a battle Like it was traumatic and so, like I've got this, like I have to have security in all ways. But that's how typically how we do it. But now I want to ask a question that is not a popular question. Can you push that door shut? The rest of the way? I know people are going to start coming in. Thank you, I asked my wife this and she was not happy with the question. Are poor people entitled to entertainment?
Speaker 4:What are you saying?
Speaker 5:Are rich people entitled to entertainment?
Speaker 2:What I mean is if you can't afford it, do you get to do it? No, and here's what I mean You're flat broke. You don't get to go to a football game. You're flat broke. You don't get to go see a movie.
Speaker 1:There was a lot of times my kids didn't have cable Right we were watching.
Speaker 2:VHS. Watching VHS and DVDs that we've watched a hundred you can go to the library and get it, because you're going to get it for free.
Speaker 5:That's how Chase's mom still is. She still goes to the library and gets to read. We do too.
Speaker 2:We don't buy books in our house. We go to the library. Why would I buy a book that I'm only going to read one time when I can go to the library and get it for free? It doesn't make sense to me. I like books and it's different if you know you're going to read it time and time again, and maybe you. But can you afford? It is the question. So people obsess over certain things like oh, I want to have a Blu-ray collection like nobody's ever had before the impulse buy Correct, yes, exactly.
Speaker 2:And poor people think that well, so-and-so got to go on a vacation, I should get to go on a vacation. I want to go to Disney because so-and-so gets to go to Disney and they plan these elaborate trips, they put them on credit or they finance them and they can't make the payment. Now they go and they have a great time. But here's what I've learned Disney is not the happiest place on earth when you go there in debt.
Speaker 5:No, no, we don't.
Speaker 2:I wasn't even in debt when I went. You go to Disney World knowing that you just spent $10,000 that's on a credit card and you can't make that payment. Guess what? You aren't going to have fun. No, you might have a little bit of fun while you're there, but when you come back it's going to set in. You just spent a lot of money that you can't afford to spend.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I have a lot of people say to me you take a lot of vacations, yeah right and I can afford it and I'm like, well, everything. He just wants me to go down to meet a realtor and help him find a house. It's free.
Speaker 2:Does he need my help?
Speaker 1:I'm happy to come help. I go to my cousins, it's free.
Speaker 2:They've got their condo on the beach, me and her sister and I we go down spending money whatever we want to spend, yes, on stuff that I want to buy once I get there. So the problem is, though, is oftentimes we think that we're entitled to it. I should be allowed to have, or I should be able to go and do, or I should get because somebody else has gotten. That's not how it works, folks. If you're broke, you're broke because of bad choices that you've made.
Speaker 1:I work 16 hours a day. If I want to take a vacation, I'm going to.
Speaker 2:I think that I spilled my coffee all over myself. I got so excited about this conversation. I have never in my life that's not true. In my younger days I would look at things and go I want that because I saw that somebody else had it and really I was really bad with my phones. Every time a new phone came out I wanted to get a new phone. Now I'm like you know what? I don't even know what the new one does.
Speaker 2:anyway, it's got an extra camera on it. I've got like 12 pictures in my camera roll, so I don't use the camera.
Speaker 4:I don't want to relearn a new phone.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, I don't need that no me, neither Right.
Speaker 1:It's awful when I have to learn a new one.
Speaker 2:But when you can find that I don't have to keep up with somebody else, like there's that piece that says I'm going to be better off because I didn't and don't get me wrong.
Speaker 4:Well, you made the great point that a lot of times if you couldn't draw that money out for three or five days, when you have that impulse you decide like yeah, I really wanted it three days ago, but now it's like yeah, yeah, I kind of maybe still want it, but not really Like I don't have to have it. To break that cycle is very hard. Yep, I had to go into Staples the other day.
Speaker 2:I don't remember what I was going and looking for, but I ran in to look for something and as I'm coming back through, I see the iPads. Now my iPad is two years old and it was top of the line two years ago, and now they have one that's like 12 inches and mine's only like nine and a half, and so it's like a TV screen.
Speaker 4:And I was like I want one of those.
Speaker 2:And I'm sitting there and I'm holding it and I'm flipping it over and I'm looking at the price it's $1,500. And I'm like $1,500.
Speaker 4:How many hours do I have to work?
Speaker 2:to pay for that.
Speaker 4:That's Margie's one of her favorite lines is anytime, even if you go out to eat you're going to be, like it is.
Speaker 1:Put it into that perspective.
Speaker 4:I worked eight hours to eat that meal.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 4:Yep, and I don't like to live that way. That's the kind of mentality like okay, it's not think that way on everything you don't.
Speaker 2:but there is a healthy amount of that.
Speaker 4:It does make you think, though, like wow, well, I really had a bad day at work so I could sit at Texas roadhouse for 40 minutes Yep and spend that whole eight hours and and eat this six-ounce sirloin.
Speaker 2:That really wasn't that good and I had to listen to him sing happy birthday 14 times and now I'm angry anyway, and wait a half hour to 40 minutes to get to table.
Speaker 4:So yeah, it does put in perspective.
Speaker 2:Here's when I think it's healthy to do that. When you're about to make an impulse buy, that's when I think it's the most healthy.
Speaker 2:So my problem is I don't do that on the impulse buy. I only do it on the stuff I don't have to do it on. Let's say, you know that you need a particular tool to do a job around the house, so I go to Menards to buy said tool. So I'm going to say a chop saw, because I just recently bought myself a miter saw. I walk into Menards and I'm like holy smokes, look at that thing, $499, that's the one I'm buying. And then I'm looking down the row and I'm like why is that one? Only 70 bucks? That's the one you buy. And I'm like $70, like that doesn't make any sense. Like it looks like it does the exact same thing as that one. I bought the $70 saw and I was like, and I'm thrilled with it, I'm like it's still better than anything I had, because I didn't have one at all. When you can put it into perspective 70 versus 500 and how much work, how much longer I have to work to pay for that $500. I'm going to take the $70 one all day long.
Speaker 5:Now you couldn't have rented it, could you? I know, even if I could have, roger and I were using it enough at the time in the building that it just made sense to have one, because he was hauling his back and forth too.
Speaker 2:Mine lived here for six months.
Speaker 5:I was just bringing up a good point, because a lot of people don't know that. Go and rent it, yeah, yes, well, you can even rent stuff at like boniface mhs hardware and you can rent just about anything too, anything you need.
Speaker 2:And if you can't rent it, try to borrow it from a friend, but be sure, sure to return it, because there's nothing worse than somebody borrowing something Not broken. Yes, right, borrow it and doesn't return it. Although Roger borrowed my hammer drill and burned it up so I had to throw it in the trash, that's because you bought it at a pawn shop. But again, I knew I needed a hammer drill for two jobs that I knew that I needed it for. And I was like you know what? For $9 versus $45, I'm going to take the $9 one. It made it through five or six jobs, burn up, threw it in the dumpster, didn't care.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Because a $45 one probably would have burned up on those jobs too. We were putting it through the paces, but figuring out the priority on what you're going to spend your money on becomes a large portion of it too. You know, if you're young and you have, you're just starting a family formula is expensive. Think about that Whenever you're, whenever you're starting to to plan um, diapers are expensive. Think about that, don't. Don't overextend yourself just because you want this one thing Like I.
Speaker 4:I'm all about and I thing like I, I'm all about. And I think another thing to add for young people is really think about this stuff, because if you're not ready, uh, for those financial commitments of, say, diapers and don't have kids and all those things yep, yeah. Well then you know, think about where you're going and what you're doing yep because yeah, if you want to be young for a while and have your own money and do your own thing, that's okay, we can do an episode on how babies are made, if we need to.
Speaker 2:I don't feel like that's necessary, but there are people who don't think about that before they start doing it. And then all of a sudden yeah.
Speaker 5:That was kind of Chase's reason why he wanted to wait until he was 30.
Speaker 2:He's like I just wanted to get my fun out of the way he wanted to be able to buy his sports cards and his collectibles and all of that. That's okay. There's nothing wrong with that Right. Yeah, you better be ready, and really, where you get into a problem, and again, if you can afford it, it's fine, but if you can't, you shouldn't, and that's you have a baby. And then you keep doing those things.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:You don't work like that.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It doesn't work like that at all. Yeah, so if you're a Dave Ramsey person, work the program and don't ish it. Just do it right. Start at the beginning $1,000, snowball your debt and then move to step three where you're putting three to six months worth of income and when you snowball your debt you're paying off everything except your house. You are not paying off your house everything except your house. You were not paying off your house.
Speaker 2:There was one lady in the video that sold her car because she had a payment on it. She sold it and went and bought an old hoopty and drove that bad boy so that she wouldn't have the car at the end of the snowball to have to worry about paying off. She saved that money on that car payment, paid cash for the car that she was driving and then used that car payment that she was making every month to snowball that debt down. It's the smartest thing you can do. Like don't, don't, overextend yourself. Car payments are. Remember that your car will depreciate if you buy a brand new car. Don't ever do that. Don't ever do that. Five years or five years is kind of the sweet spot. Three years and less they still will depreciate pretty quickly, but in the first five years a car will depreciate like 80% of its value or something crazy like that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, either at the end of this year beginning yeah, I think it was toward the end of last year. Uh, parkway had, I think it was, a 2024 charger bright green.
Speaker 4:And it was all wheel drive. I know which one you're talking about. I remember and margie and I went to the lot several times just to look at it and I'm like I really like that car. I really like that car. And we kept going to look at it. And I'm not saying we were seriously thinking about buying, but we were like considering yeah, certainly, you know, and I'm thinking about thinking about it. But as the weeks went on, I thought, yeah, I like the car, but I guarantee after a few weeks it's going to lose that luster.
Speaker 2:And then it's just going to be a vehicle.
Speaker 4:It's just a car, and then I'm going to have that payment.
Speaker 2:My Tesla. I washed that thing twice a week. When I first got it, that thing on the inside was spotless.
Speaker 4:When I first got it. Get in there now. There's a half a box of french fries scattered out under the backseat. That's exactly how my mind was working, Like yep, I know for a while I'll keep that thing spick and span, but after a while it'll be just another vehicle and it's a money pit because if you want to keep that thing when I went shopping for mine.
Speaker 1:I was looking for a used car. That was my intent, Three years Under 50,000 miles. But when I got out there, the three-year 50,000-mile was $1,000 less than the brand name.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's the unfortunate part about the market right now. Was it a Honda? No, it's subaru, which is just as bad. Yeah, used cars right now are high because there aren't enough of them to go around, so I sold my. So when, when I got my tesla, we sold my jeep, I had a um cherokee it was a jeep cherokee overland, not a grand cherokee, just just a Jeep Cherokee Overland.
Speaker 2:So it was the highest package you could get in the Cherokee. It was a 2021, 2022, something like that. I can't remember for sure. No, it must have been a 2021. And we paid cash for it. The company that bought it paid cash for it. I drove the wheels off that thing. I mean, I beat the snot cash for it. The company that bought it paid cash for it. I drove the wheels off that thing. I mean I beat the snot out of it. It had 115,000 miles when we sold it. Sold it for $17,000. That car was $60,000 brand new. Sold it for $17,000. Bought it in 21,. Brand new in 21. Zero miles off the showroom floor in 21. I drove it for three years. It's worth nothing.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, it's worth nothing about the charger is after, in fact. Then I saw several of them on the road and I thought, well, it wouldn't be special anyway yeah, I thought I would everybody would be like look at me, I got this awesome car. Then I saw two or three more.
Speaker 2:I'm like the car conversation is an interesting one for me because I we have always had a car payment. I thought everybody would be like, look at me, I got this awesome car. Then I saw two or three more. I'm like the car conversation is an interesting one for me because we have always had a car payment. Alyssa and I have always had a car payment. When her and I first met, she had a Beretta that was forever old. I mean this thing like you couldn't play the radio because it had shorted out at some point, like it was a fire hazard.
Speaker 2:And when we got married I was insistent that she wasn't going to drive that thing. We were going to go get a new car and we did. We went and bought a Dodge Caliber at a buy here, pay here, because I didn't know any better, because, again, nobody told me that that's not how you buy a car, right? So I didn't understand financing a vehicle, any of that stuff. Two years later it gets repossessed because we can't make the almost $700 payment we're trying to make on this thing, because we aren't making nearly enough money to make that payment. So then we go and we buy another car. We get. It's slightly older, but it's a Chevy Impala. Nice car, not a bad little ride. Liked it Didn't love it, but liked it. So we bought that car, had it for six or eight months and the bank that we had the loan through called us and said hey, we noticed that you have some credit card debt. We'd love to give you a personal loan to pay off all of that credit card debt. That way we can consolidate your payment.
Speaker 3:Heck yes, bargain.
Speaker 2:Heck, yes, and so we do it. It's a signature loan, so we sign on the dotted line. We mail it back. Next thing we know all of our credit cards are paid off. Well, guess what we did?
Speaker 2:Ran them all back up, maxed them all right back out. Now I'm making minimum credit card payments, I'm making an installment loan and a car payment. We missed an installment loan payment. Guess what Took the car. I walked outside to go to work one date on the car loan. We missed one payment on that installment loan. We had no idea that the car was collateral on that loan, had no idea. Do you know how traumatizing that is? Oh, that would have been awful, I thought somebody stole it.
Speaker 2:I did Like. I walked outside and I said to Alyssa because we always parked it out on the road right in front of our house I walked outside and I said Alyssa, the car is gone. She goes what do you mean? The car Like it's not sitting out here. The car is gone. And she said well, that's not possible. I said to her. I said is the car payment? Did you make the car payment? And she said yes. She said I didn't make the loan payment, but I did make the car payment. So we called them and they're like yeah, we took it Middle of the night. Just came and took it, king like, so did you get Everything.
Speaker 2:I was behind on the installment loan plus make an extra payment, so that was their insurance policy. We couldn't, we couldn't afford to, so the only other option that we have at this point is let's start looking at bankruptcy. It was the worst thing that you could ever have to feel like we're young at this point, we're like we don't know what to do. Toys R Us at one point gave us a $20,000 credit limit. What On a credit card?
Speaker 5:twenty thousand dollars they're like you've got a lot of kids darn near maxed out, oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:Paid it off with an installment loan and darn near maxed it out again. Like we didn't walk away from any of this unscathed. Did you know what I mean? Like we aren't financially sound because we've just always known how right we've been through it. We have gone through it. I don't even remember we I mean we ended up filing bankruptcy.
Speaker 4:It was the worst feeling of my life so you have to go into this program saying, okay, there's no shame here, no, no, no, no, because bad people no, I I never.
Speaker 2:when we took financial peace university, at this point we've already uh, no, we hadn't filed bankruptcy at that point because we were like we're cutting up our credit cards because they have this like cut up thing. Oh, we're cutting up our credit cards and we're so excited to cut them up. I cut up every credit card. On the first night the pastor was teaching class. He's like I'm really proud of you guys. You cut up all those credit cards. You're really committed to this. I'm like oh, yeah, heck yeah, we're committed to this. No, like I had no sentimental attachment to the plastic because I couldn't use it right, like my life wasn't better off because of that, I was still in the same amount of debt.
Speaker 2:These are doubles well, there are people who do that go home and just order a new one, yeah, um, but no. So we end up filing bankruptcy, and my wife may not like me sharing any of this, I don't know. We end up filing bankruptcy and the day that we get discharged from bankruptcy, the day I'm talking, we, you, have to drive to Columbus to do all of this. We lived in Newark. We drive to Columbus, we sit in there and the judge it's like just a tiny little room. Our attorney, our bankruptcy attorney, was there. The judge was there. Judge is asking questions. There's a lady taking her little stenographer notes over there just clicking away, and he asked a series of questions. He's like okay, you guys are good, you know, we'll file all the paperwork, your debt will be discharged, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We walk out of there. We go to a dealership across town in Columbus. We buy a new car. Because what choice did we have?
Speaker 2:We didn't have a car, we couldn't go anywhere and the best time to buy it was immediately following the bankruptcy, because it wasn't yet on our credit report. Oh, because once it hit our credit report, there was no getting a car Like it was going to be. You can get one, right. That's what I was going to say. We couldn't physically afford anything other than what we were going to do, so we end up buying a car. By the time we got it home and like to one other stop, it had broken down.
Speaker 5:It's not a joke.
Speaker 2:Unfortunately I had a friend who was handy so he was able to get it fixed for us. But that van is still on the road. My dad owns it. Like that was. But it wasn't brand new. It was beat up. It didn't have all the things we wanted. It didn't have navigation, it didn't have satellite radio. It didn't have satellite radio. It didn't have, you know, bluetooth, right, but we needed a car. Yeah, best decision we've ever made we paid it off.
Speaker 4:I noticed you said bankruptcy lawyer. If you don't mind me asking, how much did that cost?
Speaker 2:It was a little over $1,000.
Speaker 4:So there you go. There's another. Yes, exactly Because you declare bankruptcy doesn't mean yeah, and this Because you declare bankruptcy doesn't mean yeah, and this isn't like the office.
Speaker 2:You don't just get to walk in and go I declare bankruptcy. It doesn't work like that. There's a process that you have to go through. You have to disclose all of your financial dealings. They have to know whether or not you've sold a vehicle, whether or not you've gifted money or received a gift of money. There's this very specific, stringent list of rules that you go through and like we had to give our bankruptcy attorney like three months worth of bank statements and anything that he felt like was going to get questioned, he would highlight and it was rough, it was, it was hard, but typically bankruptcy attorneys will let you make payments but they won't file your paperwork until you're paid off, Because they know you're not good for your debts.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean. Like they know that you're not going to make the payment, so they're not going to file for you until you're paid off. But that's when we got serious. We're like I need the $1,200, $1,500, whatever dollars it was to get out of this. Every penny that we have is going here until we're done. And that's exactly what we did. But when we came out of that, it still haunts us. I I could not get a disney credit card to save my life right now because they go back forever in a day and for whatever reason, our bankruptcy had like a 12-year discharge instead of a 8 or 10 year for whatever. I don't know why that happened, but like we looked at the paperwork and it's a 12 year discharge, 12 years before it comes off of our credit report, wow.
Speaker 4:So which is another great point. I mean, yes, it hurts, it hurts.
Speaker 5:I've had like two or three hard inquiries and I'm like but these things just fall off yeah, that's like 24 months, 28 months, something like that for hard inquiry.
Speaker 2:Every time you apply for a credit card, it holds onto your credit account. Every time you apply for a credit card, it holds onto your credit account. Now Dave Ramsey will tell you screw your FICO score, you don't need a FICO score. Again, it's a thing made up in the world that tells you basically how much interaction you have with debt. You acquire debt.
Speaker 2:To build a FICO score that allows you to acquire more debt is really all a FICO score is. If you want to buy a house without a FICO score, you have to find an underwriter that would just simply look at your finances. That's hard to find, but it can be done. He made the joke that if he goes over to an apartment complex and he applies to live there, he can't because he doesn't have a credit score. He could peel off enough cash to buy the building, but he can't get an apartment because he doesn't have a credit score. So the world has taught us that we have to have a credit score. And he said here's the thing If you don't like being debt free, it's fine, you can go right back in.
Speaker 6:You just jump right back in, if you don't like it, just jump back in, but try it, see how you do. Part of the reason Jarvie is so strict with everything is we built our dream home and in the middle of the housing, when the market crashed. Yeah, we had a $200,000 home that appraised at $100,000. Oh geez. And we lost it. Oh geez, because the company he worked for said we need this job done. You got to get this done. You got to put a midnight crew on afternoon crew.
Speaker 6:So we hired all these people, put them on. Three days later they filed bankruptcy on us.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh.
Speaker 6:So yeah, and then we, so we had that adjustable interest rate. Yeah, it went sky high.
Speaker 2:There are I. So when Alyssa and I bought our house the new house so when we bought our first house, we didn't know anything about buying house. Like we were living in a rental for my old boss and I was quitting that job and we knew we had to get out of there because you just there's like you have to just break the relationship at some point. So I knew we were headed out and we were looking at rentals and I talked to a buddy of mine who was like dude, you can buy a house. We were looking at rentals and I talked to a buddy of mine who was like dude, you can buy a house. He's like, it's not a big deal. You can buy a house, he's like, if you stay in this range, here's what you'll need to have as a down payment. You've got it, let's just buy a house, let's buy a freaking house then. So we bought a house. I had a 2% interest rate. It was like tiny little brick ranch one bath, three bedrooms, but the basement was wide open and we thought we could finish it. Well, the problem was, once we made the down payment, we had no money left. We couldn't do all of the things that we wanted to do, and so we always say that this was a God story because he knew what he was doing.
Speaker 2:Long before we knew what we were doing, we bought the house. Within 15 days of owning the house, it had gone from $130,000 house that we had bought to $250,000 house because the housing market went nuts during the pandemic and we bought right at the height of the pandemic. So we got this house at a 2% interest rate, nothing that we wanted, but it's now almost double in worth. When we sold that house to buy our new house, it was so like there was nothing to it. We had all the equity in the world.
Speaker 2:So the doubt. We didn't worry about the down payment. We didn't have to worry about any of the inspections or any of the stuff, because the money was there. He knew we couldn't live there forever. God knew we couldn't live there forever, but he also set us up for that financial freedom so that we didn't have to stress about the house that we knew we were going to end up in. So you know, and we we bought that house, didn't stress about it, and now we've done a ton of work to the lower level that paid cash for it.
Speaker 2:We didn't feel it. We didn't put it on a credit card where we're going to make this payment for the next six months, months. We put doors and windows in the old house and we Home equity line of credit. Don't do it, folks. Don't do it. It's a lie, it is all a lie. Don't do it. It's not good for you. It is not good for you Because all they want you to do is miss one payment we had. So they'd given us a thirty thousand dollar line. We only took 12,000 and that was to put in the doors and the windows. If I would have missed one payment, they would have taken my house $250,000 home they would have taken for $12,000.
Speaker 2:That's nuts, but that's what they want.
Speaker 6:It's how it works. Well when the bank foreclosed well we just did the surrender the. It was so irritating because I kept on telling him quit doing that, quit doing that. We built the house up on the hill, the bottom lot that had the trailer on that we lived in, with all of us in this trailer, why we built the house. He tore that all out and he built another house and paid cash for it as he went, as he went, they got both.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, and then they separate those lots and sell two different houses and they make a boatload of money.
Speaker 6:They did because it said on five acres.
Speaker 2:Yep Made a boatload of money. I'm telling you there's no debt. That really is supposed to be good for us. You know I was thinking about taxes. Today, alyssa and I were having this conversation. In the car I pay income tax, right. So in the car I pay income tax, right. So every penny that I make I pay the government for I pay property tax. Like everything that I make gets taxed in one way or another, and sometimes twice. I make the money to buy the house but now I have to pay the tax on the property that I own. Like it's crazy, the amount of money that we just give to other people. Don't do it more than you have to Stay away from credit cards. Stay away from loans as best you can. Sometimes like again, our house we had to get a loan for our house. We didn't have $300,000 in cash laying around.
Speaker 4:Most people do.
Speaker 2:Right, it's illogical, like most people are taking a loan to get their house. But be intentional about how you pay it off. Be aggressive with it. Extra $100 a month, make an extra like we make our house payment. This is new for us, scary too. We make our mortgage payment three months at a time.
Speaker 2:With my bonus check, I get a quarterly bonus. We take that bonus and we make three house payments, which we can do. Now they take it all at one time but they apply it over three months. So every dollar that we have coming in the rest of like whether it's church income, work income, whatever extra Elvis income, whatever extra money that we have is ours. It's free and clear to make other payments. We don't have to worry about that house payment anymore. Now, oddly enough, that are the bonus that I will get in March, which is the Q1 bonus. I'll get it in April, the Q1 bonus Q1 is quarter one is our slowest quarter in lodging. Obviously it's always a smaller bonus, but we'll also get our income tax about that same time, and so then we keep that income tax and then we keep that.
Speaker 2:Most people get that income tax back and they go and blow it. Keep that, you know most people get that income tax back, they go and blow it. Yeah, I know a couple that every year when they get their income tax back, they go back and they buy um annual passes to cedar point, but they can't afford to buy groceries. What do you like? Well, we're entitled to that. We're entitled to entertainment is the mindset you're Well.
Speaker 6:Your best time to buy new electronics is off of the sales sites, about a month after all. Oh yeah, yeah, they know, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because everybody goes out on income tax time and they buy Mac, books and televisions.
Speaker 4:Listen this.
Speaker 2:Mac book right here in front of us is a 2023. I bought it in the pawn shop for 700 bucks, paid cash for it. I sold my other macbook for the exact same price that I bought this one for. This is a 1500 computer brand. Now why would I ever go to apple and pay 1500 for when I can buy it somewhere else used for half the price? The problem is is people don't want to do that. I want the latest and the greatest and I want it new in the box so that I can feel special. It's not worth it. Yeah, like you said, get on Facebook three months after tax time and everybody's selling their 90-inch TVs because they can't make their payments anymore.
Speaker 4:Businesses are not having President Day sales because they're nice people.
Speaker 2:Yeah right, I know. Yes, they're convincing you to spend that hard-earned tax money at the store. Most people still can't afford to spend that money. So then they turn around and offload all the crap that they bought cheap three months later because they're desperate to make rent.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what part of our faith or what parts of our faith can really help us to start being financially sound or to stay financially sound? I mean, in that program, are there faith-based?
Speaker 2:themes. It's all faith-based, yes.
Speaker 4:What are the most important ones?
Speaker 2:You should be able to give like nobody else. You should be able to tithe 10% and never even know you're doing it.
Speaker 5:So the whole laughing situation yeah.
Speaker 2:Holly filled me in Okay.
Speaker 5:It was about my finances because I'm like I've have felt led to start doing my 10 again, like I wasn't doing the full 10 and what didn't you know? I'm like first thing it goes into, you know, into the church. I go on do it online, then I start paying my other ones and then I see my gas bill almost tripled basically, and I'm like and she's like you know what you do with that.
Speaker 5:She said I used to literally take my check to the bank, laughing at the devil the whole entire way, yeah, and signing it, laughing and everything, just because he's like he thinks he has a strong hold on you yeah and he doesn't.
Speaker 2:So I was like I never thought of it that way, you know it's fascinating how quickly, when somebody decides that they're going to be good stewards of their money, how quickly the enemy will try to take that away from them. And it's not just about tithing Again, it's about giving, even Above and beyond. When you see somebody in need and you want to give to them, it is so easy to go. Well, I can't really afford that. You can if you make better financial decisions.
Speaker 4:Or you think, okay, I'm, I'm gonna do this. And then all of a sudden, that thing that you've wanted for the longest time all of a sudden it shows up. Yep, it's there yep, either it's online or it's in a store or it's on quote-unquote sale yeah oh my gosh, I am after.
Speaker 2:I get this, I'll be good yeah I am, I am a sucker, for it was a good deal. I love to be able, like I go home with something and I'll be like look at this and Alyssa's like, well, how much did you pay for it? I'm like 200 bucks. She's like really $200?. I'm like, yeah, it was a great deal.
Speaker 5:And she's like it would have been a better deal if you wouldn't have bought it, which is the same thing. I come home and I'm like Chase, this is normally like $80. I got it for 20 years. He's like but did we need it? I'm like I don't know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we did that today.
Speaker 5:Did I need a tree skirt?
Speaker 2:No, not really. What did we go into Goodbyes for? I don't remember. She wanted to go there for something. Oh, we have this bougie calendar that hangs in our dining room, that our family schedule is on, okay, and she buys the same calendar from the same lady every year. It's got a leather strap on it and it's really pretty, but she likes the way it looks and she likes the size of the boxes and that she can write in it Yada, yada, yada, it's whatever Buy the calendar, I don't care. She uses a different color marker for every month. So, like next month is March, she needed a green marker. So she goes to Goodbuys and buys his felt tip markers that are. That's the one you were going to call. Yeah, twin City Target is what we called it.
Speaker 2:Because it's target closeout stuff. So she goes in and she gets her green marker and the next thing I know we've got a basketball. We've got a basket for her to put her little crochet people in. She has a box of ticonderoga pencils just it, just snowballs, right, and again it was in our budget. So it's okay that instance, but when you don't have a budget and you walk in there, it's not okay to do that.
Speaker 1:We didn't have a budget when we went to Boscov's.
Speaker 2:But, everything was 90% off I don't know what Boscov's is? I've never heard of it.
Speaker 6:It is Elder Behrman's sister store.
Speaker 2:Oh, gotcha Okay.
Speaker 6:So you're getting nice quality, come on holiday.
Speaker 2:But when you come on now, michael, when they got 119 dresses on there on sale for 14.99. But were they ever 119? Yes, is my question, because, see, that's in my opinion, that's what kohl's does. Kohl's has these t-shirts that are marked at 79, but they're always on sale for 24.99. Like it feels fishy to me, is all amazon started doing that with the prime days.
Speaker 2:Yes, prime days, alissa and I, what we'll do when we know Prime Days is coming up, we'll find all of our stuff and screenshot it. Yes, and so like, if it's $27.99, and then on Prime Days it's like, oh, 24-hour sale for $27.99. I'm like, bite me.
Speaker 5:Yeah, because it'll mark it up to like $36.99.
Speaker 2:Yes, the bottom price is $36.99, but it's on sale for $20.
Speaker 6:I'm like no, I don't fall for that crap anymore. Mine was in budget because I had Christmas money.
Speaker 2:But from a faith standpoint, he talks a lot about again the borrower being slave to the creditor and every lesson is biblically based. So yeah, and I think what you have to understand about the course is that it's not a get-rich-quick scheme. They really genuinely want you to understand how important finance is. And money is not an avenue to just live however you want. Money should be an avenue to live free. You should be able to be listen. One of the things that Dave did is he said you know, you walk into your job today and your boss is being loud with you, he's being obnoxious and you don't like what he's got to say and you just turn around and you walk out and he goes hey, where are you going? And you look at him and go, I don't have any payments. You know what I mean. Like I don't have to be here. I don't, I don't, I don't have to put up with it. I go somewhere else and work because I don't have any payments. I can afford to do that. Like for me it would feel so nice to not have to have my phone on 24 seven, but I do because and Alyssa and I had this conversation People think people who meet Alyssa and I, for the first time today, think well, they've got all kinds of money, like they've got it figured out.
Speaker 2:It hasn't always been that way. We've been married for 13 years and over half of that we've been broke, flat broke. It wasn't until we decided that we weren't going to be broke no more, that we were going to have money that we could live and be able to take vacations and do things that we wanted to do. None of that was us. That was God saying, hey, it's time Like I need you to do better. And you know when that was. That was five years ago. What happened five years ago?
Speaker 5:You bought a house.
Speaker 6:No.
Speaker 2:COVID Became a pastor, and it wasn't.
Speaker 4:Has COVID been five years? Yeah, 2019. Please tell me it hasn't been five years. Yes, yes, so what?
Speaker 2:happened when we took over the church. We were givers, we weren't tithers, we gave and we gave always. It was not a lot, but I mean we were. It wasn't like, oh, here's $20. But we faithfully gave, but we were not tithers. And I said to Alyssa actually Alyssa said to me she's like hey, now that we're in charge of this place, I think we kind of have to start to tithe. And I'm like well, I really don't like that, because I see the check that you write and I don't like the size of that check, the thought of giving that money away bizarre to me and we have never, once ever concerned ourselves with money, now again concerned ourselves going okay, that was easy, why can't we do more of that, why can't we do better?
Speaker 2:And then it was just us making sound decisions to do better. So I'm not saying that tithing fixed all of our problems, but I'm telling you that when God spoke and said it's time, it was time, and that's the difference.
Speaker 6:Well, we're to be good stewards with what he gives us.
Speaker 2:And the problem is, I think we tend to forget what he gives us.
Speaker 6:Right.
Speaker 2:Right. So we look at well, I earned that money because I went to work for 40 hours. I earned that paycheck, so I should be able to buy and have and do no. Who gave you that?
Speaker 3:job Exactly. Who gave you the strength to do that job Exactly?
Speaker 1:I'm able to work those 16 hours, because he gives me the endurance and the health All he's asking for is 10% of whatever he gives you, and it's not.
Speaker 2:I'm asking you for 10% to. I'm not asking you for 10% because I need 10%. I'm asking you for 10% to prove that you are faithful. To prove that you're faithful. Last Sunday it was last Sunday I got in the pulpit and lost my mind again.
Speaker 2:And I was just on about, like we'll always serve when a worship song comes on, we'll always serve whenever certain things are happening in our lives, but we'll never serve financially and we will never fully serve in spirit and truth. When we're in the building, we always want to serve in small ways, in certain ways where we say, hey, god, this is what we are willing to do. At our convenience. Yes, this is what I'm willing to do. This is the lane I'm willing to be in. I will do nothing outside of that.
Speaker 6:And then, when you're living outside of the will of God, and the blessings stop coming or you start to realize, hey, I'm not happy, you can't figure out why? Well, there's why?
Speaker 2:That's exactly what brought me back to church.
Speaker 6:And I'm telling you, because I had been out of church and I just wasn't happy, I wasn't happy because of who I was. I wasn't happy with my marriage, you know, and by me walking and trying to live the life from the. Lord again has changed so much. It's changed my children's lives. It's changed my marriage. It's changed my husband's life.
Speaker 2:And you're one person. You're one person and you've affected five, six people, your grandchildren, your children, your husband. Imagine, if all of us are doing that, how big of a reach we make. I think the problem is those sometimes we're just too selfish. We just think, well, I come, isn't that enough? Or, my gosh, I do this, isn't that enough? I ask myself that every day.
Speaker 2:Roger and I were here Monday night for council, beth and Dawn both here for council on Monday night too. So out of the is there six of us in this room, six of us in this room. Four of us were here Monday night for council. Roger and I were almost back last night. This week we decided to take Tuesday night off, but normally we're here Tuesday night for maintenance, wednesday night for podcast and then Thursday night to catch up whatever maintenance didn't get done on Tuesday. It's nuts to think how often we're in the building and I say, when do I get a break? When he tells me I get a break, that's when. Until then I shut up and I come and I do. But again he continues to give all of those things, and I'm not talking about money. He doesn't give me money because I come here and work. I get blessed with the good health to go to work every day. I get blessed with unlimited vacation time all of the things that I have in life. So, yeah, hour and a half y'all.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:And we didn't have a subject, we thought we were running out, yeah, we thought we were running out, yeah, we thought we were, that we were running out of topics sorry, roger, but prayer bounces back to you this week oh yeah, because I had to do it last week, so you skipped.
Speaker 3:I realized that you skipped, yeah you still have.
Speaker 5:We knew what you were up to, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah he, why I oughta.
Speaker 3:What I do now.
Speaker 2:That cough that you have.
Speaker 3:What, what cough, what cough.
Speaker 2:What's that? Mel Brooks movie Young Frankenstein what hump. Yeah that, I'll tell you what. Mel Brooks movie Young Frankenstein what hump Putting it on the wrist. Yeah that I'll tell you what. Out of all of the Mel Brooks movies, that's my favorite and that's the reason why. And did you know that it almost wasn't in the movie?
Speaker 4:No, I did not know.
Speaker 2:So Mel Brooks, absolutely he was adamant that they were not going to do that. But Gene Wilder was like we have to do this, it's hilarious, we Wilder was like we have to do this, it's hilarious, we have to do it. And Mel Brooks was it's not happening. So he's like I'm going to let you record it, but I'm not like we may not going to put it in Like this is I'm going to let you do it for creative freedom. Basically. And at the end of the recording, when they finished that scene, he was like that's gold. It made the whole movie. Oh yeah, best part.
Speaker 6:Anyhow there we are.
Speaker 2:There's your movie. How many of us love the Princess Bride too, by the way?
Speaker 4:Oh well, I've never seen it. You bring the Princess.
Speaker 2:Bride up a lot. However, I'm just watching. I haven't seen either of you. You haven't seen it.
Speaker 4:No, I was just watching a documentary of Andre the Giant yes, this weekend.
Speaker 6:And.
Speaker 4:I thought, oh yeah, I forgot he was in that.
Speaker 2:He's one of my favorites because you don't understand 90% of what he says in that movie. No, you never do. Have you seen Princess Bride?
Speaker 4:Yeah, okay, roger, has, you haven't seen it. No, I've only seen clips. Beth, you haven't seen?
Speaker 2:it. I have, dawn has seen it. No, what? Okay, we're going to do a filming of the or a showing of the Princess Bride. You guys have to watch it. I'm telling you. It's one of those. Okay, is it a comedy? Oh, yes, Very much so it's actually we would call it a cult classic. Like it's dumb humor, there's a lot of who we got.
Speaker 4:We got Robin Wright, billy Crystal, billy Crystal. Yes, who else is in there? I don't know all of them. A lot of.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know their names as characters. I couldn't tell you who most of them are outside of that, other than Andre the Giant, the little bald guy. I don't remember his name. He's in Young Sheldon, but I don't remember his name.
Speaker 4:But anyhow it's a good cast.
Speaker 2:Wickedly ignorant hilarious movie. It ignorant hilarious movie. It is really good. I loved it. I loved it. I can't stand comedies, so oh, but this I'm telling you, like the rats of unusual size, if you don't get it like there are rats in the movie that are basically humans in rat costumes, that are like this they run through the swamp and these rats come out and they're gnawing on their legs. It's awful. It's Mon awful. It's monty python and the quest for the holy grail worse. Okay, think of that. It's worse than that. I love it. I love it anyhow. So if you, I encourage you to watch it. It's, it's a fairly clean movie, like it's not obscene.
Speaker 2:So it's yeah, yeah, worthhow I digress, put it in the budget Everybody buy a copy of that I'll loan you my Blu-ray copy as long as you bring it back. Put that in your entertainment fund. Yes, as long as you bring it back, I will loan you my Blu-ray copy.
Speaker 4:Today's Lincoln's birthday, by the way too. I just wanted to point that out for everybody. We ran out of grocery milk, really, yeah, so give a salute to old Abe.
Speaker 6:Grocery envelope on a Wednesday and there was no milk for the kids. That was bad. You had to borrow from.
Speaker 2:Borrow from the gas fund. But Jarvie wouldn't let her.
Speaker 6:He wouldn't let me borrow from the gas fund. They could live until Friday without milk, my kids. Where do I go without milk?
Speaker 2:Probably could have them.
Speaker 6:Right, what I'd do is run down to the hill.
Speaker 2:Mom, I need money. Well then, that opened the whole new app. See, my kids have learned that. So this is a fun—we're well over time. But I just want to share this real quick. Emmett said to us the other day so they have—when they turned seven, they were allowed to get a Nintendo Switch.
Speaker 2:They weren't allowed to play Fortnite until they were seven, so we weren't going to buy a Nintendo Switch until they were that age. But Easton, emmett and Adeline all have one. Adeline and I share one because she doesn't play hers very often and I play a couple of games, but there's a new one coming out this year. They don't have a release date yet and they don't have a price. And Emmett said to Alyssa Mom, I think I'm going to ask for that Nintendo Switch for my birthday. And this is when no, no, no, no, no. And we had a conversation.
Speaker 2:Our kids are not growing up like we did. We knew our parents were broke and we knew our parents couldn't afford the extra stuff. When we're rolling change to go get a pound of hamburger, there's a difference. Our kids, Easton, will tell you, just use your Apple Pay, not realizing what that means or how that's. We Just use your Apple Pay, yeah, not realizing what that means or how that's like. So we're trying to instill in our kids what hard work means.
Speaker 2:So, like Emmett, he loves to cut grass. So he's going to cut grass this summer to earn money to pay for his new Nintendo Switch. Because we told him we'll help him pay for it, but we're not buying it. They're anticipating this thing's going to be four or five hundred dollars. No way, jose, not going to happen, my friend. And if he wants it that's fine, like I don't, whatever, as long as you have the money to pay for it. But he also understands what it means to. He's a saver, he loves to save his money. He doesn't like to spend it. He likes to have more money than everybody else.
Speaker 1:Oh, my nieces are savers as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he always likes to show the other kids how much money he has saved versus what they have, and they have checking account or they have walking around saving million dollar.
Speaker 4:Man.
Speaker 5:Yes, yeah, yeah yeah, my two sisters got that from my dad and I did not. And I'm like why couldn't I have gotten that treat?
Speaker 4:that is funny though yeah seth is save, save. He will not spend anything. It physically pains him to spend money.
Speaker 5:Yeah.
Speaker 4:And his brothers are just.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I mean Mallory. She's still living at home. I don't, she's not listening, but I think she said $6,000 she has right now. I'm like you just keep saving that. Listen, you keep doing that.
Speaker 2:I had a girl who I worked with who presented to herself very well, and her dad worked there as well and he came up to me. I was sitting on the couch one day. In our lobby we have a couch. That was always my hot spot.
Speaker 2:Turn on the fireplace, I'd sit by them and I would just work on my computer and he came over and sat down beside me. He's got this stupid smile on his face. I'm like what is wrong with you? Like what is wrong with you. He's like I'm just proud, dad moment. And I'm like what he said. My daughter has a five-figure savings account. She had $10,000 in her savings account. She wasn't even 20 years old, but she's an accountant by trade. Like that's her passion and she loves to see the number grow. You know what I mean. Like that's so.
Speaker 2:But she got married. Her and her husband bought a house. They bought a new car and they were able to pay for it Like it's not, we're not making payments. Like obviously finance her house, but it's not a financial strain for them and they didn't buy a brand new house. They went and bought a fixer upper and they're putting in the physical labor themselves and they're just like. There's a certain amount of like that.
Speaker 5:there's a drive behind that whenever you have to put in the sweat equity, yeah, you appreciate it yeah, it would drive me nuts when chase would be like like let's just, let's just get alone, let's do the, let's do the roof and let's do the gutters all at the same time. He's like, no wait till my next big job, then we'll take like 60 of that pay and then we'll get the gutters, and then we'll get get.
Speaker 6:I'm like, oh, okay, okay, but I mean, listen, I'm waiting for a dishwasher, a $600 dishwasher. I'll tell you what.
Speaker 2:That was a sticking point for us in our new house. When we again I don't know what to say about this folks when I bought that, when we decided to start looking for a new house, it was an ADHD moment. We weren't looking, we weren't looking, we weren't planning. I saw a house I liked in Dover, Thought we were going to go look at that one. We get there. We realize how much equity we have. Now, all of a sudden, I'm buying a house. I don't know how it happened. It just did Okay.
Speaker 2:But I had just put in a brand new $800 dishwasher in our kitchen for Alyssa and it had the little top rack and bought that house. She's like you're swapping those dishwashers before we, before we take possession. I'm like we are not swapping that dish First of all, all the appliances in this house match. We've never had that before. So no, we are not. And she's like, yes, we are. This dishwasher is terrible and I want mine back. I convinced her not to do it, but I regret it to this day because every time I use that dishwasher, everything comes out wet. I'm like that other one. Nothing came out of it wet ever, ever. Like it melted the plastic before the stuff would come out wet. It was intense.
Speaker 5:You know, we were the same way with our kitchen, though when we like renovated the kitchen, I mean doing this stuff, like it, like the construction stuff. It took a while anyway, but we got done as much as we could, but we still used our old microwave until we were done, saving for the dishwasher, and then when, yeah, I mean so, yeah, it was just one thing after another and it's.
Speaker 2:It's so funny too, because so with my elvis stuff you guys know, like love to buy elvis stuff I always want a new jumpsuit, whatever. Um, I've gotten to the point now where I'll sell one to buy one. Like, how many do I really need? Like I'd love to have them all, but am I really going to wear them all? And I'm doing nursing home shows. I'm not like you know what I mean. I'm not doing big stage shows anywhere. Nobody is looking at me going. I bet he doesn't have all the jumpsuits yet. Right, most of those people in the nursing home don't even know who I am. Like they don't even know who I am. They don't even. You could send me in there and then send some drunk guy in there two hours later. They'd think I'm the same person. They don't know. They have no idea. I sold my Aloha jumpsuit, but that money is being saved for a couple of other. Have I told the secret yet? No, no, you haven't. Okay, I think I was going to and then I decided not to.
Speaker 5:Okay, I'm still not going to, because sometimes it's lonely at the top. It is, yes.
Speaker 2:Sometimes it is lonely at the top and you have to have some secrets.
Speaker 3:But he does have to have a conflict?
Speaker 2:Yes, I do have. There are some people I have to tell some things. My wife knows, Roger knows and one person at work knows. The only three people that know, Only three people that know I'm going to be spying on them when they're Whatever it was, it's coming up in May, correct? Yes, okay, second to last weekend in May 11th. No, it's not the 11th 21st. Yeah, it's not the 11th. You told me it was the 11th. No, I didn't. Yeah, you did. No, it's the 24th. Oh, I won't be here until the 11th.
Speaker 4:Have you ever seen the episode of Full House where Uncle Jesse's trying to sneak in the Elvis jumpsuit? No, because you know he played Elvis.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 4:Like in the early part of that series. Yeah, and forget exactly how it goes. He had it underneath a robe.
Speaker 2:I don't remember that episode.
Speaker 4:I mean, I remember parts of it, Because then one of the pant legs would fall down off the road and he's trying to pull it back up, but he's in his bedroom. You know doing his thing, but still trying to hide it from everybody else.
Speaker 2:So I sold my Aloha jumpsuit and I'm saving that money back. I bought a higher end belt for my powder blue jumpsuit, but then, once that comes, I'll sell the current belt that I have. And so, like I've gotten into this, like I'll buy and sell versus just buying and hoarding, and I'm finding, like I bought a brand new wig it was $1,500. Well, when that one comes, I'm going to sell the one that I have and I'll get five or $600 for that one. So, like that, keeping that mentality that I don't have to have it all, if I can get rid of that one, then I can buy something nicer, something newer, and that's kind of the you're not going to want it forever anyway, no, and that the wig that I'm currently wearing is okay.
Speaker 2:It's an okay wig. I bought it pre-styled and cut for somebody else's head. The one that I'm getting now is custom cut for my head. So an entry-level guy is going to want a human hair wig, but they're going to be willing to pay a fraction of the price of a brand new one to get one. That's somewhat custom. So I'm just like trying to keep that into perspective and it has really made me happier when I get to go and do a show, because I'm starting to get that higher quality stuff and it's a little nicer and I enjoy it a little more because of it. For me, the look is everything and that's what I really want to go for and I want to stop buying the stuff that I don't. Necessarily I buy this because it's cheap. I don't want to do that. I want to get the stuff that I like that's good quality. But you have to be willing to sacrifice to do it. Hour and 32 minutes, folks. Let's wrap it up. Button up, okay.
Speaker 2:Baby step one save $1,000. $1,000 in the savings account as fast as you can. Baby step number two snowball your debt. Pay off your debt, smallest to largest. So take whatever. Your smallest amount is $50, pay that off, take that $50, apply it and just keep doing that all the way down. Maybe step number three is three to six months worth of expenses in your savings account. Once you get there, then we'll start doing four, five, six and seven all together and that's investing, saving and a couple of additional items. So if you're listening and you don't have $1,000 in your savings account, get there quick, call me for more tips or just take Financial Peace University. They're going to be the same either way. Yeah, and be good stewards, and be good stewards with your money. Yes, and I'm telling you, take the 10% off the top and tithe it every time, every time, every time.
Speaker 3:Every time, heavenly Father, we do. Thank you, lord.
Speaker 2:Well, you better get ready.
Speaker 4:I wasn't even ready Geez Roger.
Speaker 3:Oh, lord, we do thank you for this day. Lord, I thank you for these people that are around this table. Lord, you know we all have an opinion. Some of us have a stronger opinion than others. Amen, that's what I was going for. But, lord, we thank you, lord, for this opportunity to be here and to talk about you and talk about the finances. Lord, whatever we talk about, lord, you're always there in the midst and we just we thank you for this opportunity. Lord. We just ask you to take and be with each person, lord. Allow them to have a safe trip home, lord, and a safe return, lord, and we just thank you for this opportunity to be here and to just fellowship, and we ask this all in Jesus' name. Amen.
Speaker 1:Amen.
