FIRE Social Worker Show
Welcome to The FIRE Social Worker Show, where financial independence meets compassion and purpose. Hosted by Joey Laswell, a Certified Financial Social Worker and military veteran, this podcast is your guide to building a brighter financial future while staying true to your values.
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FIRE Social Worker Show
From Service to Stability: Unpacking Military Money Matters
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https://laswell.veteran.cards/
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Speaker 1:They may be watching this right now. Our military should not be mistaken for our cable news gab fest show. We don't care what you look like. We don't care who you voted for, who worship what you worship, who you love.
Speaker 2:It doesn't matter if your dad left you millions when he died or if you knew who your father was we have been honed into a machine of lethal moving parts that you would be wise to avoid if you know what's good for you. We will not be intimidated. We will not back down. We don't want war, but if you want war with the United States of America, there's one thing I can promise you, so help me. God, someone else will raise your sons and daughters.
Speaker 3:Military Broadcast Radio, the station that's giving veterans a voice.
Speaker 4:Find us on the web at mbradious Military. I'm a certified financial social worker. I was in the Air Force for 14 years and then I paid off $20,000 of debt while I was active duty within three years as an E3. So that's kind of like I got really into personal finance and so I've been really passionate about that ever since and that was 10, 12 years ago now. So since then I became a social worker and now I'm a certified financial social worker. So we kind of get into, you know, dealing with finances but then also kind of dealing with the psychology behind finances, like the you know, the mental side of things. So, ladies and gentlemen, your battle buddy when it comes to finances. Please welcome the fire social worker, joey Laswell. All right.
Speaker 4:Sorry about that A little bit of a technical glitch we also have, my son is decided that he wants to interact right now. All right, so my name is Joey, this is Jack, and we'll have to deal with him for a second. This is Money in the Military. This is a broadcast radio. Okay, all right.
Speaker 1:So, this is Jack's audition.
Speaker 4:Sorry about that. He is now requesting Nikki, All right, Okay. So apologize for the adorable distraction, but so this is Military Broadcast Radio giving veterans a voice. And today we're going to have an old friend of mine, a pair of friends from Las Vegas. We have Rob and Becky Salazar, and basically we were roommates with Rob back in the day. We were at Creech together, which was middle of nowhere in the desert. We lived together. We had a great time, a lot of great memories from what I remember, and you know, we're just, I'm just glad to see them. This is kind of a blast from the past, but just excited. We're going to talk to them about their financial journey from being from Rob separating, becoming a veteran, and basically they're just kind of trying to trying to make it, you know. So we're going to talk to them about their, their journey and then we'll kind of take it from there. So this is Becky and Rob. Hello.
Speaker 4:Hello.
Speaker 6:I like the intro. Thank you, I forget I'm a veteran sometimes.
Speaker 4:I don't, I don't, I always remember.
Speaker 6:All those light bulbs I was changing.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, well, we did, we did some. You know, we were part of the drone program when it was kind of first starting out and a lot of hush, hush stuff, but I mean we got to do some cool things, um and then, um see, you did four years right and then you got out after four years yeah, yeah, it was kind of cool.
Speaker 6:I got reclassed in the comm, but the problem was with like uavs, like I didn't really have any skills afterwards and when I was in and by the go to school, when you're in gentlemen like after.
Speaker 6:I got out I was kind of, uh, I just job to job really. And then I got lucky. I got a solid spot. We used the GI bill to get the house and then money was still kind of tight. So we got a roommate and what we should have been saving with the roommate, uh, we didn't, were just sending our money. So that's when our debt started to get on to us. So I don't know what happened after that you said out loud, I wrote it down.
Speaker 7:I'm a little nervous. So at the time we weren't paying all our credit card bill Like we were just like accruing debt that way and we really didn't talk about it Like he and I did not talk about it at all. It was all on my shoulders and it's getting a little more to where, you know, we talk about it more now it's kind of like the same way with you.
Speaker 6:Remember, when I was roommates, I didn't know anything about the money. You're like, tell me how much it sent, I'm like, all right, I'll throw money at this, and I'd never had to worry about any of it. It was like that in the military. It was like that when I was at home. My parents didn't teach me anything about finances really, and so you know, you just get person who knows what they're doing, the money and then you're fine. And it took me a while. I'm still like catching up with like every all these terms of finance. I didn't have any credit when I was in the military. I paid everything in cash besides my car. Nobody told me that was a mistake. I got with Beck. I was like, how do I have no credit? I've been the most financially responsible person on the earth.
Speaker 7:Buying our house and buying my car, I was like, I'll just do it myself.
Speaker 6:My name's not on anything, I'm pretty sure. No it is now. She could leave me high and dry.
Speaker 4:Oh gosh, we got some work to do, apparently.
Speaker 6:Where's our? So what are the most that we get? Where was the highest that we ever got at? So that went on for a while like that. I quit my job without a backup plan, which is also let me give you a red flag on that Don't do that. Have a backup plan. But I was so fed up I was like I can't do this anymore, I just quit, yeah he told me I think it was a Sunday.
Speaker 7:He was like, okay, I'm going to quit my job soon. And I was like, fine, that's fine, I know you hate it, go get another job. First he was like, yeah, sure.
Speaker 6:and then the next day he was like I quit and in my mind I was like it's not gonna be hard to find another job. I'll just go get six months, dude, and I was working at up, I was doing everything I could work. Break, dude, if you work at ups. Respect, bro, respect you worked during christmas season too so it was like okay yeah, so like and that's like barely any money, so we're credit card debt keeps going up.
Speaker 7:We still get, we still need groceries, we still need all this other stuff yeah, so we had to use the credit cards to really stay afloat then, and I'm a teacher, so like I make, not bank enough you know, and so we. I was like consolidating our credit cards into like one, and then after a while it just got so high. Oh, we also. I don't remember, did we go on the vacation before or after that?
Speaker 6:Before before we're not still working.
Speaker 7:We were able to save money for a vacation. And then we went on the vacation and, of course, it was more than we expected, and so that I had to do it. And then, um, I had to consolidate everything. And then, uh, we ended up getting a personal loan because the interest rate was much lower than the credit card. And uh, um, then we were able to, after what three?
Speaker 6:years of paying on it and it was struggle, a struggle, I mean, man. We couldn't go anywhere. Our friends were going out. We were like sorry guys, you sure you don't want to stay at home? We had some help from family.
Speaker 7:My parents gave us some.
Speaker 6:We would have sank without family if they hadn't helped us out.
Speaker 7:We would have made mom and dad some money, that's what was helpful. Yes, and a lot of people don't have that. So, yeah, we were very fortunate in that. And then, um, after we did the personal loan, we finally got caught up. I mean as much as we can. Uh, robbie got his job at gm and, uh, now we were just talking about this the other day he gets profit sharing, so it's like a bonus every march and, um, it's like a life raft yeah, you get this thing that's keeping us afloat.
Speaker 7:And then, as the year goes on, it just like seeps out, you know, and then by November, december, christmas time, we're like, oh, just make it to.
Speaker 6:March. There's no way to live. There's no way to live. We know there's a better way. Probably, yeah. Plus we have an old house, we have stuff going out, we have to fix our pool. That's going to be 15 grand, yeah we had to get a new roof the new roof um new carpets.
Speaker 7:We haven't got those yet. Those are like lowest priority, I guess but pool is number one.
Speaker 4:It's gonna mess with the foundations too yeah, oh, wow um yeah so so listen to you kids out there want to buy a home. Just know that. Uh, it's not just the monthly mortgage cost at all as anyone yeah, anyone who's had a home for a few, for a few years, knows that it's um, it's just one, one cool breeze, away from falling over at any or it feels really help.
Speaker 6:What has really helped us? We have used this company that comes out and replaces our AC, because our AC is one of so many times.
Speaker 7:We have a home warranty because we have the pool With the filter. It can be simple.
Speaker 6:It's definitely worth it. We've got our money out of it, Even when they deny some of the stuff, the stuff they do cover. I mean thousands, Thousands yeah.
Speaker 4:We've got a, the stuff they do cover, I mean thousands, Thousands, yeah, but anyway. So you made a couple different things. Okay Well, do you have a net worth? I guess we didn't really talk about homework before this, but like, do you have, like, your net worth ahead of time or do you have? You guys figure that part out on previous sessions.
Speaker 6:Net worth. It's probably not that much. We we probably counted all in one hand, I imagine. No, I haven't really thought about it.
Speaker 7:Because we used to have that Mint Budget app and that was great because I could see everything. I mean, it still was going into the red, but I could see it and I knew how much we had. I knew how much we owed. And now that that's gone, I'm kind of looking for something new. I haven't found anything that I like yet. Okay.
Speaker 4:Well, I will go ahead and plug for Mint, not Mint. You just said Mint Rocket. I was a Mint user for many years too, and I was really sad that they shut their doors. But yeah, rocket Money You've probably seen commercials for them. I just recently started using them and you can use what's called Plaid. They basically link up to your accounts, your bank accounts, so they don't actually get the data. They're like the middleman of the data. So basically, you can link up all of your bank accounts through Plaid, through Rocket, and then it'll pull all your information like almost in real time.
Speaker 7:So it's like Mint was.
Speaker 4:Yeah, what Mint was, where it aggregates all your data into a single like easy-to-use space. That's awesome, like mint. Then, um, yeah, I'll go ahead and pitch, pitch, pitch for um, rocket money, which they do have a free tier, but I think it's like 10 or 12 bucks for the full suite of services. So I mean, like, I personally spend that money because I feel like it's worth it just to have all that data. But if you're cutting costs, then that might be one that you want. That's a luxury, but when it comes to managing your guys' finances, I think it's probably worth it in the long run.
Speaker 6:Cool.
Speaker 4:Just something to explore. Um, because it so, if you guys had to put one topic of your struggle, your main struggle, is it like um spending, or is it we have a saver and a spender, or what?
Speaker 7:what do you guys would, would highlight, is like the, your biggest struggle, man probably like we want to be able well our philosophy is that we need to learn how to save, but we want to live life and enjoy life but also have money for later in life. So how do we do that balancing?
Speaker 6:it because we were there with like ramen noodles and nothing before, and like man, do I not want to be at that again. But if we never learned to save, we're just going to be there every year in november. You know what I'm saying. So the biggest part for me, the biggest part that I needed to pick up on, was communication. I had no idea what our finances were, so if I was going out and maybe making a big purchase, I didn't know if we were broke or if we had the money to cover it, and so it was communication. And then not doing such fast food got us for a while, but just like those random spendings you know I'm out, why not? We can spend $20 here, but now, like every time you go out to eat, we got the two kids. That's like 50, 60 bucks, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:That adds up really quick, yeah, so it sounds like if you guys are able to use the rocket money and like maybe have like I've heard of people calling the money dates, for basically they meet up once a week, maybe on a Sunday afternoon, sunday evening, and just kind of talk non-confrontationally about the money for the last week, which I don't I don't imagine that's a problem. But for some, some people, it's something about being called out like did you spend you know 80 on, uh, magic store, um, but but yeah, how do you know about my magic addiction?
Speaker 6:oh my god, we were gonna bring that up. Did she tell you?
Speaker 4:well, you know, old habits die hard back to the 2014. But okay, so that's a good start. We're going to take a quick little musical break and then, when we come back, we're going to kind of dig into some of the numbers and we can start coming up with some game plans based off of.
Speaker 6:Yeah, we'll start getting some of that together All right.
Speaker 4:Well, right now we're going to listen to our usual guy, which is Noah Peterson, the USMC Marine Corps veteran out of San Antonio.
Speaker 3:Actually, so he's my main guy to go to, and we'll be back with Becky and Rob right after this. Thank you, thank you. Military broadcast radio, the station that's giving veterans a voice find us on the web at mbradious.
Speaker 2:Opinions expressed in this program are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities they represent. Find us on the web at mbradious.
Speaker 4:And we're back. Here we go. This is Money in the Military and this is Military Broadcast Radio. All right, that's my horrible DJ voice.
Speaker 6:I like it. You're getting there, you're getting there, you're getting there.
Speaker 4:But so yeah, so this is Money in the Military. I have some old friends, Becky and Rob Salazar, who basically we were in the trenches together in Las Vegas, Nevada, A lot of golf courses.
Speaker 4:A lot of golf courses, a lot of bunkers, a lot of bunkers, a lot of seven irons that were damaged in the harming of our golf course. But, yeah, we're going to talk to them about their finances, and there's Jack, so Jack. So, yeah, we're going to talk a little bit about their finances, some of their lessons learned along the way, and then maybe some things that we could do together to kind of help them and then, um, you know, we can do like a follow-up session or series of sessions and then just kind of track your, your trajectory and make sure things are going okay, sound good, all right yeah, we got some numbers for you.
Speaker 4:Yeah, let me give me a rundown of like the big picture stuff and then we can kind of drill down after that.
Speaker 7:All right, Like what kind of what do you mean?
Speaker 4:Like the basic debts, like maybe do you have like a total of all your debts, and then like maybe you're just your general income, then we can compare and contrast okay, so our last tax.
Speaker 7:We haven't done our taxes yet this year, but together we made what about 120,000? Yes, I think it was around 120,000 together, which is the most we've made. Yet. You know and I, we both had to buy new cars recently and not recently, I guess in the last couple years, yeah, and so we're both still paying on our cars. Um, I have about 18,000 left on mine, which I realize is less than I thought. Um, we have the house. I don't remember how much we have left on the house with a while yeah we bought it about 2013?.
Speaker 6:Yeah, a couple years before we got married.
Speaker 7:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Nice.
Speaker 7:There's some credit card stuff, but we're slowly paying that off.
Speaker 6:No student loans. We paid those off first. Thank you.
Speaker 7:Oh yeah, Student loans are done.
Speaker 6:Good idea. Plus I was like we're not making this back Teach and back. It's not this bad boy out. Yeah, I was tired of those, plus I was like we're not making this back, teaching back.
Speaker 4:It's not this bad way out.
Speaker 6:Yeah Well, there wasn't any personal service, loan forgiveness programs that were available to you Not that we were aware of, but we were really so financially dumb we were just Googling stuff to figure it out. You know Anything you could do, yeah. But you get so many weird things like, oh, I wonder if this? And you get so many grifters too, so you like you never know what to like follow. We're just kind of lost. We just becky would hear something and I'd hear something on the radio.
Speaker 7:We're like, oh, let's try this, let's try this dave ramsey, that snowball thing for a while and that helped. I mean, I got the student loans done. I had the personal loan. That was our highest one. We were paying on that monthly, but we finally got that personal loan paid off. That felt great.
Speaker 6:That was like a personal victory right there that was such a struggle. I can imagine.
Speaker 7:Besides the cars in the house, the credit card. We usually pay that off every month until about November. November, December is when it's like Christmas, Thanksgiving, like all the things, and that's like. Right now it's higher than it normally is, but our next payment will take off a lot of it, so so how much do you say you guys spend on the credit card a month on average?
Speaker 7:Normally. Well, it's gone up so much Like before it was $3,000 a month because we put everything on it and then to get the points and stuff which I don't know if that's even financially smart.
Speaker 4:At least a wash, if anything. It's not usually the greatest mathematical you know like. Unless you're paying it off every month in full, then yeah, you're kind of losing money on on the interest.
Speaker 7:I mean, we usually do until November yeah yeah, but still you know, it's like one of those things.
Speaker 4:If you're going to spend the money anyways, then you might as well get points on them. That's always been my philosophy. But if you have a problem with spending or credit cards, then you can easily rationalize purchases because you're getting points, and I've done it I didn't think about that.
Speaker 7:Yeah, I guess I just think of it more like not necessarily for the points just like this is where our money comes from, Like this is the card I use now, you know, instead of the debit card and we were having a problem before with the debit card we would overdraw.
Speaker 5:And so the credit card just feels like a safety net almost, I guess.
Speaker 4:It's almost like you're money laundering your own money, exactly. Yeah, you're just like okay, I know I have the money, but I'm going to float it. Yeah, that's crazy to think of it that way. Yeah, it's, I wouldn't. I wouldn't worry about that too much. Like, if you're getting the points and you're being responsible, then just go for it, you know.
Speaker 7:Okay points and you're being responsible, then just go for it, you know, okay. Well, it looks like I'm looking at our credit card statements. It's usually around the 8 000 ish thing per month, but that's mostly where our money is like. There's a couple things on our wells fargo credit card, but that's like your microsoft stuff and like things like that, and terminates um, just so, they never switched them over. And then we don't use our debit card ever.
Speaker 6:No, hardly ever.
Speaker 7:Because we know that money is going towards the credit card later Gotcha.
Speaker 4:Okay Well, would you estimate you guys are at a surplus neutral, or are you guys actually putting more money away than you're actually spending?
Speaker 7:We really don't put too much money away, because let's see a month we make what.
Speaker 6:They can hear you.
Speaker 7:Okay, a month we make $9,400 yeah, it's about literally and so we're spending right up to there sometimes you know it just depends on the month. Really like christmas, was you?
Speaker 6:know, besides christmas sometimes we have like school stuff. Like adrian is in hockey, so we got all the hockey stuff and then the other kids learning how to drive. So now, oh, we have to budgeted insurance and any suggestions you have on a kid turning 16 with insurance. That's probably going to take our little net positive down, I imagine.
Speaker 4:Yeah it's gonna be tricky when there's no way to navigate that one without maybe just just drive without insurance.
Speaker 6:It's safer, safer for me drive without insurance.
Speaker 4:It's safer. It's safer for me save a free wallet now.
Speaker 6:Just run away. Just run away, kid. It's fine, just run away from that so we're worried about that.
Speaker 4:But yeah, lifestyle increases. Uh, not necessarily like lavish lifestyle, it's just like everyday living expenses for you guys, you know yeah, so yeah yeah. So that's something that you definitely you're going to have to re-evaluate every so often, like your food budget. I don't know how, how often you guys have done that.
Speaker 7:Well, that's like the last thing that they think about but we've cut back on the on the fast food, like before it was like we're out, we're busy, I don't want to cook. Let's get something to pick, but that's few and far between. Now we don't eat out fast food.
Speaker 6:It's special what we do.
Speaker 5:It's kind of like when I was growing up a little bit yeah.
Speaker 7:It's not expected anymore.
Speaker 4:Right Nowadays you have the DoorDash and all that. Basically, you don't even have to leave the house anymore, right.
Speaker 7:We do have the grocery delivery through. Doordash because that's too expensive.
Speaker 6:We do do the grocery delivery? That's probably a needed expense, but I understand.
Speaker 4:I've actually seen people talk about how they're actually saving time. Yes, it's hard to put a dollar amount on the time that you're saving and the mental frustration going to the store. So I'm actually an advocate for, for, like some of those subscription services, the delivery stuff like Walmart plus I actually do subscribe to them Well you were right.
Speaker 7:Also it helps me from overspending at the store too, cause I'm like this is what I'm getting, this is I don't know. Oh, look at that. Oh, look at that.
Speaker 4:So that helps a lot yeah, hit me up with some logic, I like it um, but yeah, so those are just little things, but, um, you know, ultimately I was just trying to get a vibe for where you guys feel like you're at, you know, as far as like your overall spending and then your income and outgoing and all that good stuff, but it sounds like really like for us to sit.
Speaker 7:I'm sorry, go ahead I was gonna say.
Speaker 4:It sounds like you guys have a pretty good like feel for where you're at.
Speaker 7:You just want a little bit, I mean I think whenever I had the mint thing, I could look and see who spent what. What are we spending our money on? Where is it going? And now we don't really have that. So I think that what did you call it? Money date or something. I think that would be really good for us. Yeah, I like that idea, to kind of see like, oh you spent, maybe we should like go look.
Speaker 6:Yeah, that's something I think we're going to implement. That's an awesome idea. We just kind of need a path, a path forward to savings, just to be proper savers. You can't help the stuff you've got to buy, but the stuff that you don't need.
Speaker 1:What's your?
Speaker 6:feeling on subscription services. Having Netflix and all this other stuff, I feel like you don't need them all. Pick one that you like.
Speaker 4:One of the things that ramit uh seti talks about, um, spending lavishly on the things that you love but then cutting everything else to the bone. So if you truly value your netflix shows and, like you know, your subscription services, then then spend on them, you know, and not have to feel guilty about it, um, but if it's something that you really don't get a lot of value of, but then you have almost like a social pressure sometimes like CrossFit maybe is something that well, I don't know. It's hard to put a price tag on health, but I don't really necessarily say no to subscriptions, like I said, but if it brings value to your life and you can rationalize it, then go ahead.
Speaker 4:We're only here on this earth for long enough. There's no point in depriving so much. And that's one thing I've learned on this journey is that we tend to yeah, we tend to kind of overdo it sometimes, like I've been guilty of, like basically the financial equivalent of going on an extreme diet, and then I realized that that wasn't really sustainable. So I kind of went in the other end of the spectrum where I was like a spender, like crazy, and that didn't really work. So I found kind of a sweet spot. But everyone's journey is different and it's also not a race. So that's where I think a lot of people get caught up in that Keeping up with the Jones is not in the sense of like, oh, I have to have their car, that they have, but maybe they're going on vacations more frequently than we are, and that makes you feel a little, you know, like it does make you feel a certain way. You're like, oh, they're in Bermuda or wherever.
Speaker 7:Yeah my sister and her husband are both engineers and so they make. Just one of them makes what we make together you know and more. And so, like whenever they talk about vacations, I'm like I can't go. And she's like, don't worry about it, we'll pay for your flights, and I'm like I wish I could just be like, oh, we're fine, we can go, we have money yeah but, yeah, no, that's, that's definitely.
Speaker 4:Um, it's a real thing to to want to go travel and do things like that, I mean, especially while you're young. There's another book that I recently finished. It's called Die With Zero. Sounds really morbid, but it's really just a kind of a different take on. Instead of living till you're 89 years old with this big nest egg that you can't even spend, you actually enjoy your life as you're young and as you're able to enjoy it more. Obviously, there's going to be a balance there, but I think that kind of goes against some of the traditional thinking of like, okay, well, you work till you're 65 and then you put 10% away and then by the time you're 65, you'll have enough to retire off of.
Speaker 6:But I think a lot of people are rethinking the traditional retirement, kind of like yeah, that was my, that was my argument to becky, when we're really saving. I was like listen, man, I want to enjoy europe when I'm 40, I don't want to enjoy when I'm 70. I can't make it up the steps. You know what I'm saying. So it's we've got to do something here.
Speaker 4:Yeah. So I think that's where you guys are trying to change things around a little bit, maybe do something different, which I like You're taking initiative and you reach out to me and you're like, hey, maybe Joey could help us out with some things, and I'm like I was on board 100% immediately, just to be able to see you, guys' lovely faces again was enough.
Speaker 6:I used to get all this advice for free, anytime you had a problem. Joe was there. I was like, hold on, I got to go talk to Wilson over the fence here.
Speaker 4:Yeah, well, that's the thing I was really passionate about all this stuff and nerding out and now just, you know, trying to do it on a professional level. But, um, yeah, so you said savings. That was one of the first things that come, came to your, to my mind, was that you guys want to be savers.
Speaker 6:yeah, we just need that strict. We need you to give us like a strict structure that maybe we could try to follow or maybe loosely follow, because we're really good at that. But if we try to do it on our own, we tend to make little, I don't know. We tend to veer off a little bit. We never really stick to it yeah you know, yeah, well, that's where it's like an outline maybe okay, like a, like a roadmap, almost like a gps.
Speaker 4:Just yeah, you, you'll get there on your own terms, but then here's like a general map for how to get yeah, that's exactly what I'm looking for.
Speaker 6:Okay, cool all right.
Speaker 4:Um, well, I mean what? What really comes down? Just when it comes to saving, a lot of people have this perspective of I'll never be a saver. It's, it's it. There's a, there's a mindset there where people say, oh, I'm never going to be a saver because I'm, I'm such a spender, um, but I think most people are on a spectrum and they're not necessarily like a full saver and some, well, I don't know, yeah, you're scrooge, mcduck types generally will never spend any money. I'm definitely not in that category. I'm not. I'm kind of somewhere in the middle. But but yeah, when it comes to saving, I would say one of the first things is you need to have, just like with a map, you need to have a destination in mind. So, with the savings it's going to, I think what's going to help you guys is to have targeted savings. So for like this trip, for instance, when was the last trip you guys took? How much would you say you spent on that trip?
Speaker 6:We're pretty conservative on our vacations.
Speaker 7:Yeah, we drove to Michigan because, we didn't want to pay to fly.
Speaker 6:How much did we spend? The last one was down at the beach. We didn't spend a lot.
Speaker 7:We paid for food.
Speaker 6:That's about it. Our family's really generous my sister and brother-in-law paid for the because otherwise we, we just wouldn't be going yeah, it's just not possible, we got two kids now.
Speaker 7:Both of them we got 15 and 14 yeah, so they're getting into the needs a lot of money time yeah um, and then the other one. Yeah, we drove to michigan and then we went to the so how much do you think we spend?
Speaker 6:maybe like five grand and under is usually what we like, what we save is like five grand, but we never really spend that, maybe somewhere between two and three because we stayed in one hotel room overnight and then the rest of it. We stayed with family and then we'll buy some dinners to make up for, you know, not paying for rent yeah, we just try to keep it as low as we can.
Speaker 7:I don't know about $1,000.
Speaker 6:I think average Bigger ones will probably be more than that.
Speaker 7:Birthdays for the girls go kind of big.
Speaker 6:See, I have a problem with that a little bit.
Speaker 7:I want to spoil them. You only have one birthday a year.
Speaker 6:Yeah, but you have one every year. I think it's special. They're going to be alive for 100 years. There's going to be a bunch of them.
Speaker 4:People live until their 80s, 90s.
Speaker 6:Dollars start celebrating in the 90s.
Speaker 7:Come on my dad turned 70 this year and he was like I've had enough.
Speaker 6:I understand she's taught me the birthdays are important, but I don't think spending that much money. I think $500 on a birthday seems alright, including a gift that's too much. What about gift that's?
Speaker 4:too, much what about.
Speaker 7:Well, we're going to dallas stars this year well, yeah, I guess you did. How about that?
Speaker 4:never mind well like I said um, if you guys are, let's say, if you're planning out a mid-range trip, let's say you wanted to do two thousand $3,000 trip. Next We'll say I mean, that's the other thing that determines the timeline is how fast you want to get there. So, like you know, you have a gas tank, you put the pedal to the metal, you're going to go fast but you're not going to go very far. And then the other side of that is, obviously you know you could drive like an old man, you'll get there and you'll have plenty to spare, but it'll take you forever to get there, you know. So it's really just all about trying to find that where you guys want to go and how quickly you want to get there. So if you guys were to able to save up for, let's say, a $2,000 trip for the summer, how would you guys go about doing that? If this dream opportunity comes up and you're like all right, we have to save $2,000 by August 1st, how would you guys do that?
Speaker 7:Who would?
Speaker 4:we do that.
Speaker 7:Well, the way I did it before, when I saved for the first vacation, that big one, I just had a set amount go into from our savings to our our I mean from our checking to our savings every month, and it was like a year of saving that way, and so that money was just like that's future becky money, you know, like we can't use it. But I, that's the only thing I could think to do and we just budget around.
Speaker 6:What's what we?
Speaker 7:have. How do we budget?
Speaker 6:yeah, we still save, yet we still spend, we still spend it right, but they are somewhere else?
Speaker 4:yeah, well, that's where having separation from your money sometimes can be helpful. Um, so you mentioned a savings account. Do you have just the one savings account or do you have different counts that you can, maybe? I?
Speaker 7:have one savings account and then in the same bank there I have another one which is like the first. One is like our home savings one, the second one is like our trips and whatever. But, I had to use some of the home savings one to pay the credit card bill in December. So I'm just telling you the truth in December, I'm just telling you the truth.
Speaker 6:I believe you.
Speaker 7:That one's not as high as the second one, because I didn't want to touch the second one.
Speaker 4:Okay, the only reason why I say that is that some people, like I said, they like that separation from their money. If it's in the checking account, it's almost like mentally, like I can spend that, you know, it's just a weird like thing. But then if it's like just physically not there, still somewhere in your banking system, just not in your checking account, there's something about that. It can be really helpful for a lot of people, just because out of sight, out of mind, no temptation, you can't spend something that's not there. So really what I would encourage is to at least have one additional account that is something that you can't actually access very easily. So maybe like an online only bank, or like if one of you guys has, like a work bank or something like that, basically just another account that's out of sight but still accessible. So then you just set up like an automatic withdrawal or you could do it through the payroll system sometimes.
Speaker 4:But yeah, like basically what you guys did, which was just put that money away automatically. That's literally what you would be doing, but you would do it in a targeted way. That also is separate. You know, like that physical separation is is also good because you don't have the temptation, because if it's linked to your savings account and your checking account, it's really easy to just go in there and transfer like 50, a hundred bucks, right, generally.
Speaker 7:Yeah, that's what I did, exactly yeah exactly.
Speaker 4:Yeah, but this is a little bit easier or it's actually difficult, because it adds an extra layer to accentuate your money. You still have it. You just have to do a little bit extra work to get there. Bit extra work to get there. Some people, would, you know, do this where they would like freeze a credit card in water in in their freezer, you know, so that they're not. It adds an extra layer to it, you know, yeah, no, yeah, people will. There's something about having the credit in their wallet like they're going to spend it. But if they have it separated from themselves and they have to go through extra steps, like either thaw it or chip it away or whatever, hack at it.
Speaker 7:Um yeah it works for some people, but it's an extreme example. What do you so? I've been hearing about high yield savings accounts. What do you know much about? I mean how? What do you know about those?
Speaker 4:well, they're basically, um, usually with an online account. An online bank doesn't have, um, the physical banking infrastructure, so they don't have physical banks usually and they can save money or give money to the, to their patrons, by having lower expenses. So, basically, a lot of these online like ally and ally I think ally a few other online banks. They offer a higher, like a 4%, interest rate. So you're talking about, you know, all that adds up over time that, um, you know losing my train of thought. Here we go, um, yeah, so, but, yeah, it's a high yield savings account and every bank, a lot of banks, have them. They just, um, they just don't necessarily advertise for them as much, but nowadays people are, are interested in them because, yeah, if you put a thousand bucks in, four percent is way better than usually less than one percent yeah yeah no banks Right because it's like point something.
Speaker 4:Yeah, something crazy.
Speaker 6:Something rip-off-y.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so yeah, I would look into that. Maybe. Another bank that I used to use, or account that I used to use, was called SmartyPig. It's like an online piggy bank, essentially, where you can create like specific targeted savings goals. So I really like this because I guess I'm more visual person anyways, and I like the idea of having all of my savings goals and then you can have it like broken down into oh, you're 12 percent towards your goal or you you can look at it from a graph or from you know all the different data perspectives. So if you're visual, then a smarty pig is really good because it's like a little yeah, it's like a little piggy bank for your, for your savings. That's cool and it usually does offer a higher percentage than a traditional bank. So it's kind of kind-yield savings account, but it's kind of gimmicky too.
Speaker 6:Whatever works really. I'll take it.
Speaker 4:So, if anyone from Smarty Pig is watching, take a check of $5,000 or gold bullion if that's available. But yeah, so we got. The initial task for homework is to create like a separate account where you already have access to, but what I want you guys to do is to come up with a number, and it sounds like maybe that initial savings goal that you had for the last trip and we're just doing an example you don't have to do a trip If you have something specific in mind that you're going to purchase, probably a trip.
Speaker 6:Yeah, we're saving up for this next one. The pool, though. Oh yes, that is number one priority is that pool.
Speaker 7:So probably the pool then.
Speaker 6:Dang it Vacation next year.
Speaker 4:Well then you said you haven't touched the tax return yet, right?
Speaker 6:And we still haven't got it. We get our bonus next week and that was like $14,500. So that'll be a nice chunk of change. Heck yeah.
Speaker 4:So you mentioned the bonus was a nice thing, but then you also you maybe come to rely on it a little bit every year yes, that's exactly.
Speaker 6:And like we, you well, we, we've been relying on to take care of some stuff recently. But I mean, it always seems like, all right, we, we get up to the, we get up to the bonus. We need this, this, this done, this done. Then, by the time we're done, divvying it up like here's your hundred, here's your hundred, here's your hundred penny to the kids yeah, yeah that sounds right, yeah, but then again, like I said, you do have, that is something that not everyone has access to.
Speaker 4:So I mean, you see that, as you guys are fortunate, yes, very much so, man.
Speaker 6:I wish everybody got that at the end of the year.
Speaker 4:Dude, that'll make a big difference in my other jobs yeah, well, uh, the idea that I was thinking about was christmas spending. Yes, you know, you guys just dealt with christmas spending. This is something that a lot of, a lot of families struggle with. Like, they get to the end of the year, they do their shopping, probably pretty mindlessly usually, and then they have the bill at the end of the year or end of January, and a lot of times it's not exactly what they wanted, but he wanted to be in the box. I'm doing dual duty today, but yeah so, I'm doing dual duty today, but yeah so I forgot my train of thought there, but what was I saying?
Speaker 4:Christmas spending people were yeah yes, so Christmas spending is one of the things that a lot of people overspend without really thinking about. So what I would say is to do your an audit of your Christmas spending, and this might be painful, but it's fresh. So I want you guys to take this, you know. Basically, just get it.
Speaker 6:I'll enjoy this. Yeah, no, no, no, I'll enjoy this.
Speaker 7:He said not confrontational.
Speaker 6:I'll have to do this nicely. All right, it's not going to be as fun.
Speaker 4:But it's basically what we're trying to do here is to get an actual accounting of what you spent last year and then we can basically figure out, okay, how much do we want to allocate for spending this year.
Speaker 4:So we're being proactive and we're also learning from just this past shopping cycle. You know, which is probably going to be more shopping next year, if you, if, if we're being honest, right Probably going to go up a little bit. So we may have to, like, come up with a good. You know I always say start with 50 bucks a month, cause that's $600 by the end of the year. Well, by now it's going to be a little bit less. But you know, you kind of just do the math Like, like, okay, if you guys spent a thousand dollars last year, and how how much in 10 months can you put away obviously that's going to be, you know, 100 bucks a month then you could, you could get that 1200 pretty easy I didn't think about saving at the beginning of the year we are two smart people here god, you'd be surprised that a lot of people don't think about this kind of stuff, you know.
Speaker 7:But it's like it's an expense that's going to be there yeah, every year it's going to be there it's nuts.
Speaker 4:All right. Honestly, you could, by by setting a target, you can also kind of like tweak things a little bit to where, okay, we spent 500 on whatever type of gift Maybe we'll spend, we'll split that up and then we'll do. You know like, so you can. You can almost like reverse engineer and learn from the last spending cycle and say, okay, we can do things a little bit better next year.
Speaker 7:Or, oh sorry, Last last year, not this past year, but the year before I wrote down everything and I saw how much um that I spent. And so then this year, I saved.
Speaker 7:It was like eight hundred dollars that's pretty good less under a thousand, yeah, um and then this year I saved um. All this past year I've saved all my amazon points because most of the stuff I bought on Amazon. So I saved all of our credit card points for Amazon purchases and I saved, I think, about half. I mean it was like $400 worth of points that I was able to just take out the bulk of it this year. So I don't think we spent as much this year.
Speaker 6:Oh look, that'll be our money date.
Speaker 4:Kept me in, but you also did spend money to get those points right. We'll have to determine how much you're actually spending, because I mean, if you think about it, you got four hundred dollars worth of gifts right for, yeah, free. So four hundred dollars of spending that you have to account for.
Speaker 7:You know what I mean well, that was the, the credit card. That's our capital one yeah so that's the stuff we used all year.
Speaker 6:Yeah, but he's like explaining like all right, so if you paid a thousand dollars to get that 400, 400 points, that you really save it any money?
Speaker 7:I mean, we're spending that money anyway that's the only thing. That's how, I guess, I know like that's the whole money.
Speaker 4:Yeah, the money laundering thing works in that situation. That's the only thing. Yeah, that's true, all right, raina. Yeah, but ultimately the idea was to get you guys thinking about okay, how could we tackle Christmas this year in a more economical way, in a more thoughtful way? You could buy presents throughout the year instead of waiting until the end of the year. You can be more intentional, look for sales, all these things that could really help you guys in the long waiting until the end of the year. You know, like that, you can be more intentional, look for sales. You know all these things that could really help you guys in the long run.
Speaker 7:Yeah.
Speaker 4:And it's just like you can also bite off. You know, instead of waiting until the end of the year, you space it out throughout the year. So, like you know, spending $50 on one thing would not be so bad if you were, like you know, buying five or six things at $50 a pop. That stings a lot more. So by spacing it out, it'll kind of soften the blow a little bit too. That's a good idea, you kind of started doing that though yeah, I started buying a little earlier.
Speaker 7:Yeah, not as good as my aunt. She buys stuff like in April and she forgets who she bought it for yeah well, I mean, it's just like in April, and she forgets who she bought it for.
Speaker 4:Yeah Well, I mean, it's just like little little tips and tricks and hacks that that we can talk about, and some of them are going to work for you guys and some of them might not. But if you guys are are interested, we can. We can definitely do, cause we're coming up on another nine minutes or so. I think I was supposed to take a commercial break in there somewhere, but I think they'll be all right. If you guys are interested, we could do some future sessions, do some follow-ups.
Speaker 6:We'll get all those numbers together for you. We'll start working on that stuff and just let us know. Let's schedule it for a month from now or whatever.
Speaker 4:What is your guys's biggest financial goal?
Speaker 6:for this year, just out of curiosity. Oh well, the pool. I got that. Pull the pool number one. Once that's done, dude, that's going to be giant weight off the shoulders. That's one world.
Speaker 7:They'll just have to deal with the smaller worlds yeah, because I mean there's little upgrades you need for the house like new fans.
Speaker 6:It's a 70-year-old house, so this thing is falling apart. It was in 1975 is when it was built. Oh yeah, my bad, it's 1970s.
Speaker 7:So it just needs a little bit at a time, and it seems like everything's falling apart at the same time.
Speaker 6:We just fixed a water leak in the bathroom.
Speaker 7:So that's an expense like $5,000 that I wasn't expecting you know, and that happened right before Christmas.
Speaker 4:Of course yeah.
Speaker 7:So I saved a little bit at Christmas, but then I had to spend all of that. But, thank goodness, my friend was the one that did it, for, like, he has a company and we know a guy.
Speaker 6:Yeah, and he let me pay it in three different increments that's like a big thing too, if you can play in like installments that you're not getting like hit on. That is the way to do it, man. If you're just taking small chunks out, that has been a lifesaver for us not being able to take the hit all at once.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that really helped so another little bit of homework. I would be curious with you guys. Since you're homeowners, I'm curious how much did you spend on your home last year? Oh, it's interesting it doesn't have to be an exact kind of things.
Speaker 4:Well, yeah, like in just the homeowners expenses, you know, because I think this is also a good way to help guide people who maybe want to be homeowners and be like okay, yes, you have your mortgage payment, that's one thing, but then you just said $5,000 for a water leak. Who has that kind of money?
Speaker 6:Oh, we didn't, we did not, we did not Right.
Speaker 4:So you can figure out a way to get there.
Speaker 7:What I've noticed? What I've realized about us is we put our home in the last priority. We have not been up the proper ladder.
Speaker 6:Yeah, we've been terrible homeowners and that's why stuff is falling apart.
Speaker 7:I think that's probably a big reason. Honestly, we have not maintained like we should.
Speaker 6:Why'd you have to bring that up? We're being honest, that's right, I maintained like we should.
Speaker 7:Why'd you have to bring that up? We're being honest.
Speaker 6:That's right, I love this. I love this.
Speaker 4:Accountability in this situation.
Speaker 7:That's really yeah, it's money that I'm like we need. We need something else. You know, this can wait. And then I'm like, by the time it explodes, you're like, well, I can't wait. By the time it explodes, they're like well, now, I can't wait.
Speaker 6:Now it's $5,000. Our AC. All we have to do is put a little bit of bleach into a little system thing and then it cleans it out, and we totally forget to do that. And then the AC shuts down.
Speaker 7:in the summer Everybody's sweating for two weeks, and then that's another more money. So now it's a reminder of my phone.
Speaker 6:Yeah, take care of it.
Speaker 4:Take care of it, take care of the house. Yeah Well, that's you know, like, like I said, I wanted to highlight that honestly just just for other people to see you know that that you know home ownership is nice and everything, and yeah, you do make equity eventually, but that's a slow process and it's it's just part of the bigger financial picture is that you're not just spending $900 on a mortgage payment, You're also pre-spending all these homeowners' expenses. And one thing that I did want to put a number in your mind is I think it's like 2% to 3% is what they estimate you should put away for your house for repairs. So if your house is $200,000, then 3% would be $6,000 a year. So basically, the idea is just like with a car maintenance fund like you know, your car is going to have problems, so you put money away to prepare for that. Just like with the house stuff.
Speaker 6:You sound like everybody does that. We don't do that at all. We're like oh, hopefully it makes sense. We change our oil. All right, we're good, it's going to last forever.
Speaker 4:Yeah, but that's one of the things. You could start with that, Even like a car maintenance fund 50 bucks. So basically, what we're doing here is we know we're going to be spending this money throughout the year, but by allocating it ahead of time you're kind of generating a buffer.
Speaker 7:Yeah, are you saying to do different savings accounts for each of these, or just kind of know?
Speaker 6:that this is what we're looking for.
Speaker 4:Yeah. So that's where like things like the smarty pig can can help. Like you can actually give each account a task. So like you have a you know 500 for the year, uh, account on smarty pig and you just put 20 bucks a month or whatever you determine is what you're going to save. So in that sense, like if it's helpful for you, then I would say, go ahead and do it.
Speaker 4:But the only thing that I would be cautious about is overcomplicating your finances too much, which I'm guilty of. But yeah, that's definitely something that I would be. Just have that discussion be like okay, we want to have our money put away separately, but we don't want it to be too crazy complicated, cause then it's just like hard to follow, you know. But okay, so we're running a little bit low on time. We got a couple minutes. We have to do an outro. But I wanted to say thank you guys for basically putting yourself out there and like I mean I want to give you guys credit. Like you guys put, you know, put your stuff on blast, and I just I know that that's not comfortable, but you guys are going to be helping who knows how many thousands of people, man as a veteran.
Speaker 6:Like any help I wish I would have. Like saw some of these videos before I got out, you know, or like, even like as I got out, you know, or like, even like as I got out, I was like, oh, I'm going to make all those mistakes.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, but yeah Once again. Thank you, Robbie and Becky. We're going to have you guys on again, hopefully soon. Maybe not this week I got another guest but then maybe the week after we can do that.
Speaker 4:Just let us know, man, we got a lot of stuff to go over. So, okay, cool. Well, thank you for your time. This has been money in the military on a military broadcast radio. Thank you guys for for joining and watching after the fact. Thanks again for Becky and Rob. All right, we'll talk to you next time and that's it.
Speaker 6:Thanks, joe, I appreciate it, man. Keep up the good work, dude. This is awesome thing you're doing, man, awesome yeah.
Speaker 4:Thanks Joe, I appreciate it, man. Keep up the good work, dude. This is an awesome thing you're doing, man. Awesome. Thanks, man, I appreciate that. Yeah, I like it.
Speaker 3:Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for tuning in to Military Broadcast Radio as we wrap up today's show. We want to remind you that the podcast of today's episode will be available right after we go off the air. Today's episode will be available right after we go off the air, so if you missed any part of the show or want to listen again, be sure to check it out. And remember we're here to support and honor our veterans. Your stories and experiences matter, and we are committed to giving you a platform to share them. That's right. We're here to give our veterans a voice, so don't forget to catch the podcast and stay connected with us Giving our veterans a voice.
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