Ep. 15 - Budget is the new B-word

The Stone County Extension Office had to work for this episode. It's the time of year when everyone in Agriculture is thinking about trying to grow food,  FCS is out teaching folks how to keep that food safe, and 4-H is out learning by doing to make the best better.  So just know the Extension Office is busy at work serving our community. 

 In this episode Anna brings up the time "the Gang" got a hold of a Gorilla Suit. Tyler talks about pruning fruit trees.  Anna talks household budgeting.  It's a good episode.

Transcript

We're at it again. Stone County Extension Saves the World. We attempted last week and it was, we just weren't feeling it. We've tried to record some already today and I've been messing up.

Shame, shame.

If you didn't know, sometimes we mess up. A lot. But I've got a, I've got a crick in my neck every time I move.

It hurts.

It hurts, yeah. So I'm just going to try to sit real still.

Did you get that from sledding or?

No, I think I got it from sleeping. That's me. I slept wrong and now my neck hurts.

You know, you're getting older.

Yeah, I'll be, I'm almost a man. I'll be 40.

Next year.

Yeah, 2027.

Yeah.

Yep.

Getting close.

It is getting close.

Yeah, it's a shame. I wanted to talk about groundhogs and only a little bit of it made a little real, but I want to eat one. So that was one of the reasons why I want to talk about groundhogs.

Sure they'd be good. I mean, I'm not too adventurous, so it'd have to be, you'd have to be like, we made it, we caught a groundhog and we're going to cook it. And then I would try it.

Allegedly, it tastes like pork, kind of. Allegedly. I've not tried it. I'm hoping that someone will bring me one, preferably skint and beheaded. That's the part I don't really want to do.

Well.

But I do want to try it.

Yeah. And then it's, sorry, I'm not dressed the best because it's hot.

It's hot and you've been out in the community garden.

Yeah, I'm getting ready for my class tomorrow. I think I'm ready.

What all are you talking about tomorrow?

Well, I said, I thought I'm ready. Now I can't remember. No, I think we'll do seed starting. That's just a fun activity. Master Gardener's got a lot of seed trades donated to us. And so they're like, we got to use them. So we'll probably show, I like to show people, you know, how you can maybe if you bought in bulk, bought peat moss, perlite, you can pretty easily add a little bit of fertilizer and lime to your mix and make you a good seed starting mix. So I'll probably show that off and how to mix your own seed starting mix. And then we'll start some cool season seeds, broccoli, cabbage. I think we've got seeds left over. And then go through, show them how my low tunnel that I built and talk about that, how to extend your growing season at home. And then it is a community garden kind of interest meeting. I'm hoping a few people will say, yeah, we'd like to have a raised bed or something. I'm trying not to move, but I've talked to a few folks and it's like, when you think community garden, it's like, well, is it a garden that the community works on? Because I've seen that before where we have enough space that we could do both. Or is it like a community garden where we run out beds? And so that's kind of our thought process of how we want to set it up. And this is also the community gardens like my eye lead project. So I'm double dipping.

One thing I like about it is that it's a teaching opportunity along with the public space.

Yeah, it's...

Because we've had 4-Hers out there, you've had multiple classes, master gardeners.

You know, with our 4-H way of thinking, learn by doing, it's like, well, why don't we do a class, see, you know, By doing it, we'll build, show, I can show how to do it, show how to build it, show it.

And y'all have built several raised beds.

Yeah, that's how we built the raised beds and several people come out. And that's what I hope we'll do again if a few people are interested in participating in the community garden. We've got 8 beds out there right now, but my goal is to add more as people want to participate.

I think adults miss learning by doing as well.

Yeah, and so it's. used to do death by PowerPoint. And those were good, I guess. you get people that, people, I guess some people like that, but it's, I'm leaning more towards, I don't just want to sit there and point at a PowerPoint. And I'm not the best.

Any class that you can have both.

Looking at the PowerPoint. This is how. I used to do a PowerPoint if we did the podcast like this. As you can see here, we've got, what's that say?

Oh, I need my notes on that. Yeah.

You gotta look. I had a, that is a story. I had a, And I also have problem with making eye contact to people.

Yes, you do. Or he'll find one person and just like stare them down.

And so I had a, she's been nice. One of my ladies, when I first started to done, maybe been here three or so years doing these classes. And she's like, just a little tip, make eye contact every now and then. But yeah. So look at the camera, make eye contact.

But don't look at it like that. But I usually find a few people that I can stare at.

Yeah. So, and it's being kind of the informal kind of learn by doing type deal. I think being really easy to show how to pull soils test and I'll have copies of soil tests, show people how to read one and probably take my fertilizers out there, talk about how to interpret soil tests, how to use the numbers on a bag of fertilizer. I don't know if we've ever talked about that. If you read a bag of fertilizer, you can always see there's like 3 numbers on there, like something, something, dash, something, something, dash, something, something. Like 19, 19, 19 would be 19% nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium.

You mean they make other fertilizers?

That's what those 3 numbers stand for, is the N, P, and K.

In that order.

In that order. Show you, when it's a percentage. Some people, you see like 555 or 500, so 500 is 5% nitrogen, no phosphorus, no potassium. 00, 12 would be 12% phosphorus or potassium. K I wonder.

I wonder who thought that one out?

Yeah. Were you good at chemistry?

I started out in college as a chemistry major, if y'all are all wondering. I was good in high school, and then I realized that that's not for me forever.

Yeah, but I enjoyed it. I was like, I just got to get through it. I was like, I'll never, I'll never use chemistry. Look at you now. Yeah. Use it every day. but there's still a lot to understand. But talking a little bit about that, using fertilizers and maybe some regenerative agriculture, talk about that a little bit. No-till or...

Sounds like a good class.

Hopefully. We'll see.

It's going to be a nice day outside. Everybody's anxious to get to planting. So I think it's great timing.

Yeah, I might talk about that a little bit. I've seen the one of the trucks that delivers all the transplants to places. I've seen that truck going through town. And I was like, some of y'all are doomed. Yeah, because we're February when we got to make it those little warm season tomatoes that they'll have out on the shelves.

But even if you want to wait to plant, you kind of have to buy them early sometimes.

Yeah.

So maybe you talk about keeping them going.

Yeah.

If you're already purchasing those transplants.

Yeah, but that's what I'm looking for in the class or like something like that. I hope it goes good. Hope there's people there.

I think you'll have a good crowd.

I think so. What you got going on, what you been doing?

I haven't got ServSafe in a couple weeks and youth leadership. So last time I taught dining etiquette, we had it at the Folk Center, but with some timing, I couldn't make that happen because they're closed for the season. And so I thought, I'll try it myself. And so they did all the place settings and everything here and I had them eat spaghetti, which is difficult, but we learned, you know, how to properly eat spaghetti.

Yeah, they had a seat in my careers class and at Arkansas Tech, and we had to attend like a deal like that. And they had a seat ribs. So I guess that's a good deal. See.

That's a good dinner, though, some ribs. So I want you to tell a story. It was Justin's birthday yesterday. So in honor of that, Justin used to own a gorilla suit. And so if you lived in Mount View, there's a chance. You might have seen it.

I've seen a gorilla. So we talked about it all the time, how funny it would be as if we got a gorilla suit and then we could pretend to be like Bigfoot and stuff. Well, Justin, he, yeah, he finally bought one. And so one time we all went over to, there's a few times, I'll tell him.

I was going to say, I can think of at least two instances.

Justin was with us and we got up at Brad and Dad's and we'd sit there and we'd wait for cars to be coming through Timbo. And then we'd run across the road there, like the store and stuff, and run behind the store.

In the gorilla suit.

In the gorilla suit. One of us would be there and run across. And I think I did it and Justin did it. And one time I was doing it and I like ran across the road And the car pulled in and was like chasing after me. And luckily it's Brady.

I was so scared. He knew it was y'all.

Yeah. But then.

He thought they were going to run over Bigfoot or whatever you were.

But then I think Justin let me borrow it. And it was.

I was there for the Walmart incident.

Yeah. So I think it's weird how your memory works because I can both see it happening and also think that I was in the suit.

Yeah, I can't, I know you were in the suit on the Walmart one. But the Pizza Hut, I'm not sure.

So the, yeah, it seems like maybe the Pizza Hut one was somebody else, but it was the funniest one. So what we did is we dressed in the gorilla suit and we like tied a rope around my neck or something and Ryan led me through Walmart and we bought like a thing of bananas. And then went.

I think I jumped on somebody's car.

Yeah, well, I think it was Cody got in it. And we're like, go through Pizza Hut. I dare you.

Okay, so Pizza Hut has a door at the same spot on both sides. So you can just run right through.

And so I think I was videoing. That's how I remember it so good. So like we jump out on the one side, open the door, I opened the door for him and he runs through. And there was a girl standing there and as soon as he got in and kind of ran through and he's like, there was one of the waitresses was like, and he popped out the other side and we were in the car and we were gone.

I remember the scream. Yeah.

Oh man, that was funny. I'd forgotten about it till you brought it up that we even did that.

Yeah, we were talking about it last night.

Man. I remember skateboards were, may have been involved in it.

Yeah, I forgot about that.

Me and Brandon got into skateboarding there for. A little bit.

It didn't work out too good for Brick and.

D. Well, you can imagine, like we had grew up in Oney, Arkansas. How many places are there concrete to skateboard? And we couldn't do any tricks or anything, but what we'd do is we'd ride down the hills, And this was before it was asphalt and they chip and sealed it and I wouldn't attempt it after they'd chip and sealed.

I thought you meant.

No, like it used to be like a lot smoother, Yes, I know, my windshield knows. And so, yeah, we had, I used to have a picture and it was like me and Brandon skateboarding down this hill and a truck in the back. And it was like, do not attempt this at home. This was performed on a closed St.

It wasn't.

Yeah, we were skateboarding down the highway in Oney.

It's very steep where they went down.

And we did that for a while.

Didn't he clock y'all at, it was 50 mile an hour, wasn't it? The incident was, I think.

I thought it was more than that.

It was at least.

I thought it was what?

Was it 55?

Not 50. I thought it was like 40. I thought he was going like 40 miles an hour.

I thought y'all were going.

I don't know.

Well, Brandon said.

Were you there for that when he crashed?

No, we just started dating a couple weeks after that. But there's, I've seen the pictures of it and like right before it happened. But he still has scars.

Yeah. So he was a brave man. So we'd done that, skateboarded and done it. fell and busted a few times, but you get to going down those hills, and if you don't tighten up your trucks good enough, that thing gets a wobble. And if you're going 22 mile an hour down a hill, that's faster than you can run. So you're gonna hit the ground. Well, we'd done it, and we'd gotten pretty good to where we were working our way up Buddy Long Hill, there by the, or not- Church House Hill. Church House Hill. And they're in Oney, coming out down to Bethany Baptist. If you ever go through Oney, just imagine.

I know several crash stories and one with the bicycle anyway.

But we were doing it one evening and there's a few of us there. And so Justin, he was like in his little red truck. He was taking us up to the top and then we'd skateboard down to the bottom. And we were making it about what I'd call like a little more than halfway and able to make it all the way to the bottom. Well, Brandon gets brave and he's like, I'm going from the top. And I was like, man, I don't think I can do it. And he's like, I think I can. And.

The confidence in that man.

And so I'll tell you from my perspective, I'm sitting down there at the bottom and we'd sent Justin, take him to the top, and then Justin was gonna follow him down, see how, you know, how fast he is going. Well, he comes and it like curves and he comes around the curve and it gets kind of steeper. So he would pick up a lot of speed. Well, he's making it, but then all of a sudden, The death wobble. The death wobble and that thing just. And he smacked the ground and it was like, oh.

He scraped on the side of his hip and on the top of his shoulder. And he said he had a knot on the top of his head and he has yet to figure out how he managed that. But he said he wore your shirt home to hide it from his mom. At the ripe age of 21.

Yeah, but we come down and he was kind of, you know, He was like, dang, are you okay? And he's like, and just kind of banged up. But Justin was like, well, you'd hit like 40 mile an hour before you fell.

He was like, this was awesome.

Yeah. And it was like, oh my goodness. I think that was the end of our skateboarding.

I can imagine, yeah.

Because not soon after that, they chip and sealed the road. And so.

Yeah. Good times.

Good times from childhood. We've done a lot of stuff around that area.

Some we can't discuss.

So before we got to take a little break, I got to go run and get kids from school. I guess I'll talk mine. What I wanted to educate you on, we're getting, we've talked about it's getting to be spring. It's warming up. What we want to do before, I say, our plants that need to be pruned in dormancy during the winter, it's time to start thinking about doing that. Crape myrtles, our fruit trees, roses, those can be pruned during dormancy to help increase flowering. Or for fruit trees, we're trying to remove any, and I mean, with ornamentals, whenever you're pruning, what I tell folks is what you're looking for is dead dead, damaged, diseased wood, wood that can be rubbing or crossing, or wood that hangs low, that if it gets a fruit load, might touch the ground, or could possibly, you know, if it break. And you're really going in there and opening that tree up. You want good airflow and good light penetration so that the light can hit the interior leaves. So when we go to pruning on fruit trees at least, you're removing more than you might think. I've had people say, like I'm sitting there like pruning, showing them how to prune like at their place. And I never, ever, I was telling Monty the other day, I was like, I never prune as much as I want to on somebody else's stuff because It upsets them. they're like, you're taking them off too much. And like that happened. I went and taught that class at Berryville with Monty on Monday. And I'm like, I tell them, you know, you don't want to take off rule of thumb. You don't want to take off more than 1/3 of the tree. And I'm pruning on that tree. And one of them was like, you getting close to 1/3 yet? And I still was like, well, there's still more I want to take off. But yeah, I don't. Like that rule of thumb is for when your tree is really overgrown. And it's good to think about, but we don't want to, if it's really overgrown, hadn't been pruned in a while, no more than 1/3 of the branches in any one year. But what we want to do our pruning right before spring, right before the flesh of growth, preferably after the chance of any of the harsh weathers pass, because on those fresh cuts you can get some cold damage if it does get pretty cold in the evening. So that's typically why we tell people, you know, around here late February, early-ish March, but we're getting some warm days. You said yours.

Yeah, mine are starting to leaf out. So what do I need to do in that situation?

I think you'd still have time to prune them.

I'm hoping you can, but now I'm nervous to have you come.

How come?

Because you're going to take off a bunch.

I'll make it, I'll do it right. I'll make it look good.

I pruned them pretty heavy last year, so. Well, I think they need maybe some structural changes.

Yeah, it's something you want to do every year, especially early on in their life. We want to train that tree to develop a good, strong structure, developing good crotch angles.

You don't hear that every day.

Yeah, that is the, where, say, we got the trunk, that's where the branch comes out. We bought, at least a 45 degree crotch angle, probably. They say like 45 to 60 is the best. I tell folks, you know, if it's, Getting out there around and.

Not that there could be a break more likely.

Well, like, yeah, you think about a 60 to 45 degree crotch angle or angle, that's going to be pretty strong. If it's narrower than that, we want to train the tree and like put a spacer in there so it forces that to open up because as that tree grows and develops that narrow crotch angle, new growth will try to grow in there and it will start rotting over time because all that new growth gets in there. Have you ever seen that in a tree?

Yeah, absolutely.

And so if we can train that strong crotch angle, we can avoid that and we're also getting a strong branch. So if any weight gets out there on it.

Won't just break.

It won't just break. We have, we talked about editing some of my hand motions gets Anna to giggling. So.

I can't help it.

I can't either.

You talk with your hands. It's okay. It's okay.

Be like Ricky Bobby, I guess, is what I need to do. Have you seen Talladega Nights?

I have, but I can't think of what you're doing at the moment.

He's like, I don't know what to do with my hands. So this is how I'm going to start all my talks. to keep from, and from now on during the podcast.

Did he have anything in his hands?

No, he just, he was being interviewed after he had raced for the first time. You don't remember that?

No, I don't remember that.

He's like, I don't know what to do with my hands. And he like has them up here.

I was thinking about when he stabbed his leg.

He's just like, I don't know, what to do with my hands. So instead of me doing all my karate motions. I'm just going to do this.

Just hold like that and creep everybody out who doesn't.

Know what you're talking about. I'm trying to make a joke and I don't know. We'll see how it goes. But so it's the time of year to prune. Typically how we want to think about it is if it, like there's, I always have to look up which, you know, certain things when to prune them, especially like your ornamentals. because it really depends on when they flower. So if they flower in the spring, that typically means that it's on last year's growth. So it'll, you want to cut, do any pruning to those type of ornamental shrubs after they flower in the spring, then go in and do our pruning. But then if it's like a summer flowering, that means it's making its flowers on the first year growth or the new growth. And so those are the types that we can go in and do cuts in the wintertime.

So would that be like your fruit trees?

Fruit trees are like that. Well, fruit trees are a little bit different. We want to, they'll develop like on fruits, fruiting spurs on last year growth or at least year old growth. And but we want to come in and do any cleanup in dormancy. The reason we want to kind of switch that in ornamentals is because if you come in the winter and you're making cuts, you're cutting off your blooms if you're doing a heavy pruning. But like on fruit trees, you can see the, you know, you can see where there's blooms. And I tell people that like you worry about cutting off all your fruit. Well, look, this is a fruiting spur. This is where your blossoms will be. You're likely going to have to thin. What we want is It took fruit about ever 4 to 6 inches, about a hand width apart is where we want fruit to develop. And your trees will try to develop more fruit than that. So we have to go in and remove those. It's called thinning. And the goal is instead of the tree putting its energy into growing a bunch of little tiny fruit, we remove those and then it puts its energy into a few more larger fruits.

So you do that at the spur stage? The thinning.

The thinning you do once the fruit's developed. You don't want to do it at bloom because some, maybe not all blooms will develop a fruit, but you want like, you know, when they get the little, you'll see the little green thing after they've started to develop, that's when you want to go in when they're still tiny. If you'd like, I don't have time for that. You can like get a rubber garden hose or something and something that's not going to damage the tree when you hit it and you just knock them off that way. Makes sense? It does. I think we still need to do that video though.

We need to get that done. Yeah, this one needs to be my trees.

Yeah. I was thinking of something earlier as I was driving around that would, oh, building that stinking low tunnel. It's like, because I was kind of trying to look that up online.

You could build another.

I just video how I put it together and that would be fun.

Yeah, that'd be good.

And then do it quick, because that's the one thing I get. It's like, I don't have time to sit here for 30 minutes and you talk about.

Oh yeah, just show me the time lapse, the key things.

The key things.

Yeah.

I think we could do a video like that. It'd do pretty good.

You may need to get your children.

Yeah, I better go get the kids and then we'll come back and finish this out. Make sense? Has it made sense this round?

Yes.

All right. Well, you excited about archery club this evening?

Yeah, I know nothing about archery.

Are you going to help me?

I'm going to help try to keep people from getting shot by an arrow.

Hopefully that. Yeah, that would.

That'd be bad.

That'd be bad. Like that's one of the points of like shooting sports that Jesse talks about is that there hasn't been like serious accident.

Thus far.

Thus far. I'm not superstitious.

But just in case.

None of this is wood though.

I know. Maybe particle. Yeah, we do have a lot of really pretty real wood in our office, but.

I think there's been a couple of like instances where someone did get hurt, but it wasn't like they got shot. Like I think that's why they can't use like reactive targets.

Okay.

Because what's the story is they were doing something with reactive targets where you shoot the target and there's like a 12 gauge shell on the other side and it hits when you hit the target and it explodes. I think one of the 4-H clubs, they were doing that, as they were going to pick up the stuff.

It exploded.

Well, I think the kid like dropped it and it hit him.

Just a shell.

I don't know if they...

If it was messed with.

Yeah, if they... I just remember that story from when I went through training that they told about. So hopefully... No, for sure that nothing bad will happen.

No reactive targets.

Yeah. I mean, we, it can't be like a something that explodes. Like we could do balloons. I mean, I need to remember that. Like with bows, eventually what we need to do is, which would be fun to do, is like put a balloon way out there and get the flu flu arrows.

Yeah, that would be fun.

That would be fun.

Have you ever shot anything that explodes?

We should, yeah. Have you?

I've been a part of it. I mean, milk jugs and.

Yeah.

You ready for me to have my spiel?

Yeah.

We're going to talk about bad words. Not really. It says budget is not a bad word. Though your face is like.

I was trying to think like, what? What's a bad word? I was about to say one.

No, it just says budget is not a bad word. Thank you for enunciating that for us. So, a nicer term's like a spending plan, but normally when you say budget, everybody cringes because they're just thinking of...

Yeah, like I think of.

Not getting to do anything fun.

Well, yeah, I think we need to start budget. We need to budget.

A lot of us say it and then few of us do it. So basically, I've been going through this financial series and trying to really take stock of what I have, set goals for my family. And so finally, and I did my financial inventory, and I finally felt ready to start to make a budget. So first you have to really set some goals. And then you also have to think, what are the goals for my family too? Not just kind of what I think, like what's my whole household goals? And then, and you're gonna have to adjust. So like what you do the first month, if it's not at all obtainable and it's terrible or it might be too easy, then you can adjust it and you're gonna have to adjust it.

Yeah, the way I was saving money was I was just having them put it, you know, in the credit union, a couple 100. And I was like, Just forget about it and then I'll buy me a gun.

How'd that go?

I haven't got a gun yet.

You know, though, I do like that way of thinking. I consider it like paying myself. So I'll have money pull out of my savings account. So it's like a bill kind of. And that way I don't look at it. Because if I look at it, I'm like, that's nice. might use that. So, but that's one way you can do it is it's like you pay yourself essentially to save. But so back to setting the goals. So we want to set those smart goals. And we've talked about that before, specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. So for your budget?

I got to say something. I think attainable and achievable. I think.

I like attainable.

I think I like achievable. You switched up and I was like, they pretty much mean the same thing, don't they?

Well, last time we had read it was attainable and this time it has achievable. But I guess it's because this is more financially specific. So achieve must have been the word they were feeling. So So SMART or specific, SMART goals, specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. So my SMART goal for my budget. So I made me a goal and mine was to spend less dining out during the week and add more to savings accounts because I had talked previous, I want to build my emergency savings back up. And then also I added in, I wanted to do a little more tithing than I've been doing. So that's one thing that I added. So specific. So what will I achieve? Who will benefit from the goal? What thing will I accomplish? So more savings can help me to go into debt less. Mum tithing makes me feel good in my heart. And dining out less, maybe more money to go on vacation and stuff like that. So not been as good.

Tithing.

Or donation, however you.

I was just thinking of 10, tiling means 10%. But then I was like, you're telling people. You know how it says, don't let your right hand know what your left hand's doing? And I was like, I just thought, I was like, you're telling people you're tiling. So you're not going to get a reward. I'm just kidding.

Gosh, the things you think of.

I get what you, I'm trying to.

But it says, like if you read about budgeting and it talks about a certain amount that you give away, and so that's how I'm choosing to give mine away. I didn't say how much I was doing. I know.

I'm just.

I know what it means. It means 10%.

I was trying to tell a joke and it flopped.

Because I felt chastised.

Yeah, I know. That's why I was like, it flopped. I was like, oh, this isn't going to go over.

I took it personal. Yeah. I guess when you take a joke personal, it's kind of hard. But I can. Well, the flop of the jokes making me laugh more than the joke.

I'm trying to turn this around. I was trying to say something funny and it just flopped.

Well. The flop made me laugh.

Yeah.

So specifics. I think I might have been too specific. Specific. So measurable. So how much? So that's your dollar amount and how often. So you're getting, you know, an actual number value. And I have that here for me. So I wanted to have it measurable. And that's kind of the thing of the budget. If you don't give a real number.

I'm definitely thinking how I think and how I do things, put a number.

Otherwise, how do you measure it? How do you quantify?

And what you're going to end up doing is money just disappear. Yeah.

And that's a good point. I had a note in here to talk about phantom money. So the example was, If you spend $0.50 a day for a soda, how much does that typically add up to in a year?

First thought is where are you still finding $0.50 sodies?

Yeah, that's true.

Yeah, $1.19. So.

Yeah, so that's.

So probably a soda is at least a dollar.

So if you spent a dollar.

A day, that's 365.

Yeah. That's a lot. That's a lot once you add it all up. It seems like.

For years, think about over 10 years.

Yeah. Wow. 3,000 on SOTIs.

Yeah.

And so it's wild to think of, and that's phantom money because we think, oh, it's just a dollar.

Yeah.

But over time, it truly adds up. So that's where that measurable comes into and watch out for your phantom spending. And hopefully you found some of that when you did. In the other episodes I talk about your spending tracking.

Tracking your spending and doing an inventory.

Yes. So hopefully you found it there.

That's why you do that.

Yes.

You'll find those.

And you'll always find something.

I wonder if I'm still a member of the gym.

Yeah, the guy gets a few people.

Yeah.

So, yep, you may need to check on that one. That was definitely something I talked about in the spending tracker and all those subscriptions that you might have. that you may not have remembered that you're paying for that are getting drawn out monthly. Okay, so we got specific, we got measurable. Now attainable or achievable, is it something you can actually do? And so some, like if I want to make $1,000,000 in a year, but I'm not doing anything to make the $1,000,000, well, that's pretty unachievable. So I try to be a little more stricter on my first month. So that's what I was working for with my budget. So we want to make sure that we can actually achieve these goals and then relevant. So is this something that I really want? Is now the right time? So if savings is part of your goal, but you're hardly paying your bills, may just need to focus on getting those bills paid for and those debts down before we can get to a savings goal. So you got to see if that's something relevant for you and why that's important. Is this going to help meet your short-term and your long-term goals? So short-term, you know, for me was building that emergency savings and then, you know, get that built up and then start putting that more into retirement.

What would people like for emergency savings? What would you, what does research recommend?

Typically, they want you to build up to $1,000 is like your first goal. And so for some, that's a lot harder than it sounds. So I would say if you have real limited getting to $100 and then try to build up to that $1,000 and then after that, it's three months of expenses and then six months of expenses. And that's pretty much, and that's just dedicated to emergency savings. That's not a separate savings account for other things. That's purely all four tires mess up. And I need, and that way that keep prevents you from using your credit card and having those very high interest rates.

I'll tell you, I had a flat when I had to go to the 4-H center.

No.

Yeah, got over there and put that facilitator training and I drove my truck, but I stopped in there.

That was a risk.

Yeah, that was a risk. But it had good tires on it. I pulled into an ATM to get some cash out and then went over to the 4-H center. and they still, there's still snow in the ground. Like that was the sketchiest part is once I got on that road there, Ferndale, there was still ice in the road and I pull into the parking lot and I thought I noticed like, how it is when there's a flat, but then I was like, maybe that.

I mean, I can't say actually do, it has to be really bad before I do this.

I didn't hear it, like you can usually feel it and hear it, but I didn't feel that, but when I pulled in, it felt like I had a flat, but it seems like I was like, look, I was like, maybe that I just slipped on the ice. And then I was kind of late. It started at 10 and like I'm getting in there at like 959. So I got to run in. I got to run in. But I get in there and everybody's just kind of chilling. So I wasn't late.

But as long as you're not the last one, man.

Yeah, I wasn't the last one, but then I just forgot about it, you know, and then That evening, Samantha Horn was like, she walked out and then she come back and pointed at me and she's like, is that your black truck? You got a bad flat. And I was like, oh, dang, what am I going to do? Because I don't have a spare. Like I left it, left the spare at home because it's got a flat on it. Well, I wouldn't have done you much good anyway. Yeah, so, but anyways, one of these screws from the roof was in there. And luckily, Taylor Knox, he had, well, the 4-8 center had a air tank and then he had like a plug for me. So it worked.

Well, good. Saved the day.

Saved the day. Otherwise, I was like, okay, I'm about to have to spend, you know, a couple $100 to get a new tire and I'm going to have to run around, have people drive me around to do this.

I'm glad they were able to get it fixed. So yeah, emergency savings for things like tires and all kinds of stuff that pops up. So relevant. We talked about that. You know, is that something you can do now? And then time bound. So how long are you going to follow this? Or how long is it going to take to meet your goal? So I set me a goal I don't like super long-term goals always because you just kind of get lost and forget about them. So I like something, a month, three months, six months, a year. I really like having all of those. So I can be like, yay. So I can celebrate sooner and maintain that momentum.

Yeah, I had that goal. I was going to try to save $1,000 a year. In 10 years, I'd have I'd go spend it.

You'd spend it all at once.

Treat myself. That was my.

Yes, I've seen that.

You've seen that.

Yeah. They have a new commercial with that too.

Yeah. But that's what I was going to do.

Yeah. So I went through and consumer.gov had a nice little make a budget sheet. And so I edited that to work out for me. So I had like my monthly income and then I'd already tracked all my spending and expenses. So I try to set limits for me on groceries and dining out and all those variables. And so that's what I worked through each of those. And for you, just have to sit down and it's so individualized. Like a budget just really varies on the person, but just sit down and say, I'm going to spend this much. And I like to focus on a week and then a month. So I break it down weekly. Some people may need to break it down daily. So It's up to you, but set those amounts and see how you do that first month. Keep up with it, try to follow it, and then you adjust it for your next month until you find something that works for you. And sometimes I try to not always treat myself, and sometimes you've got to make things a little uncomfortable. And when you make it through that week, that's a win. And so make that budget for your household, and and kind of get yourself headed towards those goals that you want to meet.

Yeah, I mean, budgeting, we talk about it all across ag. Farmers definitely need to, if you're not budgeting as a farmer, what are you doing? Yeah. That would be the first thing you need to do is figure out how much you're spending. And definitely, you know.

Yeah, and farming that spinning, you might just buy that one thing once a year or spend it, or you might get that income once a year. And so it's really important to keep a...

Like there's some things we can do, like, well, do we want to spend money on feed in the winter? Or what if we spent $1,000 on fertilizer? Probably that fertilizer would get you a lot further than $1000 in feet. Just thinking, how much your grass you put extra yield there is.

Yeah, being strategic.

So building your resources. Thinking about budgeting goes across everything.

Yeah, all your businesses and all your household. So.

How long did your crick in the neck last?

Badly for about 5 days, but it is not 100% gone. But I had a really hard time sleeping for four nights at least. I found that heat, like a rice bag, heated up was good. And I had to resort to pain meds so I could sleep.

I may have. Like, just feels like it.

You think I could just karate chop it and it'd be better?

I don't know, it'd probably kill me. I'd be like, I think so.

And then, there's your $1,000.

Sorry, kids. Archery club's canceled again.

Oh, gosh. Oh, man. This will be the, what, 3rd or 4th because of factors beyond our control?

Yeah.

Oh, man. It's a beautiful evening in the Ozarks, so it should be nice. Nice to go.

Since the smoke earlier, I thought.

You felt like burning something. You're like 2 years in a row, having to have the fire department come out.

Yeah.

Tyler.

Well, oops, sorry. But I just didn't like look down to see what time we're at. And then I did my throat and it like jumped. And so it's like, oh, whoops. You did that right in your ear. I don't know anything else. We got about 24 minutes. We've recorded almost 30 and then 24. You want to say anything else? Anything funny?

I don't know if I have any. Is there any other good stories?

I don't know.

I was thinking the other day about spring break and I was thinking about one of my favorite spring break memories was when a bunch of us rode 4 wheelers and we ended up over at the cast and rock yard and it was muddy. Well, a neighbor got mad at somebody that day, but anyway.

Was that day.

Yeah. Get out of my yard. Anyway, he shouldn't have drove through yard, but. We were riding on 4 wheelers and we were slinging mud and then we got into a big mud fight. That was a good spring break.

Yeah. I used to have some pictures like where we made the ramps and like we were like laying down underneath the...

Oh gosh, I think that was in the summer that y'all jumped over.

Yeah, we have, we built some ramps and. Yes.

Wants to talk to you. Okay. I don't know what about.

All right. That's it.

That's it.