We're joined in Episode 11 of Talk Wealth To Me by Ashley Patrick for a discussion on how she and her family were able to pay off $45,000 worth of debt in 17 short months!
About Ashley:
Ashley Patrick is a Ramsey Solutions Master Financial Coach and the brains behind BudgetsMadeEasy.com. A former police officer, Ashley helps families eliminate debt by using simple budgeting strategies so you can stress less and live the life you want.
Comments, questions or suggestions for the show? Email us at talkwealthpodcast@gmail.com.
To learn more about DebtWave Credit Counseling, visit our website or connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
To learn more about the San Diego Financial Literacy Center, visit our website or connect with us on Facebook and Twitter.
We're joined in Episode 11 of Talk Wealth To Me by Ashley Patrick for a discussion on how she and her family were able to pay off $45,000 worth of debt in 17 short months!
About Ashley:
Ashley Patrick is a Ramsey Solutions Master Financial Coach and the brains behind BudgetsMadeEasy.com. A former police officer, Ashley helps families eliminate debt by using simple budgeting strategies so you can stress less and live the life you want.
Comments, questions or suggestions for the show? Email us at talkwealthpodcast@gmail.com.
To learn more about DebtWave Credit Counseling, visit our website or connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
To learn more about the San Diego Financial Literacy Center, visit our website or connect with us on Facebook and Twitter.
Welcome to Talk Wealth to Me. A safe space podcast where we chat about anything and everything related to personal finance.
Felipe:The information contained in this podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. It does not constitute as accounting, legal, tax or other professional advice.
Chase:Hello and welcome to another edition of Talk Wealth to Me. Wow. This week, um, we talked to a lady named Ashley Patrick. She was a police officer for 10 years and now she is able to stay at home because she and her husband paid off over$45,000 in debt. That's right. You heard me$45,000 and check this in 17 months, 17 months paid off$45,000. Felipe and Katie talk to her about how she went about it. You really don't want to miss this.
Katie:Thank you so much for joining us on the show today, Ashley
Ashley Patrick:thanks for having me. And you're in North Carolina, correct? I am outside of Charlotte.
Katie:Okay. And is that where you grew up?
Ashley Patrick:No, I actually grew up in Kansas and moved here, um, when I was like 19 years old. So I'm, I've almost been here as long as I was in Kansas.
Katie:Oh, okay, cool. It's always fun to just kind of figure out different parts of the country and there are different, I guess, views on finances too. Um,
Ashley Patrick:oh yeah.
Katie:But I want to ask you now is you paid off$45,000 in 17 months and I want to get more into that story later, but maybe you could help us set up this story. What kind of background did you have? Were you comfortable with finance, I guess personal finance skills, like budgeting, investing, saving, or was this a new concept for you?
Ashley Patrick:Um, I was familiar with doing a budget. You know, every month I did my budget. Um, you know, I listed out how much we got paid, what bills to pay, and then what was left we just spent like, but I set up, you know, paid myself first. I had, you know, savings as a automatic draft into my savings account. You know, we had great credit scores. We usually pay things off early. You know, we didn't have a ton of debt. You know, it was only three things, a credit card, a student loan, and um, a vehicle which I can get into later. But, you know, I thought we were doing really good. Um, and then, you know, we had money built up in savings cause like I said, I, I transferred it automatically and paid it like a bill. Um, and then some things happened. Uh, my husband lost his job and then we, um, had a 401k loan come due because he had lost his job and we couldn't afford to pay it. Like we had just taken it out and it was like over$20,000. Um, whenever they wanted us to pay it back and we had already spent the money. Um, so that was really the catalyst for paying off the debt. Um, you know, we followed some financial advice of people that we thought were financially savvy and they said to take out this 401k loan, you know, you're paying yourself back and it's a low interest rate and if you lose your job, you know, your income will be lower. So it's way it won't be that big of a deal. Well it, well it ended up being a huge deal. We ended up owing, um, over$6,000 in taxes when we normally get back, like, you know, several thousand for it. It ended up costing us like$10,000 in taxes and that's where it started. Um, I realize I had no plan to pay that back and I started searching for debt payoff plans and came across Dave Ramsey and that's um, kind of where this journey started. So, um, I can kind of dive in to that or if you have any other questions about the back story, I can, I can fill in the blanks there.
Katie:Yeah, I mean, just for our listeners who, could you maybe just briefly describe who Dave Ramsey is? Cause not all of our listeners are familiar with who he is.
Ashley Patrick:Absolutely. He is a, um, financial guru, I guess, so to speak. Um, and his plan is to do a zero based budget. So before I was doing, you know, like I said, I would just write down the bills and then whatever was left, we just spent. So, you know, we didn't track where the money was going. We, you know, we went out to eat a lot, we spent a lot on food and we just did whatever we wanted without really, you know, we had some money going into retirement. You know, we felt we were doing just fine until this, um, tax debacle happened. So, um, whenever I found Dave Ramsey and his plan, so it was a, a zero based budget, uh, the first step is saving$1,000, which we already had. Cause you know, we already had money in savings and then the second step is paying off all your debt using the debt snowball. And the debt snowball is a little bit different than, um, some other debt payoff methods. Basically you focus on the smallest debt, um, the smallest balance and regardless of interest rates or anything else, and then you pay the minimums on everything else, but everything extra in your budget goes toward the smallest debt. And then as you pay it off, you take that extra money and that minimum payment and you roll it to the next one and then the next one until you get to your last debt. And um, you should have quite a bit of extra money plus all your minimum payments to throw at that large debt so that you can actually get rid of it a lot faster. So, um, and I can explain what the zero based budget is as well. So basically it is being intentional with every single dollar. So like I said, I would just spend whatever was left, but with the zero base budget you actually plan every single dollar. So once I did that and tracked our spending and saw how much money we were spending on food and eating out, I mean it was, it was more than my mortgage payment. It was ridiculous. But I didn't know that because we weren't tracking our spending. So we really,
Katie:I'm just a little in shock, so I'm missing, so going out like on a per month, the cost or the amount that you were spending on food was more than your mortgage payment?
Ashley Patrick:Yeah, it was insane. Yeah. It was like$1,200 a month between eating out and on groceries. And this was for a family of four with one being a newborn. Like it was ridiculous. We were eating out like several times a day and I was still spending several hundred dollars at the grocery store, but I was throwing everything away because we were eating out so much. Like it was ridiculous.
Felipe:You guys do have good food, but that's a lot.
Ashley Patrick:So it is, no, we don't spit, you know, we, um, after doing all this, we cut our budget in half and basically, uh, our budget is$600 a month and then whatever's left over, like after grocery shopping is what we use to eat out. Uh, I still like eating out. I just have a problem with what
Felipe:You know I love eating out. I always tell people when we do presentations is if my budget were to start to go sideways, that's the first place I need to look at is e ating o ut.
Ashley Patrick:Me Too. I'm the same way. I don't know what my problem is.
Felipe:I think I figured mine out it's, I don't mind cooking. I have no issues doing that. But I've been told I can be a messy cook and I don't like cleaning. My wife said it's not okay for me to just leave a mess.
Ashley Patrick:Yeah. You know I have three kids now and so I just find it hard to find the time to meal plan and cook and then cleaned it all up. Like that's my problem lately. So I gotta get back to it. I mean, I know I need to, but it's so hard and I then I just make excuses and go get fast food.
Felipe:Exactly. Like, oh, there's a tee ball practice today. I guess we can go on. Neat.
Ashley Patrick:Yeah, exactly. You got a little bit of food money left. It'll be fine.
Katie:So Ashley, how long did it take you though? It would tick cut down that food budget in half and then to like Felipe mentioned, you know, it's so easy to get caught up in just saying, oh we have a tee ball game or something. We're just gonna do fast food or go out to eat. How long did it take you to change that behavior to make it, to like go, you're saying you still enjoy going out to eat, but it's not something that you guys do all the time?
Ashley Patrick:Um, I did it fairly quickly cause I'm the type of personality, like I just jumped straight into things. So like once I figured this out, I was like, okay, no more. And so my husband was a little bit harder. Like he still wanted to go out to eat for lunch because he works in a building where there's like no windows and he has a stressful job. So, you know, that was like his social time and his breaks. So he wanted to go out to eat. So, um, I think we cut out like lunch money maybe the first month or two. And then I realized like, okay, I've got to put it back in there because he's not, you know, taking his lunch and he needs to get out of the office and stuff like that. So then we added that back in. Um, but yeah, I just jumped straight into stuff. And so once I realized how much we were spending and that it was absolutely ridiculous, um, I got to work fairly quickly on cutting stuff out. So, you know, I would make my meal plan and I did a lot of like crockpot meals, so there wasn't as much of an excuse, um, not to cook, you know, and it's fairly simple. I can do it in the morning before work and then there's not a whole lot of cleanup. So it was just a matter of like actually making myself plan it and do it.
Katie:That makes sense. And you mentioned work too. I know right now you're the brains behind budgets made easy.com, but before that you were a police officer. So how did you, how did you, I guess, make that transition?
Ashley Patrick:Um, the transition to my own business?
Katie:Kinda curious. Cause I, I just, I'm newer I guess to personal finance.
Felipe:It seems like you had a great career. And to just kind of leave it behind, was personal finance a passion thing because you had an awesome career before hand?
Ashley Patrick:Yeah. So I was a detective and a police officer for 10 years, seven of that. I was a detective, so I just was really burnt out on the types of cases I was working and just the politics behind it. And you know, a lot of reasons that people leave any job, you know, um, a lot of the stressors and mismanagement and things like that. Um, and so when I had my third child, I had already, um, had my business up and running for about a year, almost a year. So, um, you know, just a leap of faith really. Once I had my third child, I re I couldn't go back to work for a couple of other reasons with him. It just wasn't working out. Um, and so I decided to take a leap of faith and, and just run my business and stay home with my three kids. And really the only reason I was able to make that choice was because I was debt free. Like if we still had the debt, there's no way we could have afforded for me to stay home.
Katie:And was that a goal that you had as far as your debt free journey went. Was your end goal to be able to leave your job if you wanted to?
Ashley Patrick:Um, not necessarily. Like it was kind of always in the back of my mind that I would like to stay home. Um, but I'm also very, um, scared I guess you could say about finances. Like I grew up poor so I was always afraid of not having enough. And so I kept working for over a year after we were debt free cause it was just like, well we could save more and you know, and so it was really just having him was the catalyst to finally make the decision to do it. Um, otherwise I would probably still be there just on the mindset of, you know, retirement and being able to save more money. Um, and things like that. You know, it's easier just to keep going on with the day to day. And so once I had that break from maternity leave, I was able to actually, you know, take the, take the leap and, and quit my job.
Katie:And now you're actually helping other people learn how to budget through your site budgets made easy.com.
Ashley Patrick:I am and I love it. And you know, I really, I started at, because people I work with were, you know, they saw how excited I was about it, you know, during our debt free journey. And then they'd ask me, you know, how can they do it too? And then, you know, I was already helping them. And so that really inspired me to start a website so I could, you know, help even more people. So, you know, I really enjoy what I'm doing right now and helping people, um, you know, get their budgets together so that they can be debt free. And that's ultimately my, my goal with my business.
Katie:And have you noticed just with working with people too on their budgets, like you were saying about, you know, your food budget and going out to eat a lot of us who maybe have debt. Are you finding that a lot of that debt is just coming from, you know,$5 credit card transactions at Starbucks every once in a while? Or is it larger? I guess, I don't want to say a purchase, but a larger maybe expenses? Yeah, like a student loan or maybe a vehicle or something like that.
Ashley Patrick:Um, yes and no. Uh, they have, you know, the big purchases that Kinda, um, get them thinking, oh, I need to pay this off. But it's also just mismanagement of the day today mindless spending, you know, just like I was with eating out and things like that is just, you don't realize how all those little small purchases add up. And once you track your spending and see where all your money's going, you realize, or at least you know, I did, I realized, wow, I could pay all this off a lot sooner than I realize if I would just, you know, pay attention to where my money's going. So I think it's a combination of, you know, student loans, vehicles, but it's also just not tracking and you know, having the mindless spending, um, and not putting their money toward paying off the debt and just, you know, Kinda like I was where you, you do your budget and then whatever's left you just spend, instead of being intentional with the money and actually paying off your debt.
Katie:And when you're creating that zero based budgeting too, I'm sorry if I missed this part, but are you making sure that of the dollars that you're assigning, some are going into a savings account or some sort of retirement account as well? Or is every dollar going toward paying off a debt or building up an emergency fund? I guess?
Ashley Patrick:Um, it kind of depends on what your goals are. So if you don't have like a small emergency fund, it should go into that first. Um, and then you also need to remember things in your budget that don't come up every month, like Christmas and birthdays and other holidays, clothes, um, you know, house maintenance, vehicle maintenance, stuff like that. So you still have to plan that in your budget as well. And so you're saving for those little things that always just seem to pop up and wreck your budget. Um, and they may seem like an emergency at the time, but you can really plan for it so it's not an emergency. Um, once you kind of have those, you know, figure it out in your budget and, um, planned for, sorry, uh, then everything extra can go toward your debt. So unless you've got another thing that you need to save for, like, um, if you're pregnant or expecting another child, um, you know, if you're planning on moving or a job loss, you know, there's other things that may be going on that you do need to save for. Um, and so you would do that first. But let's just say you're just the average person. You know, you save your thousand dollars, you've got in your budget, you've got your other things planned for that you need to plan for that don't come up every month. Then every extra dollar goes toward debt. Now you do need to build in like a buffer, so like a miscellaneous category. Um, cause you don't want your checking account to go down to zero. Um, you know, cause you go, always make a mathematical error and overdraw your account. So you want to have a little bit of a buffer in there as well. But yes. Yeah. On paper it looks like you've, you've planned every single dollar and then you want a plan in your buffer and then those extra things you need to save for and then everything extra goes toward paying off your debt until you pay that off. Um, now with retirement, um, I wasn't comfortable turning off my retirement contributions at first. I think it took me about six months to do that. Um, and since I was a police officer, I had mandatory, um, pension and things. I had to save for anyway, so those didn't stop. Um, but at that point I already had, well my husband and I, we already had quite a bit in retirement so I was comfortable, um, shutting it off once we got to my student loans because I realized how much we were actually putting in retirement and how much faster we could pay it off if we stopped the retirement contribution. So to me, that's kind of a personal decision. Now. Dave Ramsey will tell you to shut it off unless, um, it'll take you more than like two, three years to pay off your debt, all of your debt. Um, cause you don't want to be out of the investment market that long. Um, but to me it kind of depends on your age and what your goals are. Um, if you feel comfortable shutting it off and if you are diligent about doing it, because I don't, I wouldn't want somebody to shut it off and then start spending the extra money, not pay off their debt and then not turn on the contributions again because it can be real easy just to keep that extra money. So I'm hesitant to tell people to do that. Unless you're really intense about paying off your debt and you know, you will turn it back on.
Felipe:It's very interesting. You mentioned a couple of different things that we mentioned during your presentations. One, those periodic expenses. I don't know how many times, Cause we help people out with budgets here also. And I don't know how many times, like how much do you spend on gifts? And they say zero. You don't do holiday gifts, you don't do birthday gifts. You don't, well I didn't have a birthday this month.
Ashley Patrick:Right. It is, it adds up so fast. Especially if you have kids in you know, elementary school or whatever and you get invited to like every birthday party. It's crazy. It adds up. So you gotta you know, you just plan it and then you've set the money aside so that when it comes up you've got the money for it and you don't have to stress about where it's going to come from in your budget.
Felipe:Yeah. I'm noticing that now that my little one's just finished up kindergarten. Luckily for me right this year I got off easy cause he's like, oh I don't want to go to birthday parties.
Ashley Patrick:My kids want to go to every single one. I'm like, really?!
Felipe:As soon as he goes to the first I know it's game over, but until he realizes what he's missing, I'm going to, I'm going to ride that a wave as much as possible.
Ashley Patrick:Yeah.
Felipe:The other thing you mentioned is when people, uh, whether it be they turn off their, shut down, their retirement contributions or, or even if they're doing the snowball and they pay off an account, the discipline that it takes to not say, well I was sending this much money there. I can now afford to go out and eat.
Ashley Patrick:Yup. Yeah. You have like be very intentional with it and kind of what helped me not do that was to find things to keep me motivated to keep going. Um, you know, like I joined Facebook groups. Um, I made visuals of my progress, uh, I listened to Dave Ramsey podcasts like every day. Like, you know what I mean? Like you got to find things that keep you motivated to keep going. Cause it is, it's so easy to say, oh well now I've got an extra hundred bucks. Like, you know, we can go do this or you know, and just spend it instead of rolling it to your next debt. So that's, that's why I'm just, I'm always hesitant to tell people about the retirement contributions because you've got to save for retirement. So unless you're like all in, I wouldn't do it.
Katie:And maybe you could talk about that a little bit. I mean, how often did you find yourself just not motivated at all to continue on this journey? Cause you paid off quite a sizable amount in a short, I mean semi short period of time.
Ashley Patrick:Yeah, it was, it was relative. I wouldn't say easy, but I guess I was very motivated in the beginning because, and that's how the snowball works so well is because, you know, you pay off a debt so fast and it's like, oh, I can do this and it, you know, motivate you to keep going. Um, and so take the, the first thing that we had to pay off was the credit card that I put the money we owed the IRS on and it had, um, 0% interest for 18 months. And then I started getting the bills and I'm like, how in the world am I going to pay this off in 18 months? Well, once I started this journey, I realized we actually got it paid off in like two to three months when I didn't know how the heck we would pay it off in 18 months. So, you know, that really helped motivate me to keep going. Um, but then once we got to my student loan, which was the last one and it took us 10 months to pay that off, it got a, it got a lot harder. Um, but I did, you know, like the things that I said, um, uh, made a visual, I joined Facebook groups, listened to podcasts. Um, and I found we found ways to find extra money. Like my husband sold some things. Uh, he worked over time. Um,
Katie:Could you give us an example of something that your husband sold?
Ashley Patrick:Oh my goodness. So my husband is such a hoarder. Like no lie. So he has magazines that he's had his entire life. Like he was just cleaning out the shop the other day and he found magazines from like the 80s. It's ridiculous through to get him to sell something was like a huge feat in and of itself. But you know, he was, he was finally, you know, getting as motivated as I was. And He, we sold a trailer, which I was actually surprised because he used it a lot. And I think the reason he went ahead and sold it was because he wanted a different one, a better one, you know, but he does have, now we paid cash for it. Um, and then we sold a four wheeler. So that was two big things that we sold. Now we could have sold even more stuff. Like we have so much junk, well not really junk, but we have a lot of stuff that we could have sold, um, as well. But you know, he's a little bit more hesitant. So, you know, I had to make compromises where like I'm all in, I would have sold everything. Like I sold pictures off my wall, like my lamps, like I sold the, anything anybody would buy off of Facebook. I, I tried to sell it. So, you know, it looked like we just moved in. So He kinda reigned me in from like selling everything,
Felipe:but his strategy worked he got a new trailer out of it
Ashley Patrick:Exactly. You know, it's so funny, I always tell people like once we got down to like the last month or so and you know, we can just see it and we just like, okay, we're almost there. We're almost there. We can do it. He's like, when we're debt free, can we buy shaving cream again? Cause, I mean I got everything out it, it's like if I didn't need it right then it waited until we were debt free. Cause I just wanted it out of my life and just to be done with it.
Katie:That makes sense. I'm, I'm kind of like you, I'm very pro getting rid of stuff and in doing that, my husband told me I accidentally got rid of the Crockpot. There goes the crockpot dinner. So you mentioned something too that you paid for the new trailer using cash. Was that a specific choice? Were you guys trying to not use credit cards and only pay in cash?
Ashley Patrick:Yes. So we have not added any debts. Um, you know, since we've been debt free, that is our goal. And if we can't afford to buy something, we don't buy it. So there's been, you know, our cars are getting a little bit older now. Um, and you know, there's been some cars that we would really like to have, but I'm not willing to use my entire or more emergency savings to buy them, so we haven't bought them. Um, so that is what we're committed to is not going back into debt. Now you know, I can't say that something major won't happen and we'll never go back into debt. Um, you know, cause you never know what may happen, but sure. Uh, that is our goal is to not go back into debt. Um, and so we're just saving money and I'm saving for retirement and kids college and stuff like that. And you know, not using credit cards or car loans or anything.
Katie:Did that take some time to adjust to and get used to as well using cash over plastic money?
Ashley Patrick:Ah, yes it was, it was, um, it took a little while for me to like get in the hang of it to actually start doing it. You know, I was afraid I'd lose it, which I did one time. You know, it takes a little bit of practice, which you actually spend less with cash. And I did notice that was one thing that really helped me with my food budget when I was shopping was using cash. And it's like once you get up to the register and you realize, okay, well I really don't need this or I don't need that. Like when you have cash and you aren't gonna Swipe a credit card, it really makes you second guess what you're actually buying and if you really need it. Um, so I've saved a lot of money, um, by using cash and doing it that way instead of just swiping a card.
Felipe:Plus if the machines break, you could still buy stuff. Yes, exactly. Yeah. You'll be the one person in the target who can check out.
Ashley Patrick:Yeah, exactly.
Katie:Well Ashley, I mean, I don't know what else to ask you about your journey, but I guess I want to flip this to advice that you'd have for other people. So for somebody who may find themselves in a situation like yourself where they thought everything was going fine but then maybe realize their, the debt load that they have was little bit more overwhelming. So if you were, I guess, gonna go back in time and give advice to yourself, where would you start? I guess where would you recommend people start? If they're trying to go on this debt free journey. And then do you have any sort of tips on how to keep motivated, I know you mentioned some podcasts and everything, but is there anything else you would go back in time and suggest or advise your younger self?
Ashley Patrick:Uh, well, I would not do a 401k loan, that's for sure would not do that. Um, you know, just start small. Don't, um, think that you're just going to magically change overnight and change your mindset and you know, your habits and all that. It can take a couple of months. So just take small steps at a time to get there, you know, start by tracking your spending and see where your money has been going. Cause it's probably going to be very eyeopening. Um, and then just work on your budget and try to plan everything that you know, seems to pop up that just wrecks your plans and, um, that you hadn't thought about. So, you know, planning out your budget and then trying to save some money so that when a small emergency does come up that it doesn't, um, add to your debt. So you're not having to swipe a credit card if that happens and then just, just know that you're going to screw it up. Like, you know, that that's part of changing your mindset and making new habits is, uh, you're gonna fall off the wagon from time to time, but that doesn't mean that you should completely give up and just fall backwards into your old habits. It's gonna take time and it's gonna take time for you to learn, um, how to do it and what to do and how much to budget for certain things. You're going to over budget, you're going to under budget. Um, and then there's going to be things that still come up that you may not have thought about. Um, it just takes practice, so just don't give up. Just keep going.
Felipe:That's great advice. That's something we'd tell youth a lot in a, during presentations is there's a good chance most of you will not be good at budgeting. Yeah, that's the truth. But then again, anything you do, whether it's, you know, budgeting, sports, writing, um, Eh, you probably weren't good at it when you started.
Ashley Patrick:Exactly. It just takes practice, you know, and everybody still screws up from time to time. You know, it's, it's not perfect. Um, but as long as you have a plan and have a good idea of what you need to do, you will get there. Just as long as you are moving in the right direction, you will get there.
Katie:Perfect. Thank you so much for joining us on the show today, Ashley.
Ashley Patrick:Thanks for having me.
Chase:And now a little follow up with myself, Phil and Katie. So what are we taking away from this? I took away a little bit of it that she, they became, I don't, I don't know if inadvertently became minimalists sold everything decided to put money there and I know that that is a Dave Ramsey a thing to do. That's one of the things that he teaches and practices. Um, but what did you guys take away from that more than anything
Katie:I took away when she said just start small. You don't have to make big changes overnight. Just start looking around at how you spend your money and then different ways that you could, maybe lessen the amount that you're spending or maybe sell some of your stuff to try to make ends meet or pay off some of that debt.
Chase:It sounds to me like they paid off everything. I was wondering if they even had any like light in their house cause they sold every lamp fixture.
Katie:I mean they most cause they have three kids.
Felipe:Yeah. Lots of books from the library. Um, but I, I took away the, the fact that she, uh, it was a different budgeting strategy than maybe what I would suggest for people to pay off debt. But at the same time, one of the key elements that we teach at our presentations and normally go over budgets was one of the key elements in hers was tracking your expenses and knowing exactly how much money you spend on x, Y, Z, all the different categories. And having that moment where you look and you realize I spent how much money on eating out in her, in her case. Um, and how that was part of what motivated her to say, okay, well we need to make a change.
Chase:Right? And so that's a big thing. That's almost like a big giant raise, right? That's just by effectively changing habits. They effectively got a$600 or so raise. Right? Because they said, look, we were spending this much. If we just literally learn and not go out half the time and eat at home, we're going to effectively save half of that. And that's an extra lump sum of money that you're not going to get. I mean, think about it. If you were to get a$600 or raise month a month, that's a lot. And you're not going to effectively get that kind of raise in, in one year when we're all at two and a half, 3% raise every year. So that is a phenomenal way for her to find that extra income to pay off that debt. Yeah.
Felipe:And it can be a significant amount if you're previously going out, spending money without ever paying attention to how much money you actually spending.
Chase:Yeah. I think that tracking your spending, it's what we teach all the time. Tracking your spending, being aware, being aware of where your money is going, how much money's coming in is, is most of it. It really is. And then finally with her changing habits and, and eating out, I mean, think about it, we've talked about this all the time. Um, you can effectively make change by consciously knowing first, where it is the money's going and then changing those habits. And the idea is, we talked about it a little earlier, uh, in, in like a workout regimen, something that we've been doing called 21 day Fix, it effectively, they say takes 21 days to effectively change a habit or create a new one. And by doing the same thing over and over and over again, that's going to take some time to consciously change. If you're effectively going out to dinner every night, you know, then you're going to have to think about consciously not doing that.
Katie:You know what I'm guilty of too? I'm the person that will go to the grocery store and then I pick up lunch to go on my way home from the grocery store. I don't know why I have all of this food that I just bought, but I like, I don't want to make something.
Felipe:You're like I just spent so much time at the grocery store and now I've got to put it all away. Let me just get,
Katie:but it's frustrating because I don't eat, I just spent money at the grocery store so I'm tired. I'm hungry, I'm not even thinking about it. And then that's like 20 bucks gone and I just spent all this money on food.
Chase:Yeah. And that, that's not uncommon, by the way.
Katie:No, but I mean that's a thing that I wasn't necessarily aware.
Chase:Wendys, Carl's Jr, and Inn-N-Out, Thank you.
Katie:And flame broiler.
Chase:Well it's eating healthier,
Felipe:so then you spend more
Katie:Still spending.
Chase:You do it is spending it. But that's, that's the thing. It's, you know, subconsciously, consciously writing down a list when you go to the grocery store, not going when you're hungry, because that is a disaster waiting to happen. I am always guilty of that.
Katie:I can't be thirsty if I'm at the grocery store.
Felipe:Really
Katie:the water aisle, I can't go down it because then I, I all of a sudden need to buy every water bottle. I don't know what it is
Felipe:Really. Me, it's like what Chase was saying, hungry and then I come back with chips and dip and another dip and cheese and then it's like, oh man, what did I do? And I know it's not good for me.
Chase:Right. It's not good for your wallet and it's not good for your body.
Felipe:I didn't buy like the organic kale chips or anything like that. They're regular old tortilla chips.
Katie:No, the Kale chips didn't tempt you?
:No
Chase:we're going to get into a new podcast and talk about eating whole foods and nothing processed, whether it's Kale or not. If you process it, it can't be really good for you.
Felipe:That would be a good podcast.
Katie:I don't know if I want to be on the podcast. I'm a fan of chocolate.
Chase:Dark chocolate can be very good for you if you just don't overdo it.
Katie:It's not the same as milk chocolate though.
Chase:That's a fact. I agree with you 100% but still it can. I've learned, I've really learned again 21 days that I have learned to actually really like that I was a diet coke drinker, Diet Pepsi drinker for the longest time. I literally had a sip of it. I haven't had in five years. I quit cold Turkey. I used to have, that was my budget. Buster, you want to talk about finding out in tracking your spending? I found out I was spending close to$240 a month just in diet cokes, like stopping every where I presented, I knew where every seven 11 every McDonald's, every Jack in the box. Cause I would stop and get 32 ounce diet coke with extra ice and I was spending close to$240 a month doing that. And then by realizing I was spending that much money besides the fact that my wife was ready to throw me out of the house, but realizing that how much diet coke I was ingesting and how bad for me that probably was. Yeah, but I loved the bubbles. I loved the taste. Well, now I had a sip of it the other day. It tasted absolutely disgusting to me. Yeah. I mean, and I was like, wow, how did I love this for so long? But that's just because eventually my whole Palette has changed because I don't do it every day. My mind isn't thinking I need this because I just do this every day. You can retrain your mind to do other things. You don't have to have something. It's because your mind gets used to it and it just says, oh, I have to have this because you're, it's alcoholism. It's all these kinds of things. We're addicts. You know? Some people are more prone to it, but you get into a routine of doing something. Then your body is thinking, I have to have it and you think I need this to get through my day, or I need this to, to for our family, when in reality we're all adaptable. Yeah. And we're all in and you can rationalize yourself about your spending all the time. I deserve these shoes. I deserve this. I deserve that. Who says?!
Katie:oh yeah, right, like it's Friday. I deserve to have eat out. Like yeah, let's order takeout or something.
Chase:And that's okay if you do that as a reward for yourself or your family or whatever, as long as that doesn't go well. You know what? It's Thursday now on Thursday, you know, I remember in college when Thursdays where the night, so now dinner goes Thursday and Friday, right? Yeah, it's, I was listening to a different podcast on the way in here and it was talking about alcoholism and all those things. And you go, oh, well if I drank at or if somebody drinking in the morning, they have a problem. But if I drink on a Sunday morning after a Saturday night and I'm, you know, it was a rough Saturday night. So I have a little I have a Mimosa and it makes me feel a little bit better. Oh, I'm okay. Hmm. Well, next thing you know, you're thinking about it, you're going, man, I've drank three on three days this way. Right. You know it's okay to rationalize to have a beer by yourself or two what I'm saying is we can run, and I'm not saying it's not bad for everybody. What I'm saying is we can rationalize anything to ourselves.
Katie:Yes we can.
Felipe:That's true.
Chase:And the idea that you want it, it's a matter, and I'm not saying right or wrong, some people, if they drink in the morning, our full blown alcoholic, some people are not. It's very individualized in culture and culture, but you have to understand what it is that you want to accomplish and if you want to pay back debt and if you want to have flourish financially in the future, you want a savings account, it's not going to happen because you will it too. It's going to happen because you actually do it. You have to make the contract. You have to make the conscious decision and effort to do it. Which is the one thing I will say about her that what they did at night, we learned from this interview is man, she went off and they, she set up a plan and they followed it and they did it. Which I commend her. I think that's, I would I have gone about it exactly the way she did. Probably not, but that just goes to show that there's many different ways to do this and that you should be in. Anybody listening should be inspired. That if they want to accomplish something financially they can. They just have to figure out the game plan and do it.
Katie:I wholeheartedly agree with that. Cause I, even amongst the three of us, we all have different ways of doing things in budgeting, but at the end we all have the same goal, which is we're all trying to live debt free and have that sort of financial independence.
Chase:Yeah, 100% there's just, there's many different ways of going about it. That's right. And everybody's a little bit different and it's what it, it's figuring out what works best for you. Cause the I, we've been doing this a long time. There is not one way of doing it. Dave Ramsey's got a great way. There's tons of different kinds of money coaches. There's all different different ways. You've got to find out what works best for you, but when it comes down to it, you have to look in the mirror. You have to be honest with yourself, honest, your spouse and yourself have to be honest with each other and talk just like a Mr Hinz said, and then do it. Execute it, and eventually you might, you know like what she do, what they did. She went off the, you know, she really went in, delve deep into that. They may not have to do it and act like that and live like that for the rest of their lives. They can now figure out what works best for them to maintain a debt, a debt, less life. Yeah.
Katie:I also liked her attitude to how she was saying, this is our plan. This is what's working for us right now. However, we recognize that that may change in the future and we may fall into debt in the future, but at least now we have the tools and the knowhow, we know how to get out.
Chase:Circumstance can, yes, can change things. Life happens. That's right. Yeah. And you can't hold yourself. You mean you've got to be, you've got to be able to pat yourself on the back and you also have to be able to say, you know what, this wasn't my fault. You have to be able to let go of things as well in there. And that's where the whole psychological side of money and emotional side of money really comes into play as well. Um, because there's going to be scenarios that just dictate the, you know, you have a child in the hospital, you have to go to the hospital, there's going to be medical bills. You're not going to not get treatment because you can't afford it right now. Right. You're going to do what you can do for those loved ones around you.
Felipe:Or even something as drastic as, hey, I just paid off my car. I'm so happy. I don't have a car payment. Your car is parked outside. Get sideswiped by a big rig. Guess what, if you didn't have the money safe to side, you might have a car payment. I trust that in, there's just going to be circumstances that life happens.
Chase:But I think a really good story. I think that I'm really glad that we interviewed her and got her story and the way she went about things and we can all learn a lot from it as you know with which is the point of this whole podcast.
Katie:Yeah. Just showing the different ways of doing things because even as she said, there's just different tips that Dave Ramsey gives that she doesn't necessarily agree with. So she's kind of customized it to what works for her.
Chase:Absolutely. And Dave Ramsey given him, he gives some great advice and he's a big personality and very successful. So a lot of people, we'll do what he mentions in and it works for them. Uh, again, just figure out what works for you. Katie, what do we got coming up?
Katie:Next week We're going to be joined by Clint Proctor. He's going to share how he turned a hustle side, hustle, freelance writing career into a full time job in as little as seven months.
Chase:And I can talk about, I can talk about siding. I got, my wife is super side hustle. That'll be exciting. Well, I look forward to that. We'll see you next week.