Speaker 1: Episode four seventeen, how Kelly used social media to stay
Speaker 1: motivated and pay out forty six thousand dollars of debt.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast, where you'll learn to
Speaker 2: save money, embrace simplicity, and liver your life. Here your
Speaker 2: hosts Jen and Jill.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Frugal Friends podcast. My name is Jen, my
Speaker 1: name is Jill, and it is debt Free summer. We
Speaker 1: are here with another debt free story of one of
Speaker 1: you guys are listeners who has paid off debt and
Speaker 1: we interviewed her back in late twenty twenty two early
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three, and we put all these debt free
Speaker 1: stories on YouTube and we are replaying them on the
Speaker 1: podcas cast to expand on those interviews and give some
Speaker 1: updates and just some more insight into debt payoff in general.
Speaker 3: We love a good debt payoff story, and especially when
Speaker 3: it comes from somebody within our community. This was such
Speaker 3: a fun series that we did so again. You can
Speaker 3: check it out on YouTube as well if you want
Speaker 3: to see what our jankie Frugal Friends background looked like
Speaker 3: at the time. But also stick with us here because,
Speaker 3: like Jen said, we give an update on how Kelly
Speaker 3: is doing currently and that's super fun.
Speaker 1: Yes, But first, this episode is brought to you by sahah.
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Speaker 4: Well done.
Speaker 3: A lot of us do need this reminder. It's a
Speaker 3: great reminder. Yeah, and CI is just always a good reminder,
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Speaker 1: It's it's just good to remind you that they're, you know,
Speaker 1: over four percent apy on their high Heeld savings account.
Speaker 1: It's fantastic. So if you love these debt free stories,
Speaker 1: we've got a couple already in that we've just recently done.
Speaker 1: We've got episode four fifteen, how Catherine paid back twenty
Speaker 1: seven thousand dollars in student loans. We have our friend Megan,
Speaker 1: and we have all summer, all the rest of summer.
Speaker 1: We've got ten of these, you know, to share with you,
Speaker 1: but we are specifically I specifically specifically. I particularly love
Speaker 1: Kelly's story. She paid off forty six thousand dollars of
Speaker 1: student loan debt in twenty months, and she a key
Speaker 1: element to staying motivated was her use of social media,
Speaker 1: and that kind of played a part social media. Instagram
Speaker 1: was kind of coming more of a part of the
Speaker 1: debt free community. What right at the end of my
Speaker 1: debt payoff journey, So I was able to do a
Speaker 1: countdown on my Instagram when we went debt free, and
Speaker 1: then we went live on Facebook when we made that
Speaker 1: last payment. So this was a special one for me
Speaker 1: to hear, because it is a really good way to
Speaker 1: stay motivated and to celebrate wins. And so much of
Speaker 1: social media is negative, but I think we can use
Speaker 1: it as a tool as a powerful tool in our benefit,
Speaker 1: and we can use other people's examples on how to
Speaker 1: model that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you even have used social media to help really
Speaker 3: keep you on track and give others motivation for a
Speaker 3: no spend challenge this past January. So it has been
Speaker 3: a tool you, specifically Jen have used, and I think
Speaker 3: we've encouraged other people on the Frugal Friends journey that,
Speaker 3: especially when you can't find people in your own network,
Speaker 3: finding people online or even doing some of these things yourself,
Speaker 3: just to keep your own self accountable to what you
Speaker 3: said you're going to accomplish, it can be.
Speaker 4: A really useful tool.
Speaker 3: It's one of those things that can get us to spend,
Speaker 3: but we can also leverage it to help us along
Speaker 3: our financial journeys, kind of just depending on how we
Speaker 3: approach it. So she really leveraged it. Well, I'm excited
Speaker 3: for you all to hear how it went for her.
Speaker 3: And we've got another inspiring story for you. This one
Speaker 3: comes from Kelly, who's going to share with us what
Speaker 3: her debt free journey entailed. Kelly, thanks for being here
Speaker 3: with us.
Speaker 5: Thanks for having me. This is really exciting. I think
Speaker 5: we can't share our story enough and it has inspires
Speaker 5: somebody else.
Speaker 6: I'm all for it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So tell us a little bit about you, Kelly.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So my name is Kelly Shostrom and currently live in Portland, Oregon.
Speaker 5: We moved here about a year ago from the Minneapolis
Speaker 5: area in Minnesota, and so a little bit of a change.
Speaker 5: But I am a project manager by day and personal
Speaker 5: finance nerd by night. I got started on this journey
Speaker 5: after realizing one day that I had a ton of
Speaker 5: student loan debt and I was totally emotionally overwhelmed and
Speaker 5: done with it.
Speaker 4: And so.
Speaker 5: I've just been kind of doing this personal finance story,
Speaker 5: which I think a lot of obviously the people here
Speaker 5: relate to. But I was just I found that I
Speaker 5: was just somebody that likes to go hiking, and I
Speaker 5: like to go out in restaurants, and I want to
Speaker 5: go on vacation, and I wanted to figure out a
Speaker 5: way to make that more embedded into my life naturally
Speaker 5: without having to listen to these white buttoned up people
Speaker 5: that have opinions on what you should and shouldn't do
Speaker 5: with your money. And so yeah, newlywed, I guess mother
Speaker 5: of a dog and a cat and so just you know,
Speaker 5: living my best life that I can in my thirties here.
Speaker 3: That's great, Thanks for the introduction. You mentioned that there
Speaker 3: was a time when you realized the amount of debt
Speaker 3: that you had. Was that an actual moment that you
Speaker 3: can remember? Do you think it was more gradual? What
Speaker 3: was your experience?
Speaker 5: So I always knew I had student loan debt, right
Speaker 5: I It didn't even really phase me taking out the
Speaker 5: loans in college.
Speaker 6: It was just a fact of life.
Speaker 5: When I was done with college, I was just making
Speaker 5: the payments, and of course I would complain about them
Speaker 5: every chance that I got, and I would just feel
Speaker 5: and talk about how poor and broke I always felt,
Speaker 5: because these monthly payments were just kind of like taking
Speaker 5: up a lot of my income. Looking back, it was
Speaker 5: also a lot of other problems. But I do remember
Speaker 5: the moment where I had that I'm done moment, and
Speaker 5: so it was this gradual storyline. But I remember I
Speaker 5: was listening to just a podcast and it probably was
Speaker 5: Dave Ramsey or somebody, a coworker I think, recommended it
Speaker 5: and I and I remember just being at work and thinking, Okay,
Speaker 5: I'm just going to log into my student loan accounts
Speaker 5: and see how much student loan dead I had. I
Speaker 5: didn't think it was like a problem at that point.
Speaker 5: I had been paying them off for eight years, and
Speaker 5: I was like, I got to be pretty darn close
Speaker 5: to paying these things off, right, And so when I
Speaker 5: logged in and I had paid maybe ten grand in
Speaker 5: the last eight years, that's when I had my breaking
Speaker 5: moment of like, this cannot be what my life is.
Speaker 5: Because I spent so many years thinking I was doing
Speaker 5: a great job and making progress, and I know so
Speaker 5: many people that were deferring their loans and so many
Speaker 5: people that were paying less than their minimums, and I
Speaker 5: was doing like, quote unquote all the right things, and
Speaker 5: so I really thought I was ahead of the curve.
Speaker 5: And then when I logged in, I was I was
Speaker 5: kind of panic attack moment of everything that.
Speaker 6: I've been doing has been kind of doing nothing.
Speaker 4: I feel that in a real way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so how much student loan debt were you specifically
Speaker 1: looking at?
Speaker 5: So when I logged into my computer, it was forty
Speaker 5: six five and fourteen dollars and ninety one cents. I
Speaker 5: recommend to you write that exact number down because because
Speaker 5: you will want to know what that number was, because
Speaker 5: so many people will ask you, like, how much did
Speaker 5: you pay off? And the sad part is is I
Speaker 5: don't even know how much student loan debt I had,
Speaker 5: and I don't think that that's that uncommon. I am
Speaker 5: guessing I had around sixty or maybe give or take
Speaker 5: five grand I have not a clue, but I know
Speaker 5: that after making eight years of payments, I am looking
Speaker 5: at how much was applied to principle that there was
Speaker 5: not that much damage that I did in those eight years.
Speaker 3: Oh yes, okay, so what is the first thing that
Speaker 3: you did after you saw that number?
Speaker 5: So I became like super like ocd about like, okay,
Speaker 5: I need the charts, I need to write everything down.
Speaker 6: I need to figure out a plan.
Speaker 5: I need to figure out how much extra I can
Speaker 5: pay per month. And I didn't have a budget. I
Speaker 5: didn't track my spending like all the things that we
Speaker 5: talk about all the time, right, And so it was
Speaker 5: getting to the point of how do I know how
Speaker 5: much that extra that I can afford? And so at
Speaker 5: that point I was also waitressing on top of my
Speaker 5: full time job. I was thinking, Okay, I can work
Speaker 5: an extra two shifts a month. Two shifts a month
Speaker 5: isn't bad when you're in your low to mid twenties
Speaker 5: and you have no responsibilities, right, And I was like,
Speaker 5: let's say, worst case scenario, make one hundred dollars a shift.
Speaker 6: I'll make it.
Speaker 5: I'll pay an extra two hundred dollars a month. And
Speaker 5: that was just kind of where my loungic came from.
Speaker 5: I was I didn't look at where is my wistful
Speaker 5: spending going. Where are all the opportunities where I don't
Speaker 5: even have to work anymore.
Speaker 6: I can just kind of refine as I go.
Speaker 5: And I quickly figured out that two hundred dollars extra
Speaker 5: a month was was pretty easy. I actually, the one
Speaker 5: thing that I did that I think was a game
Speaker 5: changer for me is I posted on Instagram how much
Speaker 5: debt I had, and I said in the post, and
Speaker 5: I love going back to that post, like scrolling the
Speaker 5: millions of photos, and I wrote this long story about
Speaker 5: like why I was posting this, how much debt I had,
Speaker 5: and that like I was making a commitment to myself
Speaker 5: to pay it off right, And at that point I
Speaker 5: didn't realize there were people that were watching my story.
Speaker 5: And so every month I would say I paid off
Speaker 5: an extra hundred dollars, I paid off an extra fifty dollars,
Speaker 5: like whatever it was. But then as the traction, as
Speaker 5: you get stay motivated and get really excited about, oh
Speaker 5: my god, I'm actually seeing progress, then I was able
Speaker 5: to get up to like over a thousand dollars a
Speaker 5: month extra that I was paying towards my debt.
Speaker 1: That's so powerful, that power of community and giving other
Speaker 1: people permission by sharing your own vulnerability, like in you know,
Speaker 1: with discretion, but like being willing to share things that
Speaker 1: other people won't, give others permission to do hard things,
Speaker 1: and then also in turn supports you doing the hard things,
Speaker 1: which that's so beautiful.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, And I didn't intend for anybody to engage. The
Speaker 5: only people on my Instagram were my friends from college
Speaker 5: and high school and that kind of stuff. But I
Speaker 5: would like go to dinner with a friend, and I think, like,
Speaker 5: no shame on my friends. I think in the beginning
Speaker 5: it was kind of this like not like a It
Speaker 5: wasn't a joke, but it was about like, oh, Kelly,
Speaker 5: do you make any progress? Like people thinking that it
Speaker 5: wasn't going to be this big thing. And then I
Speaker 5: think when I paid off all of my debt in
Speaker 5: such a short amount of time, people kind of had
Speaker 5: this jaw dropping moment and they were like, oh, wait
Speaker 5: a minute, like she actually was doing something big and
Speaker 5: it's actually something that and I think it started to
Speaker 5: make people think like, well, crap, if she did it,
Speaker 5: what am I? What should I be doing in my life?
Speaker 5: And so I think it started off on this like
Speaker 5: conversational piece that people would say, oh, how are you doing,
Speaker 5: like you know whatever, and then it became oh crap,
Speaker 5: like big things are actually happening, and she made it
Speaker 5: look fairly easy, and so then I started getting people
Speaker 5: asking me like, well, what did you do?
Speaker 4: I mean, this is pretty funny.
Speaker 3: It sounds like you've got some friends that were inspired
Speaker 3: by what happened. And I think that's that is another
Speaker 3: aspect to the communal piece of this. When you draw
Speaker 3: others in or you put yourself out there, it can
Speaker 3: draw their attention to their own circumstances and think through, well,
Speaker 3: is there are there any parts of this that.
Speaker 4: I want to be implementing.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think it. It's just like anything. And I
Speaker 5: compared a lot to like compound interests, which is a
Speaker 5: really easy one in this finance game. But like there's
Speaker 5: no better time to start than like today, Like you
Speaker 5: can't wish you started by I wish I would have
Speaker 5: started when I was twenty two, like I could. I
Speaker 5: could be hung on that thing forever. Right. The fact
Speaker 5: that I started when I was like twenty nine or
Speaker 5: thirty whatever it was, did a lot of damage, Like
Speaker 5: that was eight years of me just throwing money out
Speaker 5: the window. And I could have had compound interests. I
Speaker 5: could have changed my life sooner. I could have got
Speaker 5: rid of a lot more stress. I could have bought
Speaker 5: a home sooner, like all these compounding things. But in reality,
Speaker 5: we can't undo the past, And so what can you
Speaker 5: do today? And that the answer is just start today,
Speaker 5: So whatever your first step is.
Speaker 6: For me, it was.
Speaker 5: Just logging into my student loan accounts and to figure
Speaker 5: out how much debt am I even talking about here?
Speaker 5: Is this as big of a crisis as I as
Speaker 5: I think it is? And I didn't think it was,
Speaker 5: which was really sad because it was I was really
Speaker 5: proud of myself, and I had no reason to be.
Speaker 5: But then you're you might log in. I work with
Speaker 5: so many people where you log in and you're like,
Speaker 5: it's actually not as bad as I thought. I've just
Speaker 5: been hiding from this scenario. And so the first thing
Speaker 5: you do is just take your first step, whatever that is.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, So let's get into the nitty gritty. Was there,
Speaker 1: I know you, forty six thousand dollars and change of
Speaker 1: student loans? Was there any other debt? What was the
Speaker 1: initial plan for paying off? How long did it take
Speaker 1: in reality? What did that all look like?
Speaker 5: Yeah? So the forty six thousand was truly student loan debt,
Speaker 5: but I am not I also had other debt. Like
Speaker 5: so before I started my student loan journey. I think probably,
Speaker 5: if looking back, what spawned some of this is I
Speaker 5: paid off my car probably that year or the year before.
Speaker 5: It was a used car, wasn't I think I owed
Speaker 5: like eight thousand dollars total, So it wasn't a huge deal,
Speaker 5: but that probably started thinking of me thinking about, Okay,
Speaker 5: if I paid off my car, what's next? Which I'm
Speaker 5: sure I did not pay any extra in my car.
Speaker 5: Let's be very frank people that there was nothing also
Speaker 5: extraordinary that happened there. And then I also in college,
Speaker 5: because we're all really great at money, right, I studied abroad,
Speaker 5: put it all my credit cards came home, and then
Speaker 5: my dad was like, okay, girl, and so he helped
Speaker 5: me learn the world of get a personal loan, pay
Speaker 5: off the credit cards, and just make this personal loan
Speaker 5: payment to pay off that debt, so that debt was
Speaker 5: also gone. So I'm saying this just to say that, yes,
Speaker 5: my success story is student loans, but there was other
Speaker 5: debts that came and lessons that came along the way.
Speaker 5: But when I first started paying my student loans off,
Speaker 5: and I remember I was just paying like an extra
Speaker 5: hundred or I was like figuring out, I'll pay whatever
Speaker 5: extra I have to. I thought I was on probably
Speaker 5: like a five to seven year trajectory. I wasn't on
Speaker 5: this huge thing. I worked for a nonprofit and so
Speaker 5: I was kind of playing the ten year game, right.
Speaker 5: But what they don't tell you is there's all these
Speaker 5: little mini rules of like when you refinance and that
Speaker 5: can mess things up. Or if you didn't file PaperWorks,
Speaker 5: sometimes you can't retroactive, like go back and do that paperwork.
Speaker 5: And so there was just a lot of like it's
Speaker 5: answer butts, and so I think that was my moment
Speaker 5: of Okay, I'm not going to wait for the government
Speaker 5: to pay off my student loans. I'm just going to
Speaker 5: do it in like the next five years if I can.
Speaker 5: And it just happened to be a lot more quick
Speaker 5: than that. It was twenty months. It was like bam,
Speaker 5: I know, and it's it wasn't hard. People like all
Speaker 5: That's what I like preach every single day. All I
Speaker 5: had to do was figure out where the heck my
Speaker 5: money was going, and I I just like redirected it.
Speaker 5: And so you figure out what is important in your life.
Speaker 5: I still traveled for weddings, I still went to happy hour.
Speaker 5: I just didn't like obsessively go to happy hour. I
Speaker 5: didn't spend three hundred dollars a happy hour. I spent
Speaker 5: like one hundred. So whatever the things are in your life.
Speaker 1: And I was.
Speaker 5: Lucky that I was younger, so I was able to
Speaker 5: hustle and work more. But I was a single income person.
Speaker 5: I wasn't making six figures during any of that. It's
Speaker 5: really possible. You just have to like take it into
Speaker 5: your own hands and do it because you can't wait
Speaker 5: for other people to do it for you.
Speaker 3: Oh, so inspiring and so realistic. Like it's it's not
Speaker 3: always super clean. There's different debts that come along the way.
Speaker 3: It takes time, but for you it took shorter, which
Speaker 3: is awesome. Were there any lumps, some payments or lumps
Speaker 3: some amounts of money that you got. Did you sell
Speaker 3: anything to kind of throw even more money at the debt?
Speaker 3: How did you make it be that those twenty months months?
Speaker 6: No? Nothing.
Speaker 5: I probably got like a two hundred dollars tax credit
Speaker 5: that I put towards it. I don't know, but there
Speaker 5: was nothing. There was nothing like worth mentioning that happened.
Speaker 5: It was it was the grind. It was keeping my
Speaker 5: head down, and eventually I got to the point where
Speaker 5: I was like, my extra student loan payment is non negotiable.
Speaker 5: So that was the first payment that I made for
Speaker 5: the month, and so I didn't let myself like get
Speaker 5: have life get in the way. I didn't let myself
Speaker 5: over indulge in certain areas and then use the remaining
Speaker 5: on my student loans. It was my student loans for
Speaker 5: number one and then when it got really good at it.
Speaker 5: I made multiple student loans on payments a month because
Speaker 5: it was an app. It was easy on my phone,
Speaker 5: and if I had an extra hundred bucks come through
Speaker 5: or I just made an extra hundred dollar payment, then
Speaker 5: I would add it up at the end of the month.
Speaker 5: And it adds up to a lot more than what
Speaker 5: you think.
Speaker 1: It is awesome. And what was your income, Like did
Speaker 1: it increase over that twenty months at all?
Speaker 5: So I was probably making between seventy around seventy five
Speaker 5: thousand dollars maybe give or take. Because I was a
Speaker 5: waitressing So I mean, who knows how much you really
Speaker 5: make when you're waiting, right, And so I just say
Speaker 5: it was for sure under six figures. I wasn't even
Speaker 5: close to six figures. And the income didn't really change.
Speaker 5: I went from working four shifts a night, like four
Speaker 5: shifts on the nights and weekends waitressing, still working a
Speaker 5: day job because I had to support my lifestyle right
Speaker 5: to working four shifts because I was paying off my
Speaker 5: student loan debt. And I didn't really say no to
Speaker 5: a lot of things. I really just like got very
Speaker 5: clear about what is important to me and clothing and
Speaker 5: like that sort of thing has never been important to me,
Speaker 5: So it was really easy to like cut out the
Speaker 5: random trips to target where you spend money and you
Speaker 5: don't even know what you bought. I just got really
Speaker 5: intentional and I had a very clear goal. And twenty
Speaker 5: months is no time. Our pandemic has been lasting much
Speaker 5: longer than twenty months, right.
Speaker 4: WHOA so true?
Speaker 3: Mind blown pandemic is longer than the amount of time
Speaker 3: it took you to pay off your debt. I mean, congratulations,
Speaker 3: but also there's like some sad pieces in there too.
Speaker 3: So for you now being debt free, what has life
Speaker 3: looked like?
Speaker 4: Now?
Speaker 3: What have you now been able to carry with you
Speaker 3: into debt freedom at this point?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 5: So I became debt free in like April twenty twenty,
Speaker 5: so like day one of the pandemic, And so it
Speaker 5: was easy for me to quit my waitressing job because
Speaker 5: the waitressing jobs are also gone. But I quit day one,
Speaker 5: and I had been waitressing since I was like fifteen,
Speaker 5: like in high school, and so it felt really good
Speaker 5: just to live off of my daytime job. And I
Speaker 5: know a lot of people think they can't work extra
Speaker 5: jobs and so they're only working that daytime and there's
Speaker 5: a lot of people that also can't work those extra jobs,
Speaker 5: and so it was just I was just happy to
Speaker 5: get rid of that because it wasn't an extra job.
Speaker 5: Because of my passion. I also went to grad school.
Speaker 5: I got my MBA. I paid for that entirely in cash,
Speaker 5: and so I didn't even stress about the loan. I
Speaker 5: just knew how much I had to save per month,
Speaker 5: and that was my little sinking fund to make my
Speaker 5: semester payments. We paid off another vehicle. We obviously have
Speaker 5: like a six month emergency fund, which is upwards of
Speaker 5: many thousands of dollars as people that are on that
Speaker 5: journey no, which we've had to pull out luckily but
Speaker 5: then refunded again. We're saving for a kitchener model, so
Speaker 5: we have, however much saved up for that so far.
Speaker 5: So it's just allowed me to pay for things in cash.
Speaker 5: And whether you're a cash person or not, when I
Speaker 5: say pay for things in cash, I mean put it
Speaker 5: on my credit card, get the rewards, pay off my
Speaker 5: credit card statement. It's not necessarily me pulling money out
Speaker 5: of my mattress, but it's that flexibility. It's going to
Speaker 5: a restaurant and getting the appetizer and the dessert and
Speaker 5: getting four margaritas and you don't care that they're fifteen
Speaker 5: dollars apiece, And it's all of that stuff that I'm like,
Speaker 5: this is what's worth it, and knowing that we're maxing
Speaker 5: out our contributions and it's just less stress. Like money
Speaker 5: isn't even a thought. And at some times I think
Speaker 5: maybe it should be more of one, maybe what am
Speaker 5: I missing? But the day to day filling out my
Speaker 5: gas tank isn't even like a question. It's not a
Speaker 5: do I wait until it's half full or do I
Speaker 5: wait until it's empty? But then it's going to cost
Speaker 5: me more money. Like all of those conversations and thoughts
Speaker 5: that go through my brain are just out the window.
Speaker 1: Yes, that is financial freedom. You can go out to
Speaker 1: eat with us. We will do sound like a boss
Speaker 1: with you, for sure.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, And like I was the person and my friends
Speaker 5: made fun of me constantly. That was in the Target
Speaker 5: or HIV wherever you're going, the checkout line at the
Speaker 5: cash I had my checkbook register, like the physical checkbook register,
Speaker 5: and people I'm like, not that old. Nobody else had them,
Speaker 5: but I had one because I wanted to make sure
Speaker 5: that I wasn't overdrafting and I wanted to know exactly
Speaker 5: what my balance was. Like that was my way of
Speaker 5: reckon siling my account. And that's like now I just
Speaker 5: have a budgeting app that does the thing. In the background.
Speaker 5: Of course, Derek and I have like our weekly meetings
Speaker 5: and our budgets and beers quarterly chats, but like it's
Speaker 5: just less. You know, all the stats around how many
Speaker 5: decisions that a person has to make a day, it's
Speaker 5: like half of those are gone now, which is really great.
Speaker 3: That's amazing. Budgets and beers. There's a tip right there. Yes,
Speaker 3: so all right, it's advice and encouragement time. What would
Speaker 3: you say to somebody who's in your shoes five years ago,
Speaker 3: just kind of beginning to consider debt payoff?
Speaker 6: This is like my soapbox moment.
Speaker 5: This is the thing that I always when I talk
Speaker 5: to friends family that are like, how did you do it?
Speaker 5: And they think They're like they put me on this
Speaker 5: like thing, and I'm like, this was hard work, Like nothing,
Speaker 5: I didn't I accomplished this because I made some really
Speaker 5: hard choices that not a lot of people want to
Speaker 5: dive into. So what I would tell people is get
Speaker 5: started today, obviously, but dive deep, deep, end, dive into
Speaker 5: how much debt you have and how much income you
Speaker 5: have to actually change that right, and so figure out
Speaker 5: exactly where all your money is going. Track your expenses.
Speaker 5: And when I say track your expenses, and when I
Speaker 5: say budget, people, I'm not talking about how much is
Speaker 5: your mortgage, your cell phone bill, your electricity. I'm talking
Speaker 5: about all the tangible things that fluctuate every single month.
Speaker 5: The restaurants, the alcohol, the groceries, the things that eat
Speaker 5: up your paychecks. So figure out where all of your
Speaker 5: money is going and actually make a plan to pay
Speaker 5: it off. You don't have to pay it off in
Speaker 5: twenty months like I did. You don't have to pay
Speaker 5: it off in three years. Some people are struggling with
Speaker 5: a lot of debt, but there are free tools out
Speaker 5: there to figure out exactly when you can become debt free.
Speaker 5: And you're the only person that's making excuses for yourself
Speaker 5: not to get there. And this is just something that
Speaker 5: I struggle with so much, because even people that are
Speaker 5: waiting for the student loan forgiveness from the presidential administration
Speaker 5: right now, it's going back and forth and back and forth.
Speaker 5: And all of these people that were like, look, we
Speaker 5: are getting debt relief. First of all, it's only ten grand,
Speaker 5: and a lot of people have a lot more than
Speaker 5: ten grand with the suder mon debt. Second of all,
Speaker 5: don't let these big external powers have control of your life,
Speaker 5: Like why are you letting them dictate whether you're going
Speaker 5: to stress about money every day or not. It is
Speaker 5: the one thing that really gets me going. And I
Speaker 5: just wish that every single person that even thought about
Speaker 5: money as like a I'm either not good at it,
Speaker 5: I'm living paycheck at paycheck. This stresses me out too much,
Speaker 5: I'm losing sleep, I don't really know where it goes.
Speaker 5: Or the last one that I love is I make
Speaker 5: too much money to be this broke. And I was
Speaker 5: that person when I was single and waitressing. If any
Speaker 5: of those things cross your mind, just like do something
Speaker 5: about it, Like I hate complaining about things that we
Speaker 5: can actually change ourselves. And I guarantee you it's going
Speaker 5: to be so much easier than what you think it is.
Speaker 6: But you just have to get started.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, Kelly snaps to that, snaps to that. All right,
Speaker 1: we have come to the time in the program where
Speaker 1: it is your time to.
Speaker 3: Celebrate forty six five hundred and fourteen dollars and ninety
Speaker 3: one cents paid off.
Speaker 1: Paid off in twenty months. How would you like to
Speaker 1: celebrate with us today? The platform is yours. I'm Debt bringing.
Speaker 4: Your debt fray.
Speaker 3: How amazing, Oh, Kelly, thanks for sharing this incredible story
Speaker 3: with us and inspiring others and encouraging others and just
Speaker 3: giving some really fantastic tips.
Speaker 1: I just love Kelly's outlook on life, her outlook on
Speaker 1: her debt payoff. She is so fun and so practical, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: we just had a really good time interviewing her.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I definitely commiserated or it resonated with me.
Speaker 3: How she tracked her expenses and created a budget. Those
Speaker 3: were some of the really practical things that were helpful
Speaker 3: for me. I enjoy looking at details. Not everybody does.
Speaker 3: But again, you got to find what works for you
Speaker 3: in your own journey and story. But her tracking of
Speaker 3: expenses and creating that budget was really crucial for her
Speaker 3: and understanding where her money was going, and it helped
Speaker 3: to inform her making of a plan to even be
Speaker 3: able to pay off this debt in the twenty months
Speaker 3: that she paid it often, so.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and something about like her thing about making hard
Speaker 1: choices and prioritizing debt repayment does lead to faster progress,
Speaker 1: And I know sometimes that's all we hear, and we
Speaker 1: try to combat that with the with the other side
Speaker 1: saying like, embrace your season, spend in alignment with your
Speaker 1: values and how those values kind of uniquely the opportunities
Speaker 1: that come up uniquely in each seas and to find
Speaker 1: some kind of balance. But like for us, we did
Speaker 1: make a lot of hard choices, and we did we got,
Speaker 1: just like Kelly, got a lot of side hustles and
Speaker 1: really made our debt payoff our number one priority, maybe
Speaker 1: to a fault to achieve that faster progress. But there's
Speaker 1: a difference between going all in and and doing something
Speaker 1: in a way that afterwards leaves you feeling hungover because
Speaker 1: you did it so hard and prioritizing it as your
Speaker 1: number one goal and saying no to other goals and
Speaker 1: other good opportunities because you've prioritized this one goal, but
Speaker 1: still allowing yourself to live life. So that's the radical middle.
Speaker 1: If you really want to pay off debt, you you
Speaker 1: don't have to deprive yourself from everything. But you have
Speaker 1: to be comfortable making hard choices and sacrifices if you
Speaker 1: want it to be, if you want it to be
Speaker 1: as number one of your as a goal as you
Speaker 1: say it is. So I really loved think like rethinking
Speaker 1: about that and hearing this a second time around.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So she shared an update with us recently and said
Speaker 3: I had a baby and we took out a heelock
Speaker 3: to help renovate our kitchen. I mean, the mindset that
Speaker 3: debt isn't bad in a new kitchen with a brand
Speaker 3: new baby was non negotiable in our eyes. You should
Speaker 3: have seen the other one besides that we have no
Speaker 3: consumer debt and we're just enjoying life. This is a
Speaker 3: really fun update. And I gotta imagine Kelly didn't necessarily
Speaker 3: say this and her update, but having became debt free
Speaker 3: feels like it would create a sense of freedom in
Speaker 3: entering into that next chapter of having a kid, Like
Speaker 3: I'm so pleased Kelly that you were able to grow
Speaker 3: your family with some of that debt freedom, but then
Speaker 3: also be able to have this kind of newfound view
Speaker 3: of debt as being neutral. We talk about this in
Speaker 3: our book, that debt is neutral. Yes, it can be
Speaker 3: really great to live without debt. It can create a
Speaker 3: lot of freedom. But sometimes we can leverage loans to
Speaker 3: help us get the things that we need now, rather
Speaker 3: than putting off vital pieces for the future when they're
Speaker 3: no longer relevant or yeah, thinking that we're going to
Speaker 3: have the money for it. And I can understand that
Speaker 3: sometimes home renovations, depending on how dilapidated it is, like
Speaker 3: our kitchen, absolutely are needed too. Like the cabinets were
Speaker 3: falling off the wall, it was a hazard. So I
Speaker 3: can understand that sometimes we can view these things as
Speaker 3: just luxuries to put Depending on what it is, it
Speaker 3: can be worth taking out a mindful amount of money
Speaker 3: to make your home safe.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's all it's all about a combination of
Speaker 1: need and want, right, Like you can absolutely function in
Speaker 1: a kitchen from the eighties like we were doing, but
Speaker 1: we didn't want to. And kitchen sell houses so it
Speaker 1: increases the value of our home, so we didn't have to,
Speaker 1: so we didn't. So there's always this balance, like we
Speaker 1: we try to justify these decisions in our head by like, oh,
Speaker 1: I can't I can't you know, function in this, like
Speaker 1: I have to do this, But like there's also power
Speaker 1: in saying like I don't want to, and I have
Speaker 1: been financially responsible enough to not have to, So there's
Speaker 1: celebration in that and knowing that it's not going to
Speaker 1: put you under and that you are financially responsible enough still,
Speaker 1: like you've proven you are and you have been that
Speaker 1: you can go into that with confidence and not guilt.
Speaker 3: Yeah, both of us since becoming debt free have taken
Speaker 3: on new debts.
Speaker 1: Yes, we have.
Speaker 3: I became debt free everything. My living situation, which was
Speaker 3: an RV was paid off, cars paid off, student loans
Speaker 3: paid off, and then we bought a house, and then
Speaker 3: we took out a car loan because it's what the
Speaker 3: season demanded because our break lines went out three times
Speaker 3: while we were driving. Like, they're just are things that, Yeah,
Speaker 3: sometimes we can go in and out of seasons of
Speaker 3: a crew, like taking on loans. But I think the
Speaker 3: key there is eyes wide open with it, knowing what
Speaker 3: you're stepping into and having it be a very informed decision.
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 3: You know what else is an informed decision that we've
Speaker 3: made since day one?
Speaker 1: This one is truly one that we have to do
Speaker 1: and we also want to do the Bill of the week.
Speaker 7: That's right, it's time for the best minute of your
Speaker 7: entire week. Maybe a baby was born and his name
Speaker 7: is William. Maybe you paid off your mortgage. Maybe your
Speaker 7: car died, and you're happy to not have to pay
Speaker 7: that bill anymore.
Speaker 4: Duck bills, but flow bills.
Speaker 1: Bill Clinton, this is the bill of the week.
Speaker 6: Hi, Jen and Jill.
Speaker 8: Unfortunately I am back with another Bill of the week.
Speaker 6: My name is Riley.
Speaker 8: I realized that I've never actually introduced myself, but I
Speaker 8: am the head of school at a Montossori preschool and
Speaker 8: last week I decided to get fish for the children's
Speaker 8: house classroom, which is ages three to six years old.
Speaker 8: And so I went to the store and I bought
Speaker 8: twelve little glowfish and the plants and the decor and
Speaker 8: all the things and set up this tank and.
Speaker 4: The kids were so excited.
Speaker 9: And the next day we came into an absolute fish massacre.
Speaker 9: The plants in the tank had killed every single fish,
Speaker 9: speared their bodies, slice the fins.
Speaker 1: It was horrible. There were just bodies everywhere, and.
Speaker 6: All the kids saw.
Speaker 5: So I went back to the pet store told them
Speaker 5: what happened.
Speaker 10: They did give me a refund for the fish and
Speaker 10: the plants, and we're going to try again with new
Speaker 10: fish and new plants that hopefully will not kill them. So,
Speaker 10: you know, the kids learned about the cycle of life, and.
Speaker 8: You know, just wish us luck on this next attempt
Speaker 8: with new fish. Okay, well, I hope you guys have
Speaker 8: a better week than my fish did.
Speaker 1: Bye, Riley, I am dead.
Speaker 11: I am, but we're dying over here together.
Speaker 5: The bodies.
Speaker 4: I can't keep it together.
Speaker 3: He really painted a good picture, and I'm I'm living
Speaker 3: there with you. You think it's unfortunate that you're calling
Speaker 3: us back, but we think we are so fortunate just
Speaker 3: to be hearing from you.
Speaker 1: Five year old, like what would happen if you walked
Speaker 1: in on it? And I'm thinking about his reaction, Oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, I am unwell, I'm not carry on.
Speaker 3: I'm not so certain that they learned about the cycle
Speaker 3: of life as much as they learned about like the
Speaker 3: risks and dangers of life. There wasn't really a cycle.
Speaker 3: It was just like a beginning and an end that
Speaker 3: didn't have to be. But I'm assuming your bill is
Speaker 3: that you're refunded bill.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I hope that's it.
Speaker 3: I hope that that fish store gives you new things
Speaker 3: just for free.
Speaker 1: Now because because of the emotional national toll, you can
Speaker 1: sue for the emotional expense that has happened to you
Speaker 1: and all the preschoolers.
Speaker 4: Wow, doing the most for those.
Speaker 1: How I am gonna this is gonna be one I
Speaker 1: remember they are like, we always get asked the most
Speaker 1: memorable bills of the week, and this is by far
Speaker 1: going to be one of those bills that I remember.
Speaker 3: Oh man, if you all are listening and you've got
Speaker 3: any anything, anywhere close to this story, we would gladly
Speaker 3: welcome it.
Speaker 4: Who cares?
Speaker 1: How this show like that? Right there?
Speaker 4: Who even cares? Impossible?
Speaker 3: For Friends podcast dot com, slash bill, leave us your bill.
Speaker 3: We can't wait for it. And now it's time for.
Speaker 1: Round all right. How do you use social media to
Speaker 1: stay motivated to your goals?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 4: Just goals?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I I it says financial goals, but I would say, like,
Speaker 1: there's all kinds of goals you can have that social
Speaker 1: media can hurt but also help you with. So how
Speaker 1: do you use social media to stay motivated? For me?
Speaker 1: I follow, I follow some fitness accounts, doc lists, fitness,
Speaker 1: I think r doc Liss fit doctor Alyssa. She has
Speaker 1: been I've followed her for so long. She's a runner
Speaker 1: and a strength trainer, and she her PhD is in
Speaker 1: women's like health because so many there's so many like
Speaker 1: studies on like health related to men but not for women.
Speaker 1: And so I love following her because she just debunks
Speaker 1: all these fitfluencers that are like, stop doing cardio and
Speaker 1: stop doing this trendy thing, just walk on an incline
Speaker 1: for fifteen minutes. Like she just debunks all that and
Speaker 1: she's like, like, move in a way that makes your
Speaker 1: body feel good, do both cardio and strings. So she's
Speaker 1: just like inspiring to me.
Speaker 4: That's cool.
Speaker 1: And then for food, I'll also follow because I have
Speaker 1: goals to cook at home more always. It's always my
Speaker 1: goal forever in my life. My goal will always be
Speaker 1: cook at home more because it is always a struggle.
Speaker 1: And so I will follow food accounts and save recipes
Speaker 1: to help me meal plan and just quick quick things
Speaker 1: that I can ingredients I can keep on hand, like
Speaker 1: emergency meals when I don't feel like cooking, when I
Speaker 1: meal planned, or I forgot to meal planned for a
Speaker 1: day something like that. So I think that those two
Speaker 1: are my biggest ways that I do that. But when
Speaker 1: I was doing the no it's been challenge, I obviously
Speaker 1: posted on social media every day and that was a
Speaker 1: really great way to stay accountable. And now my goal
Speaker 1: is to post on social media every third day. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that is my goal. And so I think I'm also
Speaker 1: following social media accounts to help me with my social
Speaker 1: media goal.
Speaker 4: Yes, oh that's so true.
Speaker 3: So many made a statement recently that was a little
Speaker 3: bit challenging about not just being a consumer of content
Speaker 3: but also a creator of content. And everybody's going to
Speaker 3: decide what works for them when it comes to the
Speaker 3: whole social media thing. But I am one hundred percent
Speaker 3: a consumer of Instagram and I am a one hundred
Speaker 3: percent non creator on Instagram.
Speaker 1: And I think so much of what I loved about
Speaker 1: Kelly's story is that she was vulnerable and she created
Speaker 1: content not to become an influencer, which is what everyone
Speaker 1: thinks creating content and social media should be. If I
Speaker 1: can't be an influencer, why would I even post content
Speaker 1: at this point? No, it is so much more effective
Speaker 1: to create content to keep yourself motivated than it is
Speaker 1: to consume it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think also the outside of yourself piece
Speaker 3: that you could connect with somebody and help them in
Speaker 3: some way rather than just taking also giving. I liked
Speaker 3: that perspective. It was helpful, especially for those of us who.
Speaker 4: Yeah, needed to do it more.
Speaker 1: There's such blurry lines too, like being vulnerable on social
Speaker 1: media does not mean you're vulnerable with every part of
Speaker 1: your life. It doesn't mean you're showing pictures of your
Speaker 1: kids or your partner or like all of the stuff
Speaker 1: you're going through. Like if you're trying to reach a
Speaker 1: goal and just being vulnerable putting your successes and your
Speaker 1: failures on social media as a way to keep yourself
Speaker 1: accountable as a way of keeping a journal of your journey.
Speaker 1: When you look at it that way, it becomes a
Speaker 1: much safer space. And again, like I love this quote
Speaker 1: from now I'm blanking on her name Nicole Jones Burke.
Speaker 1: Now I share my scars, not my scabs. I don't know,
Speaker 1: maybe she wasn't even the one that said it, But
Speaker 1: I share what I have healed from, not when I
Speaker 1: am healing like what I'm currently. Yeah, so that's a
Speaker 1: really good picture that I've taken through. But even within
Speaker 1: your journey, you don't have to share the hardest parts
Speaker 1: that you're still processing to be able to share things
Speaker 1: that you know you have learned and things that were
Speaker 1: struggles that you made it through and celebrate that. So
Speaker 1: there's so the lines are so blurry on how to
Speaker 1: use social media as a tool. But you get to
Speaker 1: make the rules. Yeah, you get to decide what to
Speaker 1: post do not let an algorithm or influencers kind of
Speaker 1: guide you in that.
Speaker 3: Yeah. The accounts that I like to follow, similar to
Speaker 3: you food accounts. They are really helpful in getting me
Speaker 3: creative about what I want to try and make, finding
Speaker 3: new recipes, learning new techniques, getting me excited about making
Speaker 3: a meal plan. If I feel like I'm in a rut,
Speaker 3: I'll just go to my favorite food accounts and scroll
Speaker 3: through what they've gotten. So many of them also have
Speaker 3: it clumped together in different types of grouping. So if
Speaker 3: there's specific types of things that I'm looking to add
Speaker 3: to my meal plan, whether it's a breakfast or a dinner,
Speaker 3: or salad or you name it, flatbread, they usually have
Speaker 3: it categorized in ways like that to be able to
Speaker 3: find what you're looking for. I also follow local accounts,
Speaker 3: which helps me to find things that I want to do,
Speaker 3: free events I want to go to, places I want
Speaker 3: to check out, So that's been really cool. There's a
Speaker 3: handful of local accounts for both Saint Pete and Tampa
Speaker 3: and just Florida in general to be able to think
Speaker 3: about staycations, which is an episode that we did recently
Speaker 3: on how to just stay local and have some new
Speaker 3: adventures and experiences but at a more cost effective rate.
Speaker 3: So that's helping me stick to that goal getting excited
Speaker 3: about what can I check out? Yes, Anyways, everyone, thanks
Speaker 3: for listening. We really appreciate you being here for as
Speaker 3: long as you all have been here, and we also
Speaker 3: love when you take the time to give us a review.
Speaker 3: It really really helps us, helps other people find us.
Speaker 3: Like this one from Mike Job. It says super show
Speaker 3: about saving five stars. The host Jen and Jill talk
Speaker 3: about their methods of saving money. They offer super helpful
Speaker 3: information in a non boring way. I tend to be
Speaker 3: a dummy with money and just go nuts, but I'm
Speaker 3: trying to change now that I'm an adult, and I
Speaker 3: think this show will help out for sure.
Speaker 4: Amazing Mike. Thanks Mike, I'm glad.
Speaker 1: I mean, you're one of our you know, small but
Speaker 1: loyal male fan base. I mean, I assume I have
Speaker 1: never met a woman named Mike. But I'm so sorry
Speaker 1: if my ignorance is showing. Uh, so, thank you. We
Speaker 1: are always trying to be as accessible to as many
Speaker 1: people as possible, So thank you for your kind words. Mike.
Speaker 3: Yes, again, thanks for being here. We'll see you next time.
Speaker 1: Bye. Frugal Friends is produced by Eric Sirianni. Okay, So
Speaker 1: this morning I told you this, But this morning I
Speaker 1: was carrying my eighteen cups in from the gym and
Speaker 1: I get to my door and I hear a soft
Speaker 1: buzz and I look down and there is a bee
Speaker 1: on my Stanley cup, the Stanley cup that I did
Speaker 1: not buy but I got as a gift and I
Speaker 1: use because I like it. It has a handle and
Speaker 1: when you carry eighteen cups, a handle is nice. But
Speaker 1: there was a bee on the Stanley and so instantly
Speaker 1: we drop Stanley. He falls to the ground onto the
Speaker 1: brick and he has some scarring from the fall. But
Speaker 1: you know what, I am embracing this like unesthetic scar.
Speaker 3: Are you sharing much vulnerability? I Think'sley.
Speaker 1: I think he's healed. One thing. I will say, is
Speaker 1: that normally when I drop cups and they didn't in
Speaker 1: this space like on the bottom, they usually start jiggling
Speaker 1: when I put them down, and Stanley is is remaining
Speaker 1: pretty stable. So maybe that's like a win for Stanley.
Speaker 1: Still not worth fifty dollars by any means, But Stanley did,
Speaker 1: you know, didn't have a lot of time to brace
Speaker 1: for impact, but did survive the fall. But I am
Speaker 1: embracing an unesthetic life now and so kind of this
Speaker 1: I just feel is right for me to have this
Speaker 1: cup with like scratches, that is has a slight tilt.
Speaker 1: But who doesn't, you know, like we all do. And
Speaker 1: I feel like now I feel better about care. You
Speaker 1: threw it on purpose almost, I mean I threw it
Speaker 1: on purpose because there was a b on it. But
Speaker 1: I didn't throw it. I just dropped it. I was
Speaker 1: just like all of the other things that I was
Speaker 1: holding are like very durable plastic. That's the one thing
Speaker 1: that was like expensive and kind of scratchable.
Speaker 3: But you're going for a really worn in, lived in,
Speaker 3: worn out lived in look, not.
Speaker 1: Worn out, but lived in, Yeah, worn in, lived in.
Speaker 1: That's the space I want to be on social media.
Speaker 1: I want my words to permeate into the phone and
Speaker 1: give me that algorithm.
Speaker 3: We'll all be watching with baited breath to see what
Speaker 3: happens every third day.
Speaker 1: We'll see