Speaker 1: Hi.
Speaker 2: I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist,
Speaker 2: and speaker.
Speaker 3: And I'm Sarah hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician,
Speaker 3: writer and course creator. We are two working parents who
Speaker 3: love our careers and our families.
Speaker 2: Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about
Speaker 2: how real women manage work, family, and time for fun.
Speaker 2: From figuring out childcare to mapping out long.
Speaker 1: Term career goals.
Speaker 2: We want you to get the most out of life.
Speaker 2: Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura. This
Speaker 2: episode is airing in early February of twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2: We are going to be talking about money. So a
Speaker 2: fun fact, many many years ago, I wrote a book
Speaker 2: about money.
Speaker 1: It was called All the Money in the World.
Speaker 2: It came out in early twenty twelve, so I guess
Speaker 2: that's thirteen years ago now, which is a while, but
Speaker 2: I remember it well. And it happened because I had
Speaker 2: written one hundred and sixty Hours, which is a book
Speaker 2: about time management. And since I'm still writing about time,
Speaker 2: you would assume that the path would be linear, but
Speaker 2: it was not. The book was sort of slow out
Speaker 2: of the gate and sort of like, well, maybe I
Speaker 2: should write about a different topic, and like, what should
Speaker 2: I write about? Well, let's take that sort of lens
Speaker 2: of trying to, you know, view time as a tool
Speaker 2: as like money as a tool.
Speaker 1: And we're going to write a personal finance book.
Speaker 2: And I wasn't quite as into it as I was
Speaker 2: into time, and I think maybe that was reflected though
Speaker 2: I had some fun writing that book.
Speaker 1: But anyway, after that.
Speaker 2: I went back to time, wrote more about time and
Speaker 2: writing about time since.
Speaker 1: But hey, I still like the topic of money, Sarah.
Speaker 1: You read All the Money in the World, in which
Speaker 1: I can't believe. No, it's good.
Speaker 3: I mean I I actually thought I had some really
Speaker 3: refreshing takes that aren't like standard in every money book,
Speaker 3: and I liked it a lot. So I don't know,
Speaker 3: Maybe you should write another money book.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, probably not. I don't think I have another
Speaker 1: one in me.
Speaker 2: I seem to always still have another time book in me,
Speaker 2: but I'm not sure that I have another money book
Speaker 2: in me. But this episode is going to be about money,
Speaker 2: but not the normal sort of personal finance tropes. Like
Speaker 2: nothing in this episode is going to be about cutting
Speaker 2: out Netflix or lattes. We are going to be asking
Speaker 2: each other some intriguing questions about money, and we would
Speaker 2: love to hear your answers as well, so feel free
Speaker 2: to let us know how you would answer any of
Speaker 2: these questions. So first one, Sarah, are you a spender
Speaker 2: or a saver? And how about the other members of
Speaker 2: your family?
Speaker 3: I would say both Josh and I are very disciplined spenders,
Speaker 3: so we are aware of our spender tendencies. Mine definitely
Speaker 3: run deep. My allowance never lasted more than like a
Speaker 3: day or two. When I was growing up, there was
Speaker 3: always something enticing to get, whether it was like a
Speaker 3: ski trip for school or a babysitter club book I
Speaker 3: would find or make up. It didn't matter like if
Speaker 3: there was money, I was spending it in As adults,
Speaker 3: we've recognized that would not be a good strategy for
Speaker 3: you know, life and long term. So yeah, I would
Speaker 3: say we are cautious, disciplined spenders.
Speaker 1: And what do you think your kids are mix?
Speaker 3: I don't know if they'd want their tendencies necessarily shared,
Speaker 3: but I will say there's at least one kid whose
Speaker 3: allowance patterns look a lot like mine.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, at least you guys got to the allowance
Speaker 2: part to we never even made it there. For many,
Speaker 2: many reasons, I was fine with giving an allowance. My
Speaker 2: husband had a sort of really bad reaction to the idea,
Speaker 2: and so you know, there are certain battles you pick
Speaker 2: in a marriage, and that is not one, not a
Speaker 2: hill I was willing to die on. So we wound
Speaker 2: up not doing that. Though curiously, the kids do not
Speaker 2: spend a lot of money. They do not seem to
Speaker 2: have particular desires to spend everything that comes in, which
Speaker 2: I think is partly that they're not around.
Speaker 1: Stores all that often.
Speaker 2: Maybe I don't know, but even so, I mean, my
Speaker 2: older kids are aware that there are pricier stores out
Speaker 2: there and still seem to be okay with buying clothes
Speaker 2: at like Old Navy and Target and Amazon.
Speaker 1: So I am happy about that.
Speaker 2: So far, I am more a safer than a spender.
Speaker 2: I believe Michael is also a saverer to possibly slightly
Speaker 2: less than me.
Speaker 1: But it's hard to know.
Speaker 2: I think more it's that I had the adult experience
Speaker 2: of running my own sort of life and household on
Speaker 2: a very limited income, which he chose a more higher
Speaker 2: paying initial career.
Speaker 1: Out of school, so I think had less of that.
Speaker 2: Experience, which it shapes you. But yeah, I have a
Speaker 2: very strong tendency to just make do. But you guys
Speaker 2: do as well. I mean you're driving cars that are old.
Speaker 3: Don't give away my frugality secrets because we have another.
Speaker 1: Second at Okay, okay, we have to get to yes.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think the actual question that's going to
Speaker 3: be very interesting and telling is the one about like
Speaker 3: if you got a windfall, because I can think of like,
Speaker 3: what would fifty different ways I would spend it? And
Speaker 3: you were like, I don't know what would I do
Speaker 3: with it?
Speaker 1: I mean if it was well, okay, we'll get to that.
Speaker 1: If it's a big enough windfall, I'd come up with something.
Speaker 2: But yeah, yeah, no, I well I was thinking about that,
Speaker 2: like my computer, not this one i'm using now because
Speaker 2: I actually have two laptops now because my older ones
Speaker 2: stopped being able to run any video conferencing programming, which
Speaker 2: just clearly doesn't work for life in the modern era.
Speaker 2: So I bought a new one about two and a
Speaker 2: half years ago, which is I'm using for all of that,
Speaker 2: but I'm still using the eight year old one for
Speaker 2: the vast majority of things that I can still use
Speaker 2: it for and I was very excited that I recently
Speaker 2: got my fourteen year old car back from my son,
Speaker 2: which he is now driving a newer car than that.
Speaker 1: So it's a long story.
Speaker 2: Maybe that's a less frugal choice, but anyway, here we
Speaker 2: are just generally making it do with stuff. So, Sarah,
Speaker 2: what was one of your earliest money memories.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I lived at a very frugal household.
Speaker 3: I think we both share some of that. My parents
Speaker 3: really valued saving. I think it was a point of pride,
Speaker 3: but also kind of like a point that they felt
Speaker 3: was like non negotiable, like this was the right way
Speaker 3: to be. It wasn't really out of necessity. I do
Speaker 3: think that many people with similar income levels spent a
Speaker 3: lot more money than my parents did, and they did
Speaker 3: splurge on certain things, which is sort of in some
Speaker 3: ways mirrors how we are. Like they would pay for
Speaker 3: very expensive violin lessons, for example, but I was only
Speaker 3: getting like Suave shampoo, and it was probably like on
Speaker 3: a buy one, get one free deal with five coupons
Speaker 3: at CBS, so I actually made the money to buy
Speaker 3: that shampoo. So I don't know, Yeah, just it's a
Speaker 3: pretty frugal lifestyle. I will say, like we had weird juxtapositions,
Speaker 3: and I've talked about this, I think on the podcast,
Speaker 3: but maybe not for a while, where we almost never
Speaker 3: spent any money on travel, but we would take advantage
Speaker 3: of my dad's work travel so while spending no money,
Speaker 3: I would stay in like a suite at the Ritz.
Speaker 3: So it's like a kind of yeah, mixed bag.
Speaker 2: Mixed bag, mixed bag. Well, one develops a good taste
Speaker 2: for hotels, so when that tar an initial experience, you're like,
Speaker 2: I'm not going anywhere where they're putting schwab in the
Speaker 2: in the shower.
Speaker 3: After that, yeah, so what about you?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I mean I was thinking of a couple,
Speaker 2: but one I realized that it was what you think
Speaker 2: as a kid, and it's you learn later in life
Speaker 2: is not true at all. Is that sometimes people choose
Speaker 2: to buy more stuff and then you think they have
Speaker 2: more money because.
Speaker 1: They have bought more stuff.
Speaker 2: So I was under the impression that many people, like
Speaker 2: other friends of mine, their parents must have had much
Speaker 2: more money than we did because they always had, for instance,
Speaker 2: an incredibly well stocked craft closet right like that that
Speaker 2: there was you know, if you wanted a pipe cleaner,
Speaker 2: you were getting a pipe cleaner. I don't think we
Speaker 2: ever bought pipe cleaners in my entire childhood, right, But
Speaker 2: they'd have like a closet full of construction paper and
Speaker 2: pipe cleaners and whatever else. Or a friend of mine
Speaker 2: who had like every single Babysitters Club book, Like, clearly
Speaker 2: they must have been rolling in it to have every
Speaker 2: single Babysitters Club book. Of course, you know now I
Speaker 2: realized they were like what three or four dollars at
Speaker 2: the time, and they started.
Speaker 1: At like two fifty.
Speaker 3: Trust me, I know, because that's what I was blowing
Speaker 3: my allowance.
Speaker 1: That's what you were blowing your allowance on.
Speaker 2: But you know, so this family had bought this girl
Speaker 2: one hundred Babysitters Club books or however many there were
Speaker 2: by the time the series had run its course and
Speaker 2: spending two dollars and fifty cents each, So really we're
Speaker 2: talking two hundred and fifty dollars, which made me feel
Speaker 2: that they must be like rolling in it, you know,
Speaker 2: Or what am I the families that give out the
Speaker 2: full sized candy bars at Halloween? Right? That is, if
Speaker 2: you want to know a way to make your late
Speaker 2: neighbors think that you're loaded. All you have to do
Speaker 2: is buy like seventy five full sized candy bars, which
Speaker 2: again it's like a dollar at Walmart.
Speaker 3: If that interestingly, not only is there a phenomenon in
Speaker 3: my neighborhood where some people do it, but they do
Speaker 3: feel they need to announce it on What's up, So
Speaker 3: there must be some sort of status they wanted it
Speaker 3: going on, and that weird do not give those out?
Speaker 2: Yeah, which is so funny because again, like it's seventy
Speaker 2: five dollars, Like, if you had seventy five full size.
Speaker 3: Candy in one sitting for a kid, I'm sorry I
Speaker 3: have Like, Okay, anyway, we'll.
Speaker 1: Keep moving on from that.
Speaker 2: But you know, later you realize that people just spend
Speaker 2: their money on different things, and some people choose to
Speaker 2: spend their money on things that you see or that
Speaker 2: you might think are really cool as a kid, and
Speaker 2: it has nothing to do with how much happens to
Speaker 2: be in somebody's bank account. But yeah, yeah, so let's
Speaker 2: take a quick ad break and then we'll be back
Speaker 2: with a couple more money questions. Well, we are back
Speaker 2: doing an episode on money. We are asking different questions.
Speaker 2: We're not telling anyone to give up Netflix or lattes. Instead,
Speaker 2: we are exploring different angles of money. So, Sarah, here's
Speaker 2: a question. If you were to plan a weekend that
Speaker 2: was free and fun, but free as in no new
Speaker 2: money going out the door, what would you choose to
Speaker 2: include in such a weekend?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would definitely make use of nature, because certain
Speaker 3: things in our area are really pleasant and either extremely
Speaker 3: low cost, like you would just pay maybe a couple
Speaker 3: dollars at the parking garage or free. And so probably
Speaker 3: a beach morning would be a great way to spend
Speaker 3: the day. You could bring lunch, bring food, whatever. You
Speaker 3: might have to spend a couple dollars for parking, but
Speaker 3: honestly it should be nominal, and then that would be
Speaker 3: free entertainment, the ocean, the sand, hopefully good weather. Another
Speaker 3: activity would be perhaps to do like some cozy reading time,
Speaker 3: and then maybe bake something with ingredients that are already
Speaker 3: on hand, so cookies for everyone. That always makes things fun.
Speaker 3: And then in terms of like if I were hosting
Speaker 3: or wanted to have a more festive dinner, A lot
Speaker 3: of times we have leftover slices of pizza in the
Speaker 3: freezer and placed in the oven. When you heat that up,
Speaker 3: it's as good as new. It tastes like delivery. So
Speaker 3: that's how I would have faux take out on our
Speaker 3: free weekend adventure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like after we host a kid's birthday
Speaker 2: party or somenday, because I always overorder pizza, which is
Speaker 2: me fighting my natural tendency. I would under order the pizza,
Speaker 2: and that has happened the first one or two times
Speaker 2: that this did, so that I need to compensate and
Speaker 2: over order the pizza so I don't run out. But
Speaker 2: then we wind up with all this extra that we freeze.
Speaker 2: So yeah, we tend to always have that in the
Speaker 2: freezer as well. So I have a couple things. One
Speaker 2: is I would go ahead and throw my open that
Speaker 2: bottle party. So I mean, wine is not a frugal
Speaker 2: hobby if people are into it. But some longtime listeners
Speaker 2: know that in the course of buying our house, the
Speaker 2: previous owner threw in his wine collection, which had not
Speaker 2: necessarily been perhaps as carefully stored as one might given
Speaker 2: the number of bottles, and it was more I think
Speaker 2: he didn't want to have to move him.
Speaker 1: He was downsizing.
Speaker 2: We're like, okay, whatever, So anyway, we have this and
Speaker 2: we don't drink a lot of wine.
Speaker 1: So what I thought would be fun to.
Speaker 2: Do is have people over and they could choose bottles
Speaker 2: and open them and maybe it would be good, maybe
Speaker 2: they would be terrible, But then I guess you'd open
Speaker 2: another one and see if you could find a different
Speaker 2: flavor that didn't mind the sort of slightly fluctuating temperature
Speaker 2: and storage as much. And then you know, I'd have
Speaker 2: my guests bring like an appetizer or something, so it
Speaker 2: would be a party, but without any new cash going
Speaker 2: out the door.
Speaker 1: So maybe that'll be something I.
Speaker 2: Will actually do it something it's very fun. Yeah, add
Speaker 2: that as a goal for the year. I would go
Speaker 2: for a run or walk with a friend, because, like
Speaker 2: you said, nature is always or generally mostly free, and
Speaker 2: there's often a lot of beautiful things you can do.
Speaker 2: Going to the library because you know, you get the
Speaker 2: fun of getting new books or DVDs if you're into that,
Speaker 2: and I guess most people stream these days, but you
Speaker 2: could get new stuff and entertainment that way. We would
Speaker 2: go somewhere we have a membership, so this could even
Speaker 2: fill two weekend slots. We've talked in the past on
Speaker 2: this podcast about there's like five weekend slots like Friday night,
Speaker 2: Saturday Day, Saturday nights, Sunday Day, Sunday night, so this could.
Speaker 1: Maybe even fill two. We have memberships at.
Speaker 2: Longwood Gardens, so that's you know, even if it's winter,
Speaker 2: they've got the Greenhouse, which is fun to see. We
Speaker 2: could go to the Zoo, which has a couple indoor
Speaker 2: warm exhibits for like tropical animals, so that's always kind
Speaker 2: of a fun wintry thing to do. Or go to
Speaker 2: the Art Museum, which I also have a membership there.
Speaker 1: And here's the thing.
Speaker 2: For all three of those, I can get at least
Speaker 2: if I plan it right, I can get free parking.
Speaker 2: So Longwood is free because it's a giant parking lot.
Speaker 2: The Zoo, if you're a member, you can get your
Speaker 2: parking validated and get free, or else you can usually
Speaker 2: find a spot on the street near there if you're
Speaker 2: willing to walk two blocks, so that's another option. And
Speaker 2: then the Art Museum is most definitely not free, but
Speaker 2: if you perk in the garage and you are a member,
Speaker 2: and you get your ticket validated and you are out
Speaker 2: in sub sixty minutes, it is free, so I would
Speaker 2: have to make a very quick art museum trip. But
Speaker 2: the good news is that my children won't last more
Speaker 2: than an hour anyway, so it's all good.
Speaker 1: We would be out of there.
Speaker 3: As I can imagine you're getting close to the threshold
Speaker 3: and you're like, okay, I know you're not gonna last,
Speaker 3: Like maybe it'd be seventy minutes, but it might as
Speaker 3: well be fifty nine.
Speaker 1: It might be.
Speaker 2: Fifty nine, and we were gonna be in the van
Speaker 2: and out of here.
Speaker 1: So I am not paying. I mean, it's like ridiculous.
Speaker 2: It's like twenty dollars if you like, don't make the
Speaker 2: f So the difference between like sixty one minutes and
Speaker 2: fifty nine is pretty large, so you want to make
Speaker 2: sure you are out of there, so.
Speaker 1: Then there would truly be no new money out the
Speaker 1: door for that.
Speaker 3: This is why we are different, because like I don't
Speaker 3: even notice, Like I don't even look.
Speaker 1: You wouldn't notice that you had to pay twenty.
Speaker 3: Dollars to part. I would just be like that's how
Speaker 3: much part? Like I don't know. I just like, yeah,
Speaker 3: I wouldn't really register. I'm not saying that's smart, it's
Speaker 3: just true.
Speaker 2: Well, there we go that baby, are our tendency right there?
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, it's a game. Let's get out in
Speaker 2: fifty nine minutes.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 2: So, Sarah, what is a smart financial move you have made?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: So most of these have been in the last five
Speaker 3: six years, because I'm not sure we were that smart
Speaker 3: before then.
Speaker 1: I have a few.
Speaker 3: So one is similar to you, which is we did
Speaker 3: luck out and get a mortgage under three percent just
Speaker 3: before everything went really high, which also coincided with the
Speaker 3: prices in our neighborhoods, thankfully, just before they sort of
Speaker 3: rose a bit. So that was very helpful. Autopiloting savings
Speaker 3: like really maxing out four h three b's and four
Speaker 3: fifty seven's and like being strategic about that, and then
Speaker 3: also like autopiloting college savings as well. I think those
Speaker 3: are the big ones.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so I would say, yeah, for one of
Speaker 2: our biggest ones was moving from New York City, which
Speaker 2: I love New York City, but you sort of reach
Speaker 2: a point when you are parenting small children that you realize,
Speaker 2: you know, what am I doing to enjoy the city,
Speaker 2: Like not that much. We're not going out to fancy
Speaker 2: restaurants that often we're not going to Broadway.
Speaker 1: We're not.
Speaker 2: We are just here with small kids, going to work,
Speaker 2: in daycare and the park, all of which you can
Speaker 2: do elsewhere. So neither my husband nor I actually have
Speaker 2: to live anywhere really, So he has to be.
Speaker 3: Said that, what's that, we're not location constricted?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, we're not location constricted. He has to
Speaker 2: go visit clients more often than I would ever do,
Speaker 2: but like it's really hard to get them all in
Speaker 2: such a geographical cluster that you would be driving to
Speaker 2: all of them within an hour anyway, so you're usually
Speaker 2: on a plane or train or what are Most of
Speaker 2: his clients are either in Washington, DC or New York,
Speaker 2: or they're on the West coast, or you know, there's
Speaker 2: some in our area. But anyway, we could have lived wherever.
Speaker 2: So we decide to move here, and Pennsylvania is just
Speaker 2: a lower cost of living place. Philadelphia is a much
Speaker 2: more accessible city in terms of I mean that parking
Speaker 2: garage at the Art Museum would probably be fifty dollars
Speaker 2: in New York, whereas it's like twenty Herod and Philly,
Speaker 2: and you can get a house that is twenty minutes
Speaker 2: outside downtown whereas that's a lot harder to do with Manhattan.
Speaker 2: You're out of ways before you're getting a house with
Speaker 2: a yard. And you know, we've been able to send
Speaker 2: our kids to our local public school, which is awesome,
Speaker 2: Like it's a good public school, and so that those
Speaker 2: are some pretty significant cost of living differences.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that was good.
Speaker 2: But yeah, we have the three percent mortgage thing was
Speaker 2: total luck and we are so.
Speaker 3: Glad that we purchased at the exact right minute. Well,
Speaker 3: speaking of purchasing timing, let's talk about financial mistakes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so a couple, I would say when it's sort
Speaker 2: of silly because this is just opportunity cost. But I
Speaker 2: was the kind of kid who was reading the newspaper
Speaker 2: at my neighbor's driveway where I was waiting for the
Speaker 2: bus in sixth grade.
Speaker 1: I don't know, I just looked at their newspaper. I
Speaker 1: figured they didn't care.
Speaker 2: That much if I really knew frugal to read my
Speaker 2: neighbor's newspaper, but anyway, I would look at it. And
Speaker 2: so I was following the dow since this would have
Speaker 2: been nineteen eighty nine, so shortly after the eighty seven crash.
Speaker 2: If one had bought in at the time where I
Speaker 2: started to pay attention to it. That would have been
Speaker 2: well over another decade of being in in long term
Speaker 2: investing than I actually have to have, because I was,
Speaker 2: as it turned out, saving all my babysitting money, saving
Speaker 2: all my Fazzoli's Italian restaurant money, saving all my Osco
Speaker 2: drugstore money, saving all my working at a gym daycare
Speaker 2: money for years. So that would have been an option.
Speaker 2: And we with our kids, we actually give them a
Speaker 2: bank account when they turned ten, and it is not
Speaker 2: just a you put it in at whatever the bank
Speaker 2: interest is. They have the ability to invest within it,
Speaker 2: and so we're teaching them about it, and some of
Speaker 2: them are more into it than others. That's where their
Speaker 2: personalities comes out. Some people were like buying big Nvidia
Speaker 2: and others are like money market account like CDs, like
Speaker 2: you know, it's it's a very different risk profile.
Speaker 1: But giving them the tools to do that.
Speaker 2: I'll give another mistake in a minute, but I want
Speaker 2: to hear yours first.
Speaker 3: Well it's not I mean, well okay, I have one.
Speaker 3: There's an actual mistake and one that's just like a
Speaker 3: oh my god, like it just kills me.
Speaker 1: To think about.
Speaker 3: But the mistake is that we did something very stereotypical
Speaker 3: and dumb, which is we bought universal life insurance and
Speaker 3: like twenty twenty five me is like, are you serious?
Speaker 3: But I don't know twenty thirteen meters was very naive,
Speaker 3: like you don't get any financial training in med school.
Speaker 3: And I'm not saying this person was predatory, but I'm
Speaker 3: sure they knew that we didn't really know much, and
Speaker 3: we paid into that. It was very expensive for multiple
Speaker 3: years before I was like, this is so stupid.
Speaker 1: We can put this.
Speaker 3: Like autopilot into our retirement accounts. It won't get tax,
Speaker 3: it will grow, and this vehicle is not going to
Speaker 3: do those things. So we got out and that's good,
Speaker 3: but it was a mistake. And then the other thing
Speaker 3: is not really a mistake. This is more like failure
Speaker 3: to predict the future. But the timing of our sales
Speaker 3: of our home. We had an episode where I talked
Speaker 3: about renting you guys, we could not give that house
Speaker 3: away in Miami Beach. And now, I mean the market
Speaker 3: values are like triple what we sold it for. That's
Speaker 3: a lot that's like a meaningful amount of money to us,
Speaker 3: like it would mean a difference in terms of like
Speaker 3: college funding, in terms of retirement, Like it would have
Speaker 3: been a life changing thing had the timing been different.
Speaker 3: And that's not a mistake because how did we know that, right, Like,
Speaker 3: there were real estate agents that were coming by saying
Speaker 3: this area is done, it's going to be underwater, it's
Speaker 3: only going to get wars from here. While it turns
Speaker 3: out they were super wrong and it's unfortunate.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no, we had that too.
Speaker 2: We sold our first apartment in New York in basically
Speaker 2: two thousand and eight, yes, right, like in the financial crash,
Speaker 2: and New York was like ooohh. We didn't lose money
Speaker 2: on it, right, Like, you sold it for like a
Speaker 2: couple like a little bit more than what we paid
Speaker 2: for it, and it took a while for it to
Speaker 2: come back. Like I'm not sad that we didn't hold
Speaker 2: on to it trying to rent it out or anything,
Speaker 2: because I think it would have been quite a.
Speaker 1: Hassle to do that.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it was definitely the bottom of the market
Speaker 2: when that one went out, So yeah, you can't time
Speaker 2: these things. I Mean the upside then is and we
Speaker 2: bought this house right before prices took off, so it
Speaker 2: was in the low of the pandemic, and that sometimes
Speaker 2: you win, sometimes you lose.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thankfully, I will say I think we did pretty
Speaker 3: well with the purchase. We waited a little bit and
Speaker 3: we got it just in time, so at least we
Speaker 3: didn't kind of get it on both Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And in terms of a smaller one, I've definitely
Speaker 2: bought things on sale that turn out not to be
Speaker 2: that great, but it's just like, oh, but it's on sale,
Speaker 2: but it's still money out the door. So the fact
Speaker 2: that you got a one hundred dollar item or what
Speaker 2: they're calling one hundred dollar item for twenty five dollars, like, if.
Speaker 1: It's not actually really truly worth.
Speaker 2: Twenty five dollars to you, then it's it's still a
Speaker 2: waste of twenty five dollars. So I just always try
Speaker 2: to tell myself, and I've gotten better about it. If
Speaker 2: you would pay full price for this and then you
Speaker 2: get a discount, that is good.
Speaker 1: But if you are only buying.
Speaker 2: It because it is on a discount, you probably don't
Speaker 2: really want it.
Speaker 3: Totally agree. I basically never buy clothing on sale. I
Speaker 3: think the only situation I would is if I wanted
Speaker 3: a duplicate of something I already owned and it happened
Speaker 3: to go on sale and I already know I loved it.
Speaker 2: That's like it Yeah, well, this is the one where
Speaker 2: my husband's sort of funny tendencies come out because he
Speaker 2: buys stuff at the Nordstrom anniversary sale every year. What
Speaker 2: if it happen like twice a year or something, and
Speaker 2: it's always like he likes Hugo bas and it's like
Speaker 2: but he will buy whatever was on sale, and so
Speaker 2: it's like it won't even fit him.
Speaker 1: I mean, it will literally be a shirt that does
Speaker 1: not fit him.
Speaker 2: Or there's just like some blazer that had like weird
Speaker 2: trim on it that like didn't you know, so you
Speaker 2: either have to return it or then you know, one case,
Speaker 2: we want to like donating stuff, and it's just like okay,
Speaker 2: like if you want something from there, just buy a
Speaker 2: few things from there. Like don't buy whatever was left
Speaker 2: over that they're getting out on the sale.
Speaker 1: You don't even it's not gonna Work's.
Speaker 3: Totally agree first bender, I'm either like I'm buying nothing
Speaker 3: or I'm buying like exactly what I want and like
Speaker 3: not that in between gray area and I've made those
Speaker 3: mistakes as a younger person, but not in the last
Speaker 3: decade or so.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, we're gonna take one more quick ad
Speaker 2: break and then we'll be back with a little bit
Speaker 2: more about money.
Speaker 1: Well, we are back.
Speaker 2: We were talking all things finances. We're doing money questions,
Speaker 2: but nothing that involves giving up Netflix or lattes. So, Sarah,
Speaker 2: this may be our different question here. If you received
Speaker 2: a windfall, what would you change about your life? And
Speaker 2: then I realized I hadn't put a dollar amount, so
Speaker 2: it's left up to personal decision.
Speaker 1: How much is this windfall?
Speaker 3: It's a million dollars, It's a million dollars, Okay, all right,
Speaker 3: I would do a lot.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, what are we doing with our millions?
Speaker 1: Sarah?
Speaker 3: I'd probably convince my husband to replace his car, okay,
Speaker 3: because it's old. I would surprising people. I would actually
Speaker 3: get nicer furniture for our house because I don't want
Speaker 3: to spend my money on it. But if I happen
Speaker 3: to like have extra money, I think it might be nice.
Speaker 3: I would hire an organizer.
Speaker 2: Oh wait, wait, here's the thing, because once the money
Speaker 2: came in, it is your money, right, Like, this is
Speaker 2: the But are we saying, like Daddy Warbucks is out
Speaker 2: there being like, I will run my card for this furniture, Like.
Speaker 3: What is million showing up and like to be spent? Okay,
Speaker 3: I'd hire an organizer. I would what did I write? Oh,
Speaker 3: take more lavish vacations. I mean I would take similar
Speaker 3: vacations that we take, but like instead of kind of
Speaker 3: maybe doing a cheaper one in between fancy ones, they
Speaker 3: would just all be really nice.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I would definitely be like four seasons, nice hotels, et cetera.
Speaker 3: And I would get weekly massages. Yeah, that's nice. A
Speaker 3: weekly massages sounds good.
Speaker 2: But the prom is, Sarah, it's the time, like two
Speaker 2: time time in your schedule.
Speaker 1: Okay, you do have time in your schedule for a week.
Speaker 3: I would find it.
Speaker 1: You would find the time.
Speaker 3: I would go on one less run, but.
Speaker 2: You don't want to go on one less run. You
Speaker 2: still want to Boston qualify. Like here's the problem. So
Speaker 2: this is okay, because this is where we get to
Speaker 2: why am I?
Speaker 1: Okay?
Speaker 2: If I got like one hundred billion dollars, Like, would
Speaker 2: it be fun to own the Phillies?
Speaker 1: Sure?
Speaker 2: Okay, Like, but that's if we're talking more like a
Speaker 2: million dollars. I mean, it'd be wonderful to be welcome. Sure,
Speaker 2: I mean I'd take it. I'm not turning it down.
Speaker 2: But the problem is more like time is optimized right now,
Speaker 2: and there are very few more levers to push on that,
Speaker 2: Like I can pay for more childcare now, Like if
Speaker 2: I want to pay for five more hours of childcare
Speaker 2: right now, I could do that.
Speaker 1: My kids don't want it, like they want to be with.
Speaker 2: Me right like, so I need to deal with that
Speaker 2: reality that I've already have childcare to cover X number
Speaker 2: of hours and that is what I can do with
Speaker 2: the amount that my kids still want me to be
Speaker 2: doing stuff with them. So that's the problem. That's what
Speaker 2: I kept coming back to. I was like, well, i
Speaker 2: would like to take more trips, okay, but I'm traveling
Speaker 2: with the school schedule, like we already travel when the
Speaker 2: kids are out of school. I mean, maybe I would
Speaker 2: stand like a slightly nicer hotel, but that wouldn't materially
Speaker 2: change what I was doing.
Speaker 3: You know, true, true, Yeah, these are tweaks. I mean,
Speaker 3: none of this would materially change, right, Like a new car,
Speaker 3: Like okay, I'd still be driving, but it would be
Speaker 3: like a little nicer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're right.
Speaker 3: I mean none of this would change. The massages would
Speaker 3: probably change my lifestyle more than any of the other
Speaker 3: things I listed. I still think I'd find time.
Speaker 1: You'd find time, Okay, well.
Speaker 2: Because she'd be less worried about teaching that extra course
Speaker 2: because or I would.
Speaker 3: Oh well, that is an interesting question. Would I do?
Speaker 3: Would I somehow? I don't think a million dollars would
Speaker 3: be enough, but if I could somehow like buy myself
Speaker 3: out of most of call, that would be.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well that's again it comes down to time.
Speaker 3: You're right. There's trade offs there, and it's like, oh,
Speaker 3: I'm not being a team player like my colleagues.
Speaker 1: Like you, and you value your relationship.
Speaker 3: I do value that, You're right. So these are complicated.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, I know. That's why I was a
Speaker 1: It's a great question. It is a big question.
Speaker 2: So you know, if somebody wants to give us a
Speaker 2: million dollars, I'm shore we'll figure out something, all right,
Speaker 2: So Sarah, next one, Allah the Frugal Girl. All right,
Speaker 2: so both of us read Kristen the Frugal Girl her blog.
Speaker 2: It's wonderful she does five frugal things. So what are
Speaker 2: five frugal things you have done lately.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this was fun.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 3: Number one. I eat leftovers whenever they are available, because
Speaker 3: that solves two problems. It's good for the environment, and
Speaker 3: it's good for the grocery budget. I shop at Trader Joe's.
Speaker 3: I find this very frugal because honestly, anywhere else I
Speaker 3: shop seems to cost at least one hundred dollars more
Speaker 3: every time for like the same stuff. So I find
Speaker 3: that habit to be frugal.
Speaker 1: Oh.
Speaker 3: I have frugal fun every morning with the New York
Speaker 3: Times games. I'm not a subscriber, but Connections is free,
Speaker 3: the Mini is free, Wordle is free. It's ten really
Speaker 3: fun minutes of every morning that costs nothing. I love that.
Speaker 2: I probably should put that behind the paywall, given I
Speaker 2: think the proportion of visitors to their website who are
Speaker 2: going to like play Connections and word all and all that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, don't tell.
Speaker 3: Them this, okay. Number four? Oh, well, you said this
Speaker 3: was not going to be about lattes, but you didn't
Speaker 3: buy a lot I talked to No, We've talked about
Speaker 3: like my allowance and how I want to buy more,
Speaker 3: like upgrade my clothes. This year, and I did an
Speaker 3: analysis of what I was spending last year, and like,
Speaker 3: I still enjoy Starbucks, but I was going to the
Speaker 3: point where I wasn't even like enjoying. It was just
Speaker 3: more like a given. So most days I've just switched
Speaker 3: to drinking in the office coffee pat and you know
Speaker 3: what it's I really just want the caffeine and the
Speaker 3: hot liquids. So it makes me pretty much just as happy,
Speaker 3: and it's like six dollars less every time. I still
Speaker 3: want to go to Starbucks on occasion, but I think
Speaker 3: it'll actually elevate it for when I do go. And
Speaker 3: then finally, I do feel like we deserve a little
Speaker 3: credit maybe for the twenty eleven prius that we still have.
Speaker 3: My biggest worry about this is that like that car
Speaker 3: is going to need replacing at the same time that
Speaker 3: like we want to get a car for Anabel, and
Speaker 3: then we'll be getting like two cars at once, which
Speaker 3: will be silly. But yeah, maybe we can get a deal,
Speaker 3: yeah package deal two cars.
Speaker 2: I don't know how many dealers are doing it too,
Speaker 2: for one, specially by one get one not a thing,
Speaker 2: all right, okay, all right, so I may have to
Speaker 2: modify mine here, but one my cheaper and faster than
Speaker 2: takeout meals, So I came up with I tend not
Speaker 2: to order in all that often, partly just because it
Speaker 2: takes a long time for the stuff to comment. If
Speaker 2: I'm hungry, I'm hungry, So especially if I'm just on
Speaker 2: my own and I was like, I need something to eat,
Speaker 2: I make an omelet with pepperoni or cheriso, because those
Speaker 2: are spicy meats and off and one of the reasons
Speaker 2: people like restaurant meals is they tend to have bolder
Speaker 2: flavors than whatever you cook at home.
Speaker 1: So if you are trying to recreate.
Speaker 2: That, you want to make some spice in your meal
Speaker 2: mixed with the vegetables and mabe chopped up fruit on
Speaker 2: the side. But anyway, it's ready in ten minutes or
Speaker 2: less and taste good fills me up. So I have
Speaker 2: resorted to that several times instead of calling for delivery,
Speaker 2: I am signing my kids up for vacation Bible camp.
Speaker 2: So if people are looking for low cost options, many
Speaker 2: of your houses of worship in your area will have
Speaker 2: a week of vacation Bible camp and you are not
Speaker 2: required usually to be a member of that house.
Speaker 1: Of worship.
Speaker 2: No, obviously, if you have a completely competing religion, perhaps
Speaker 2: you do not wish well, you know what I mean,
Speaker 2: like totally incompatible, because it will be teaching about yes,
Speaker 2: like the Jesus will come up, I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: in the course of the week.
Speaker 1: But it tends to be pretty inexpensive.
Speaker 2: So if you're looking for a week of not putting
Speaker 2: much money out the door, sending a lot of kids
Speaker 2: to that is always a win. Although my older two
Speaker 2: boys are gonna have pretty cheap summers overall.
Speaker 1: I am signing.
Speaker 2: Sam up for two courses that are run through our
Speaker 2: school district for summer school, so that's very cheap since
Speaker 2: obviously we are members of the school district, and I
Speaker 2: think Jasper is going to be working. So that's It's
Speaker 2: the opposite of yeah, the opposite, the opposite of expensive,
Speaker 2: So yay for that.
Speaker 1: This I don't know, this is sort of a mixed bag.
Speaker 2: We decided not to travel over President's Day weekend, and
Speaker 2: in the past we have done sort of bigger trips
Speaker 2: over that, either skiing or we've gone to Disney, but
Speaker 2: it was just like we couldn't get ourselves excited about
Speaker 2: anything this year, not everyone wanted to go on a
Speaker 2: big ski trip, so we're probably just going to do
Speaker 2: like local day trips to a couple of the Pocono
Speaker 2: ski places. So we already have the the season pass
Speaker 2: for Blue Mountain on the Epic Pass goes to a
Speaker 2: couple places around here, and so just use those. So
Speaker 2: it really won't be much money out the door for
Speaker 2: that weekend.
Speaker 1: So I guess that is.
Speaker 2: I mean, we're not making the memories of going to
Speaker 2: Utah together as a family, but.
Speaker 1: Maybe we can make memories of the Poconos.
Speaker 3: I have lots of memories of the Pokemon, memories of
Speaker 3: the Pocados, Sarah.
Speaker 1: And then I'll throw one in that is not really frugal.
Speaker 2: But so we've done Eagles tickets lately to go to
Speaker 2: the game, and I was watching they've made the playoffs.
Speaker 1: This is after as well.
Speaker 2: Who knows how it turned out for all us, But
Speaker 2: I was watching the resale sites very very carefully and
Speaker 2: knew roughly what the prices were, and I managed to
Speaker 2: find tickets that were quite a bit under what some
Speaker 2: of the others were, and I knew that they were
Speaker 2: going to go immediately.
Speaker 1: So as soon as I saw them, I bought them.
Speaker 2: But the outside is that I am I paid probably
Speaker 2: half what other people in the section will pay.
Speaker 3: You traded time and attention for money, and in that
Speaker 3: case it was worth it.
Speaker 1: In that case.
Speaker 2: That case is where it is a big ticket item.
Speaker 2: So I think it was you know, if it was
Speaker 2: something you wanted to do.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, you were doing it anyway, and you were
Speaker 3: like much, I'm going to invest at least whatever hours
Speaker 3: of checking and then see if it pays off and
Speaker 3: you roll the dice in it.
Speaker 2: And it wasn't that many hours, like because you know,
Speaker 2: I mean, like there's only a week between knowing somebody's
Speaker 2: going to the next round of the playoffs and then,
Speaker 2: so you know, you couldn't spend that much time on it.
Speaker 2: But in terms of spending.
Speaker 1: An hour on it, it was a good hour.
Speaker 3: Yes, probably probably a decent hourly rate. Actually, yes, a
Speaker 3: decent hourly rate. I don't want to call that girl moth.
Speaker 2: But it's not quite as much as if I were
Speaker 2: up on stage giving a speech. But for a regular
Speaker 2: hour of work, yes, yes, definitely worth it.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 2: Well, moving to the question part of this, So this
Speaker 2: question is that Laura tracks time but not spending. Sarah
Speaker 2: trecks spending, but usually not time. She has done it
Speaker 2: on occasion.
Speaker 3: Discuss it's very helpful for us to track spending because,
Speaker 3: as I said, we sort of need that conscious layer,
Speaker 3: like I like particularly I mean on certain categories. I'm
Speaker 3: not sure it matters as much. It just makes me
Speaker 3: feel more comfortable, like knowing that like the pieces do
Speaker 3: fit within our cash flow. But then in other areas
Speaker 3: it actually does influence behavior, specifically areas like my allowance
Speaker 3: or even like the kid's clothing, Like we have a
Speaker 3: budget for that, and if we're at the end of
Speaker 3: that the kids are asking for stuff, I'm like, no,
Speaker 3: Like I can see we already spent whatever on your clothing,
Speaker 3: and that's I don't want to go beyond XYZ. So
Speaker 3: for us, it's just really helpful. I don't have a
Speaker 3: reason I don't track time other than I find it
Speaker 3: really hard. So in an ideal world, I think it'd
Speaker 3: be great to track both. I just like can't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, well, I just find time sort of interesting
Speaker 2: because you're always working with the same amount every week,
Speaker 2: and so it's like you keep getting that opportunity to
Speaker 2: play around with the same pieces. I mean, income is
Speaker 2: more variable, I guess for us, so it doesn't have
Speaker 2: that same satisfying like these are the same pieces I
Speaker 2: have to play around with now. Because we are frugal people,
Speaker 2: we tend to build our sort of regular expenses on
Speaker 2: what we know would come in, right, so not the
Speaker 2: variable parts of anything, and then base it on that,
Speaker 2: and so then there tends to be enough space that
Speaker 2: I'm sort of not as worried about the smaller purchases,
Speaker 2: which again, remember we just don't go spend money.
Speaker 1: Really that much.
Speaker 2: I don't know, my life is not frugal versus like
Speaker 2: I'm sure what I mean. You know, we have full
Speaker 2: time childcare, kids are in a ton of activities, but
Speaker 2: in terms of sort of smaller expenses, I guess that
Speaker 2: just doesn't seem to be where the money goes out,
Speaker 2: and so I haven't bothered tracking it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, that makes sense.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, Well, Leff of the week, I guess
Speaker 2: we've been talking about a lot of different Love of
Speaker 2: the weeks. I'm going to say coupon codes, which it's
Speaker 2: less of a thing now than during the glory days
Speaker 2: of internet shopping, you know, the early times of it,
Speaker 2: where you would hunt around and find a coupon code.
Speaker 2: But if I have actually gotten to the checkout spot
Speaker 2: of a retailer, I have not used frequently. It is
Speaker 2: generally at least worth hunting, because sometimes there's at least
Speaker 2: a ten or fifteen percent code out there somewhere, and
Speaker 2: you may as well use it if you were going
Speaker 2: to pay full price getting the ten they're fifteen percent off.
Speaker 2: We also buy a lot of stuff as Shutterfly, and
Speaker 2: it's definitely worth looking there. They always have some like
Speaker 2: forty to fifty percent coupon code.
Speaker 1: I see.
Speaker 2: Their prices must not be like what their actual prices are.
Speaker 2: They're like, let's see if anyone ever pays this.
Speaker 3: The best Shutterfly coupon is the one that's unlimited book pages,
Speaker 3: because often that's actually like eighty percent off. It's amazing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, if you're doing like one hundred page book,
Speaker 1: that's a yeah. I don't know. If you didn't put
Speaker 1: that in, you.
Speaker 2: Would really be We did do like three books once
Speaker 2: for what it had told us one book would cost.
Speaker 3: I will also sign up for the free not free
Speaker 3: like you know when they say, oh, twenty percent off
Speaker 3: if you sign up for texts. So I'll sign up
Speaker 3: for text, get the code, and then immediately right stop
Speaker 3: so the texts go away. But like, hey, I'm playing
Speaker 3: the game, playing the game, all right, what do you have, Sarah,
Speaker 3: Lululemon socks. I'm not sure how for who they are,
Speaker 3: but they are just they just last and last and last,
Speaker 3: and they're my favorite socks. I wear them all the time.
Speaker 3: I think they're the like actually I don't know which
Speaker 3: one speed something socks, but they're great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, excellent.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, this has been best of both worlds.
Speaker 2: We've been talking all the money in the world. In
Speaker 2: case anyone who wants to check out that book that
Speaker 2: I wrote in twenty twelve, you might be able to
Speaker 2: find it on Amazon at least, but anyway, we will
Speaker 2: be back next week with more on making work and
Speaker 2: life fit together.
Speaker 3: Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the
Speaker 3: shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram,
Speaker 3: and you.
Speaker 2: Can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This
Speaker 2: has been the best of both Worlds podcasts. Please join
Speaker 2: us next time for more on making work and life
Speaker 2: work together.