Speaker 1: Welcome to How to Money. I'm Joel and I'm Matt,
Speaker 1: and today we're discussing avoiding money fights with Andy Hill.
Speaker 1: M Yeah, Joel, that is right. We're excited to have
Speaker 1: Andy Hill on the show today. On one hand, he's
Speaker 1: an ordinary guy. He's got a regular nine to five
Speaker 1: job podcast on the side like we do. But you know,
Speaker 1: on the other hand, Andy is he's sort of a
Speaker 1: unicorn when it comes to what he's done with his money.
Speaker 1: He and his wife started out fifty thou dollars in debts,
Speaker 1: but in four years they became completely debt free after
Speaker 1: paying off their debt uh and two hundred thousand dollars
Speaker 1: of a home mortgage. Yeah. That's definitely unicorn territory right there. Um.
Speaker 1: And now eight years into it, they've grown their net
Speaker 1: worth two over seven and fifty thousand dollars. Andy's podcast
Speaker 1: is called Marriage, Kids, and Money, and today we're excited
Speaker 1: to hear more about his journey and personal finance, and
Speaker 1: in particular to dive into some ways to avoid those
Speaker 1: money fights like you mentioned. Yeah, So all right, real quick,
Speaker 1: we need to mention the beer that we're having on
Speaker 1: the show today. We're having a beer called Cream Weaver
Speaker 1: by Three Taverns Brewery local Atlanta brewery and your friend
Speaker 1: Tyler donated this right, yeah, and uh Andy, you're you're
Speaker 1: gonna have a beer on the episode as well. Up
Speaker 1: there in Detroit. What do you have it on this episode?
Speaker 1: I'm having Grand Rabbits from Black Rocks Brewery, which is
Speaker 1: actually my brother in law's brewery and they are located
Speaker 1: in Marquette, Michigan. So if you're ever in Michigan or
Speaker 1: northern Wisconsin you want to grab a brew, support Black Rocks.
Speaker 1: It tastes really good and it just helps the family,
Speaker 1: so you know, go for that. Well, it is nice
Speaker 1: to have someone in the business, right in the brewery
Speaker 1: business in your family. It's like free beer on holidays,
Speaker 1: that's for sure. Absolutely. And he's you know, he's one
Speaker 1: of those really exciting entrepreneurial stories. I won't go into
Speaker 1: all the details, but he essentially was a full time
Speaker 1: guy selling pharmaceutical sales and said, you know what, I
Speaker 1: just want to brew beer in my basement. And then
Speaker 1: he moved it to were Bruined Beer in the house,
Speaker 1: and then we're bruined beer in our own brewery, and
Speaker 1: then they started Canning going all around Michigan. It's a
Speaker 1: great that's a great story. I love talking about it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's awesome. Alright, So any every episode we have a
Speaker 1: craft beer because for us, it's a sign of choosing
Speaker 1: to live intentionally now, even while we're saving for the future,
Speaker 1: and you're drinking a beer with us. Thank you for that.
Speaker 1: What is your craft beer? What is the thing that
Speaker 1: excites you about spending money on today while you're doing
Speaker 1: such a good job saving for the future. The thing
Speaker 1: that I that I end up splurging on, that I
Speaker 1: spend too much money on are the activities that my
Speaker 1: kids sign up for. So if my kid even remotely
Speaker 1: has some sort of interest in dancing or swimming or tennis,
Speaker 1: I immediately sign them up for it. And it's actually
Speaker 1: to the detriment of our both our budget and our
Speaker 1: our marital sanity sometimes because we end up getting into
Speaker 1: too many activities. And it's kind of funny because now
Speaker 1: that I'm a parent, that's where I want to dump
Speaker 1: a lout of my money because I see how happy
Speaker 1: they get and I want to live vicariously through them.
Speaker 1: Before they came along, it was concerts and I would
Speaker 1: buy roadbikes because I was at two triathlons, and that
Speaker 1: all's just sort of shifted towards my kids because I
Speaker 1: just I love seeing how happy they are and I
Speaker 1: love seeing them light up. So that's that's kind of
Speaker 1: where I'm dumping my money lately. All Right, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: start putting some fun things in their brains, like space
Speaker 1: camp exactly right. Only cost ten thousand dollars for two weeks,
Speaker 1: so big right. Alright, andies, let's let's dive in. On
Speaker 1: a recent episode of your podcast, you mentioned that you've
Speaker 1: had a particularly bad day at work, right, and that
Speaker 1: made you work towards diversifying your income. Can you tell
Speaker 1: us basically what happened and then where did that take
Speaker 1: you in your personal finance journey. Yeah. So I've been
Speaker 1: working in the corporate event marketing world for about fifteen years,
Speaker 1: and I am in my late thirties, and so I've
Speaker 1: been I've been doing this for a while, and you
Speaker 1: kind of get into a groove and you start doing
Speaker 1: well in your career, and you know, you start to
Speaker 1: get to a point where you're you know, enjoying things.
Speaker 1: You're in a managerial level, and then something's happened, you know.
Speaker 1: So one day our company purchased another company, and then
Speaker 1: with that came a different management over. So when that
Speaker 1: management came over, they said, all right, Andy, you are
Speaker 1: not in this position anymore. You are now in this position,
Speaker 1: and those people you were managing, you're not managing them anymore,
Speaker 1: and we're changing your title. It's a demotion and this
Speaker 1: is what you're gonna have to deal with. And I've
Speaker 1: been working really hard up until that point with this
Speaker 1: new company. I had been exceeding my goals every year
Speaker 1: and crushing them and you know, bringing in more sales
Speaker 1: and more clients. And at this point I realized there's
Speaker 1: really nothing that I could do I was in control
Speaker 1: of that really had anything to do with this this
Speaker 1: decision that they were making. And at that point, I said, well,
Speaker 1: you know what, maybe I need to stop trying to
Speaker 1: care so much about my career and try to care
Speaker 1: about something that maybe I do have control on over,
Speaker 1: or at least something that brings me some joy or
Speaker 1: some entrepreneurial spirit or creative spirit. So at that point
Speaker 1: I decided, well, why don't I try to start my
Speaker 1: own thing, my own little entrepreneurial adventure, and that's when
Speaker 1: I decided to start the podcast because I've listened to
Speaker 1: a lot of folks like you guys that are sharing
Speaker 1: these great stories and inspiring people on how to save
Speaker 1: money but also enjoy life. And I thought I had
Speaker 1: something to contribute. So that's where I started, at least
Speaker 1: diversifying in the small business world. And then at that
Speaker 1: time too, I also wanted to diversify my income and
Speaker 1: other fashions as well. Yeah, and I think income diversification
Speaker 1: is something that we don't talk about a whole lot.
Speaker 1: There's there's all these ways to attack your frugality or
Speaker 1: start investing, and we've talked about side hustles on the
Speaker 1: show before, and that's something that people. I think, no
Speaker 1: is a way to increase your income, right, but specifically
Speaker 1: the journey towards having a more diversified income. You I
Speaker 1: believe you said you wanted to have income from five
Speaker 1: different sources. Uh, coming in right, that's like your goal.
Speaker 1: So tell us kind of what those sources are and
Speaker 1: and what a diversification of where you get your income
Speaker 1: from means to you. Yeah, I would say, you know,
Speaker 1: so outside of the small business that we talked about
Speaker 1: that I'm slowly building, which brings me a lot of joy.
Speaker 1: For first and foremost, it brings me joy more than income.
Speaker 1: The other thing is that my wife has started to
Speaker 1: pursue a side hustle per se. She's been doing stay
Speaker 1: at home mom duties over the past four or five years,
Speaker 1: and it's been a really important thing for our family
Speaker 1: that our kids were able to be at home with
Speaker 1: her and enjoy some great bonding time. But she also
Speaker 1: needs some sanity time for herself too, so she started
Speaker 1: to do a little side hustle for herself. She's really
Speaker 1: into organizing, so she started um working for a small
Speaker 1: business locally where she does home organizing. So she goes
Speaker 1: into people's homes and creates order and helps them to
Speaker 1: declude their lives. So that brings her a lot of
Speaker 1: Maricondo Jr. Exactly, it's very I mean talk about you know,
Speaker 1: of the times, right, tidying up with Marie Condo. And
Speaker 1: she sort of laughs at at that a little bit,
Speaker 1: because you know, Mariekando kind of comes in and says, hey,
Speaker 1: here's all the things that you can do to spark joy.
Speaker 1: All right, I'll see you later. And but really, when
Speaker 1: NICOLEA goes into here all the things you can do
Speaker 1: to declare your life, and I'm gonna help you do
Speaker 1: it right now. So it's, uh, it's a little bit
Speaker 1: a little TV magic where they walk away and come back.
Speaker 1: But so that's one of the avenues that we're doing
Speaker 1: to diverse fire income is where Nicole started to do
Speaker 1: something that she's passionate about. The other area as we
Speaker 1: are saving up for our first rental property, which Joel,
Speaker 1: I know you are all about, my friend, and it's
Speaker 1: helped to make a big deal in your life. So
Speaker 1: we're saving up for our first rental property and hopefully
Speaker 1: get some some income that would be um coming in
Speaker 1: on a study basis, and then the fourth one would
Speaker 1: be investing in a taxable brokerage count. So we do it.
Speaker 1: We've done a lot for our retirement over the past
Speaker 1: whatever ten years now, and we've built up a lot
Speaker 1: of funds in there, and it's starting to look a
Speaker 1: little outside and I'm like, all right, we're gonna be
Speaker 1: really great when we're sixty five, and I'm like, okay, well,
Speaker 1: we don't really have anything for thirty five or forty.
Speaker 1: So we're starting to diversify our investments there and see
Speaker 1: where we can go by by building that up a
Speaker 1: little bit. And then really the fifth one is I
Speaker 1: don't I don't plan on really stopping working. Um. I
Speaker 1: enjoy you know, having a full time career and you know,
Speaker 1: providing benefits for my family. So I'll continue to grow
Speaker 1: my career and do really well at my job. And
Speaker 1: you know, if if things don't work out well there
Speaker 1: over time, I've got a great amount of skills that
Speaker 1: I can utilize in other places that will, you know,
Speaker 1: keep you very employable. So so those five different sets
Speaker 1: I think will make me feel a little bit more
Speaker 1: comfortable than the vulnerable position that I found myself in
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago. So diversifying your income, that's
Speaker 1: one way you can handle your money well. Another way
Speaker 1: is to reduce the amount of money that you've got
Speaker 1: going out right your expenses. And so is this about
Speaker 1: the same time that you guys decided to go ahead
Speaker 1: and pay off your house so that you didn't have
Speaker 1: that mortgage hanging over here. Yeah, I think it's sort
Speaker 1: of s elated us a little bit. We did have
Speaker 1: this pay off the mortgage plan when we bought our
Speaker 1: newest house, and that was sort of the agreement that
Speaker 1: my wife and I came to. I was very happy
Speaker 1: living in our thousand square foot bungalow home that we
Speaker 1: had my original bachelor pad. But she said, okay, well
Speaker 1: we're having our second child. You know, maybe we can
Speaker 1: move into a little bit bigger home, into a nicer
Speaker 1: neighborhood with better schools, and like, okay, fine, but that
Speaker 1: mortgage seems so big. If we get this house, it's
Speaker 1: just gonna make me feel claustrophobic, like I always have
Speaker 1: to perform at work, and if I fail, then I'm
Speaker 1: failing my family and I'm failing me. It just made
Speaker 1: me feel really stressed. So we made an agreement, said, okay,
Speaker 1: we'll get the house as long as we can pay
Speaker 1: it off in five years, and so you know, she'd
Speaker 1: get her dream home and I'd get my stress mortgage
Speaker 1: free life. And we agreed to that, and we worked
Speaker 1: hard on that together. In five years, that's the normal
Speaker 1: amount of payoff time, right that most people take the
Speaker 1: mortgage five years, thirty years, you know yours? Right? You
Speaker 1: can you can get a five year mortgage through UH
Speaker 1: through Quicken loans, right right? Yeah? Well, and that, I mean,
Speaker 1: that's incredible, man, I mean that's truly rare. Right, Matt
Speaker 1: called Unicorn in the lead up to this episode, and
Speaker 1: I mean that is the Unicorn territory. You paid it
Speaker 1: off in four years. What was it feeling like when
Speaker 1: you paid off the mortgage? It was great. I mean honestly,
Speaker 1: the grass in front of our house just felt different
Speaker 1: walking on it, because it was like, we own this place,
Speaker 1: this is ours, this is our home forever, and we've
Speaker 1: We've found a home because of my wife, because she
Speaker 1: really wanted to find a really great place to live
Speaker 1: and a great community and great schools that I think
Speaker 1: we're going to be in literally for another years. We're
Speaker 1: happy where we are. That makes it even more exciting
Speaker 1: that this home is paid off and we're going to
Speaker 1: be in it for a long time. So to your point, originally, Matt,
Speaker 1: the expenses dropped dramatically. I mean we were making I
Speaker 1: think eighteen hundred dollar payments. Uh that's with taxes and insurance,
Speaker 1: so thirteen hundred dollars with the principal and interest. So
Speaker 1: I mean every month being able to free up thirteen
Speaker 1: hundred dollars in our budget to do whatever we want,
Speaker 1: whether it's save up for rental, property, go on more vacations, uh,
Speaker 1: splurge on kids activities, you know, things that we could
Speaker 1: do together to make our our family happy. Has has
Speaker 1: just helped, uh not only me feel a lot less
Speaker 1: stressed in my day job, but also you know, give
Speaker 1: us a lot more joy at our house. Yeah. You know,
Speaker 1: paying off your mortgage is kind of one of those
Speaker 1: hotly debated things in the personal finance community. It's one
Speaker 1: of those things that just kind of it's an argument
Speaker 1: that never dies. Uh. So when you guys were debating
Speaker 1: and that, and partly that's because rates are just incredibly
Speaker 1: low right now, and the fact that if you have
Speaker 1: an interest right in the threes, like, why wouldn't you
Speaker 1: prioritize saving and investing for retirement? So take us through
Speaker 1: that thought process and the discussions that you guys had.
Speaker 1: Was peace of mind worth more to you and your
Speaker 1: family than even kind of that decision about the return
Speaker 1: that you're going to get on the money. Yeah, Joel,
Speaker 1: If you look at the math from seventeen when we
Speaker 1: paid this more, when we paid this three percent interest
Speaker 1: payment off, the stock market did all or a lot
Speaker 1: better than three right, So if you're looking at the
Speaker 1: pure math of the thing you'd say, wow, that that
Speaker 1: doesn't seem like a good you know, you see your money. Honestly,
Speaker 1: it was all emotional, stress based, and it just it
Speaker 1: was one of those decisions where it's like I I
Speaker 1: went through buying a home in two thousand four and
Speaker 1: bought it at the top of the market, and then
Speaker 1: two thousand my home was worth half of the value
Speaker 1: of it. I overbought. That was the exact opposite situation.
Speaker 1: I bought a home that took up seventy of my
Speaker 1: income from the mortgage. I never wanted to feel like
Speaker 1: that again. I never wanted if you like that again.
Speaker 1: So with this new home buying process, we put almost
Speaker 1: fift down on the home and paid it off in
Speaker 1: four years so that we never have to even think
Speaker 1: about the mortgage ever again. And yes, it was a
Speaker 1: stress focused, emotional focused sort of decision, and I am
Speaker 1: so glad that we did. And even looking back at
Speaker 1: the numbers, Yeah, we could have made hundred thousand more
Speaker 1: dollars or whatever whatever the number is. You know what
Speaker 1: I would have done with all of that money that
Speaker 1: I've made in the stock market as soon as as
Speaker 1: soon as I got to it, I would have paid
Speaker 1: off the mortgage just because that's the type of feeling
Speaker 1: that I have in my life and my wife too.
Speaker 1: It makes us feel great to not have any debt
Speaker 1: in our life whatsoever. It's yes, it is motional based. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: I have to clarify one thing. You're not a professional
Speaker 1: athlete or anything like that, right, Like, I'm not making
Speaker 1: millions of dollars like this isn't you And you mentioned
Speaker 1: to your wife stays at home, so this isn't like
Speaker 1: you have to be making two four hundred thousand dollars
Speaker 1: a year. Now, we're we're in the one. We're in
Speaker 1: the one hundred to two hundred thousand dollar range. To
Speaker 1: get everybody kind of a you know, a basis, but
Speaker 1: that's I mean for a lot of the conversations we're
Speaker 1: having with a lot of people, that's you know, when
Speaker 1: you've got a dual income household, that's probably not too
Speaker 1: far off from a war A lot of war people are.
Speaker 1: I mean, the average I know is like fifty sixty
Speaker 1: something like that. Um, but yeah, that's where we are
Speaker 1: in our lives. So you know, while you're working on
Speaker 1: the mortgage, you mentioned how you guys pretended that you
Speaker 1: got paid less to pay off your mortgage more quickly.
Speaker 1: You know, it's an effect of kind of mental trick
Speaker 1: that you played on yourself. Um, why do you think
Speaker 1: that worked for you? And you know, are there other
Speaker 1: decisions that you made that kind of allowed you to
Speaker 1: stay focused on your goals? Yeah, that's a great question.
Speaker 1: And I think when you look at how to pay
Speaker 1: a mortgage off and you're like, oh, how did you
Speaker 1: pay it off? It's like if you ask the question,
Speaker 1: as soon as you think about it, you knew how
Speaker 1: it how it was paid off. You put a lot
Speaker 1: of money towards the principle every month, right, So but
Speaker 1: how do you do that? Then? How do you psychologically
Speaker 1: trick yourself or what are the hacks to get yourself
Speaker 1: to do that. So one of the things that we
Speaker 1: did is that I get paid twenty six times per year,
Speaker 1: which is essentially every two weeks versus the twice a month,
Speaker 1: so paychecks versus twenty four paychecks. I just pretended like
Speaker 1: we got the twenty four. So every time we got
Speaker 1: those extra two, which would be twice a year, both
Speaker 1: of those would go towards the mortgage. Every time I
Speaker 1: get a bonus for kick and butt at work that
Speaker 1: would go towards the mortgage. When we moved into our
Speaker 1: new home and we had different things and that we
Speaker 1: wanted to maybe be sell because we didn't use anymore
Speaker 1: because we have kids. My road bike that we talked
Speaker 1: about earlier that when on craigslist, I took that money
Speaker 1: and threw it to the mortgage. Things that I didn't
Speaker 1: use anymore. We moved to a new town and I've
Speaker 1: got little babies, I don't have time to, you know,
Speaker 1: go road biking. I bought it. I had a moped
Speaker 1: back in my old play same sort of thing I'm
Speaker 1: not I'm I'm not using it, sell it go towards
Speaker 1: the mortgage. These types of things that didn't really steal
Speaker 1: a lot of our joy, that we weren't even using anyway,
Speaker 1: helped us to do that. My wife sold a couple
Speaker 1: of purses, things like that. Other things that we did
Speaker 1: to help keep the consistency going. My wife and I
Speaker 1: met on a monthly basis for what we dubbed the
Speaker 1: budget party, where we'd get together and we talk about
Speaker 1: our spending from the previous month, our plans for the
Speaker 1: current month, and then how we are, how we're doing
Speaker 1: on our goals and we did that every month pretty
Speaker 1: much the entire portion of our marriage now for seven
Speaker 1: eight years, and that really helped us to stay consistent
Speaker 1: with our goals and pay off this mortgage on time.
Speaker 1: So it was great. That's awesome. Yeah, and we want
Speaker 1: to talk more about specifically how you and your wife
Speaker 1: have handled money together there and we want to talk
Speaker 1: more about the budget parties, and we'll get to that
Speaker 1: in just a little bit in the show. I wanted
Speaker 1: to ask you too real quick while we're on the
Speaker 1: topic of real estate about rental properties, such awesome stuff
Speaker 1: about paying off your mortgage and kind of the ways
Speaker 1: that you can trick yourself into doing better with your
Speaker 1: money so that you can get there more quickly. And
Speaker 1: I think money is so psychological. That's that's like a
Speaker 1: huge thing that a lot of people need to hear
Speaker 1: that there are ways that you can kind of accelerate
Speaker 1: that by by tricking the way that your brain actually works.
Speaker 1: So now you want to buy a rental property, and
Speaker 1: you want to buy it in cash, which is a
Speaker 1: big goal in and of itself, tell us, like why
Speaker 1: that's one of your goals, Why that's one of your
Speaker 1: income streams that you want to generate and kind of
Speaker 1: how you're planning to get there. Yeah, So, since we
Speaker 1: paid off the mortgage and we're really enjoying this debt
Speaker 1: free life, we said, well, it kind of feels silly
Speaker 1: to go back and get a mortgage now if we're
Speaker 1: gonna get our first rental property. So my wife and
Speaker 1: I agreed, why don't we just keep on saving our
Speaker 1: money until we have enough to buy one in cash.
Speaker 1: So we've been doing that now for about two years
Speaker 1: and we have close to about a hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: And in Metro Detroit and some of the you know,
Speaker 1: suburb areas where a lot of the younger folks are living,
Speaker 1: you can get ah, you can get a thousand square
Speaker 1: foot home for about a hundred thousand bucks, and you
Speaker 1: can become a landlord. So that is our current plan,
Speaker 1: and the reason that we want to do it with
Speaker 1: you know, no debt whatsoever, is just there's a lot
Speaker 1: of perks to that. There's no mortgage payments, there's no
Speaker 1: closing costs. You know, it helps when you're in a
Speaker 1: competitive market, right, I mean, who you gotta you get
Speaker 1: deal with people who are buying in cash. You can
Speaker 1: have a better opportunity, more of the money is coming
Speaker 1: back to you, more cash flow, right. And then again
Speaker 1: back to that first point that I keep making less
Speaker 1: stress less things that I have to worry about. If
Speaker 1: I have another mortgage, that really adds onto my stress level.
Speaker 1: As you can tell, there's a there's a theme going
Speaker 1: on here. Well, I think that's huge because debt, money
Speaker 1: stresses looming over us, mortgage payments, all those sorts of things,
Speaker 1: they have a weight on our psyche. And so it's
Speaker 1: not just obviously the nuts and bolts, because like you said,
Speaker 1: if it were the uts and bolts, you wouldn't have
Speaker 1: paid off your mortgage in four years. You would have
Speaker 1: invested in the stock market. There's so much more that
Speaker 1: goes into it. And I love that you're prioritizing the
Speaker 1: full range of how you can optimize your own life
Speaker 1: as opposed to just like what's the best number on
Speaker 1: a spreadsheet? Right, And and that's where a lot of
Speaker 1: our decisions come from. What's the least time consuming, least
Speaker 1: stressful way that we can go about creating financial decisions
Speaker 1: for our family. So a listener recently you mentioned Andy
Speaker 1: wrote to you and said, I know you're thinking about
Speaker 1: buying a rental of property, don't do it? And so
Speaker 1: did did that give you a little bit of pause? Like, obviously,
Speaker 1: you know the market's kind of hot. And then you've
Speaker 1: got listeners reaching out saying, don't be a dumb you
Speaker 1: don't invest in real estate. Let did that make you think? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I've really liked when my friend reached out
Speaker 1: to me, just shot me a text. Somebody who listens
Speaker 1: to the show is also a friend of a friend
Speaker 1: of mine is like, Hey, I've been doing this for
Speaker 1: a long time. I would not suggest it, and that
Speaker 1: that did give me pause. But what it did do
Speaker 1: is essentially I have thought about it in a way
Speaker 1: where it's like, hey, I've only been researching, reading books,
Speaker 1: and talking to people like yourself, Joel, who've only had
Speaker 1: really great positive experiences about real estate. Why don't I
Speaker 1: also look at the con side, the negative side, so
Speaker 1: I can get a balanced view. Because this is a
Speaker 1: potentially multi six figure investment we're making that we're tying
Speaker 1: our names to, so we want to make sure that
Speaker 1: we're doing it smart and we're doing it right. So,
Speaker 1: as we've done with a lot of the financial decisions
Speaker 1: in our family, want to do it smart and cautiously,
Speaker 1: and we're doing it together. We're making these decisions together.
Speaker 1: So yes, based on that, the comments that I've been receiving,
Speaker 1: as well as you know, text for friends and and
Speaker 1: just general interest in our story. Um yeah, definitely looking
Speaker 1: at both sides to make sure it's a smart decision. Andy,
Speaker 1: that's awesome, so smart. We're gonna talk more with you,
Speaker 1: specifically about money in relationships right after the break. All right,
Speaker 1: we're back with our friend Adie Hill the most of
Speaker 1: the Marriage, Kids of Money podcast, and Andie like marriage,
Speaker 1: kids and money, like you're talking about things that affect
Speaker 1: all of us on your show. And so let's kind
Speaker 1: of start with you and your marriage. And so when
Speaker 1: you and your wife got married, how did you, guys
Speaker 1: begin to handle your personal finances together? Were there need
Speaker 1: obstacles that you had to overcome early on? Oh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: there were. There were quite quite a few of them,
Speaker 1: and they were mostly started by me. So I got, uh,
Speaker 1: I got pretty geeked about personal finance and just kind
Speaker 1: of looking after our our financial situation overall. When I
Speaker 1: learned that I was gonna be a dad, something kind
Speaker 1: of sparked in my brain where I'm like, Okay, not
Speaker 1: just living for me anymore. I'm literally gonna be raising
Speaker 1: a human and I am in charge of her existence
Speaker 1: and helping her to know, have a great life. So
Speaker 1: immediately when I thought, well what am I what am
Speaker 1: I going to do to kind of be in a
Speaker 1: better situation, I turned to my finances. Obviously, you think
Speaker 1: about your health, you think about your finances, but immedia
Speaker 1: and wow, I've got you know, with my wife, now,
Speaker 1: we've got about fifty thousand dollars of debt and we
Speaker 1: should try to erase that before our daughter comes into
Speaker 1: the world. Wouldn't that be cool? Wouldn't that make us
Speaker 1: feel really good? And then start our parenthood. So that's
Speaker 1: sort of got me excited. And I started reading books,
Speaker 1: and I started watching Susie Orman Show and seeing her
Speaker 1: diagnose people, you know, giving them grades with their net
Speaker 1: worth and everything like that. And then I came across
Speaker 1: a book, The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey, which
Speaker 1: I know a lot of people are aware of, and
Speaker 1: it it really hit, It hit hit a chord with me,
Speaker 1: and I was determined to see how we could pay
Speaker 1: off our debt before our daughter came into the world.
Speaker 1: And I mentioned this to my wife, she was kind
Speaker 1: of lukewarm to the idea. Sounds good, but what does
Speaker 1: that mean for us? What does that mean for me?
Speaker 1: Do I have to spend less money? Do I have
Speaker 1: to live on a budget? That does not sound like fun?
Speaker 1: And so as I was describing these things to her,
Speaker 1: it sounded like I was, you know, essentially bringing a
Speaker 1: toxic pill into the relationships, saying, hey, let's have no
Speaker 1: fun and you got to live on a budget and
Speaker 1: all those types of things that nobody wants to do. Right.
Speaker 1: But once I learned that not only do I have
Speaker 1: this excitement about becoming debt free before our daughter is born,
Speaker 1: but she also has some dreams and goals herself. She
Speaker 1: wants to eventually become a stay at home mom, and
Speaker 1: with that comes the necessity of us paying off our debt,
Speaker 1: living on a budget, and talking about our expenses. So
Speaker 1: as we started to talk about those things and craft
Speaker 1: those goals together, that's when she's jumped on board and
Speaker 1: got excited about it. And that's kind of how we
Speaker 1: kick things off in our relationship. And yes, we definitely
Speaker 1: did have some money disagreements and fights and things like that,
Speaker 1: but it came through a lot of trial and error together.
Speaker 1: M Yeah, I mean having that goal in aligning with
Speaker 1: each other, right, being able to have those discussions to
Speaker 1: figure out what both of you want, and then kind
Speaker 1: of aligning what her goal was, which was to stay
Speaker 1: home with her kids. Eventually it meant taking action earlier on,
Speaker 1: you know, while you're pregnant, when once you find out
Speaker 1: that you're having a kid. And so, yeah, my wife
Speaker 1: and I have a similar sort of story, and investing
Speaker 1: in real estate was kind of that. I think for
Speaker 1: us it was like, Okay, if we buy a few
Speaker 1: rental houses, this becomes like a part time job that
Speaker 1: you don't have to have. This goal of you staying
Speaker 1: at home with our kids is then a possibility, it's
Speaker 1: a reality, can become a reality. And so yeah, I
Speaker 1: love being able to have that discussion, get on the
Speaker 1: same page, and then you're both motivated to move. And
Speaker 1: it's not just like I want to have a no
Speaker 1: fund zone in this house, you know, right exactly. I
Speaker 1: mean it sounds like you and I kind of both
Speaker 1: geeked out about the numbers or the goals, you know, like, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get a rental property that will that will
Speaker 1: be great. Are for me, I'm gonna pay off the
Speaker 1: debt and that would be great, but for maybe for
Speaker 1: your wife. For my wife, it was the emotional side
Speaker 1: of things, like, well, what does that mean for me?
Speaker 1: What's the payoff? Because I'll do that stuff, but why,
Speaker 1: I mean, give me the reason why I would do that?
Speaker 1: Because it's not easy. It's not easy to change what
Speaker 1: you're used to doing. Um, So yeah, absolutely, I completely agree.
Speaker 1: So Andy, you mentioned, you know, how you guys did
Speaker 1: have actual disagreements. So when those came up, did you
Speaker 1: just keep talking about them? Like? Obviously eventually you got
Speaker 1: on the same page when it came to, you know,
Speaker 1: get out of debt. But have there been instances where
Speaker 1: you guys actually disagreed in fundamentally you just had to
Speaker 1: agree to disagree, right, Like did you just keep talking
Speaker 1: about it? How did you get past that? Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: a great question. I think what I've learned over the
Speaker 1: course of our marriage is that we have different views
Speaker 1: on money. Not one of them is right or not
Speaker 1: one of them is wrong. They're just different and that's okay.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I like to spend more money on something and
Speaker 1: she likes to spend more money on other things. Does
Speaker 1: that mean that my mode of spending money is right
Speaker 1: or wrong? No, it's just different. So we both grew
Speaker 1: up in different fashions, you know. When we were younger,
Speaker 1: she had her parents had different views on money. Mine
Speaker 1: did too. But now we're together and we need to
Speaker 1: figure out how that can work together. So we have
Speaker 1: a lot of conversations on what my thoughts are with
Speaker 1: regard to money and what her thoughts are with regard
Speaker 1: to money, and then we work together to find that
Speaker 1: middle ground on how we can make it work for
Speaker 1: both of us for both of our goals. And quite often,
Speaker 1: majority of the time our goals are in sync because
Speaker 1: we got married. We love each other. A lot of
Speaker 1: things that we do agree on. Right. We want to
Speaker 1: spend more time with our family, we want to do
Speaker 1: some great vacations. We want to ensure that we're protected.
Speaker 1: These are all the high level goals that we all
Speaker 1: you know, have together as as a married couple. But
Speaker 1: it's how we get there, and those are some of
Speaker 1: the ways that we found by working together and having
Speaker 1: these conversations, we were able to find some harmony in
Speaker 1: our marriage. But yes, there are definitely times that we've
Speaker 1: run short on patients or run short on time, and
Speaker 1: that's when we that's when we end up getting an arguments. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and so arguments. You talk very openly about how marriage
Speaker 1: counseling has really helped you guys, not just in your
Speaker 1: marriage being able to communicate with one another, but also
Speaker 1: being able to communicate well about money. And so what
Speaker 1: would you say to folks out there, whether they're just
Speaker 1: in a long term relationship, maybe in a new relationship
Speaker 1: like or or in a marriage where they haven't been
Speaker 1: able to talk well about these things. Is marriage counseling
Speaker 1: a good solution for a lot of people blout there?
Speaker 1: Or how do they get the ball rolling? I think
Speaker 1: it's a great solution marriage counseling. But there's a lot
Speaker 1: of things that you can do at home to to
Speaker 1: try to figure these things out. And in the beginning,
Speaker 1: so if you are just having money fights a lot
Speaker 1: and you don't understand why, maybe go back to the
Speaker 1: beginning and try to understand why did we get together,
Speaker 1: what are the goals for our marriage, what are our
Speaker 1: long term goals together? And sit down with your spouse
Speaker 1: and try to figure those things out right, have a date,
Speaker 1: you know, sit down to the couch distractions aside, put
Speaker 1: the put the phone away, you know, go out where
Speaker 1: the kids aren't going to be there, Maybe get a babysitter.
Speaker 1: This is a serious conversation. Try to figure out what
Speaker 1: those goals are in your life. Do you want to
Speaker 1: stay at home with the kids. Do you want to
Speaker 1: open your own business? Do you want to become an entrepreneur?
Speaker 1: Do you want to quit your job that you hate?
Speaker 1: Do you wanna get a new job? And it's going
Speaker 1: to take some transition. What can you do to work
Speaker 1: together to to to solve those goals and become a team. Right,
Speaker 1: And then, like we talked about developing that budget, making
Speaker 1: sure you are understanding where the numbers are coming from
Speaker 1: so that you can then hit those goals. I know
Speaker 1: you eys are a big fan of Zeta. That's a
Speaker 1: really fun app to use to you know, have couples
Speaker 1: work together on their money. And then yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: it's okay to go to marriage counseling if you're having
Speaker 1: trouble having these conversations. This is a professional that will
Speaker 1: help you communicate better. I mean, it's the same thing
Speaker 1: as going and getting a personal trainer. Right, you want
Speaker 1: to be more healthy, you want to be more fit,
Speaker 1: you bring in a third party to help you to
Speaker 1: do that, right, And there's nothing wrong with that. So
Speaker 1: when we started about a year maybe a year and
Speaker 1: a half ago, there was a little bit something in
Speaker 1: my brain being like, man, I thought, only people who
Speaker 1: you know are having trouble in their marriage go to
Speaker 1: marriage counselors, right, And then as I went from my
Speaker 1: first session in the second session, I'm like, Wow, this
Speaker 1: is great. This is like a coach man, this is
Speaker 1: this person is helping us figure out how to communicate
Speaker 1: better because we're busy parents. We've got two young kids
Speaker 1: under seven years old that take up a lot of
Speaker 1: our time, and we were running from place to place.
Speaker 1: I'm going to work, I'm doing my side hustle, and
Speaker 1: we're not spending the quality time and the function for
Speaker 1: our communication. And this person is going to help us
Speaker 1: do it. So it has been the best decision that
Speaker 1: we've made for our marriage and the last ten years
Speaker 1: of our marriage. So yeah, no, I completely agree with it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think there is that stigma, right that only
Speaker 1: people that are in rough marital times go to marriage counseling.
Speaker 1: But we have to break that because it's just not true,
Speaker 1: and it can help us, especially when things are kind
Speaker 1: of crazy or we've moved into a new life stage
Speaker 1: to be able to begin to communicate with one another
Speaker 1: where we're at. It might be easier in your early
Speaker 1: twenties or your mid twenties or whatever, when you're kind
Speaker 1: of first falling in love and all that stuff. You
Speaker 1: have one set of issues to work through, and then
Speaker 1: you get into your mid thirties and then there's another set,
Speaker 1: especially when you have young kids running around, and so
Speaker 1: I think with every stage, maybe that's another call for
Speaker 1: people to consider talking to someone if they're having a
Speaker 1: communication issues, which is not abnormal. By the way, Oh,
Speaker 1: there's no book. There's no book for being in marriage, man,
Speaker 1: there's no like, there's no handbook, Like nobody knows efically
Speaker 1: how to do this. But getting a coach to help
Speaker 1: you to do that is is a fantastic way to
Speaker 1: go absolutely And it makes me think of going to
Speaker 1: the doctor, right, Like, you don't only go to the
Speaker 1: doctor when you're sick or when something terrible is is
Speaker 1: actually happening in your body. You go hopefully regularly periodically
Speaker 1: just to make sure things are looking good and get
Speaker 1: that check out. I think that's a great point too,
Speaker 1: And I think there's a there's a shift in our
Speaker 1: culture right now towards not only just thinking about physical health,
Speaker 1: but also thinking about mental health. With this wave of
Speaker 1: yoga and meditation and yes, therapy and counseling. I think
Speaker 1: it is so important for people to think about the
Speaker 1: importance of mental health, not only personally, but also for
Speaker 1: their marriage. So I think it's great if people go
Speaker 1: and work on the things that are most effective for
Speaker 1: their health, and that's that's their mental health. And if
Speaker 1: we're specifically talking here too about preventing money fights, money arguments,
Speaker 1: then I think one thing that I've heard you mentioned
Speaker 1: before is that the marriage marriage counselor has helped you, guys,
Speaker 1: figure out the underlying concerns that you have when it
Speaker 1: comes to money. And so it's not just that I
Speaker 1: want one thing and you want the other and we're
Speaker 1: at odds, but it's helping your marriage counselor has helped
Speaker 1: you understand the baseline feelings that you're coming into this
Speaker 1: with and it's not necessarily that you're at odds, right,
Speaker 1: So can you tell us a little more about that.
Speaker 1: That's a great point. And I think the one of
Speaker 1: the arguments that keeps on coming back or has come
Speaker 1: back for us, and now we know how to you know,
Speaker 1: really deal with it is sometimes I will want to
Speaker 1: save for the future, right and you know, you know,
Speaker 1: we talk about these financial goals all the time, putting
Speaker 1: money in our wrath I ra or max and out
Speaker 1: the four oh one Katie's big goals, and that those
Speaker 1: things make me feel good because that helps me feel
Speaker 1: like I'm protecting our family and giving them a great
Speaker 1: life for the future. And Nicole also likes to use
Speaker 1: our money for fun things to you know, to to
Speaker 1: go on vacations, to make our home look beautiful. And
Speaker 1: sometimes when I'm in a rut, you know, or I'm
Speaker 1: not thinking clearly, I'm thinking, Okay, she gets mad at
Speaker 1: me when I'm saving, and I get mad at her
Speaker 1: when she's spending. But really, if you break down the
Speaker 1: root of it, she's not spending just because it's it's
Speaker 1: you know, wild and crazy. It's like she's spending money
Speaker 1: because she wants to create a beautiful home for us,
Speaker 1: and how could somebody get mad at that? And then
Speaker 1: for me, I'm I'm saving money on on this side
Speaker 1: because I really want to protect our family. And if
Speaker 1: you look at those those roots, those the purpose of
Speaker 1: those actions, neither one of us can really get upset
Speaker 1: with each other when you boil it down like that.
Speaker 1: But when you're running around and your frantic, and I'm thinking, oh,
Speaker 1: she doesn't want me to save because she wants me
Speaker 1: to always you know, not be able to grow into
Speaker 1: a career or do my entrepreneurial thing, and and she's
Speaker 1: thinking about me always. He just wants to save. You
Speaker 1: just want to wants me to penny pinch. He doesn't
Speaker 1: want me to have fun. That's that's when you get
Speaker 1: mad and upset. But if you really think about the
Speaker 1: root of the of the cause, or really very the
Speaker 1: root of the action, then you'll understand there's no evil
Speaker 1: motivation here. These are pure actions that people just your
Speaker 1: your spouse wants wants to do to make sure that
Speaker 1: you're having a great life. And our counselor definitely helped
Speaker 1: us to figure that out. And there's you know, I say,
Speaker 1: I say the spending and the saving thing. I also
Speaker 1: like spending on you know, like I said, kids activities.
Speaker 1: She likes to save when it's worth regard to like
Speaker 1: going out on meals and things like that. So we're
Speaker 1: spenders and savers in different areas. So it's just kind
Speaker 1: of a different way of looking at things. But no,
Speaker 1: definitely has helped us out quite a bit. So what
Speaker 1: I'm hearing though, is that your counselor has allowed you,
Speaker 1: guys to basically refocus and realize that your goals are
Speaker 1: actually the same and you're able to do that. It
Speaker 1: sounds like through communication, what are the tools has that
Speaker 1: counselor allows you, guys to you know, move forward in
Speaker 1: your relationship to grow. Yeah. I would love to hear
Speaker 1: some more of those. Yeah. Absolutely. Um. You know, a
Speaker 1: great activity that we've done through the marriage counseling is
Speaker 1: recognizing when our spouses do something incredible in our lives,
Speaker 1: and she calls it making time for appreciation and making
Speaker 1: sure your spouse has time for that appreciation. So sometimes
Speaker 1: it feels a little funny, but being able to stop
Speaker 1: your spouse in their track as they've done something really
Speaker 1: great for you and asking do you have time for
Speaker 1: my appreciation? And if they are available, if the kid's
Speaker 1: not hanging on their leg or if they're not running
Speaker 1: to work or whatever like that, then you know, you
Speaker 1: say yes, and you sit down with them and you
Speaker 1: look them in the eyes and you tell them. I
Speaker 1: would say exactly what my wife did did for me
Speaker 1: the other day. I said, sweetheart, I really appreciated as
Speaker 1: I was running and trying to make it to work
Speaker 1: that you made me breakfast. That just made me feel
Speaker 1: like you care about me and that you love me
Speaker 1: and I love you and just taking whatever that five
Speaker 1: to ten seconds to do that when those things happen,
Speaker 1: can go miles in your marriage. And she does that
Speaker 1: for me too. Hey, I see you working really hard
Speaker 1: at work and it makes me feel like you really
Speaker 1: care about this family. Thank you. And I'm a words
Speaker 1: of affirmation guy. You know, five love five love languages,
Speaker 1: So that really fills me up when I hear things
Speaker 1: like that. But you know, little activities like that that
Speaker 1: you can insert in your marriage, your daily activity as
Speaker 1: being a you know, a married person can really make
Speaker 1: your relationship a great place to be in. That's cool, man,
Speaker 1: That's really cool. And by the way, I think right
Speaker 1: now we need to stop and say Andy, you're being
Speaker 1: a really good podcast guest, so thank you for that.
Speaker 1: You know, the words of affirmation guy, all I got
Speaker 1: another question for you that you mentioned budget parties, which
Speaker 1: is such a cool concept when we can reframe something
Speaker 1: that is typically boring, mundane, something that people avoid altogether.
Speaker 1: But you've created budgets, uh, and talking about budgets as
Speaker 1: a family to be something that's cool and fun and different.
Speaker 1: Tell us kind of how how you do budget parties
Speaker 1: and how maybe people can incorporate something like that into
Speaker 1: their lives. Sounds good. Yeah. So originally I created the
Speaker 1: name almost ingest because I knew that she was not
Speaker 1: excited about doing the budget. So I essentially just put
Speaker 1: the word party at the end to try to trick
Speaker 1: her to show up. And it works. But you know,
Speaker 1: in the beginning, we were doing pizza and beer and
Speaker 1: you know, wine, and you know, setting aside some evening
Speaker 1: for us to have fun and do it sometimes. Ah
Speaker 1: well we did. We did do a piniata when we
Speaker 1: paid off the page. Okay, okay, oh nice. We we
Speaker 1: actually made a paper machee pinata out of the out
Speaker 1: of the mortgage papers, which was a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: Oh that's awesome. But you know, so we um we
Speaker 1: get together once a month and the goal of it
Speaker 1: really is to review our spending from the previous month,
Speaker 1: our current spending. And then also we take advantage of
Speaker 1: this as sort of a marriage meeting, so it's not
Speaker 1: just about money. It's sort of veiled in this budget
Speaker 1: party meeting, but we also talk about what are our
Speaker 1: plans for the month, you know, what are our vacations
Speaker 1: that are coming up, what school activities do the kids
Speaker 1: have that you know, we want to be at. This
Speaker 1: is sort of our monthly check in because we have
Speaker 1: such a crazy life that we need this time to
Speaker 1: sit down for two or three hours and really talk
Speaker 1: about what our month's going to be about and how
Speaker 1: we want to direct our money so that we're hitting
Speaker 1: those goals that we're really excited about in our life.
Speaker 1: So we've been doing this for yeah, we've been married
Speaker 1: nine years now. We've been doing it for at least
Speaker 1: eight and it's really helped us every month for the
Speaker 1: past eight years to get together and make sure we're
Speaker 1: in sync. And uh, you know, if we can't find
Speaker 1: time to do it at home because the kids are
Speaker 1: are wild and crazy, sometimes we'll take it to like
Speaker 1: a kid play place where they've got the you know,
Speaker 1: the jungle gym and the slides and things like that.
Speaker 1: They'll run around while we're doing the budget, or we've
Speaker 1: even taken it to a restaurant on a date and
Speaker 1: you know, get the laptop of the receipts. People look
Speaker 1: at us kind of funny, but exactly totally those nerds.
Speaker 1: But we're planning our plan in our month, and you know,
Speaker 1: we're really planning on how we want to you know,
Speaker 1: focus on our marriage. So it's it works. If my
Speaker 1: wife hears about the whole party thing, she might kind
Speaker 1: of find a way to convince me to do a
Speaker 1: shower cleaning party. There you go later on this week.
Speaker 1: So exactly, you just add party to anything and then
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, well, what is it? Oh? Right here,
Speaker 1: I guess I have to do it. All right, lady,
Speaker 1: We've got a few more questions for you, and we'll
Speaker 1: get to those right after the break. All right, Andy,
Speaker 1: let's talk about podcasting for a second. You've been doing
Speaker 1: that for a couple of years now, you know, maybe
Speaker 1: a year longer than we've been doing it. Why did
Speaker 1: you start sort of the side hustle for yourself? You know,
Speaker 1: how's it going for you? Oh? It is great. You know,
Speaker 1: it's sort of stemmed off of some of our original
Speaker 1: conversation about me looking for that that entrepreneurial drive or
Speaker 1: that creative thing to do. And it has been going great.
Speaker 1: You know, in the beginning, I started off, I just
Speaker 1: wanted to create something that that I would enjoy listening
Speaker 1: to and then maybe you know, a couple of people
Speaker 1: would listen to. So in the beginning it was like,
Speaker 1: you know, my brother in law and my mom and
Speaker 1: my and my wife listening to it like that was
Speaker 1: really nice, honey, way to go, you know, good job.
Speaker 1: And then slowly but surely, then my uncle would listen,
Speaker 1: and then they didn't share it with people, and then
Speaker 1: it kind of started rolling from there, and then, you know,
Speaker 1: three years later, now it's it's doing pretty well. It's
Speaker 1: gone from a fun hobby to side hustle that makes
Speaker 1: a little bit of money now to side hustle that
Speaker 1: makes a pretty good amount of money, and and like
Speaker 1: with the future of like, hey, could I just do this,
Speaker 1: you know, and it's it's pretty exciting. It's pretty wild,
Speaker 1: and mostly outside of the money side of things, the
Speaker 1: conversations I've been able to have have been life changing.
Speaker 1: And I'm not putting a hyperbole out there. I have
Speaker 1: never been able to speak to so many incredible people
Speaker 1: with incredible stories that have motivated me in my life
Speaker 1: for the exact position that I'm in, and it's um
Speaker 1: it's something that is probably one of the best things
Speaker 1: I've ever done in my life. I'll be honest with you,
Speaker 1: so obviously, I mean, we have guests on occasionally, we're
Speaker 1: kind of getting more into that format. Andy, you have
Speaker 1: guests on a good bit. Do you have a favorite
Speaker 1: episode where you have somebody on that you know, maybe
Speaker 1: you feel like impacted you the most personally? Wow, I
Speaker 1: guess a few things pop into my mind every every
Speaker 1: fifty episodes, I have my family on just to kind
Speaker 1: of remind me of why I'm doing this. And I've
Speaker 1: had some really great conversations not only with my kids
Speaker 1: but with my wife. And that's a fun tradition that
Speaker 1: I'm gonna continue doing. And I'm coming up on episode
Speaker 1: D fifties, so I'll be doing that again. A segment
Speaker 1: that I started recently, which is also fun because you
Speaker 1: can just create segments when you when you have a
Speaker 1: podcast like now, I've got this segment, a segment that
Speaker 1: I or you can kill segments. Well, uh, something that
Speaker 1: I've been working on personally in our financial journey is
Speaker 1: giving more. And I know that's um, you know, something
Speaker 1: that's not always like the hottest topic when you're talking
Speaker 1: about personal finance, but it's something that I felt like
Speaker 1: was lacking in our lives. In twenty seventeen, we only
Speaker 1: gave you know, one percent of our of our income
Speaker 1: to charity. And that's something that I wanted to grow.
Speaker 1: So I started a segment on the show called the
Speaker 1: Give Jar, and the purpose of that was to interview
Speaker 1: charities and organizations that I have a mission to help
Speaker 1: kids have a better life. So every quarter now, I've
Speaker 1: been interviewing charities that have that mission and the purposes
Speaker 1: to help me become more charitable and to share with
Speaker 1: my audience about how there are great organizations out there
Speaker 1: that are doing incredible things that that really bring inspiration
Speaker 1: and can motivate you to be the change that you
Speaker 1: want to see in this world. So I've had those
Speaker 1: interviews lately and they've really inspired me. I've had the
Speaker 1: representatives from Together We Rise, it's an organization that helps
Speaker 1: kids in foster care. I'm shortly going to have a
Speaker 1: thorn on my my show to talk about how they're
Speaker 1: defending children from uh sex trafficking on on digital with
Speaker 1: their digital powers that they have. And then I'm also
Speaker 1: going to have Nicole Hockley from Sandy Hook promise to
Speaker 1: talk about how they're protecting kids in school from um,
Speaker 1: you know, from being in these horrible situations that they've
Speaker 1: been in, especially with the Sandy Hook tragedy that happened.
Speaker 1: So those have been the most inspiring conversations are the
Speaker 1: ones that I'm about to have to that really bring
Speaker 1: me a lot of joy. Yes, it's a lot of
Speaker 1: fun to talk with the multimillionaires about how they became
Speaker 1: multimillionaires and the parents that are just became debt free
Speaker 1: and how they did that. Those are really inspiring stories,
Speaker 1: but a per sly in my mission right now, I'm
Speaker 1: trying to learn how to become a better giver and
Speaker 1: those uh conversations are really helping me to do that.
Speaker 1: Very cool. Yeah, that's cool, and thanks for that insight
Speaker 1: also in forming this podcast. In starting your own small business.
Speaker 1: Besides these great conversations, what would you say is maybe
Speaker 1: the top one or two things that you've learned in
Speaker 1: getting a side hustle off the ground? Great question. This
Speaker 1: was the first time that I really did anything that
Speaker 1: was a non you know, employee specific work, right, So
Speaker 1: that was brand new to it. So trying to get
Speaker 1: yourself out there creating an interesting content. There are so
Speaker 1: many legs to the stool of trying to build a business,
Speaker 1: and I took those for granted. You know, when you're
Speaker 1: at work, you get the paycheck. Uh, there's a sales department,
Speaker 1: there's a marketing department, there's an HR department. Now, when
Speaker 1: you're doing your own little small business, you are everything, right.
Speaker 1: So some of the things that I've learned throughout the
Speaker 1: process is take the skills that you've already learned in
Speaker 1: your life, Andy, and then bring those to your small business.
Speaker 1: So I have a back ground in sales and account management.
Speaker 1: So take advantage of your strength. If you want to
Speaker 1: bring sponsors on the show, or if you want to
Speaker 1: entice a really interesting guest to come on, use those
Speaker 1: sales and communication skills, because that is the best way
Speaker 1: you're gonna be able to move forward. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: not gonna be with Hey, You're you're magically gonna be
Speaker 1: great at s c O. Andy, No, you don't even
Speaker 1: know what s C O stands for like so so
Speaker 1: so so focus on where your skills are. And that's
Speaker 1: what I've been trying to do from the beginning, and
Speaker 1: a big part of that is trying to create friends
Speaker 1: and community. And I think um by bringing people on
Speaker 1: the show, talking to them about their story and really
Speaker 1: providing my true attention and having a great conversation with them,
Speaker 1: I think that's helped me to create an interesting podcast
Speaker 1: that people like listening to. So ay, so your shore.
Speaker 1: Let's take a step back. Obviously, marriage and kids are
Speaker 1: hugely important to you. For folks who maybe are not
Speaker 1: married and don't have kids, like, how would you recommend
Speaker 1: to them to discover their why? Like we talked about
Speaker 1: the why behind our money, it sounds like for for
Speaker 1: your family, like, those are two huge goals, two huge
Speaker 1: things that you consider when you're saving your money. But
Speaker 1: for those who don't have those, Yeah, how do you
Speaker 1: recommend to folks to sort of do some soul searching
Speaker 1: basically and for them to figure out what it is
Speaker 1: that they're actually you know, saving and investing their money towards.
Speaker 1: I think that's a that's an awesome question, and I
Speaker 1: think it starts by asking yourself some questions, right, So
Speaker 1: some of these very big esoteric questions that you could
Speaker 1: ask yourself. Essentially, if you had all the money in
Speaker 1: the world, what would you do with your day? You
Speaker 1: start asking yourself big questions like that, you start to
Speaker 1: find out what your internal motivation is. Right, I would
Speaker 1: volunteer with X organization because it brings me joy. I
Speaker 1: would start my own business doing this. I would I
Speaker 1: would buy ten rental properties and manage them because that
Speaker 1: would make me feel great, and I would have a business.
Speaker 1: So if you're if you're taking a big question like
Speaker 1: that when money is completely aside, and say how you
Speaker 1: would like to spend your day. Answering that question back
Speaker 1: marriage and kids aside, right, helps you to figure out
Speaker 1: what you want to do with your life. And then
Speaker 1: now that you know that it takes money to get there,
Speaker 1: that's the reason you start building up your savings, investing, saving,
Speaker 1: getting rid of debt. Those types of things will help
Speaker 1: you kind of drive towards it. So if you're answering
Speaker 1: that question and saying I wanna be a photographer and
Speaker 1: take pictures all around the world, then what are you
Speaker 1: now doing financially to help you to get to that
Speaker 1: goal because we only get one life, so let's let's
Speaker 1: do it right. Yeah, and I completely agree. So one
Speaker 1: of those main goals for you is spending more time
Speaker 1: with your kids and having more autonomy. But I'm curious
Speaker 1: what kind of conversations have you had with your kids.
Speaker 1: I love that you bring them on the podcast, you know,
Speaker 1: every fifty episodes. What kind of conversations have you had
Speaker 1: with them? And how are you teaching them really to
Speaker 1: to start knowing the value of a dollar right now too,
Speaker 1: even though they're still young. Yeah, they are pretty young.
Speaker 1: So I've got a seven year old and a five
Speaker 1: year old. For the past couple of years, we've been
Speaker 1: doing a program am like a chore and reward program
Speaker 1: around the house, and that's a way that we're helping
Speaker 1: to teach teach them that you know, with hard work
Speaker 1: comes reward, right. So Zoe and Calvin come down every
Speaker 1: Saturday morning. They get three chores each and they help
Speaker 1: by emptying the garbage, emptying the silverware, putting the clothes
Speaker 1: into the dryer, things like that simple task that I
Speaker 1: do with them. And every time they complete their chores,
Speaker 1: they get a dollar for however old they are, so
Speaker 1: seven dollars for Zoe, five dollars for Calvin. We separate
Speaker 1: the money into three different jars, spend, save, and give
Speaker 1: on These are conversations that we can have together about
Speaker 1: what all all those things are, why savings important, why
Speaker 1: spending is also important, and how you can make smart,
Speaker 1: conscious decisions with your purchases, and then giving why that's important.
Speaker 1: And like I said earlier, giving is something that I'm
Speaker 1: trying to work on, and that was the epiphany moment
Speaker 1: for me. I'm telling my kids to save and give, Andy,
Speaker 1: make sure you give money to to charity because that's
Speaker 1: really important. And then I would ask myself, am I
Speaker 1: doing that? Am I actually giving money to charity? And
Speaker 1: so those conversations that I'm having with my kids are
Speaker 1: actually also inspiring me on my personal finance journey to
Speaker 1: make some changes and try to figure things out. So
Speaker 1: besides the chur and reward program, honestly, the main thing
Speaker 1: that we're doing is just trying to model good personal
Speaker 1: finance behavior, right, not overspending when we don't have the money,
Speaker 1: talking to them in person about why we make conscious
Speaker 1: financial decisions, talking to them when we're when we're in
Speaker 1: the store about the things that we're buying and why
Speaker 1: we're buying them, and why we're not buying certain things,
Speaker 1: why we choose not to. And then we also freely
Speaker 1: talk about our budget and how things are laid out
Speaker 1: and why we're purchasing something this month or why we're
Speaker 1: not purchasing it at all. So I think if you
Speaker 1: have open conversations with your kids, or at least for
Speaker 1: our family, that's how we're hoping that they will grow
Speaker 1: up to be smart, financially savvy little ones. Well, obviously
Speaker 1: your husband and your dad, and you've got a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff going on, right, You've got a lot of
Speaker 1: irons in the fire, You've got your full time job,
Speaker 1: the different side hustles, other investing strategies for you, Like
Speaker 1: how are you able to do all this and basically
Speaker 1: not go crazy? You know, like how do you how
Speaker 1: are you able to keep your sanity? That's a great question.
Speaker 1: I am doing my best with time management. So something
Speaker 1: that's very important to me and my wife is the
Speaker 1: ability for us to be good parents but also maintain
Speaker 1: a good marriage. And there's there's a reason that I
Speaker 1: called it marriage kids in money, because our marriage comes first.
Speaker 1: So something that we started to do about three or
Speaker 1: four months ago, which she said was the best invention
Speaker 1: that I've ever come up with, is dedicating two nights
Speaker 1: during the week to mama, so we call him Mama's nights.
Speaker 1: Monday and Tuesday our Mama's nights. So essentially, on those
Speaker 1: nights at seven o'clock sharp, Mama gets to a vacate
Speaker 1: the premises, not have to do any dishes, not put
Speaker 1: any kids to bed. She gets to go whatever she
Speaker 1: wants to do, go out with girls for lunch, or
Speaker 1: go out for dinner, drinks, or go up to the room,
Speaker 1: watch some Netflix, painter nails, whatever she wants to do.
Speaker 1: That's her time to chill and do nothing. So that's
Speaker 1: Monday and Tuesday, and then the same happens for me
Speaker 1: on Wednesday and Thursday, so as daddy's nights. So seven o'clock,
Speaker 1: I get to go off and I get to do
Speaker 1: my side hustle, I get to go play board games
Speaker 1: with my friends. I get to whatever I want to do, exercise.
Speaker 1: Those are our special times to have our sanity because
Speaker 1: when you're a young parent, you need that. You need
Speaker 1: that time for for yourself, You need that time for
Speaker 1: sanity because if you're only working full time at your
Speaker 1: side hustle, your job and then being parent all the time,
Speaker 1: then you have no time for yourself, right, and that's
Speaker 1: where you kind of lose things. So I'm very happy
Speaker 1: to separate that time. So really Wednesdays and Thursday nights,
Speaker 1: I spent a lot of time on the side hustle.
Speaker 1: I also get up early in the morning to have
Speaker 1: a little bit of time for me for you know,
Speaker 1: fitness as well as doing a little bit on the
Speaker 1: on the podcast and things like that. And then during
Speaker 1: the day I'm working at my full time job, and
Speaker 1: then on the weekends I do my very very very
Speaker 1: best to not do any work whatsoever. Things happen, of course,
Speaker 1: you know, I gotta get a show out or sometimes
Speaker 1: I work for my full time job on the weekends.
Speaker 1: But I do my very very best, you know, call
Speaker 1: it eight percent of the time where I do no
Speaker 1: work on the weekends. I do not go on social
Speaker 1: media starting Friday through Monday morning because that is a
Speaker 1: big distraction for me, and it takes me away from
Speaker 1: my family and also takes my my mental focus away.
Speaker 1: So that's a big focus that I've been trying to
Speaker 1: do lately, probably for the past six months, no no
Speaker 1: social media Friday through Sunday and just trying to do
Speaker 1: these little things that helped me to control my time
Speaker 1: and put my priorities um where they need to be.
Speaker 1: My marriage is at the top of the list, my
Speaker 1: kids are at the top of the list, and then
Speaker 1: my personal goals too. So you know the challenge of
Speaker 1: time management. Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. Like you've got to
Speaker 1: be intentional, You've got to you know, set those boundaries,
Speaker 1: create that structure, otherwise it just devolves into a big,
Speaker 1: unorganized time mess, right. Yeah. You know one thing that
Speaker 1: I talked to somebody on the show you said, interesting interviews.
Speaker 1: I talked to this gentleman. We talked about this practice
Speaker 1: called minding the gap. So when he comes from from work,
Speaker 1: he talks to his wife and says, I need like
Speaker 1: ten minutes to just kind of have that bridge between
Speaker 1: employee guy and then family guy. So I'm gonna come in.
Speaker 1: I'm going to say hello to you, of course, but
Speaker 1: I'm gonna come right upstairs, splash some water in my face,
Speaker 1: you know, changing to some relaxing clothes, turn off my
Speaker 1: phone so I can go from employee mode to family
Speaker 1: mode and I've been practicing that one as well. It's
Speaker 1: these little hacks that you could do as a young
Speaker 1: parent to kind of just separate yourself from all of
Speaker 1: the different hats you have to wear and to create
Speaker 1: a little sanity in your life. Dude, that's great stuff.
Speaker 1: And I think this interview for folks will probably create
Speaker 1: some interesting discussion around different dining room tables. It will also,
Speaker 1: I think provide some inspiration for people that even without
Speaker 1: ridiculously insane income, Like the things that you've achieved Dandy,
Speaker 1: and you and your family have achieved for your family's
Speaker 1: well being are are just really impressive. So thank you
Speaker 1: so much for coming on the show to talk to
Speaker 1: us today. Yeah, we really appreciate it. I appreciate it too.
Speaker 1: Thank you guys so much. It's been great to have
Speaker 1: a beard with you. Yeah. Maybe next time we'll have
Speaker 1: that beer in person. Uh So, Joel, that was an
Speaker 1: awesome conversation we had with Andy. Let's talk about some
Speaker 1: big takeaways that we have. Yes, so we're gonna try
Speaker 1: to do this. At the end of every interview episode,
Speaker 1: give kind of one thing that resonated with us. In particular,
Speaker 1: Matt and the thing that stuck out to me that
Speaker 1: I'm going to start implementing into my life immediately from
Speaker 1: this conversation with Andy, which was I think full of
Speaker 1: a lot of good stuff. Is to keep my wife
Speaker 1: a night off. I think, especially in this busy season.
Speaker 1: I love how they each get two nights off every week,
Speaker 1: and for us, I think maybe one night off might
Speaker 1: be a little more feasible. But just to know that
Speaker 1: one night a week when I come home, she can
Speaker 1: just be out the door doing whatever lights her up,
Speaker 1: I think would be just a huge win for her.
Speaker 1: So it's not even this a huge financial thing I
Speaker 1: learned from this episode. It's just a way that I
Speaker 1: can relate to my wife better. So that's my big takeaway.
Speaker 1: Nice man, that's awesome. I yeah, I think she will
Speaker 1: definitely like that, right, I hope, so I think you will. Okay.
Speaker 1: For me, it was when Andy was taught about stress,
Speaker 1: and for him paying off that mortgage and now saving
Speaker 1: up to buy another home and investment property, he is
Speaker 1: finding ways to do that but to also decrease the
Speaker 1: amount of stress in his life. You know, what he's
Speaker 1: looking at is not necessarily the numbers, but he's looking
Speaker 1: at what he wants his actual life to look like
Speaker 1: he's keeping his goals in mind, and it sounds like
Speaker 1: for them that's maintaining a certain kind of life at
Speaker 1: home that involves not being preoccupied with the different side
Speaker 1: hustles or the mortgage, just different things kind of hanging
Speaker 1: over his head when he's on as dad right, like
Speaker 1: when he's wearing that hat. So, yeah, that stood out
Speaker 1: to me. Letting your goals sort of drive your financial
Speaker 1: actions and now it's not always about the numbers. That's
Speaker 1: a big confession from a self confessed numbers key. I'm
Speaker 1: I'm a nerd, and so you know, for me to
Speaker 1: make that switch and try to focus more on the lifestyle,
Speaker 1: I've kind of been going that direction more lately, honestly.
Speaker 1: But hearing Andy talk about it in a way that
Speaker 1: had a large impact on on what they did with
Speaker 1: their money just really spoke to me. So I love that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was good stuff. All right, maw Let's get back
Speaker 1: to the beer that we had on the show today.
Speaker 1: Today we were drinking Cream Weaver by Three Taverns Brewery
Speaker 1: and this is a tart twist of the classic orange
Speaker 1: cream cicle made with tangerines and vanilla. Yeah, this is
Speaker 1: from a brewery just right down the street from us,
Speaker 1: and then they make some awesome stuff. They're actually opening
Speaker 1: up a second location walking distance from our house, which
Speaker 1: is really exciting. Exactly. Yeah, I can't wait for that
Speaker 1: to happen. Yeah. And the only time I wear a hat,
Speaker 1: it's actually a through Tavern's hat, and it's because somebody
Speaker 1: gave it to me for free, and it's it's obviously
Speaker 1: that speaks to my cheapness, but you know, I do
Speaker 1: like their beer, so it's win win. It's not like
Speaker 1: I'm wearing a like a bush light hat or something.
Speaker 1: All right. So what were thoughts on this pier? Matt Man?
Speaker 1: I loved it. It It was really good. You know, it
Speaker 1: didn't taste as much to me like an I p A.
Speaker 1: It kind of tasted more like a fruity orange beer,
Speaker 1: but it had a lot of orange flavor, and l
Speaker 1: I really like that tartness. It reminded me a lot
Speaker 1: of frozen yogurt, you know, like you get fro you
Speaker 1: and it's kind of got that tartness going on with
Speaker 1: the fruit kind of made it refreshing almost to drink.
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed it. To me, this had like a
Speaker 1: sweet orangey flavor and the vanilla kind of smooth things
Speaker 1: out a touch of that tartness, and so it was
Speaker 1: super interest thing. I this style is kind of becoming
Speaker 1: sort of a thing. And we had a beer a
Speaker 1: while back from Arizona Wilderness that All That's Right had
Speaker 1: some similarities. This one definitely a little bit sweeter, maybe
Speaker 1: tasts it even more like an orange creamsicle because of that.
Speaker 1: And I loved that beer from Arizona Wilderness, but man,
Speaker 1: this one was super soliditude. So yeah, both good representations
Speaker 1: of the style and a big thanks to your buddy
Speaker 1: Tyler for sending this one our way. Yeah, Tyler, thanks
Speaker 1: so much, man, So Joel, that's gonna be it for
Speaker 1: this episode. You can find our show notes up on
Speaker 1: our website at how to money dot com and uh
Speaker 1: in there as well, we will link to Andy's show, Marriage,
Speaker 1: Kids and Money. Yeah, and if you think this is
Speaker 1: the best personal financial you've ever heard in your life,
Speaker 1: well we'd appreciate a five star review from you on
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. And more than anything,
Speaker 1: we just appreciate you checking out the show. So Matt,
Speaker 1: until next time, Best friends out, Best Friends Out. Mmmm.