Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: It the one thing I never thought would happen to me. Job loss. Yet last year was my magic year. Our family, however, was able to survive it because I had finally let go of the money mindset that the average american household still holds onto, which is being just one paycheck away from financial ruin. On today's episode f is for finances. We'll discuss how we proactively prepared for an unexpected job loss and our proven approach to keeping our finances on track. Let's get started.
Hey, guys. Welcome to episode two. We are so excited to be back here in this room. We're so excited to have you join us. And we're very excited about tonight's topic, which is something that makes me very nervous. And if you're sensing a nervous energy about me, well, it's because of the topic that we're going to need.
[00:01:42] Speaker B: Random note, but your voice sounds just so perfect for a podcast.
The introduction, I was like, wow, you sound so presentable. I need to like.
[00:01:53] Speaker A: That is why you married me.
[00:01:54] Speaker B: Oh, yes. As soon as I heard your voice. Well, you used to have an old podcast.
[00:01:58] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:01:59] Speaker B: You had that podcast voice. Like, hi, guys, it's Dr. J.
Or even when you order at a restaurant, like, hey, it's Jay.
[00:02:06] Speaker A: Oh, yes.
[00:02:07] Speaker B: Order for pickup.
[00:02:08] Speaker A: Yeah. She thinks I always change my voice when we're at a drive through or when the waiter comes to the table.
[00:02:13] Speaker B: Yes. You're like talking the normal voice, and all of a sudden it's like, sir, what will you have? Oh, it's like you change. All of a sudden you're presenting something. But I like the voice. It sounds really cool. I need to work on my presenter voice. It's like an in between, like mom voice versus my teacher voice.
[00:02:32] Speaker A: But I love that voice. It's such a sexy voice.
[00:02:35] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:02:36] Speaker A: It is. That's why I married you.
[00:02:38] Speaker B: Oh, wow.
Am I blushing?
[00:02:43] Speaker A: All right, let's focus.
[00:02:45] Speaker B: I like what you've done with the place. I see some changes. I see that my face is actually in the camera.
[00:02:51] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:02:53] Speaker B: Last time, we didn't realize after we recorded the entire time that it was just my side profile and it wasn't even a very flattering view. So those of you who watched it, thank you for just sitting through. And it's kind of watching from the side. I hope this one looks better.
[00:03:08] Speaker A: Yeah. Hopefully you see both of our faces.
[00:03:12] Speaker B: Goal that we see both of our faces today. I know, but we will see. What do you have? I see we have our Starbucks drinks. We're going to be like those cool podcasters.
What are you drinking?
[00:03:23] Speaker A: What are you drinking? Today? I have an iced caramel macchiato, my go to drink ever since I was ten years old.
[00:03:29] Speaker B: I like how you say that, but you change your drink every time you go to Starbucks.
[00:03:33] Speaker A: I know, I have so many go to drinks.
[00:03:35] Speaker B: Really? Do we have a whole story about when we were dating and you did that long Starbucks order, but that's a story for another.
[00:03:42] Speaker A: Yes, yes.
[00:03:43] Speaker B: And I have nitro cold brew with sweet cream. Well, it's cinnamon sweet cream. It's a little too sweet for me, to be honest. I like my coffee nice and bitter.
[00:03:53] Speaker A: It's a little too dutch. Bros ish.
[00:03:55] Speaker B: A little bit. Not as bad as that. I am not a.
Yeah, I forgot. Some people don't like Starbucks either for different reasons. I don't know if you don't like mean it is what it is.
[00:04:07] Speaker A: If you don't like it, just know that we typically always brew and grind our coffee at home, but for podcast days, we try to treat ourselves out to.
[00:04:14] Speaker B: It's our one little treat.
[00:04:17] Speaker A: Sounds so.
[00:04:21] Speaker B: We used to get Starbucks like once a week. And now I guess as parents we're just getting it once a.
[00:04:29] Speaker A: Like.
So drop it in the comments. Are you a dutch bros fan or Starbucks or something else entirely?
[00:04:38] Speaker B: Yeah. Do you make your coffee at home?
Let us know.
[00:04:41] Speaker A: Are you drip brew? Are you Keurig? Okay, anyway, we'll get started. We'll move on.
So anyway, babe, why are we going to talk about. Drum roll, please.
Finances.
[00:04:53] Speaker B: F is for finances.
[00:04:56] Speaker A: Why are we talking about that today?
[00:04:58] Speaker B: Well, I just feel like, I think we both feel like it's just one of those topics that's so important. It's hard to talk about. Like you said, it can make a lot of people nervous. I think you did like a survey. I don't know if you even have the results for your story or for the story for the podcast and asking people how many credit cards they had.
[00:05:17] Speaker A: I did get the results. We got 44 responses. And the vast majority, it was zero to one credit card. Another option was two to four, and then the last option was five or more credit cards. The vast majority said two to four credit cards.
[00:05:32] Speaker B: Very nice. Very interesting.
[00:05:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:05:34] Speaker B: So one, I think I told you earlier that I was reading an article and it was saying that the majority of couples who get married, I guess the number one reason, which I was surprised with was a lot of people get married for financial stability. And then I was looking because the same article also included divorces and it said, listed the top ten reasons why people get divorced, and number six on the list was because of finances. So finances are considered with marriage, like getting married, and then finances are considered when divorcing. And so it's obviously a big deal to a lot of couples, and then not just for couples, but I think we all are kind of feeling the squeeze with just inflation. I feel like more than ever, I am seeing just cars broken down the side of the road because I think people are just trying to save money where they can and maybe neglecting maintenance for their cars. Or just like, you go to the grocery store and it's like, I have, like, 20 items and I'm at $200 or 30 items, 40 items, and I'm at, like $250 and I'm like, what in the world? Why is everything so expensive? So I think it's just kind of one of those things that it's very much in our faces right now, and then it's just very important for, I guess, just all of us, because that's the one we deal with every single day.
[00:07:05] Speaker A: Yeah. The importance of money or the lack thereof. It starts to sting so much more when you have to choose between essential things.
Am I going to fix the car or am I going to get this week's groceries? Am I going to take my kid to the doctor? Or what are you sacrificing? What are you giving up? What is priority? And so it stings so much when we're in the state that we're in right now with such high inflation and whatnot.
[00:07:29] Speaker B: Yeah. But the good thing is, and we'll talk about today, is I feel like you don't have to be in a position where you're always choosing between two necessities.
[00:07:40] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:07:40] Speaker B: You can get yourself into a position where you don't have to pick and choose, but instead you can have enough to pay for all your necessities and then some. And so that's what we'll be focusing on today. We'll talk about kind of just what we've gone through. One big thing that we'll be discussing, and maybe I'll kind of lead into it now, is layoffs. So I was reading an article, LinkedIn. I basically read articles all day and podcasts. Yeah, I listen to podcasts and read articles. I'm a very interesting, fun person. I was reading an article on LinkedIn, and it said in 20, 24, 80 were fearful of layoffs.
That's only 15%, essentially, from 100% fearful of layoffs. Exactly.
I don't know exactly when we want to get into it. But it's something that we know firsthand with our relationship.
[00:08:49] Speaker A: Yeah.
The majority of workers, I think, of employees, I'm sorry, they do have that on the back of their mind. What is my company thinking long term? What are their strategies going to be? And I think you can't ignore that. There's a lot of companies buying out other companies, companies downsizing, companies merging, companies sending work offshores. So it does pose a legitimate concern.
[00:09:18] Speaker B: Yeah.
As I was looking at it, I did find one thing. So let me see my little phone.
And it has essentially the kind of five things to look for if you think, like, your company might be laying.
I guess when we talk about just kind of layoffs in general, one thing is that you notice that hiring is freezing. So if you're in a company and you realize that that could be an issue, elimination of different segments. So if it seems like they're downsizing, that could be something as well.
Change in management. So who the manager is, and then looking at the company's trends, are they cutting costs? Are they going the way they normally do? Are things changing in the company? And then finally, if you notice, payroll bloat. So a lot of people in 2021, 2022, hired a lot of people now, in 2023, 2024, a lot of companies are starting to lay off because they realize they don't need as many people in the company.
[00:10:30] Speaker A: Yeah, I heard from someone in my network that recruiters, they're getting a whole bunch of applications for job openings. But despite that, the companies aren't actually hiring as quickly or as aggressively as they were. So there's just a bunch of applicants out there. But companies aren't in a position of just hiring right now. So it is concerning that there's a lot of people just sitting, totaling their thumbs, like, when am I going to get hired? I've applied everywhere and have done everything to make myself look good. So, yeah, it's crazy. It really is. And then thinking about that family debt overall is increasing very aggressively, and yet it's hard to combat that if you can't find a job to pay off that family debt.
[00:11:19] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I mean, take it even closer to home.
Obviously, we're talking kind of like outsiders, but I don't know if you want to talk about kind of our experience with layoffs and how that affected our house.
[00:11:36] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely. So this is like, the first thing that makes me nervous is just.
[00:11:40] Speaker B: Yeah, I feel like you were trying to avoid it. I was, like, trying to bring you in, and I was like, okay, you're talking about these outsiders, we discussed what we were going to talk about, but it's easier to talk about others than coming close.
[00:11:53] Speaker A: It really is. So I was laid off from my job, and it was a job that was in my main career field or path, which was pharmacy. And there were all of those five signs that you had just talked about that started showing themselves at this job. And so there were managerial changes. There were a lot of the job duties being delegated to contract workers, and then the full time workers were kind of like, okay, so why is everything going out to them?
On top of that, there was just a lot of different things happening in the industry that was indicating, oh, wow, our competitor companies are laying off other segments of pharmacy, were downsizing, consolidating. And so I started having kind of an iffy feeling about my security.
And she did, too. She started seeing that in me.
[00:12:57] Speaker B: Well, not just that. The company you worked at, we won't say names. There was an article I think I saw in the spring that said that that company was going to lay off 10,000 people. So I was already like, interesting. This is the company where my husband works, and they're already going to be laying off people. And then we started noticing in his department that just, like, crazy quick changes.
So it was like, yeah, the new manager not having enough work to do, and it's like he would just kind of, like, walk out there. I would be there with our son, just hanging out with uncle. That was before we had our second son. And I was like, what are you doing out here? And he's like, oh, I don't have anything to do.
It was just a crazy time. So we was kind of like, we're trying to be proactive as possible. So when we really started seeing the writing on the wall, like, okay, we think this is going to happen sooner rather than later. You started applying to other jobs?
[00:13:58] Speaker A: Yes, I started applying aggressively to other jobs, and I was polishing up my resume so that it can start to be sent to other recruiters for other fields outside of pharmacy, because I've always had an interest in real estate. I've had an interest in sales outside of healthcare. So just trying to get into any.
[00:14:20] Speaker B: Well, even before that, it was just like, let's just look at another pharmacy job. Because at the very beginning, before you even really started applying, it was like, let's just find something else. It looks like it's kind of going downhill. And the reason why he was just, like, aggressively trying to find another just pharmacy job is I was in my third trimester of pregnancy.
Yes. And then he was the main breadwinner. And so it's like, okay.
And also the health insurance, all that stuff was attached to at least our sons. And your health insurance.
[00:14:58] Speaker A: Yeah. At that time, everything was really dependent on my income.
[00:15:02] Speaker B: And so we were trying to be.
[00:15:04] Speaker A: Proactive, maintaining that level of monthly earnings.
[00:15:09] Speaker B: Or not have as big of a dip. But then eventually, you did get the call from your very kind manager, your short term manager person, and told you that you had been laid off. And then with that, we thought you would at least get, like, a solid severance package. You were with the company for how many years?
[00:15:33] Speaker A: About four and ten months. Four years and ten months?
[00:15:38] Speaker B: Almost five years. So we're like, okay, you're with them for five years. With your layoff, we should have at least, like, a cushion of a month or at least two months, maybe you would think. Yeah, we were hopeful, at least.
But they ended up telling you that you only had how much? I think two weeks.
[00:16:00] Speaker A: It was two weeks. Yeah.
[00:16:03] Speaker B: So basically, you got laid off at the beginning of the month. And so basically they said, you're basically going to get one month worth of salary.
[00:16:10] Speaker A: Pretty much.
[00:16:11] Speaker B: So if we would have been one of those traditional, typical paycheck to paycheck families, especially with you being the breadwinner, we would have faced financial ruin.
[00:16:24] Speaker A: Yeah, we really would have. I don't know how we would have paid the mortgage or utilities.
Yeah. And then the hospital bills.
[00:16:34] Speaker B: Yeah. I was pregnant, about to give birth in November. So this is happening in September, and then I'm about to give birth in November, and it's like you lose your job at the beginning of September. We were hopeful that you would have something lined up. But the crazy thing is, and we'll talk about more of this whole job journey next month, but the crazy thing is that despite us trying to be so proactive, you didn't end up having a job again until three months later.
[00:17:06] Speaker A: Yes. That is what is so crazy to me, is as crazy as I was being polishing up my resume, making sure that I looked available and open in terms of my schedule, and just making everything as 100% clean as possible, it was just not equating to someone calling me back. And I was like, what is going on here? What else can I do, God, to just get some kind of green light from someone? And I was even like, is there something on my license?
There wasn't. And, yeah, it was discouraging.
[00:17:49] Speaker B: Yeah, it was a very trying time. And like I said, that's something that we already said that we'll talk about in depth next podcast, but I think the craziest thing is. So you said, obviously that was crazy, which it was, because it was like you obviously were a great candidate, in my opinion of you.
[00:18:08] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:18:08] Speaker B: But you had experience, you had a lot of things going for you, and yet it felt like God was closing the door. But despite that, and despite that part being really trying, I thought to me the craziest part was that it felt like we weren't just barely surviving or anything during that time, but it truly felt like we were thriving during that time.
[00:18:33] Speaker A: That's what also blew my mind.
[00:18:34] Speaker B: Yes, one of the craziest things that ended up. So we obviously got the news of the layoff and we started kind of just going through each month. He's still applying. We're just trying. But closed door after closed door. And so that was really disheartening. But in that we saw God's faithfulness so much and we saw how us preparing ahead of time as, and not preparing for a layoff, but just having our finances in place, just prepared for anything, just having a solid financial picture, living below our means, all of that really set us up for success in that we were able to go through those three months and not just make it through the three months, but I'll kind of mention even later that we ended up with even more money in our bank account after those three months, after going through all of that, which is to me just the craziest thing, because we obviously lost the main breadwinner's income, and yet we still were able to, like I said, not just survive, but thrive. And so that's kind of where I wanted to take this conversation today.
[00:19:50] Speaker A: Definitely.
[00:19:50] Speaker B: I wanted to talk about kind of the things that we did ahead of time.
[00:19:54] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:19:55] Speaker B: That allowed us to be in a place that when we were three months without the main breadwinner's income, that we ended up with more money in our account than we had at the beginning of the whole layoff period.
[00:20:10] Speaker A: I think the biggest thing that gave us an advantage was we had a lot of consumer debt gone prior to the layoff.
[00:20:17] Speaker B: Let's take that back a little bit. We were in an amazing place in our marriage and our finances when the layoff happened. But we didn't start off in an amazing place.
[00:20:28] Speaker A: We sure did not. We started in a very messy to.
[00:20:32] Speaker B: I guess a little bit about us and our finances is that when we first started out, I have always been the financial nerd, always just love saving money and as Dave Ramsey calls it, lovingly. He was definitely more of the free spirit in our relationship when it came to money. We always talk about how I'm like the minimalist, he's the natural maximalist. So we balance each other out most times. But obviously if people have two different natural bins, they're going to clash. And that is the one area we definitely clashed in, was money.
[00:21:09] Speaker A: It was a huge clash. So do you want me to go in and talk about our wedding?
[00:21:15] Speaker B: Well, our wedding was wonderful. It was amazing. Yes. And speaking of just me being good with money, I was the one. Yes. Now our money is ours. But at that time, it was my money, his money, and I just was like a natural saver. And I naturally lived way below my means. So I was able to pay for our whole wedding with cash. And our general arrangement was I knew he wasn't the best with money. I knew he didn't have as much saved up. So our arrangement was that I would pay for the wedding. And I was like, the only thing I want you to pay for is like, your stuff. So your tux, whatever you need to take care of. And then the wedding night hotel, I want you to pay for that.
[00:21:59] Speaker A: Yes, I could take.
[00:22:00] Speaker B: I call it our mini moon.
[00:22:02] Speaker A: Let me explain. Let's see what happened here. So, yeah, I had those specific tasks to pay for, and I was already implementing some of Dave Ramsey principles and trying to save and pay down stuff. But at that time, and my whole life has been maximalist living. So not like getting everything under the sun.
[00:22:24] Speaker B: Well, getting everything you could within your.
[00:22:27] Speaker A: I guess, my credit limits.
[00:22:29] Speaker B: Yes. Whatever your credit card said you could do, you were going to do.
[00:22:33] Speaker A: Yes. And I always felt that I was solid with my approach because I was always paying them off slightly over the minimum payments. So I knew that I could still afford things.
[00:22:46] Speaker B: Afford things in quotes.
[00:22:48] Speaker A: In quotes.
[00:22:48] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:22:49] Speaker A: But what had happened with the wedding night or when we were checking out of our hotel after the wedding was I had made this crazy arrangement with the hotel staff.
[00:23:02] Speaker B: I'm shaking my head because who does this? Well, I'm shaking my head because I already know this arrangement. Guys, please listen to this arrangement that he set up.
[00:23:10] Speaker A: So prior to the wedding, I had cleared or paid down enough of the balance on my credit cards.
[00:23:16] Speaker B: Three of them.
[00:23:17] Speaker A: Three of them to make this reservation and to have like the spa package and stuff like that.
[00:23:24] Speaker B: Maximus living here.
[00:23:26] Speaker A: And to do this, I emailed the hotel staff on credit card one, I need this to be charged on it. On credit card two, let's use that for the spa. Package for credit card three.
Something else.
[00:23:41] Speaker B: I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I'm just imagining this person opening up the email, and they're like, who the does this guy think he is?
[00:23:49] Speaker A: He's not some celebrity.
[00:23:51] Speaker B: Celebrities just do one card.
[00:23:53] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:23:54] Speaker B: Half staying at our hotel right now. They're probably a little nervous, I know.
[00:23:59] Speaker A: So naturally, any managerial staff would be like, no, we're not honoring that request. Just charge it onto one card. But of course, they didn't say that to my face. They reassured me in the email, and then I called them. They reassured me via phone when we were there the day of checking in, while she was getting dressed and stuff, and while I was already just getting stuff ready for the hotel room, they reassured me there. But then the morning that we're checking out, I tell her, you know, babe, just go wait in the seating area of the lobby, because it's a big lobby, big and fancy hotel. And I nervously walk to the reception desk, and I'm like, all right, so are we good on the arrangement? We have all three credit cards where they need to be. And so, of course, they're like, yeah, of course. Did you enjoy your stay?
[00:24:48] Speaker B: They probably didn't even know what you were talking about. There's probably a whole different staff receptionist. And she was like, what is he? Like, yeah, everything is good. Everything is solid.
[00:24:58] Speaker A: So then she starts running it, and then everything. Stuff prints out, and she's like, oh, I think there's an error here, sir. So I'm like, oh, no, this isn't the arrangement I was talking about. Remember our arrangement?
[00:25:10] Speaker B: Wink, wink.
[00:25:12] Speaker A: And she's like, no. So she gets another staff member, and then ultimately there's, like, three lovely girls behind the desk just trying to keep me calm because they could probably see beads of sweat dripping down or not dripping down my face. But I'm starting to get nervous here.
[00:25:25] Speaker B: And I'm just kind of in the background. And obviously, we're checking out on Monday or, no, Tuesday. Tuesday, we got married, like, over Labor Day weekend, so there's, like, no one. There's a random Tuesday. There's no one checking out. So thank God I can clearly hear everything.
[00:25:42] Speaker A: She could hear everything, because you just hear everything in this lobby the way that it was.
[00:25:47] Speaker B: I'm also like, why is it taking so long?
They're whispering that there's something going on.
[00:25:56] Speaker A: Yes. And so I just felt her eyes stabbing me in the back, and I'm like, oh, my gosh. She's hearing all of this. And so, thank God, she came over and she just said, what's going on here? I could take care of it. And you gave your debit card and paid, and it went through fine. But I was like, I was telling the staff, I can wash dishes. I can do the linens. What do you need me to do?
[00:26:23] Speaker B: I thought this was going to work out.
[00:26:25] Speaker A: Of course, I wasn't trying to act like I was freaking out in the moment. I was like, oh, yeah, my wife can take care of it. But when we exited through the revolving doors, I felt so embarrassed, humiliated and disappointed in myself because I was trying to put this perfect image in her mind of who I am and who I thought I truly was. But no, I was hiding a lot in terms of finances and my dependence on credit cards.
[00:26:55] Speaker B: And as embarrassing as that was, even for me, because we were a unit at that point, I was very thankful that it happened because it let me see really, truly where you were. We tried to have multiple conversations when we were dating about the finances.
[00:27:11] Speaker A: Yeah, we did.
[00:27:12] Speaker B: And from time to time, he's like, yeah, we can make a budget. But then he would never really get agitated or nervous with any other topic. But anytime we'd bring up the budget, he would get all nervous. And so I was like, okay, I don't want to press too much. I know that he has enough to pay for his life, so I thought he at least did. I was like, we can just make it work. I don't want to make him nervous or upset or anything. So I didn't really press it too much, which I probably would not recommend. Ladies, if you're getting married, I think you should know fully what you're getting yourself into.
But I just decided that I'm just going to kind of let it go, I guess.
[00:27:55] Speaker A: And I wasn't trying to make it complicated or difficult for her to understand my full financial picture, but I was just scared to tackle it head on. I never had done it in the past like that.
[00:28:08] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:28:09] Speaker A: And I remember I was always just trying to pay down the credit card so that no one single card has more than $500 or something. But I never thought, let's tackle all of this and get all of it paid off and truly live financially free. That never crossed my mind. And so it just felt too overwhelming to go there. And I was just feeling overwhelmed and anxious whenever she would bring it up, like, let's have a budget meeting. I'm like, oh, no.
[00:28:34] Speaker B: Yeah, I could tell. But kind of with backtracking, when that happened, I was embarrassed, too, then kind of upset, because I guess in my mind, and I never said this out loud, but I was just like, this is just not fair. I've done such a good job with my finances. I was able to pay for this wedding. I pay for the photographer, the florist, all that stuff with cash. And then I still had to pay for the hotel as well. And it wasn't even that big of an amount. It's just he didn't have room on just one single credit card for that whole stay. But like I said, I was thankful that it happened because it showed me exactly where we were. And I remember driving home. We drove home separately because he had to go into work that day, and I had the day off. So he drove home. I had to take care of a few more things downtown. And then I was able to drive home, and I felt like God was speaking to me. And it was like showing me, like, your partner is drowning and you have a life jacket. You can either just sit there with your little safe self life jacket and all and not help them out, or you can work at it as a team. Actually be one, present your life jacket and work on it together. Get into the dirt. You're going to have to get a little bit wet. You're going to have to actually, it's not going to be clean cut, but go into it and work with him and find success together. And so on that ride home, I was first kind of just complaining to God. And then I just kind of felt this peace, like, okay, obviously he doesn't feel great about what happened. It's embarrassing for anyone, but it's like, you can make something of this, so make something of it. And so what I wanted to talk about next, which is kind of what we ended up, we. So that's where we started off, a very ugly beginning, but we didn't stay there. And so after that, we kind of started taking on the Dave Ramsey steps. And so the first step is to save at least $1,000, which we already had saved.
The next step is to pay off all debt. And he has a little caveat. If you read his total money makeover, it says to pay off all debt that is within 50% of your gross income. And so that was pretty much all the credit cards. And so we used his snowball method, which is you order all your debts. You start with the smallest debt, you pay that one off, use the money that you use to pay off that smallest debt, and then you start paying the next debt, and the next set all the other debts while you're paying, like, are you tackling the next big debt? You're just kind of keeping those at their minimum balances and then paying off one, paying off the other until you're building a bigger snowball.
[00:31:22] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:31:23] Speaker B: And so to kind of help us out with that, before we started paying it off, we looked at our finances and looked at how could we get rid of any excess.
[00:31:32] Speaker A: Yeah. Any subscriptions, whether it was Netflix, Hulu, Disney Plus, ESPN, Spotify, audible, hygiene.
[00:31:40] Speaker B: He had so many subscriptions.
[00:31:42] Speaker A: Little food stuff like blue plates or hellofresh. Yeah. And then, like, snack kits, all of that.
[00:31:50] Speaker B: This guy was living the life he really was.
[00:31:54] Speaker A: I do miss certain aspects of that, but it's like, unless you can truly afford that type of lifestyle or all of that, you shouldn't even try to make that an option. Via credit card or just.
[00:32:05] Speaker B: Yeah, not via credit card. Just make choices. Just make it all. So speaking of that. So we organized our finances.
We were doing the debt snowball. And then one thing that I liked about how we're doing it is that we still made sure to maintain a certain level of life that we both found at least enjoyable. We still had date nights. So I feel like a lot of times when people follow Dave Ramsey, which I think is still a good thing, is that they kind of eliminate everything and just focus everything on debt. But one thing I liked about it, I think made it doable for us, is that we kind of looked at what were our personal non negotiables, and they probably could be considered, like, luxuries to some because it was like, okay, we still wanted to have date nights. We still wanted to go out to eat, like, once a week. So there's certain things that we wanted to include in our budget, but everything else that didn't touch on kind of like our wants, selective wants, and then our needs was all going to the debt payoff, pretty much. And they get rid of all of that. And so we were doing that, paying off the debt, one debt after the other.
And then after a while, I think within, like, a year, all the debt was paid off, which is amazing.
[00:33:25] Speaker A: Yeah. It was surprising that we actually tackled all of it because we had a Zales card that had a balance on it. We had a Coles card, and then numerous capital ones discover a chase.
[00:33:38] Speaker B: Yes. I think. How many different lines of credit were there? So Zales Kohl's, I think, would have.
[00:33:46] Speaker A: Been, like, five or six.
[00:33:47] Speaker B: Yes. And they weren't all, like, small balances. It was quite a bit of debt.
[00:33:52] Speaker A: Like 2000, 3000 on any one of them.
[00:33:58] Speaker B: While we still kept some luxuries, we definitely eliminated a lot. We got rid of YouTube tv, we got rid of all the meal subscriptions that, you know what, it's just the two of us. We don't even have kids or anything right now.
[00:34:09] Speaker A: Gym memberships.
[00:34:10] Speaker B: Yes. Which you probably need back, but I know that's a whole nother story. F is for fitness. Next time we'll get on that train a little bit later.
[00:34:19] Speaker A: We gave up our membership at the Dominion.
[00:34:21] Speaker B: Okay.
That's what you want. You still want that?
[00:34:25] Speaker A: I really want the one at the rock atera.
[00:34:28] Speaker B: Yeah, that spurs.
[00:34:29] Speaker A: The spurs training facility. If you're in San Antonio, check that out. It's awesome. Yeah, it's right down the road from us. But eventually we can do something like that with the boys.
[00:34:39] Speaker B: Yeah, eventually, if that makes sense.
[00:34:41] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:34:42] Speaker B: So anyway, we're paying off the debt. We ended up getting the debt paid off. And so the next step after you pay off those debts that are within that 50% mark is to start saving. So you want to be able to transition to the saving pretty quickly because really life can just happen. So you pay off that debt. We paid it off, like I said, within a year, we were really heavy on it. Other thing we did, sorry, I forgot to mention one other thing, is that we took on extra jobs as well. Very simple jobs that worked with the jobs that we already had. But just like some teaching jobs, just kind of have a little extra money to throw at the debt and praise God.
[00:35:20] Speaker A: During the whole thing of not having a main job, Shailen was getting a lot of side jobs. I guess you could categorize them, but they're actually main jobs. But they seem like side jobs because they were all work from home. They were asynchronous classes that she was teaching, so it was a good job for her with having such a young newborn. Yeah, we'll get to that. We'll get to that.
[00:35:47] Speaker B: But I was going to say. So then we started transitioning to saving. And so all the money that we were using for our debt payoff, we were now using to save and get us into position. So we had about like three or four months worth of saving. This is for a one person salary of savings. So before the layoff even happened, we had used a snowball method to pay off our debt. And then we had built up our savings so that when the layoff happened, we were already in a better position than I think, most Americans. I think it said that maybe it's like close to 50%, maybe even more than that of Americans live paycheck to paycheck.
[00:36:26] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:36:26] Speaker B: So just having a savings that covers at least a few months is very rare, but it makes a huge difference. So that when he was first laid off, we weren't, like, scrambling around, having to cut off everything, but we're able to make changes that were swift but measured. We didn't have to. Just quickly, okay, how are we going to make the mortgage for next month? We knew we had the mortgage and savings. We had a few months of mortgage and savings, but we also didn't know when you were going to have a job again. So we went through our budget again. It's like, okay, what can we eliminate just in this short period of time where you don't have a job that doesn't need to be paid for? Exactly. We're looking at stuff. So it's like, okay, I think I can pause for. I can do my oil change. We don't drive a lot. We both work from home. I could do my oil change. Once you get your job, we can do other kind of, like, maintenance stuff around the house when you get your job. And so we're just kind of looking at things that we could hold off a bit on and just focus the income on the main things. So groceries, paying the mortgage, I think we got rid of pretty much any other subscription other than I think we had, like, Disney plus. And I don't even think we had Netflix anymore. We got rid of that one, too.
[00:37:49] Speaker A: I think it was just Disney plus.
[00:37:50] Speaker B: So just because our son likes toy story.
[00:37:52] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:37:53] Speaker B: We had to literally just keep that one thing for him.
[00:37:56] Speaker A: It was very minimal, but it was very freeing because we also took advantage of going outside a lot, like, to the park.
[00:38:02] Speaker B: Yeah. I think that's why when we talked about how it wasn't just surviving, it was kind of thriving. It was a trying time because we didn't know when you're going to get income again. But it wasn't as bad as it could have been because we kind of had that cushion. And so we didn't have to just wonder because it could have been October, and then we could have been like, okay, well, we ran out of money. We don't have anything. We're paycheck to paycheck. But it wasn't that we weren't paycheck to paycheck, so we had that nice cushion built in. You said during that time, we took advantage of things that were free and so we didn't go out to eat. We made all our meals at home. We went to parks. If we ate out to eat, we used gift cards. So I think one time we added up, like, three olive garden gift cards to get a meal.
[00:38:52] Speaker A: Just taking advantage of all of that.
[00:38:54] Speaker B: Yeah. So that's, like, the way that we were able to kind of stay afloat. And the other thing was, we're able to tap into those income lines that we've already had open. So from before, when we were paying off debt, we said, we're taking on different classes and all that. So when the layoff happened, we were able to kind of pause and see, like, okay, what other lines of income do we have that we can maybe utilize more? Can we ask for more hours? Can we kind of take on more classes? And even if you don't have some teaching, although I think teaching is a good one to kind of have open, or tutoring is another one that's good to have open. Even having something like doordash or just something available that you're able to tap into.
[00:39:39] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:39:40] Speaker B: Is really good. And then I know there's some other things that we did, too. But to me, one of the most important things, and this one might be a little bit controversial, is that we never stopped tithing during this whole time.
[00:39:53] Speaker A: Good point.
[00:39:54] Speaker B: And so a lot of people disagree. Amber, one time, I'm always commenting on people's things on YouTube. I'm like a heavy commenter. I'm always proud. Sometimes I've had comments that get over 100 likes. So if you kind of dig closely to something, I'm always commenting. So this one girl, her family is going through a layoff, and I guess she's a christian blogger, and she specifically said one thing that we stopped doing was tithing during this layoff time. And I commented, and I know it's going to get a lot of hate, and people might hate it, I know, in this as well. But I commented on it saying that I feel like you shouldn't stop tithing. I feel like tithing is an act of faith. And the Bible talks about giving our first fruits, and I know there's people like, okay, well, we're not under law, blah, blah, blah. I get that. But it's just one of those things that I've always done and has always been just one of my personal. And then I guess our personal value was tithing.
[00:40:56] Speaker A: That has become very priority of mine now. Because before, I used to think, if you're struggling, why are you going to give so much of your paycheck to tithes when you can use that to pay off a credit card.
[00:41:12] Speaker B: Oh, that's what everyone in the comments, I got killed in the comments for mentioning that. But my whole thing is like, the Bible calls to tithe the first fruits.
[00:41:24] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:41:25] Speaker B: And so my whole thing was, if it's the first fruits, then I'm not going to consider my circumstances. I'm going to be faithful with my first fruits. Give that 10% 1st before I consider the circumstances.
[00:41:40] Speaker A: And I can vouch for the power of tithing and how God can take and use the 90% that's remaining and he can multiply that in a way that is so mind boggling when I.
[00:41:54] Speaker B: Tell you about God's faithfulness in that time, with that 90%, not just our needs were met, but our wants were met.
[00:42:03] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:42:03] Speaker B: So with that, we wanted to have some type of maternity shoot. It's only a short period of time you can do a maternity shoot because obviously you're only pregnant for a period of time. But the Lord opened up the door where one of our friends was having, she was doing fall mini shoots and it was like the perfect little place for us to do our shoe. And it was way cheaper than.
[00:42:26] Speaker A: Thank you, Melody.
[00:42:27] Speaker B: Yeah. So we would have paid for something else and then just other things along those lines. So we're able to have a little baby shower for the second baby and able to pay for that, and we're able to get new clothes and stuff for our son. We went to ambassador's coffee and they randomly gave us free coffee one day in line. I think the tab said Jesus paid it all, and then our order was completely free. So it's like little things everywhere we turned. It was just free or very cheap.
[00:43:01] Speaker A: Yeah, it is crazy. I remember even earlier in the year when we were considering moving to a different side of San Antonio, we were building a house and they said that once you get to a certain point, you have to give a check over to them. So we did that. And there's no guarantee that you'll get that money back. But I had already adopted the mindset of, yes, God does deserve the first fruits of my income. And so I started firmly believing that and trusting that God will provide. Even though it seems like you're giving a lot away, you shouldn't think of it that way. You should just think of it as this money wasn't yours to begin with. Everything is from God. And he's the master resource.
[00:43:44] Speaker B: Yes. He's the source of all things. So it's like God is the one who opens doors. And God's the one who closes doors. And we saw, despite your job being a closed door, we saw so many open doors.
[00:43:57] Speaker A: We did.
[00:43:59] Speaker B: Even with God, I couldn't move a lot. I was really pregnant. But he provided so many opportunities for me to earn money. Just, I'm sitting on my computer and teaching opportunities and just things opening that weren't too taxing but allowed us to get income.
[00:44:17] Speaker A: Income. We got that check back from the builder.
[00:44:20] Speaker B: Yeah. Some other random checks we got and we thought like, oh, we're not going to be able to get this money back. We got that check back.
[00:44:27] Speaker A: You got a freebie thing at this baby sale?
[00:44:30] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. So I got to go to this baby sale. Everyone else to go through this sale, they had to pay like $85 for a ticket to it. But when you comment on things like to be a part of the giveaways and you're like, I'm not going to get it. I commented on it and then I got selected. So I got basically a free ticket to a sale that cost people 80 plus dollars to get into. I was able to get our son his little slide that he loves and some new pajamas.
Also, I didn't even have to pay for that because I forgot I had credits cash back on my card that paid for that whole thing. So I got a free ticket and then everything I bought was covered with the cash back.
[00:45:13] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:45:14] Speaker B: So it was basically a free ticket and free clothes. Free. I got like a jungle gym set, a table.
[00:45:22] Speaker A: Big hole that you brought.
[00:45:23] Speaker B: Yes. So many things for free. So it's like that 90%. God spread that 90%.
[00:45:30] Speaker A: He does.
[00:45:30] Speaker B: And so that's why even though I got a lot of hate, and I know people in the comments might hate this, too, I'm such a firm believer in it. And I think that's probably one of the biggest things we learned through it, is that God is truly our provider.
[00:45:44] Speaker A: Yes, he is.
[00:45:45] Speaker B: And we can truly trust him with everything.
[00:45:48] Speaker A: Yeah. He is so faithful. He is so good. He knows your heart, he knows your desires. You just have to learn to trust him and hand over everything to him and not just hold on to your methods and your ways of thinking. Because it is very limited. It's very limited and it's rooted in how you perceive the world. You have to open up yourself to seeing the world through God's eyes and just realizing that he is the master resource.
[00:46:16] Speaker B: Yeah. And even with that, even if we can't see it through God's eyes, the Bible says in proverbs like trust the Lord with all of your heart and lean not on your own understanding.
[00:46:25] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:46:25] Speaker B: Even, like, when we were going through everything and we did not understand what was going on, it was, okay. We have to lean back on that. Or my ways are not your ways. My thoughts are not your thoughts. His ways are so much higher, so much greater than ours will ever be. So even when we don't understand, I think people have said we don't understand God's hand. Trust his heart. So trust that God has good things for you. Trust that God is providing for you, and that if you're faithful with what he's given you, just be amazed at what he can do for you and what he can do with, like, what we said, that 90%.
[00:47:03] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:47:04] Speaker B: And then another thing we learned. I don't know if you want to say something. I didn't mean to interrupt you.
[00:47:09] Speaker A: No, I was just going to say, are we kind of already talking about just everything we've learned? Is there any other tidbits that just have blown your mind ever since the layoff, ever since us getting married in that crazy hotel story?
[00:47:20] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, I feel like God's faithfulness blows my mind, but I kind of want to because I know, I think next episode, we plan on talking about more of just our faith journey and what we felt going through that whole story and just kind of more the ins and outs of that whole story. So I kind of want to save a little bit for that.
[00:47:40] Speaker A: Definitely.
[00:47:41] Speaker B: But I think also with this, another thing that I learned was just how important it was for us to be together as a team. We talked about that last episode, too. But, man, when you're going through a hard time and you don't understand what's going on, it's like you really have to be there for each other. We both have our own low moments. While I said, yes, we thrived. We're human. We had some really tough times during this whole layoff phase. And so I think the other thing I learned is trust the person that God has given you and walk in this together.
[00:48:19] Speaker A: Yeah. One of my biggest lessons over the past two years now has been that your spouse is your helper, your spouse is your supporter, your spouse is your fan. And so none of those nouns, none of those would want to see harm to the other person. You want the best for your best friend. You want the best for the person that you are fawning over. And so I'm that to her, but sometimes I am so prideful, and I think that she's interrogating me or she's judging me or she's trying to demean me when all she was trying to do is just get a better picture of, what are you struggling with with your finances? How can I help? What can we tweak here? So for me, it was just realizing that, yeah, my wife isn't out to get me, or my wife isn't out to just make me feel bad. She's really there to help me. But sometimes you have to go through all that pain until you can get fixed. The root can get fixed, and that finally has been fixed. In terms of finances, I mean, it's.
[00:49:27] Speaker B: Hard to be vulnerable.
[00:49:28] Speaker A: It is very hard, and especially with.
[00:49:30] Speaker B: An area that you've never truly looked at in your situation. And so if you think the other person is so much better than you in that one aspect. So I think that's how you saw me.
[00:49:40] Speaker A: It was intimidating.
[00:49:41] Speaker B: She has all this money.
[00:49:43] Speaker A: Yeah, she was quite intimidating in that regard. It was like, she's so much better than me in this area.
I want to show her that I can still handle myself. But no, I had to humble myself and realize that there are better ways, obviously.
[00:49:59] Speaker B: And then I guess we can end with, it's never too late. And I think that's what you saw, too. It's never too late to start. So wherever you are in your finances, I think we could link, like, the baby steps and what we followed, but it's never too late to get started. It's never too late to be vulnerable and see where you are financially and take the next step, whether it's, let's pay off debt. Hey, well, let's see what we can do to build our savings.
Maybe doordash or Uber or just anything to kind of build up our savings or can you teach? Can you be a Tutor? Like, whatever it is, do you need to mow lawns? Whatever it needs to be, build up that savings. Because even like we said at the beginning, a lot of people are fearful of layoffs, and there's not an unfound fear it could happen. But we don't have to walk around being paranoid. No, but we can prepare and we can plan and we can be ready in case something like that happens. So I was really happy that we had our things kind of set in place, even though we weren't planning for a layoff to happen and we weren't acting parent like, oh, layoffs are going to be. Layoffs are intimate. It's going to happen. But we were in a nice, safe, prepared space that when they did happen. We're able to just be swift but measured.
[00:51:15] Speaker A: I love it.
[00:51:15] Speaker B: Able to just kind of take it step by step. And I felt like through it all, we just learned so much about each other. Learned so much or grew closer to the Lord. And although would not want to go through the experience again, as we'll talk about next episode, how trying it was, I'm thankful that I got to go through it with you and got to just be closer to you during that time.
[00:51:39] Speaker A: Absolutely. So, yeah, I think that's a perfect ending right there. So it's never too late. Guys, go ahead and start partnering up with your spouse and trying to tackle things in a way that you come out both victorious and loving each other far more than if you were just trying to do it on your own. It's so fulfilling just doing it with your partner and just realizing, you know what? God's got us. God's got us. And I just have to keep the faith and trust the process.
It's going to work out in the end. And it's so encouraging. From last episode, a lot of feedback. You all are already implementing some of this stuff from episode one, so it'll be cool to see what you all do once this episode releases and how you all start to tackle things for the rest of 2024. It would be cool to kind of do a review at the end of this year. Like, what did everyone end up doing?
[00:52:33] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. We would love for everyone just experience financial freedom.
There's nothing like it. Are we fully exactly where we want to be? No, not quite.
[00:52:44] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:52:44] Speaker B: But I just love that we're not nervous every month and wondering if this was going to get paid. We have it structured in a way that we know when to pay things and there's nothing like it. And so that's my prayer and desire for anyone watching that they will be able to experience it. So that's why we'll link the steps.
[00:53:06] Speaker A: In the show notes.
[00:53:07] Speaker B: Yes, in the show notes. So do them. Do the steps get financially free? There's nothing like it. There's no way we can compare.
[00:53:15] Speaker A: Absolutely. If you like this video, if you like what we talk about, if you want to see more videos like this, please like, please subscribe. Drop some comments on our YouTube drop some comments on Instagram Facebook. We just want to foster a wonderful community and so we are always looking forward to hearing you and what you have to say. But until next month, we love you guys so much. Thank you for taking the time to join us. And, yeah, that's it.
[00:53:41] Speaker B: Yeah, be blessed, guys.
[00:53:42] Speaker A: Be blessed. Bye, guys.
Damn.
