Life after school is daunting, perhaps due to the desire to prove to oneself that we can be adults with a bright and stable life, but life isn’t a movie and adulthood is far from a steady life pace. In this episode, Jen and Jill listen to Catherine’s story of paying off her $27,000 student loan in just 5 months after graduating.
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Episode four fifteen, how Catherine paid off twenty seven thousand dollars in student loans in five months.
Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast, where you'll learn to save money, embrace simplicity, and live a life here your hosts, Jen and Jill.
Welcome to Frugal Friends podcast. It's debt free summer and we are playing another debt free story for you. Who this is from our listener, Catherine. And Catherine was such a joy to talk to last year. She is so young and just on such a great path, uh, and so full of life. And if you have a student that just recently graduated college or high school, or you are a young person who recently graduated, then I think you're really gonna like Catherine's story or you're gonna want to pass it on to someone.
And we've got some fun updates afterwards where Catherine has told us kind of what has happened in life since becoming debt free. So stick around after we replay this interview to hear where she's at now, and well, Jenn and I will share a little bit of our own.
Little yeah, And if you want to see Catherine's interview in real life, you can head over to our YouTube channel. It's Frugal Friends on YouTube. We have all ten debt free stories over there. But if you're not a video person, then we are playing them every week this summer ten weeks. It's defree summer.
Baby, it's not howkir All summer is defree free summer. We're still hot, but but we're becoming.
A defree yes. But first, this episode is brought to you by your first job. Your first job out of school, so fresh, so young, so bright, so naive, and your first job may or may not have enrolled you automatically without you knowing, it into a four to oh one K, and that's great. We love that. We love that businesses do that because at a site out of mine and you're just saving on autopilot. But if you left that job to move to greener pastures or maybe browner ones, I don't know, then you are going to want to take back control of that four oh one K because once you leave your employer, then you no longer control that money. It's still yours, but you're probably going to be paying holding fees. It may not be invested where you want it, so you want to roll it over into an IRA. If that is too complex for you to even wrap your mind around four A one K to IRA, rollovers brokerage to Browridge, I get it. But that's why we have partnered with Capitalize. Capitalize as a service that will actually find your four oh one K for you and then help you roll it over for free into an IRA of your choice, whether that's a roboadvisor or do it yourself brokeridge. They're going to help you figure it out. Frugal Friends podcast dot com, slash Capitalize. Let your first job be just a pleasant memory and not one that haunts you.
Because you left behind your retirement investing there. Yes, yeah, it's a great.
Yeah.
So we have a lot on the horizon this summer with debt free stories. But if you missed last week's episode four thirteen, we had how Megan paid off her twenty thousand dollars of debt as a teacher. And then we have a lot of episodes in general about debt, so like episode two seventy six, which debt should you pay off?
First?
Search back in our archives. So so many debt payoff stories over the last six years. There you will not and we try, we have always tried to serve a diverse set of stories of people who've paid off debt, so big amounts, small amounts, short periods of time, longer periods of time, different income brackets, kids, no kids. So that's always been super important to us that if we're going to share somebody's story, that it's relatable to not as many people as possible, but to specific as specific of the groups as possible.
Yeah, there are favorites when you get to hear from other people with especially when you're able to find someone with a similar story to you and here, what did they do, what ended up working for them and kind of figure out what what is this going to look.
Like for you then?
Because I know one person's journey is going to be exactly the same as another's, but collectively we can learn from one another. So it is one of our favorite things to do through interviews and the only series we ended up putting on YouTube. So we're excited to share it here and let's get into it. Let's hear from Catherine and we have a very special guest today, a listener of frugal friends just like you all watching. Catherine is here to share her story.
Welcome Catherine. We're so glad to have you. Yes, welcome, Catherine. Thank you so much for joining us.
Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be in a position to talk about being debt free.
So, Catherine, tell us a little bit more about yourself. Do you have children, where do you live? Give us a little bit of a background on who you are, and little sneak peeks into this debt free story.
Yeah, so I am too. So I still live at home with my family, which will be a big part of the story that I'm talking about. But I graduated college this past May and am now working full time in HR. It sounds boring, but I really love it. And then I also have my part time job that I kept from college, where I work as a bridal sales consultant, and that's purely because I think it's such a fun job. But yeah, so I live at home. I have my dog Misty and my fish Henry, so they're always kind of local. But I'm right outside of Boston and I've lived here my whole life.
Nice.
And so where did you go to school? Yeah, so I went to Bryant University. It's in Rhode Island, so it's about an hour away from where I live now. I was on campus until COVID hit kind of flipped everything upside down. So my junior year I was virtual and then my senior year I chose to commute to campus.
Nice Catherine, I'm feeling the build up to this debt payoff story. Can you tell us how much was it? How long did it take? You give us all the deeds?
Yeah, so all of the debt I had was from student loans, And to be honest, COVID was the first time I really started to take a look at money because I think, like many of my friends, I was in the mindset of, oh, you go to college, you get debt, and that's just what happens. It racks up, but it's for the experience. And when I was sent home and I was virtual it it really made me pause and look at what I was spending on room and board and just how much money it was. And when I did out the math and realized, if I make some changes, I was going to graduate with over one hundred and twenty thousand dollars in new debt and I was like, that is not feasible. I don't want to have that. So that's when I made some of the changes to decide to commute my senior year, so that cut out a lot of room and board costs, but would still leave me at a point where I would graduate with about twenty seven thousand dollars in student loans. So I'd say fall semester of my senior year, around the time I found your podcast, I decided that I want to be able to pay off my debt as fast as I could. I was really lucky in that the jobs, the two jobs that I have right now, my full time job and my part time job, are local to where I live, so I was fortunate that I could stay at home. So as I graduated in May, I started to look at what my monthly income would be, knowing that my expenses were very limited. I don't have to pay rent, which I'm very grateful for, and then I wanted to see how I could best set myself up. So I looked at my retirement options, so my four oh one K and my roth IRA, and then set aside any expenses that I did have, see what was left over, and I thought that I would just start putting as much of that toward my student loans. I had a pretty high interest on one of them. It was about like eight or nine percent, so I really wanted to get that one down. And as I made it to about August, I realized as I was paying off my debt, I wasn't contributing anything to my short term savings that I built up through college, and I was like, I weighed the options of dipping into my savings a little bit to kind of help expedite this, knowing that it wouldn't grow in my mind until I paid off debt. Again. Being the lucky position I was to live at home, so I did choose to dip into debt a little bit to help pay off the twenty seven thousand, and then this past October, so it was just a few weeks ago I was able to make my final student loan payment, which just felt so good. It was such a weight lifted off my shoulders. Where now I feel like, as I'm still living at home, I can now more focus on the savings I need to be able to move out and be comfortable knowing that I won't have to worry about my student loans anymore.
That's amazing, Catherine to prioritize that so quickly after graduating like I waited years to pay off are like my debt after graduating, because I was just so worried about it and to do it in five months. So I wonder, were there any times over that five months that you hit any roadblocks or hardships that made you second guess or question like what you were doing?
Yeah, I would say I had a constant battle with myself of like, all right, am I being too crazy here wanting to pay it off? Am I missing out on opportunities? And that's when I've really honestly, I listened to the values based Budgeting episode so many times over the summer because I really started to think about what I valued and what I would be spending my money on. Anyway, So there were a couple of times where, you know, my friends would go out to dinner, things would be expensive, and I would really be like, oh, if I wasn't paying off debt, I would go. But then at the same time, I don't like spending a ton of money going out, so it wasn't worth it. So I think all those hiccups was a lot of really good self reflection to debate if something was worth it, And you know, each month was a little bit inconsistent, but I think I really tried to focus on spending money on what I value and not necessarily sacrificing that to pay off debt, but be as intentional as possible.
Well done, Catherine, and how encouraging to hear what a benefit that values based spending episode was. Indeed, I normally think about listening to songs on redback financial episodes, but it really benefited you and allowed you to have freedom in some of that process of debt payoff, not just deprivation. You think it will be amazing to hear, but we're also curious about income for you. Can you tell us a bit about what your income was during the debt payoff, if it increased at all, what did that look like?
Yeah, so when I started paying off debt, I was at my full time job and that salary hasn't changed, so that's remained the same. And I would say about a month into that is when I continued with my second job. I wanted to give myself a month to make sure I could you get acclimated. So I work my forty hours a week of my salary job, and then I should have done this matter fourteen hours a week of my other jobs, so combined because other job is commissioned, it offages a little bit. It brings me up to somewhere between seventy five and eighty, which I'm really grateful for to be able to allow me to pay off the debt and then focus on retirement income. But it's been about the same since I started paying off debt.
Okay, cool, And so you did focus on some retirement while you paid off the debt.
Yeah. So with my full time paycheck, I was able to reroute the money going to my phara one K automatically, so I was like, all right, if I never see it, it'll be like I'm never losing it. So it just would go there. And then I did the same thing with roth iray payments. I would automatically take it out of my account. I found for me that was the best way to make sure I was focusing on retirement at the same time, because I think if I had to move it in myself, I would be like, all right, well, debt retirement. It would have been a lot harder of a decision. So automating that was really helpful for me.
That's so great, well done automating that investing for retirement while paying off debt. And now that you are debt, what's your next financial goal? What are you going to do with your finances now?
So I guess I have two answers there. So in terms of my next financial goal, I'm aiming to start saving up for a housing deposit, whether that be an apartment, a condo, something I think. As lovely as the housing market has been, I realized if I'm able to buy instead of rent, that's something I want to do, or at least be in a position where I can buy sooner rather than later. So that's definitely my next financial goal. And I talked a little bit about how I'm really trying to be more intentional spending. I think that's something I'm still trying to work on every day, especially getting into the holiday season. That temptations are real, So I think this would be a good time to really focus in on that not be I mean, I love shopping, I love a good deal, so I really want to make sure this holiday season I can like stay true to that and not get off.
Course, that's great, Catherine, that's like I love it to be doing as well as you're doing, I get is incredible. Yeah, taking advantages of the things that you are are being given and I can take advantage of this is amazing. So now that you have paid off this debt, you've achieved this goal, You've got your working on your next financial goal.
What words of wisdom?
What would you say to someone who is where you were when you started, when you had this epiphany of how much student loan debt you have and should I take out more? What should I dip in the sames like, what would you say to you at the beginning of this?
Yeah, so I guess I have kind of point. So first, when I think back to freshman year and I knew what I was getting into with loans, I really just didn't think about what the cost was because I knew everyone at student loans and that's just what you did. And I was like, I'll take it whatever, I'll pay them off for as long as I need to. And I wasn't as involved as I should have been in that process. So I would say to anyone in that position, whether it's for your undergrad or grad school, really think about the loan value, what it covers, if living on campus is really important to you, if there are ways you can save money that way, and then when it comes to the actual process of paying it off that the number really is the scariest part. Like if you had asked me two years ago if I would have paid off on my debt in like five months, I would have said you were absolutely crazy, Because I think once you really sit down and make a plan, of course, depending on your circumstances, that'll kind of dictate how long it takes and what you're comfortable with. But having that plan made this so much easier when I could really break down and see it, what was my disposable income, what am I comfortable putting away? Am I in a position to use some of my savings? And that really made it so much simpler because the number was just the most daunting part at first.
Such great advice, Catherine for anyone considering taking out student loan debts. Yeah, when you think back to that time, were there any things that you were not excited to give up or thought that you'd have to give up and it was just really gonna suck or what did that look like? Was there was there deprivation involved? Yeah?
I think the biggest thing was, I would say, prior to really focusing on debt, eating out and food or of course always one of the biggest expenses, especially throughout college, so I knew that that would be something I would have to really rain in and cut down. But I think on the flip side, I found other ways to have fun with that. So instead of going out as often as did with some of my friends, like they would come over and we would cook together, and it didn't always come out as good as when you go out to eat, but it was something that was really fun. So I think, and that's something I'm continuing now, is really trying to find ways of all. Right, so I like hanging out with friends, I don't want to spend money out, but if we cook together, we're achieving kind of the same outcome. So that worked out really well.
That's great. Yeah.
I think it is like the number. The seeing the number on the screen and thinking about the things that you'll have to give up to get rid of it is a big barrier for a lot of people to paying off debt, Like that was my story. That was the big thing that kept me from paying off debt for so long. But I think it kind of forces you into this creativity mode where you're trying to meet the same values the things that you value most in a more creative way, and so instead of depriving yourself, you're just trying to get creative. And I did bring some of that stuff with me, like past step payoffs. Some of it I left behind, but some of it, yeah, I did carry with me.
Yeah, exactly because I Even another example, there's my boyfriend and I love to travel, and I had never really been camping. He had introduced that to me, and that's been such a fun way for us to be able to like frugally travel. We love spending time in New Hampshire and for us it's not really realistic to spend a lot of money on hotels or motels, especially in the summer. Like camping is great because we get to be there and it's like twenty bucks a night to stay, which is awesome.
Oh good for you, Catherine. I'm a little bit more of an RV camper by south, I'm more of a however, summers in the North tent camping, Like I get it, that's the best of what you're going to get there. So you found a great way to travel and do fun things on a budget, which is amazing. But what's even more amazing is this accomplishment of off twenty seven thousand dollars of student loan done in just five months as a twenty two year old. This is unbelievable. I just want to give you opportunity to celebrate however you want to celebrate. What do you want to do, Catherine, to celebrate this debt payoff?
I did it.
I'matching you. Yeah, we did it.
That is amazing, Like it's crazy. I just saying it out loud that I paid it off.
Yeah. Congrats, Catherine. Thank you so much for sharing your story with us.
I hope that it inspires other listeners, other people in their twenties and beyond, to pay off their student loans sooner, no matter what situation they are, but especially if they're younger. If you're younger and have a lot of resources available to you that you may not have when you're older and.
You've got kids, and I feel inspired. I mean, goodness, she's done more with her debt payoff than we did.
That's funny to.
Yeah.
Yeah, but even just the way that you have chosen to make such good decisions with your finances, how that's now going to carry out throughout the rest of life. You've really set yourself up so well and we're so glad to have you hear share your debt payoff story, but also as a fellow Frugal Friends listener to be a small part of this journey finding your values and just crushing debts so quickly. Well done for celebrating you today, Catherine.
Yes, yeah, thank you so much for having me to let me kind of talk about this journey, and thank you for everything that you do. Honestly, your podcast was a huge reason that I was able to do this. I found you guys my junior year in college and that's really helped set me up for success. So really, thank you so much for everything that you do.
Yeah again, just like honored to play a small part in your story that our little podcast can provide inspiration to you.
So well done. You did it. You did it in the hard work, and that's on you, Catherine. Well done.
Good, Thank you so much.
Thank you guys for watching this debt free story. If you liked it, then please subscribe to the Frugal Friends podcast YouTube channel. Subscribe to the podcast and hit notifications on YouTube to be notified.
I get goosebumps when I hear like those are the debt free screams that we have or all the versions. Not everybody did a debt free scream, but the versions of debt free celebrations that everybody did for the series just all gave me goosebumps. So I love that we were able to share Catherine's story when she was so everyone had to go through a screening process before we interviewed them, and we kind of asked them just some like general questions and some questions that would be helpful, like what would you say to someone out there who's where you were before you started the journey. We asked everybody that, and Catherine's answer stuck with me. The most daunting part is the number. And when you really sit and break down your income and debt and start to make a plan, it's so much more manageable to wrap your head around. And it's so true. When we were writing the book, we talked a lot about dopamine and how shopping is a dopamine hit. It's one of the reasons we shop, but it's the actual anticipation of the shopping that provides a higher release of dopamine than the actual act of shopping, And it is always the anticipation of something that is either scarier or more enjoyable than the actual act of it. And I think about vacation leading up to vacation is so much more exciting and actually being on vacation, especially if you're on vacation with children.
That's not vacations going away.
Raising your children in another location, which probably some of you are doing right now. But like the most daunting part is thinking about the number or looking at your ninety day transaction inventory, anticipating what you will find. The anticipation of what you will find is always scarier than what it is when you actually sit down, break it down, make a plan, and wrap your head around.
Yeah, I think it can feel like pulling off a band aid a bit, and some people want to do it very quickly and others take more time to kind of build up and ease into it. But what we hear from everybody is that by the time they actually are able to look at it, there's much more relief. On the other end, there was so much more fear and concern leading up to looking at the numbers, and usually relief. There can come the frustration or feeling overwhelmed, certainly, but at least relief in knowing what it is that I'm dealing with and I can now make a plan rather than it just being scary. One of the things that stood out to me though, in this actual interview, was how she referenced values based spending. I don't think she used those words exactly, but talking about how self reflection helped her to debate whether or not something was worth spending on. And she before that was describing how she was spending so much money going out with friends and started to realize it wasn't even what she actually enjoyed. And I know you and I have talked about this a lot on the podcast related to values based spending. For you, specifically Jen with beer, like I would go out to breweries because it's where my friends were hanging out, and that can be an inexpensive hangout. A lot of breweries have games you can play and it's just and you can bring your kids, and so to get a beer and hang out with friends is inexpensive. But for you, you're like, I don't like beer, so it's not worth it at all. Even that, Well, you used to really get a beer for three bucks. Now it's like eight to twelve dollars. It's just not worth it.
Yeah, it's different stages though. So if your idea of hanging out is spending one hundred dollars to go out to dinner or one hundred dollars like ticket somewhere, then maybe jumping straight to inviting people to your home for a glass of wine from Aldi is not the next step. Maybe the next step is the brewery where you're getting five to eight dollars beers instead of you know, one hundred, one hundred and fifty dollars like tickets and meals. It can be a step down, right, It doesn't have to be straight from whatever you're doing to spending nothing.
Yeah, and there's also the ability to still hang out with friends, still show up Jepperry, Yes, but if you don't like the beer, you don't got to get the beer. But anyways, that was essentially her Catherine finding that this process of journeying to become debt free informed her more about her spending what she actually enjoyed, and that self reflection piece is something you never lose or once you build it, you can maintain it even beyond becoming debt free.
It's a mindset of curiosity. It is building that curiosity muscle to self reflect and debate if something is worth it to you, It can be worth it to you. Anything can be worth it to you. But if we don't create that habit and that mindset of self reflection, then everything is worth it. We don't have any parameters, we don't have any boundaries, and so then we kind of lose what is truly worth it.
Yeah, I think it's one of those gifts that can come. You don't anticipate what all a debt free journey is going to teach you, but all of us inevitably come out the other side with I never anticipated that I'd learned this, but here's what I still get to take with me kind of the gifts of what I thought was going to be super cumbersome, super overwhelming, and now here I am actually learning more and investing in myself in different ways and being creative. And there are silver linings to this whole journey, not just the debt freedom, but beyond that of what we can learn and take with us. So I appreciated Catherine kind of highlighting that, and then we asked her.
For another Yes, we got an update from Catherine. So here's what she says, since I paid off my debt in October twenty twenty two, I achieved one big financial goal that I discussed in the video, which was the purchase of a condo. My boyfriend and I purchased a condo in November twenty twenty three. He's also debt free and paid off his student loans shortly after graduating. Because we were both debt free, we were able to put income previously going towards debt to our housing deposit fund. We had a crazy experience with the competitive housing market and high interest rates, but we were able to finally get a condo our sixteenth offer near our families. Through this process, I learned so much about negotiating and the importance of knowing your comfort level.
This is exciting because she wrapped up saying when we asked what do you hope to do now that you've become debt free, it was I hope to save up for a down payment on a house. So it is a beautiful thing to be on this side and get the update that she did do it, And there you go. There's another gift you get to take with you after accomplishing debt freedom is that you can accomplish things, you can build upon that accomplishment and keep going. Like she was able to do this one thing, now she's able to say she's going to do this next thing and do it despite being up against some really crazy odds and difficulties.
I'm so glad for you.
Yeah, it's oh man, the housing markets. But yeah, when you are debt free and you have that lower debt to income ratio, then it can make the interest payments a little bit more manageable. And remember interest it will go down, it will don't quote me on that, please don't sue me, but like it ebbs and flows, right, so, and you can always refinance when it goes down. So if home ownership is something that is truly a value to you, doesn't have to to be, but if it is something that you value, then definitely getting in while the market is not as competitive, because when the market is competitive, it is traumatic. Sixteenth offer, Yeah, we experienced something very similar way past sixteen. But yeah, Catherine, I feel you. But congratulations girl, Yes, they're so excited.
We're still celebrating with you and celebrating all your subsequent accomplishments that you've had since then. Speaking of accomplishments, but not needing to wait at all.
There's no sixteen offers happening over here. It's one off.
First time accepted.
The bill of the week.
That's right, it's time for the best minute of your entire week. Maybe a baby was born and his name is William. Maybe you paid off your mortgage, Maybe your car died, and you're happy to not have to pay that bill anymore. Stuff bills, Buffalo bills, Bill Clinton.
This is the bill of the week.
Hi, Jen and Jill, this is Sean calling from Tennessee. My bill of the week is that I was inspired by your episode three eighty one, the six week roth Ira challenge to finally jump in and open a roth Ira in my husband's name and my name for twenty twenty three. And I wanted to say that I appreciate Jiel's vulnerability in talking about how you need to invest the funds once you put them in the roth Ira, because I could definitely see myself sort of dusting off my hands and walking away after opening them and not realizing that I actually needed to do that. So thank you so much for the show. And I'm hoping this bill of the Week is going to pay off in the long run.
I am shuck, I am so happy. I'm sough this episode is too much for you.
It's all I wanted when when I wrote that episode, I was like, if one person opens a roth Ira and puts money in it and gets that twenty twenty three deadline, if one person does it, this episode will be worth it.
Sean, you have made my day.
You Oh but not just her, her and her partner, which is amazing. Nice. Oh my gosh, this is too much. This is we were just celebrating.
You never know how something is gonna land when you when you've never done it before, and so I didn't know how that would land. But I am And we have heard from other people who contributed more to their twenty twenty three roth Ira. I maxed out our twenty twenty three rath Iras because of that challenge, because I felt convicted, not convicted, but like positively challenged by my own self imposed challenge.
Well, you're asking other people to do it, so it's only fair that you tried too.
And I definitely did not have the funds. It was not a smart idea I shouldn't have, but I had in the back of my head. Every dollar you put into that rath Ira, you can take back out penalty free. So if I do need it, I can have it within a week, but I can't put it in after the deadline.
Oh that's good.
That was my ration. That was that was my rationalization. And we've missed the twenty twenty three deadline has passed. That's okay, but we still have twenty twenty four. Yeah, And so if you are worried, put the money in, because you can take the only money that is tied to it with penalty is the growth. So if I put in a thousand and it grows to ony ten, I got to leave that ten in there till sixty five. But I can take that thousand back at any time penalty freeze. So know that you can always take it back out, but you can't always put it in.
To count towards the specific years you want. Sean, thank you so much for calling in and sharing this with us. This is very, very exciting, and I am so glad that my vulnerability helped you. If I can teach you how to avoid the mistakes that I've made, I am here for it.
I made that mistake too. I left money into in an Ira, rollover for a year uninvested. I mean, everybody's going to do everybody doesn't.
But you did it.
You did it all and here you are probably sean inspiring other people to do this as well.
Go up, Ira.
If you want to leave us a bill of the week, then visit Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash bill. Leave us your bill. We are excited to hear it. It may probably will make our day.
And now it's time for lighting around.
All right, So today's lightning round in the theme of values based spending. What is something you are not spending on this summer? So you can say for something bigger you go first?
Me?
Okay, so things? What am I not spending on this summer? So I think I've mentioned this before. I wanted to go on a cruise so badly with Travis and Kai and leave Atlass behind. I'm tired of him. He's spinning, he's over a year old. I mean, we need a break, he's so needy. But I decided not to do that this year, so that next year maybe we could go on a bigger like take a bigger vacation.
Next year with everybody, or still just with guy and Travis tbd, t BD.
See how mature Atlas is by then.
Yeah, he bites, So he's not the person you want to take on vacation. You don't want to take a bier a vacation.
No, you can't have a bite.
Like if your friend bites, they hulk out, scream indiscriminately, like whether they're happy sad board just like scream.
Dive off the top.
If they oh, if they do dive off the top bunk and you have to catch them by their shirt so they don't break their neck. That's not the friend you want to take on vacation.
You really did give birth to something very wild. Number two was like everything of you and Travis, all that pent up energy.
Yeah this came out and Atlas. Yeah he's amazing.
He's walking now and he's not just walking, he's running, climbing, tipping, falling, jumping, diving.
He's not jumping yet, but all of the above.
You got to save up for medical expenses.
Here's the thing. Part of the reason why we didn't take that cruise is because of the medical expenses incurred by Atlas. That's part of the reason.
So you're like, you got your fun, you got to visit the hospital.
So I can say for something bigger. Yeah, his medical expenses, that's my something bigger. Yeah, uh yeah, we'll see Jill oh Man. Trying to do.
Trying to do so much. I'm still in this phase of not traveling a bunch.
Now. I am going on a.
Trip back to pa where we're from, for a wedding, and we're going to have a staycation over my birthday. Yea, but those things are already paid for, Like we had already bought tickets back in the springtime, and I use points to book a local hotel for my birthday. So really I am not spending on travel or much activity throughout the summer. We're really just leaning into enjoying the season doing fun free things, probably going to go to the beach a ton and I would love to be able to take an international vacation, whether that's in the fall or winterenually just in the new year. But that's kind of any any extra dollars that I can put towards, that is what's happened.
You ain't going anywhere in December or January.
I know, I do know that I know, and why because we wrote a book.
We wrote a book and it's going to be available for pre order soon.
Yeah, so so soon. They did say this summer, so that could be any minute now. Yeah, we'll be sure to let you know.
That's the minute.
We know you will know.
We will be so shameless on this podcast on social media.
Yes, because we know. I mean, you've been asking for it all year and we've been dying to give it to you all year. So we can't wait.
That's gonna be so good. Yeah.
Well, we hope that you guys are considering what you value most and ways to get that either in low cost or no cost ways as much as possible, so that you can put more money towards the things that you truly love and value. Know that there's really fun things that you can do this summer, like continuing to tune in to these debt free stories to keep inspiring you through the summer. Anything else in our backlog that can help you through. Also our friend letter, please sign up for that. Also, thanks so much for listening. We love reading your kind reviews like this one. We love the short and sweet ones. This one comes from Harper one sixty six. It is five stars, says great encouragement. Being frugal can seem a lonely path. It's awesome to have frugal friends to make it fun and seem so achievable.
That's amazing.
I'm glad you Harper.
Yeah, it can feel lonely, especially that debt payoff journey. If you're in a debt payoff journey, call.
In, call it a bill of the week. Yeah, so you can feel not alone every time.
Each time you pay something off, whether it isn't just one part of your student loan or one credit card, call us call in. We'd love to hear more debt free celebrations in the bill of the week line. We would. It is a space for that. Even if you paid off your debt a long time ago, but you never got the opportunity to celebrate it by calling into any podcasts, We're your girls.
Call in here we are We're always looking for a reason to celebrate.
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Frugal Friends is produced by Eric Sirianni.
Jill.
Can you regale us with your story of can Kuon?
Oh jeez, yes, yes, so okay, it's just the first thing. Yeah, I'll I was able to get away Eric and I not just me for our anniversary, like a couple months ago, and I was able to put all of that on Points. I had signed up for a credit a new credit card, knowing that I was going to want to take a trip, so this was planned, so we pretty much paid for the whole thing, flights and the all inclusive and can kuon on Points. We show up to the resort and they're trying to tell us that we are not in the room that we had booked. The it's a big resort and they had a section that was adults only. The rest of the resort was open to miners and families and kids and all of that, but there was one section that was adults only that we had booked. Our confirmation set it, but the resort was saying that on their end it was coming up as just a standard junior suite and they're gonna put us in this other section with all the kids and the like water park that's right outside the door. With like all the screaming children. Kids are great, but I intentionally looked for an adults only, so that's why I booked this resort. And they're like, we're sorry, you're just in this other section. We're gonna we're giving you that room, and I was not going to have it. I'm like, there's a mistake somewhere that is not my mistake and I should not have to suffer because of that. The resort essentially wiped their hands clean of it. They're like, well, there's nothing we can do. This is how the reservation is coming through. You need to talk with the third party booking site, which I booked it again through the travel site of the credit card. So I called them and I stayed at the front desk of the resort. I'm like, I'm not going away. I'm not gonna make you think that I'm a problem. That's I'm going to say, right.
Right day, Rock, I'm going to annoy you. You cannot ignore me.
No matter which way we slice this, someone is going to get me in the room that I want.
To be in four hours later.
Like that little that means.
Hours later, yes, and that feels nice now, like oh yeah, yeah, four hours later. Yeah, imagine standing at a front desk in a location you're unfamiliar with, not knowing if you're going to get a room. For four hours on hold talking with I probably talked to eight different people on the phone.
I kept getting bounced around.
Anyhow, finally talked with a supervisor who ended up being able to book me in the type of room that I wanted and I didn't have to pay for it, so they they booked it under my name, no money had to come out of my pocket. I was reassigned to the room, and bonus, they actually upgraded me. The credit card travel company upgraded the room for my troubles, so we had a swim up room. And before I knew that he had upgraded me, I asked for travel credit for my troubles because now four hours of my vacation has been lost to this thing that was not my mistake. And he was like, we can give you one hundred dollars, and I'm like, I'm gonna I'm gonna want two hundred dollars because it's not just me, it's also my husband who's been impacted by this. So like one hundred for me, one hundred for him, and They're like, okay, we can do that. They're like, but mind you, we did also upgrade your room. I'm like, that's awesome. I didn't know that you did that, and I didn't ask for that, so I'm still gonna want the two hundred. So yeah, we got a room upgrade in the right section of the hotel, two hundred dollars travel credit, sitting and waiting for me in my credit card travel rewards center, and it ended up being a great vacation. I'm still sad to have lost that afternoon, but at the end of the day, if you would have asked me, will you pay four hours of your time for a swim up room and a two hundred dollars travel credit, I probably would have said, yeah.
You know, it is better than sitting through a timeshare. Yeah, sales spiel, Yeah you know it's better than that.
Yeah. I never would do that, but you're right. Yeah, yeah, So that was quite something. I'm so glad it worked out, because four hours in I was still facing the possibility of not getting to be placed in the part of the resort that I had booked. But the fact that it did work out was a beautiful thing, and we did have a really lovely three days enjoying that pool outside of our room.
Several takeaways. The first is that this was through the Capital one platform. You had a similar trouble through the Chase Travel platform and Chase was unwilling to do anything for you, so Capital one was more flexible. Another thing is to be careful when going through these travel sites. It's always much safer to go, especially if you're going with Chase. I probably will never book through their platform because they have a unreliable customer service when there's problem, and b they have so many travel partners that you can transfer points out to that you can just book straight through hotels and airlines.
Just know that sometimes your points won't go as far. I did make that mistake one time when I transferred Chase points over to I want to say, it was like Hilton or something, and as far as Chase's site went, those points should have covered a night in a room, but once they were in the Hilton or Marriott site, it was only half of what I needed through their platform for a room, so I had to buy extra points to book. So yeah, you can get bitten sometimes that way.
You do have to be aware of the brand or the airline and just the conversion, Yeah, do a conversion, do a a comparison and that, Yeah, you don't know if you don't ask.
Yeah.
Another thing that I am making mental note of for myself is they did offer that we could go take the room that they were offering us while we tried to figure out this issue of not being booked in the right room, and I said no, And I'm very glad that I did, because they feel like if I would have taken a room and I would have been out of their sight, and if the travel company would have known, yeah, I am somewhere, I'm in a room like then they might have been less likely to have helped me out. But the fact that I hadn't yet made it into the resort, and we couldn't eat or get anything to drink until we had the bracelets on, so I was not yet in a room, I wasn't able to kind of be pawned off off like you're fine, it's we don't need to do anything for you. So I'm glad that I didn't kind of let them move me someplace else and forget about me. I'm glad that I stayed and I kept of course some people aren't going to have it in them, and you're willing to just like take take the section in the kids screaming area, and that'd be fine too, But I was willing to fight.
Jill's a fighter.