DFS: How Megan Paid Off $20K of Debt in 6 Months

Published Jun 7, 2024, 7:00 AM

We don’t often give much credit to our teachers that they get paid less than what they deserve. Many of them are struggling to pay off ballooning debts and are forced to live paycheck to paycheck. In this episode, Jen and Jill are joined by Megan to share her debt free journey including creative strategies to save money and mindset shifts as a teacher. 

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Episode four thirteen, How Megan paid off twenty thousand dollars of debt in six months.

Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast, where you'll learn to save money, embrace simplicity, and liver a your life. Here your hosts Jen and Jill.

Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast and welcome to Debt Free Summer.

Oho. It's a debt free story and a debt free summer.

This begins our Debt Free Summer series. If you are trying to pay off debt or if you are inspired by debt free stories, you are going to want to tune in every week this summer because we have ten for you. These are interviews that originally aired on our YouTube channel about two years ago, a year and a half ago, and they we are replaying them on the podcas Cast with updates from our Debt Free Stories participants and some additional insight to ponder on if you are looking to become debt for yourself.

I love a good before and after, and here we are highlighting an after story of debt, of a debt payoff and then getting another after from them which is even better and also definitely listen to this episode. But if you want to get a glimpse of the video of it. It could be worth it to see what our backdrop used to look like.

We had these.

Streamersumers what do you call them? Shiny shot pinging. I was pregnant, so like, I don't know, you were sitting so far away from the mic because you couldn't breathe. Yeah, so if jen.

Sounds why to see what was going on in our lives at that period.

I was so deep, deep into renovations, which is why we were at your place because there wasn't anywhere to sit in our house.

And then we moved it over here when there wasn't anywhere to sit in my house.

But that's not what you came to this episode. Now you learn how you wanted to learn how. Megan, who spoiler alert, is an average income earning teacher at the time.

But not an average person.

No, she is exemplary no, and so she shared some really helpful, implementable tips on the ways that she cut expenses and found creative ways to save again as a teacher, paying off twenty thousand dollars of debt in six months. We're really excited to share her story with you.

But first, this episode is brought to you by counting to one hundred. I recently learned that Kai was one of only four students in his class that could count to one hundred. Wow, and he.

Is Mom loves money.

Because mom loves money.

You don't deal with money less than one hundred US.

YEP. I lost it. I lost it. I don't have anything written down for this one. I was really riffing and now and I have lost where I was going. If you don't want to lose where you're going, then sign up for the Friend Letter. We send it out three times a week Monday, Wednesday Friday. We've got tips for where to find free food, tips on how to save money where it really counts in the high impact areas, not those three dollars decisions. And then also help on your values based spending journey that's at Frugal Friends podcast dot com. Don't lose your way like I did.

Interrupted you.

So we have nine more of these episodes coming up after today. They're going to be coming out once a week. I believe this is airing on I believe they're Fridays that they are airing. Yes, every Friday through June and July. We are airing these episodes. So we are going to be talking all about debt freedom this summer because we think it's important. It's not the end all, be all, but it when you can pay off your debt, it is a huge weight lifted. And we also want to encourage you to call in with your Bill of the Weeks if you have paid off debt and you have not been able to celebrate it, like calling in to celebrate it on any podcasts, for instance, because you don't meet any like a certain criteria. We are a safe space for you to do that. We want you to call into the Bill of the week line and celebrate with us. So if you like debt payoff stories, check out episode four h five, which is actually my debt payoff journey, How I paid off seventy eight thousand dollars of debt in two years with my husband, and then episode two ninety five what to do if you have more debt than you make in a year. But let's get into Megan's story. She's sharing the mindset shifts and strategies she used to pay off twenty thousand dollars of debt as a teacher, with tips on cutting expenses and creative ways to say, let's do it.

We've got an amazing guest and fellow Frugal Friends podcast listener, Megan.

Megan, welcome. We're so glad to have you.

Awesome. I'm so excited too.

I tell everyone that I meet, like all of my debt payoff tips now and do you have you have to listen to the Frugal Friends You'll help you. So I'm so excited to finally share it.

Yeah, we are so honored to be a part of the tips that you share with everyone listening to the Frugal Friends podcast and just the small part of the journey that we've been that.

Thank you so much, and back to you. Tell us about yourself, where you're from, what's your life, sit you and just lay the groundwork for us.

Let us get to know you.

Right while. I live in South Florida and I teach third grade.

This is my twenty first year in the classroom.

So part of my debt payoff was why have i been teaching for twenty years eighteen at the time and I'm still paycheck to paycheck, Like where is my money going? Because it's happening, it's coming in.

So the teacher's salary, I think pays in it plays into this story as well. And yeah, I love things that have to do with frugality, simplicity and you know, less consumerism, less creating, less waste, and it all kind of ties together.

That's awesome. So was there any like epiphany or like event that happened that kind of led you to the realization that after eighteen years of teaching your living paycheck to paycheck. Yes.

So I did go through a divorce during that time, and you know, there are seasons of life that change, and I knew at that point things needed to go on a credit card and.

All of that.

But it was the end of twenty eighteen and I had joined a step bet where you pay into a group and then they give you a certain number of steps each day and as long as you make your step goal, you get that money back plus a portion of the pot. And a friend of mine was over. She was like maybe it was her second year of teaching. She worked with me, and she was like, I was like, I have to get my steps, but I'm not going to It's just forty bucks.

And she was like, no, get up, We're going it's forty dollars. And so I was like all right, well she's going to take me along. Let's go.

And we walked through the neighborhood and she started not not teaching me, but she started talking about this fire concept that she had learned about. And again second year of teaching, and she was taking on another job waitressing so that she could retire early. And I was like, that's incredible, and it just started to like click in my head. She's so young and she's doing this. Now where would I be if I had done something similar? And so that was like December, I think, and January I was like, this is it. This is my goal twenty nineteen. I am paying off my debt.

And I told myself, I'd I could do it in a year, but I'm really competitive and I ended up doing it in six months because I am really competitive. So yeah, yeah, so that's where it started.

It started there.

So powerful to hear, and I think highlights how important community is. I think we've experienced that, we've hear it from our listeners all the time, and similar for you, not only with physical exercise and other types of goals that we might be having in life, but.

Also with financial goals.

Just to hear what else might be possible to have others inspire and motivate us. It's such a powerful part of what got you started on this journey.

You know, I called her a lot in the beginning, and I would ask her like what does this mean? And she would explain it to me, or she would refer me to like nerd wallet, and I'd look it up myself, and you know, I was learning it, but it was just that inspiration. So from there, I just decided, I'm a paper and pencil girl, and I know my strengths as a teacher, so I needed to gamify everything because I'm competitive and I needed to be creative. So I just got a binder. I didn't want to buy a planner because that was part of my problem. Was I need this, I should buy it. So I got a binder and I filled it with regular loose leaf paper, and I put a plane paper for each month, and I just I just said, just track where your money's going. I would highlight and then like categories. I needed to see where that was. That was like two months of trying to cut down spending and see where my money was going. I knew that, you know, my career is not the type where you can go in say I've been rated highly effective for six years in a row, I'd like a raise, Like, it doesn't work that way, and I'm not at a spot where I was comfortable taking on a second job. So I figured out, Okay, if I can't make more money, I either need to stop spending it or like get better discounts, save more on what I am buying. And I think it was a combination of that. You know, I did the typical. I cut expenses. I didn't need to go get.

My nails done. I could do it myself.

You know.

We we like to go to concerts and things like that, we don't have to go to all of them, like we can.

Pick our favorites.

A huge thing was your Pantry Challenge episodes and websites or even on Alexa. You can ask her Alexa Alexa asks save the food if my celery is good, and she'll give you tips on the quality and like what's wrong with it? How to revive it? Is it still okay? So we cut down our food waste. We started getting really creative. I've always been like a leftover for lunch person, but we got really creative with turning a leftover into something brand new.

Oh, don't save this the end of the onion. Put it in the bag in the.

Freezer because I'm gonna make stock out of it in a week. So, you know, we did all of these little things like that to cut expenses in groceries. I stopped buying paper napkins. I know, it's like little I took on. I took on any tutoring job that I could. I cashed in all my coins, you know, all the coins that are sitting in the closet. I took more of an inventory of my bathroom toilet trees. I don't need to get another shampoo. I have two under the sink. This is a good price, but I don't need it. And once I started to make little extra payments with that money coming in, it was like it just went from there. It was like keep going, keep going. What else can I cut? I tried to do. I said gamifying, like you guys always recommend. I would make like a goal for the month, and it was like the first I think gin it was like ten days where I didn't spend anything.

So then in February it.

Was like just one more All I had to do was just one more day than the month before. Now, I tried for so many but it wasn't It wasn't like I felt any kind of failure.

It's like, Okay, you did it, can you do it again? But plus one?

Just like I said, the things that I would do with the kids to motivate them, like I had to do that for myself.

That's amazing. It's so crazy, like when you have this singular focused goal, it wakes you up to things that you could be doing that you kind of maybe always knew but never had a reason or motivation to do. And there's so so many opportunity it is just lying around that. Once you have this singular focused goal, you now have the motivation to actually take advantage of them.

Right when it's connected to something greater.

The debt payoffs is a reason to kind of just get a few percentage points better in all of these areas, Not one of them is.

Going to make you rich and wealthy, but that shift.

In mindset and thinking about how you're cooking that week or setting something aside to make chicken stock, and it becomes exciting and fun when it's connected to something more important, a goal you're trying to attain.

I had to completely tell myself, you're not allowed in Target anymore.

You can't go to Target because well so during my.

Divorce, that was an activity, go to Target and go up and down the aisles, or go to Tjmax and look what they have. But when I started selling those same things on Facebook marketplace because I needed to figure out a way to make money, you know, that's that's pretty telling. When you're like, I spent twenty five dollars on this and I'll take five just to get it, just to have the five back, that is something that changes the way you shop also.

Absolutely, So let's hear a little bit more about the debt. How much was it, How long did it take you to pay off? Give us some more of those details.

It was around nineteen thousand, and it was my car and the rest of my student loans, and like I said, twenty years or it was like eighteen years at the time of teaching, and I still was paying student loans because when the bill came, it was you pay the minimum because then I need the other money to go and you know, live life or shop. But that's not the case, Like you can live life and you can do these other things by putting more money, because then you have that freedom and you don't feel the stress of I'm.

Going to go to the mailbox and there's going to be a bill in there. You know, It's just it's just gone. It's incredible.

Yeah, oh my gosh. And six months down from how long did you think it would take you?

I told myself I could do it in a year. Actually I told my mom, I said, mark my words, a year from now, this will be gone.

And because I just kept hustling.

No, you know, my at that point, I had moved in with my now husband, so like the life situation had changed, and I know that that's important. I wasn't you know, I wasn't paying a mortgage payment at that time. But I hadn't been paying a mortgage payment either, so you know what I mean.

Like, yeah, so, wow, nineteen thousand dollars in six months, when you thought it was going to take you a year and you had life changes happening in the midst of that's some beneficial So I'm probably not some beneficial either way. It's quite an incredible payoff in just six months. In that debt payoff, were there any kind of lump sums that you utilized to pay that off. Did you sell anything large, did you use savings, any kind of big tackling that you implemented.

I mean I did go through like some of my jewelry that I didn't wear, and I sold back the gold.

But we're talking like one hundred dollars here and there.

There wasn't really anything that was a lumpsom.

I remembered. The other thing one of the tricks. We live next to.

A more wealthy, more affluent neighborhood, and their trash book trash night is Sunday. So I would take a drive around the lake on Sunday and see things that were easily sold on Facebook marketplace and clean them up, and I mean like with a rag, not like anything major, clean them off and post them for like ten dollars just for something.

And I did. I did, like keep track of this. I put it all into a free Google sheet. When I did it, I did it from paper, and then I the nerd, went to the Google sheets. But I wrote it in seven hundred and sixty nine dollars worth in a year of stuff that I sold on Facebook Marketplace that I either had in my house picked up for free, and it was like five and ten dollars items. So it My grandmother was a gambler, and she used to say a successful gambler.

If that's a thing she used to say. She just say any money is good money, even if it's not much money. And that's how I felt about that. Yes, I was giving this thing away for five dollars and I paid more, but it's five more than I have now. And when those when that number started to grow on my spreadsheet, like this is incredible. This could be my summer gig. I could just find things that people don't want and flip them. It's not my summer gig, but it's it's another way where I couldn't. I couldn't make more at my current job, So how else can I bring in money?

And that was just another way that's amazing, so creative. Yeah, So how much were you earning from your actual job? I assume since it was six months, it.

Was it was it was the same salary each time. Yeah, yeah, and how much was it? Around fifty thousand?

Yeah, So you're a teacher.

It's not like you're making massive amounts of income able to pay off this debt in a super short amount of time.

Yeah, you're making a really standard income and paying off this big debt in a really short amount of time. That's that's super cool.

It was definitely cutting expenses and you know, thinking like, well, we already don't pay that much. Well, I'm spending money on contacts every year, and I have glasses. So if I wore my glasses like half the time, my contacts now last for two years. You know, it was it was just being more aware. You know, you fall into this trap of like it's three dollars at Starbucks and it's a it's the dollar spot item and it's it's ten dollars over here or something.

At work.

I had to be very honest with coworkers. I'm not in a time right now where where I can pitch in money for gifts. I will wrap the gift, I will make cars, I will get I will do a plant, you know what I mean. Like I can participate in another way. I could bake something, but I can't give you the ten dollars that you need for the next gift.

And they respected that. You know, it was not harsh.

You just have to be upfront and people understand that because everybody wants to save their money. You just have to stand up for yourself and say I can't give this to you right now.

Wow. Yeah, that boundaries and self restraint, to be able to say no to people you love or like or see frequently. That is a lesson that is a byproduct, byproduct of you know, paying off debt that will transcend your bank account. There's so many lessons that we take for granted on this journey. We think it's just about getting to net zero or getting to see a number on a screen, But it is so much more about the lessons you pick up on the journey. And one that I have learned and I keep, and I think and we'll serve you for like far beyond what debt freedom will do to your bank account.

Yeah, I absolutely agree. Thank you, Thank you.

So what's coming up next now that you've paid off this debt? What's your next financial goal on the horizon.

We would like to pay off our mortgage, but right now that rate is steady. We we are in need of new windows and slider doors.

So we did get.

A company to come and they're coming and we are putting our money into a HI. I split my now that I have I get to keep the money most of the money coming in, I split my paycheck. I did a direct deposit into my regular credit union and to a high yield savings. I do have the card for that one, but we're not pulling from it because now it's at three point twenty five and I'm putting we're putting half half of every paycheck goes into that, and that's to pay for the windows. So they're gonna do the windows, I believe, like February or March, and we will. We know, we know because we've done it, we can have that money in. Aren't ready so when the windows are done, they say, here's your first payment, we can say, no, no, here's all of it. So that's our that's our current goal. Yeah, and it's it's still a reminder, it's still practice.

You know.

We have stickies on the bathroom mirror with the amounts. We cross it out and we write the new amount so that we see it every day, which we thought might cause anxiety but actually is very motivating for us. You know, we get excited about, you know, we should get the family together and like get a cabin somewhere, and we're like, after after the windows are done, that's the next thing we say.

For Wow, that is amazing how you're thinking ahead and stashing money aside. How do you think you would have felt about the need for new windows had you not paid off at how about have gone?

When he first showed us the amount after discounts, which there was a teacher discount to because it never hurts to ask, never hurts to ask, it was still the same feeling of where do you get that money from? You don't just like pull it out of the air. And then it was just maybe like an hour or two of us like stomaching that giant number and going wait, wait, we can do this, like we've done it, there's there's proof we've done it. We can do it again, you know. And I've got my husband on board. Like I said, I was. I was nervous that seeing the money amount each day would give him anxiety as well. But he saw me work so hard and really change how I am as a as a consumer. So he's on board and it's it's fun. Now it becomes the thing that we how.

Much how much did you get to put in today?

Oh?

Me too? Okay?

Cool?

But I don't think that I would have had that hope, you know, it would have just been. It would have just been in this state of dread, like, oh great, here's another thing.

How do I pay for that? I'm still paying off this like the negative snowball instead of a positive snowball.

Wow, a negative snowball instead of a positive one. That's a that's a really good way to look at it. It does debt. Freedom really does create. It eliminates those negative snowballs that we very much create for ourselves. So I want to know, what would you say to somebody who is where you were when you had this epiphany that you had been working eighteen years and still living paycheck to paycheck or maybe it's not even that severe, but they're just they have this desire to be where you are now, and they're an average income earner who you know doesn't have time for a side hustle. They don't think it's possible. What would you say to them?

I would tell them that even though they think they're not that they're not spending as much and they have cut expenses, there are things to still be cut. There are expenses that you still have. Sometimes it takes someone else to look at it too. I have offered for a friend of mine, like if you want to do that and write it down for a month. I will come over and highlight for you and help you, like sort them out categories. I would also, So I would I would say that you have to know where it's coming, where it's going, and there are things you can cut. And I would also tell them that the hint of using cash envelopes, having that cash in your hand and knowing that you're about to give it to someone else makes you stop and think thinking about that, you know, marketing company sitting around their office table like laughing, like haa she fell for our marketing.

Let's go, we're taking her money. It just makes you think.

So I would say, you know, write it down or use an app ork help really and be honest with yourself.

Just do it for a month. Be honest with yourself, write it down, see where your money's going, see what you can.

Cut, and try to use cash because it's so helpful, so concrete.

Those are some great tips. And you're a fantastic friend to have.

Yeah, right, willing to come. Oh here's how you can do this and let me help you.

That's me glad to have you as a frugal friend.

Yes, well we are now at that time for some fun celebration, and you know us, we like to keep it lucy goosey and really whatever's going to benefit you. Similar to how your debt free journey is not the same as everyone else's, probably the way you want to celebrate is not the same as everyone else.

So this is your time.

How do you want to celebrate this debt payoff of almost twenty thousand dollars and six months?

All right, I'm going to do one that we do in the classroom when someone has like a fantastic response to something and we want to like acknowledge like that's the that's what we're looking for.

We just do it like a go mee go Megan.

Y.

Yeah, exactly.

Thank you, Megan, Thank you so much for sharing your debt payoff story. I know that there are so many people in a similar situation that are going to find this really inspirational and really take to heart the tips, all the good tips that you shared.

Well done and inspiration for anyone watching to set a goal and then cut it in half.

Sometimes we double it. Either way, we can do it.

Yeah, there's anything that we can take away from Megan or other people's stories, it's the ability to do this thing, to pay it off, take the small steps, find friends and community around you to do it.

Yeah, and you know you can.

You can do it. It doesn't feel like it, but it's so much. It feels so much better when that's when that's gone. There's there's ways, you know, Like I said, I felt really trapped in the financial side of you know, you hear people say like, well, ask for a raise or it's time for a raise. Well, there's there's.

Not much I could do besides taking on a second job and tutoring was an okay thing, but I didn't want to learn a new skill or learn a cash register. I'm already exhausted from this job. So finding ways finding ways, And like I said, you two have been so helpful. Every time I listened to the podcast during the jet payoff, I would get this feeling of like.

I'm doing it right, I'm doing it.

Look how encouraging because you always felt like friends that I was like listening in on and it was like, Yep, I'm doing that, I'm doing it right, I'm doing a good job. And it was like providing me the feedback I needed to keep going. Yeah, there were other podcasts that offered kind of like tough love, and I'd listen to those when I was driving because it kept me from stopping at a store.

Uh.

There was some I would listen to when I was out, like taking a walk, and that was Those were more like motivating for the future, and yours was like reassuring and uh new ideas. So thank you so much for doing this because you're reaching so many people and you're you're giving them a better financial life.

Oh wow, thank you so much. Yeah, so many. Oh my gosh, thank you, Thank you so much, Megan. We're always honored to just play us like small small part in people's journeys. But like it was you who did all the heavy lifting.

You did it. You did it, Megan. Congratulations, do one.

More go, Megan. I love that.

Oh but's so great, all the different ways of celebrating.

I'm so glad that we got to hear that one again. I loved her, her shift, her realization and from like going to it's just forty bucks, you know, like and to somebody who's like, no, that's that's money, Like we I don't know the sunk foss, sunk sunk cost fallacy, like we hate losing forty dollars, but if we've already parted with it, then it's already gone and we don't feel it as harshly. And marketers will prey on that sort of thing, like by having people pre pay. It's like that girl math thing. If I've already prepaid, then when I do it it's free. Or when I don't fulfill my commitment, then I'm not really losing anything because I lost it a while ago. So to come to that realization and be like, no, your money is your money, whether it was then or now, and just having that like mindset shift.

I really resonate with the gamifying that payoff that was. That was what worked for me and Eric. It was so too whenever I could have any level of a chunk of money to throw towards it, not just every month I'm gonna put this amount, but wherever I could find it, however I could be creative in getting it.

That was what worked for us as well. So it's cool to hear her story and resonate with her.

Yes, and she has an update for us. The update is that because of the shift values based spending played in my life. This is Megan talking post step payoff. I was able to save an emergency fund that was right for me and leave teaching. I am still debt free, but that decision and hustle to make it happen allowed the freedom for me to change careers and change my happiness.

Wow.

That is so like when we talk about fulfilling work. So like the things that you value most are the things money can't buy, family, friends, faith fulfilling work. A lot of the times, it doesn't mean you have to decrease your income. What that means is that you are making the financial decisions that get you closer to work that you love, whether that is an increase or decrease in income. We don't think that you have to live in poverty to be frugal, and we don't you think you have to be super rich to be financially independent or financially secure. That richness comes from the freedom to decide. And Megan because one of the big reasons she was able to decide was she didn't have to worry about debt.

Yeah.

Yeah, for some they want a career out of teaching long term, and for others it's a great career for a time. But to be able to have the flexibility to shift is sometimes something that your chosen career path won't allow unless you are really intentional about it and can give yourself some of the freedom like debt freedom do for you. So I'm so thrilled to hear that update. I also like how she referenced in her update about an emergency fund that's right for her, because we do talk so often about what's the right amount of money, and it is so true that it depends. Some people want to save their have their deductible medical deductible set aside. Others want three months worth of living expenses, others want six. And what living expenses mean to you is drastically different. And what are you going to want to be paying for or not paying for if.

You are out of work.

So it's cool to see that even that has resonated with her, that she's found what works for her, was able to leave a job. So many crazy things have happened in the last two years, and I'm so thrilled to be here.

You know, what hasn't changed in the past.

Two years or six years.

Hasn't changed in the past six years. Every episode, without fail, even when we had to call our friends in the early days and get them to participate because we didn't have enough.

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 Williams. Maybe you paid off your mortgage. Maybe your car died and you're happy to not have to pay that bill anymore. That bills, Buffalo bills, Bill Claron, this is the bill of the week.

Hi, Jen and Joe. I want to say my bill of the week and several months is you. Because of you, I started to realize how much I spent every month, started to eat at home more, which my body loves it, and called the car insurance to lower the rate. I've found that our state could help with the health insurance. I read more about the roth Ira and opened up a savings account for the future. Thank you so much for everything you two. I really really appreciate it.

Thank you.

Stop it.

We can't. We can't. It's us. We are a bill.

Oh my god, a bill.

Hire.

So many things to unpack on this, like a like you're eating it home more and your body loves it.

Yeah.

Cool.

We could minimize so much talk about like the diet culture, the fitness industry, the healthy food industry. If we just talked more about eating at home, regardless of the food that it is, just that it's eating at home, it's ten times healthier. You called your car insurance and got that rate lowered.

You open a wroth, I ra your future better health insurance. You've put in the work. I'm so glad that we're your bill. However, you put in the work.

Like beating so hard. I am so happy.

We've had a wild day so far, and this is just putting us both over the tops. Our eyes are wet, we have wet eyes.

Yeah it could. I mean, I'm just gonna throw like out. It's also that time of the month for me. But also I am my eyes are moist. I'm so sorry.

This is beautiful. It's so beautiful. Thank you for your for sharing your bill with us. And we're so glad to be a part of the journey and to be a help and a support. If you all are listening, and if if we're none of those things to you, but you just have a bill to.

Share, that'd be great. We love to hear it.

Frugal Friends podcast dot com, slash bill leave it for us, make us cry and now it's time for.

The round shoo. Shoot, oh, I'm still recovering. I know, I'm still recovering that bill was. We're gonna have to put that on replay for ourselves.

It is like some days we it's tough, like we split a salary, like Jill and I behalf of a salary doing this job, and so clearly we're not that good at it. I guess maybe that's what that means.

But this is the vulnerability around where we say we're not that good at our jobs.

We're really good at our jobs. We're not like good at like getting people to give us money. But that I mean, it's every time we hear stuff like that where it's like that's awesome because it's thank god we know how to values base spend and it does feel like deprivation yourself.

I would rather be sitting here with you with these hot pink pop filters.

That's not what they're called wind screens.

Wind screens. We call them pop filters.

For a long long time, Eric let us call them that.

His fault because we looked like losers in the podcast community call them pop filter.

Nobody in the podcasting community knows audio.

Nobody carried us.

Anyway, what's the most creative thing you've done, Jen to lower your expenses?

I would like to call back, and only because we just recently talked about this. I don't know if I was with you or somebody else. Oh well, I think it was with someone else. But you had a similar story that Travis once spent six hours on the phone with T Mobile to get like two free iPhones and to lower our bill. And six I mean for the amount iPhones alone, that's worth six hours of work, So it was time well spent. But it was also I think maybe crazy. I think it was the craziest thing we've ever done to lower our expensive Oh.

Yeah, Sometimes you have to be willing to put in time in order to get back some version of a monetary value or money savings.

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean the most obvious one for me is living in an RV and house sitting. I think hacking housing has been the biggest impact and some of the most creative I guess, but I also will do just random creative stuff. I can't even keep track, but this is making me think. Our background right now, so again referencing our YouTube video, we were at Gen's place and we put up a little studio at the time time to film those videos. But now our studio is at my house, Jill's house, and we put our backdrop on this, like we have a Neon sign, which that was a good investment, but when building out the studio, we wanted to save as much money as possible. So the sound panels that we have, so if you've watched us or seen us on Instagram or anything recently, you'll see like our updated studio. We so Eric and I we got I got fabric on clearance.

This is is this velvet? What is this?

What is it? Is it real velvet? But I don't think it's real velvet.

But it's gorgeous.

Yeah, it feels really nice.

So nice and Eric built them out and we did that together. I think you were still on maternity leave. But the round piece that our frugal friends Neon sign is on now is our old coffee table.

And just now realizing this, but I not told you that before. Now, I mean, I know you made it, but like I didn't realize what. Yeah, the circle was.

So we had gotten a new couch off at like a discount place where I negotiated for cash and the warehouse in the back room, didn't know where it was, and I didn't have room for the coffee table anymore. And plus the new couch was like a recliner, so we didn't even really need a coffee table. But I was like, that could be the background. I'd love to have a circular background. And by the way, that coffee table was made by us. We had gotten it and clearance at like loser home depot because it was fractured and like, I don't know, there was parts of it missing.

I'm somehow, yeah, and.

Discos, so we and then I had like stained it and I found legs at a yard sale that we put on it, and it was our coffee table for years.

And then now we took the legs off.

I actually sold the legs because they were like mid century legs on Facebook marketplace for like twenty bucks. And then we made the backdrop for the Neon sign out of our old coffee table. Yeah, And and I had no mind you still had a coffee table that it's been so long that no, yeah, no, this is the coffee the coffee tables on the wall now and the smushy stuff on it is from an old bed.

What do they call those mattress pads?

It was a mattress pad that I had for forever that I didn't like anymore, but I didn't want to get rid of it, so I cut up the mattress pad to use a sound deadening.

I guess I was so I was nurturing a newborn when this all happened. So that's why I missed. I miss a lot of things. No, it's totally hard. I missed all of twenty nineteen.

Yeah, I got no money to build out this little frugal friend studio and it's beautiful.

We repurposed things.

Yeah, that makes me.

There you go, there's some creative before you remember.

Also, Travis last night came home with six trash bags full of used toys that he bought for twenty dollars.

No, Travis, Yeah, but no one needs stress bags of toys.

But for Kay's birthday is in three weeks.

Yeah, and so you're digging through and finding the best thing.

Yes, and that's what that's what we're going to give him for his birthday.

What are you going to do with the rest of the six and a half bags of toys?

So some of them were going to save for Christmas, okay, and then some of it we're going to maybe like just post for free on Facebook Marketplace.

That's cool.

Yeah, hey, but it's twenty dollars. Like you can't get two Lego sets for twenty.

Dollars, So there Legos in there.

I don't know if there's Legos, but there's definitely Mario Pop Patrol, Ryan's World. There's some things for the baby.

I mean, if I ever had kids, I feel like yard sales, Facebook, Marketplace.

Marketplaces all I atle do gold Yeah, because all they want is new stuff. They don't realize that it's not like brand new, like they just want it new to them.

Yeah. So yeah, kids are dumb. I'm on hens.

Thanks for listening.

Leave us your review.

Truly, thanks for listening, and we do love your kind reviews. And most of your children are very very smart, just like.

We love. Especially.

This review from Ari eleven eighty eight said amazingly fun and informative five stars. This podcast is a treasure trove of information and insights on so many aspects of living frugally, and it's delivered in a very fun and engaging way. Jen and Jill are great to listen to and speak about the topics in a relatable and inclusive way, which is always refreshing. This is one of my favorite podcasts.

Ari. Yeah, that's amazing, Thank you.

Ari.

I also want to give a little call to action here because we are so close to reaching eleven eleven thousand, thousand reviews, close to a thousand. That's benchmark on Apple podcasts is one thousand reviews. Obviously we love more than that. I'm shocked we don't have that many yet. We've been at this for six years. But again, we're not.

That great of our jobs.

Yeah, but if you're if you're looking for a call to action, something to do instead of spend money on your debt pay off journey.

Please leave us a kind review.

Here's somebody helped us for titles not good at their jobs five stars, five stars. They never asked me to buy their online course by stars five stars. The Taco Bell of podcasts. That one's already been used, but it's way back in the archives, so it could use a refresh. I heard a reel the other day that said taco bells like a thrift store. They just keep reusing the same products over and over, like inventing them. So like that could be part of your review or your favorite fast food restaurant. Carabas, the Carabas of podcasts would all so accept the hot dog of podcasts, like, yes, hot dogs, any of those gum gum.

It's like chewing gum all day, you never get bored.

So proud of Jill for as much as she loves chewing gum, she never choos gum while recording.

My kids are smarter than your kids five.

Stars, five stars. Yes, you can definitely say that about my children. So any of those ideas. Those are just some things to jog your creativity. But go wild and five stars, Thank you, See you next time. Google Friends is produced by Eric Sirianni.

We're going to get ourselves the opposite of with he.

I mean, I love seeing like five star reviews that just like I don't know, I don't want negative reviews left even if they are five stars, but just like satirical reviews because you know it's the host that was like in on it with them, like you know there's an inside joke, yeap.

What bums me out the most is when you know someone meant to leave five stars because the review is glowing, but they accidentally pressed one star. And that hurts us more. That hurts than the other version, like leave us five stars and then say what you want to say about.

It, trash, throw us under the bus, Like it's fine as long as just leave us five stars.

Let us keep doing this job that we both make half an income doing.

That we love doing. And if you know how to make money, then come at us. We'd also love to know.

That that's weak. Two It okay,

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