The burden of debt may seem endless and enduring, leaving one feeling behind when starting their own debt-free journey. In this episode, Jen and Jill are joined by Tina to share her inspiring 15-year debt-free journey, including creative strategies, benefits, and mindset shifts to overcome being in debt.
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Episode four nineteen, How Tina overcame setbacks to pay off one hundred and seventy five thousand dollars of debt.
Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast, where you'll learn to save money, embrace simplicity, and liver life. Here your hosts Jen and Jill.
Welcome to Frugal Friends podcast.
I'm Jen, this is Jill, and this is debt Free Sorry Summer. Yes, welcome If you have been along with us this month, we have been sharing debt free stories every week from listeners just like you who want to celebrate their debt freedom and share their story to encourage other people paying off any type of debt on any timeline, with any lifestyle.
Of ranging in ages, Yes, and family, makeup. Yes, So all the things.
Today, specifically Tina. If you feel like maybe you're behind in starting your debt payoff or your age, you feel like you're maybe a little too old to get on this train, or you know you're beating yourself up for not doing this when you're younger, stop it. You're gonna love Tina's story and it's going to be so inspiring to you. And even if you're not in that place, I really think that Tina's story of paying off debt over fifteen years is much more realistic than a lot of the stories you're going to hear and read in some of these more sensational publications.
Yeah, this is my favorite. It's my favorite kind of summer. I love people's real life stories, the tips that we can learn from one another. Beyond what you are going to hear from experts who might have done it and built an entire platform on it. These are people who just did it. They didn't necessarily then become social media influencers out of it, And there's so many nuggets to learn from it and inspirational stories.
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Yeah, this is another one that we've heard so much feedback from people saying I did it, and I was one of those people. I was contributing to that one point six five trillion dollars that is left behind.
Yeah, Capitalized did not pay for this ad. We do get a you know, commission if you do use Capitalize, But we really just believe in having control over your money and that's why we talk about them so much. And we also talk about debt freedom so much because while not a deal breaker with your financial security and your financial success, despite what some people will say, debt freedom does create not just a financial freedom, but a freedom in mental and emotional.
Weight.
So we we love debt freedom in whatever capacity is right for you and if you if that is something you're pursuing. That's why we did this debt Free Stories series on YouTube a year and a half ago. So if you want to see the video, I'm super pregnant for some of those videos. We have this these pink streamers behind us, which are were They were such a choice.
Obnoxious and beautiful and.
Uh so we quickly took them down, but their remnants are still there. But yeah, so we're replaying. We'll have an update from Tina at the end of the episode, but let's get into it.
And we have a really great inspirational story, but real life experience for you, talking about another debt free journey. This one comes from Tina, and let's get into it.
Yes, Tina, thank you so much for joining us and giving us the opportunity to share your story.
Thanks Jen, I'm excited to be here.
So tell us a little bit about you, Tina. Who are you? What should we know?
So? I am a high school guidance counselor. I have been doing that for twenty eight years and I'm also a part time financial coach that I have been doing for about eight years, a single and I have a fur baby, a cat. So yeah, I'm really passionate. I'm very lucky that I have two jobs that I really really love helping two different sets of people. Awesome.
So what kind of inspired the financial coaching part of your life?
My story? I guess of trying to get out of debt and you know, just being so done with that rollercoaster of I call it the credit card roulette, and you know, just kind of having credit cards and using credit cards to pay off other credit cards, and just feeling completely overwhelmed with it and stressed out and not really having anybody to talk to about it, and feeling embarrassed and ashamed. And I just didn't want to be in debt anymore, you know, back in the two thousand and seven eight crisis that we went through, and so many people lost their homes and they lost so much, and I just wanted to be able to be a safe haven. And I knew I couldn't do that if I had my own debt, So I buckled down and just decided to make it my mission to become debt free and when I finally did it, I was like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. It's so freeing to not be a slave to that debt. And so then I decided I'm going to try to help other people, you know, are that are feeling that shame and embarrassment and the loneness that I used to feel, and help them know. If I can do it as a recovering chapaholic, then anybody can do it. It's not easy, and I tell people it's not easy, but it can be done.
Yeah, So can you describe a little bit more about your debt? How much was it, what was it comprised of? How long did it did it take you to pay it off?
So, you know, like most people, my debt revolved. So you know, I'd get I'd pay off some debt, and then I'd add more, and then I'd pay it off and then I'd add more. So it evolved. I think at the highest point it was probably over one hundred and seventy five thousand when I first started, you know, kind of paying off my debt and kind of debts snowballing it so to speak. I was probably making around forty thousand in my position. This was back probably about ten years ago when I finally got really serious about it and I still had fun, you know, I really it still took me a few years before I really really got serious about it and started doing some different strategies to make it go faster, because I just started getting at the point where I was like, this isn't going fast enough. I want to be out of debt now, you know, And then it would get frustrating because it just wasn't happening fast enough. So I started doing some different kinds of things that would help me make it go faster.
Yeah, So I know you included your mortgage in that number. So what was your just consumer debt that you paid off?
So mortgage debt was initially just over one hundred thousand, and then student loan debt was about thirty thousand. Like I said, I had around twenty to twenty five thousand dollars in credit card debt, and then my auto loans were usually around forty thousand because I always liked to buy brand new.
Is that something that you've kept or you've changed related to needing a new car.
Well, honestly, my vehicle i've had, it's a two thousand and nine. So I have had it for thirteen years. Yeah, so I haven't had to make that decision yet, and I have been saving to hopefully be able to pay cash for my next one in the next year or two. Awesome.
So how long did it take you to pay off your non mortgage debt and then how long did it take you to pay off everything in total?
It took me about ten years to pay off the non mortgage debt and then another five years to pay off my mortgage.
Oh that's such a refreshing and realistic time frame to hear about. What was the propelling factor for you that led you to pay off all of your debt. I know a lot of people will pay off consumer debt and kind of stop there and just keep making their mortgage payment. What was it that led you to decide to pay it all off?
I just didn't want to be I just didn't want to be in debt. I just wanted that, you know, to be debt free. You know, you know how some people just are like, I want to be a millionaire, or I want to do this. I wanted to be debt free, and I think part of it is I just wanted to be able to invest and save and give, and I didn't feel like I could do that when I had that debt hanging over my head because my money was going to it was going to creditors, and instead of going it to creditors, I wanted it to be able to go to charitable organizations that I was interested in. Oh that's so beautiful.
And you didn't go super hard. A lot of times when people want to be debt free, they will go super hard, but you really couldn't do that because you were paying this off for upwards of ten years, ten to fifteen years. So what what was your mindset? How did you go about having this debt free desire and pursuing that for ten fifteen years.
Yeah, I would say the last five years I was super super motivated, but the ten years prior to that, I still wanted to kind of spend. I must spend a holic. I tell people I'm a recovering shopaholic. I love spending money. So to see it just like sitting in a savings account, was always really hard for me. I mean, what good is money sitting in a savings account. It's made to be spent, and that's where a lot of my underlying problem came from. But I came to realize that there was a bigger picture with you know, being able to give and save and invest. So as I was slowly walking through my debt, my debt freedom you know, and spending money and you know, kind of like I said, you know, during that time, I bought a brand new, forty thousand dollars car, which had I been you know, really serious, I would have bought a used car. But I didn't, you know. But the last five years of that journey is when I was really focused. I only had my mortgage and that was the last thing. And I figured, you out, what it took me ten years to pay off everything else. I'm done. I'm gonna get the stinking mortgage paid off. And I know some people are like paying off a mortgage that hurts, you know, you don't get your when you file your taxes, you don't get your detections and stuff like that. But I didn't care. I just wanted to be done with it.
So yeah, that's so relatable for so many just that emotional weight of the mortgage. But what I'm hearing you say is that you can accomplish this without doing everything perfectly. Is that accurate?
Yes, you just have to be okay with it taking a little bit longer. And I was okay with that for a while.
I love that.
So let's talk a little bit about your income. I know you said you started at forty thousand, hopefully over ten fifteen years that increased. What were you making by the time you finished paying off your debt?
I was making around seventy five by the time I finally got debt free.
That's great. And how did you go about increasing your income over that span of time?
So at my at school system that I work at, well, one of the things that helped was I got my master's degree, and so in the school system, if you get your master's degree, you get an automatic bump and pay and then you get increment annual adjustments also primarily and then my coaching income also when I finally started doing that, but that was toward the end of the whole debt payment thing.
Nice and any inheritances, tax refunds, lump sums that helped you chip away at it faster.
Nice.
So good old fashioned hard work.
Wow. And it was it was honestly making intentional choices and choosing Okay, I am not going to spend my money on this vacation this year, or I don't need any more dink and clothes. I have enough clothes in my closet, you know. So it was just making some intentional choices and having a plan and saying, Okay, I want to have this amount paid off by the end of this year, and just you know what they call debt snowballing it and just putting any excess money I had toward that debt. And that was really hard sometimes.
Yes, So let's talk about the benefits that you've experienced from taking so long. I know a lot of people can pay debt off really quickly. You've got a really reasonable timeline fifteen years with the mortgage included, and we have to imagine that there's a lot of impact of what you developed in those fifteen years that you're now bringing into debt freedom. What would you say about that. What are some of the lessons that you learned in that journey that you're now carrying with you at this stage.
You know, I realized that I'm a strong woman. You know. It took a lot of strength to make that happen. And even in the times when I didn't think that I you know, I questioned myself. Other people around me questioned, you know, why I was wanting to be debt free and why that was so important to me. I stayed true to my goals and I still try to do that now. Is is create those goals and try to stay true to them.
Gosh?
What else? Consistency I think is another one. And patience, Oh my gosh, just staying patient and knowing that you know, you can have balance and just do things in your timing and it's okay, you're not doing anything to satisfy somebody else's timeline. You get to do it on your own terms.
Well, that kind of leads into my next question. What would you say to someone who is where you were fifteen twenty years ago, who considers themselves a chopoholic or just thinks spending money is fun and I don't think I can pursue this lifestyle because it's going to take me ten fifteen years and I don't want to stop having fun for that long.
What would you tell them? I would challenge them to figure out why spending is important to them. What is it that they get out of spending? Obviously most of us, of course, if we love spending. We get that endorphin excitement, you know, of spending money. But I know, for me, when I really sat down and took a hard look at why am I spending so much money? Why is that important to me? I was spending out of boredom. I was spending because I didn't have anything better to do. And I was spending because I wanted I wanted compliments from people. You know. I bought a brand new car because I wanted to people go, ooh ah, You've got such a great car. You know. I bought new outfits because I wanted people to compliment me on my outfits. I was bored on Saturday mornings, so I would just shop. Even if I didn't need anything, I would go and buy because it made me feel good. So I had to go and find other things that made me feel good that didn't involve spending money, like walking and reading. And finally, you know what, it was so interesting because once I started saving money, that became my excitement versus spending it. But that's so hard when you're in that spending mentality to think differently, and it's just a matter of, you know, kind of flipping that mindset switch. And really taking a look at why you spend and trying to figure out, you know, what is it that you really want? What are your goals and are you spending? Is your spending keeping you from attaining the true goals that you really want?
Oh, that is so helpful. If we give ourselves the space to establish some of these new patterns, we can relate differently, we can shift our mindset. For you, how long do you think it took to actually really embrace that mindset shift?
Honestly, it happened in about five minutes, because I walked into my closet one day and I went, I don't need any more clothes, I don't need anything else, And it was like that. That was the time that I went, I'm done and I started saving money for suspending it.
And how long how far along were you in your journey when you had that five minute realization?
Probably about halfway through.
I think that's people are going to find that so encouraging, Tina, because there's so much you know, people writing stories on the Internet and people sharing the stories on Instagram that are all like very big and flashy and sexy. But I think it'll be encouraging to people to know, like I did it in ten years, in fifteen years, you can do it at your own pace. It doesn't have to be something that.
People are going to write books about, Like you.
Can just do it. You can just do it.
And following that beautiful piece of encouragement, we are turning back to you, Tina, and we have come to the time of the show where you get to celebrate this amazing accomplishment. One hundred and seventy five thousand dollars of debt including your mortgage paid off in fifteen years starting at about forty thousand dollars a year to seventy five thousand dollars a year that you were earning. And here you are with this beautiful wisdom to share with people as a result of that journey. And so however you want to mark this time and celebrate, you go for it.
So I just want to say thank you for this opportunity, John, because I've been debt free for quite a long time now, but I never publicly expressed it and never got a chance to publicly do that. So you know, I'm so excited You're giving me the opportunity to do it, and I just want to say I'm dead break.
Your debt for.
I got free for several years, and it's so freeing and liberating, and I want all your listeners to experience the joy of being debt free.
I'm so glad we got to hear from Tina again because I think there are too many stories of people who've paid off so much debt seventy eight thousand dollars of debt in two years. It's just like unrealistic. It's I'm sick of hearing those stories.
I'm sick of it, sick. It's like I'm sired of it people. I mean, I'm glad for that, but it feels a lot more motivational and approachable and attainable when you hear the people who did it in very real life ways that yes, this is typically how long it would take somebody to pay off that amount of debt, and yet it's possible to stick with it. We can have these long journeys that take what seems like forever but worthwhile in the end.
And when she was talking about struggling with being a quote unquote shopaholic, and like, I think sometimes the words chopaholic or shopping addiction get thrown around, but I think that puts a lot of the onus on the person, when so much of overspending is not just from the person, but like this manufactured desire that marketing and advertising place on us.
They say, if.
You don't like who you are, you are you're right, but you can buy the solution, and I'm selling it. And so coming from kind of that place of just shopping to fill time or fill voids, and then realizing that the saving and becoming financially you know, responsible was so much more than anything that she could buy.
It seems like a natural outcome of debt payoff, and that journey that people go on is self discovery. Like if gratitude is one of the things that can lead to contentment, I think journeying through debt payoff can lead to understanding yourself better. Yeah, and and a greater understanding and ability to grasp this values based spending. Like Tina describes how she loved to shop, but through this process discovered that she actually also really loved to save, and the one thing eclipsed the other. I think we can sometimes surprise ourselves these things that feel so set in stone about who we are and how we live. If given an opportunity to try something new we might discover. Actually there's something deeper and more fulfilling than I never would have thought that I would have been capable of, But I gave myself an opportunity to try it. So even just pursuing debt freedom as a self discovery process could be worthwhile.
Absolutely, I really do think that. In addition, in no spend challenges, just the longer process of paying off debt does give you the space to re equaint yourself with yourself. Because when you love yourself and you love who you are, you naturally buy less because you're not buy buying things to improve things that don't need to be improved. You're not buying things to have a life that looks more like somebody else is whose life you think is better. Like when you love yourself, you love your life, and you are content with those things, you buy less. There's no sale that can save you as much money as loving yourself.
Yeah, and then it can give you opportunities to find new streams of income. If that's a part for some people. That is, for some people it isn't a part of their debt payoff journey. But where it is again, that's another piece of self discovery. You could build skill sets to find new career paths, kind of open up a world where you might have previously thought, ah, I'm just in this field. There's no real upper trajectory for me. This is what it's going to look like for the rest of my life. But to find new types of work that are enjoyable and maybe even remain in tact beyond debt freedom that then opens the doors to who else knows other financial goals, retirement beyond what you maybe would have thought possible. Yeah, I found so much.
A way for me to slow down. And at first, when you're transitioning from a lifestyle of maybe automatic consumption, I won't say like over consumption, but just like automatic consumption versus intentional consumption, doing side hustles and finding ways to make money was a really good way to transition from shopping to making money. So like, eventually there has to be you have to be able to sit with yourself and not do something, but in the inner rim before you can do that, then making money is a very good way to replace that impulse.
The best way to not spend money is to spend your time making money, and that's a long bumper sticker.
I've said that so many times. I no longer think it's the best way, but it is a really good way.
It may not be the most beneficial way, but it could it could be. It could be could.
Be a best the best way. If you're in a season of new transition, like we all, there's there's things that are going to be right for everyone in different seasons. The length of your season of side hustling will be.
Up to you.
Yeah, for me, it was only well, gosh, I want to say, it was only while we were paying off debt. But man, this renovation has felt like a side hustle, and it truly is, like I've had to look at it like it was a two year side hustle for us. That will not That is just not paying off immediately, but I know what the return on investment will be eventually.
But I gotta imagine that having gone through your debt payoff journey helped to equip you and build some of those resilience muscles for the next challenges that come in life. Because once you reach debt freedom, it's not nirvana. It's not you've done it and just sit back and relax. In some ways. It can then become more complicated to decide what do I now do with my money, But it's still worthwhile because it's going to build some of that stamina that's needed. And this is true also for Tina, who shared an update with us since this debt Free story initially aired on YouTube. She shares, I will be retiring early, age fifty five from my day job in June twenty twenty five as a high school counselor sidebar from Jen and Jill Woo. That's exciting. I have the option to do this because of becoming debt free and finally making good money decisions and managing it wisely. One of the things I'm hoping to do then is continue building my financial coaching business and help others create options for their future. Oh and I'm also working on another book. Oh wow, love that Sidebardina. So you're not you're not truly retiring, but you've got retirement. I mean it's yeah, from your day job. You've got that optionality because of becoming debt free. And while it might have felt to her like she was pursuing this a little bit later in life, it still is allowing her to retire early, which is wild to me. I love that flip of the coin absolutely.
You know what other flip of the coin that I like? We just go we're going straight through and then we we just give them a flip 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've paid off your more, maybe your card died and you're happy to not have to pay that bill anymore.
Duck bills, but flow bills. Bill Clinton, this is the bill of the week.
Hi Jen, Hi Jill, this is Emily. I've been on previously with the bill of the week saying that I'm not paying for trash service. Got my new home. Well, my bill of the week this week is the compost bin that I bought off a waycare that will allow me to continue not paying for trash compost my kitchen waist and I used a gift card someone gave me as a housewarm of gift, so I bought a tumbling composter and it cost me zero out of pocket to help me continue not paying for trash services. It's a compounding bill of the week. I hope you have a great day. Goodbye.
Yes, Emily, I talk about your Bill of the week occasionally when I talk about like ways we can get creative and ways we can connect with our neighbors and community to do things that are mutually beneficial and save money.
Yeah, we do remember that one. Yes, and I love this update. I love an update bill, and I love a stacks on stacks bill. And you composting, getting that compost bin for free, continuing to live this low waste life is amazing.
Composting is for everyone, even if you're not a gardener. It is difficult for compostable trash to compost in a landfill, right, So even if you do not garden or have anything to do with the compost, you can help reduced waste by composting what is compostable in your and.
Some cities will even give you free compost bins too, so it may not even need to cost you anything into it. Thank you, Emily for your update. We're so excited for you. If anyone listening has a bill that you want to share, if it's an update bill, if it's about getting things without spending any money, if it's about reducing waste, if it's about what life is like, as a bill visit Frugal friendspodcast dot com slash bill. We're ready for it and now it's time for nay round.
Shoo phooew All right, what became your alternative source of happiness or small pleasures while paying off your debt? I love I love this one.
Goldie asks us our questions for our lightning round.
Yes, and they are surprises for us. So my source of happiness is very much like in line. So when we talk about Massow's hierarchy of needs, and yes, our physical needs are food, water, shelter, right, But then society thinks that's all we need, that if those needs are being met, then you should not want anything else. But truly we do have internal needs for relationships and safety and self fulfillment, self esteem, self worth. Those are also internal needs that while without them we could still physically survive, but we will not thrive. And so I truly took that to heart and just prioritized a lot of time with friends. It was a season of my life before I had children, and so I could really invest in people, and it was such a great time in my life, and I almost I grieve it sometimes because now life is much busier much more tiresome even than we were. And I was so tired and miserable from like paying off debts so fast, I did not know true exhaustion and I but I did spend so much time with friends and that was truly that got me through. And then also starting my first blog and helping people learn what I had been learning over the past one to two years. That was also that gave me a sense of purpose, is that this wasn't all for nothing, This wasn't all for me, but I was using my experience to help somebody else that maybe in my situation. That gave me a sense of purpose. And it really helped me through the last year of debt payoff because a year in I was pretty miserable. I knew I had done it for a year and knew I had another year to go. I did not I did not want to do it, and and writing about it and post that online gave me a sense of purpose and it's probably probably why I do this podcast, wrote a book.
Yeah, sense of purpose.
So yeah, I'm super blessed to be able to find so much purpose in the job that pays and that pays my.
Bills, those creative things that we might think this is just for now, this is just to help me get through this time, have become the things that you still enjoy most even being debt free. And that's kind of what Tina was describing too, Like finding these new things then became the thing where you might have thought, I'm just blogging so I can feel accountable to get this done and out of the way, and it like became something because yeah, you were able to find purpose in it. So it's an interesting question because you know, alternative sources of happiness, these small happiness is, these little morsels to help you get through. But often that's what we're all looking for in life, whether or not we're paying off debt is where are the little pleasures? And how can we find contentment? And where is the purposeful things? And whatever we find in debt freedom most or in our debt payoff will most likely still be the things in debt freedom, yep, and we can just continue to build upon them. So Yeah, Similarly, time with friends for me, just discovering that we can hang out and it doesn't have to cost a lot of money, a lot of pot lucks or hanging with friends post dinner. I mean, we were the friends who everybody else had kids and they're at home because all parents are at home post seven pm, and we would just go to their houses. Kids are in bed, no one has to feed anybody, and we all get to hang out and spend no money together because kids are sleeping. I would also say that the side businesses that we started were it enjoyable for me because it was an outlet of some of the things that I enjoyed doing and then provided me a little bit of cash here and there. Nothing remarkable, but I redid some furniture, and I sold plants, and I sewed some things that I sold, and Eric and I started businesses together, so it was time together. It was the things I already enjoyed doing with my hands that I was then able to make some money off of. That provided me a lot through that time. It was both hobby and a little bit of extra cash I could throw towards debt, and then just finding fun ways to adventure. One of the randomest things that we did was helping on two separate occasions, two different elderly women moved to Florida. Like we helped load up the truck and drove the truck down and unload them, and in return, they put us up in a hotel for a couple of days in Florida to offer gratitude for helping them move down, because they couldn't have done it all on their own. We did that twice, and so in our payment payment journey, a vacation to Florida for free was very welcomed and very foreshadowing of our future lives here.
Yeah, who helped you move down?
You didn't, Leanna?
Yana did?
She did?
Uh huh. We have a very good friend who we had our We had one vehicle that towed a eight x twelve trailer behind it, and we fit all of our belongings into that rig, including Leanna. Thankfully she's only like five two and good. She wasn't in the crowd, she wasn't in the trailer. She was in the vehicle and she was able to just take up one small seat with our pillows and clothing crushing in on her during the two day drive down here, and then stayed for like a full week helping us paint and clean.
This girl painted.
Yeah, yes she did. She painted. That was all she did. And we did not feed her, and that's my mistake. We just were constantly forgetting to eat. We bring you down here, we star with you. She's had plenty of times. Were you coming back for a visit and we did feed her?
Then?
Yeah, and then you guys were here. I think the first night we crashed at your place before closing. It was a whole sweaty mess of in August that I do try to forget sometimes. But and then we actually did a sorry, this is getting long time lapse video of Travis and Eric unloading the trailer. Oh, I gotta find that. That is a very fun time lapse.
Yeah, we'll have to try and post that on social media. That was such a fun season twenty twenty, right am I right here?
What the sweaty weird year. Thank you everybody for listening, and thank you so much for leaving your reviews. You all are continuing to leave us reviews, which we appreciate, and we're still aiming at that one thousand review mark on Apple Podcasts.
So we are so close.
We're so I think we need like sixty more reviews, maybe eighty. We're close even.
I think I feel like we need eight more reviews in please be the one.
Like Stella, she was one of the ones Stella dot VZ, who said, a breath of fresh air when you're drowning in consumer culture. Five stars. This podcast is great for deprogramming yourself from consumer culture and the clickmaity extreme minimalism shick. It has also helped me to work through a lot of my shame, guilt fear around spending and finances that have kept me paralyzed. They sort of take the gentle parenting approach to personal finance and I'm here for it. They are unpretentious, practical fundelis in to and keep me motivated to stick to my values and longer term goals. I have been a listener for too long. But the variation, oh, I haven't been a listener for too long with my values and longer term goals, I haven't been. It doesn't repeat no okay variation on topics so far feels just right. With a mix of pure financial advice, lifestyle and personal growth material tips and tricks, as well as the occasional true crime content. Oh i'mg the romance scams. Thank you so much, Jen and Chill.
Wow, Stella, you have encapsulated everything I want to hear about our show in one review, and I am elated.
Your review does not have to be long. It can be short. It can take you less than a minute. But boy, stella, are we over the moon about what you've said and feel like you get it?
You're the true one, were mysterious. This is exactly what we're going for, and this is going to help people determine if Frugal Friends is the right show for them because we're a very niche show. We don't talk about a swath of topics. We're not financial news. There are a lot of podcasts that do that really well, and we are not one of them.
We tell debt free stories from real people. So and I know.
Content. Frugal Friends is my dream podcast. We have created my.
Dream, made our own dreams come true.
Thank you for acknowledging that.
And if you want to make our next dream come true of getting two one thousand reviews, please please leave us a review wherever you're listening.
Reading a review Apple.
Sign up for the friend letter. While I'm already saying things that will help support us. Get the friend letter.
Thank you. We'll see you next time.
Yeah.
Frugal Friends is produced by Eric Sirianni. So we're about to have a marketing meeting for the book.
So I want to keep talking. Yeah, I want to stay here in this moment.
As soon as we stop recording, we are going to talk about all the podcasts that we should be on, all the newsletters that we should you know, do newsletter exchange, promotion with influencers that we should get to promote the book, all of these things. So if you're listening to this right now and you have a suggestion of hey, this person would be you know, you know perfect, you got your messages aligned perfectly, then now is the time too. If you're if you follow them on social you can leave a comment and tag like, oh my gosh, you should have Frugal Friends podcasts on your show. Or if you're on the newsletter, you can respond to their latest newsletter and like, hey, these girls have a book coming out and and your audience will love it. I love it. You should connect with them. That's a great I connect with your influencers, connect with your favorite podcast. If you connect with them first, that's incentive for them to promote us.
Because here's the thing. This book is our book. It's not your and my book, Jen, I mean it is, we wrote it, but it is our but it is the Frugal Friends Communities book, and we really want to sell this thing because we want to tell more publishers that this is the type of content that we want. We want what we is the embodiment of Stellar Viz's review to be. Yeah.
This the book will be available for presell very very soon. Yeah, and it will tell publishers if they should accepit more books like it. If it sells well, then we could have more values based, you know, conscious consumption type literature out in the world. If it does not sell well, then they're going to be publishing more finance bro investing real estate type stuff.
It tells them that this is what people.
Wanright, So we have we feel a responsibility to be on as many shows as possible, as many Instagram and TikTok accounts as possible, to be as many places as possible, so as many people as possible can get this message.
And be de influenced and.
B de influenced and tell publishers that the voices that come after us that have more to say on this topic are heard.
So we're all trailblazing here. So if you can help us, that'd be great.
And yeah, and we will definitely tell you how to help us for sure.