Being too focused on paying off debt can sometimes lead you to extremes. In this episode, Jen and Jill are joined by Jason to share his two-year journey in overcoming debt with his wifeโhow they did it, what they cut back on, how they got rid of extra belongings, and how they lived more intentionally.
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Episode four twenty one. This couple's crazy side hustles led to paying off sixty thousand dollars of debt in two years.
Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast, where you'll learn to save money, embrace simplicity, and liver your life. Here your hosts, Jen and Jill.
Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast.
My name is Jen, my name is Jill, and it's debt Free Summer.
We are coming to you with another episode of a listener just like you who paid off debt and decided to celebrate with us, to talk about it with us and celebrate it with us.
Yeah, we recorded these episodes really Debt Free Stories a couple of years ago, year and a half four the YouTube channel so you can see it. But now we're airing them because we love hearing debt payoff stories from normal people. We know you love it too, and why not have a debt free summer to encourage yourself along the way.
Yeah, and we're gonna We got updates from all our participants and we have more insight about their stories and their methods that we want to share after So, but first, this episode is brought to you by referrals You have something that you love and you want to share it with people, but you want to be rewarded for it. And that's why there are referrals. And we have something similar with a friend letter. It's a referral program and we just got brand new mugs program. For one friend to sign up for the friend letter and they actually do it. You get stickers. When you refer five friends, you get a grocery tote that says frugal not cheap. And when you refer to ten friends, that sign up and here's when they sign up. They have to click that confirmed subscription, so we know it's a real person that you've referred. You get a mug and it says frugal af It is so fun.
And my standard for a good mug is that all four of my fingers can fit into the handle. And it is one of those mugs.
It is one of those muggs. It's not like your standard. I got this mug, like this is a print on demand, like cheap mug. This is a beautiful mug. Like it's it's it's like partly dips so the bottom is like rough, Like let me.
Start you to on this mug. And the only way to get it is by referring ten people.
Cannot buy this mug. You must refer ten friends to sign up for the friend letter Frugal Friends podcast dot com. If you are not already getting the friend letter, but if you are at the bottom of every friend letter, we have a little section that tells you how close you are to each referral reward.
If these debt free stories and a debt free summer is exactly what you need, feel free to queue up other episodes like episode four nineteen where Tina sharing her story of paying off one hundred and seventy thousand dollars of debt. We've got Episode three point fifty six Frugal side Hustle Airbnb rooms and co hosting. Episode three twenty is another side hustle episode about bookkeeping. Episode three oh eight is another side hustle about virtual assistant being a virtual assistant. And all of this is because it's related to this episode where side hustles were the way that this couple paid off their debt, and so if it really inspires you to try and find ways to increase your income, not just cut expenses, then those are going to be the best ones to queue up.
After Yeah, you can actually head to Frugal friendspodcast dot com slash episodes and if you in the search box type in frugal side Hustle, then you'll see all of our frugal side hustles in that series. They are all They're all side hustles that you can make legitimate money by working on the side, but also potentially could grow into more, whether through skills you have accumulated, or it could just turn into a full time business. There's nothing in there like dog walking or delivering uber eats or anything like that. We were really intentional with the side hustles that we chose for this series, So definitely head to our website and search for the frugal side hustles because they are so so good. But Jason and his wife did a lot of side hustles and maybe you don't want to take it as extreme as them, but I think it's beneficial to hear their story and then kind of decide for yourself or maybe maybe be encouraged if that is something that you're doing.
Yeah, we're excited to get into this story. They paid off sixty thousand dollars in two years and how they did it. Some of the crazy ways of finding some extra money, what they cut, how they got rid of extra stuff and live more intentionally. So let's get into it, and we are so excited to share another debt free story with you from Jason. Jason, Welcome, Thanks so much for joining us today.
Thanks so much for having me, And I just hope that something that I say helps others learn something as they journey toward debt freedom.
Awesome, okay, Jason, So tell us a little bit about you, your family, and what life was like when you started your debt free journey.
Oh sure.
So currently I'm living in Atlanta, Georgia. I have a wife of ten years, and we have two young boys. We have a six year old and a two year old and one on the way, so we're about to have three boys actually, so our family's growing. So Actually for you, I actually have two debt free stories. So my first story was when I was single and I got married later in life. I got married when I was thirty six. So when I was single out of my own young twenties, you know, I didn't know anything about money. I didn't know anything about financial literacy or anything, and I got myself into.
A lot of credit card debt.
And to put into perspective, I had I had a mass thirteen five hundred dollars in credit card debt. Well, some people might not think that sounds like, well, that's not too bad, you know, that's manageable. But when I tell you I was making twenty three thousand dollars a year at my annual salary, that's a problem.
That's a big problem.
So what happened was I was just using the credit card for everything, every single purchase, groceries, gas, you know, clothes, entertain everything.
I just used the credit card.
And you know, you get behind, and you know, next thing, you know, those interest monthly interest rates, you know, start piling up. And I just kind of woke up one day and I realized that, you know, I'm not doing life right. This is something's wrong, Like this isn't you know, I shouldn't be living like this. So I just I started self educating myself. I started diving into you know, books and resources.
You know, websites, you know, podcasts like what you.
Guys do, and I and I went the first thing I remember doing was I went down to the local bookstore, and you know, that's when I kind of discovered Dave Ramsey's books, and you know, Clark Howard is another big one. And I started listening to the radio shows, and I started paying attention to, you know, anything money related, like so I just started you know, diving into all that and just trying to teach myself, like what can I do to you know, reverse this, like get out of this debt. Like So the first thing I did was I stopped using credit cards altogether because for me, I was like, there's no way I'm ever going to pay this off if I using it. So I stopped using the credit cards. Actually put those credit cards in the back of my sock drawer. I hit them for myself, and I eventually paid that off. I gave myself the goal of one year. I said, I want to pay this off on one year. So I actually fell short. I did it in thirteen months. So in thirteen months, I paid off that that all those credit card bills. And I haven't used a credit card since I haven't so that was over twenty years ago. So I have not used a credit card and over twenty years and I actually had a Discover card, but they actually canceled. They canceled on me because I never used it. So I actually called about it one day and I said, hey, you know, I was checking on this card, like, oh, we actually canceled your account. I said, oh you did.
What happened?
Did it get hacked or something? No, we canceled it for you know, non use. I said, Oh, I didn't even know you guys did that. They just canceled. They don't tell you. They don't send you a letter, they don't send you an email, just you know. I was like, thank god it and try to use that credit card. It was like an emergency or something. It was just no good and they just canceled it didn't tell me. So that was that was a pretty interesting phone conversation. But that's my first story. So that's when I was single.
So yeah, so what about the second story.
Yeah, my second story is is probably a little more entertaining for the audience. So so I got married a little bit later, So this is about probably ten years later after my first debt free journey.
I met my wife. We got married. So when I met my.
Wife, she actually had sixty thousand dollars a student loan debt when we got married, and then she also had like consumer credit. She had like credit cards, she had a car loan, she had you know, a lot of like the little old you know Cohle's target cards, you know, the department store cards. So she had a lot of debt and it was it told her up to around sixty grand of debt.
Wow, that's great. So what did you and your wife do to get started with paying off that sixty thousand dollars?
So what we did was I basically just I basically told her the story I just told you about. Hey, this is what happened to me. You know how I got out of debt. So we kind of like worked together and created a plan. And the first two years of our marriage we made major sacrifices. And we were only making a combined sixty thousand dollars total household income, and we paid off all of her debt in two years. So her goal she was twenty eight years old, and she made a very aggressive goal, I want to be debt free by my thirtieth birthday, and she was able to pull that off. Now, I will tell you we did a lot of We were very aggressive on trying to pay off this debt. We did a lot of crazy things. I thought at the time just to make extra money. So some of the things some might not sound crazy, but I'll tell you some of the craziest thing we did. So, you know, she was a nanny at the time, so she took extra nanny job, she took extra babysitting jobs, stuff like that to make extra money. You know, me, I started taking the old manual labor jobs, you know those side jobs like you know, helping people move, you know, stuff like that, you know where people just need little help, like with manual labor, you know, warehouse type stuff.
I did that. Of course, we saved.
Any you know, tax return money, any you know, Christmas birthday money, any any extra money we got, we just put it toward the debt. And then we started aggressively selling things online. eBay and Craigslist were the two big ones at the time that we were really successful with, just selling you know, anything and everything that we didn't need or didn't want, or you know, stuff that we would flip. We would do that and we did really really well with that. And then another thing we did was, of course, you know, along the same lines, we did a lot of garage sales.
We you know that that was kind.
Of tricky because I remember we scheduled so many yard sales and then it rained, so that that's the trick with the yard sale.
I was like, yeah, if.
We had an indoor venue for a for a garage sale, that would be ideal because then you don't have to worry about the weather. But another thing that we did that was really super successful was we started doing all these like like focus groups or you know they're called like marketing studies, focused studies, focus groups, and you know, it would just be something like, you know, hey, a taste test, like a food taste test. Come in and it's thirty minutes and you're testing food for a restaurant. And then they're gonna walk out there and they're gonna give you a check for whatever fifty one hundred bucks. Sometimes they pay them gift cards, but you know, the ones that pay them money are good. So we actually did over I want to stay over about two years. Like the both of us combined. We made eight thousand dollars to just that. So that was, you know, all this is extra money toward the debt. Now I'm going to tell you the craziest thing we did. When you look back, it was so stupid. So my wife had a pretty bad diet coke addiction, and she was drinking all these diet coke cans. And I saw these coke cans laying around the house and I was like, you know what, what have we started saving these cans? We just take it down the recycling center and they pay us, you know, for the you know, for the aluminum cans. So we started saving these cans and uh, you know, we were saving cans and taking big trash bags of cans down there. And we actually, I remember we went on a beach trip down to Florida and we walked around the beach, uh you know, when everyone had left. We walked around the beach just picking up cans, like because you know, people through the throw the tracks were picking up cans, putting saving cans. Everybody we saw a can, we picked up and save it. And I am embarrassed to say, I don't even know how many hours we did collecting cans, but we made about one hundred and twenty dollars doing this. It was that was the biggest waste of time. So I had no idea how little they would pay for aluminum cans. But but that just shows you how we were so laser focused on. We just hated debt, like we were so laser focused on getting out that debt. And when we when we first got married, the two This probably happens that anybody who gets married, the top two questions are going to be asked by all your family and friends sometimes before you've been getting married. Oh, when are you guys going to have kids? That's the first question. And then the other one is when are you guys going to buy a house? So those are the top two questions we just got inundated with, and we just got kind of annoyed with, and we would always fire back, not until we get out of debt. Not until we get out of debt. We're paying off our debt first, and then we can think about starting a family, we can think about you know, buying a house whatever. So that's what we did. You know, not everybody has.
That time window.
I understand that to to put off kids or put off you know, a major purchase. But we had that window of time and it really allowed us to pay off that debt, and you know, we it's changed our life. It's it's changed the trajectory of our financial future. And now we have young kids and we're teaching them, you know, basically, you know, all the mistakes that we made, we're trying to help them avoid those mistakes.
Now that you've got this perspective, having paid off the debt that you've paid off and being able to say, you know, some things were really great and lucrative and really helped us, but other things were just silly and a waste of time. So as you look back on kind of how you went about it, would you have changed anything?
Yeah, that's a really good question.
And now you know, I'm just thinking about and I've seen this not only myself, but others other friends as well, who've aggressively paid off like hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt versus you know, our sixty thousands. But what I would say is that kind of thinking looking back on it is is we were so aggressive and so laser focused, like you said, and then once you reach that goal of finally paying off that debt, you're kind of like you don't know what to do.
Net You're like, now, what, like what what do we do? Like? How you know what happens? Now? Like, well, now is the whole rest of your life ahead of you? Now? Now it.
Actually, what I'm trying to say is now it actually gets harder because now you have to stay out of debt. You've paid off the debt and you've worked your butt off for two years you or two years like me, or maybe you know, one, five years, whatever, whoever's whatever your story is. But then now it's like, Okay, I want to stay out of debt, so now how to what do I do?
So?
But you kind of have to take your foot off the gas pedal a little bit because you know you're going to burn yourself out. I guess, so I guess the answer is when I'm looking back, I would just say, maybe not have so much anxiety or panic over it, because if you have a plan in place, if you've created a budget, if you've created you know, goals for yourself and objectives, you know you're going to get through it. You know you're going to pay it off. And if it's you know, if your goal is one year and it ends up being two years, you know that's okay. It's not the end of the world, because life happens to all of us. And that's the biggest thing is, you know, the unexpected expenses are going to happen. So I would just say, you know, don't I guess, don't kill yourself trying to make an aggressive goal of getting out of debt, because once you do it, it's kind of like, you know, it's like it's almost like a letdown. I guess it's hard to describe, but it's kind of like, you.
Know, like, now what I call it the debt payoff hangover?
Yeah, hangover. That's a good word. Perfect, That's a good yes. Yes, that's that's the perfect word.
When you are so aggressively drunk on your goals and then you accomplish them, it's a hangover.
Yes, I would agree with that. So, yeah, that's kind of it's just kind of a weird. It's kind of a weird moment to be in, I guess because you're just kind of like, okay.
Now what Yes, okay. So let's talk a little bit about income. You said you started sixty thousand. You have that eight thousand from side hustles. Is there anything else you added to increase your income over those two years?
Yes?
So I'm glad you asked that because I forgot to mention that in my first debt free story was some of the extra things I did to make income. So so when I was single, some things I did to make extra money in addition to my then twenty three thousand dollars a year salary was I was living in a two bedroom condo by myself, so I actually rented out the other room to a friend, so I was charging him six hundred and fifty dollars a month, So that that's extra seventy eight hundred dollars a year in rental income that I made. And then at the time, I was working in the sports field, so I was actually picking up all these part time you know, maybe game game works situation. So I actually got a job with the Atlanta Braves scoring their games and they paid me one hundred bucks of games, so I would work about forty games a year, So that's four thousand dollars extra a year. And then the other thing I did because I was fortunate to be in the sports world and I kind of, you know, kind of got I guess had access to sports executives I was. I started getting into the ticket flipping business and that this kind of goes back to the eBay stuff, so I would get access to like large sporting events. Now I never got Super Bowl tickets, but I did get in Atlanta. They've host did the NCAA Men's basketball Final Four. The Final Four, they've hosted in Atlanta several times, and two times I was actually able to buy tickets at face value and then I would just flip them. I'll just put them on eBay. And I remember the one of the biggest ones I did was I bought two booklets of tickets. So there's three games, so you get two tickets to all three games of the Final Four, and it was like two hundred and fifty bucks face value. I put them on eBay. I just put it in the auction format and they ended up selling for fifteen hundred dollars. So I remember that day vividly. I took that money and I walked, I walked. I had a Rooms to Go credit card because I just bought furniture from my house, and I just literally went to the bank and paid off that entire credit card, that Rooms to Go credit card, just by making that one sale. So that was a big day for me, getting that debt off my chest. So yeah, I did a lot of things like that just to kind of make extra money.
Oh that's really cool. As you look back and reflect, what were some of the significant things that you did to reduce expensive or save money. Was there anything that you cut that stands out.
That's a good question too.
I would say, you know, when I was single, you know, you you can live like a starving college student. It's it's it's so much different when you're single because you have complete autonomy. So when we were married that first those two years that we were paying off that debt, you know, we we sacrificed a lot. So we didn't go on vacations. We didn't you know, we really didn't go out to eat, maybe hardly at all, or at least nothing more than like you know, Chick fil a or like a faster We didn't go to any like real expensive sit down restaurants. So we made a lot of sacrifices like that, like that, you know, now we go on nice vacations because we can afford to do it. Like we took the kids to Disney World this year for the first time and paid cash for that. That's something we would have never you know, even thought about doing because that would have just put us into more debt at the time. So those are probably some of the bigger things. You know, we just you know, the grocery store. That's always a huge you know, battle you know, cutting the grocery bill. You know, we got into Coop we did that was nothing. We got into Coop Bonnie. And then you know, my wife got into the Ibata app, which is like a cash back app for for grocery buying as well. So we did stuff like that just to kind of cut down the bill as much as we could the expenses.
That's so interesting. Yeah, so it was a lot of small things. But from what I'm hearing in your story is that you didn't let your lifestyle inflate to the point where you felt like you needed to cut things. You kelpt it very modest while you were in debt, so that when you really went hard to pay it off, you didn't feel like there was a lot you needed to give up, uh, and then had the freedom once the debt was paid off to start building some of that lifestyle.
Right.
That's such a good point because I noticed this just from friends or observations I make. It's so it seems to be a lot harder for people to downsize right then, you know, to up because you're used to a certain lifestyle, like you said, and and you know for me, that wasn't the situation the case for me at all, So it was it really wasn't. Those changes weren't difficult for me personally to make. You know, I'm a very frugal person already. You know, people have called me every name in the book, you know, cheap, frugal, whatever. I like to use the word resourceful. But yeah, it was not difficult for me because we weren't you know, we weren't selling a house and going to a one bedroom condo, or we weren't selling you know, a fifty thousand dollars car and buying a five thousand dollars you know, used Honda cord. We didn't do anything like that because we weren't at that position in life yet. You know, I guess to have those more, I guess valuable possessions.
Yeah, it's interesting to see how different people can go about the debt payoff journey. It looks different for all of us. A lot of times we'll hear from people who are just starting out in their careers and maybe single, it can be easier to focus on increasing income to pay down the debt, whereas for families. A lot of times we'll hear it might be more advantageous to look at cutting expenses and reducing some of the various bills that have been accrued in order to focus on debt pay off. And of course we want to blend the two. We want both to be happening, but to be able to identify what's going to work best for you.
And I'll say real quick on that, you get to a point where I remember that when I was single, like you can only cut so much, Like, yeah, you can cut cable, Like, there's plenty of things that you can cut that you don't need, right, you do the needs versus wants analysis, you can cut. That was a point where I got really depressed and got really you know, I was like, Okay, I've cut everything that I can possibly cut, you know besides not eating. And then you know, I still didn't have extra money. Right, So then at that point, that's when you got to look to that, Hey what can I do to earn extra income? Can I pick up a part time job? Can I do know all the things that I just mentioned. That's when you start, hey, how can I you know, boost my income. That's that's when you get to that point.
Yeah, So what would you say with this wisdom that you've gained to somebody who is starting out on the journey, whether they're they're just starting out in their career or maybe they're single hoping to get married and pay off debt with a spouse. What would you say to someone that was in your position when you started.
I would say that, you know, for me, there's a famous quote in the Bible. I'm going to paraphrase it as something to the fact that when you are in debt, you were you were the slave to the lender. Like you're the borrower and you're the slave to the lender. So you never want to be in that position if you can avoid it. So I would just say, you know, do whatever you can to to avoid debt or minimize debt, do your due diligence. If you're making a big purchase a new car or a house or whatever it may be, you know, do you need you know, it goes back to the needs versus once. Do you need a five hundred thousand dollars house or can you be okay in.
A two hundred and fifty thousand dollars house.
You know what I'm saying, or do you really need a forty five thousand dollars car? Or can you get to work in a twenty thousand dollars car? And just the same.
So it kind of comes down to, you know, making.
Wise decisions and choices, and a lot of it's behavior modification as well, and it's kind of changing your mindset and that takes time. Like you don't just wake up and you flip a switch and your mindset's changed. That's something that has to be developed over time, you know that famous saying, you know it takes thirty days to develop a habit, do the same thing for thirty days, I think it is, and then you develop the.
Habit of it. So it's kind of like that.
It's like you each day you do one percent and then you know, after you know a couple of months, your mindset starts shifting, and then you start you start thinking, hmm, you know, you know, two months ago, I would have just made that impulse purchase. Now I'm you know, now I'm thinking about let me go sleep on that, let me let me think about that. Do I really need it? Can I find it somewhere for cheaper? You know, stuff like that. So so That's kind of what I would say is just you know, be mindful, be smart. You know, everyone hates to hear live on a budget. People hate people hate that word a budget. I can't do that, but you know most people have to live off of a budget, you know, to to to control their their spending and their expenses.
Yeah, some great realizations and some tips and pointers for others along this journey. And your journey is has come to an end twice. Why you've paid off that two different times.
Hopefully it's all gone.
And it sounds like you're never going back, and so let look to celebrate. How do you want to do that? What is your flavor of celebration today?
Okay, okay, we'll just do a little cheer. How about one, two three? We're debt free, thank you?
One two three dead days.
So yeah, we're we're truly you know, grateful, and we're you know, truly appreciative of you know, everybody who's helped us along the way. And I don't mean that people gave us money. I mean people that have you know, supported us and you know, not made fun of us, you know, because it was tough. Like there're people like you know, everyone's going out to dinner tonight. Well, you know, we'll see you tomorrow. You know, we can't make it. So you know, there's that's tough because there's social aspects of of say no to spending money. So but yeah, but that's cool. Yeah, that's that's awesome. Man, it's it's it's a good feeling. And you know, anybody can do this.
It's just a mindset I am. I'm so glad to hear that story again because it brings up I in so spoiler alert, like in when we were doing the interview and he talked about looking for change, like like on the beach, like using their vacation to find to make money. I cringed a little. I was like, I don't know if I want to share it. I don't know if this is what def free stories is about.
Like there was just well, no, they were they were getting cans, cans, yes, yes, picking up cans for to then yeah, yes, turn it in.
But it was a little cringey for me, but I.
I think for him too. I think that's why he was saying, this is so crazy.
But like we did the same thing, like Travis and I when we were paying off we didn't like look for cans on the beach. But I do think it's nice now now that I've had some perspective, not to make money, but to clean up the beach. That's why I would pick up cans, not to.
Make Depending on where you live, you can get I think up to ten cents of can, which isn't not But I have heard of people who do make this a little bit of like a side hobby, or they'll get recyclables from other people, particularly Maine. I think they are the state who gives the most money back. So for the if you know, it's one of those if you know, you know, yeah, if you're in these areas, you know how much you can.
I interviewed somebody who their job was picking like picking up garbage places, so he would if there were cans in the garbage. And I'm not I don't think he was like a garbage man, like I don't know what the I think maybe he was like a cleaner. He would take all the cans out of the garbage as he got them, and then he would go with bags and bags of cans and he would make extra money that way. Yeah, Like so it wasn't like a conflict of interest where he was working, right, that is a really good idea. I think I would rather do that if the cans came to me, Yeah, I would transition them.
Well money, and I can appreciate really trying to think through what what else can we do? I don't want it, and he doesn't either. I appreciated his encouragement to not make it backbreaking. But as we noticed, he paid. They paid off sixty thousand dollars of debt at the time only living off of an annual household income of sixty thousand dollars. And when your debt is equal to or more than what you bring in annually, that can feel very overwhelming. And when there's only so much that you can cut, you start to look for what are other ways that we can earn? And that's going to depend on whether or not you want to get out of the field of work that you're in. So well, no, I don't think picking up cans on the side is super lucrative, but I can appreciate the how do I get creative with paying this down? I also liked so they paid off, as they said, debt twice or he did. He became debt free as a twenty something, and then again, once married as a couple, had much more debt as a couple to be paying off than he had as a single person. But it did stand out to me, at least the first time around, the podcasts and the books and the learning as being really useful and understanding strategy and what is the best way to save money earn more. I mean, it's one of the reasons we're doing this podcast. But I can say for myself as well, it's these types of resources that that we can all be digging into and learning what we don't know. We don't know what we don't know, and so the opportunity to hear from others and be educated on the areas that we are not expert in can really help in this process. I can't stress resources enough when we've got a big goal in front of us.
And I really appreciated that he didn't just sit on all that knowledge and get paralyzed by it, but really just too small steps all the time to be trying new things and if it didn't work, it didn't work, you know, like they didn't vacation and pick up cans twice, right, Like they just took the information acted on it as was, you know, feasible for them as a couple with no kids, and then when it didn't work, they laid it down and they picked something else up. So I think so many, so often we're paralyzed by knowledge. We just keep accumulating knowledge and then don't act on So don't so pick up your knowledge, but don't be paralyzed by it.
Well, And on the flip side of that, I think he described having been quite anxious about getting the debt gone, and we talked about the debt payoff hangover that I know you experienced too, Jen. You paid off you know, even a little bit more than they did in two years, sixty.
Eight thousand dollars, making around eighty thousand, so.
Very similar situation into years. And both of you described wishing that you hadn't gone so aggressively at the goal. And I loved that piece of advice because I do think there is a lot of voice out there saying, get it gone as fast as possible, eat the ramen, don't go out, don't enjoy family life. You are indebted. And I appreciated this message of I wished I didn't have as much anxiety around this. I wish I could have leaned in a little bit more to the fact that I had a good plan in place, and it was implementing on that plan, and I could have taken it at a bit more manageable of a pace. And you have said the same thing that being a little not you don't have to be as aggressive with it if it is becoming backbreaking to you. So I'm just repeating that again because I think it's a valuable message. I know how anxiety producing debt feels, but it is another boulder on top of us when we feel as though we can't do anything, we can't live our lives until this is gone.
Yeah, Ultimately, you can pay off debt as fast as you want. Paying it off fast is great. Being really aggressive is great. Focusing on one goal at a time gets you to that goal faster, And if that one goal is debt payoff, that's great. At doing it fast is great. It's the anxiety piece is that when that aggression, like aggressive goal behavior, is fueled by anxiety and the feeling like I'm a failure for having this debt, I need to get out of it as quickly as possible so I'm not a failure anymore. That is what is bad, and that is what creates the debt payoff hangover. That's what makes the goal not worth achieving. So when you are when you're going at it, go aggressive, go all in. That's great, but also know when your season shift, when your finances shift, if you need to shift, be embrace that. Embrace that and do it with his little anxiety like inducing feelings and behaviors as possible.
So we asked them for an update on where things are at since we last spoke, and they said we had another kid woo, which Jason did say that they were pregnant at the time, so they did have another boy. They have three boys now. They sent a beautiful picture of their family, so adorable, and so they said, prior to having our third child, the only debt we had was our mortgage and we were a one car, one income household. However, now that we've expanded our family, we had to buy a bigger car and purchased a twenty sixteen hundred Pilot. As a result, we now have a car payment. Boo, he said, boo. We did not say bo That was his car loans both of us to go along with our house payment. But coincidentally, both car and house debts are scheduled to be paid off in less than three years, at which point we will be one hundred percent debt free. While we have two cars now, we are still a one income household as my wife is a stay at home mom. This is a lovely update, and I so appreciate that you were willing to send us in this update because I know how it can feel to have achieved debt freedom, and then it can feel a little you could feel a bit of shame to say, yes, I did have to take on debt again because this is what's happening to our family. But I also know the realities of life seasons and life circumstances, and it sounds like it's not reasonable for where you live and the size of your family to only have one car. But I also want to point out that it sounds like you bought a reasonable car twenty sixteen. You bought this within the past year and a half, so you're getting an older car that fits the needs of your family, and it will be paid off soon, So we're here for it. We love this update. We love the growing family, We love the intentional spending, the intentional even debt decisions. But then also the plan to not have those things be barriers, dark clouds hanging and lingering over you. So well done, Jason and fam and you know what else. Uh well, it's not a dark cloud.
It's absolutely never shameful.
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. Duck bills, Buffalo bills, bill clon, This is the bill of the week.
Hello, frugal friends. My name is Maggie. My bill of the week is long overdue to you. A couple of years ago, I worked for a school district in northern California as a school counselor and was asked to do illegal and ethical things or be considered insubordinate and possibly lose my job. Rather than work in a hostile environment where Principal Bill and his VP emotionally harassed me daily, I worked with my union and gone unpaid medical leave for the remainder of the year, approximately eight months. Since I was at home and no longer had to commute eighty miles round trip. I saved approximately thirty five hundred dollars on gas that year. Now I commute four miles round trip, but usually walk or ride my bike to work and only pay about thirty five dollars a month on gas. Suffice to say, I quit that job and got out of a toxic environment. I'm closer to home, I'm saving on gas, I'm saving time, and my physical and mental health has improved immensely thanks to my union and frugal friends and community for all your support, I could not have done it without you.
Oh wow, Maggie, that's amazing. That's awesome. That is definitely the mental health leave is something that most employees are entitled to and so definitely something not just in a union. But yeah, that's amazing that you were able to take advantage of that.
I am really sorry to hear about this environment and culture that you were found in. It really debunks my personal theory that all bills are amazing, all people named Bill. I am so disappointed to hear about the unethical practices of your boss name Aphil.
He's the exception, not outliar.
Yes, what a shame, But I am so glad that you were able to get out of that situation and you're finding something that is better for you all around. And I would venture to say that that I mean you cited as the result of your union, as a result of resources like the Frugal Friends podcast. I think optionality in our work is one of the benefits of not just becoming debt free, but also being intentional about our spending so that we can make some of these shifts that we need to make when they are going to be the best, most important decision for us. So thanks so much, Maggie. If you all are listening, you have a bill that you want to share, if it's about finding a better work environment or saving money, or you are a Bill who wants to redeem the name Frugal friendspodcast dot com slash bill. Leave us your bill. We can't wait for it, and now it's time for the.
Round, all right. What's a crazy crazy in parentheses or just a side hustle you've tried before but won't be doing again, And hands down, mine is renovating anything we bought an and we renovated that to resell. We've just recooped our we were just recouped like our effort and our materials, so we didn't make really any money wait from the RV oh oh oh oh, not like you just now did.
But at the time the time it was selling.
It, I was literally selling it from my hospital bed after just giving birth to my son, because I hated that thing so much, as I was so passionate about being brid of it that I was doing like paperwork from my phone in my hospital bed. I hated that. And then also renovating this house because we've been viewing this renovation as a side hustle. We bought a fixer upper two years ago. We have turned it into a duplex, renovated all in eventually will sell it for a profit. So this has our renovations. We have been considering them a side hustle, as just the payment will be delayed. Still won't do it again, Nope.
Not worth it. Yeah, here's the thing I mean, I don't know if you said never, definitely don't say never.
Because you don't ever want to do it again.
You are still fresh in the realities. You are just now coming to the end of renovation. But give it another year or two and you and you just don't know.
I need everyone here, especially.
You, Jill, to keep you from ever renovating it again.
Okay, unless it's okay, so the caveat would be if it's our dream home and it just needs some paint, like it needs light stuff. I'm not moving walls. I'm not redoing flooring. Ye like, I'm not doing it. Maybe replacing counters because I don't have to do that. He brings in the counter.
Yeah. Yeah, or you have them, or you have the money to pay somebody else to renovate. Yeah. I'd live in a renovation that someone else is doinguld not do that. I definitely would doing it yourself and living in it.
Huh well, I wouldn't do it myself or live in it if I'm doing it or hiring.
Okay, okay, okay, I hear you, We all hear you, too old. We're tired, tired. I wish it was retired. I wish we were retired, but we tired. We are tired, tired.
I love those shirts that say retired, and I'm just gonna get one that says tired.
We are tired is the same thing as we tired. We retired, Yeah.
Instead of retired, I say we tired. Charles and I were talking about that last night. We were just retiring, no being tired. Yeah, because it was Kay's birthday yesterday and I was like, we've been parents for five years.
Yeah, I am so tired. Man.
I never knew exhaustion before this. I would say we were when we were tired, when we were paying off debt, working all those side hustles. We're tired. I got shingles, like I was tired.
I'm never but it's not waking you up in the middle of the night, like renovations don't wake you up in the night. They might keep you up all hours of the night. But yeah, I personally would do any of my side hustles again. I mean most of my side hustles are working with my hands, and I do love doing that. So I would do any of them over again, except for maybe this one, although if I had, just because I don't think I'm going to ever have the opportunity.
To a weird one.
H huh. So Eric used to be an electrician as his day job and sometimes night job, and so he would often have tons of leftover wire from these jobs, but none of them were long enough to do long runs of electrical work, and so he would just have this surplus of why and electrical wire has copper in it. Copper is worth money, so I would strip all of the plastic off of this extra. I was desperate, like I was Jason in this episode digging for cans on this. Yeah, I think that there is also there can be this mindset of what else is there out there? And I think resources help to now know there actually were things that I could have done that made more money for the time and effort that I was putting in. But at the time, I was in my twenties and this was right in front of me, and it was cathartic working the social work job that I was working. I would just sit on the back porch with a utility knife and strip off the plastic of the copper wires and then we'd we'd just like gather buckets of copper wires. Once we had a surplus, we would take it to like a salvage yard and they'd pay per pound and we'd walk go. I mean, it took a while to accumulate, but every time we'd go, it'd be a couple hundred bucks and that was our date night money. In the midst of debt payoffs. It took a long time. I really don't think I'm gonna have wire to strip or the time to strip wire. But yeah, no, that was a weird one.
Yeah, what a great Like if you're got a high schooler or something that wants money for their cell phone bill. Any electrician does know about this, Yeah, let's just hand them off, whether or not they're doing it. Yeah yeah, just if they're electricians not doing it, be like, hey, give us your extra wire. I've got a sixteen year old who wants a new iPhone.
Yeah, there you go, and I want him off the video games. Yeah, sitting there strip and wire. Well, thanks so much everyone for listening. If you have a weird side hustle that you ended up doing to become debt free or you're still in your debt payoff journey, leave that for us in a rating or REVI you like this one And they didn't say their side hustle, But we're just asking for reviews kind reviews like this one from Christy one eighteen who said fun five stars, I like this a lot, And second the review of the girl who said, thanks for not making me do six side hustles. I'm a social worker. And mentally that is more than enough. Though I do have a couple side hustles too. Still practical advice and fun to listen to.
Christy.
Yeah, you do not have to strip wire or get cans on the beach. You could start a business.
You could do whatever you want.
Mm hmm.
And you're just out here doing the Lord's work.
As a social worker.
You know.
I feel you, Christy one eighteen. Thanks for your kind review.
Yes, thank you for listening. If you enjoyed the show, please take a minute to leave a rating and review. It helps potential new listeners know what our show is all about. And you can even echo somebody else's review, like Christy.
Did see you next time?
Hiks.
Google Friends is produced by Eric Sirianni. So this episode comes out July fifth, So July fourth was theoretically yesterday, And so what do you think? What do you want to do for July fourth? What is your like favorite?
What do I want to say that I had done.
To spend July fourth?
I'd like to spend it outside near water with friends.
Are how involved are fireworks?
I forgot about them? So it might be, might not be. I think I've had years where it's been. There's awesome fireworks opportunities and other times where I don't care if I miss them.
Hmm, if I like to spend them just with fireworks, Wow, just fireworks. I love to look at them. I don't like to light them off.
What's the best fireworks show around Tesney?
But that's every night?
Are you going to go?
No? But they do have a special fireworks show.
I bet four fourth.
Of July, but I think no Fourth of July can compare to Disney's like every night.
The best fireworks show that I ever saw was at Showtime Speedway, which is an amateur racetrack near us right here in Florida. You've guessed it. It is in Florida. It has a figure eight track on it where they will race buses, school buses the exact size of a school bus will race other school buses and figure eights. And I went on New Year's because New Year's is another time that they do fireworks, and they did a fireworks show off the bed of a truck just about fifty yards away from where I was sitting. It was I could see you know how often when you go to a firework show you only see the fireworks in the air. You don't actually see where they're shooting off from. This wasn't like fat This was I saw the boxes in the bed of the truck that the fireworks were coming out of, and then I saw them in the air as well, and that was the best. That was wild.
It's you are looking for Florida Man and you cannot find.
No.
Showtime Speedway is where he is at. I guarantee you that is where Florida Man is at.
Pay cash tickets, You sit wherever you want. You can even bring in your own cooler of food and beverages.
Watch school buses do figure.
Eights and fireworks out of the bed of a truck. I'm gonna actually, here we go. I'm going to check if Showtime Speedway is having a Fourth of July Shenan again