Afford Anything - How I Woke Up, Removed the Blindfold, and Noticed My Money for the First Time -- with Evelyn Connors

Episode Date: June 6, 2016

#28: Most people only pay attention if there's a problem - that includes money. Guest, Evelyn Connors gets honest and raw about her previous understanding of how money works and her uber-excitement of taking control of her FI (financial independence). For more information, visit the show notes at https://affordanything.com/episode-28-debt-is-normal-myth-evelyn-connors/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, hi, Paula. I'm really excited. I hope that we score an A plus. And A++. I don't think that's a real thing. I think that's like people giving more than 100%. And usually people who say like, I'm going to give 110%. They give a strong like 70%. Welcome to The Money Show, a podcast about mastering your money and time so you can live your optimal life. This show features interviews with entrepreneurs, financial experts, and regular people who share amazing insight into investing. business, money management, and productivity. There are many roads to financial freedom. This show explores them on. Grab a beer, kickback, and enjoy the money show. Hey, welcome to the show. I'm your host, Paula Pant, and I'm here with the guy who does stuff behind the scenes,

our producer, Steve. Hey, thanks for letting me back in, Paula. Hey, Steve, I have a question for you. Sure, fire away. It's a little personal. Are you okay with that? Sure, if I don't like it, I'll just edit it out. What color is your underwear?

Let me go check. Excellent. Perfect answer, Steve. I learned that from the best. Okay. Question number two. You once had a bunch of debt. We covered that on an earlier episode. How much debt did you have when you were at your peak? At my peak.

At your peak of having debt. Interesting. At your debt peak, which maybe would be a trough, opposite of peak. Valley. The valley of debt. The valley of debt. as yeah, your journey through the Valley of Debt. You know, that's really an interesting question because I don't know what the peak was.

I can tell you what we had when we first started, but I don't think I was paying attention any time before that. And I'm sure it was more than just like $15,000 for a car. So here's the part of that answer that I genuinely don't understand. And there's no polite way to ask it. So I'm just going to say it. how was it that seeing your statement balance didn't like just send off alarm bells? Like shouldn't the sirens have been blaring like meh, emergency emergency? Yeah, you know, you're right.

There probably should have been. But I think when I was growing up, it wasn't necessarily taboo to let credit card debt slide from one month into the next. Wow. So it just felt normal. Yeah, it was just normal. Interesting. I know that you're going to love the interview that we have coming up. In fact, I know that you are because you already told me before we started recording that you love it because you've already listened to it.

Yes, I've really enjoyed this conversation with this person that is basically, she's just starting out in her financial journey. And she said very much the same thing that you did that a given amount of debt was normal and just kind of made the assumption that as long as her debt felt like it was within a normal range. And as long as she was paying her bills on time, she was financially responsible. That is a really important story. I feel like on so many podcasts, we hear from the extreme end of the bell curve, right? Like, we hear from millionaires and people who became financially independent when they were in their 30s or 40s. We hear these very inspirational stories, and there's a tremendous value to that. But we never hear the story of someone who is just waking up to the world of not being normal.

for the first time. Yes. Yes, that's in a nutshell, Paula. Help, this is me. I'm in a nutshell. The world's most cliche joke. I just went there. Well, we should probably stop hesitating and let you introduce your guest, Evelyn, who is openly honest about her situation, but she's also got this awesome sense of humor. Oh, man, she is so freaking funny. Let's roll right into it. Hey, Evelyn, welcome to the show. I'm really excited. excited to talk to you about the way that you understand money and how it's changed. Right? I'm like a toddler. I learned something new every day and I'm always excited about it. You're like, today I learn the concept of financial independence.

I'm like, four is more than three. That is bad. So, you know, I feel like on a lot of podcasts, you hear from these, like, you hear either from credentialed experts or you hear from people who, who have done really ridiculously amazing stuff. But you never hear the story of an ordinary person, not that I'm calling you ordinary. Yeah, I'm not particularly ordinary. But, you know, just a person who, well, I'll let you say it in your own words, really,

but, you know, who once had certain ideas about money that have now been revolutionized. Yeah, I kind of used to joke that my goal in life was just to be a trophy wife someday until someone rather rudely pointed out the trophy wives are usually way hotter, which I think is super rude of him, but it was probably helpful. Oh. I know. I know. It's important to have realistic dreams.

That's why I'm also not an astronaut. But yeah, I kind of just grew up learning that you need to have good credit. That was the one thing that was pounded into me. I didn't really, like we didn't have an allowance because my dad said that he's not going to pay us to be part of the family. which I love my dad. He has tons of gems like that, which is fair. So all of our spending money was kind of just like ask and ye shall receive if dad deems it appropriate and if probably he has the money to accommodate it. That said, it made me really eager to work. So as soon as I could, like when I was 15, I got my first job. I've always worked, worked, worked, but then I just spent the money on whatever I wanted because I was like, we, I'll just earn more. Let me pause you there. Let's go back to that. Okay. You're 15. You were living in San Diego. the time, right? Yeah, San Diego. You're making money presumably somewhere around minimum wage.

Yeah, yeah. It's like smack dab on top of it or at the bottom of it or in it. Yes, it was minimum wage is the normal way to answer that question. And I'm assuming, because I remember being all stressed out about money as a teenager because like a car and gas and insurance and all of that is so expensive and yet you're making jack. Like how did you deal with that? I didn't have a car. It was basically like I had to get gas money to put in the car if dad would let me borrow the car. So that was hard because it was, you know, the late 90s, gas was like a full tank of gas was like, what, $20? Yeah.

Back in my day. And then it was basically whether or not I could afford the, you know, extra $15 to go to the movies with my friends and, you know, maybe go get some bottomless coffee and some French fries at the local diner because we all apparently lived in the 1950s in a small town in the small town and the. Midwest. No, that's what we did. Like, there was this 24-hour diner in town, and we would just hang out there. And so the amount I needed to, you know, get French fries and some coffee was like five bucks, and we would just hang out there all night. I'm sure the servers loved us. But that's another story. So yeah, I didn't need that much money. I didn't have a lot of stuff I wanted to do. So I never really worried about it. And then growing up, I always wanted to be a performer. And so I kind of just assumed that I would never really have very much money. And my job would be to earn

more of it and then I guess not spend it too wantonly when I didn't have it. This is so, that's interesting. Let's let's talk about that for a second. You wanted to be an actress. Mm-hmm. And so you assumed that that meant that you would always be poor. Oh, yeah, for sure. I was really realistic about that.

I wanted to make money doing it and I knew that there are basically two, no, it's not true. But let's go with a gross generalization. There are two types of performers. The famous ones who make millions of dollars and then the ones who, you know, if we're talking about just working performers, who just grind away and you do the, you know, regional tours or you do corporate work or you do, you know, cruise ships and maybe you get lucky and you get a good gig where you're like, sweet, I'm making, you know, 900 a week. But usually you're making somewhere in the neighborhood of, you know, three or 400 a week and it's not pretty. So you kind of just live for those good gigs or those one-off. You know, one-off little corporate events and, you know, the rest of the time you're spending as little as you can and working whatever side job will accommodate going to auditions, right? Which is why so many are waiters, I guess.

So, yeah, I just always assumed that I wouldn't have very much money, but it didn't really think about it. I kind of just figured like, it'll work out. Like, I'll just work and I'll earn money. And when I'm old, I'll go, I don't know, work at Starbucks and then one day I'll die. Or be cryically frozen. I don't know how it was going to be chronically frozen because I couldn't afford it. But, you know, dare to dream. And so what's interesting to me, so you know, you and I have talked about money a lot. And you've

told me before that you felt as though as long as you were paying your bills on time, you were being responsible with money. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, that was, that was, I always felt like I was super responsible about money and really proud of myself because whenever I could, I'd have a couple hundred dollars in savings. And savings were usually just for like something that I ended up really wanting right away, not needing, realistically looking back. And my bills would be paid on time. So, you know, you had to have a credit card because my dad said, you know, make sure you get a credit card and build up your credit and pay your bill every time. So as long as my bills were paid on time and I was super structured with that and very, you know, I would have

anxiety about not being able to, you know, pay everything not just when it was due, but like when I got the bill in the mail, like that day, I'd sit down and write out of check and be like, this bill's done. Yeah, I'm like that too. Exactly. Yeah. So I felt like I was totally fine with money. I was proud of myself. I was working as a, as a performer, and my bills were paid. My credit was excellent. My credit is still excellent. So by all outward appearances, yeah, I'm totally fine with money. And then you get in your 30s and you're like, oh, I'm supposed to have retirement savings. Yeah. Like, oh, oh, darn. I should probably look into that. I'd like to talk about that turning point. But before we get there, tell me about your first credit card. How old were you when you got it?

And what happened? Yeah, I was 18 and I was very proud. It had a two. It had a two. $200 limit, and I went out and bought a vacuum at Walmart for like $120 or something. I bought a nice one. The fancy vacuum. It's a fancy vacuum. I think it had that little detachable hose for the crevices. Can't be too clean. And I think I paid it off in like two months or three months.

And then I would make another under $200 purchase, and I would pay it off in a couple of months. But after the vacuum, I don't think they were ever really needs. I think they were wants. I remember one time I went and bought makeup because I was like, I have to build up my credit. I better buy this sparkle makeup, you know, that sort of thing. And as my credit limits got increased, I don't, I honestly can't tell you what happened. I just remember at one point, I definitely had a couple of thousand dollars in debt at all

times. And I felt like as long as I paid it off, I was fine. You know, when you get the credit card bill or statement in the mail and it shows you what the interest rate is and it shows you the breakdown of how much you're paying in interest. Did that affect you? And if so, how? If so, only fleetingly. I don't think I ever really, I thought it was just like a part of building your credit. I don't really think I thought about it or sat down and thought like, oh my gosh, if I'm paying $30 of this, you know, $50 to interest, it's going to take me 20 years to pay off this $2,000. I remember later sometime in my mid-20s, I got, because there was like

baby steps to me not being a complete idiot when it comes to money. And the next baby step was me being really proud when I realized you could call your credit card company and ask them to lower your rate because you make lots of on-time payments. And if they say, no, we won't lower your rate, you can be like, oh, that's great because I just got this balanced transfer offer in the mail. And I guess I'll just call that credit card and transfer it all over there. But thanks for your time. And then magically 99 times out of 100, they'll be like, oh, wait, we can offer you a lower rate. And that was my life hack that I was all proud of myself for. I remember going around telling all my friends, you should call your credit card and tell them to lower your rate.

Oh, wow. Do you remember what your initial rates were and how far you got them lowered? Oh, no. I remember one, because they like, they creep them up on you and you're not paying attention. Yeah. It was probably around like 20%. And I remember getting it under 20% and being really proud of myself. But again, this was, I was like 21. Wow. So I didn't have a benchmark. I had no, I just knew that you could make them lower because I read it somewhere. So I called and asked for it to get lower and thought, again, that that was the extent of things I needed to do to be a responsible financial citizen.

Interesting. And you've told me, you've told me a story before about. how you felt like debt was normal because all of your friends had credit card debt as well, right? Oh, yeah, absolutely. I actually thought that I was ahead of the curve for a really long time because my friends, one, I didn't have to, I was fortunate enough to not have to have a student loan debt. So my college was paid for. So that was really, really lucky.

At the time, I recognized it was lucky, but now in retrospect, I recognized that it was extremely lucky. Part of it was luck and part of it was work. So I felt way ahead of the curve because I had friends complaining about, you know, amassing all these student loans or just a good friend of mine from high school was at one point just, I think off the, like flippantly mentioned that he has like $10,000 in credit card debt. And for some reason, that became my anchor point. I remember like really clearly when I was like, wow, like Zach has $10,000, not to call him out,

sorry, dude. But like Zach has $10,000 in credit card debt, I only have $3,000 or whatever it was. I'm great. And then when I moved to London and I started putting more things on my credit card because London was very, very expensive at the time, I was like, well, as long as I'm under $10,000, like it became this weird benchmark of, you know, like a false anchor of where it's okay to have your debt. As long as your debt was under $10,000, you were okay. Interesting. Interesting. And throughout all of this time, you've said you had no retirement savings, right?

Yeah. So my terrible, honest thing that I can say that will probably make women everywhere cringe and hate me is that because I always, I never dated performers, all of my boyfriend have been pretty much without exception outside of the entertainment industry. They've been intelligent, reasonable people who had jobs that had 401Ks, stuff that grownups have in my head. I just assumed at some point I'd be married and the guy would have a 401K and then maybe I'd figure out how to contribute to it or something or however that worked. And I'd basically, I only dated response, like financially responsible guys. I didn't do that on purpose.

I just am drawn to that personality type. They tend to be organized and plan for the future. and careful personalities, I suppose, and they ended up, part of that is that they're good with money and careful about planning for retirement and things like that. So I always felt like I would probably just end up with someone who they don't need to be, I don't need to be rich. I was kidding about that, but they would take care of it.

Very archaic, like super, it's embarrassing to say, but it's completely, I was just like, eh, that'll be the man's job. That is common. Isn't that weird? It's so terrible. I don't even want kids, so it's not even like I was going to be like, I'll be at home raising kids. No, I was just like, I will exist. I'm good at cleaning, I guess. I'll clean. No, I was always planning on working. I just figured that I'd be with someone smart

who would handle it for us and tell me where to put my money and tell me how much to save and kind of take the reins, which goes against my entire personality. So it's weird that I was like that. It's very much just, I guess, indoctrination, like societal indoctrination. Yeah. Have you heard the expression, a man is not a plan? No, but that's amazing. It's, yeah, it's like I said, it's very embarrassing to admit because I didn't really spend much time thinking about it. And I think, you know, I just assumed at some point I'd be with someone who would take care of it for me.

Very embarrassingly honest. Yeah. True. Wow. She's like, wow, yikes. Like, I'm going to need to rethink our friendship. So tell me about the turning point. So first of all, how old are you right now?

I'm about to turn 36. And tell me, when was the turning point? Like, at what point did your ideas about money change? Well, I guess, like, personal life aside, I had some things happen that made me realize that I didn't want to base any of my relationship choices or my life choices around how financially beholden I felt as someone else. And it wasn't a good feeling. If nothing else, I know there are definitely times in my life where I didn't end a relationship as soon as I otherwise would have because we had combined our finances and our living situation and we were both poor and in our early 20s. And I was like, oh, I want to leave, but I can't afford to move out that kind of thing. And taking that as far as you can go with it, I guess. It was a terrible feeling. And I realized I didn't want to be in that situation where I was reliant on someone else. And it's not like me to leave anything, you know, to other people. I'm very much a micro-

manager and a control freak. And it was weird that I had this one blind spot. It was really just because it stressed me out to think about it. And once I realized I was just avoiding it because it seemed stressful, I kind of just decided to tackle it. And it's been a slow process to completely change your outlook on money and how you spend and everything. It's definitely been several steps. But I'd say the turning point was probably around age 30. Okay. Tell me about that. Like, first of all, give me a snapshot of what was happening in your life at that point. Where were you living? What were you doing? And what was your financial situation at that moment? I had actually just moved to Las Vegas. Just moved to Las Vegas. I had finished doing a show in San Diego and needed somewhere that had, and was single, a newly single, and needed somewhere that was a cheap cost of living and had performing opportunities.

So I loaded all my stuff into my car and I moved to Las Vegas. And I figured out, a place to live. I had, you know, some savings, not a lot. And I figured out how much I need to earn each week in order to pay all of my bills. Again, I was just on not save money, not save for retirement. I was starting basically from, you know, zero, or I guess less than zero if you count credit card debt and just figure out what I needed to earn. And I just focused on that one number. Every time I took a gig or a job, I was like, all right, I only need to earn X amount more to make sure I've earned enough for this week. And I kind of just broke it down into baby pieces. Because I never, Oh, that's an important part of the story. I had never lived on my own. Ever. I was 30 years old. I had moved into this

apartment by myself. I didn't want to live with anybody. I didn't want roommates. And I realized it was the first time in my adult life or my entire life I had ever lived without a roommate or a boyfriend. So that was kind of humbling to realize I'd never like completely relied on myself and to think of myself as a very independent person. It was kind of a weird disconnect that I had to come to terms with and be like, all right. So because I'm a terrible person, I thought, all right, I know a lot of much stupider people who seem to make it on their own. And they're dumb.

So, like, but I honestly was like, all right, so people manage to do it all the time. I am not a moron. I have a skill set. I have an education. I'm a delight to have around, I tell myself. I should be able to do this. I'm delightful. I am a delight to have around.

People are always asking for me at social engagements. None of that's true. but I figured I should be able to do this. And I realized very quickly that, yes, I could do it. And it helped that I was always that person who paid my bills on time. And as far as you could argue that I was very irresponsible with some regards of my finance, it was more due to lack of education about it than recklessness. And as I became more educated, my foundation of being extremely structured and controlling

definitely helps. Okay, so then let's talk about how you became more educated because you've said, that you thought money was kind of stressful, you avoided it. What made you decide to start learning more about it? And how did you begin that? Oh, God, it's kind of depressing. So I was raised by my dad with my brother and we always had more than enough, like looking back. We always had more than enough. We were very solidly middle class. But my dad's very much a spend it when you have it. So he would go through and he was a contractor. Me, not a contractor, he was a computer engineer, but he would work contracts.

He was an independent contractor. There we go. That's the word I was missing. Independent contractor. So we would go from, that's why I moved a lot as well. We would go from place to place in yad-d-d-d-d-d-a-d-d-and we would either have a ton of money where we'd be like, let's buy this, let's fix this, yad-a. Or he'd be like coming in my room at night talking about how stressed he was about bills

and yad-y-y-di-y-di-a-a-a. And like little eight-year-old Evelyn figured that we were going to probably end up in a box under a bridge and be poor and destitute. And I'd have to go be like the little orphan girl and beg for money, which was, you know, I'm nowhere near the truth, but when you're a child and your parent is talking to you about how they're stressed about money, you associate money with stress. And so thinking about it, I didn't like, but my dad was also a very hard worker. So I learned that you just work hard. That's all you do. As long as you work hard, even if you have a bad week or a month or you feel broke for a little bit,

you can come back because I always saw like he'd feel broke, but then we'd have money. And then he'd feel broke, but then we'd have money. So I figured that was how life worked, if that makes sense. So part of it was that. And then part of it is now as my dad is getting older, he very much hasn't changed. He doesn't have a retirement account. He doesn't have any sort of savings. We don't know. We're like, I keep joking that Arthur, my brother, is going to have to take care of him because he's one with a law degree. So I'm like, you better get earning, sucker. Because we don't know what he's going to do. Like we honestly don't. And he's in good health, thankfully. And he's, but he's now turning, he's turning 65 this year. And that's terrifying to me. Like, I'm sure it's more terrifying to him. We don't talk about it. But I was like, oh my gosh, here's my dad who's always been this really hard worker, who is a smart guy. I think just not, again, financially educated, who has made enough money in his life that he shouldn't, by all accounts, have this problem.

But because he never learned how to deal with money or how to handle money, he's going to be in this position very soon. We don't know what exactly is going to happen. So I am kind of trying to learn from the mistakes of my elders, I guess. Wow. Wow. Okay. I had no idea this was going to be so deep. Yeah, thanks for bumming me out, Paula.

Wow. But, you know, you're not, this actually, I'm glad you said it because it's not a unique story. I actually know someone, someone who's very close to me who went through something similar with, he was raised by his mom. And he has a very similar story in which his mom just never saved for retirement, never put anything away. And so now she just doesn't know what to do, you know, and he doesn't know what to do. you know, and he doesn't know what to do. And he's an only child, but he's not in any position to be able to support her. And yeah. Yeah, it's scary. You know, luckily my dad has both of us. And I know that his parents were smarter with money because, you know, they've been in retirement

for a long time. So, you know, I'm sure it will work out and it'll be fine. I just don't want to be in that position where I'm reliant on people. I don't like to rely on people. Going back, it was funny that I ever had that weird thing where I was like, oh, get married someday because it's not, it was a weird, that's the word I'm looking for. Disfluency, not disfluency. It disconnect, I guess, is the best word. A weird disconnect from how I am in every other aspect of my life. Right. You turned 30. You moved to a new city by yourself, started living by yourself for the first time, and simultaneously noticed that your dad is getting a lot older. He's reaching retirement age. It was a big year.

So all of those things kind of came together all at once and was a bit of a wake-up call. Pretty much, yeah, yeah. So then when you decided that you wanted to start learning about money, how did you do it? Where did you go? What did you read or watch or listen to? Let's see. Luckily, I am a big nerd and I do love to read and I love to research things and I come from a family of autodidax. So we are very much like figured out yourself.

So the first, I think the first book I read, it was just because he's, He's so popular, now I'm linking on his name. Who's the guy that tells everyone to cut up their credit cards? And he's like, the snowball. Dave Ramsey. Dave Ramsey, just because I think he had a show on public radio or something that I heard one day in the car or something, he just is the first name I became aware of. And given the fact that you had this idea that having credit card debt is totally fine and

normal as long as you're making the minimum payments on time, that's a really good first person to encounter. Yeah, it was a little too hardcore for me, though, like when he was like, stop, don't buy anything on credit ever and yada, yada, yada. He was, I feel like a lot of these books talk to people who have stable jobs and assuming they have, like, they know where the next paycheck's coming from. It's a lot easier if they're like, they're like, yeah, match your company's 401k. Right. I have never in my entire life, even now that I have a normal people job, worked for a company that offered a 401k. Right, right. I'm like, must be nice. And for most of my adult life,

I didn't even know where my next paycheck was coming from, you know, outside of maybe the next month, or, you know, if I had a longer contract the next three months. And there are a lot of people in that position where I'm like, yeah, that sounds great to not ever use credit cards. But I'm starting at zero. And if my car breaks tomorrow, I'm going to have to get to work. So guess what's going to happen? I'm going to use the credit card. That said, it did make me more aware of what I was choosing to spend money on.

And I think that was a big, important step because being in the mindset of, oh, I can always earn more. I didn't think about it that much. I knew if I could or couldn't afford something in terms of like, no, I'm not going to go buy a $2,000 purse. but like heck yeah I'll come out for drinks and sushi and you know drop 45 bucks on my credit card because I'll just pay it off later it's just 45 bucks that kind of thing it made me a lot more aware of that and so the first thing I did was actually just stop using credit cards and to try to stop using my credit cards completely took me about two years of starting and stopping wow okay tell me about that okay so I think at the time I had three all total was probably a little over 10 grand

because I had gotten that was part of it I was like oh I finally And they got over that magical 10 grand, I definitely have a problem. Oh, wow. So no wonder, this huge confluence of everything was happening all at the same time. Well, and I spread it out over three because then I wouldn't, like, if I didn't do the math, I could pretend. I'd be like, well, there's 2,000 something on this one and 3,000 something on this one. So if I didn't do the math, I could pretend it was still somewhere in the neighborhood. Oh, wow.

But then if I actually sat down and added everything up, I'm like, yep, I am definitely over $10,000. Wow. Yeah. And I mean, I had other things happen. Like I made friends with people who for whom debt was not a thing. And it was just like, you know, little things here or there kind of adding up to, you know, Evelyn, you should really change how you view money. So finally stopped using my credit cards for good. And I kind of stopped one at a time. So I was like, I'm not going to use this Citibank card anymore. This one's dead to me. This one's for emergencies, you know, like that kind of thing. And then I would just focus on paying off the one. that I wasn't using and so I could close it out. And then I would transfer over for like 0% at that point. I figured out like the 0% APR game. And I was paying attention definitely to how much I was spending on interest. And so it was really just a baby step process of trying to pay them off,

but then still if something came up that I really wanted to do. Or if, you know, there's something I really kind of needed now, I'd be like, well, it's only a couple hundred dollars or, you know, you only love once, like that kind of thing. Right. And so I haven't put anything on them for close to two years now. and starting in a little bit before, but let's say realistically January this year, I started really aggressively paying them off. So I'm slated to make my last payment on my one credit card

on December 1st. Yay! Yeah. Thanks for cheering. I actually sat down and like it's this weird that now instead of being anxious about numbers, like I just started crunching them enough that now it's fun for, like, it's relaxing to like go like, well, let's see how much more I could put towards my credit card this month. Like, let's do the math again and see how much faster that would have me pay it off. So it became this weird thing where slowly, instead of becoming a source of anxiety, the more I took control of it and kind of like seized the power of being in charge of where my money goes and what I spend my money on, it's shifted from being a source of anxiety to a source of stress relief.

So anytime I was feeling frustrated or like I'm not paying off stuff fast enough or quickly enough, I could just look at that spreadsheet and kind of play around. with stuff like, what if I paid this faster? Oh, this, you know, this zero percent EPR is about to end. I'm going to find a new zero percent EPR, like that kind of stuff. I don't know. It's, it was weird to realize the transition one day when I'm like, oh, wow, numbers, looking at these numbers and looking at math and thinking about my finances now makes me feel powerful instead of terrified. Wow. But it was definitely a process and the turning point for that was definitely this year when I sat down and was like, all right, how much would it take? What would it take for me to pay

my debt in a year. Like I want this year to be the year that I have no more debt. And I realized it would be about $1,000 a month. And then like little extra that I can throw at it when I do has gotten it down a little bit less because I think my original projection, I couldn't get it quite down. I was going to be February or March of next year. But then I've been able to throw extra extra money at it. I picked up like a weekend job, just like a really boring. Who cares? I go in. I do my job. And it gives me an extra, you know, $500 a month or whatever it is. And I get excited. And anytime I get a bonus at work or anything, I'm just like, this can go towards my credit card. This is going to pay it off faster.

Anytime any kind of freelance gig comes up, I'm like, yes, towards my credit card. So it's been a really nice feeling. In order to pay off the $10,000 credit card debt, you've mentioned getting another job, so you've increased your income by an extra $500 a month. Did it affect your spending? And if so, in what ways? And also, did it affect the way that you look at emergency savings? Hmm, okay.

So that's a multi-perk question. Yeah. Yes. So the first thing when I say I started paying it off last year I did where I started trying to put more money towards it, but I was still doing this thing where I now have a steady job with a steady paycheck. And I should be ostensibly earning more than I need, more than enough to do this. But I was still kind of like running short at the end of the month and feeling like,

ugh, like gosh, I paid too much towards my credit card this month. Like now I have to, you know, only put $20 worth of gas in my tank until the next paycheck, which is stupid, right? because I was earning way more than enough. And again, I don't have children. I'm making way more than I need to do what I want to do, right? And live like a reasonable human. But I was still doing a little bit of that mindless spending.

So I actually sat down and I'm not good at, I first tried to do that thing where you write down everything you spend money on. That did not work. I got super bored. I'd stop doing it. Whatever. I'd be like, uh, round down. I think where you use only cash.

Cash to me feels like free money. As soon as it's out of my bank account and I don't see it anymore. I'm like, we, I can spend this wherever I want. It's already cash. already out of my account. So that doesn't work for me either. But what did work is when I sat down and I basically made this spreadsheet where I wrote down my total monthly income, my hard bills that don't change, or that change very little like utilities, you know, cell phone bill, et cetera. And then I tried to budget out and look at how much I had been spending on things like food

and clothing and trips to Target. And the first thing I realized was that I spend like $200, or I used to spend about $200 a month just going to Ross and getting what I call disposable clothing. Like, I had a bad day. This skirt's cute. That kind of thing. Or you know what I need? She was their bright blue instead of dark blue. You know, like my mascara is boring.

I need three more kinds of mascara, that kind of stuff. There was still a lot of that going on. So I was able to cut down on that once I realized, you know, I just didn't give myself money to do that. Then I looked at how much more I could put towards my credit card if I got kind of stuff down to, I don't want to see the bare minimum because I definitely spend more on groceries than I need to. My boyfriend likes to cook and I like to encourage that. So we definitely spend more at the grocery store than we need to. But strictly speaking, if you're going to cook for me, I will buy whatever ingredients you think sound delicious.

Just so I can sit at home on my butt while you cook food for me. Left to my own devices, I'd probably just be eating tuna out of a can because I'm lazy and I like protein. And you're half cat. And I'm half cat. A little known fact about me. But no. It's, you know, my life, I recognize that this does bring quality to my life and I'm okay with it. It's kind of like I learned where my line in the sand is. I don't feel like I'm sacrificing.

It didn't feel like a big deal for me to give up going to Ross every week. Right. Like there was this weird like phantom give up syndrome where I was like, oh, I could go to Ross. No, I can't. But then I realized, no, I could. I'm choosing not to because I want, I'd rather have the extra $400 this month towards my credit card, that sort of thing. So you kind of learn what's actually important spending and what's not. And then, oh, so the main thing that worked was I opened a second checking account.

And after I did all this accounting on like what my money's going to go towards, I give myself a this is what I get to spend amount. And that goes towards everything like groceries, gas, trips to Target. Ah, you gave yourself a discretionary spending account. Yeah. Like everything that even like gas, gases. So if it comes down to where I only had like $100 in it, I'm going to buy gas instead of go to Ross. Because I'm like, well, I definitely need to drive to work. That kind of thing.

but it's a false sense of impoverishment. That's too strong of a word. It's a false sense of scarcity. Right. You know, I work really well. I realize that at my jobs, I've always had, I've been in charge of a budget. And I am a budget Nazi. Like, I will make sure things come in or under budget every time.

I pride myself in having a budget, like being under budget. And that's one of the things I'm really, really good at. And I realized if I'm good at this at work, there is zero reason I should not be good at it in my personal life. My personal life is not more complicated than these budgets I'm dealing with. So once I realized I had the skill set and I was just being an idiot, that kind of helped. Do you have a retirement account now? Oh my gosh, I'm so excited. I do. Ooh.

I do. I have a Roth IRA with Vanguard. Ooh, fancy. I don't get any money for that plug. No, I honestly, for about three years now, I just had a savings account. I basically just found the one with one of the highest interest rates and opened that savings account. And that was my bomb-ass contribution to my retirement. But I realized that I would need to actually open up a retirement account, but I didn't

know anything about them. And I didn't have the mental energy to devote to doing all the reading I needed to do. But then just, you know, in the last six months, I was like, all right, I'm really going to read about retirement now. I feel like I have a handle on these other things. Like I said, it's all baby steps. I, you know, did a whole bunch of reading and cross-reference sources. kind of went with a general consensus on what to get and where to put it.

And so I'm the proud owner of a retirement account that has to stay there because there are tax penalties if I withdraw it early and I don't want to pay those. So, yeah, it was a big deal for me. It was a weird thing to be excited and proud about at almost 36 years old. I put a few thousand dollars in a retirement account waiting for the parade to come by. The floats, the balloons. It was a really, really big deal for me. So there's a proud moment in the life of the Evel.

Congratulations. Thank you. So yeah, my net worth will be I had never really thought about or cared about. And still not that into net worth. I know that was a big J. Money thing. But he made me actually think about it. So I like sat down with a little spreadsheet. And I realized the tipping point from my net worth going from negative to positive,

albeit a very small positive, is going to also happen this year. Wow. I was very excited for myself because I'll actually be worth something. Not much, but you know. Your net worth will be positive for the first time. Positive net worth, which will lend to my positive self-worth. Circle of positivity. Yeah, so it's just, it's fun to feel this sense of control and as less stressful as I thought

it was for all of those years to just ignore it, you know, in retrospect, it's so much better to just know what you're supposed to do, you know, know what you're working with, I guess, and take control of your own financial future. instead of just leaving up to someone else. It's kind of like I used to be a fat kid and I never wanted to work out because working out seems scary and everyone at the gym seemed intimidating. But then when I started going, I love lifting weights. I love going to the gym. And I tell people, you know, like one of my favorite things about life is feeling strong. Like when something comes along and it has to be lifted or any time I've had to move, like, I can do that. I can take care

of that by myself. I don't need to wait for someone to come around and be like, let me lift that for you. And this is the same kind of thing, but with money. It's like that feeling of strength and being able to be self-capable. Wow. Excellent. Well, congratulations, Evelyn. I'm really excited about all the progress that you've made. I like how excited you are for me. I love this. Most of this has just been me being excited for me, so I really appreciate that. You've opened a retirement account. You are just a few months away from being debt-free. Your net worth is about to be positive. For the first time. For the first time. Like, this is incredible, Evelyn. This is, this is the turnaround. Thanks. Yeah, I really feel like I'm, it's weird because my boyfriend is teasing me because I've started reading

a whole bunch of FI blogs. And the other day I said something to him. I was like, oh, I was reading this FI blog and this guy really loves Triumphs because my boyfriend has triumphs. He's like, what's FI? I was like, financial independence. He's like, oh, God, you're using abbreviations. I was like, no, it's just shut up. But that said, like he was really stressed about some stuff. And I sat him down. I was like, here's the spreadsheet I made. Let's have this spreadsheet. And so I made him a spreadsheet.

And he, like a couple weeks later was like, I feel a lot better. Thank you. And I was like, hey, excellent. I'm going to get him on board. I'm going to get him on board. Because he was arguing with me. He was like, well, I don't see the point of this like financial independence and early retirement because I would always work.

And honestly, I would always work too. Yeah. But it's getting to choose what you work on and when you do it. Exactly. Exactly. So I still don't have very ambitious plans. I still don't know where I'm going with all of this. I'm on my baby step of, you know, I'm on baby step number 600, but I have probably 600 more to go.

But it's nice to just have, like, to feel like I've actually started. Instead of that person who's talking about their diet starting on Monday, you're that person who's like lost 15 pounds and has a solid workout program. It's like that kind of thing. It's nice to feel like you're actually, you have something you can point to and be like, I've accomplished that. Cool. Awesome.

Well, would you come back from time to time and keep us posted? keep us updated? Yeah, unless it gets embarrassing or I do badly. But yeah, no, I'd be happy to. It's fun to figure all this out. I had never, I didn't know, like, if I was a thing, I didn't know there were so many different blogs and podcasts. I remember a year ago, Jake told me that one of the podcasts he listens to his Planet Money, and I was like, boring. That has the word money in it. I don't want to listen to it. Like, and I have no, like, that's what a 360 I've done. Like, now if anything remotely sounds like it's finance involved, I will at least listen to it to figure out what's going on because I'm like, ooh, money? It's just a weird, a weird turn of events.

So I would love to because I'm sure that I will get even weirder. God knows where I'll go with this. Excellent, excellent. Well, we will have you back on the show for these updates because I just, I don't think, like, your story is. I feel like it's pretty common, honestly. Yeah. I feel like I'm pretty, you know, we joked earlier about me not being normal or average or something. But I feel like as far as money was concerned, I was pretty much like they'd pick someone else out of a crowd and there's a good chance they'd be in the same or worse shape. I feel like I pretty much represented the mindset of the average American. Yes. Yes. Exactly. Exactly. And that was why I wanted you to come on this show because most

podcasts and blogs and, you know, all of this media, we talk to that like really funny end of the bell curve, you know? Yeah. I really found it. That was part of when I first started. part of the thing that took me so long to get into it is I felt like that wasn't me. Right. Those people are different. That's not me. I'm not that type of person. You know, the people who are naturally frugal or naturally thinking about retirement or like I'm not any of those things. Like I love to spend money. I mean, aside from the fact that I always paid my bills on time because I have this, you know, weird sense of responsibility

that I don't want people to not like me for not paying my bills or whatever it is, I am not naturally, or I was not naturally a saver and I was not naturally someone who liked to look about, look at my finances or think about money or any of that. So you don't really see that represented a lot. Exactly. Exactly. All right. Parting quote, parting words of advice for anyone who's listening to this who feels the same way that you did when you were 30, what would you tell that person? I think the most important thing to realize is that no matter how stressful you might think it is to actually sit down and take a look at everything you owe and what you earn and everything, it is a thousand times worse or a million times.

I don't have by a factor of a million times worse to not do it. Like as much stress as you think you're saving yourself, you're actually setting yourself up for failure. You have to, no one's going to do it for you. And that's, it's weird. Even if you would ask me, hey, Evelyn, is someone going to do this for you? I'd be like, no, of course not. But obviously the way I was acting, I thought that, you know, at some point, someone would do it for me.

Right. No one's going to do it for you and you're not doing yourself any favors by not taking control of your own. You're letting someone else control your life. You're letting your credit cards control your life or a credit card company or whoever you owe debt to. You are letting someone else be master of your life. And I don't know, I don't want that. I don't know anyone who's like, you know what, I'd like to be beholden to someone. So, I don't know.

I guess just do yourself a favor and don't be. beholden to other people. That's the least pithy advice I've ever given. Cool. Well, thanks, Evelyn. We will talk again soon. Sounds good. Hey, guys.

Thanks so much for listening to the show. If you enjoyed it, please subscribe and leave us a review. Thanks. Jay, where is your weirdest piercing? My weirdest piercing used to be on my left nipple. Really? Yep. I had no idea.

We co-hosted a show for how long, and I never knew you had a nipple piercing? You forgot to ask me this in the interview. That wasn't part of a job interview. It needs to be. I'm issuing a new standard operating procedure.