BiggerPockets Money Podcast - 262: Prenups, Projects, Prolific Spending, and Planning for 2022 w/ Carl & Mindy Jensen

Episode Date: December 31, 2021

Mindy may seem like a financial superhero to most listeners of the Money Podcast, but she’s nothing without her financial education inspiring partner, Carl Jensen. Carl is known quite well around the personal finance community as co-host of the Mile High FI podcast and writer over at 1500days.com. Carl and Mindy are just closing in on their twentieth anniversary, so there’s no better occasion to have them both on the show than right now! Surprisingly, Carl and Mindy didn’t talk about money for a significant time once they started dating. Mindy credits her faith in Carl’s money skills by how he acted more than how he spoke. Carl was driving around a used car, he lived in a house he inherited from his grandmother, and he used a coupon on their first date (smart move, Carl).  Now as a financial and romantic powerhouse, they both share thoughts on prenuptial agreements, protecting your wealth, 401k investing, and questions to ask a potential partner. Whether you’re single, dating, married, or a money-hoarding hermit, this episode sheds light on twenty years worth of money lessons learned so you can live a happier, more FI-focused life! In This Episode We Cover When a prenup is worth having and whether or not it will protect your wealth  The telltale “context clues” of dating someone who has a frugal mindset Frontloading your retirement accounts so you can build wealth faster The importance of tracking your expenses and regularly updating your FI number  Margin loans and getting low-interest debt on your stock portfolio When to start talking about money with a potential partner  And So Much More! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Bigger Pockets Money podcast show number 262, Finance Friday edition, special Finance Friday edition, where I'm going to talk to Carl Jensen about our finances. If I were to enter into a marriage with somebody else, I now have something to protect. Having a pre-up would be something that I would want to do. But back then, we really didn't have anything. I mean, we had, what did we have, like, $40,000 in student loan debt and I had a $40,000? our condo. Like, we really were pretty much nothing. We had our love for each other, and that's all we needed. Fomit.

Hello, hello, hello. My name is Mindy Jensen, and with me today is the host of the Mile High Five podcast and the creative genius behind 1500 Days.com and all of the dinosaurs and fart jokes you find over there. Also, we've been married for like 20 years or something. It has not been 20 years. How long has it actually been? Like almost 20 years. It's like 19 years and 11 months, right? It's like 19 years and 11 and a half months right now. Nobody wants to listen to us complain and argue over how long we've been married.

It's been a while. If we keep arguing like this, we might not make it for 20 years. Okay, so today we're going to talk about money because I talk about money all day every day and I interview people about their finances, but I sit on a throne of lies. we calculated our finance number, our financial independence number to be $1 million based on $40,000 of spending. And what did we do this year? We probably spent two and a half times that much, I would guess.

Yes. So if you are calculating your fine number at X and you spend 2.5x, chances are really good that you are going to run out of money before you get to death. Yeah. Yeah. So we need to kind of rein in our spending. But before we do any of that, I think we should give you a little bit more of our background. And before we do any of that, I would like to ask, what episode, what Bigger Pockets Money

episode will I be appearing on? Oh, as I said in the introduction, this is episode 262 of the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. Wow. What was the first episode I was on? This is 262. What was the first one I ever appeared on? That would also be episode 262. Wow.

I often cry myself to sleep, just begging to be on the Bigger Pockets Money episode. Oh, whatever you do that. How many years have you been doing it for? Is this like four or five years? Wow, thanks for listening. Oh, wait, I'm sorry. How many episodes have you listened to? Wait, did the guest cancel or something?

Is that why I'm on here today? Yeah, we, I'm scrambling to find somebody to talk to. And I'm like, well, I guess I'll have Carl on. Yeah. No, I wanted to have you on because 2022, I am going to, be sharing my finances, our finances, specifically our expenses, because our expenses have been going through the roof. So I am going to come clean and show everybody in real time, anybody who wants to look, in real time what we're spending, because when you plan for

X spending, you need to be able to actually spend that much. So we're, we are recording this at the end of December. What we could do is spend, do all of our big purchases, in the next 10 days, so like 2022 will look super awesome if we do that. That is called cheating. We don't do that here on the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. Maybe if you listened, you would know that. Whoa. Okay, so, snipping aside, we're actually just kidding.

Tax season is one of the only times all year when most people actually look at their full financial picture, including income, spending, savings, investments, the whole thing. And if you're like most folks, it can be a little eye-opening. That's why I like Monarch. It helps you see exactly where your money is going, and more importantly, where your taxed refund can make the biggest impact. Because the goal isn't just to look backward, it's to actually make progress. Simplify your finances with Monarch. Monarch is the all-in-one personal finance tool designed to make your life easier.

It brings your entire financial life, including budgeting, accounts and investments, net worth, and future planning together in one dashboard on your phone or your laptop. Feel aware and in control of your finances this tax season and get 50% off your Monarch subscription with the code pockets. What I personally like is that Monarch keeps you focused on achieving. not just tracking. You can see your budgets, debt payoff, savings goals, and net worth all in one place. So every decision actually moves the needle. Achieve your financial goals for good with Monarch, the all in one tool that makes money management simple. Use the code pockets at Monarch.com for half off your first year. That's 50% off at Monarch.com code pockets. I love Matt, said no one ever. Nobody starts a business thinking, you know what would make this more fun, calculating quarterly

estimated taxes? But somehow every small business owner ends up doing it. Your dreams of creating, selling and growing, get replaced by late nights chasing receipts, juggling invoices, and wondering if that bad sushi lunch with Scott counts as a write-off. Change all that with Found. Found is a business banking platform built to take the pain out of managing money. It automatically tracks expenses, organizes invoices, and even preps you for tax season without you doing the heavy lifting. You can set aside money for business goals, control spending with virtual cards,

and find tax write-offs you didn't even know existed. It saves time, money, and probably a few years of life expectancy. Found has over 30,000 five-star reviews from owners who say, Found makes everything easier. Expenses, income, profits, taxes, invoices even. So reclaim your time and your sanity. Open a found account for free at found.com. That's fow-u-undd.com. Found is a financial technology company, not a bank. Bank. Banking services are provided by lead bank, member FDIC. Don't put this one off. Join thousands of small business owners who have streamlined their finances with Found. Audible has been a core part of my routine for more than a decade. I started listening years ago

to make better use of drive time and workouts, and it stuck. At this point, I've logged over 200 229 audiobook completions on Audible alone, and I still regularly re-listen to the highest impact titles. Lately, I've been listening to Bigger Leen or Stronger for Fitness, the Anxious Generation for Parenting Perspective, and several Arthur Brooks' audiobooks that have been excellent for mental well-being. What makes Audible so powerful is its breadth. Beyond audiobooks, you also get Audible Originals, podcasts, and a massive back catalog across

business, health, parenting, and more, all accessible in one app. If you're looking to turn everyday moments into real progress, Audible has been indispensable for me over over 10 years. Kickstart your well-being journey with your first audiobook free when you sign up for a free 30-day trial at audible.com slash BP money. Let's back up a little bit. In the beginning, I met this guy named Carl, and I thought he was kind of cute. First came the dinosaurs, and then they, how does the airplane work?

They smoke too much and then they all died or something like that. This is terrible. Wait, this episode are my jokes. Both. This is awful. Okay. Go watch an airplane for that terrible joke. Okay.

Yeah, we met. Geez, what year did we meet in? 1998, thanks for remembering. Oh, that was a long time ago. It was a long time ago. Yeah, do you remember our first date? I do. You took me to a terrible barbecue joint.

I didn't like their barbecue sauce. I don't want to name them because they actually do a really good job with the meat. they just don't have good barbecue sauce. You're not going to like your 20-year anniversary surprise. Not if you're taking me there. Yeah. Do you remember what I did on that date? Because I had actually forgotten, and you reminded me of it.

I think earlier this year probably I'd, yeah, what did I do? Well, okay, this is leading the witness. You used a coupon on our first date, which I thought was rather savvy. And I was reminded of that when I saw some woman tweet out her disappointment when she went on a date. She's like, can you believe it? He used a coupon. I'm done with him. And I was like, wow, Carl used a coupon on our first date. Like, that's not stupid to try and save money. He's not being cheap to try and save money. Why pay full price when you don't have to? And the responses to this particular comment were, were a lot of women, hey, send him my way. I'll go out with a guy who

uses a coupon. I don't care. Like, blah, blah, blah. But yeah, I told you about that. Yeah, I admit that I was a little bit horrified when you mentioned it. I'm not sure if I I would do the same thing if I was hypothetically dating in the current age. It sends a message. Yeah, better be hypothetical. So you, and the fact that you remember the coupon means it stuck out, I guess. It, I don't know that stuck out is the right word, but it was, I don't know, like, I use coupons too. It wasn't a big deal.

Yeah, yeah, I don't know. It definitely could have sent the wrong message, but I think it was a filter, one pretty unique thing, considering the place where we are now. I have a podcast about money. I write about money. You have a podcast about money. And the funny thing is, we never actually talked about money when we were dating or I don't think we even talked about it before we got married. This might be the first time we're ever talking about money right now. This isn't even close to the first time we're ever talking about money. We talk about money all the time. But he's right. When we were dating, we didn't talk about money. And I have said this a couple of times on the show, not that you have ever

listened, but I have said we didn't need to talk about money because we knew that we were both on the same page by actions. There's, you know, when you're learning to read, there's these things called context clues where you might not know what the word means, but all the words surrounding the word gives you an idea of what that word, that new word might mean. I didn't need to have this money conversation with him because he drove an older car and he lived in a house that he owned and didn't rent. And it had been his grandmother's house. And when you went into it, it wasn't filled with trendy furniture.

I think the walls were still pink when we first met. His grandmother was a big fan of pink. So pink walls, pink carpet, pink cup, pink couch. He... Lots of pink. Lots of pink. And foil wallpaper. And we both had these horrible cars, but yours was way more horrible than mine.

Do you remember the car at the time? Yes. Yes. It was in 1987, toilet. Toyota, Corolla FX, which is not standard. It's not your normal corolla. It's like a hatchback. It's super ugly.

I kind of liked it. I like that style of car, but yours was not in particularly good condition. No, I hit something with it. Yeah, you hit a lot of things. Yeah, I rear-ended somebody really, really hard. Oh, and this was before phones. You weren't even looking at your phone. I wasn't.

I was just the light turned green, so I went. And then you got that other green Toyota, which might. of even better, a worse car. Yes, I only got that one because it was so cheap because somebody had smoked, I don't know, 10,000 cigars in it with no windows down. Yeah. I mean, when you don't have any money and you need a new car, you kind of have to buy whatever piece of garbage is on the lot. Yeah, so I used to be really bad with money. I didn't, I wasn't necessarily bad with money.

I just didn't have any money to be good with. Yeah. But I think that was a litmus test. The whole car thing was the litmus test. Do you remember the story about my boss? I remember, but why don't you tell our listeners? So I had a boss, and one day I show up to work, and she's got this super fancy new car, and I'm like, oh, that's pretty nice.

I'm actually a car person, but I had a much older and much crappier car. And she's like, hey, Carl, you need to get one of these two. I'm like, well, I don't think I really need to. The car that I drive every day works fine. It's not that old. It's reliable. It's not nickel and I mean me. Why don't I need to replace this?

And she's like, well, you're single, right? I'm like, yeah. And she's like, and you want to get married someday, right? And I'm like, ah, this is going in a very bad place. I can kind of see where this is going at this point. She's like, well, you need ways to demonstrate that you have a good income and wealth to a potential suitor. So you should get a nice car so you can show people that you have money.

And she was a very good boss. I liked her a lot. Great boss, except for that. And I guess it was the whole culture of this place. I don't know if I ever mentioned this to you, but whenever someone would get a new car at this job, they would take a picture of it and send it to the whole, they would send it to the whole email list for our department. So every day you'd have a picture of a Lexus or some other fancy car on there. Oh, look at this. And everyone would send a congratulatory high five.

Where emojis a thing back then? I don't think so. We're pretty old, but like, oh, that's awesome of you. So, yeah, and the irony is we're still married and my boss got divorced soon after that. Yeah. And I think we didn't talk about money, but we had those context clues. We had the filters in there. We didn't go to super fancy places. We didn't go on extravagant vacations. We drove these old cars. So even though we didn't talk about it, we just kind of knew. Although there was one thing I did talk about it, and it made you kind of angry. Do you remember what that thing was? Oh, the pre-nup? Yes, yes. That's it. You do remember. Yes, I remember. So at the time, I had not talked to Aaron Lurie, who had had. had the really great line where if you are married, you already have a pre-up. It is the divorce laws of the state in which you reside.

And if you don't like those laws, you should write your own in the form of a pre-nup. And I heard Carl say, well, we might not last. So we should get a pre-up. And I told him, no, sir, we are not getting a pre-nup. we are going to stay married forever. And look, we are still married. And when we started out together, what did we have? A whole lot of nothing.

I mean, you had a crappy car. I owned my condo. And you, I don't think you had bought that house yet, actually. Yeah, you're correct. I don't think I had. So you probably should have got a pre-nup to protect yourself for me, actually. I should have. I was looking out for you.

So anyway, the pre-year. the pre-up now if I were to see I don't even like to talk about this if I were to enter into a marriage with somebody else I now have something to protect having a pre-up would be something that I would want to do but back then we really didn't have anything I mean we had what did we have like $40,000 in student loan debt and I had a $40,000 condo like we really were pretty much nothing we had our love for each other And that's all we needed. Fomit. And that's all we'll ever need. Yeah, but I think pre-nups are a pretty good idea. It's like insurance. You don't buy a home insurance policy because you plan on your house burning

down or a tornado coming and destroying it. You're buying it for, you're buying the home insurance policy on a beautiful sunny day to protect yourself against that disaster that probably will never happen. And I think divorces are probably much more likely than tornadoes or home fires. Yeah, and that's why you should have it. But should we have gotten a pre-up? No. We didn't have anything.

Yeah. So a pre-up is for people who have assets. A pre-nup is for people when assets are disparate. We had the same. Nothing. Actually, I was richer than you, so I should have gotten a pre-up. Yeah, you were richer. I had college debt.

I had all kinds of stuff. You should have never done with me. Yeah. Okay, so that is, we kind of kicked that dead horse. Yeah, we should talk about how we got into home flipping. Oh, that was me too. Wow, I'm just like the rock star of everything here. Yeah, I'm pretty much worth us.

So we got into home flipping because I was poor. I had no money and I had been renting an apartment and I decided that renting was throwing away my money. At that time, I truly believed that. Now, of course, I believe that there are times where renting is a better choice than owning, especially if you're living in a high cost of living area. I was not. And renting turned out to be, or buying a house turned out to be a really good idea for me. I bought a condo, but because I was poor, I couldn't afford anything nice.

I bought a very ugly condo, and I made it very nice. When we got married, he was living in his grandmother's house. His grandmother had passed away. And he had a house which I, how do I say this without sounding like such a snob? I thought a house was better than a condo. So I wanted to sell my condo and get rid of it and move into his house. Plus he had a very large yard and it was nicer than my condo. So we went to sell my condo and I paid $50,000 for it.

And four years later, I sold it for $75,000. And I paid off all the debt that I had. I didn't have a ton of debt. but I played off all the debt going into the marriage. And I thought, wow, if we could make a house nicer and sell it again, that would be really cool. And there was this new thing out called the Patriot Act. It's not called the Patriot Act. Something about in 1997, where you didn't have to buy a new house with your money,

you only had to live in there for the two of the last five years. It's now Section 121 of the tax code, where if you buy a home and live in it as your primary residence for at least two of the last five years, you can pay no capital gains up to $250,000 if you're single or up to $500,000 if you're married. That's the current laws on the books right now at the end of 2021 going into 2022. So if you're listening to this little bit later, things may have changed. It's been on the chopping block for a while and it never pans out. But prior to that, and this was 2002 that I sold my condo, prior to that,

1997 law being passed, that you had to take the money that you made from your house and put it into a bigger, better house, or a more expensive house, in order to not pay capital gains taxes on it. So sort of like a combination between the Section 121 and the 1031, and we could really nerd out if we want to, but that's neither here nor there. Yeah, it was interesting. So we fixed up that house, sold that, and then we did it many more times, including the house. We are sitting in right Now, you can see from, if you're watching this on YouTube, this part of the basement looks beautiful, but if the camera were to go over a little bit to my left, I guess, on the camera, you would see a partially constructed basement.

But yeah, we put ourselves through a lot of stuff. I was thinking about it the other day. One of them we did, and it turned out to be financially good, but not lifestyle good, was one that was about an hour and a half train ride away from our job, so we would wake up at like five in the morning, drive down to the train station. Oh, the Geneva? Yeah, and then we had to walk and super far away because the parking lot was far away, jump on this train, ride that.

And some days, we'd stay up to like 10, 11, 10 or 11 at night, just working on this house. And then we'd repeat the thing the next day. And it was just, yeah. That was awful. And we didn't have kids at the time, so it was different. That was the last one we didn't have kids for. Yeah, I guess I would not take it back.

financially we did well on it, and we escaped a, we escaped the recession. We sold that one in 2006 right before the big, bad recession happened, which affected houses drastically. Yeah, especially that far out. Yeah. And I think this will be, this one we're sitting in will probably be our last big one. I have noticed. Let me confirm that for you. This will be our last big one. I am too old for this. It is, we've reached the position in our financial journey where we don't need to continue to live in this chaotic mess to be financially independent anymore. So this will be our last big all-out flip. I will probably buy another house that has an ugly kitchen and do it the way that I wanted. We just finished our kitchen,

and it's a lot of fun to have the kitchen that you want. We added a lot of extra. We added a lot of extra space. He designed it. It's gorgeous. And it is, it's just, it's so much better than the kitchen that was here before. And I'm very excited about having the kitchen that I want. So I might do that again, but I don't want to do. And I mean, every single wall in this house will be touched. Yeah. But what if we find another one that's a really good deal? Oh, no. Just say no. Yeah. It had its place, but we're done with that. Yeah. In the beginning, we had more time than money. And now we have switched and we have more money than time. We have two children. I have a job. He's unemployed. You're supposed to laugh at that so people know that that's... Unemployed. I'm hurt. I'm going to cry. Excuse me, I'll be back in a minute. Oh, whatever. You're not going to cry. I might be underemployed. Do you have a job? What is a job? A W-2 job. A W-2 job.

they pay you to show up every day. So anyone who's a contract worker who doesn't get a W2 is, oh boy, I am not. This is my podcast. You're not supposed to be interrogating me. I'm looking out for the other, I'm looking out for everyone. Okay, whatever. We need to get back to the finance Friday. Okay. Let's talk about your 401k. One of my favorite stories when we were dating is when you talk to your HR department about contributing to your 401K. Why don't you tell that story? Oh, so we were, it was at the end of the year and we were doing, 401 election for the next year, and I filled out that I wanted to contribute 100% of my salary starting in January so that I could max out my 401K.

And my HR rep, I just filled out the paperwork. She'd given it to everybody and turned it in. She's going through all the documentation, and she comes over to me, and she says, you can't do this. And I said, why not? She said, because you won't get a paycheck. And I said, that's okay. I know that I won't get a paycheck.

I want to contribute 100% of my pay to my 401k so that I can max it out as soon as possible in the beginning of the year. She said, but you won't get paid. And I said, yes, we've already established that. I'm okay with that. My husband has a job. He'll put food on the table. And she came back to me three separate times before she would put that paperwork through.

And then even after the first of the year at the first paycheck, she came up to me and she's like, are you okay? I'm like, she's like, you can change that at any time. I'm like, I don't want to change it. I want to max it out. I want to borrow from my future paycheck so I can max it all out right now, but you won't let me do that. So I just have to wait. At that time, I was making $30,000 a year and the 401K contributions were $15,000 was the max. So I was, I had to wait until June, I think, before I was. I was. I had to wait until June, I think, before I could max out my 401k and start getting a paycheck again. I'm trying to think of what we invested in at that time.

I'm sure we have no idea. Do you remember what they, I don't think they had Vanguard. That was 100 years ago. I can't remember what I did yesterday. Yeah, they probably did not. But there's a good lesson in that. If you're young and you can hack it, max out your investments. And at that time, I was making $30,000 a year.

how much were you making? You were like 80 or 90. No, I don't think it was that much. Whatever you were making, we could live off of very easily. Yeah, I think it was 65,000, if I remember it right. Okay, so you were making 65, which we could, I mean, we could, we could have lived off of my 30. Yeah, probably. So you were, we could live off of yours. We were, we could afford to put all of mine into the 401K.

And I think you were still contributing to your 401K. Yeah. But that was a long time ago. Anyway, yeah. That's the lesson to be learned. Max it out as early as you can. If you can't max it out, put in as much as you can. Get used to contributing to your 401k as early as you possibly can.

So before we end this segment, I have two questions for you. I'm going to spring these up on you. Oh, okay. So we have done anything differently. Is there anything that you think? Yeah, I should have got a pre-nup. Oh, whoa. Is there such a thing?

It's like a post-nup. There sure is. No, not. a post-nup is called a divorce attorney. No, there's a thing called a post-nup. Really? Okay. So we could do that right now? We could, but like. Dangerous territory. Warning Will Robinson.

Yeah, we're not going to post-nup either. Yeah, so that's something you get to people? Is that common? No, I don't think it's common. Although I'm really just making that up right now. I have no idea. I don't know anybody that has one, but you can get a post-n-up if you choose. Okay, so we can go to an attorney right now and have something written up that says, if we get divorced, since you're so much more skilled, I should get 95% because you'll be able to earn money. And I pretty much have no earning potential because as you have established, I don't have a job

right now. And let's face it, I'm probably unemployable by any measure. No, we're not going to go get a post-nup. 90%? 85%? What's the other question you're going to bring at me? The other question was we talked about how we did not talk much about money. if, just hypothetically speaking, if I was out of the picture, but everything else was the same,

and you were dating, how would you, what would you ask a potential suitor? Like, and how soon would you do it? Like, would you bring it up right there on the first date? Like, what's your savings rate? Or would you hold off? Would you bring a coupon on the first date? Well, not that I thought about going on dates with other men, but I would probably, it's a big deal.

And I would probably bring it up on the first or second date. Okay. I don't, I don't want to get involved with somebody. At this stage in my life where I am old and set in my ways, I do not want to get involved with somebody that I am going to have to retrain about money. Yeah.

And that sounds terrible and I don't even care because A, I don't even want to date anybody. You're not allowed to die on me, and you're not allowed to get a divorce. So there we go. Interesting. I had a follow-up to it. What was it? Yeah, it's always kind of awkward because it's taboo in our society to talk about money.

But it's one of those things that I think if you are dating, you should get it out of the way as soon as possible because it's pretty difficult to change people. And money is a fundamental value, right? Like, on the surface, on the surface, money seems superficial. and it seems like kind of a shallow thing to talk about. But money informs our values if you've got money together. And if you've got a big savings rate, you probably have a lot of other things in common. So, yeah, I would agree. I think if, hypothetically speaking, if I were to date, not that I want to or...

They're not allowed. Yeah, I do not want to do that. But yeah, I think you should talk about it right away. This comes up all the time in the FI community, how there should be an FI dating site like plenty of 401ks. I don't know. What would it be called? But then I think the issue with it is you might get some gold diggers on there too.

Like they know the FI community, we probably have an above average savings rate. So we have above average money. So how do you filter out the people who just want to the gold digger types? I don't know. And I think that, well, you know, I think it's easy to filter them out just based on attitude. I mean, I'm not. asking you, what is your savings rate? If I'm a gold digger, I'm asking you how much money do you make?

Yeah. I'm not interested in your 401K balance. I want to know how much money you have to spend on me. Right? Isn't that what gold diggers do? Yeah, I think so. Sounds right. So I think there are ways around it. And I mean, you can tell when somebody is just interested in your money for the sake of your

money. I am pretty obnoxious when I meet somebody. Wait, just when you meet someone? Yeah, yeah, just when I meet them. And, well, when the subject turns to money or what they do for a living, like, we met somebody at the HQ and he has some company. And I was asking him all these questions about the company. And after a few minutes, I'm like, oh, context clues. He's getting a little uncomfortable.

I'm like, sorry, that's my job. But he was like, hmm, got to go. And then I didn't talk to him the rest of the night. So I felt kind of bad that I kept badgering him about. But I was just fascinated by his job. I thought it was very interesting. It was not a job that would have occurred to me to, like he created a company. And I would not have created that company.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, money is always a funny thing to talk about. It's so interesting because everyone approaches it and everyone has a completely different view on how open we should be. I'm pretty transparent about it. And I'll tell you why in a second. But since I'm transparent, other people who have the same mindset, that think they can be transparent with me. So probably at least once a month, I'll get some person on the internet, some random person saying, oh, yeah, here's how old I am, here's my job,

here's how much I make, and here's how much I saved. And it's pretty surprising because most people, it's like talking about sex or religion, right? That is a taboo subject, but to have strangers email you that. But I wish we were all more like that, because I think the reason people sometimes do unhealthy things with money is by, like, by expensive things. This was in the first paragraph of the millionaire next door when they started looking to survey millionaires. The first thing they did is went to a fancy neighborhood with huge houses and nice cars. And they said what they quickly discovered is these people actually don't have money. They want to show that they have money, but the real millionaires are the people who live in a modest, like, middle class home.

So I think if we did talk more about money, maybe there'd be less behavior like that because we could help each other out and we wouldn't have to demonstrate. wealth that we don't have to impress people we don't care about or whatever that quote is. Sorry, whoever said that, I just butcher it. I think it was the minimalist dudes who said that. So, yeah. People email me all the time with their financial situation. So that's not that unusual. Yeah.

Sometimes it's kind of fun. Like some people have a lot of money. And I'm like, can I have some of that? Just kidding. But if you would like to send us a check, our address is. Stop. I said that on the Brad Finn episode, and Hugh Carnahan sent me $7 in the mail to buy me a beer.

Wow. I didn't see that $7. He didn't send it to you. Wow, that could buy you a pretty nice beer, $7. You're not drinking a Coors banquet at that. I'm not drinking a Coors banquet. That is a true statement. Where did this cord go?

So one last thing before we finished up, this section is I put this shelf on like five minutes before we record it just so there would be something more interesting than a plane. Well, and everything on here has a little bit of significance. If you've read my blog or followed me, there's dinosaurs up there. But this is something we bought on our honeymoon. And it supposedly has some like happy, happy, nice, nice thing, not like the Tiki curse from the Brady Bunch or whatever that was. And I felt bad about buying this because this is pretty cool. Whoever made this put a lot of work into it.

If you're listening to this, I'm showing what is this, a Tiki doll? A Tiki God? Yeah, I thought it was really cool. We stopped by this road stand, this roadside stand on Maui, and these two guys were carving these things on the spot, and this is super elaborate carving, and I'm just like, hey, I'll give you like 20 bucks for it. And they're like, oh, yeah, sure, take it. And then I look, and there's a price tag at $23.

And I always felt bad because I didn't mean to pay them less than they deserve. So sometime we'll have to go back to Maui, and if we find those guys, I'll give them the $3. Yeah, we'll find those guys. Yeah, we probably won't actually find them. There you have it. Should we talk about our 2021 year in review? Ooh, 2021 year in review is ugly.

We based our fine number of $1 million on spending $40,000 a year. We were quite certain that we would be spending $3,000 a month, which is $36,000 a year. And we gave ourselves a little bit of a buffer in case something weird came up. So we estimated we would be spending $40,000 a year on our life. And then we hit that number and you didn't retire. We doubled that number and then you retired. Right. And you've been retired for four years.

April of 2017. So coming on five years. Yeah. Coming on five years. And last year, we spent. spent $49,500 on home improvements, just home improvements. The basement, the washer and dryer, the flooring, the solar panels, the shed, the kitchen all adds up to $49,500. And we also spent money to live. But the house spending is always a little bit easier to justify. For example,

we spent $15,000 on a basement remodel, but I took 500 feet, square feet. of unfinished space and pretty much finished the basement for that much. If I were to pay someone, it would have been probably $75,000. Labor is so expensive. So we added a ton of value to the house for only $15,000. The kitchen, we spent $10,000 on that. I think we're going to show some kitchen pictures on the YouTube video. And it's incredible. It's night and day. And it was a lot of work. Again, we do this work ourselves. I don't know if we said that or if people know that. I think people know that, but we didn't say that here. Yeah, that is one of the reasons why we were able to only spend $49,500 to completely redo the basement.

I'm sorry, to completely finish the basement, to buy a washer and dryer to install flooring in, well, we bought the flooring for the entire house. It's not all in yet. The solar panels, the shed, and the kitchen. Yeah, just the kitchen and basement would have been well over $100,000 if we would have paid someone. They're up to 25,000 now. Do you know how much we've paid people to do work?

I'm thinking about it right now, and I know the answer. On this house? Yeah, we've paid people to do two tasks. There was the electricity in the backyard. Electricity in the backyard. Oh, yeah, I guess three tasks. There was the drywall here. Yep. I don't know what else we paid. Oh, the concrete

on the shed? Yeah. So that was, the concrete was like a thousand. I think the drywall was 2000 and the electric was like $200 or something like that. He charged $2,000 for the drywall? Yeah. Whoa, he needs to raise his rates. Yeah, it was a pretty good deal. He did a nice job. He did a great job. He was here for a month. But that's it. We try to do whatever we can ourselves. And part of it just, it's labor is so expensive here. Well, and finding somebody to call you back is so hard. You can call 15 people and not one

person answers their phone and none of them return your call. And it's really frustrating. So, I mean, that's how we started in the first place doing it ourselves was because that plumber never called you back. Yep. So we spent $49,500 on home improvements, but we'll get all that back and much more at some future point in time. So that's an investment in our future. But that spending and living in a house that's a construction zone also caused increases in other spending too when you don't have a kitchen for a month. And how long did we go out without the kitchen for? It was like a month. And we went out to eat a lot. I don't even want to look at our November, December, going out to eat budget. Yeah, I have. So I'm not going to.

Mindy's probably going to throw me under the bus at this moment, and she's right, she'll rightfully do this, but the solar panels on top of the house were a big job, and I was doing that in the kitchen simultaneously, which probably wasn't the greatest of ideas. Wow, if only somebody would have said something like, hey, maybe don't do something. giant projects at the same time. I was so worried about there's been all these shortages with materials. So I'm like, we have to order this stuff now. And I want the tax credit for the panels before the end of the year.

Like, we might order it now and we won't see these materials for like a month or two months. And in both cases, we order the materials. And then they're like, we can deliver it by the end of the week. I'm like, really? Like, oh, wasn't expecting that. So it's my fault. All this stuff showed up. And then I went to work on it.

wanted to get the panels done before it got cold. I don't know why I wanted to get the kitchen done so fast. The old one was horrific. Well, and you wanted to get the panels done. You're not a I can sit around kind of guy. You, if the stuff is there to do, you will do it. And it's great. I don't have half-finished stuff, but it is, like, you don't seem to take any time for yourself.

And I wanted to have the kitchen done for you and your birthday. Oh, shut up. I just made that up right now. We didn't even start it until after my birthday, you big weirdo. Yeah, that's right. Oops, yeah. Yeah, okay. You wanted it done for your birthday.

Were the solar panels done for your birthday? No. Happy birthday. Here's some free electricity. Yeah, thanks. Here's some free electricity. Tax season is one of the only times all year when most people actually look at their full financial picture, including income, spending, savings, investments, the whole thing.

And if you're like most folks, it can be a little, eye-opening. That's why I like Monarch. It helps you see exactly where your money is going, and more importantly, where your tax refund can make the biggest impact. Because the goal isn't just to look backward, it's to actually make progress. Simplify your finances with Monarch. Monarch is the all-in-one personal finance tool designed to make your life easier. It brings your entire financial life, including budgeting, accounts and investments, net worth, and future planning together in one dashboard on your phone or your laptop. Feel aware and in control of your finances this tax season and get 50% off your Monarch subscription with the code pockets. What I

personally like is that Monarch keeps you focused on achieving, not just tracking. You can see your budgets, debt payoff, savings goals, and net worth all in one place. So every decision actually moves the needle. Achieve your financial goals for good with Monarch, the all-in-one tool that makes money management simple. Use the code pockets at Monarch.com for half off your first year. That's 50% off at Monarch.com code pockets. You just realized your business needed to hire someone yesterday. How can you find amazing candidates fast? Easy. Just use Indeed. When it comes to hiring, Indeed is all you need. That means you can stop struggling to get your job notice on other job sites. Indeed's sponsored jobs helps you stand out and hire the right people quickly. Your job post

jumps straight to the top of the page where your ideal candidates are looking. And it works. Sponsored jobs on Indeed get 45% more applications than non-sponsored posts. The best part? No monthly subscriptions or long-term contracts. You only pay for results. And speaking of results, in the minute I've been talking to you, 23 people just got hired through Indeed worldwide. There's no need to wait any longer, speed up your hiring right now with Indeed. And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your job's more visibility at Indeed.com slash bigger pockets. Just go to Indeed.com slash bigger pockets right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash bigger pockets. Terms and conditions apply.

Hiring, Indeed is all you need. When you want more, start your business with Northwest registered agent and get access to thousands of free guides, tools, and legal forms to help you launch and protect your business all in one place. Build your complete business identity with Northwest Today. Northwest Registered Agent has been helping small business owners and entrepreneurs launch and grow businesses for nearly 30 years. They're the largest registered agent and LLC service in the U.S.

With over 1,500 corporate guides who are real people who know your local laws and can help you and your business every step of the way. Northwest makes life easy for business owners. They don't just help you form your business. They give you the free tools you need after you form it, like operating agreements, meeting minutes, and thousands of how-to guides that explain the complicated ins and outs of running a business.

And with Northwest, privacy is automatic. They never sell your data. And all services are handled in-house because privacy by default is their pledge to all customers. Visit Northwest Registeredagent.com slash money-free and start building something amazing. Get more with Northwest Registered Agent at Northwest Registered Agent.com slash money-free. At Desjardin, our business is helping yours. We're here to support your business through every stage of growth, from your first pitch to your first acquisition.

Whether it's improving cash flow or exploring investment banking solutions, with Desjardin business, it's all under one roof. So join the more than 400,000 Canadian entrepreneurs who already count on us, and contact Desjardin today. We'd love to talk, business. So I will take a moment to say that the solar panels, you said we'll get all of our money back. All of that $49,000, we will see.

That will definitely come back to us. However, $14,000 of that was for solar panels. And we live in an area of the world that gets 330 days of sun every year. And our city buys electricity from us at retail rates, which is not normal. Most cities, when they're buying your excess electricity from solar panels, buys it from you at the wholesale rate, which is a significantly lower rate. So we're making a lot of money off of our solar panels. We, what are we generating twice as much as we need?

Yeah, I put 200% of our annual usage on the roof, which is the maximum that you can do per Colorado. Yeah. So we're making, we're making more electricity than we need and we're making money off of the solar panels. But solar panels, while they're a great thing for the environment, they don't add any value to your house. Not even in California, not even in Colorado, where we get all this done, not even in our city where we have this high rate that the electricity, electric company buys from us. Solar panels are still not a really great thing from a house perspective. But we did it anyway because they're good for the environment. Yeah.

And I'm a nerd. I can't stand the thought of free photons. That's the thing that the sun shoots out. They take eight minutes to get here. They hit the panel. They create the electrolytic effect, which moves electrons, causes them to come out your outlets or back into the grid, depending on how much you're using.

And yeah, I can't stand all that free energy hitting our roof and just hitting up our roof, actually destroying our roof. Now we have free energy. You are a nerd. And the $14,000, by the way, is before the tax credit. So we'll get about 26% off of that. Do they just send us a check or how does that work? No, it's a tax credit, so we'll owe less than taxes.

No, you said that. I'm sorry. Yeah, that's okay. Let's see. What else did we do? We did the basement. Oh, washer and dryer. Why is that a project?

We moved the washer and dryer upstairs. They were in the basement. That's very generous that you say we to include me in that. They were just right over here. And we live in a split level. And so you have to walk up one, two, three flights of stairs to get from where we live to where the washing machine was. And in one of our past flips, he had made the washing machine up on the main level or the bedroom level and it was heaven. So he moved it up there.

We have a stackable washer and dryer. He took some space out of our master bedroom closet and moved the washer and dryer up there with the help of the guys who moved the, moved the refrigerator. Yeah. And again, you mentioned that you did not do any of the work. I did it all. But again, I did it for you with the intention of having it done for your birthday. Oh, wow, it's getting deep in here. I just made that up. You did just make that up. The flooring, we moved into a house. I can't believe this

even exists. We moved into a house with white carpet. And our kids are like, it was white. How about some ketchup? How about some black slime? How about some black slime? How about just stains everywhere. So we knew we weren't going to keep the white carpet, so we didn't really try real hard to keep it clean. And our kids are like, well, let's make that really awful. So we have been slowly replacing it with luxury vinyl plank, which is basically it's made out of PVC pipe or the white outflow pipe for your water in your house.

And it is 100% waterproof, not just water resistant. and our kids are testing that theory out too by spilling stuff all over the floor now. But it just wipes right up. So we have it in the basement. We have it in the fireplace level. We have it in the next level. And we just don't have it yet on the bedded levels.

And that's kind of the last level to do. Yeah. But that was $5,000. We bought it all at once so that we didn't like not have enough to do the whole house. We wanted it all done in the same flooring. We've lived in houses that had, what, 10 different kinds of flooring in there? That's not so great. Yeah.

We talked about the solar panels. The shed, he has. Oh, our last house, we had a garage mahal. And this house, we have a two-car garage that's very, very tight. And he owns every tool that Home Depot sells. So we needed a place to store them. You should start locking that. Yeah, I should start to lock it.

And I wanted to have the shed done in time for your birthday. I think I did. Oh. that's so sweet of you. Yeah, I figure it could be a backup house or backup studio for you if you ever want to move out there. Yeah, I don't. It doesn't have electricity.

It's like you ever read like Walden? That can be your walled and you can go out there. Yeah, no. Peace and quiet. Peace and quiet. That would be nice. And then the kitchen, which we will show pictures of. We will have before and after pictures in the YouTube video.

And I will include them in the show notes, which can be found at biggerpockets.com slash Money Show 262. We'll just do a quick before and after. I am also going to do a rundown of my experience with the IKEA Kitchen. We did cabinets from IKEA, countertops from IKEA. And there's pros and cons to an IKEA kitchen. It looks gorgeous, as you can see in the pictures. If you've gone and checked out the pictures, or if you're looking, watching the video,

we've had our video editor, Joel Splice, some pictures so you can see how beautiful the kitchen looks now. I'm really excited with the way it turned out. And $10,000 is practically free for a kitchen of this size. And that is one of the pros of the IKEA kitchen is that it is so inexpensive. But back to that $49,500 price tag, we did not make our financial independence number based on spending all of this extra money on these projects. And we knew we were going to spend this money on these projects because we do the live-in flip where we move into a house. We spend money making it nicer. And then we sell it for a profit after two years. We've actually been here for two years now. And we'll probably

stay here until our youngest who is in sixth grade currently is out of high school and maybe longer. So we're not really looking for a super quick flip on this one. Normally, we would get that money back rather quickly because we sell the house. So this money is going to be sitting there for a while. But we also spent a lot of money outside of that. We didn't just spend our $36,000 this year. Yeah, this leads us to our wins and losses for the year. The flip caused us to spend more money because when you're super busy this stuff,

lot of times you don't feel like making dinner. If you don't actually have a kitchen, you can't make dinner except for microwave popcorn in the basement. And that gets old after a while. You can make, I mean, if you don't have a job, if you have a job and you're planning ahead, if you don't have all this stuff going on, you can make crock pot meals and you can, you know, have salads all the time. And there are ways to do it if you have more. time than money. But we don't have a lot of time. So we decided that we were just going to go out to dinner, which is kind of stupid because by the time you get in the car, go to the restaurant, sit down, order they make your food and bring it to you and you drive home, you could have already been

done cooking and cleaning up your dinner at home without having to go out. So do dishes in the bath tub. We've been there and done that. Yeah, doing dishes in the bathtub is the best ever. The shower is kind of like a dishwasher, especially if you've got the, And you can remove and you're just like a human dishwasher, right? Yeah, that's awesome. I totally recommend that. So I think our spending was a little bit higher there. We probably spent about $50,000 outside of home improvement expenses, which isn't too bad.

Well, it isn't too bad in the context of our financial situation. We can afford that. But it is too bad in the context of our financial independence number where we truly thought we were going to be spending $36,000 a year. Yeah. Well, it's about a couple of years, too, and we get to ratcheted it up for inflation as well, but we probably would not be at $50,000. I'm pretty sure that we didn't just spend $50,000.

And that is another thing. We didn't really track our spending this year. And when I say didn't really, I mean not at all. I think I started in January for like a week and a half or something in January of 2021. I was tracking my spending and I'm like, hmm, I just keep forgetting to enter things in. So in 2022, I have, there's a link in the show notes. I believe it's biggerpockets.com slash Mindy's budget, M-I-N-D-Y-S-B-U-D-G-E-D. You can follow along with my real-time spending tracker.

You can see where I am coming in at or under budget, where I am going way over. some of these numbers, because I haven't been tracking, I have no idea what to put in our food budget. And I have no idea what to put in our electric budget. I'm going to go back based on the electricity that we had last year. And we do have the solar panels. So there's a little bit of mental gymnastics there because we did take out a margin loan to pay for the solar panels. Do you want to talk about that? Yeah.

Now is our super cheap time to buy money. borrow money? Yeah. What did I say? Buy money? Buy money. Oh, yeah. Maybe where buy money.

Anyway, you can get a loan for like 1% through a lot of brokers like interactive brokers or for e-trade. I think over the long term, my money will do a lot better than 1%. And probably even the short term as well. So we paid for the solar panels with a margin loan. And we'll use the dividends that come from our investments to pay off that margin loan. The risk to that is if rates do go up and there's been threats of, that lately because of inflation, have rates do go up, the margin loan rate is variable.

So we might be in a situation where we do have to sell stocks eventually. And I guess the risk to the whole thing is that we're selling stocks. There's a future time to pay off the panels, and there's some big market disruption, so we're selling them in a lesser value than they are now. But I'll like to play around with things a little bit, maybe too much. Well, and this is a $14,000 loan. It's, they gave us a limit that we could borrow and we're nowhere near our limit. And this is something that we could pay off fairly easily.

I'm a real estate agent. If I need to, like, if all of a sudden we need to pay this off, like, we could swing a couple of months of higher interest rates while I'm waiting for a house to close and take the commission and use it to pay that down. Yeah. We have a lot of different leverage. we can pull. We're not just dependent upon one. Yeah. I'm not too concerned.

No, I'm not too concerned either. It seems a little risky with the phrase margin loan, but the amount that they said we could borrow versus the amount that we actually borrowed is very, there's a huge delta. Yep. Yeah. So next year, I think the keys to our. success in getting our spending under control is tracking our spending and being cognizant of where our money is going actively. I do it best when it is when I'm constantly tracking it. And that brings up a question. We've used the spending tracker that the waffles on Wednesday

blog people invented. You've had them on the Bigger Pockets Money podcast before and they've been in the mile hi-fi podcast. The thing I like about that tracker that a lot of people don't like is that it's manual. It's not like mint or your credit card spending might show your credit card company might send you an itemized list of what you've spent it on. And I know you can do that online now, but this forces you to put it in. And it's kind of like if you buy something stupid, you have to sit there and internet like a little walk of shame after you do it. So I like the act of nature of it. Do you like the active nature of it? Do you want to use that same tracker? Yes, I do want to use that same tracker. I've got it all set up, so we kind of have to.

Okay. Cool. But I like the active nature of it because I am doing it in real time. And when we first started tracking our spending back in Parker, we had that notebook out on the countertop. And every time I would come in through the garage, that's where I put my keys. And I, oh, I've got to write down my expenses. And we would add them up as we were going. And it was shocking. And it was shocking. how fast your spending adds up when you're just not thinking about it and seeing it in real time adding up and you're like, oh, I spend $3,000 a month. And then you're on, you know, day eight of the month and you're like, I've already spent $2,500. How am I only going to spend $500 more for the rest of the month when I've already spent $2,500 so soon? Clearly, I'm not spending what I think

I'm spending. So having that in your face is very sobering. It's very helpful to keep you accountable because when you're not thinking about it, your dollars just kind of fly out of your wallet. And when you, when I'm doing this tracker, it's not showing me the adding up all the time, but I know that you're looking at it all the time. And this is where, I'm not quite sure how to phrase this, so I'm just going to blurt it out. You don't control my spending. I can spend whatever I want to. I just don't because I don't need all this garbage. But it's a lot easier to spend $20 on makeup that I don't need when I'm going about the course of my day and I don't have to be accountable to you.

But when I am going through, oh, I'm a T.J. Max and I'm just going to buy this. Well, I know that you're going to ask me, what did you buy a T.J. Max? Not in an accusatory tone, not in a, we're not going to be able to eat because you keep spending money at this store. but just, hey, what did you buy there? We didn't really talk about this. And it's not, like, I'm not trying to throw you under the bus, but it sure sounds like you are a dictator. No, well, I do think we have, it comes out of respect, like you could buy whatever you want.

That's it. It comes out of respect. This is our money. And I'm not at all concerned when I'm buying something for the family, like food. I'm not going to call you up and be like, hey, can I spend $100 on groceries? Because I know your answer is going to be like, yeah, I don't care. But when I'm buying frivolous things that I don't need, there needs to be some checks and balances. You also don't spend money on dumb stuff.

Sometimes I do. Well, yeah, sometimes you do. But I think, yeah, I don't think any of us, either of us would ever say, no, you can't buy it. Although the toilet brush thing at this store. You have to replace your toilet brush. because they get gross. Do we have to do it every week, though? I don't replace my toilet brushes every week.

It seems like it. Okay. You can email, what is the email address that you publicly? Mindy at BiggerPockets.com. Okay. When I go to IKEA, and it has been approximately a year since I have bought a new toilet brush, I will buy a toilet brush for everyone,

every bathroom that we have. Yes, I am spending like that, and I have a 99-cent IKEA toilet bowl brush in every single bathroom. Because I don't want to carry that around my house and drip toilet bowl juice all over my house. It's disgusting. So I keep them in the bathrooms. And when they get all gross and like chewed up at the bottom, which is a disgusting term, then you throw them away and you get a new one. And we were just there and I bought three and he got all frustrated.

Maybe you're brushing too aggressively the fact that they don't last. Maybe you need to clean the toilet and you have to aggressively brush. Anyway, that's an issue. So please let him know. Email me, Mindyat biggerpockets.com, and I will forward to him and let him know just how frequently you change or replace your toilet brush. Yeah. I'm trying to think, do we, like, what's something we spend a lot of money on? There's not many things like our daily drivers, the Honda Element,

and the Mindy van, as Mindy calls it. That's 2010 Mazda 5, so we don't have fancy cars, so then you have cheap insurance. Like I'm trying to. We don't spend a lot of money on our day-to-day. And when we're paying attention to it, I truly believe we can live on that $36,000 a year. But when we don't pay attention to it, when we're not tracking our spending, it's just so easy to go to Taco Bell or go out to the pump house. or go wherever we're going. And the money just kind of floats away.

And there's nothing to show for it. There's nothing. Like I bought a pair of shoes because Claire wanted a pair of shoes. I didn't need that pair of shoes. She didn't need that pair of shoes either. So we just need to be more cognizant about it. And honestly, it turns into a game very quickly after I start tracking every expense. It turns into a game.

how much, not how much, how little can I spend for the rest of the month? How little can I spend on groceries for the rest of the week? What meals can I make out of the pantry so I don't have to go to the grocery store and buy things? How little can I spend? And, you know, what's our mortgage payment? $1,300 a month? Yeah, I think so. So our mortgage is $1,300, and we purposely have a mortgage payment.

So that's, like, it's never going to go below. We will have other expenses. I don't think we can get it much below 2,000 a month. No. But that might be fun to try. Yeah, maybe. It's the one-time expenses that get you like the, that $1,300 does include our property taxes, which are pretty reasonable here in Colorado, but still, they're almost $3,000 a year.

The auto insurance twice a year, there's all those little one-time expenses. Apparently, your shoe purchases that you did not. me about? I didn't tell you about it, yeah. Do you still have the receipt? You said that neither you knew the shoes. We didn't need them, but we've both worn them, so you can't return them now. Wow. I don't think I've bought shoes this year. Oh, oh. Yes, you have. I don't know. I got the neighbors, our neighbors

work for croft and they gave us cross. That doesn't count. Yes. And, but you bought tennis shoes. You bought your new keen. Oh, yeah. I guess I did. Sorry. I think you've got booed. Boots. Yeah, Mr. Spendipan? Well, you bought the boots for me, so does that count? I blame you for that. Yeah, okay. So, I had an episode with Ramit Zeti, and in the episode, we talked about spending more money

and not being so tight with the purse strings. and this is kind of in direct conflict with that. But what I want to do is spend more on experiences with you and the girls and do less frivolous, mindless spending day to day. And I think keeping track of our expenses on these little things that easily get out of hand is going to be the key to that. Yeah. What is an experience that you would be willing to spend a chunk of money on? Riding my bike.

Riding your bike. That doesn't cost, that saves us money because we're not paying for fuel and fuels expensive. Going on a big bike ride. Okay. Oh, like a multi-day, like organized? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, that'd be fun. And we might, I think we might have a European adventure this summer if COVID doesn't We might have a European adventure. Our daughter is going to Germany?

Yeah. And we'll go and visit her. Maybe, maybe not depending on what's going on. But that's the plan. And that's the kind of thing. I don't go to Germany every day. We're not Jake. We would like to go and see things.

And that's the kind of spending that we have always been kind of leery of doing. where if you go on vacation, oh, we should go and have a really great dinner. Well, we'll try to cook in the Airbnb that we're staying in. And if there's not a really great restaurant to go try, that's fine. Or if it's breakfast, who cares? But if it's, you know, if we're in Germany, I would like to try some German food, some, not all of it. Some of it's gross.

Sorry, Germany. I want to experience the things and go to the places because that's a maybe not a once in a lifetime opportunity, but we're not going to go there again for a long time. I want to see the things and do the things. And I don't want to think to myself, well, that's $25 a person. I don't know. but I can make dinner at home for a month to kind of counterbalance that. You know what I mean?

Yeah. So that's where I'm at. So as I see it, I think we have two main goals for 2022 and maybe a bunch of sub-goals under that. But the first one is to slow our lives down a little bit. We were very busy with these. Did you say a little? A lot. COVID interfered with my home.

improvement plans, and I felt I had to catch up to some of that. And I wanted to give you the kitchen, the shed, the washer and dryer, the basement for your birthday. And I think I was successful. I'm not sure which birthday might be a future birthday, but because they're still not done yet. But, yeah, slower our lives down. And this kind of goes hand in hand with that, be more conscientious of our spending. And we weren't that way all the time because we were so busy. It's easier to spend a little bit of money to make your life. a little bit easier and to save a couple minutes. But now that we won't be rushing around so much, I think it'll be easier to spend more wisely. I agree.

And, yeah, if you have any words of wisdom for Carl about slowing down and taking his time, you can email me, Mindy at biggerpockets.com, and I will forward them onto him. Or don't you have a website and email address that's your mile high-fi? Yeah, I think so. at mile high phifi.com financial independence. Yeah, and we'll link to that in the show notes. Yeah. But, yeah, I want you to understand that it's okay to take time for yourself.

It's okay to read a book that doesn't teach you something. Is it? Yes. Oh, my goodness, you make me enough. Yeah. Do we have anything else we want to talk about? I think that's it. I look forward to 2022, keeping track of our expenses once again.

And I think the other thing I like about that is it kind of changes your behavior, especially now that apparently all your listeners are going to be watching, we can't buy something stupid or else they're going to see it and call us out on it. I hope they do call us out on it. I should get you an email address. Carl at BiggerPockets.com. That's not actually it. That'll go to one of our developers.

Mindy at BiggerPockets.com. Yeah, call me out if you see me doing dumb stuff with my budget. And I'm going to be doing some dumb stuff with my budget because it is a learning process. And I know the basics of it, but there's always something that's going to pop up. And I have a slush fund. I have a, you know, stuff that I forgot. I have to pay for for the kids every month fund because there's always something weird that comes up with the kids. I think we should do this.

So I'm going to create this. We have created it. But I'm going to add a line item for. toilet brushes in there. So do your listeners know on a pivot table? There will be a category in there. And they can see your toilet, your IKEA toilet brush spending for 2020. From episode 262 of the Bigger Pockets Money podcast, he is Carl Jensen and I am Mindy Jensen saying,

Happy New Year. I hope to see you around in 2022. And please let me know your financial goals for the new year. Thanks for having me. Yeah, thanks for finally showing up. Wow. Is this like a whole episode that you've listened to now? No, I wasn't listening to most of it.

Okay, you're fired. Okay.