BiggerPockets Money Podcast - 308: Why You Can’t Stop Overspending | Mindy & Carl’s Budget Review

Episode Date: June 10, 2022

Many FIRE chasers want to know how to stop overspending. But maybe the solution to overspending is simply knowing about it in the first place. For many Americans, credit card debt, exuberant living, and buying more than what they need are ongoing problems. And even for money masters like Carl and Mindy Jensen, it’s no different. As two leaders in the personal finance space, they understand why people overspend and how to stop it. But, as they’ve found out this year, giving advice can be easier than putting it into practice. As many listeners know, Carl and Mindy have been publicly tracking their household spending. They’ve tried their hardest to stay within the limits they set for themselves, but some months' bills creep up on you more than others. In this monthly budget review, Carl and Mindy talk about why they’ve overspent, how to become more “money conscious”, and how to stop yourself from living a “money rich, lifestyle poor” life. Editorial Correction: On a previous episode of the "BiggerPockets Money" podcast, we stated that gains in a 529 Plan account would be forfeited if not used for educational expenses. This is incorrect and we apologize for the mistake. If you’d like to know more about the 529 Plan rules and regulations, please visit this blog post. Thanks to our wonderful BiggerPockets Money Facebook Group members for pointing out this error! Happy investing!  In This Episode We Cover How to budget and expense track the right way (stay up to date on your inputs!) Umbrella insurance and how to get better insurance coverage for even less Why many millionaires choose not to use a budget Carl and Mindy’s newest live in flip project purchase May’s budget busters and how buying quality goods can save you more in the long run How to stay “money conscious” while living a proactive (not reactive) life And So Much More! Links from the Show BiggerPockets Money Facebook Group BiggerPockets Forums Finance Review Guest Onboarding Mindy's Twitter Apply to Be a Guest on The Money Show Podcast Talent Search! Subscribe to The “On The Market” YouTube Channel Listen to The “On The Market” Podcast: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, BiggerPockets Check Out Mindy’s 2022 Live Spending Tracker and Budget 529 Plan Rules - Nerdwallet article Food Spending Eating Away at Your FI Plans? Here’s How to Eat for Cheap Carl and Mindy’s Spending Summary: Why We Went $1,000 Over Budget…Again 1500 Days 1500 Days YouTube Channel Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All right, and before we bring in today's guest, I wanted to issue a quick apology and say a quick thank you to one of our Facebook group members, Carly Reichardt. Carly called Mindy and me out, rightly so, for spreading misinformation on last week's episode of the Bigger Pockets Money Show podcast. We stated that gains in a 529 plan would be forfeited if they're not used for educational purposes, and that's simply not true. The gains in a 529 plan are simply subject to $2.29 plan are simply subject to $529 plan. tax and or a 10% penalty when they're withdrawn and used for things outside of educational expenses or qualified educational expenses. So they can be a powerful and flexible way to build wealth, save for college, pass money on to future generations, and be used for other educational purposes. And there's lots of other interesting tidbits about 529 plans. They're a useful tool in the

tax-advantaged investment stack for some people. Personally, I don't use them. I may use them in the future, but I wanted to correct the misinformation that we stated last week. Certainly, the gains are not forfeited. They're just subject to tax and or penalty if and only if they're used for non-qualified expenses. So thank you, Carly, and thank you to the many members of our Facebook group for calling us out. I apologize. We apologize for the misinformation. We have a responsibility to share truth and the correct information on this show, and we appreciate when we do get that feedback. So please keep it coming and we will link to some resources on 529 plans in the show notes here at BiggerPockets.com slash money show 308. Thank you so much. Welcome to the Bigger Pockets Money

podcast show number 308, finance Friday edition, where Carl and I sit down to talk about lifestyle creep, being financially conscious, the shockingly low percentage of camp mustache attendees who use a budget, and why tracking our spending in real time is the best choice for us. The tracking is where the real value comes in for us having to enter that and review it every once in a while to see where it goes and I don't know. Well, here's where I'm going to argue with you because having it set up the way that it is, Mr. Waffles on Wednesday set that tracking spender up for me and the Excel sheet so that as soon as we go over whatever dollar figure we deemed was that category, the category turns red.

And that is very helpful for me to see that in real time. Hello, hello, hello. My name is Mindy Jensen. And joining me today is my husband Carl to talk about what a disaster our May finances were. 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. every decision actually moves in Edle. 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, Sound 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 fowund.com. Found is a financial technology company, not a 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 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. Wait. Why were they a disaster? Because we got lazy.

We stopped tracking our spending in real time. We just stacked up receipts and then said we were going to do it later and then we never did it later. And then we had to like scramble to do it at the end of the month. and that didn't work for us. Yeah, I don't like that because when you're forced to be accountable to the app on your phone and manually enter it, you really think more about all of your purchases. Like, do I really need this box of Scruminyo Zonkers from the grocery store?

I guess they don't make those anymore. You don't need them. But yeah, I don't need them. They're an unhealthy choice. Even if they did have them. They are an unhealthy choice. But yeah, having to pull off the phone and enter every. Every purchase, yeah, it changes things.

And some stuff you can't help like gas is gas. You have to buy that. But I'm trying to think of a good example, besides my poor example before. What's an example of something that you would have to put in that you might reconsider because of the spending that? Just frivolous things. Like food is not something that I reconsider. Gas is not something that I even consider. I need gas.

So I buy it. But frivolous things like clothes and shoes and like I have shoes. I don't need another pair of shoes. I want another pair of shoes. It's needs versus wants. Sure. That make me think about it before I put it into the spending tracker. This is our real life story.

Yeah. So we didn't track our spending. I think on May 2nd, we're like, oh, I'll do it later. And then later turned into June 1st, which was, we make a lot of purchases during the month. And it is, it can be a little bit tedious to grab your foot. phone and open up the app and enter your spending into the tracker. But it's so much more tedious to sit there at the end of the month and go through the credit card bills and be like, did I put that in? No, okay, now I have to add it. And if you add it through the app, it's way easier than if you add

it through the computer or it tracks it in a different way. I don't know. Ray told me to do it that way. But it's just, it was a disaster. And you can tell if you look at our restaurant spending, it was way up because I didn't even go into our spending tracker this month. I didn't even look at how much we were spending because I knew I wasn't tracking it. So there was nothing to compare to as opposed to past months. I have it up on my computer all the time and I can just pop in there. Oh, we're getting close to our grocery spend this month. I'm going to try and really go through the pantry and shop at home instead of going to the grocery store to try and make it under. But I have no idea how much I spent this month, so I'll just go to the grocery store because it's easier. It's not easier.

I have to get in my car and go to the grocery store, but the grocery store has all the things and my pantry doesn't. Yeah, I'm thinking about all this. I think the, so you called one thing out and that was the restaurant spending. What do you think caused that? I have my own idea. I'm curious to know what your thought is, if it's the same as mine. Pure and simple laziness. Well, it's laziness, but we've been working on the house, as we have always been doing. And we were trying to wrap up a whole bunch of projects before the girls got out of school. And yeah, sometimes you're going crazy for the whole day and you're really trying to knock the stuff off. We try not to work on it when the girls are at home.

We try to confine it to when they're in class. So, yeah, we just got super busy. And that's an easy pressure release valve, I think. but it's also kind of stupid and contradictory too because we're doing all this work on our house to save money. And then if we go out to eat, that kind of nixes some of our savings. So, yeah, I put this on myself.

I overdo it. I put it on you too. Okay, so my fault. I'll take the hit. I'll blame you for everything. How about that? But you also mentioned frivolous clothes spending. I don't know if anyone can see my shorts here.

They're pretty... Stand up and show everybody your beautiful. Beautiful shorts. Yeah, they're in rough, rough shape. So I'm pinning the clothes spending on you, because clearly I don't spend money on. Well, and that's not even where we spent the money this month. Yeah. We spent it on restaurants. We spent it on groceries that we didn't think about. And, you know, and going out to eat is not a time safe. You have to get in the car and drive to the restaurant. You have to wait for your table. You have to wait for your food. You could make all of your stuff at home. You could have some sort of like meal plan in place, which takes time to do,

but you plan your meals out. And then you've got food or all of the ingredients available so you can quickly make meals. You can prep ahead of time. So you've got freezer meals where you just pull it out of the freezer in the morning and let it thaw all day and pop it into the oven at night and have a delicious home-cooked meal. But all of these things take planning ahead of time and we have lived a very reactionary life instead of a proactive life where for the past several years, where we are just reacting to what's going on instead of trying to plan ahead. And that's not in every circumstance of our life, but in a lot of them. And I would like that to change.

Yeah, you are correct. We took on this huge house project, which I think is bigger than we ever thought it would be when we purchased it. Our scope expanded. We did things that we didn't initially plan for. The way I think about it is it'll make us, it's very good for the finances, not so good for the life. I had a clever saner on that, but now I forgot what it is. Like money, rich, life poor, I think that might have been in. But you have to have a, there has to be a tradeoff there.

You can't just be hell bent on trying to earn the next dollar. We have to live life in a, yeah, you said it, it. A less reactionary manner. Yeah. We're getting there. Yeah, we have wrapped up our home projects on this house. And for the summer, we are taking the summer off. We're not doing any house projects.

Yeah, and we're almost done with the house, too. We have a master bath to do, and that's pretty much it. Like one big major project left, the girls' bath, but that's pretty simple. Of getting that stupid foil wallpaper off is going to be. be a nightmare. I'm considering just re-drywalling the bathroom. It might peel right off. Who knows? We'll see. I know. It won't. Doesn't have foil wallpaper works? So if we live here long enough, it'll come back in style. So I vote. Maybe we just leave it. And then five years, that bathroom is going to look super nice. And it'll be in all those magazines and stuff. So yeah. Yeah, that's not going to happen.

We'll just leave it. Okay. So let's talk about our challenges this month. We didn't track our spending, that was a big challenge. Our restaurant spending was a big challenge. Our household spending was ridiculous. You can see all of the spending that we did do at biggerpockets.com slash Mindy's budget. And you can see that our household spending went crazy. We went to IKEA and Target a bunch of times. When your kids say, mom, let's go to Target. Say no. That's what you should do. And instead, I said yes. And we went to Target a lot. We went to IKEA and bought big things. Those are one-time purchases. We redid our older daughter's bedroom. She has a bed. We bought her a bed. We bought her bookshelves. We painted. So that was kind of a big undertaking. And that's a one-time expense.

But household expenses kind of went nuts. It's interesting. One thought about the IKEA thing is you can always find that stuff on Craigslist or Facebook marketplace if you look long enough. And sometimes it's a little bit beat up or the people smoked or something like that. And I thought about that when she's like, I want this specific item. I'm like, well, we could wait, but then we're going to be on Facebook Marketplace every day. When it does come up, we're going to go borrow our friends pickup truck. It might not be close. When we get there, it might not be what we thought it was.

So in that case, I just decided to bite the bullet and go for it. We could ask her to be a little bit more flexible, but I don't know. How do you feel about that? It's a one-time purchase and I didn't feel bad about making it. Yeah, it was a bookshelf. And our other purchase was a solar pool cover. We have a pool in the backyard, which we did not want, but we got a great price on the house because people in Colorado do not want a house with a pool.

And we actually like the pool. It's not that bad. It doesn't take up our time. But if we don't have the pool cover, it stays very, very cool. So unless you're... Sweezing cold. Unless you like Wim Hof or you're a polar bear and like swimming in very cool water, you have to buy this bullet cover and that thing was almost $300. So that was a one-time expense that we did not previously think about when we planned our spending.

That's an interesting point. We didn't think about it when we were planning our spending. We, and this goes back to the reactionary, we don't really do a lot of forward planning, but we also don't have the historical spending data to go off of because we haven't been tracking our spending. So I think if we had been tracking our spending and knew that the previous pool cover would only last two years, we could have predicted this. And some of this is going to be really, really granular, like how much time do we want to spend thinking about how much money we're spending versus just, oh, okay, well, now we need

to pool cover so we're going to do it. The pool cover is $300 and we get one every two years. So $150 a year for a pool cover. We can just budget for that in the future. Yeah. And actually I have two thoughts. Like theoretically this could have gone into the slush fund because that's how I see that category as stuff like this that we forgot about but that we still have

to buy on a routine basis. It's like an air in our thinking. But the other thing with this pool cover, You mentioned every two years. The previous one only did last two years, but I got a cheaper one, like a lower quality one. But it was still like almost $200. This one was almost $300, but this one has an eight-year warranty. And you can tell, like you can tell this one is much better.

Oh, yeah, it is much thicker. Okay, eight years, $300 divided by eight is much less than $300 divided by two. What is $300 divided by eight? Shut up. I don't know. It's like a little bit less than 40, 8 times 40s, 320. I don't know. 30.

High 30s. Okay. So $30 a year is way better than $150 a year. Yeah. It's going to be worth it. Our friends have a pool and they have a natural gas pool heater. It costs, it takes a lot of natural gas to heat up 10,000 gallons. And they're like, why is our natural gas bill?

Like, 300 bucks in May more than it used to be. I'm like, well, it's in your backyard? There's the answer. So, yeah, this is a better solution. Okay, so I just mentioned the B word, the budget word. And in my introduction, I said the shockingly low number of people who attended Camp Mustache who use a budget. We just got back from Camp Mustache last weekend. And we were talking about budgeting because that's what you do with these camps.

And it's a lot of fun. And we just show of hands, who uses a budget. And two people raised their hand out of, what, 40 attendees? Yeah. And I thought that was very interesting that only two people out of all 40 people sit down and write out. I guess three. I didn't count myself. So three.

Okay, well, that just went up. But sit down and write out every month how much they are going to spend in each category. And then we were talking about how many people, I think, didn't they ask afterwards how many people reconcile their spending afterwards or like track it after the fact? And a lot more people, now almost everybody, raise their hand there. So I think that there's a high percentage of people in the personal finance space who are conscious of their spending. But few people are sitting down and making the actual budget. And I thought that was. is very interesting because this exercise has showed me that when I am actively tracking my

spending, I am actively spending less. I'm thinking about how much I'm spending. I'm looking at what I have spent, what I've entered into the spending tracker already for that month. And it's not an obsessive amount. I have several tabs open on my computer and I just go to this tab and peek at it, oh, grocery spending is, we're really doing great on grocery spending this month. Oh, we're not. Because we have basically five categories that we mess up every month. Household, which is ridiculous. Groceries, restaurant, gas.

I think we may have figured out gasoline lately. But yeah, there's just, I need to track my spending in order to be conscious of where my money's going. But I think the tracking is different from the budget. Like after this year, our budget, I don't really think we budget. I think I would call it like a loose estimate, loose because it hasn't been super accurate. But I think the track. I guess. Yeah.

The tracking is where the real value comes in for us having to enter that and review it every once in a while to see where it goes. And I don't know. Well, here's where I'm going to argue with you because having it set up the way that it is, Mr. Waffles on Wednesday set that tracking spender up for me and the Excel sheet so that as soon as we go over whatever dollar figure we deemed was that category, the category turns red. And that is very helpful for me to see that in real time. So having the budget in there, I don't want to spend $2,000 a month on groceries. I'm trying really hard to keep it under $750. I'm just not really doing a good job of that.

I could try harder. I guess I'm not really trying really hard. I'm thinking about it sometimes. But I feel bad when I go over. Yeah, we have an excessive amount of food waste in our household, which... We do. You know, Natalie Colody said, take all of your produce, and instead of putting it in those drawers,

put it front and center in the top of your refrigerator, so you see it all the time, and then you will eat it all the time. And in our refrigerator, we have a bunch of, like, sauces and things up at the top. Yeah. We should get rid of. We should rearrange the refrigerator. Yeah. We need to be better at our food waste.

That is true. When I was a single male, I would make one big thing and eat it for, like, the next seven days. So I would have, like, four things in the entire refrigerator, and I would, I don't know. I'm not sure what the root cause of this is. but I wasted kind of like zero amount of food. Wow. Wow, that sounds like you're blaming me. Well, I guess we have a little bit of a difference of opinion in that the rest of the members of my household do not enjoy leftovers.

And if it was up to me, I would cook once and then I'd eat leftovers. So like 99% of my meals would be leftovers. I think it's a little bit more efficient and you get less wasted that way. No judgment. Well, I guess a little bit. That sounds like a whole lot of judgment. Yeah. Well, you could judge me for watching to eat leftovers every day.

That's not really great either. Yeah, you were eating pasta. I know. You would make a giant vat of pasta and then just eat pasta the whole time. It was cheap. I know money. In college, you could eat for like $10 a week. It was amazing.

Or not, not for your body. Okay. There is a happy medium there that we will search for. There is. And we need to be more. conscious about that. I think consciousness is like the whole theme of this episode. Be money conscious, be conscious of what you're wasting, be conscious of where your money's going and you're spending. 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 at it. 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 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 sponsor 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 Registeredagent.com slash money-free. Good.

Okay. Well, let's talk about our wins. Yeah, we have a huge win, which is pretty cool. Huge win. So we have not had umbrella insurance in the past. and I was talking to my friend Anna, and she said that she was getting an umbrella insurance policy. And at the same time, I was thinking we really need one. So I called up her insurance agent.

And I said, can you just give me a quote on this? Hold on back up one second. What is an umbrella insurance policy? Is that something that ensures the umbrellas in your house, like those rain protection devices? An umbrella insurance policy is not for insuring your umbrella. You big weirdo. They break all the time, though. We really should have that.

We never even use umbrellas. Because they break. The wind comes and that's the end of that. We live in Colorado. It's a desert. Yeah. Yeah, we don't need them either. Okay.

I hijacked the conversation. You sure did. So an umbrella insurance policy is like it covers you, your household, your assets when you are it's over and above your auto policy, your homeowners policy. Let's say you get in a car accident and it, with me, I am at fault. And you Google Mindy Jensen, you know, like, oh, Mindy Jensen is personality. She's known in the personal finance space. So I'm not going to settle for her auto insurance policy.

I'm going to go after her. And I now have an umbrella insurance. policy that covers me in addition to my auto insurance policy or my homeowner's insurance policy should my pit bull bite you. I don't have a pit bull, so they're not going to bite you. It's just extra level of insurance. With that said, again, please don't sue us. Yes, don't sue me. But I have an insurance policy, so they will take care of me now. But anyway, I called up the insurance agent and she said, well, let's look at your auto policy. And we had the bare bones auto policy because we are very safe drivers and auto insurance covers you when you are at fault. We had a homeowner's insurance policy

and she looked at both of them and said, oh, okay, so our company can increase your coverage on your car insurance policy because you really don't have enough coverage. And she explained several things to me and I said, okay, fine, you know, what you're saying makes sense. The homeowner's insurance policy was for when we bought this house a couple of years ago. And despite having an episode with Steve Longnecker about homeowners insurance policies and making sure you have enough coverage, I did not have enough coverage. We increased our coverage almost twofold on the home and got an umbrella insurance policy. And we are paying less for all three policies with more coverage than we were paying for just the

auto and the homeowner's insurance. So that is a huge win. I now have far more coverage than I used to. And it's costing me less. So I like that more. If you have not re-quoted your car insurance, your homeowners insurance, or if you have an umbrella policy, you need to reach out to several insurance companies, get quotes, and see how much money you can save because you probably can. Unfortunately, insurance companies

do not have any loyalty to you and they will increase your rates every year. So you don't need to feel any sort of loyalty to them by staying with them if they're not going to give you the same respect. Yeah, there's a saying around that. Insurance is the only business where loyalty is punished. Oh, that's a really good thing. Yeah. But I want to emphasize, we did increase our insurance, but we still don't have, like our cars, we have old ancient cars. They have 200,000 miles on them, both of them. And we don't have the, I don't even know the terms, we don't have the insurance that covers our cars. So we have, we elevated the insurance that covers other people should we cause an accident. But if we get into an accident with our cars, they're worth nothing. They're

probably worth like a negative amount. We'd have to pay someone to take our cars. So, Old, ugly, if you have kids, kids are little savages. Yeah, don't allow food in your cars if you're a new crayons. Yeah, oh, crayons, they melt. Window stickers. Our cars are like rolling biological experiments. We probably have, we'll either die younger or will live infinitely because of genetic mutation is caused to buy what's going on in our cars. So I still like to have the minimal insurance because what's the whole point of insurance.

just to cover something you can't afford to replace on your own. And if one of our cars was lost, well, number one, we wouldn't have to replace it because we have two. We barely need one. But if we did need to buy a car, we could do that. So I prefer keeping the smallest amount of insurance we need. Yes, but we increased the amount of, like, medical coverage. Yeah, and that was very, I agree with you there because if you get into an accident and we injure someone, else. It was small. Yeah, that did need to be increased. And the umbrella insurance policy

requires, has minimums on your other policies. So you can't have the bare minimum on your auto policy and have an umbrella policy. So we had to increase the auto policy and the homeowners policy a little bit just to be able to get the umbrella policy. But again, we're still paying less for now three insurance policies than we were paying for. for two insurance policies with less coverage. Yeah, I think all of this is under $2,000 a year. Yeah. Homeowners insurance for a nice house, two cars, and the umbrella policy.

So that's great. It was like $1,100 for homeowners and $560 for... Yeah. Yeah, it was like $1,500 or $1,600. Yeah, and that's annual. I know people pay like over $2,000 just for insurance on one car. And that's why we have not nice cars. Beaters.

Okay. Hey, did we make any big purchases that aren't on our spending tracker this month? We did make a big purchase. Oh, we didn't do it in May, though. We did it in June. Yeah, should we? That could be a cliffhanger where we announced the big purchase. We bought a house. Another house. Yay. And it's a dump. Because that's so on brand for us. We live in a neighborhood that is, how would you describe our neighborhood? It's pretty nice. It's an old school neighborhood.

It was built 40 years ago, so we've got big trees. It's kind of, it's built on a golf course, which I never really wanted to say. We live in a golf course neighborhood. It seems kind of off-brand and not in line with our values, but we've got a lot of good friends here who share the same values. So we've got a really good community here, which is the whole reason we moved here. Yeah, but it happens to be on a golf course, too, which is strange. We're not golfers. We don't even play tennis.

What are us another fancy sport polo? You did that for a while, right? Oh, shut up. What was your horses name? No horses. So we had an opportunity to buy a house, another house, in this same neighborhood. And it is outdated. It needs some work, but it doesn't need a ton of work.

What we like about that house is it has no stairs. Well, it's got a basement, but you don't need. need to ever go down to the basement. So we could, it's a ranch house and we could potentially retire in that house. The house that we're in currently is a split level and has stairs everywhere. So as we get into our 90s and 100s, stairs may become a little bit more difficult to navigate. And this house will be a really great home to retire in. And until we move in there, it's not a great home to move into right now because our children are still at home. They are 15 and 12 and there's not all that much space. So it's a smaller house than this one. And this house that we're in currently

really fits our needs. So we are going to, we closed on June 2nd. We are getting ready to do some rehab to it starting in September, which will be documented on bigger pockets. So you can see what a real rehab looks like, not these frivolous rehabs where everything is neatly wrapped up in 30 minutes, I anticipate some problems just because that's how it goes with every other rehab. This one's not going to be smooth as silk either. So we need to redo the kitchen because their kitchen is like this big. It's the dumbest kitchen ever. And the doors to all of the bedrooms are currently sliding glass doors instead of actual solid doors. What are there some other quarks on this house?

Quarks. As far as they need to be refinished, that's not really a quirk. It's got skylights that have issues. Leaks. Yeah, they did a weird skylight design, which you'll see when we do the video series. But yeah, it's a quirky house. The layout is also a bit strange. But we knew this house has upside, too, and we have multiple exit strategies.

We might move in there. in the meantime we might do a furnace rental and if something changes in the fall I think we could turn around and sell it and probably make a pretty good profit with probably a month of intense work, a month of 40-hour work weeks with you and I and maybe another person. Eric with an A might help us a friend and if any of you audience members are local to Longmont and have some skills, we might hire a couple other people because we've lived in our courthouse. Oh, oh, oh, I'm sorry. We will hire other people, not might.

Yeah, we want to get through this one fast. It's current house that we're sitting in right now. As we're, what are we, two and a half years into this, and we're still not done. It is monopolized much of my life, and I do not want that. So this one is going to be like a targeted strike. We're going to go in there, tear everything out. We're going to have everything ready to go. And we'll get this one flipped around fast. So yeah, if anyone wants to help, send us a email. Do they know how to get a hold of you? Mindy at Biggerpockets.com. Yeah. If you don't have any skills, you can do demolition. There's a need for everyone.

We want, what's the Uncle Sam thing? We want you. Yeah, I want you to come work on my house. Yeah, fun. Yeah, it'll be super awesome fun. It's the best thing ever. You could learn how to say bad words. Yeah, I think we'll have more to say on that. Maybe we should do an episode. Well, I guess that's what the video is. series for that's for. That's what the video series is for. But I think that it's disingenuous to buy a

house and then not mention it. We are taking the summer off. That is still true. It is June, what's today, June 5th that we are recording this episode. And we are getting ready to go to Germany in two days. We're going to Munich and Berlin for 10 days. And this episode will air while we are out. Thank you for listening. We're having a great time in Berlin, probably. Ooh, maybe we should look at some German design aesthetics to inform us for how we should do this house. We could be all pretentious and have like a minimalist thing with stain the steel and white everywhere. The color, the housewell has like one color in the whole thing. No. Or even less than that. It still has that stupid fireplace.

I am going to get, I really want a cuckoo clock. I'm not a souvenir person, but I don't know. There's a special place in my heart for cuckoo clocks. Is there a special place in the spending tracker for a Kuku clock? What would, yeah, maybe the travel, slush fund. Flush fund. If you look at our June projected spending, it is the highest of any month we have had so far. And that is a lot of it is the travel. Most of it's the travel.

But that is, again, something that's easily cut out should the stock market tank like it has been for the last month. which is again why we're tracking our spending in such a granular way because when there are things that we need to cut it's easy to look at where the money's going and say oh well we don't have to do this going forward we don't have to do that going forward we can cut out restaurants completely we can cut out you know going to tap rooms with our friends and we can cut out parties and we can cut out all these different things. So the categories that we put in our spending tracker may not make a lot of sense to you as you look at them. But that's okay.

They don't have to make sense to you. That's the beauty of the Waffles on Wednesday Spending Tracker, which we will link to in today's show notes, which are found at biggerpockets.com slash blog slash money dash 308. We have a new way of doing our show notes. But the Waffles on Wednesday spending tracker is a customizable spending tracker so you can do all of your spending in the ways that are important to you. So you can see what categories are easy to cut back on or cut out entirely when you start tracking your spending. Cool. I have nothing to add. Wow. That's channeling Charlie Munger. You're a Warren Buffet. That's a compliment.

Oh, yeah. Wow. I have nothing further to add. If you know who Charlie Munger is. I have no comment. I have nothing. Is that what he says? I have nothing to add? I think so.

It's been a couple of years since we've been to that. We just missed it. Did you even know? Yeah, I knew. I read the letter. We're talking about the Berkshire Hathaway Conference, Omaha. The Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting, annual shareholders meeting. Yeah.

The Woodstock of capitalism. It's pretty cool. You don't look like Warren Buffett, though, which is good. Well, thank you. What an amazing compliment that is. I really appreciate your kind words. I like more. Charlie Munger, then you look like Warren Luffin.

This has gone off the rails. Boy, it has. Okay, well, that's a good place to end. All right. Well, we appreciate you listening. We would love to hear comments from you. Email me, Mindy at biggerpockets.com. Email Carl at what's your good email address? What is a good email address?

Mr.500, the numbers, MR. 1500 at 1500 days.com, 1500.com, which is also the name. of the blog. But yeah, seriously, if you've got construction skills, hit me up. Okay. So I didn't even say that you are the comedic genius behind the dinosaurs and fart jokes at 1500 Days.com and the comedic genius behind the dinosaurs and fart jokes at Mile High Fi podcast. Sorry, I should have said that in the beginning of the show. That's all right. And he's my husband. And he does a lot of the work on this house. that you can't really see because we're just aimed in here.

But you will see, yeah, he put this shelf up. You will see him doing work on the new house, the strange house. I'm super excited to do this house. I get to do, I get to help on this house too. We should put a link to it. We have our Instagram posts where we did the little movie. Can we put a link to that in here? Yes, we will put a link to that in the show notes.

Again, show 308. BiggerPockets.com slash blog slash money dash 308. So you can see this quirky new house. Yeah, cool. Okay.

So thank you for listening from episode 308 of the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. He is Carl Jensen. I am Indy Jensen saying Avita Seine. How do you say goodbye in German?

Was that it? That was it. Oh, I thought it was Duncan. Oh, is that thank you? That's thank you. I'm going to suck in Germany. You really are. It's going to be an international incident.

I'm going to say the wrong thing. Okay, bye. Bye. Thank you.