BiggerPockets Money Podcast - 67: How Living An Intentional Life Led to Financial Freedom With Steven Donovan

Episode Date: April 8, 2019

Steven Donovan graduated from high school and went to college—because that’s what you do. He graduated from college but got cold feet when it came time to get a “real job.” So, he bounced around random jobs with no plan and no focus. Despite... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Bigger Pockets Money podcast show number 67, where we interview Stephen Donovan from Even Stephen Money. The way I looked at it as no one hates my debt more than me. So I took it as I'm going to personally attack it and I'm going to do well. I'm going to do well at my job. If I need to make extra income, if I need to live on less, that's what's going to happen. It's time for a new American dream, one that doesn't involve working in a cubicle for 40 years, barely scraping by.

Whether you're looking to get your financial house in order, invest the money you already have, or discover new paths for wealth creation, you're in the right place. This show is for anyone who has money or wants more. This is the Bigger Pockets Money Podcast. How's it going, everybody? I'm Scott Trench, and I'm here with my co-host,

Miss Mindy Jensen. How you doing today, Mindy? Scott, I'm doing pretty good today. Yesterday was the end of Girl Scout cookie season in my area, and I am the true cookie mom, and I've been mired in Girl Scout cookies and it's done now and I am very excited to start and always very excited to end too. So big weight off my shoulders and it's going pretty good. How are you doing today? I'm doing great. Does that mean you get free Girl Scout cookies or

they have to pay extra? That means I have thousands of boxes of Girl Scout cookies in my garage for six weeks and the temptation is very hard. Oh man. Well, let's get back to Samoa the Money topics that we were going to discuss today. And, well, can you tell us the guest today? Today we have Stephen Donovan from Even Stephen Money. And I have known Stephen for several years. I just enjoy hearing his story because it's not that different. He graduated from high school and went to college because that's what you do.

He graduated from college and bounced around for a while because it's really almost inhumane to ask 18-year-old kids to know what they want to do for the rest of their lives. And he's, you know, his story isn't that different from other people. It's like, well, I graduated from college. And now what? You know, you're an adult, but not really because you're still feeling like a college kid. And he got himself into some debt. Shocker, spoiler alert. And his story of how he paid it off is pretty interesting. Yeah, I thought I thought it was great. And I just thought it was kind of like a great example about how when some intentionality comes into play, how the kind of results start piling up dramatically in this game of finance.

That is a really good observation. Once he figured it out, I mean, he even says at one point, I wasn't sure what I was supposed to be doing. I was kind of, you know, lost. And once you figure it out and once you focus, you really can't get, you're unstoppable. And that was him. I don't want to give away his whole story like we normally do. 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

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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 Liener 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 BPMoney. Stephen Donovan from Even Stephen Money.

Welcome to the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. How are you today? Hey, I'm great. I'm great. All smiles on this end, of course. All smiles on these ends too. I'm so excited to have you on this show. I've known Stephen for several years now, and he's got a really great story of getting into debt

and getting out of it, which is kind of what we're all about. So, Stephen, why don't you start us back at the beginning of where you feel your relationship with money starts? Oh man, relationship with money. For me, it starts really just coming out of high school. I didn't get a lot of guidance, I would say, from my parents. So when I went to college, I essentially went there without a lot of direction other than I needed to get a degree.

I didn't care or I didn't know how to get it without really going into student loan debt is how it came from. So you went to college, why did you go to college if you didn't know what you were doing? You know what? You should be making these lifelong decisions. I'm like, I'm like, Mindy, come on. But no, I mean, I knew that I wanted to be in business somehow, and I knew that like the next step, I should say I knew. This is what I knew at the age of 18.

I knew that I needed to go to college. And I thought I was going to be a financial advisor and I was going to make hundreds of thousands of dollars and drive around in fancy cars. And the next step was to get a college degree. What was your kind of position coming? Did you work in college? Did you kind of like, how did you kind of enter and leave college from a financial perspective? I worked on and off throughout high school. So I worked at a golf course.

My last summer before I went into college, I actually worked swimming pool construction. It's a thing. But yeah, and then in college, I got jobs periodically. So like during the winter, for example, I would work at Marshall Field, which I believe is now Macy's showing my age a little. bit. And I also worked at a golf course throughout college as well during the summer. So I was working. I was just never a full-time employee. I would just, it would either be the summer or the winter, for example. So when I came out of college, I ended up having, it was right around $55 to $60,000 in college debt from my student loans. And I had some credit card debt and a

personal loan to my parents. But other than that, I was totally fine. Wait, you loaned your parents money or they loaned you money? They loaned me money. Okay. And what were you doing with all the money that you were making? Were you just like spending it on regular living expenses? Were you trying to pay down any of these student loans? Yeah.

So when I was in college, I took that money and I did a little bit of. So I made sure that my housing was taken care of. So that was the main point. So I knew I had to live. Like without that, I wouldn't have been able to go too much further. But a lot of it, I just didn't really spend it wisely. So if I wanted to go to a party or I wanted to go out that night, that's what I did. If I wanted to spend it on things that I needed for school, that's what I did.

That money was there to spend. It wasn't necessarily there for tuition, is how I view things. Because I had those student loans I could take care of it. What was your lifestyle like with this? Did you kind of live in the absolute cheapest place? Was it, you know, Robin Noodles? Or how did that kind of, how did you kind of manage it in college overall? Yeah, I think I was pretty pretty.

good, actually. So we live very close to school. I went to a school, a college in Wisconsin, the University of Wisconsin-Oclair. And with that, it wasn't an expensive school. It was a state tuition. I just made a lot of choices that really piled up that weren't right. And they just kept adding up. So, I mean, I remember our rent, my portion of the rent at the time, I believe it was like $315. Again, this was like in the 2000 to 2005 range. So I don't know. know what that is in today's dollars. But it wasn't like excessive. I just, if I wanted something, I would take a credit card and go get it. If I wanted to go to spring break, I'd put it on a credit card or I'd take the money that I had. If I needed a car or it needed gas, like no, no qualms about

taking all my credit card and swiping it, wanted to go visit someone. Same thing. It was just freely spending is really what it was. Okay. So you graduated college with $55 to $60,000 in random debt, including student loans and silly credit card debt. What was your major in college? Did you major in something good? I mean, I think so. Underwater basket weaving? So I ended up coming out with a bachelor's degree in finance.

Okay, so that's usable. That's not like some, oh, I'm going to throw me under the bus. That's not some ridiculous degree. What did you do after college? Did you get a job right away? So I did, but it took me a little while, actually. So I came out in between 2005, 2006, give or take. And when I came out, I didn't immediately go into the work world.

I actually got cold feet. My intentions were to go into like a Northwestern Mutual or an Edward Jones type of establishment and be some sort of financial advice for cell insurance, something on those lines. And it was actually, I was going to move to a place in Illinois. And I just, I really did. I got cold feet. I was like, if I do this, I essentially have to live here for the rest of my life is how I thought of it. And I wasn't ready to do that. And so I kind of did a little bit of everything, anything

from which I did a lot of actually. It was going back to the golf course to you. I played poker. Like as a job? Yeah, for a very short period of time. But that was the full-time employment for a little while. So yeah, I would wake up every morning, well, whenever I felt like waking up, to be honest, but I would wake up and I would go to casino in Milwaukee and played three, six limit hold them. for that day. And it was an interesting time when you're 20, what is it, 25, give or take. But yeah, so I didn't really get my, I'll say like a big boy job until I was probably in 2007. So a couple years after, I guess, quote unquote, figured things out. And what did you do in 2007? I ended up working for a bank. It's called US Bank where I was in 24 hour banking and financial

services or 24 hour banking and customer service. I should probably know that a little bit better. But yeah, so I started it out as it literally was on the phone. I was so happy to get a job at that point because like now it's creeping in actually right into where like the recession is almost ready to start. So, well, yeah, so I was actually on the phone taking phone calls from people asking about their money essentially. So during this period between graduation and this job, how did your financial position evolve? It didn't actually change that much.

So I still had the student loans. I did everything in my power to defer them to, like any plan that they had. It was like deferment, income sensitive, graduation plan. I think it was on honestly like four to five different plans. Whatever they would allow it to make it either have me not pay or reduce that monthly payment. That's what I did. My credit card debt kind of went, as you can imagine with the poker as well.

It was just swings. So sometimes it went way down and other times it went way up. because of winning and losing with poker at that time. While it was just a short period of time, it still kind of caused swings in my financials. I also, even with the credit cards, I was trying to figure out, as you can tell, I didn't have like a real clear direction

based on how many things I'm probably talking about. But I also did, I would go into Nike, the Nike outlets, and I would purchase things from Nike, and then I would also attempt to sell them on eBay for a higher value. and I did that also by buying that on a credit card. You said attempt to sell them on eBay for a higher value. Did you, were you actually successful? Were you making money off of that?

Or was it kind of a break-even thing? Because I tried the eBay, like go to the thrift store and buy all these cool things and then put them on eBay and I sold them for like $4 more. It was a waste of time. So what's really great about the Nike part was so you can, I mean, I don't know how this might be moral compass, ethical code, but you can buy things at Nike and attempt to put them on eBay for, you know, say it's whatever the customer service receipt says, say it's 30 days. And if you don't sell it,

you can return those items. So I wasn't really losing money at that point because I could return the items if they didn't sell. So if I bought five shirts, you know, if three of them sold for, you know, $20 or $30 more, I made that money and then return the items that didn't sell. or if I thought they would, you know, I'd hold them on to them for longer and just kind of ride it out. So I did make a profit. The problem with that, the way that worked was it's harder to buy. It's a volume. So you couldn't buy 100 shirts at Nike outlet.

I was buying three or four and then trying to sell those. So I'd make $60 here, $80 there. Yeah, so not really a viable plan. Yeah. So, well, you said something that was very interesting. So you said, well, as you can tell, I didn't really have any direction. Well, I think it's monumentally unfair to ask high school seniors, hey, pick what you want to do for the rest of your life and then go to college and figure it out

and then come out of college. And now you've got a career. And there's a lot of changes that happen there. When did you finally figure out your stuff? Oh. So did you? Did you? I'm assuming you have.

Yeah. So I would say I figured it out really closely when I got married. There's kind of, there's some back story. So I actually, I should fill in a little bit. So I was working at that job for, for two years at U.S. Bank during the customer service. And then I was actually dating a girl long distance. And I decided to, well, first, buy a Mercedes-Benz and then move down to Miami a couple months later to see if the relationship was going to work. I had maybe one to two months of savings.

And I had this big idea that I was just going to get a job and I'd be fine and pursue whatever was going to work. work and that didn't work out so well. I did hustle as much as I could when I was down there. You know, I was literally doing anything from mowing lawns to eBay to again playing poker, this time online. And it didn't work out. And then when I really figured things out was when I hit my breaking point where I didn't think I was going to be able to make like monthly payments. And that had never happened before. I'd always been able to make, you know, whatever the amount was that I could pay it the next month. And I ended up having to like tuck my, what do they say?

Tuck your tail between your legs and go back home because I couldn't make it happen. And like the happy ending or like the spoiler alert, I married that lit girl. Married that woman later on a few months actually later after I came back. And that's really when I started to figure things out because I, you know, I did get full-time employment shortly after I moved back to Chicago land area. And when you get married, you kind of have to step up your game. Or at least that's how I figured it out. I needed a step up my game.

What was your, let's walk through the Mercedes-Benz real quick. What was your financial position at that time? And how did that kind of purchase look? Yeah. So I had this great, amazing vehicle that I had since high school, known as the Mercury Tracer. I called it the Tracey-A-Campraza.

Purple. They also called it the Purple Barney car, but I don't really like that. Oh, so that car ended up being, like there was so many problems with it. And finally, like, it was on its last leg. And the next logical step, and I should probably put logical in quotation marks again, was I needed a new car.

I needed to buy a new car. And I figured that what I could afford was somewhere in between $15,000 to $18,000 on a monthly payment. So which came out to, I believe it was somewhere in between like $300 to $400 to $400 that I could swing. And the bank that I worked for had a great deal. deal. They had a slightly new Mercedes-Benz, and I actually sort of looked at it and said, okay, I can't afford this. But at that time, I wasn't making any, really any money, any good money.

I was making $30,000, and the Mercedes-Benz was right around $18,000. So I could afford it, but I was also, I could afford it because I was deferring all my other payments. And I didn't, I lived very, I guess, in some ways, I lived cheaply on everything else at that time. But, But yeah, the Mercedes-Benz was a killer, unfortunately. And what happened? And then it sounds like you lost the car, right? Lost is, I feel like I lost. Sorry, maybe I'm wrong here.

I thought you were saying earlier that you had to put your tail between your legs, return the car and go back home. But it sounds like you didn't have to return the car. I didn't have to return the car. Sorry, sorry. Sorry. I missed that one. Just me personally. I wasn't able to make the payments.

But as soon as I went back to Illinois, I worked at the golf course, which would pay me actually cash at that point. And then I was able to make the payments because I had cash coming in literally from the day that I stepped in Illinois. Okay, I see. Yes. But I did sell the car probably within three to six months of me getting back. And yeah, so I sold it.

I took a loss. The car just ended up costing me so much money. So it was, and I didn't realize this, this was part of it too. It's like, so okay, yes, you can afford the monthly payment. But then there's insurance. And then because it's a, you know, high-end vehicle, you're not just getting an oil change that's $20 at your local, you know, whatever jiffy loop. You're paying like $120 just for, you know, an oil change. And then I was driving a lot when I was down here looking for work and going to different interviews.

And again, put so many miles on it. They're like, well, you have to get this maintenance. And then all of a sudden it was $500 and $1,000. And that car just, you know, in many ways, it broke me to the positive. guess because, you know, it made me realize that I couldn't afford that vehicle and many other things in my life. So going back to getting married here, what was your kind of position going into marriage? Like what you had a job? What was your job at that point? What was your kind of financial situation? Yeah. So my financial situation was, unfortunately, it was eerily similar other than having

the vehicle no longer. So I didn't have that big car payment, which was nice, of course. And that helped me. But I then still had, I was working on paying off credit cards at that point. I was close to finishing them right around when I was getting married. And then I still had all those student loans. I was still just making the monthly minimum payments. And I still had that personal loan to my parents where again, I was just whatever they would accept is really what I paid, which was low as possible. And the job situation, it actually right before I got married, It was kind of funny. Right before I got married, we went through.

So I got married. We moved to Chicago because my wife came from Miami up. And also I moved into a new position. So I did a job transfer. So I ended up getting a raise or what have you. But again, I wasn't making really, for a lot of people, I was not making good money. And I don't consider that I was making good money.

I believe I was making somewhere in the like the $40,000, $40,000 to $50,000 range. And this was 2011, 2012. Okay. So you graduate from college, you bounce around, you finally get a job at U.S. Bank, you're there for a couple of years, you're dating, Yady, long distance, you moved down to Florida. Did you quit your job when you moved down to Florida? Yes, yes. Okay. And then you were bouncing around down there for a while. How long were you in Florida? For about a year. Okay. And did you have any sort of steady employment when you were down there? Does a part-time job at Rosetta Stone at a kiosk mall count? Wow. How did you convince her to marry you? I guess Talldark and Handsome goes a long way.

Lots of jokes. Just constantly make my wife laugh. That was my end. That's a good end. You got to make the ladies laugh. Okay. So you are down in Miami for a year. You moved back to Chicago. Did you get a job again with the same U.S. Bank? Not the same. I mean, yes, with U.S. Bank, but I went into the branch. I was a assistant manager.

They were at an in-store, which is kind of like a grocery store. I don't know if TCF. I don't know if you guys are familiar with TCF. So they have those that are usually in grocery stores. That's what U.S. Bank had. I'm not even sure if they're still around with the in store, but that's what I was doing for about a year. Okay. And did you get married in Miami or did you get married back in Chicago? I got married in Miami. Okay, so you were in Miami, you moved back to Chicago, you get a better job. Do you still have the Mercedes at this point? No Mercedes.

So when I came back, I stayed with a family member for a few months until he was like, hey, you got a job, see you later. And then when I moved down into the city, because I was staying in the suburbs with my family member, when I moved into the city, luckily enough, I was able to get rid of that car shortly afterwards because it just for usually in a big city, especially Chicago, it just doesn't make a lot of sense to have a vehicle, especially I worked about a mile away from the branch that I was at. So, you know, taking public transportation or a bike or walking wasn't that big of a deal. Okay. Yeah. Chicago has a great public transportation system. I actually really miss it because I'm in

the Denver area and they haven't figured it out yet. So that's, yeah, in Chicago, you don't need a car. And there's a lot of people that I know that don't have a car. They didn't even have a driver. license. I'm like, really? That's just weird because I lived in Chicago. I lived in the suburbs for a while. I moved to the city for a while. And public transportation is awesome. So, okay, so you got a good job now. You're making it well. I still think $40,000, even in 2011, having a job at all was really a bonus. I mean, there were so many people out of work. You got married. How did you figure out money? And what did your wife think about all of this? Like, did she come into the marriage with her own debt? Yeah. That's a a great question. So we went about things a little bit differently in terms of, so I was, I was starting to get my financial act in order. I knew that I was in the marriage. I was, you know, get everything in check because now you're, I don't even know how to say, man in the house, not really sure the right terminology anymore. So I knew I needed to, you know, like show my wife that having all this debt wasn't going to put us in a good place. So what we did, and this was her recommendation,

and I did not take it well at first, was we decided that would, you brought into the marriage, that's what you're responsible for. So, lucky enough, I brought in student loans, personal loans, credit card, all that other stuff. And my wife brought in a house or a mortgage from when we lived or when she was in Florida. And we attacked that separately. So all of the money that I made, I attacked that debt with the money that I made. So it wasn't a joint attack. Now she was supportive. And it was, You know, when we had the mortgage payment, if it was a $2,000 mortgage payment, it was, you know, $1,000 and $1,000.

But if there was anything that I needed to, like, increase, if groceries were a little higher that month, she, you know, she helped out with that. But we tried to do everything really splitting it down the middle with that. So my $40,000 at that time, that's how I paid off debt and anything extra that came along with that. What did she do for work? She audits banks, or at that time she was auditing banks, plural. and later on she ended up auditing a singular bank.

Okay, so she's in accounting. I was assuming like a big four or something like that, similar type of firm? Exactly. Okay. Yeah, from a married perspective where we share everything, I think this is very interesting that you started off your marriage with, is it even separate bank accounts? And did you have the Stephen Bank account, the Yadie Bank account,

and then the Stephen and Yaddy Bank account for shared expenses? Yes, we did, yeah, exactly. And is that still how you guys manage your finances? Up into very recently, yes. Okay. And that was just because of, I mean, we'll talk probably in a little bit, but I switch careers, switch jobs or what have you, and now we just have it working really through her personal checking is how we do it.

Okay, and you guys both agree on this and it worked for you and... Well, not at first. I don't want to say I was angry. I'd have been angry. It was tough to take because, again, you know, you think of things, right? As, you know, everything is joint. You know, we're in this together. And hear the message at first was like, well, not really.

And that's how I took it. And then I really started thinking about it. And the way I looked at it as no one hates my. debt more than me. So I took it as I'm going to personally attack it and I'm going to do well. I'm going to if it's, I'm going to do well at my job. I mean, if I need to make extra income, if I need to live on less, that's what's going to happen. So it took me a little bit at first because I was again, maybe just not ready for it and I'm not even sure how to say it. Like I just didn't take it well at first and then realize that I thought it could be just such a

benefit would really put it in on me. Because it was me who got in the debt. It wasn't her. She didn't go to London and pay extra tuition when, you know, in my last years of college, she didn't buy a Mercedes-Benz. Like, she didn't do any of these things. So I was, I ended up being totally fine with it and ended up being really motivating, actually. Well, and that makes a lot of sense logically.

But you don't get married because of logic. Oh, I fell in logic with my wife. No, you fell in love with your wife. You think this, it's like it's supposed to be a partnership. And logically, it makes sense that you are responsible for your own debt. Because like you said, she didn't buy the Mercedes. You did. You should be responsible for paying that.

But I can feel your frustration too. Looking back at your frustration, would you have handled the situation the same way if you were to do it all over again? Or how would you kind of approach that? Maybe you put yourself on the opposite position, right? If you're a listener to the show, maybe your spouse is coming in with a certain debt or whatever and you want to have this conversation. How do you approach that from a relationship perspective? Yeah, I think it would I do it all over again? Well, it was first, you know,

suggested by my wife. So if I had suggested it the other way and she had come in with all that student loan debt, man, that would be a tough decision. I mean, at that time, I was really into personal finance and I was growing into like, how can I be better at this? How can I, you know, how can I pay off that. I was the run reading books and going through blogs. And personally, it was the right move for me. Now, is it going to be the right move for everyone? You know, I would say no, just because, you know, personal finance is personal. Everyone's situation is different. I would attack it this way just because it really brought me, I think it brought us to where we are today. Maybe it would have taken, you know, a shorter period of time, of course, because we were

to have those two incomes specifically applying. But we also did a lot of great things together, you know, really because of it. And again, I'd go in with the sense that it was the right move for us. I would do it again and kind of go from there. With this new intent to pay down your debt, how did your kind of behavior and lifestyle change relative to maybe the years prior as you began attacking it? Frugal. Frugal would probably be the word I'd use. Because I still wasn't making a great deal of money and we still had our mortgage and different things. So I had to cut, I had to either frugal my way out of, it felt like out of situations. You know, like, for example, I guess I could have kept that Mercedes-Benz, right?

I would have just been in debt for that much longer. So it was an idea that can you eliminate that expense altogether? And that was something that, you know, you had to choose and choose wisely. Like, what's the next step? You know, do you want to pay off a little bit more student loan debt? Or are you good with eating out all the time? Do you want to, you know, pay off that credit card? Or, again, are you okay with buying fancy, you know,

whatever, fancy clothes as an example. Okay, so, so, you know, so would you say that you basically started pack at your lunch, walking to work, just not maybe giving up some of the things that you might have done if you, in previous years, spending more carefree? Yeah, I absolutely did. So things changed.

Little by little, it wasn't overnight or anything, but yeah, so I would bring my lunch more often to work. That was a big deal. You know, being in the city or in the loop, so easy to go and grab a $10 sandwich. which $10 for lunch every day, you know, you add that up. Again, it takes away from that student loan payment. You know, again, you can say all these little things.

And, you know, it might not be a big deal, right? So a coffee. Sure, whatever. I buy a $2 or $3 coffee. But again, you keep doing it and keep repeating. And I just made a choice that, okay, maybe I'm not going to bring a coffee every single day, but, you know, let's try doing it two or three days a week. Or, you know, lunch, let's just do it once.

So I ended up cutting, you know, things that I didn't think. kind of like a huge value or that I could at least, you know, kind of frugal down a little bit and do it a little cheaper. You know, people talk about this coffee. Oh, if you get coffee out all the time, you're never going to be financially free. And then other people come in, oh, it's only $5. If you can't find $5, then you're not going to make financial freedom anyway. But I think it's a mindset. It's this mindset of, oh, I'll just get it out. I'll just get it out. No, I'm not going to get it out. I am in this frugal mindset where I am going to be, be saving as much money as possible. And Carl and I do this now. We have this app that we made from

a Google form that we put on our phones. And it's our spending tracker. And now it's a game to us. How little can we spend every month? We're still providing food and shelter for our kids. It's not like we're spending nothing. But, oh, do I really need that? I don't need that this week. I'm going to see if I can push that purchase back or I don't need, you know, whatever. Let me, let me eat out of the pantry instead of grabbing another thing at the grocery. store. And it's really, once you get in that mindset, it's hard to stop you. Yeah, and I hear it a lot, too. I think a lot of it is planning. If you plan different things ahead, almost in any situation, if you have a plan moving forward, you're going to spend less. And it could be, again, you know,

the coffees and the groceries, right? But it goes into, you know, if you have a plan to purchase a vehicle, if you go in and just go to the car dealership and buy a car, you probably, going to spend more money. However, if you have a plan for everything, chances are you're going to spend less. And that's, I think, again, it goes to the mindset. And just with a little bit of planning, it ends up really making a difference, I think. How long did this take you to get back to zero? So it took me, it took me right around five years. And what kind of changed after those five years? Or how did you, I guess, after those five years, did you begin moving toward financial freedom? And when did that kind of concept of building assets and building net worth kind of come into play as you went through this process?

Yeah. So one of the things that we did, which was really beneficial, is so when we moved to Chicago, so we were already looking for housing. We were looking to buy a house. It just what we wanted to do. But sometime in that first year, so we rented an apartment and then we ended up actually buying a place. But sometimes during that shift, we were looking for a place that we could live in one unit and then rent the other. And so we ended up doing a house hack. We found a place that we really liked. And so we kept our housing expense as almost zero, you know, depending on your math and your taxes and all that and what have you. So that was already a start with the investments.

And what year? So we bought that in 2012. So it was married. Nice. June 12, 2011. 2012. Back to the marriage numbers. But yeah, so we bought it in 2012.

So we already, during that time that I was paying off debt, we also were bringing in rental income. Now, the rental income, again, they didn't go to my student loans or anything like that. We went with a different approach on this as well. We decided that we would be responsible for the mortgage payment, regardless of any rent that came in. And then we took that rental income. And then we actually applied it to the rental house in Florida. Was that Yadie's house before you guys, that she owned? before? Okay. And you were, were you renting that out as well? Yes. Yes. So as soon as we moved

shortly after that, it ended up becoming a rental. So how was your housing expense down there? You had the rent coming in to cover that mortgage and then also your rent from your Chicago place covering that mortgage? Correct. Yeah. So again, we decided to go ahead in another direction. So we made sure that we were responsible for the mortgage in Chicago, but we are also responsible for the mortgage in Miami. And then anything, again, any dollars that came in from any rent-selling income,

we just took that as almost like a bonus and then said, okay, we're going to pay down this Florida house. Okay, so where are you now with properties? You're living in Chicago. I'm sorry, not now then.

What year are we talking about? 2012? You had just bought a property? Yeah, 2012 is when we purchased the property. Okay, and it was a duplex? Yes. Okay. Triplex.

I'm not sure Chicago has some I don't think it's a legal third unit. I think is, what is it? As is, I figure the terminology you're supposed to use in Chicago, but that's what we used. Were you renting out two units in Chicago? Yes, yeah, we rented out two, and then we stayed on the top floor.

That's even better than a duplex. Okay, so 2012, let's recap. Were your student loans paid off at that time? Not in 2012. My student loans didn't get paid off until, I believe it was 2015, 2016. I'd have to give the exact date. I was terrible with that part of it. Okay.

So what are some other things you did to try and, like, just knock out this debt? You did the frugal thing. Sure. Well, so, of course, I tried to do my best, you know, at my current position. So I was always the person who, you know, would take on more work or if they needed to stay later. I was actually an hourly employee. So, you know, if there was overtime available, you know, I would absolutely volunteer. So I did everything at my current job, right?

But I also knew that it was going to take time. It wasn't the way it worked at, my bank was it wasn't something where you did a great job, and then a month later, they promoted you. You know, it was year over year and what have you, unless you move to a different, you know, company or a different position within the bank. But then I decided pretty shortly after, it's funny, I mentioned that Nike, the Nike stuff with eBay, but, and you said you didn't do so well with the thrift store. So that's, I actually accidentally sort of walked into the thrift store gig,

where I would buy stuff from the thrift store and I would sell it on eBay for a profit. And I use any extra income that I got from that. That, it was, you know, that's the secret sauce for me. That was the extra money that went in. Anything over zero went towards all my student loans at that time. So that was really big for me. How much time were you spending on the eBay stuff? And Chicago probably has, Chicago has some really great thrift stores.

So if you're in the right neighborhood, you can really clean up. Did you have a special niche that you were doing on eBay? I'm going to throw like a thousand questions at you. What were you selling? How much time did it take out of your day? And what sort of profits were you seeing? Yeah. So I walked in accidentally.

We had moved into the neighborhood. I went to a local thrift store and I brought home. I saw these polos, men's polos, probably like the one I'm wearing. And they were really cheap. They were like three or four dollars. And I was like, oh, you know what? I would consider wearing this.

And I was like, I got to give it a good wash and, you know, whatever. But I was like, I would wear that. And then I was like, you know, I might even be able to sell these. And then I brought that home to my wife and she looked at it like I was the craziest person alive. She's like, no one, she's like, you're not wearing this. And even if you do wear it, you know, like wash it a bunch of times, you don't know, who had that on? And like, and I was like, okay. I was like, well, I was actually thinking of selling these on eBay.

And she's like not going to work. Like no one's going to want these. And I'm like, well, you know, like, we'll find out. You know, no big deal. Like I've done. I had some experience, right? So I at least had sold some stuff on eBay. So yeah, what I ended up doing kind of the, that was where it started, but I ended up, I had a couple of advantages. So I was pretty familiar with like brand names in general. I worked at Marshall Fields and Abercrombie while I was in school. So I had like some idea. But the big thing actually originally was the golf courses. So I knew all these random golf courses that would be considered like an upper echelon course, not only in the Chicago land area, but you know, in the United States or even, you know, overseas. And so.

People don't walk into thrift stores to buy men's polos with an Augusta logo. Most people have no idea what the Augusta logo is. So I would buy those and they'd be like $3, $4 because people weren't buying them. And then I would sell that shirt possibly for as much as, you know, $30 to $40 because it was basically a new shirt. And you couldn't go into Augusta like the pro shop and buy it without spending, you know, $80 on like for specific shirts that I would buy. So that's really where the bigger profit came from because I could also buy in bulk as well. So I might buy a shirt like this one, for example, again, I shouldn't say this one. So I would buy a Calvin Klein shirt, right?

And pretty, I guess, ordinary, not terribly expensive. And maybe that sells for $10. You know, not that big a deal. But then I would find this, using an Augusta example, find this great Augusta shirt. And that would be a $40 shirt that I could sell. And that would take care of all of my costs. everything, all 30 shirts that I had after that or all 10 or 15 shirts that I had were all profit. So the amount of time I put in, you know, it varied. So sometimes I would go in and I'd spend

an hour and come home with 40 shirts, especially, you know, the better I got at it, the, you know, the quicker you kind of go through things. Yeah. But yeah, it could be as little. I remember tracking time and seeing how, you know, the benefits and what have you. I could go through and put, you know, 10 to 15 hours a week. And that's with like everything. That's the buying the shirts, you know, the drive there. I used to wash the shirts and steam them and all this crazy stuff, but no one actually cares about that apparently because they're going to wash them

themselves. But so there was that, there was shipping and handling, there was listing the items, all of that. So I could do that on a weekly basis and it would take me 10 to 15 hours. And, you know, the profits have varied. You know, the more items you can list, you know, the faster and the, you know, the better items, you know, the more money you make. The most that I made in a month that I remember, and this was profit, was it was right around $1,000. Oh, that's a nice side hustle. Do you still do that? I stopped, mostly because of the move, but I'm no longer in the Chicago land area,

but I also didn't need to. I started making, I slowly but surely started making the decision of so I could go into the thrift store on a summer day, you know, in June when it's 80 degrees, or I could go for a bike ride along the lakeshore. And I started choosing biking along the lake shore instead of an extra $100 or whatever that week. With this, what I want to kind of get to is, how did you're thinking about money evolve from breaking even and getting to zero

and paying off your debt to building net worth and moving toward the concept of financial freedom? Where does that kind of strike into your story here? Yeah. You know, what it started all, with so like where did I find financial independence? I really started I thought about it early on. I was like man I have to work you know this entire time. We're talking 30, 40 years. Like that doesn't sound that appealing. So I actually went to the library and started looking for books and I didn't

really find anything. And the stuff that I did was, what was it? It was like how to retire at like 50 or 55 and then everything was moving overseas and I was or like to Mexico or Costa Rica. And I'm like, well, that sounds really cool, but I'm like, I don't know if that's going to happen in 55. That's still another 20 or 30 years later. So I came back, you know, did the internet, Google search and, you know, found a couple people like Mr. Money Mustache and early retirement extreme. And I'll be honest, I was very skeptical. I looked at it.

I remember some of the first things that, like my first thoughts on Mr. Money Mustache, obviously those have changed. But I was like, who's this crazy Canadian biking everywhere to early retirement? I'm like, that's not reality. And then there was early retirement extreme, which is, was it Jacob 1, Fisker? Fisker, yeah. Yeah. So I read his and I was like $7,000.

I'm like, I'm pretty sure this guy's living in like a mobile home somewhere and like renting out his stuff. I'm like, again, these people are crazy. And I then started looking at other individuals out there and people who are like, okay, this isn't just them. Other people are starting, like, writing and different things. So, you know, it was anything from 1,500 days caught my eye. And there was an awakening is what it was called. It was also probably because I recently went to Kauai, which I loved.

But, yeah, and there was, you know, Brandon and the Madfiances. All these people were out there and they were saying these great things. But, like, it wasn't my story at that point because I was still in debt. There was, like, one-line answers to, you know, the financial independence. movement. And it was, you know, like, pay off your credit card debt. I was like, well, that's great. That doesn't really, you know, kind of dive into things. What year would you, did you discover this? Was it in the middle of paying down all this debt? Yeah. Yeah. So it's probably somewhere in between like 2012, 2012, 2013, maybe even 2011, especially with the real estate part of it as well,

because that was another thing. There wasn't a, and I, this is, I didn't say it wasn't out there. I didn't, I didn't know about it. Where there was people. out there that were like, hey, by the way, you can invest in real estate and also get to financial independence. I knew that it was a good thing. Sure, like buying real estate, thumbs up, but it never, like, it never clicked until, you know, some of the stuff, like bigger pockets. It wasn't like thrown at my face where I was like, oh, I get it now. But slowly I was like, yeah, okay, you invest in real estate. This is going to help your network. You are going to be able to build things. So when I had that investment property in 2012,

my wife already had the investment property from Florida bringing into the marriage, you know, there were, you know, I would say like leg up that we had. We just didn't really know it until we started really reading more or I started reading more. Okay, so the concept starts to strike you in 2013, 2014. You can't really do much about it, but then you get down to zero in 2015, 2016, right? So how do you begin investing? How do you start applying your savings at that point towards this financial freedom goal? Yeah, well, one of the biggest things was so it was kind of,

Cool. So I had this vision or this map, right, this roadmap to paying off my debt. And that was on our bedroom door. But right alongside that, somewhere along the way, I had convinced my wife that paying off the Florida mortgage was like the next thing to do. And if we could pay off both of our properties or both of the properties, we could then reach financial independence because we essentially would have very low expenses. And we'd also have a very high, or not very high, but we'd have income that would cover our expenses. So that's really when it started. And when she paid that off, we, so I paid my debt off in 2015, 2016. Again, I got to get that exact date. It should be like, you know, it should be on my board somewhere. But it's, unfortunately, it's not. But yeah,

so she ended up paying or we ended up paying off that Florida home. I believe it was the end of 2016. Yeah, at the end of 2016, early 2017. And we had a paid off mortgage. So we had a all the rental income that was coming in was essentially free and clear other than, you know, your usual, you know, your insurance and any upkeep or what have you. But then we started making the transition to, you know, we paid off that Florida home. Should we then pay off Chicago? And we kind of a personal decision, we decided that we should start investing more into more into stocks and, you know, the 401K and, you know, taxable investments or what have you.

And we started making the plunge towards that way because we weren't really sure what was next, but we thought it could involve Florida. And having one less mortgage along the way could launch us towards that way, towards that direction. Yeah, so I'm sorry, so you just had not to pay off the mortgage, like put every dollar towards the mortgage in Chicago, and instead to put your stuff in tax deferred 401K, all that kind of stuff, max out those types of accounts and kind of diversify across other things while you kind of planned out your next move. Is that right? Correct. Yeah. Our mortgage was, I mean, it was, I think it was like 3.75, that, you know, also in the back of my mind, can you earn more in the stock

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Where are my gloves? Come on, heat. Any day now? Winter is hard, but your groceries don't have to be. This winter, stay warm. Tap the banner to order your grocery. online at voila.ca. Enjoy in-store prices without leaving your home. You'll find the same regular prices online as in-store. Many promotions are available both in-store and online, though some may vary. And it sounds like at this point, you're also, I mean, if I'm going too far with this assumption here, but it sounds like you're starting to get really clear on what you want out of life, like kind of what you want your day-to-day lifestyle to look like. You're starting to plan around those things. Is that right? And back into that as an envision? Yeah, we were definitely

preparing for it, kind of like the possibility more than anything. So the year after that I paid off debt, I believe we called it the, was it the year, it was like the year of freedom. So there was things that I did that, or we did that, you know, we normally went to done. I actually remember a real specific example of the year before I had the opportunity to go to Berkshire Hathaway. A friend of mine offered to, you know, give us one of the extra, I wasn't a stockholder, give us one of the extra tags or what have you.

And we took that. Sorry, and I couldn't go. I decided against it. I mean, I guess I could have, right? I could have, but I wouldn't have been able to pay off my debt that much faster. So I said, no. So the following year, I went to Berkshire Hathaway. We stayed, it's kind of crazy, we stayed in a tiny home on like middle and nowhere,

Omaha, Nebraska, and it was on a goat farm. Like, just, that's weird anyways, but, but it was fun. So we were definitely taking more time to travel and just do things that, like you're saying, Scott, that it was, it was lifestyle-based. And it started to be more about. transitioning into the lifestyle than it was of how frugal do I need to be it was like more started to switch more towards our values and what we found important and what was the like what was the relationship between being debt-free and starting to pile up some assets and

paying off that mortgage and all that kind of stuff and that shift in thinking was that that go hand-in-hand or were they kind of arrived at separately where what I'm trying to get at is I have a hypothesis right that for a lot of people you some people, they don't need any money and they don't need any situation. And they can just go and design their lifestyle and go do it. And they're just comfortable with that. I am not that way. I need to have my solid base of cash and some cash flow and a lot of flexibility for my financial position before I can mentally get into the state where I can start designing my lifestyle around exactly what I want. And I'm wondering if that was the case for you. If the fact that you had paid off

your debt and we're starting to accumulate assets as a family and that the position was getting stronger and stronger. If that's what kind of allowed you to start backing into, okay, here's exactly what I want my life to look like and I'm going to start moving towards that as a result of these improvements in my financial position. Or was that just, you know, a totally separate progress path? No, I would say your hypothesis for me would have Biden almost right on. I mean, probably 80-20, but I would say that once we realized or once we, you know, we had that debt freedom and we started to, you know, have assets and have, say, extra money or would have you, we realized that we could do more things. I probably was on the side when I was paying off

debt a little more of the, I guess, scarcity or, you know, I need to live frugal. And then I realized, well, you don't need to live frugal on everything. You're starting to pile up things. You're starting to have more money and income that's coming in. Like, you need to start really enjoying it. You don't have to wait until that date in, you know, two years or 10 years. And it really helps with, you know, also the experience along the way. It helps you figure that out. Because originally I thought, hey, we, Chicago, Florida, we're going to live in Chicago. And then if we want to go to Florida, we're going to go there.

You know, whatever. There wasn't like some specific direct plan. And then, you know, later on, we're like, well, my wife really wanted to be in Miami. So let's prepare. Let's plan for that to be a possible. And now it might not be, but at least let's prepare and plan. And you start realizing the things that are more important to you or more important to your significant other. And this culminated in a move, right, and a major life change. Right. So do you talk us to do that?

Yeah, it ended up being a pretty big life change. So again, we decided to pay off that Florida mortgage. And then, you know, I thought we were going to take a trip to Italy and, you know, celebrate and move on, right? that was my original plan. And then it ended up being a long series of discussions over time. So every time that I, that I walked my dog and my wife was with, a lot of times we talked about Florida and how it would work. And during that year 2017 and 2018, we decided that if everything worked out, we would move to Florida. And we figured out some stuff where it was like, okay, we're in a better financial place. We know that if we move down, you know, we don't need two jobs.

Sure, it would be great, you know, two incomes, perfect. But if one of our jobs says, hey, you can't go down there, work remotely, or, you know, you can't transfer positions, that's fine. We were in a better financial place that we could make it happen. And in 2018, we ended up listing our house for sale. And we thought we might do the, you know, long-distance landlord, but we decided to list the house for sale. and it sold ASAP, multiple offers, which we, I mean, sure, our house is very nice.

You know, we fixed it up, all that, all that. But didn't expect that. And everything happened quickly, snapped like that. And we sold the house. And within whatever that closing was, I believe it was July 27th, or the end of the month, July 30th, we picked up and we were on the road to Miami, Florida. And then the way the job situation worked out was my wife was able to. to work remotely. And my position, I wasn't able to transfer and work remotely. So we went down there with one position, one income, and of course, no debt whatsoever. And I assume that you're,

by having bought in 2012 and sold in 2018 in Chicago, that you cleared some cash there that you're able to redeploy towards fortifying your financial position. And that's right? Yeah. When we started out, it was, I mean, I'm open about the numbers too. So we bought the house 2012 for 200, thousand dollars is actually a foreclosure through wells fargo and then we did an f h a 203k loan i wasn't that familiar with them at the time but it allowed us to essentially take the rehab costs and just throw it into the mortgage so instead of a 200 000 mortgage it was a 250 000 mortgage and then we got some stuff fixed up so which was great for us because i didn't have any experience other than uh my one time is swimming pool construction before before college not that beneficial in um your chicago house didn't have a pool

Yeah, no pool, no pool. I actually had a house in Chicago that had a pool once. Why? Really? I don't recommend it because nobody in Chicago wants a pool. So that's really interesting. How much money did you sell the house for? What did you clear on that house when you sold it? So we sold it for $4.85.

Actually, I think they offered more. And that's what it ended up appraising at was $4.85. Nice. Wow. So you live there for free for $4.8. what, six years? Yep. And then made $2.35?

While living for free. While living for free. Now, did you pocket all of that? Or did you have some depreciation recapture and all that stuff because it was rental income? Yes. Yeah. So we didn't pocket all of that. And to be, I want to be transparent as possible, we did do some work along the way.

So it wasn't, you know, we put in 50 in the beginning and then we no longer worked on the house. So there was other stuff that we did along the way to, you know, for upkeep. And yes, with that, we're going to the fun tax part of it. We will be paying some, like you're saying, the depreciation recapture. And then based on how much we lived in, you know, you pay free and clear for, you know, part of it. And then the other part is we're going to pay some taxes on our profits. And we'll be going through that here pretty shortly. But you still made a profit.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. So what's the lifestyle like right now and where's your finish line, I guess, from a financial perspective? Well, the lifestyle, well, we're in Miami, Florida. We're in South Miami, Florida, where it's nice and sunny every day. I like Chicago. There's no polar vortexes. You don't know if they are.

You have to wear like a long-sleeved shirt that day. But, yeah, so the day's different. When I came down here, I knew that I wanted to start a business of some sort. And, you know, we knew that we had the one income and very low expenses. So I kind of went back and forth and really started researching different companies. anything from, I looked at Culver's, starting a Culver's franchise, which is really expensive, by the way. But Amazon, anything from, you know, a little bit of everything, just figuring out, you know, what did I want to wake up and, like, be happy to do? And we started realizing, too,

you know, do you want to put in, like, in Culvers, you were getting a loan for, you know, you could spend as much as $2 million, really, is what it came down to. And, you know, basically, do you want to put all your eggs in one basket into a Culver's? I was like, that's scary for me and for us. So we decided that, you know, whatever it would be would be online. And I had been blogging for the last four or five years at even Stephen Money. And that was just to really hold myself accountable. And just to make sure that I was, you know, when I made debt payments or when I did different things,

that, you know, I let the world know, essentially, really helped me there. And I decided to get into a different aspect where I'm going to be helping people really go through what I did. and that's, you know, working one-on-one with them as a money coach. So you started that business when you moved down to Florida, and has that been able to take off? How has it been going? I would say I just started, actually. So I just started in January.

So I'm in that getting all of like your process and procedures and making sure that what I do works for them and, you know, really following, having it all set up. So having it as automated as possible with the idea that I'm still, you know, one-on-one. It's not an income that is needed, and that's not the plan for it to be really needed, but it's to be where I can help other people and also have it be part of our lifestyle. I can jump on a Zoom call and talk finance with someone to help them and whatever they need. So what does a money coach do exactly?

Somebody calls you up and says, hey, I don't know how to figure out my finances? Kind of. No, no, there's a couple of things, and it's, it's all so new to me. And it's new to me, but I really feel like it's a new thing in personal finance. So there's a couple ways I explain it. One, you can say, you know who Dave Ramsey is? Yes. I've heard of them. I'm the prettier one with a bigger beard and more hair. No, that one I just made up. But usually what I tell people is it's, you know, people when they say, I'm bad with money, and you know, you're telling them what they do

and they're like, oh, and then I respond with, yeah, I help them solve that. I help people pay off debt faster, you know, save more money that they ever have before, all this so they can live a better life today and retire comfortable tomorrow. Now, I do everything, you know, step by step. Yeah, that was practice, Mindy.

But yeah, I take things step by step. I want people to get to that financial freedom, right, to where I am today, where I am, or where we, my wife and I are, you know, in such a better financial position, but I also know it doesn't happen overnight. I say it's like it's brick by brick, it's step by step, you know, you're building out that road, you're building that foundation. And while financial independence is a great journey to be on, not 100% of the population is, you know, not currently on their road to financial independence. So if I can help some of the people

beforehand and maybe I can convert a few along the way to financial independence, then, you know, I think I can help a lot of people, even if it's the one-on-one. I think this is a really needed position right now because there are so many sources of information for financial independence, but you said earlier, and I say all the time, personal finance is personal. So what you did for your situation is not going to be the same as what I did for my situation because they're different situations. And having the idea that you want to pay down debt is great, but you don't know what

you don't know. So if you, like, okay, I want to pay down my debt, what's the best way to do it? Oh, I don't know. Never mind. And I can see a lot of people like wanting to be excited about it, but then without the, you know, special tools. And you can't really, there's generalities that you can take and apply to your life. But having somebody to help you with every single situation can just be the difference between actually achieving financial independence or even just paying off your debt and giving up because you're so frustrated. Yeah, I mean, one of the biggest reasons people work with me is, it means for a couple reasons, but a lot of times I hear, you know, I don't know where to start.

I don't have a financial plan. And then you'll hear, you know, this is causing me anxiety or I feel like I have a weight on my shoulders. And if I can help them away from, it really even just getting started, right? You're like, hey, let's, you know, let's track your expenses. You know, some of my clients say, I don't know how much, I'm bad with money. I don't know where I'm spending my money. I'm like, well, let's start with just tracking your expenses. You know, here's a tool that you could use or, you know, try this.

And to be able to really get an unbiased third party opinion, I'm your third party. And I'm really, like, I want you to win. I want you to do the best that you can possibly. I'm not selling you anything, I guess besides me, right? I'm selling you me. But other than that, like, I'm not telling you to go invest here or buy this insurance. And that's where sometimes some of that advice. advice can be, you know, you have to be careful, right? So with me, you're getting someone who has

gone through it before and can, you know, help you along the way, kind of get through some of those roadblocks of sometimes it's just getting started. And other times it's just running through your plan now that we have one and seeing if it works. There's more than one way to do this. Not everyone's going to follow the same exact plan. And if I can get you going in the right direction and figuring out what your personal plan is, you know, it's going to be a benefit for you. Yeah, that unbiased third party is like a counselor. In marriage, oh, I've got my opinion, you've got your opinion. Somebody else can help you see what's going on. And with finances, sometimes you're so mired in it. You just can't rise above it and see the whole big picture you're just like swallowed in it. I think that's really a necessary tool for a lot of people. Okay. Is there anything else that you would like to share with us before we get to our famous four questions? My wife is beautiful and wonderful, and hopefully she will listen to this, and that'll give me nothing but kudos points. Can I add that?

Your wife is beautiful and wonderful and delightful. Okay. So it is now time for the famous four. These are the same of four questions and one command that we ask of all of our guests. What is your favorite finance book? So the right answer, and I have this discussion with my wife often, I know what the right answer is, any book that is written by bigger pockets? Specifically, Scott or Mindy? Perfect.

Seth for life was a pretty good book. I'm not going to lie. How to say? The one that changed, kind of changed the way I thought about money was millionaire next door. So that I would say that's my favorite one. I'm also a pretty big,

I like stories involved in my personal finance books, a little less rigid on the, you know, save X amount and then apply it to debt. So I also like the richest man in Babylon. as well. So both were pretty influential for me. Yeah, that richest man of Babylon is my favorite. Great choices. All right. What was your biggest money mistake? Quite easily. It was the Mercedes-Benz, buying the Mercedes-Benz. So many things, not only buying it, but leaving your job a couple months afterwards. You know, paying all the expenses for it. So, yeah,

that one hurt. How much in total you think that car cost you? I feel like you're trying to make me cry, Scott. The point is to help our listeners. Absolutely, absolutely, right. So, oh my goodness, I didn't even have it that long. I wouldn't be surprised. I know I took a loss, $1,200 plus payments for even just a year. And I had it for longer than that. I mean, $10,000, probably just in a year. Wow. Wow. $10,000 and that doesn't even include opportunity costs. But also, Would you be where you are today if you hadn't made that decision? I honestly don't think so. I am also a believer that, you know, everything that we do kind of has a little effect

in something else at a different part of our life. So, yeah, it was without that, without making a stupid decision, I went to, I guess, gotten smarter. Plus you look slick for a year. Right. I got to drive my friends around and say, hey, did you see what I'm driving? Obviously, I'm doing really well. What is your best piece of advice for people who are just starting out?

Yeah. So, I mean, it's a number of things, but to really narrow it down is, I say, if you do one thing to talk with me is to track your expenses. And it doesn't have to be like a rigid thing. But if you're able to know where you're spending your money, you can make the decision if you want to keep spending it that way. Or if you want to put more money in something else that you value more or to put more in the stock market, you know, just track.

I think it's such a big deal. You don't have to be, again, you don't have to be so rigid, but it allows you to really decide, it's data impacted. You're allowed to take that data and decide what you want to do with your money after that. I've told the story a hundred times, but until we tracked our spending, I didn't know how frequently I went to the grocery store. And at one point, for like several months, it was every single day. And it's just, wow, I can't believe I'm doing that. So not only does it help you track like your expenses, but it tracks your behavior. And this isn't how I want to be.

I don't want to be at the grocery store every day. I don't want to do this every day. And I mentioned earlier that I put this spending tracker on my phone. My husband did. I didn't do that. And we got that from the Waffles on Wednesday. They created this Google sheet, Google form. It's like a questionnaire.

You fill out, where did you spend it? What day? How much? What is the category? And we made it customized to what we spend money on typically. And now every time I go anywhere and spend a dime as I'm walking out of the store, I'm entering my expenses. And it's really, really helpful at the end of the month. You're like, whoa. So now we're trying, now we've got a game going on. How little can we spend?

Yeah. I mean, a business keeps track of all of their expenses. It's like, why wouldn't you do it for yourself? Yep. You know, when sometimes I'll meet with people, not in a coaching capacity or anything like that. But we'll, you know, people will get a grab a coffee or whatever and discuss someone's financial position, see there's anything I could do to help or whatever. I won't schedule the meeting until I get a commitment for that person that they'll at least track, have some indication of what their expenses are going for the last couple of months. I mean, this tip comes up 50% of the time with people on this saying, hey, my best piece of advice is to track your expenses. You know, I've never come across somebody who's failed to do this exercise and then does it, who is

unable to come up with potentially life-changing amounts of expenses to cut or change or clear patterns that do not reflect what they say that their priorities are, right? If you say, hey, my priority is financial freedom and this, this and the other thing, and then you have, you know, huge amounts of expenses leaking out in this category and that category. That tells a clear story, right? That means you're not being honest with yourself or need to change something. I mean, this one exercise is foundational to everything else. If you can cut your expenses, you increase your savings rate. You have more to invest. You have a larger cash cushion.

You know, you can take more entrepreneurial risks. You can go on and move to Florida and start a business and try and see how that goes. You can do all of the stuff that all starts with your tracking your expenses, right? All the other opportunities downstream to earn more invest, all that kind of stuff. They all begin with this very, very simple exercise that most people don't do. Right. And money's hard. Okay.

Well, anyways, moving on from my little rant there. What is your favorite joke to tell at parties? I know you tell a joke every single day to your wife. So maybe you can... What is the joke you tell that makes your wife grown the hardest? Oh. Oh, I can't use that one on you. It's a family show.

Yeah, exactly. Oh, I didn't mean like that. I meant like a horrible. Oh, that was a terrible joke. That, yeah. No, it's the same. It's the same one. It's the same one. So whether I'm saying it's my wife, or I'm saying to anyone, I usually just rely on like quick-witted responses. So since I wanted to be good, I wanted to follow, have a good joke. So I did look one up. And I laughed when I read it.

So hopefully that helps. So did you guys hear about the new restaurant called Karma? Yeah. Well, there's no menu. You get what you deserve. Is that good? I don't know. I left. I mostly hate these jokes, so I left. That means you get to tip what you deserve too, I bet. You tip what they deserve.

That's right. Okay. Stephen, where can people find out more about you? You can go to evenstevenmoney.com and pretty much everywhere that's, you know, all social media. What is it? Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn. It's all going to be even Stephen Money. That is unfair that you have the name, Stephen,

and you get to be even Stephen money. That's a great name. Thank you. Lots of years of being Stephen really got me to earn that position. So I'm very proud of it. Even Stephen, there's a lot of Vs in there. And this is show 67. So we threw another V in there just for you.

Thank you. 67. 67, yes. So the show notes for this particular episode can be found at biggerpockets.com slash money show 67. That's Money Show 67. And even Steven can be found everywhere you can find even Steven money. Thank you so much for your time today. This was really awesome. Hey, thank you guys so much. Again, still smiling. So Scott didn't make me cry. I appreciate that. And always, it's a pleasure. I'm a big fan of Bigger Pockets money. So I appreciate it. Thank you guys.

Yeah, thank you. We'll talk to you later. Have a good day. Me too. That was Stephen Donovan from Even Stephen Money. Mindy, what did you think? You know, one of my biggest takeaways from this episode is the fact that he didn't feel that having a finance degree made him too good to do any other job. Like he, as soon as he graduated from college, he went back to the golf course that he was working at throughout high school, throughout college. He didn't feel, I mean, he went to the poker tournament or the poker casinos. That's not my thing. really, really don't like gambling. So that would have not have been something that I tried,

but he was like, oh, let me try this, let me try that, whatever, to bring in money. He didn't just sit around and do nothing. He didn't just sit around and wait for this perfect job to come in. He graduated right before the market crash and just did what he needed to to put money on the table, or to put food on the table. Well, I love how he just like got intentional and the results piled up and piled up and pile it up and pile it up. And I love the fact that he and his wife had a pretty sounds like tough conversation with an output he didn't like. And instead of kind of getting upset about it, he attacked his debt, got it back down to zero and is now living the life of his dreams and making things happen. So I just admire the hustle and the tenacity once he got going

on achieving his goals. Yeah. And again, he took that same, I'll do anything to pay off this debt. I'll do anything to bring money in attitude towards his debt selling stuff at eBay for, what did he say? His best month was $1,000. That's not small potatoes when you're trying to attack this debt. He had at one point $100,000 in debt. That's 1% of your debt in one month. That's not bad.

Yeah, I mean, a lot of creativity and a lot of discipline, I think really got him through all that. Yeah, it really did. And I like that now that he has moved back to Florida, he's decided, you know what, I'm going to do this for other people to. I'm going to help other people do this because I hear from a lot of people. I'm stuck. I don't know where to go. I don't know what the first step is. How do I get started?

And, you know, when you are in the situation, sometimes it's so hard to just, you're trying so hard to keep your head above water, you can't see that the island is right there. You can't see that, you know, help is really close. And, you know, sometimes that's just really what you need to get you pushed over. the hump and get you started. Yep, I hope he's very successful with it. I do too. Okay, should we get out of here, Scott? Let's do it. Okay. From episode 67 of the Bigger Pockets Money podcast where we interview Stephen Donovan from Even Stephen Money, brought to you by the letter V, this is Scott Trench and Mindy Jensen, and we are, we will see you later. That was terrible. Oh my gosh. That was Scott level. But seriously, like the letter V is everywhere.

in this title. Yeah. Okay, we're gone. Goodbye. Bye.