NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast - How Homebuying Differs for LGBTQ+ People — and Tips for Any Buyer in a Tough Market

Episode Date: August 24, 2026

Learn how LGBTQ+ homebuyers navigate unique challenges and how anyone can compete in today's expensive housing market. What makes homebuying uniquely challenging for LGBTQ+ people — and could being queer also create unexpected advantages in the process? Hosts Sean Pyles, CFP®, and Elizabeth Ayoola sit down with Steph Noble, a Portland-based mortgage loan officer with Crosscountry Mortgage, to explore why queer buyers often face a harder road to homeownership. They also discuss strategies that could give first-time buyers a real shot, including how to use down payment assistance programs, what helps buyers stand out in a competitive market, and what lenders look for when deciding whether to approve a mortgage application. To close out the episode, Sean and Elizabeth each share what they spent money on this month. Learn how LGBTQ+ home buyers can navigate the market: https://www.nerdwallet.com/mortgages/learn/lgbtq-home-buying  Find first-time home buyer programs in your state: https://www.nerdwallet.com/mortgages/learn/first-time-home-buyer-programs-by-state  Car insurance comparison tool: https://www.nerdwallet.com/insurance/auto/car-insurance Subscribe to our weekly newsletter! https://smartmoney-nerdwallet.beehiiv.com/ Want us to review your budget? Fill out this form — completely anonymously if you want — and we might feature your budget in a future segment! https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScK53yAufsc4v5UpghhVfxtk2MoyooHzlSIRBnRxUPl3hKBig/viewform?usp=header  To send the Nerds your money questions, call or text the Nerd hotline at 901-730-6373 or email [e-mail]. Like what you hear? Please leave us a review and tell a friend. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Add on the complicating factors of having fewer resources and the potential of discrimination, and home buying can seem unattainable, but challenges can also breed creativity. This episode, Home Buying Through a Queer Lens. Welcome to Nerd Wallet's Smart Money Podcast, where you send us your money questions, and we answer them with the help of our genius nerds. I'm Sean Piles. And I'm Elizabeth Ayola. Today, we are recording live from Portland, Oregon, which is Sean's Hood.

Welcome to me, Sean. Welcome, Elizabeth. Thank you very much. Today we're going to be discussing what makes home ownership or home buying different for LGTBQ plus people and also how anybody can navigate an expensive housing market. And joining us in this conversation is Steph Noble, Portland-based mortgage loan officer with cross-country mortgage. Steph, welcome to smart money. Thank you. Thanks for having me.

So can you tell us what it means to be a mortgage officer and what your role is in the home buying process? Oh my gosh, right? Like flashback, when I bought my first house and I had a mortgage broker, I was like, something felt like I had a stock broker. What does this mean? So, buying a house. Yeah, I was like, I must be growing up now. Mortgage broker, basically someone who's going to help you find the money to buy the house, right? So if you don't have a trust fund, I'll find the money there. Just help you find the loan and help match you up with like what home you're looking for, the money to get it and matching you up with the right loan. You're helping put some deals together with you matching the individual to the money. the financing to the space itself. Yeah, exactly. So let's talk about why home buying and owning a house can be different for people in the queer community. I mean, many in queer lives might be kind of untraditional in some ways. Like, we might not have a lot of resources, whether you've been ticked out of your family, or you're not earning as much, or you're actually like trying

to buy a house with just yourself or maybe with like your polycule or something. So things can be a little bit different. How have you navigated this in your career and with your clients? You know, at the end of the day a mortgage is a mortgage that fits anyone, so it's non-discriminatory. But at the same time, coming into a mortgage world as a queer person, you first and foremost want to be seen. There are some hurdles of like just not wanting to have to explain yourself and your lifestyle or what your polycule looks like. I think that can be a little bit of a hurdle to try and get into it. So you're a social barrier. Yeah, social barrier. And I know for a lot of people, like when you think about going back to what is a mortgage broker. When you think a mortgage broker, you oftentimes think

of like traditional cis, straight, white man. You know what I mean? So if you're like, if you think this is who I need to talk to to explain what I wanted to do, it just can kind of feel a little bit overwhelming. In additional, though, the financial component. You might be buying on your own. You might not have family resources. A lot of people may not have the family support, you know, both emotionally, financially to make this move happen. And so they're oftentimes, looking for someone to help guide them and to provide that support. And have you work with many people from the queer community during your? So many people.

And how would you say what has been your experience? I would say my experience is more people are looking to buy in terms of groups. So if there's a way to like, hey, I already live with these roommates or I already have a polycule or we're looking to buy together, I think more people are looking to buy in community, you know, so either as friendship groups or partner groups. And why do you think that is? Well, I think affordability is a huge thing. And I also think people are like, I don't really want to be alone.

You know, I mean, they are like, I already live successfully in a group, in a house with housemates, sometimes even. They're like, we're just going to take this group with us and we're going to figure out how to buy a house. One of the coolest groups that I worked with was like a couple sisters and a cousin. And, you know, they were like, we're going to find a property. We all want to live close by each other and support each other both like financially, but also like if we end up having families or having, you know, extended partners. So there's what's like a family buying together. But I think that's like another aspect that I'm seeing. And that can help make buying a home even more attainable.

That also feels very Portland because people here are so community oriented. They rely on their networks, whether it's like their lovers or their family or just their friends. And like you said for affordability, home prices have gone up, what, 50% over the past six years. And it's simply out of reach for many people to do on their own. Simply out of reach. So being able to pool resources is so. fundamental and really empowering, but also there are some risks to that too. So you as a broker, how do you actually put together all the pieces of like, okay, you are maybe working like part time at a bar,

but this person has like a job with a 401k and the other person's like an artist working kind of inconsistently. Like what is that kind of puzzle like for you as you're trying to make this home buying dream come true? They could be coming to the table with a mix of job contributions. So that's one part of it. Who's contributing on a monthly basis from a financial standpoint? point and who's coming up with down payment. So there are situations where people like one person has a down payment, but maybe not as much employment to be relied on for the mortgage and someone else might have less down payment. And then they have more like monthly income that we're able to use. So we pick and choose the best of each person to like make the combination. And that's part of the role of the mortgage person

is to help take all the pieces of the puzzle and put it in the best light. So you get the best financing. Yeah. I imagine some lenders might look at that and be like, what's going on here? There's so many people, so many different little pools of money, how does this going to make sense so that I feel comfortable as a bank lending you money? And the nice thing is, is like in the financial world, a lot of the personal stuff does get stripped out

once it's submitted into underwriting. So that stuff, we pick and choose what gets sent along. So there's not like specifics around a person individually. Okay. And that's for like non-discrimination. Yes. And so really what it comes down to

is what income do we see on a monthly basis, what down payment do we have, and what credit. And of that combination of those humans, that we have that we're putting together, what's the best loan product for that? Because like you said at the beginning, a mortgage is a mortgage,

you have to make the numbers work out. And so when you're working with maybe a queer clientele or even a clientele and just a really challenging market like Portland, what are some of the biggest challenges that you see people trying to overcome? Is it the down payment? Is it the monthly income? What are you seeing? I think it's the down payment, you know,

because a lot of times people will be like, I'm already paying this in rent. I can pay it as a mortgage. I just need the down payment to get there. And so I think the biggest hurdle is the down payment. Not a lot of people have access to family resources or the ability to come up with that down payment easily. And so the puzzle becomes how to come up with the down payment. And what do you usually advise clients when maybe they come up short or don't have enough?

My favorite tip that I like to tell people, you know, because maybe someone has a $2,000 rent payment and their mortgage payment's going to be like 4K. I'm using those numbers just for easy. And I'll be like, okay, so if you can handle a $4,000 mortgage payment, you're paying $2,000 in rent right now. Start pretending like you're paying a $4,000 mortgage. Take $2K to your rent and put another $2K and decide you'll see your money grow. You'll also start saving for down payment. But you'll also kind of get to test, like, is this a reasonable mortgage payment? And the number of people that are like, one, it's so rewarding to see your account grow, right?

But the number of people that are like that realize that, oh, it is more achievable. It is more manageable than they thought is really like been surprising. Yeah. Sometimes you see that big number, maybe whatever the number is 20,000, 15,000. And you're like, how am I going to get that? But you start small, right? And just set a goal. Or other times people will, like, do a side hustle and come up with additional funds, you know.

Just short term. Just get that money. Yeah. Yeah. But I like that strategy in terms of actually stress testing how much you can afford for a mortgage because you don't want to end up house poor or overstrained because your mortgage is bigger than what you're paying for your rent. And all of a sudden, you're like, well, I have this house, but I can't furnish it

or I can't go out the way I want to. So that's a really smart move there, too. Yeah. The stress testing is, like, key. And I always tell people, most of us have like, our savings or checking or whatever the accounts we have. I always tell people like, set it aside into a new account that is just this. Oh, yeah. Because then you're going to recognize if you've had to pull money back from it to pay other bills or to take that trip or to deal with that car.

You know, if you put it into a savings that's already there that kind of is muddy, it's a little bit trickier. But like literally make it as if it was a mortgage payment. We talk about sinking funds and savings buckets all the time on the show because it's such an effective psychological. and just technical, practical mechanism to save money and not have that, oh, it's just a slush fund. You know, having that psychological barrier is so helpful. And it just helps you stay organized, too. Do you know what kind of the average down payment is nowadays? Like, what are you seeing?

I'm sure it varies in the house, right? Last I looked for a first-time home buyer, it was like 6 or 7%. So that takes into account people who are doing lower down and then people who have like a large amount that they put down. I would say what I see mainly is right about the 3 to 5% down for a first-time home buyer. If someone's doing it on their own, there's always the people that have, like, family support that can do a larger. But if people are doing it on their own, it often see it's, like, in that three to five percent range. I'm trying to recall it mine was, but I want to say it was around 3 percent.

And I bought it during the pandemic, and I bought a new build out in, like, super rural coastal Washington. My husband has a house here. So he was like, he wanted me to have something before we got married, which is very smart of him. And I remember thinking, how am I going to do this? I came into a windfall because, like, nerd wallet went public. I was able to sell some stock. I simply wouldn't have been able to do it otherwise. So I'm grateful for that, but it makes me think about how for a lot of people,

homeownership and having the resources available is often a matter of luck or privilege. And if you don't have that, then you will have to turn to alternative more creative mechanisms, whether it's getting that side hustle or pooling resources with your friends and family. Something else I wanted to ask you about in terms of that is titling, because that gets complicated when you have different parties. How do you approach that conversation? and is that even your purview? So it's not really my purview

because they do want to talk to someone who's a legal advisor. I was think of it kind of a little bit like a pre-nup. Like you can kind of suss it out with some professionals, but you really need to go and talk to someone of like, hey, we're going to buy as a group and we're going to own it as a group.

But you want to think ahead of like when people's lives change. Like if someone decides that they want to move to a different place or they get a different job or someone's going to start a family or they have different partners or the polycule is no longer, together. So you want to kind of almost pre-put in place the what-ifs of what life is going to bring. So I think getting with an attorney and just writing out what you're going to do in the event of, like, who's put in what, who gets paid out, what percentage, you know, if somebody put in a

larger down payment, but then didn't make monthly mortgage payments necessarily. Like, I've seen people do that before, like how you're going to even out that balance. So you really want to talk to someone to like write up a plan that's legal. And I always think of like people go out with the best intentions for sure. But I think having it written down is being really clear, then there's not a question as to what the other document that you can just refer back to. So I think it's really smart to do that. Like go in with your good intentions, but also get it written down.

So it's really clear if and when life changes for all of us that there's going to have there, right? Yeah. That there's an exit plan. So I feel like home buying can be a very emotional process. You go through the gamut of emotions and you add the layer of being queer. She said a mortgage is a mortgage, but you know, you may still have some kind of underlying challenges that you're facing. Do you find yourself having to be a therapist sometimes throughout the process?

Yes. I do think it is an emotional purchase. It's always interesting to me, like when people tell me all the things they want in a house and then they're like, I just walked in and I knew it was the one. That's speaking to something a little bit different, right? But yeah, definitely there's times of being a therapist. Like quite dear friend of mine was purchasing and was like just needing some thinking it through and talking it through and knowing that it was a safe purchase because it truly was. Definitely being kind of on the therapist side of things, although I'm not a therapist, say a therapist.

You're not what I mean. But I mean, just hearing people and like a thing goes back to you want to be seen, you want to be heard. And at the end of the day, you want to know that you're making a good decision and you want to be able to trust the person that you're talking to that they have your. you're back. And that's really, like, I get paid when I do loans. That's one part of it. But really, I really see my role as, like, advising people and helping them get to decision faster. It's not for everyone to buy a house. And just getting that information sooner rather than later versus living in their head or, you know, wondering if it's possible or what the options are. That's where I really see that our job is, is to help people get to decision faster and to be able to make it a good

decision. Have you ever had clients who start in the process and then say, actually, this isn't for me. And then what are some common themes you see amongst those groups of people who home buying is maybe not for? Definitely when people see how much the down payment is, it needs to be, or maybe the monthly, that can be them like, I'm going to stress test this mortgage payment and I'm going to get back to you. And then they just stress test it. So sometimes people will look at it and be like, actually, I can't really do that payment. And that kind of puts me out of the market in Portland, you know, so I'm going to rent for a while. But a lot of times people will choose not to buy for a variety of reasons. They decide not to stay in Portland. They don't have the resources to do it. You know,

there's any number of reasons that people end up choosing not to. But it happens quite a bit. I mentioned earlier how there are some kind of unique challenges that queer people face when they're home buying. I'm wondering if you see kind of the inverse, what advantages there might be to being a queer person and pursuing something like this. It may be specific to Portland. I think we just look out for each other, you know, in a way. And so definitely like we show up for our people. You can get connected, like here in Portland, especially, get connected with the queer community, both from all the aspects. Like, my favorite transactions are like, the client, the mortgage broker, the real estate agent, the title company, everyone, the inspector, you know what I mean, gets to be this big community of support. I just love that.

So I feel like that's an advantage when you can find your right group because going back to the emotional part of it, it is an emotional part. If you don't have maybe actual, like, family of origin support. Your team behind you, yeah, because it can be kind of isolating otherwise, right? And knowing that you have something in common that you're like, we're looking out for you. Yeah, that was one thing that really stood out to me when I moved to Portland. I've been here a little over eight years now. And I would be walking down the street and moved from San Francisco. And my neighbors would be saying hi to me.

And I would just say, I don't have any money. Oh. Because my defenses were up and they would look at me deeply offended, understandably so. And then I realized, oh, no, they're friendly. They want to get to know you. And I know all of my neighbors and they're all delightful people. And that's something that just makes navigating the city so distinct. But that said, it's also a really expensive city, too.

So I want to get into what it's like to buy a house in an expensive market in general beyond just being a queer home buyer. What should people be doing? How can people navigate this? Because a lot of people feel like it's just inaccessible, as we said earlier, and their budgets are not aligning with the house prices and also the loan. I've been doing this 23 years. And there was a market that I thought I would not see, which we're seeing right now. Why did you think you weren't going to see it?

I don't know. I just thought maybe we'd have low rates forever. I don't know. I was living in my own fantasy land, you know. I guess maybe the part I didn't think we would see is high prices, high interest rates with a strong market with people still driving, wanting to buy. You know, I thought the drive to buy would maybe peter out a little bit. But in the market where it's high prices and high interest rates, it makes me think of after the Great Recession, which I worked through, which when people, it was scary to buy after that. The people that bought at that time did the best of anyone I worked with as a group because they saw a great appreciation afterwards. Because when rates came back down, the Great Recession kind of settled out, then those homes appreciated quite a bit. And I think we're going to see that again.

So my advice, if I'm giving good advice of what I would give to my like home family, is if you can find a way to buy now to do it. A couple of things will happen. Either prices will go back up or continue to go up. Rates will come down, but then prices will really go. up and then it becomes even less affordable. If you can make it happen, try and make it happen now. Because I think when it's scary to buy is when, if you can make it happen, is a good time to buy. We're also running into issues with inventory. Yes. And there aren't enough houses for people across the country, but also in Portland. I've been really heartened to see a number of townhouses

going up around town. Do you think that's actually making an impact or what do you think it's going to take besides obviously simply building a lot more houses? Because we have millions of houses and shortage right now. The housing shortage is like really what's driving because supply and demand, right? I do think those townhouses are being helpful. I'll be curious to see how they do over time, you know, how they do on the resale market, because right now they're new. I'll just be curious to see how they retain their values. Steph, I want to ask, how can people get over the hurdle? Because people like me, who almost bought during the pandemic when rates were like 2%, and then now seeing rates hovering between 6 and 7%, people are discouraged. And some people are thinking maybe rates will go back down.

So how can people kind of make a psychological shift to say it's not going back down to 2% and like you said, I need to get over that and buy now. And then also for the people who are like maybe I can refinance, well, the rates might not go down much lower, much soon. Yep. I think the national average of interest rate is right about where we're at, you know, over a long span of time, like 6 and 7%. So I think that getting used to where the rates are is probably worth doing with the hope that

we'll see an opportunity to refinance, but not counting on it from a financial statement. standpoint, like, I'm going to white-knuckle this for two years and I better be able to refinance. But I think getting over that psychological hurdle, like, looking where rates were over the long span of time and being like, this is a more normal rate historically, and then figuring out from there if you can buy. The hard part is that the rates are kind of historically normal, but the prices of the houses are as historic high.

And the wage. So, you know, seven percent on $500,000 is a lot more than like $40,000 or something in the 80s. Totally. Yeah. Agreed. I bought my first house at 8%, but houses cost what 14 raspberries at the time or something, you know what I mean? It was like nothing. Yeah. So it's not lost on me, but I think the housing shortage is so significant that the home prices don't seem to be changing either. I think a lot of people have been surprised to see how certain cities have turned into these really expensive markets like Portland. He described your experience, seeing Portland go from what it was like when you first moved here. You said like two decades ago

to today. When I first moved here to Portland, people would talk about homes being like in the 50k range or something. I'd be like, what? And as I'm buying my house for 100K, right? So I was like, it's already double. My family was not necessarily supportive of it. Like, they're like, that's so expensive. I'm like, well, I need a place to live and I can afford it, which I think is a way to go into it if you can. But I remember it wasn't that many years ago that when a real estate agent I really respect said to me, Portland's quietly becoming like this million dollar city. Home prices and the inner. core becoming like this million dollar price point. And I remember at the time thinking like, nah, I mean, I respect you all, but you don't really know what you're talking about. Now I look around, I was like, they're not too far off. Like home prices that were, you know, four and 500 seem like a lot. And now it's like, can't even really find something for that in the inner. I live just east of 82nd. If those are in Portland, east of 82nd, east of 82nd used to be the danger zone. And, you know, I'm not that much further out, but it's hard to find a house for under 400 if you're lucky. If you can. Yeah.

We got a question from someone recently asking who's considering buying a home next year. And they're like, how do I find something that's within my budget, maybe in an up-and-coming area, but still in a safe area? So how can people find those gems that are not way out of range but still in a good area and maybe in a developing area? Definitely connect with a real estate agent for that piece of the puzzle. There's probably other aspects of it of like what they're looking for in terms of safety and stuff. When I bought my first house, just transparently, people are like, oh, you're going to buy their, I hope you're okay. you know, you're safe. And I was like, well, you know, I think I'm going to be fine.

You made it. But probably partnering that the real estate agent is probably the right thing because I don't really have the expertise on how to find. For us, I mean, when Garrett was buying the house that we live in now, we worked with a great real estate agent and we've toured a lot of different houses around Portland. And we didn't find anything that really fit the bill in terms of like the price and the location. He actually found the spot on Redfin because the previous owners had like put it up in the market, pulled it back and done it a couple times.

And so it fell into a bit of a black hole. Yes, work with a great Asian if you can and you probably should. But do your own research too and just keep an eye out for the gems because our house is nothing fancy. But it's in a great location still. And most importantly, it was affordable. Yeah. It was 299 in 2018. And of course, he refinanced in the pandemic.

So we're never leaving. Do you run into that too where people think, oh, like I want to buy this house, but everyone who refinanced or bought in 2020, 2021, they're not budging. Which also hurts the. housing supply, right? So they're like, I don't want to move or they want to know where they're moving to before they sell because they're like, I don't know if I'm going to find the right house I want and I'm not willing to give up this interest rate. I will say though, there are more people that are realizing like I've outgrown the house. It's either too big. I need to downsize or it's too small. We need to upsize or I need to be in a different location or school. And so they are coming to groups with. They're going to have to make a move. This is where we are here. Yeah. Getting married to the interest rate is probably not in the best interest. Right. You yourself long term. I know. That's one thing that my husband and I have been weighing is because I have my place in Washington

and has this place here. We would love a little more space than 900 square feet. We don't want to get rid of the house because we've made this incredible garden. We're attached to it emotionally. We're thinking, do we pool our equity in some creative fashion to try to buy something larger? Do you work with people that do that too? Yeah.

Just asking completely selfishly. Oh, totally. Yeah. Like how to like pool equity and kind of make the next move happen. Yeah. Yeah. Because I imagine that might be one of the only ways to kind of get ahead in some difficult markets. Like, how common is that?

A lot of people are coming to the table with, like, each person might own a property or one might own and how they're going to pull their resources. It kind of goes back to similar, like, that whole conversation about having a conversation up front, maybe putting something in writing up front of, like, how you want to make sure that both parties are protected or all parties are protected. If you could sit down with someone who's a wannabe first-time home buyer and, you know, maybe their credit score isn't totally where they needed to be. and they're working in that down payment.

What advice would you give them just to kind of actually make progress and accomplish this? Yeah, so if the credit score is not great, I would say, first and foremost, make your payments on time for everything. Get your revolving credit card balances down to 30% or less.

And then stress test a mortgage payment that you think you can do. So whatever you're paying for rent, pay your rent, and then start setting aside money for a mortgage payment. I just love the stress testing advice. I found myself in a Facebook group once of people who regretted home buying and the amount of people who were like,

after I bought the house, it was a money pit, and I couldn't survive. And I even had a friend recently who sold her house because she couldn't afford it. And she realized she couldn't travel as much as she was house poor. So it's just so important to know that, like you said, you can comfortably pay that. And also I would say, you know,

almost no one buys their first house and it's the forever house. So we all like to think that we're going to have it forever. But just going into it and like, there's probably going to be something that I, need to give on and just being open to that. Like, I'm going to try and buy a house. I'm going to do my best. I'm going to get myself set up in the best position. And I want to buy the best house I can. But first and foremost, I want to get into the housing market because that's really the first step. If you can get your first step in, then as long as you can afford it, you're not house poor.

Then it helps build wealth over time. Yeah. And we absolutely have seen that in our case, too. like our house didn't have insulation when we moved in. And it had a single wall furnace that didn't really heat the house. We made it work and we've made improvements over time. I say we, but it's been my husband's money because it's his house. But it's been lovely just to see that journey. It's really paid off. But it doesn't happen overnight.

It takes quite a while. It doesn't happen overnight. And I think it kind of goes back to another piece of what we've talked about before is like when you're doing it on your own, it feels scarier. So if you're taking on high payments and you're doing it alone and then you're also worried about repairs, that's where buying as a group or buying as friends or probably can help relieve some of the financial stress, but also some of the emotional stress too.

If the what-ifs come up, we got three of us figuring it out or two of us figuring out versus like, it's all on me. Yeah, and that was one thing that my husband and I tried to figure out at that time too because we weren't married then. And so we wanted to be really clear that if something happened, he could completely afford the mortgage just on his own. And same with my mortgage, too. And that way we knew it was affordable because we got quoted mortgages

where it was like the maximum amount that we could both pitch in. and it was a lot of money, let me tell you, but we didn't want a house that was going to be that expensive because we just tend to be risk-averse, and I want to be able to look out for one another, and if one of us lost our jobs, you don't want to be in a situation where you can't make your housing payment. Correct. Yeah, no, exactly.

Great. Well, Steph Noble, mortgage officer at cross-country mortars, thank you so much for coming on and joining us. Yeah, thank you for having me. Today's episode is sponsored by Rula. Finding a therapist is hard enough, but finding one who actually takes your insurance, That's where most online therapy platforms fall short. Many don't work with insurance at all, which means you're stuck paying the full cost out of pocket

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more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most. Learn more at Accenture.com slash Spotify. Elizabeth, it's time for one of my favorite conversations that we have. What is that? It's where we dig into our spending and talk about what we spent money on in the past month. What? Your favorite conversation is not savings buckets? No, no, no. I want to hear the juicy things that you're spending money on. And I'll also tell you what I spend some money on. Okay, deal. But we're going to do it in the rose, Thorne Bud format, which I love.

So the Rose is something that you really enjoyed. Thorn is something that's not so fun. And the Bud is something that's kind of in development and process that you spent some money on. So do you want to go first? What I mean to go first? How are you feeling? I'll go first. You know, I'm always happy to tell my business.

Give me the rose. My rose is always such a fun exercise, I think, looking through your bank state. because you forget, well, I forget sometimes the things I spend money on, but Dallas was probably my biggest expense this past month. A vacation to Dallas? Yeah, it was a girl's trip. So it's my boyfriend's aunt's birthday, and she invited me in another friend on a road trip. So we went to Dallas for the weekend, and I spent a whopping $403.71. You know, that sounds like a lot, but it could have been way worse because Dallas can get kind of expensive.

I went there for a wedding a few years back and spent way too much money. So what did you spend that $430 and $71 on? So I actually was mindful of my spending during that time because I knew I had a pretty stringent budget for the month. And I budgeted $500, so I came out under, which is nice. So you basically earned money on this vacation because you didn't spend $500. I did. $70 for you.

Mostly honestly, what we spent money on was eating out. But there was a highlight of the trip. We have to do a random thing. And we all went to the tattoo shop. And we were like, let's get a tattoo. And I got a new tattoo? You got a tattoo? What did you get?

I have, this is my seventh one. Seven. It's a tree. It's really pretty. Why did you get a tree? To signify, I'm in my lover girl era. To signify growth and rooting and grounding and love. That's beautiful.

You each got different tattoos? Yes, we did. So the birthday girl got her first ever tattoo. She freaked out the whole time. Of course. Meanwhile, she only got four numbers. If you're watching this, Woodland. She got four numbers, and she was making such a fuss about it.

Well, where did she get him? Depending on where you get your tattoo, it can hurt. She got it on her wrist, and it's her son's birthday, which is very sweet. Yeah. And the other friend was also a mom, and she got something related to her son as well, I think, his birthday, and then some astrology kind of picture. And you said, my tattoo is about me. Yeah, because, I mean, like, I grew aisle in my body. He's ingrained in my DNA.

I don't need a tattoo of him, too. He's in my face every single day. You got a reminder of him all the time. Exactly. Every time you pull out your suitcase that he somehow marked up with a knife, you got a reminder. Exactly. So I don't necessarily need him tattooed on my body. That's fair.

Yeah. How much of that cost you, though? $100. That's actually really not bad for a tattoo. I agree. No, with a tip is like, no, like 120? Okay. Yeah.

Not bad at all. I've never had an impromptu tattoo done, and I always am impressed that people can do it because it seems so scary and such a big commitment. I have a few myself, but I've always like kind of planned him out. Well, you're a type. Well, I guess except for one. I do have one that I got in college on my inner lip with my friend. And it says fools.

Or at least it used to say fools. Oh. Wait, wait, wait. Your inner lip, the inside of your lip? I won't be showing it on camera in this episode. Oh, my gosh. I'll show you at the bar after this recording. Just when I think I know everything about you.

Yeah. I love it. My friend paid for her because she was so generous and kind. Oh, that's sweet. Yeah, I think we still have some weird mishmash of letters that used to say fools. How bad did it hurt? Not at all. Because it's just fatty.

So if it's on bone, it hurts a lot, but if it's just this, barely thought of thing. Every single tattoo I've gotten has been impromptu. I don't know that many or any of them were thought food. But that's just me. That's my personality. Just go with the flow, you know? I don't have any I regret anyway. I would say from that trip, though, the other thing that was memorable that I spent my money on was when I moved to Texas, everyone's like, oh, the barbecue, the barbecue, I find it underwhelming, if I'm being completely honest.

Maybe I've not been to enough places because honestly I don't eat that much meat. but the few places I had been to, it's been maybe like a six over ten. I found a ten over ten spot, Sean. All right. When you were in Dallas? Yes. If you live in Dallas, you have to go.

This is a free plug, off the bone barbecue. Best barbecue I ever had in my life. Elizabeth is now a food influence. Absolutely not. But I've heard that I know good food. I just heard from grapevine. You can try it out and let me know what you think.

I trust your taste. Yeah, it was affordable, and I liked it so much that I bought some to take home on the way home. So I went twice. How much did it cost you? The second batch, the first batch was reasonable, maybe like $25. But when I took some home, because I brought some for me, I owe my boyfriend. I'll probably spend like 60 bucks or so.

Okay. But that's not bad for like all of that food for three people. No. A little memento. How long of a drive is that for you? Four hours. Okay. So not bad.

So Sean, I have yapped about my rose. What was yours? My rose, I will say, quick spoiler. All of my rose, thorn and bud happened over the past weekend. My rose was a little boat trip that my friends and I took for our birthday. We rented a boat on the Will Amit in Portland, and you get two hours. It's like $300, and you can fit 10 people on this boat. And one person is the captain.

Like your friend is just a captain of this little boat. And all they do to make someone an official captain is give them a captain's hat that they must wear, they watch one little video, and then you're just out in the river. They say it's like driving a sofa, and it really is. And so we had two hours out there just to hang out. out have some drinks, have some snacks. It was a beautiful evening. And so for my portion of the boat, it was like $35. For that experience? Yeah, well, then I did spend another like 40-ish on snacks and drinks for everyone. And then we went out to a bar after and I spent another like $70. So

it was like about, I haven't done the math on all of that right now. I think it was like $135-ish dollars for everything. Before, it was like a belated birthday thing for my friend and me. And we had such a phenomenal time. It was great. We've done it two years in a row now and I think it's becoming a tradition. It's a tradition. It sounds like a great tradition. I would love to do that. And now that I've discovered germamine, I don't have to worry about motion sickness. There you go. I mean, maybe since you're in Portland, we'll see how much time we have. We might get out on that boat. Oh my God. I would love to. But just be ready for boat behavior. All right. Now let's move on to the thorns. Oh, great. I get to vent. You know I always vent about this. I hate the summer because I hate how

high my electric bill gets. Especially in Texas, it's so hot. Steaming. I spent $171 on electricity this month. Some people may be watching and listening and saying that's not a lot, depending on where you live and how much you pay. It seems like a lot to me. But in the winter, I pay like $60.

Going from $60 to almost $200 during the summer, it's pretty annoying. So over $100 more just to cool your house, basically. Yeah. And I have to keep it cool, especially because I stay downstairs, but I always sleeps upstairs and as we know, heat rises. so it gets really warm up there, and obviously I want him to be comfortable. So I've got to keep it running. Dang.

Well, my thorn is an ongoing minor crisis, which is that my car is in the shop. And I don't know how much is going to cost me because it's still there being diagnosed as we're recording. But just the diagnosis, how much do you think that costs? You drive a BMW. And from what I hear about people who drive luxury cars, I'm going to say $200. $265. See, I was close. Just for them to tell me what I already know was wrong.

with it. Wow. Hopefully they don't find anything else when they're driving it around. They always do. Yeah. And they give you a laundry list of things to fix? Right. When I dropped off the car yesterday morning, the guy was like, oh, so just so you know,

the tires are looking a little thin. Like, I just got new tires last year. So I will not be doing it again. Leave me alone. I've had to learn to say no. But this is the price I pay to have a stupid car like this. I do love my car. I don't have a car payment.

I keep trying to think and remind myself that whatever it's going to cost to get my car fix will be, you know, not that much more than the average car payment for a lot of folks, which is around like $700 right now. Yeah, it's wild. For a new car, I mean, monthly prices for your payment are just wild right now. So at least there's that, trying to put it in perspective. I do have a car fund with money in it just for this purpose. That softens the blow a little bit. It does kind of not feel great when you're pulling money from a sinking fund that we've talked about this before. It's like having to allocate that and realize, okay, now I have maybe a grand less in my car, which is what I'm expecting this to end up being. But I'll build it up over time.

fine and I still have a car and again don't have a car payment each month. So I'll deal with it. I'm hoping that I have an answer right at the end of the day of how much I'm going to be paying and I really hope it's less than a thousand dollars. I'm crossing my toes for you Sean. Crossing crossing everything right now. Yeah, that's my thorn. So what is your bud? This is the hopeful thing that you spent money on. That's something in development. Well, I have two mini buds. I did some car insurance shopping. Okay. Proud of you. Thank you. I was able to reduce my monthly car insurance payment by 40 bucks. That's great. Yeah. And when you add it up over, you know, the course of a year, that's 40 bucks that can go to something else that has nothing to do with my car. And you have the same coverage. Better coverage, actually. Better coverage for less money.

Okay. This is why we say shop around people. Exactly. So I felt like that was a win for me. You talk about how long it took you to do that? Because I think that people think shopping around is going to be this really time-consuming, boring process. I'm sure the latter was true. But how long did it actually take you?

It took me probably about an hour and a half. Not long at all. This is being honest, I use nerd wallet. I used nerd wallet, and I was able to, it's not a secret. I switched over to Geico. She's not being paid by Geico. No, not being paid by Geico. I went from Progressive to Geico and I just got a better deal.

So I felt like that was a great win. And I guess I would. That's a good reminder because I've been meaning to shop around for over a year. I've been not practicing what I preach for a minute. And my car insurance has gotten more and more expensive. So I think I'm just going to do it. I'm going to spend the hour, hour and a half and just get some quotes and see if I can bundle and save my home and auto. And, yeah, hopefully not spend as much each month.

That was the other thing, too. I saw Progressive. It may just be $10, but it's not just $10 progressive. They were increasing my insurance by $10. So I was like, uh-uh. Let me see if I can find it cheaper somewhere else. My other bud is, you know, that I enjoy painting and I went to a free painting class for those who read the newsletter. You might have read that.

Went to a free painting class at my local library. And I did my first landscape painting, which I haven't done before. And it actually came out decently. So then I decided to go to Michaels and get some paint brushes. So I put it as a bud because my painting is like a developing skill. It may not pay me anything, but it does pay me in non-tangible things. It brings me joy. You're getting non-financial wealth and fulfillment from this hobby of yours.

So you invested some money into it and it will enable you to do more and more painting, which is really rewarding. It's nice to, you know, have activities not on the screen. You can just hang in your home and relax and paint. And you mentioned that your neighbors love seeing all your paintings in the window. So you're bringing joy to the community. Yes. Hey, neighbors.

I'm going to rotate my paintings next week. Watch out. So all in all, Sean, from your spending over the past month, how do you feel about it? Good, bad, reasonable. Well, I have my bud. Oh, sorry. I didn't do your bud. I'm sorry.

I'm just concluding without asking your bud. What's your bud, Sean? My bud, you'll be shocked to learn that I spent more money on running stuff. I've not shot. I'm currently, I'm like three weeks out from my run around Mountain Hood, Yiste. It's a three-day run where you're doing 13 miles each day. I've been telling you about how I've been running like 40 miles a week is my entire life at this point. It's been great.

It's been hard work. I'm burning through shoes. So I had to buy some new running shoes because some ones I had before were getting real busted in ways that are too graphic for this podcast. So I bought a new pair of running shoes. But I went to the Nike employee store. I had a voucher from my running group. So I was able to get like 40% off. That's awesome.

So tap your connections to get discounts. How do I give 40% off? You have to join my running club, I guess. I also bought a top, and I spent, I think it was about $200 for both of those. So that's really not bad considering how expensive running shoes and running clothes can be. And it sounded like a need, or was it a want? Because your other ones were busted, no? It's technically a want because I don't need these shoes to survive.

But the other shoes were, like, real gnarly. It's taking a lot of willpower to not describe just how bad they were. But that's also for smart money after dark. We'll talk about that. But these new ones are fresh and clean and don't have weird stuff on them. And they're going to enable me to run the rest of my 40 miles each week before I begin to taper in just a couple weeks. I've been training for this, you know, for the past six to nine months. And I'm finally kind of at the end of it.

And it feels good to have like some fresh, clean shoes just to see me through to this final stretch of it. And I think it's a reminder that wants are allowed, right? I know I mentioned that, you know, was it a need? But it doesn't have to be a need. Right. And in some ways, this is a need. because it does help me feel healthy and fulfilled, and it's very meditative when I'm running. So even though it's not a strict need, like utility bill or medication or groceries,

it's a more intangible way of having my other needs met. I want to just shout you out. A theme that I noticed with you is your dedication to things, just like when you were doing your CFP course, you just go all in. You give it a thousand percent, and I really admire that about you. And I can see you doing that with the running now too. Yeah. You know, I've had friends.

point out that when I say I'm going to do something, I do it. And I'm like, well, yeah, why wouldn't you? But a lot of people say they're going to do things and they don't do them, it turns out. But that's just who I am. I'm committed to the bit. So I'm going to have a great time. It's going to be wild to run around this mountain. I'll send some photos. It might be part of the newsletter. I haven't talking about running in the newsletter. Folks who are not signed up, sign up. We have a link in the episode description. Check on it right now. We're posting all sorts of cute things in there. And money tips occasionally. So, yeah, that is my bud is my new stuff for running. So it's been a busy, kind of expensive weekend because all of that

just happened in the past few days. The boat was on Friday. My engine light came on on Saturday. I went to the Nike store on Sunday. So it's been a whirlwind. I spent hundreds of dollars if you're tracking everything I just spent in a pretty short amount of time. But sometimes you have little busy weekends, expensive weekends, and I'm still feeling good about what it means for my spending over the entire month. And I think all of this is going to set me up to be in a good place over the next few weeks. Good, yeah. You got to leave some room for fluidity when it comes to finances. You got to let life happen. And some of that will include doing things with friends, will include hobbies, will include unexpected bills. And you just make it all work within your budget. And when it doesn't work,

you try again, eh? Right. Or like, you pull back in one area to fund another. It's a fluid process you have to adapt to over time. So it seems like you were doing a similar thing with your money, where you had a lot of fun when you were in Dallas. Maybe your utility bill isn't exciting, but it's keeping you and your son comfortable at night, and that's really, really important. And you have your hobby that you're developing too. So one thing that I've been thinking about,

because we need to paint together some time. I used to watercolour paint a lot. I remember you went to the classes in all right. Yes, I took some classes at the local community college in Portland, and since I've been running, like it's a part-time job, because it basically is. I haven't really had a lot of time for that. So once I'm done with this mountain run,

I'm going to get back into painting and we'll commiserate over how easy it is to spend a lot of money on painting. We might have to have me come to Portland again to shoot. And there were so many of you who sent in questions and who came into the studio. And we might have to do another edition. And maybe we could do like a painting edition, Sean. That would be really fun. We can do like a finance and paint. Yes.

And I mean, my instructor has a whole business where she now, she used to work at the community college and now she's gone off and done her own thing. I want to hear about how she's structuring her business. So Leslie, it might be hitting you up. And that's all we have for this episode. If you would like to tell us what you spent, your roses, your buds, your thorns over the past month, you can send them to us at podcast at nerdwollet.com. You can call or text us on the nerd hotline at 901-730-6373. It's 901-730 nerd.

You can also drop us a comment on Spotify or YouTube. Join us next time to hear about balancing, debt, and investing. But until then, we want you to follow us on your favorite podcast app that might be Apple, Spotify, IHeartRadio, to automatically download new episodes. Here's our brief disclaimer. We are not your financial or investment advisors. This nerdy info is provided for general educational and entertainment purposes may not apply to your specific circumstances. Companies mentioned in this episode may be nerd wallet partners, but does not influence how we talk about them. And we want to give a big thank you to AV department in Portland for hosting us.

And with that said, until next. time, turn to the nerds.