453 | From Food Stamps to FI | Theresa

25:51You don't get the same benefits as the direct employees. So when I was hired in direct in 2012, I had gotten a nice pay raise, better health insurance, nice 401k match, HSA, things like that. So just more vacation time, just good perks and benefits all around. So that was yet another step in the right direction. Okay. So hold on. Let's stop there real quick. So is that pretty rare to be a direct employee, one of the big three? Or are there more contractors than direct employees? It's back then in the space. I work in containers. So it was mostly contract back then. Now it's mostly direct. Okay.

26:33So then it was a massive step. So right at this point, I'm just trying to do the timeline in my head. I think your older daughter, Ashley, is probably 11, 12-ish, somewhere around there. Yeah. And where are you at this point? Were you, I think you had purchased a house right before the great financial crisis, a couple of years before. Are you still in that house at that point? Yep. Still in my house. Living with your cousin, Kelly, or no? Kelly had moved out in 2009. Okay. Yeah. So I kind of felt like my life was falling apart a little bit at that point. Yeah, in 09. Yeah. And she left on good terms.

27:11But it was just me and the kids at that point. So now it was really, I really am in this on my own. But like you said, it takes a village. And so I really wasn't on my own. So working, I'm at work. And I am reconnected with someone I had worked with back in 2000, Paul. and he was recently divorced and we actually just started spending some time together and we ended up getting married in 2014. So now my lot in life dramatically changed because the girls and I moved into his home and I still had my house and we were renting it out at that time. We were not making a lot of money on it and I didn't know anything about house hacking.

28:01just listened to coach carson i just bought his book too nice yeah that's it's amazing the book is amazing um i didn't really know much about it and i think it was hard for me because it we just weren't in the right frame of mind for that i still had a mortgage on the house and i was in this frame of mind where i wanted to pay off all of my debt including my mortgage so house hacking just wasn't in the horizon for me it wasn't in my scope at that moment Sure. So we did have just a family member living there and paying bare minimum rent just to cover the mortgage. And by the time we got married, I was completely debt-free minus the mortgage.

28:37And I had saved up about$20 ,000 in cash. Oh, wow. So you went from negative 20. So 20 is an interesting number, right? So you were 20 ,000 in credit card debt when you first started out. And now you paid that off and you have 20 ,000 saved. Saved. Yes. And I brought that with me into the marriage because I thought, listen, so the first turning point for me was I want to move out. I got to get my life in order. And the second one was changing my family tree was important to me. Then I was like, okay, if I ever want to get married, I have two children, and that's a big responsibility for someone to take on.

29:13I need to sweeten the pot a little bit and bring something to the table here. And not having debt and having a little bit of savings, It just made me feel proud to bring something into the marriage, something positive instead of something negative. Well, wow. I mean, right. Even just the pride, regardless of the bringing into marriage, it's just there should be great pride in having turned that around, right? I mean, that$40 ,000 swing while you're a single mom to two growing daughters. Yeah. That's pretty amazing. There are very few people who have done that just in the cosmic scheme of things.

29:51right, you should feel pretty darn proud of yourself just for your own accomplishment. Thank you. And that's kind of why I wanted to share my story, just because there were a lot of times of darkness and hopelessness and loneliness. And there are a lot of single parents out there. And I just, I want my story, although it's, you know, 25 years in the making, I wanted to share my story to encourage other single parents that it is possible. it does take time and it does take effort, but it can be done. Yeah. Yeah. That's so cool. So, right. It does take time. And obviously it, you know, there was no, there was no windfall in this time.

30:32There was no, Hey, I got a job making three times as much or salary negotiated. And it was just, as I'm hearing it to my ears, this was just consistent action and consistent savings from that time where you found Dave Ramsey essentially to now, now in the story, which was 2014, right? So we're talking four or five years at that point. Yeah. And frugality too. My aunt gave me this book by Mary Hunt called Everyday Cheapskate. Okay. I've never heard of that. Yeah. So that also was very instrumental during those years for me to cut costs and how to save money and things like that. That was another tool.

31:08Yeah. Okay. So right. This was, hey, it's our family of three and we have one income coming in and we have our house who at that point, you did not have your cousin Kelly living there. So it was just the three of you in the house. So it wasn't like you were getting some of the mortgage supplemented or getting rent. So this really was a story of frugality during those years. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Living on the bare minimum. Yeah. All right. So right. You met Paul sometime 2012, 2013, got married 2014. You had the$20 ,000 savings, no debt, obviously, other than the mortgage, which is this totally separate issue, obviously.

31:46And yeah, I mean, where do we go from there? So then in 2017, my mom had passed away. She had metastatic breast cancer, which was a terrible thing. And I hope no one has to go through that. But I was her oldest. And so I was the executor of her estate. So like I mentioned, she didn't do well with money. She still had a mortgage on the home, even though she had been living there for over 30 years. So we had to sell the house. I have a little tip for everyone too. If someone passes and they have medical bills, you are not responsible for paying those medical bills. Really? Yes. All you have to do is call the doctor's office and give them a copy of the signed death certificate and they wipe that debt away.

32:33Oh, that's really interesting. I was definitely not aware of that. I thought for some reason it netted out of the estate. Nope. And also she had a couple of credit cards that she had balances on. So I was able to put a little notice in the legal newspaper that she had passed. And this is her estate. And they had like four months, I think, to make a claim against the estate for that money. And then you have to mail a copy of that to the credit card companies. And if they don't come to you by that time period, you're off the hook for paying those debts as well. Oh, wow. And obviously, this could be state by state.

33:11I know there are different rules in different states. So please, let's not assume that this is good for all 50 states. But regardless, this is really interesting information just to, I guess, see that question in people's minds, right? Because I would have been wholly unaware of that. So in Michigan, at least, that's how it works. That's interesting. So I guess what that leaves us with is different types of debts. There are different ways to potentially discharge them by paying zero or little upon death. So, okay, that's fascinating. You can see my mind is spinning because I'm trying to think, how can we make that even more broadly applicable?

33:49But I think it is as simple as that. That is something that was outside of most of our zone of awareness before you just said that 45 seconds ago. So that's huge. Yeah. And I just wanted to put that out there because a lot of people don't know it because my mom had so little, we were trying to keep as much of what she had as possible. You know? Of course. So those are just two really great tips that I had discovered and wanted to share. Yeah. That's amazing. So out of her estate, my sisters and I each got like 22 ,000, which was nice overall. I didn't expect to get anything. So my husband and I used that to pay down our mortgage.

34:27And around that time, we also sold my old house that we had been renting out. So we had two house sales. I think I got 15 grand from the sale of my house. So not too much, but again, it's better than nothing. Right. Because you said, yeah, you were underwater at some point on that. And then not too distant past during the whole fiasco of 2008, 2009. Yep. So then we put that also to pay down our mortgage. And then working for the big three, we get an annual bonus. So we were putting that towards paying off our mortgage as well. Okay. So it sounds like, and obviously this is not too hard for me to figure out, but it sounds like paying off that mortgage was like priority number one.

35:09Is that like a Dave Ramsey kind of message? Yes. That was Dave Ramsey's baby step seven, I believe, to pay off the mortgage. Or no, Maybe it's six, baby step six, and then baby step seven is give like no one else. Right. It's that kind of obscure, go live long and prosper kind of thing. Right. Which is wonderful. I'm not making fun of it, but it's not very prescriptive. Well, this is about the time where you come in because in 2018, we had paid off our house. So I had completed the seven baby steps finally. It took me a while. Okay. But I was looking for more. And so I was actually on one of the Facebook pages for Chris Hogan.

35:50He was the retire inspired guy. And someone had been posting about ChooseFI on his page. And I was like, what is this about? So I found you guys in 2018. I started binge listening to the show on my way to work and on the way back home. And I honestly had no idea what you guys were talking about. Like, what is all of this? It was a little cognitive dissonance, like trying to download everything that you're saying and process it all. But I was determined to learn about the spy stuff. That's so cool. I just kept listening and listening. And then eventually, you know, stuff started to click. And I was like, I need to take action on this.

36:32I really liked Andy Hill's episode where he had his baby steps. I think it was eight, nine, and 10 with the continuation of the Ramsey stuff. Yeah. Oh, that's way back in the archives too. Yeah, it is. Andy Hill is awesome. It was episode 68. And actually the title was Financial Peace Graduates, What's Next? So that's very, very, very appropriate. Okay. Let's just slow down here because, well, first you got pretty lucky that you were able to find that in a Dave Ramsey slash Hogan Facebook group because around that time, I don't know why, but they must have sensed us as a competition. So they always deleted anything related to Choose a Vi, or it happened to get deleted.

37:12I don't know if we're not going to make it a conspiracy here. So that's wonderful that you found this because I think, frankly, what you said was, I was looking for more. And I view Choose a Vi and Dave Ramsey as very complimentary in the sense that, like we've said, and I've been very outspoken about how wonderful he has been for so many millions of people. I've said in this episode, it's that is the financial lifeline that people need when many of them are drowning. Yeah. Right. And the turnaround stories are remarkable. But let's be clear. What is so great about Ramsey is that he is so clear on those really first six baby steps.

37:50And then you get to seven. It's like, all right, well, I have 60 more years. What the heck do I do? This doesn't doesn't really help. I don't know where to go from here. So I was looking for more is exactly where Chooseify comes in, I think. Agreed. And it's funny because you said, obviously, you were lost when you found us and you didn't know, lost in the sense that you didn't know what the heck we were talking about. Like, we try so hard to make it as simple as we can and not get bogged down in complexity. But as you well know, it's hard. There's just a lot of information. I'm curious, like, and this might not be something you have an answer to, but like, would there have been any way that like we could have helped or that like the five community could help bridge that gap for people who, Hey, I just came from Dave Ramsey.

38:35And now I'm faced with these hundreds of terms that like, I've never heard before. Like, is that something you ever thought of? Or is it just simply like, Hey, just go back and just keep listening. And it's going to sink in. I hadn't thought about that before, but I think your episode 100, like is your starting point now. I think that's a great launch point, but it's just, I think, a matter of learning, just listening and repetitiveness. Because just for me personally, it was a whole new realm of things. And you guys did a great job of simplifying it as much as you could. But there are so many layers, so many levers to pull, so many options, which is a beautiful thing.

39:15but it's also, there's a lot of choices in that. And not every lever is for every person. And I think I was so overwhelmed because I was like, I got to pull all these levers, but it's like, slow down. You just need to pull out of each episode, do what you can do, right? House hacking isn't for everyone. I think index fund investing is for everyone. That's my favorite part of this whole thing. It's so easy breezy. Yeah, it certainly is. And that's, Yeah, that certainty, that for me was one of those awakening moments when I first read, it was even before JL Collins had the simple path to wealth.

39:53It was when he had the stock series, which still exists on his site, obviously. But yeah, it just made me sleep better at night when I found that I didn't need to spend thousands of hours becoming a world-class investor. I just needed to match the market. And that, interestingly enough and kind of shockingly enough, was going to be the highest likelihood chance that I had of gaining wealth over the next 30 to 50 years. Like that way of just basically setting in and forgetting it. So that was, I mean, that was amazing. And it's funny because I'm hearing you talk about levers and Jonathan is smiling from somewhere, somewhere here in Richmond, Virginia, hearing you talk about levers.

40:29That was his, his favorite thing. And, and levers you did pull, let's be clear. Right. So you found us in 2018. And at that point, you and Paul were rocking and rolling, right? So it's not like you were on a bad trajectory. Obviously, you had paid off the mortgage. You paid off all of your debts. You had what I imagine is a pretty decent net worth at that point with paid off mortgages and some investments. I don't know exactly where you were, but I mean, you've made an incredible number of changes since 2018. And I don't even know how to tackle this because you sent this list in your first email, but let's talk about some of them.

41:08It just even is like a greatest hits of Teresa and Paul here. All right. So after finding ChooseFI, we had just started working with a financial advisor that was Ramsey recommended. And I noticed that he had us in some mutual funds or something where he was getting 1 % off the bat. So I immediately went to Vanguard and I had them move over our Roth IRAs that we had recently opened. And when I did that, he called me and he was a little bit upset and he's like, what are you doing? And I'm like, well, we're just doing this index fund thing. And he's like, I don't know why you're doing that. And he's a little bit irate about it.

41:49No surprise there. Incentives, right? No. But we severed those ties. So we would max out our Roth IRAs. We were maxing out our 401ks pre-tax. So our savings rate was probably about 33 % at this point. Some years we started to also contribute to the post-tax 401ks. You know how there's, and I didn't know this until you guys showed me, there's like two maxes in your 401k, right? Yeah. There's the employee side, which is what most of us think of as maxing out 401k. But then yeah, you have a total limit, which is actually in the$60 ,000 in 2023. I don't know exactly right offhand, but it's$60 ,000 plus.

42:34Right. So we never made it that high, but we were at least tapping into that second level. Nice. So you made after-tax contributions to the 401k? Yes. Okay. Nice. So we're maxing out our Roth IRAs. We're maxing out our HSAs. And I stopped using the HSAs for medical expenses because we were cash flowing those and using that HSA as a retirement vehicle instead, triple tax advantages. We opened up a brokerage account and then eventually we were at Vanguard with that, but I ended up moving all of our stuff to Fidelity just because all of our work accounts were with Fidelity. And I just liked the ease of having everything in one place.

43:15Then I started, I opened up a Roth IRA for each of my kids. Oh, nice. Yeah. So I learned that from the show as well. Megan at the time was babysitting. So whatever income she made from babysitting, I just matched that, put that in her Roth IRA. And then Ashley was working and I matched her income by putting that in the Roth IRA. And you know what? How I got that money is when my mom passed away, I took a little bit of that money that I had gotten from my mom's inheritance. and instead of giving them that money outright, that's what I used as a match to fund their Roth IRAs. Oh, that's cool. Okay.

43:57So right. It wasn't just, Hey, I'm giving you this free money. Right. Okay. Yeah. That's what's cool. Especially like as we think about teaching our kids personal finance, right? Because second generation FI is so important. And like you said, my family's story changes here. Absolutely. Right. That's the most critical part and teaching them lessons and really incentivizing savings and proper, if you will, personal finance behavior is really important. And you can play fun games like that. Like, Hey, Megan, if you're babysitting, what we can do is, and for every person out there listening, who has a kid, you can fill in the blanks.

44:37You can do whatever you want, which is, Hey, for every dollar you put in, I'm going to match it one-to-one. I'm going to match a two to one. You can do anything you want. I mean, that's what's fun about this. And just final word for me on Roth IRA for kids, at least is so let's say they earned a thousand dollars. Each of them earned a thousand dollars. The actual money that goes into the Roth IRA does not have to be those exact$1 ,000. It's not like their money has to be immediately deposited in some weird like it has to go through your paycheck or anything like that. No, it's just they have earned income in that calendar year of$1 ,000, which means you can put up to$1 ,000 for each of them in a Roth IRA.

45:19So that could come from the parent's account. That could come from a grandparent. It could come from anything. It can come from their account, obviously, but it doesn't have to. So I think that's just, Teresa, I wanted to just take 30 seconds to explain that because I think it's important. I agree. Yes, it is. Also, when my kids started working and they turned 18, they each had a 401k that they opened up with their employers. So I have them investing in index funds with Roth 401ks. Okay. It was originally pre-tax, but because they're in such a low tax bracket, I'm like, you need to take advantage of the Roth 401k contributions.

45:54Nice. I love it. So I asked Ashley, she's my 24-year-old now. I said, can I share your net worth with everyone on the show? She said, yeah. She's got$53 ,000 saved up in retirement accounts right now. Oh my God, at 24 years old? Yeah. Wow. Oh, that's remarkable. That is truly, truly remarkable. If everybody could see the smile on your face right now and just the absolute beaming joy and pride. Changing the family tree. You did it. You certainly did it. That is absolutely astonishing. So, right, you've done all of that. And obviously, it seems like many of these things are occurring year after year.

46:33So you're just funneling just an unbelievable amount of money into your savings account. You You have no mortgage. You have no debt. I mean, this is not a life that costs very much in the cosmic scheme of things because your fixed expenses are just not there, right? That's what's so cool about it. Right. Because I found minimalism along the way as well as frugality. Oh, you're speaking to my heart here. Let's talk. And a valuist. I consider myself a valuist because I do enjoy spending money, but I like to buy a good quality item. And when I buy something, I keep it until it doesn't work anymore.

47:08you know, and I just don't like clutter. My husband doesn't like clutter, which, you know, it is a huge win. So we've got a lot of time to do things because we have very little to take care of, right? Very little maintenance on, on stuff. Yeah. Oh, that's so brilliant. And yeah, just the, the mental load that is not there walking into a cluttered room. Oh man. I tell That's remarkable. It is. I have my one little oasis in my house of my office, and that's about all I got in terms of that, but we're trying here. Also, for college, I just wanted to share what I do with my kids for their college tuition.

47:47Paul and I had said that we would pay for them to go to a community college to get their associate's degree. And then if they wanted to get their bachelor's at a local university, we would pay for that too. I said, if you want to go away to a four-year university and live on campus and all that, they would have to fully fund that through scholarships and loans. I said, I'm not paying for that, but I will pay for the community route. So they both agreed to that because I didn't want to set them up with debt either. I'm trying to teach them to avoid debt. And then we only pay for tuition if they get an A or B.

48:26So if they end up earning a C or less in a class, they have to reimburse us for that tuition for that class. Wow, that's very, very interesting. And that again, is every family has can set up these these rules. And that's what's kind of fun about this. And I'm sure some people are hearing that and being like, Oh, that's a little little intense. But I think there are a lot of people who are cheering you on and saying that is absolutely brilliant. And there should be repercussions for not taking something seriously, especially something that costs a good bit of money. Agreed. Yeah. Okay. So now it's 2023 and my girls are out of the house.

49:06So we're empty nesters. Oh, wow. Yep. And our employer actually offered a severance package this year, just a couple of months ago. And because we were in such a good financial situation, without hesitation, I told my husband to click the button and to sign up for it. So he took the VSP, which is a voluntary separation package, because when he hired in just over 20 years ago, he had a pension, a very small pension, but we opted to take it as a lump sum so that we could control it and invest it ourselves. Okay. We all along these years or just now when he clicked the button? When he clicked the button, then he was able to redeem that pension.

49:50Gotcha. Gotcha. Gotcha. Okay. So we could have taken it as a monthly payment, but if we were both to die, then the kids wouldn't get anything. So I thought, let's take the lump sum. And then if we both die, it's already in his 401k and then the kids would inherit it. Okay. Wow. So just something to think about if anyone has a pension plan, that's just something to consider. Yeah, that's so interesting. And so right, even just in the last minute, you basically said, kind of offhandedly, two things that you really benefited from being in such a position of financial strength, right? Like, at that point, hey, we can almost instantly have Paul click the button.

50:29And I think Paul's a little bit older than you. So for him being at that point, okay, we're work optional at that point. Now let's make it, hey, this employer is offering, I think you told me a year of severance and then this lump sum, right? Yep. So last week he got his lump sum pension payout, which went into his 401k. And then he got one year of salary that went into our checking account. It was taxed drastically, but it was still a good amount of money. And between those two events, we hit our fine number. Oh my goodness. Wow. Okay. Jeez. That's amazing. Did you know, like had you already done that?

51:09Cause you've had spreadsheets since you're in your twenties. Yeah, I look at that stuff all the time. And I had an idea. And I actually, when the announcement first came out, I was going to click the button too. I was like, I'm taking it. I'm taking it with you. And he panicked a little bit. And he's like, hold on, what about medical insurance? And we can't lose two salaries at once. And I said, okay, okay, I'll just keep working. So I am still working full time. He is doing handyman stuff like carpentry on the side just for fun at his leisure. And now I'm at the point where I'm 44 and he's 56.

51:47So there's a big age gap in between us. So now I'm trying to strategize our drawdown strategy. And what does that look like? Because I think he's got till 73 before we have RMDs in his 401k. So that's potentially, I think, 17 years of Roth conversions that we could activate or, you know, when should Social Security come into play? I just, I have so many questions because of our age gap, how that would work. Yeah, that is okay. Well, first, congrats. Obviously, that's absolutely amazing. So right, reach FI. Paul is now at FI. He's not working anymore. I can understand it. It's funny because we can see that number on the screen and we can know in our minds, right, our actual intellect that, okay, I've reached FI, but it's still there's that trepidation.

52:44Are we both going to hit this button? Is this real? Is this absolutely real? What are we doing here? So I can certainly understand why you guys made that decision for you not to push the button. And that's not to say, I don't know if that was a short term. Is that something that's off the table now? It's off the table. Yeah. Okay. Historically, have there been offers like that? Not this good. Okay. But it may happen again in a few years. You never know. And also, I think a lot of us think from even my question was almost from like a point of scarcity of, oh, you have to wait until until then. But that's the beauty of FI.

53:23And I think somebody like Grumpus Maximus, who we've had on the show a number of times, and actually he wrote a book through Choose a Vibe Publishing on whether pensions were worth it. Now that's slightly separate, but the conceptual framework is the same of, OK, there's still that decision point. And I think a lot of us do it from that position of maybe scarcity or being nervous, or I can just wait it out. I can tough out these X number of years. And that person might already be at five, right? That extra money to give up those years of their life just simply isn't worth it. But yet we're all scared.

53:56And I think that's normal. So I think your joint decision made sense from that standpoint. And that doesn't preclude you, obviously, my silly question be damned, from hanging it up next year or six months from now, right? Even if the offer doesn't come. Well, and that's the freeing thing. You know, I don't need to work if I really didn't want to. And just knowing that has given me this level of freedom that is so hard to explain, which I know you understand. But I think about because I'm so young, I still need about six more years of income to prevent any zeros on my social security statement.

54:35Have you guys talked about that at all? You know, we haven't actually. I know there's some intricate info with that in terms of years worked and credits and such. That would be cool. So, okay, when you just laid out drawdown strategy and such, my mind instantly went to, all right, we're an hour plus in on this episode. We can't possibly do that today. but would you be up for coming back for maybe we can get an expert to come in here and really go through that drawdown strategy? Because I think this would be interesting for a lot of people. Absolutely. That would be wonderful. Cool. Okay. So that's great.

55:13And then we have that extra wrinkle of social security, which frankly, I think we did talk about social security maybe once out of 600 episodes, like in some level of scrutiny and rigor, but yeah, we need to, we need to do that again. So, okay. That's a promise to the audience here. We're going to do that again. I think everybody, if you're as interested in Teresa's story as I am, which I suspect you are, that'll be a pretty cool round too. So this has been amazing. And as you know, what Jonathan used to say was on most shows, that would be the end of the episode. But Teresa, would you be up for doing an old school hot seat?

55:47Let's do it. In a world drowning in debt and rampant consumption, Trapped by the chains of lifestyle inflation, these questions highlight the secrets of those who are broken free. Welcome to the Choose FI Hot Seat.

56:15All right, Teresa, we'll start with question one. So we used to ask, what's your favorite podcast, blog, or book, but let's not make it too grandiose. Let's make it, is there anything that's come across your plate recently? Just any type of media, book, podcast, blog, something like that, that you've really enjoyed recently in like the last year or so. Oh yeah. So I've been binging Cultish. It's a podcast called Cultish. It's pretty fascinating. They talk about cults, obviously, and how bad theology hurts people. Just very fascinating. but then it tied into Blurry Creatures, which I've been binging to.

56:51Interesting. I feel like I've seen them in my podcast app, but I never clicked. If you want to dip your toes in the paranormal and kind of get into some mind-bending things, check out Blurry Creatures. Okay, nice. I like that. Though I think the last thing on earth I need right now is more podcasts. I tried so hard. I mean, for longtime listeners, oh, I've tried so hard to cut the list down to virtually nothing. I think I'm up to, I think I have 80 podcasts that I now download on a weekly basis, but luckily I'm smart enough to at least delete most of them, except for the ones that I'm like thrilled to listen to, but yeah, it's a lot.

57:26So, okay. Question number two, advice you would give your younger self. Do it afraid. It's okay to fail. I have issues with perfectionism and that often paralyzes me and my decision-making processes because I feel like if I don't execute something perfectly, then I don't even want to try. And I'm still, I have to tell this to myself still today, like just do it even if you're afraid. Yeah. That is great advice. And yeah, I think a lot of us get caught up in that perfectionism and it's just a very silly, destructive mindset. I know I've, I've been certainly guilty of that for a long time, but yeah, it just, it's never really gotten me anywhere, right?

58:07It's, we can't be perfect. We're human, right? Yeah. All right. Let's go with question number three, your favorite life hack. Oh, so when my kids were young, we did sneak in a couple of Disney trips. I was able to take the girls each for their ninth birthday. And my hack for that was giving them an allowance every day to spend. So, you know, when you go to Disney, after every ride, there is a gift shop and they're selling things along every street corner. And so instead of my children begging me to buy them everything that they saw, I said, here is$25 or whatever it was. So every day I gave them their little allowance and they were allowed to spend it on whatever they wanted.

58:53And it was so wonderful because they weren't asking me for stuff. They were making the decision on how to spend their money. So they were going around the store, checking prices, looking at different things, saying, nope, I can't afford this, or walking around the store with something and evaluating it. Do I really want to spend my money on this? And my older one, Ashley, said, do I have to spend my money? Can I just keep it and take it home? And I said, you absolutely can. Ding, ding, ding. Oh, that's amazing. What a lesson in budgeting that you might not have even expected it would have been that good of a lesson.

59:28I didn't, but it was great for them and it was great for me because it took away the gimme's, you know, give me this, give me that. That's great. All right, let's go to question number four, an inflection point in your life that was especially memorable or meaningful. I think it was my mom's passing because it helped me get an insight on how things work and death. We have birthdays and we celebrate birthdays and we plan and celebrate weddings and babies. Death is such a big part of life. Everybody is going to die at some point. But that's another thing that people don't like talking about for some reason, even though we all know it's coming.

1:00:10We just don't know when, right? Yeah. So we knew my mom was sick. She was in hospice. I sat her down with my sisters and we went through her will. She had a living trust that I encouraged her to get and she did. But we sat down together and I asked her, hey, what are some items that you want to go to specific people? And we wrote down that list. I said, how would you like your funeral to be executed? What do you want us to do? What do you want that to look like? And we wrote it down. It wasn't a comfortable conversation to have, but it was necessary. And it was such a beautiful gift to us because when your loved one dies and you're mourning, you don't want to think about any of the financial stuff or any of the planning on the funeral execution.

1:00:59So it helped us just put everything in place without any thought because everything was already written down. And I also pulled her credit reports, is just another tip. Try and close out credit card accounts while your parents are still alive. If you're able to do that, that made the process a lot smoother too. But just death is a big thing. Everyone has to go through it. So I think we just need to start having more open conversations about it and start normalizing it. It's just good for everyone. Yeah. And I think, like you said earlier, normalizing conversations about money and now about death.

1:01:36I mean, these are, like you said, we are all going to die, whether we like to think about it or not. And yeah, it's just really important. I just wanted to dive into that piece of advice. So closing credit card accounts. Now we talked a little bit ago about if there are credit card balances that there are certain ways. And of course, depending on your state, but were you talking there about closing out zero balance cards? Correct. Yeah. While they're still alive, if you can encourage your parents to just kind of go through, you know, pay them if they can, you know, pay them off and close them as they go.

1:02:11You know, it just it makes the whole process after death smoother for everyone. Okay. That's really great. All right, Teresa. Our last question is one of the newer ones that I've kind of added in. So I'm interested because we talked about this. So pay off the mortgage early or not. So I know you really went after paying off. You and Paul certainly went after paying off the mortgage. But looking back, is that the decision you'd make today? Talk me through that. Yes, absolutely. So I'm kind of glad that I was on the Ramsey path and had that kind of implanted in my brain to pay off the mortgage because there's such a divisiveness in the community about whether or not to pay it off, which is great.

1:02:55I mean, because it is a personal decision. For me, I'm so glad I did it because it was more of an emotional issue. The peace that it brought me to not have that debt hanging over our heads is just indescribable. And when COVID rolled around and people were losing their homes or they couldn't pay their rent, we didn't have to worry about any of that because we didn't have a mortgage. So I know there's a lot of financial benefits of keeping a mortgage potentially with tax credits and such. There's just, like I said, a lot of debate on it. But for me, paying it off was the best decision. And I don't ever want to get a mortgage again.

1:03:38Nice. Good for you. And yeah, it is very personal. And it's funny. I think the tax benefits of your primary mortgage are severely overblown, especially in this day and age of the standard deduction being so significant. So most people do not itemize their deductions. So you get very little additional benefit, most people, most for having mortgage interest, basically. It's just the actual additional benefit for that is going to be zero if you are using the standard deduction, which the vast majority of people do. But then it just comes down to, like you're saying, it's personal preference. You can make the case.

1:04:16I think for many of us who have mortgages that have a 3 % interest rate or got really lucky before things went up, yeah, you can make the mathematical case certainly, especially now that simple bank accounts are paying higher than that many online bank accounts. All right, you can certainly make the case. But as you're saying, that peace of mind of having that thing gone is wonderful. So there's no dogma here. It's just personal preference. So Teresa, been remarkable. It's amazing to see your story from 18 with that first credit card to single mom to, like you said, food stamps to your cousins intervening in multiple ways and Dave Ramsey and then you teaching and then obviously you and Paul finding each other and having this remarkable financial life.

1:05:03And it's just amazing. So thank you so much for sharing your story. And I'm really excited about doing part two. Me too. Thank you so much for having me. Nice. Until next time. Thank you for listening to today's show and for being part of the Chooseify community. If you haven't already, the best ways to get involved are first subscribe to the podcast. You're listening to this on a podcast player and just hit subscribe and then subscribe to my weekly newsletter. I actually sit down every Monday and write this by hand and I send it out Tuesday morning. So just head over to choosefi.com slash subscribe.

1:05:39And it's really, really easy to get on the newsletter list right there. And I would greatly appreciate it. It's the best way to get in touch with me. You can actually just hit reply to any of those emails and it comes directly to my inbox. So that's the way that I keep a pulse of the community and how we keep this the ultimate crowdsource personal finance show. And finally, if you're looking to join an in real life community. We have Chooseify local groups in 300 plus cities all around the world. So head to chooseify.com slash local, and you'll find a list of all of those cities in 20 plus countries all across the world.

1:06:13And if you're just getting started with FI, or you have a family member or friend who you think would be interested, two easy ways. Chooseify episode 100 is kind of our welcome to the FI community. And even though it's a couple years old at this point, it still stands up and And it's a really great just starting point to get an understanding of what is financial independence? What are we doing here? Why are we looking to live a more intentional life where we save money and use it as a springboard to live a better life? And then Choose a Vi created a Financial Independence 101 course that's entirely free.

1:06:48Just head to choosefi.com slash fi101. And again, thanks for listening.

1:06:59Thank you.