Getting Personal With Personal Finance | Ron & Ginger | Ep 536

25:39So I'm in the mode of trying to get back into it now. But I do think that you can have those adventures beyond your 50s and 60s. But it's like, we got to put the time in now to make sure we're still mobile. Oh, yeah. And just to everyone out there, I certainly didn't mean that when you're 55, like it's all over, pack it in. It sounded like it's like, pack it in, you're done. You're done. But it is a different kind of like willingness maybe to do something like sleep in a van. Yeah. I mean, I'm from Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. I grew up in Northeast Pennsylvania. And it's crazy how you go back home and everyone just like talks about their knees.

26:20Yes. Like you ask people what they're doing. They're like, well, my knee and my back. They just talk about a part of their body that's not going according to plan. And that's the conversation. That and the weather. And the GD government or stuff like that. but it's mostly about knees. And I was like, I just don't want to have conversations about my knees like ever. So I'm trying to, I'm doing knee exercises now. I'm like, I had an ACL injury in college. So I'm, I'm working on it, but man, oh man, it's, it's wild. I had this conversation with my husband, not two weeks ago where I was like, I think it's time, man.

26:55We need to make a pact to never talk about how our bodies are falling apart because I'm so afraid of yes, that that's the main topic of conversation. I just, I gotta, I gotta stretch more. I used to be in the stretching because my, like my wife once tried to stretch my leg. She was like, it's like your stomach is made of like concrete. Like it's so stiff. She's like, how do you walk around? Like it was, I don't know. I was like, Oh God, this is bad. And so I started like stretching and like doing yoga online and like, just like, I'm just that guy. And like the pandemic it was just that guy in my living room trying to do like yoga and like the mailman would come up and see me doing it i'm like hey what's up kevin and it's just just so weird and i was bad at it but i did feel a lot better and slightly more bendy than i was and now i'm back i'm like solidified back to like my concrete form where i need to like start stretching out again honestly it's like to me fi is like if i reach five i'm gonna have so much more time to stretch it's the oldest thing i've ever heard anyone say i've embraced that part of me though i've always been old i was like 20 for like three weeks and then i turned like 55 i've always had like an old soul mentality and right now i'm just like you know what i'm gonna stop caring about what the people i don't love think about me and i'm going to embrace this like i was always that guy that's why i like the five stuff it's like i could talk about like roth iras and it's not like weird you know but there's still so much stuff that i need to learn that's the thing is like i always even though like i feel like i have everything set on like a pretty simple boring kind of pathway like i still don't fully understand the rothback door thing like even though i've heard people talk about it literally a thousand times i'm like where what's going on so i i need to figure that out because sometimes like we talk about like we have this base knowledge and sometimes i haven't covered those bases so like i'm a big fan of when people use acronyms and they spell it out the first time before they use it again?

28:51Because for a lot of people who do this for their life, like sometimes I just forget. Like I feel like since we had children, I feel like I've definitely gotten dumber. And there's just things I don't know. And I forget. If I've met you like more than five years ago, like I'm going to forget your name. And I'm so sorry. So many people told me my brain would come back. And I was like, I don't think so, man. Like, I think it's over. But it really, it really has started to come back. So I want to give you I feel slower. Like, I mean, I do stand up still, you know, and it's fun, but I don't do it.

29:23Like I'm trying to make a living at it. Like, and when you're trying to make a living at stand up, you're grinding, you know, you're going up at least like, I don't know, I was went up around eight to 10 times a week. And, you know, you're trying to post stuff online and you're messaging club requests and, you know, you're just trying to, you're going to the right parties and like, and you're just so sharp and on, like in conversation, you're just so quick and rapid fire. And I don't do any of that anymore. Now I just, I go up like once or twice a month. You know, I have a beer. It's fun. I sometimes I get booked for random shows and get paid.

29:53I'm like, Oh, that's cool. And I'm definitely not as quick as I used to be. And I know part of that is I'm not like, you know, if you don't play basketball, the time you're not going to be as good at basketball. But other part of that is just like having a child and just like, I don't know, not enough sleep. Like my senses are dulled and I'm definitely not as like quick as I used to be. Because I used to be able to think of jokes. I know there'll be a part of the conversation where I know this is where the joke is supposed to go. And I'm like, I got nothing. I used to have something there always ready to go.

30:23And I'm like, oh man. So it's nice to hear that that's going to come back. I'm actually very excited about that. Yeah. I was really worried that I had a brain tumor for a while. Whoa. Because I would forget things that normally I would never forget, like people's birthdays who I was really close to. And it was just like nuts, the kind of things that I was forgetting. I just could not hold on to him for me. But you didn't have a brain tumor. Well, that's the thing. So everyone's like, oh, it's okay because your brain will start working again once your child gets older. I'm like, what an advertisement for childbearing, right?

30:54You might think you have a brain tumor, but hey, you probably don't. Yeah, exactly. I always just thought, no, I'm going to be the one person who, I do have a brain tumor and then no one listened to me. And then you get to have that sweet righteousness of like, ah, you should have listened to Ginger. Now you'll always feel bad. Yeah, because now I'm dead. Anyway, your child... I'm glad I reached five. Your child brain tumor will go away. I want to go back to all the things we don't know. Let's just be a little... Instead of sharing knowledge on this podcast, you know, you said the backdoor rot.

31:35And that's something too that I like, I feel like I kind of check out a little bit when people are talking about it because it doesn't really apply to me. And so I don't think it applies to me either. I think I have to have a lot of money. Yeah. And I'm not quite there yet, but I can't wait till it does apply to me. One of the things is like, I definitely, I love when I find out things I don't know about things I don't know, you know, where all of a sudden something comes in. It was like, oh, I didn't know I was supposed to know about that. And I feel like I've been good. The thing I'm proud about is I'm very good about tracking our expenses.

32:10I got everything dialed in. And I'm really proud about that, that I could go back years and be like, this is what I spent in July of 2021 or whatever. And this is what we spent on. And so that in and of itself has... I feel like that was the big first step for me. Because I always thought I was a really frugal person. I was like, I don't spend that much money on eating out. And then I tracked my expenses and I was like, oh my God, I'm a monster. This is insane. You know, like I was like, I can't believe I what? And so it was very illuminating to see what I actually spent my money on. And then I started to like make changes.

32:42And right now, like I feel like we're pretty, we live in a high cost of living area. I'm in the LA area. I love where we live. I wouldn't trade it. It's just a nice place to live. I love the weather. I love the people of the vibe. It's kind of where I work and we have family close by here. So it's nice, but it's definitely a high cost of living area. So I don't know what they say, 25 % should go to your housing. Ours is definitely like 40%, 45%. And we live in a lovely neighborhood. It's awesome. But part of the reason why it's such a big chunk is because the rest of our life is actually pretty lean and mean.

33:18We've been pretty good about identifying areas where we can kind of cut back on. Okay. I love that we're... Essentially, we're talking about budgeting now, right? Yeah. And it's funny you say this because I was just thinking, okay, this is one of my 2025 goals because I feel like I'm a person who's good with money. I'm obsessed with personal finance in a lot of ways. But I think I'm also one of those people who like there's more money if I could just find it in my budget. Like, I don't know, I'm just spending too much on Amazon or something. So I think I'm gonna get really serious and like do the thing where I write down every single thing that I spend for a month or two.

33:57Oh, yeah. I think it's like ginger, at least for me, like that was the thing that made me like I do. I track everything. And, you know, at the end of the year, sometimes I'll go to my wife and I'm like, Hey, I'm just going to search for this last year. I'm just going to take in one word and it's target and see what we bought at target. And then she says they're essentials. And I'm like, everything you bought is essential. Like we would not still be here if you didn't buy one. And it's truly illuminating how much we have given to the kingdom of Target and the kingdom of Amazon. Yeah. I don't know.

34:31For me, that was maybe kind of adjust some behaviors. Like now I do this thing now. This has worked for me. Whenever I buy something on Amazon, I only buy it on a Sunday so that I actually just put it in my cart and let it sit there until Sunday. And then I buy it. But sometimes I will be like, I don't need that. And I'll take that back out of my cart. So I'm not like scratching that itch immediately. I've fallen off that around the holidays, but generally like I'm pretty good about that. And I find that like that has reduced my Amazon purchases big time. These are the tips we need. So I love tips.

35:08I love like there's part of me that kind of gets like a little tired of talking about like the why behind things and people's like emotional journey of what I'm like, okay, I get it. Like we all have our own way, but like, tell me how to do the thing. Give me the tip because I'm like, I'll get the whole emotional thing. I'll figure that out on my own. Just tell me the thing you did. So for Brad, I was like, how did you get your arms to look like meat cannons? And he's like, oh, I got this guy, Dean Turner, and I do what he says. And I go, okay. And then I gave Dean Turner$100 and he gave me a workout program.

35:42And now I'm doing the thing so I could get Brad Barrett arms. That's my 2020 live resolution. All right. Give me some Brad arms. So tell us the things like I want to know. And just think about how like you're just giving me specific advice. I'm going to do these things. Like, do you have a specific program that you use to track? How do you do it? Let's start. Oh, my gosh. I can't believe Brad has not already talked to you about this. First of all, he knows what he's doing. But it's like this guy. He just says use gym machines instead of weights because they kind of control your movements. Slow down.

36:15I'm not talking about the workouts. I'm talking about workouts. I was like, I was a little bit like, oh, whoa, change it. Okay, yeah, we can talk about workout stuff. I mean, you're looking at me thinking like, I want to look like that, right? So, okay. I honestly thought you were talking about workout stuff. Well, it's fair for you to think that I'm very, I'm deep into the weightlifting stuff as well. You mean you're asking about financial independence? You mean the topic of this actual podcast? Yeah, that makes more sense. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that was so funny. For me, tracking expenses was the first and foremost, the thing.

36:49But what is the thing? Oh, I use Personal Capital. That's it? Yeah. It used to be called... Or no, I'm sorry. It's called Empower now. And I use Personal Capital and always get a friend. The meanest thing you can do in the FI community is to use someone's recommendation and then not use their referral code. That is really crossing the line. So get someone's referral code. I'll send you mine. And then if you sign up, we both get$20. bucks. You connect all your different accounts, your whatever Wells Fargo or your Bank of America credit cards, whatever, all that stuff. It's a pain in the butt. It doesn't work perfectly.

37:27It's going to take you a minute. And then track your expenses for a month or two. Don't judge yourself. Just log in every Sunday morning and just... It's like a dumb robot. But once you point it in the right direction, it remembers. So there's this one coffee shop I go to and it thinks it's internet. I'm like, it's not internet. It's coffee, you dumb robot. But once you point it in the right direction, the dumb robot remembers. So there's a little bit of handholding you have to do in the beginning. And then after two months, look at what you spent on and the parts where you get a little cringy ball in your stomach.

38:00You're like, okay, that's way too much money to spend on Amazon. I need to dial it back there. And then you can make decisions. But I'm a big believer in you can't make decisions unless you have good data. And so if you don't have good data, Like you got to know how much is coming in and how much is going out. You know, I'm going to talk about this a little bit more because I think people are in the position I'm in where I have an empower account. I check it constantly because I'm really interested in like seeing what the market is doing in a way that I know we're not supposed to, but I do it anyway.

38:31But I do too. I'm not looking at it in terms of like my specific purchases that are being put into a category, but that's what you're saying. Like, I tend to, not to get too, I guess, intimate, but I tend to like, when I go to the bathroom, listen, I sit down when I pee because I'm getting stuff done. So that's when I turn that time into like, let's go into Empower. That's when I budget my transactions. So this man does not stand when he pees, okay? Because I'm too busy making moves. I ask for specifics. And so that's, yeah, so that's what I do. I mean, I think the feeling of that is probably motivated maybe because like, it's like, you don't necessarily want to know.

39:13Cause once you know, then you might be like, oh, now I got to change my behavior. But I found it very interesting. I kind of looked at, I try to look at it, like remove myself from it and look at myself as like a little business and be like, okay, how is this guy running his business, AKA his life? So that's how I kind of mentally looked at it and was like, okay, this is where I'm doing very well. Like, this is great. You're saving a good amount. Good for you. and this is where you're doing a little crazy. But then also I typed in the word coffee to see how much we spent on coffee the year our son was born.

39:46And it was insane because every morning I would take our son out of the house because my wife, so she could sleep in a little bit and we had a small place so I got him out and I would walk with him in a stroller and we would get coffee. And I wouldn't change that for anything. I absolutely loved that time. I don't care how much it costs. At that time, it was something that I valued and I felt like allowed us to... We became friends with a coffee owner and we just would have fun together. And I don't know. It was just a nice time. So I also don't judge myself too much. I don't want to beat myself up about anything.

40:24I'm just like, listen, we're all trying to do our best to get to the end of the day. If I see an area where I can improve a little bit, go for it. But I'm not going to make myself feel bad. I mean, look, we're doing such a noble thing. And just the fact that we're in this community and we're going for it means we're so far ahead of the status quo. So if I'm not doing it perfectly, eh, would I got to work six extra months or a year? That's fine. I don't know. That's kind of how I justify stuff in my head for better. And it works for me. Because I don't want to obsess about it too much. I have the tendency to kind of be like that.

41:00I've chilled out a lot with it. And I think it's been good for like my general mental health. Yeah. Well, let's go back to you said you like the nitty gritty and the action tips and the hacks. What are some of those things that have worked for you on this path? Definitely the switching our phones from the Verizon family plan. The hardest part was getting out of the family plan. That's the hardest part. It's not hard to switch your phone. It's hard to have the conversation with your family and be like, hey, I got a bounce, man. This is crazy. But I mean, I'm talking about$15 a month. I pay it once.

41:31I think it came in at like $270 with the activation fee. This is Mint Mobile? Yeah, Mint Mobile. And it works better than the other phone plan we had. And now I pay that once a month and I don't have that monthly subscription cost anymore. I went from having this cost that was like$50, whatever, now to like$15 and I pay it once a year and then I don't have to worry about it monthly. That's been huge. It's a good one. That's definitely a good one. Automating all the investments and savings. So like my paycheck hits on a certain day and then And boom, it goes into my savings. I do invest in the market on Mondays because historically, I don't do any timing the market.

42:10But historically, the market is down on a Monday because people are like, it's Monday. So I do just put my money in on a Monday. And then I don't try and time anything. But that's the one little timing tweak I do. Yeah. Can I tell you my... So I'm convinced that I need to go to Mint Bumble. I'm just waiting out a contract and then I'm on board. I watched so much Welcome to Wrexham that I was like, fine, I'll do it. But you know what? But my wife, wife's still on the family plan. So I got to get her out. Like I've made it out. But when you leave a family plan, it gets higher for the people still in the family plan.

42:46So it's like, hey, I'm going to bounce and it's going to negatively affect you. Right. It's a tough conversation. But like, I was like, I'm saving like personally, like, I don't know,$700 a year. Yeah, you got to get her out. Oh, other nitty gritty thing is that my wife's going back to school to get her master's. And I realized that that makes her eligible because she has a university email address that makes her eligible for all the student discounts for all the streaming services. And I switched us and I think I saved us like$500 a year. It's like instead of like paying, I don't know, whatever the Disney Plus, because you legally as a parent have to have Disney Plus.

43:22If you don't pay instead of paying like$14.99, it's now like$1.99 or something. like crazy, crazy cheap. And it has ads, but I'm fine, whatever. We don't watch that much. But that was a big thing where I was... And guess what? It was super annoying. But I figured it out in one night. I've gotten really good at the email that Brad sends out. And you know that people list their wins. I've gotten really good at when something happens to me of calling around and getting quotes. So our windshield just got a crack in it. And I called around. This took 20 minutes. And I called this one place. It was like affordable auto care, whatever.

43:57Like it was in the name. It was like, and it was$500 to fix this windshield crack. And then I called a bunch of other places. And then I got a guy who's like, for 250. So like 50 % off. And they both did it, like said I could do it in the next day. Wow. And the guy's like, I'm like, do I need to pay cash? He's like, no. Okay. I'm like, great. Okay. I'll get points. And so I've gotten really good at like just calling around and just taking 20 minutes. And that's been big. I've saved like a considerable amount of money checking out on stuff like that. Yeah. That's a really good tip. I want to go back to me for a second.

44:31I want to go back to you as well. I want to go back to me. Do you want to talk about working out now? Can we talk about working out? No, I want to go back to the phone thing because I want to tell you my one hesitation, even though it's such a big saving, I'm going to do it regardless, but I want to tell you my hesitation as someone who, okay, you've got this phone. I have one friend who I convinced to do this. I haven't again done it yet. She went she's happy Oh, I love this that you like had her do it first just to see what would happen I'm trapped in this contract doesn't matter. Okay But she said the one thing she doesn't like about it is we we are both from montana and we live in washington now And so she's like sometimes when i'm going on those roads I can't get a connection and I'm not driving around the back roads of Montana very often, to be honest, but I am so directionally insane to quote the guy on The Good Place.

45:24Like, I will just die. If I get lost, I'll just die. One thing you can do is, do you have an iPhone or an Android? iPhone. Okay. So one thing you can do if you download Google Maps, which I'm sure you have on your phone, you can download an area so that it's there. You can select an area to download onto your phone and it'll down like so you if you don't have internet you'll still be able to have access to all the road data you just won't have access to the live information like traffic and you know if there's a cop nearby or whatever so i have that for like southern california in case there was ever an earthquake you know knock on wood or an emergency like i have all of southern california downloaded so that if we got in the car like i could still have google map directions but you can also just have like i mean you know you don't need to get mint mobile i mean there's like, you know, every major carrier has their like MVNO, their whatever it's called, the mobile virtual network operator, which is like what like Mint Mobile works on T-Mobile towers.

46:23So Mint Mobile pays T-Mobile money to use their towers, but they don't have stores so they can charge lower prices. So like Verizon's version of that is like Boost Mobile. I think like, I don't know, AT &T's is like Cricket. So if you asked around in Montana to people like, hey, which service works really well here if they say Verizon then you know okay I should get boost mobile you know for so I mean you have to do a little bit of research and I mean I found out in my area that actually T-Mobile does pretty well so it's not as great as like what I had before but um you know I'd say it's like 90 % there 95 % there like I can get service in certain parking lots where I didn't get service before and And occasionally there's other dead zones here and there, but I'm like, was it worth paying$700 more a year to not be momentarily inconvenienced every few months?

47:16No, obviously not. So I have come to peace with it. Join us. I'm coming. I'm on my way. All right. Let's do two more tips from Ron. This is so funny because actually I wanted to start a podcast about tips because I love tips so much. This is great. This is your entry. Yeah. I was going to call it the Babcock tip and it's only going to be 10 minutes long. That's the thing. This is what I hate about tips is that when people got you and you tune into something, even like YouTube videos, if you like ever, you know, try and I got to fix a dryer, which I had to do recently and you look up YouTube videos and somehow people turn that into like this 37 minute like journey and like, just give me the information and let me go on with my life.

47:54So I like, I like really short tips. It's like, I don't, you don't need to become here. My emotional arc. Just here's the thing I did that saved me a little money. the unclaimed property i feel like that's like the low-hanging fruit of the fi community the missingmoney.org or whatever that thing i didn't have any but i had a friend i punched in all my names of all my friends and family and i have my buddy i was like hey dude is this you and i gave him some of the information he's like yeah i'm like i think you have some money like and it's it's gonna be more than like a hundred dollars it ended up being a thousand dollars what and he needed it.

48:28It really worked. He had to jump through some hoops, but he was like, dude, that really helped me out. So I say for the holiday season, especially if you don't have a lot of money, go to that website and put in the information. But the reason why you have missing money is because there was most likely some kind of clerical error. Someone somewhere entered your address wrong, so they weren't able to... The money never made it to you. It got bounce back. So I tend to just put my name in and then wade through all the information rather than going super specific with my name and my city because stuff doesn't come up.

49:03So you just got to just put your name in. Put your first and last name in, maybe a variation of it. So I would put in Ron and Ronald. So that's what I would do. But that one was good. I'm trying to think, what are other tips? You got me on the spot now. I'm thinking, I'm worried. The YouTube university has been huge though. Just like when something breaks around the house, I fixed our dryer and I felt I was in over my head. I mean, the whole thing was disassembled. And then I realized a dryer is actually a pretty simple mechanism and I was able to fix it. And when I removed it, I found out there was a, I don't want to curse, but there was a ton of lint outside the dryer barrel.

49:45It was fire hazard. It was insane. So I'm really glad I did it because I was like, oh my gosh, wow, this is bad. So that and every time I fix a little something, I get a little bit more confident. So I like started doing my own oil changes. And really, it just makes me feel super manly. But and the added bonus, like, oh, that just saved me like 60 bucks. Yeah, that's pretty impressive. I like that you were like, well, I guess I'll put the beep sound in because I can't think of another adjective. But of course, a ton of lint. Listen, as an editor, you know, I'm used to that beep sound. So all right.

50:21Do you like to travel? I did. God, in my previous life, I traveled so much. In college, I did a semester at sea. And then I also worked on another program that was similar to semester sea called the Scholar Ship. And I was the video guy on that. So I've been around the world twice on a ship and they were amazing experiences. And stand up about 10 years ago, I did a tour in an old vintage Mercedes Benz and I drove coast to coast for three months, did like 90 shows. God, I came back a shell of a man. I was so tired. It was crazy. I actually met my wife like three days before I left for that trip.

51:01So, and then we kept in touch the whole time. And then I came back and got together and now we're married. Yeah. I absolutely love to travel and it's something that I want to do more. I'm a little bit, we've done it a little bit with a little one. And I know people say, I just don't need to bite the bullet. Here's my challenge. How old is your kid? First of all, he's two and a half. Okay. So it's not like the distress of traveling. I'm fine with that. It's the like, if I have a job, it's like, oh, I don't know. We can't travel. I got a job. Like TV is kind of crazy. Like sometimes you're really in it and it's difficult to take time off.

51:33And then when you don't have a job, you're like, I can't travel right now. I don't got a job. That's not like financially. So we kind of get in this like, when are we going to do this stuff? But we do have some goals for the next year. And I think we're going to do some road trips in and around California to visit friends. and we'd love to go back to Hawaii because we went there to get married and we want to go back there with a bunch of friends and family. So yeah, we do have that as a goal. I'm going to make it happen. I do love the whole, the credit card kind of thing. Like we're not hardcore about it, but like I'm hardcore about it enough where I like barely ever pay for a flight.

52:07You know, and I'm flying like one to two times a year. So I just do enough to kind of pay for that. So that's been another big thing. I started listening to this other podcast and the episode title was something like why we're not doing travel rewards anymore. I'm like, oh, I got to listen to this. Maybe they know something that I don't know because I love travel rewards. I mean, I always like it. Like, I think it's like a nice like, I don't know. I'd be interested to see why they're not doing it. No. Well, I listened to it. And then I heard that she was talking about how like they were so overwhelmed with their 18 cards or whatever.

52:43and I was like oh that's what people are doing but that's yeah that's the thing that I kind of was like oh I just don't want that so now I'm like I just I just do every I yeah it's coming up every year on January 1st I just get a new card I'm like what's the card out there yeah and if it's not the greatest bonus that ever lived that's fine it's still 80 ,000 whatever like I just do that card for the next year yeah so that's kind of where I've kind of got to it I need to like It'd be interesting to sign my wife off to it and then we both do it. But one thing at a time. There's a list of things that I need to do and I have been putting it off, like rolling over old 401ks and stuff like that.

53:23Real stuff that I should have done by now. But I'm just trying to inch forward. It's like that gap in the game thing. They measure backwards, measure from where you are and not where you want to go. And that's been very helpful for me. I started this in 2018. And if I just look at my, how far I've come, I'm like, I'm very proud of it. You know? And I'm like, and the fact that it really helped us when I was unemployed for almost a year, that was very motivating to kind of keep going. But I'm also trying not to do it to the point where I start to obsess and lose sleep about it. Cause I'm just like, I don't know.

53:55It doesn't feel very productive. Well, you said something about goals, travel goals for the new year. So let's kind of close out with, I know you have some other goals for the year and we're at that time of year where it's like talking about and thinking about who you want to be next year. Tell us a little bit about future run. Let me just, let me just open up my 2024 goals. I could tell you my goals from last year and all the things that I didn't hit. Okay. Ready? Stand up on a surfboard. Didn't hit it. Oh God, I'm trying. I'm so bad at it, but I'm going to keep trying. Go in the ocean every month.

54:31Did not hit it. go paddle boarding with my wife. Did not do it. Bike to this town nearby with my wife. Did it with my wife, but did it on my own. It was like 36 miles and it almost broke me. Start boxing again. Did it. Spar once. Did not do it. Still afraid of it. Going to do it this year. Make journaling a habit. Starting to do that. Hit and miss. Make a reel and website. Did it. Heyron.com. I think it turned out kind of cool. Restore the director chairs. Didn't do it. I have dreams of those TikTok restoring furniture, or the people who restore cast iron. Oh my God, I could watch that stuff forever.

55:10Travel somewhere. And we did. We did technically travel somewhere and it was a delightful time. So those were my goals from last year. A lot of my goals for this year probably could be those that I didn't hit. Honestly, I just want to stand up on a surfboard. That's kind of the big goal is I want to stand up on a surfboard and I want to feel that because I took my niece out and she stood up immediately. And I'm like, I got to be kidding me. Well, you live in LA. Isn't this a requirement? No, we live kind of in the LA area, a little bit outside where most people in LA don't surf. And whenever I tell people at work that I started surfing, they're like, yeah, really?

55:51I don't enjoy the tone in their voice. But I'm going to do it. That's my big goal. I'm trying to do a lot of little things. Like, oh, I'll tell you the 1 % little improvements I made that I was really proud of is I had no more phone at mealtimes. So I don't have my phone with me at the dinner table anymore. Nice. I got an alarm clock in my bedroom and I charged my phone in the kitchen. So I don't check my phone at night or when I wake up. And that's been huge. I got a bike seat for our son. And that's been probably the biggest game changer is now we just bike together and it's the best. and then I started journaling more and I read that Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter and he talks about like rucking, which is a fancy word for just carrying like weight in a backpack.

56:37And I started doing that on when I walk my dog. So those are like the little things that I, and honestly, I never tell anybody about this stuff because I feel like a little weird to go to my friends where you're like, I don't have my phone at mealtimes anymore. So I appreciate you giving me this safe space where I could share this kind of stuff because I never talk about this with anybody, but I feel like this community is people would be like, Oh yeah, and I do that. Like, and it's, it's a very welcome and open space. So thank you for letting me, you know, dive into all that. Oh my gosh. I started putting my phone to bed.

57:08I started doing something similar. Like I have a, it has a little bed. Oh, that's awesome. It's like it's away from my bed. So is it just like a bucket of dry rice and you just stick it in that? A bucket of dry rice. Yeah. So now what are some of your goals? I'm, I'm interested. I've been vulnerable. I've shared my vulnerabilities of things that I hope to focus on the new year. I want to know what Ginger's going to try and do. This is not how this works, Ron. I asked the questions. No, I definitely am one of those people, you know, where you're like, oh yeah, I think in this community, I'm definitely a goal person.

57:41And I will sit down with my little list of goals here soon. So I don't know that I have them all out. But one of them is about the budgeting thing where I do, I'm not crazy. I do like track to some extent, but I really want to get serious about it. But I understand like you can go like sometimes like if my wife went to Target, I'm like, well, technically 60 % of that was groceries and 40 % of it was. I'm like, oh, God, just put it under general merchandise. Like it's like you can. I don't know where the line is sometimes. And I have trouble with that. I'm going to find out where the line is. I think, you know, you find what works for you.

58:17And I know like I found an area where I'm like, OK, we're I feel comfortable with what we're spending. I don't think it's ridiculous. I don't think it's not depriving ourselves. So we found that. But I know what you mean. Like you can't obsess over it too much. And you know, there's a thing on Amazon where you can say like, how much did I spend last year? Well, no, we share our Amazon account. So like ours is all over the place. Like it's just pure chaos. Yeah. I did this a few years ago and it was horrific. Oh yeah. And it really put me off from like, I've never touched that button again. And so part of my goal is like, I don't want to not be looking at that out of this like weird emotion that I can't handle.

58:54I go to my purchase history at the end of the year. And then I kind of see like, okay, am I still using this purchase? Like, was this something that actually still continues to provide value? And so that's why I'm like, and I tell you that Sunday thing that I do, like that works. Like when I'm on that and I'm really sticking to it, because it takes a lot of willpower. A lot of times I end up taking stuff out, you know, I've gotten good at just finding – We live in one of those neighborhoods where the neighborhood provides. There's just things on the side. I was going to buy a dresser from a thrift store for our closet in our guest room.

59:28And on the way there, I saw a dresser the exact size on the side of the road. And I was like, are you kidding me? I was way too excited about it. And I told a lot of my friends and they're like, cool story, bro. But if I tell someone in FI, they're like, that's amazing. They're so excited for me. but it like it worked out so um i find that if i wait for it like it will come into my life i'll find it at a garage sale or i'll see it on like facebook marketplace but if i want to like jump the line like and have it now like then i buy it new but if i just wait yeah i'm okay with waiting like i will get the things i'm hoping to get like i want a flat dolly for the garage so i could like put stuff on it and move it around i could probably build one but i mean there's only i mean i haven't got around to restoring director's chairs am i really gonna build a flat dolly like I know my limits.

1:00:15So too much stuff to get done, Ginger, right? Okay. So another of my goals is manifesting a dresser. No. Well, we'll stop there on my goals. I've talked about this on the show, but I'm so awkward at ending episodes. What do you think would be a good thing for us to end on? I'm a really big fan of the awkward ending, and then you just cut it right there. and that's where we end the episode and then we just and that's it that was a joke we did on clone high and i was a big fan of that joke so um i don't know i i was kind of trying to open and end with gratitude so i i'd say i just want to thank you for having me on it's like i never thought i would be on a choose fi type or an fi type podcast because i don't know like but i was flattered that you asked me and i hope that some of the stuff was useful to other people and i whenever I hear these kind of conversations, like I find it really useful just to hear other people talk about the minutia of it all.

1:01:13So it keeps me motivated. Yeah, yeah, me too. Yeah. And thank you so much for coming on. It's heartwarming to hear you say that because I always think when I reach out to people, I'm like, there's no way this person is gonna Oh, I'm a stand up comedian. I'll literally be on any podcast. There's a very low bar. I think there was one podcast I ever said no to I was like, Oh, come on. That was weird. I don't want to do that one. But yeah, Yeah. Listen, if you guys are interested, you can listen to my standup on Spotify. So I got an album on there called This Guy, and you could listen to it for free unless you reached FI, and then you could go to iTunes and pay$10 for it.

1:01:50All right. That's a perfect place for us to end. Thanks so much, Ron. And thank you everyone listening today, and we'll catch you 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. So 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. And it's really, really easy to get on the newsletter list right there.

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1:03:04Choose a FI 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 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 Chooseify created a Financial Independence 101 course that's entirely free. Just head to chooseify.com slash fi101. And again, thanks for listening.