Ignorant Wife Faces Financial Infidelity | Financial Audit

0:28We're pay advancing. I mean, I'm all about it. I'm just like, I can't even picture a little stinky thing running around and I'm 29. Kill me. Okay. So we've got 202. Kill me. It's not for the faint of heart. I will tell you that. My oldest. You look like you're in high school. This is insane. Okay. Sorry. This is blowing my mind. I'm just getting old. I'm getting old. That's fine. My oldest is two and a half. He was born in September. And then my youngest is 14 months old, born in December. Yeah. Yeah, so being a stay-at-home mom makes sense. What do we got going on over here? Yeah, I'm a restaurant manager in the Woodlands, Texas.

1:06I just recently got a promotion. It's going to be like a multi-unit type of thing. Oh, that's cool. What's our current household income? It's about$5 ,200,$5 ,500 a month. Net or gross? Net. $5 ,200 to$5 ,400, you said? Yeah. What's it going to be? I already got the raise. Oh, okay. Yeah. I'll be honest. I mean, for a two-person household in a not cheap area with two little kids, it's not the most, like, beefy salary. But we are young also at the same time. So I'm not going to knock$53 ,000 net at$23 ,000. Not even close. So, I mean, that is cool within itself. And child care is very expensive.

1:51So it's hard to do that. What scares me, okay, we're young. We're a young couple. We've got kids. cool awesome so we take out a heloc and then we continue to borrow money is this the way we're starting off marriage is this the way we're starting off building a family what the are we possibly doing so i was in insurance for a while and uh you'll see some of the deposits from that and i was like buying insurance leads and basically living on a credit card when i turned 18 years old chase gave me a 15 000 credit limit okay but then it's your choice to no i know i know but yeah i know at 18 it's hard i opened a credit card i opened a couple credit cards at that time i was dumb some and i paid it off um but yeah that did not answer my question about heloc and continuing to borrow more money that's not starting raising a family off in a financially good position what are we doing i i feel like i'm in a situation where i can't save my way out of my expenses save your way out of expenses you mean earn your way out of expenses no like i either way like you want to save enough money i feel like i guess the reason i keep spending is because i feel like no matter how much i save my expenses will be more than my income but your expenses were all like yeah you say that like i don't have the numbers right in front of me no no i know what are we doing yeah i feel like i feel like that's why we spend but yeah why that's why we spend why what's why we spend no i know i know that's a bad mentality but that's just oh he has a problem telling me no and what are you the spender and he's the decider and he says no and you say well no no no i'm the i'm the spender i'll ask for things he won't tell me no even if we don't have the money for it and so it's gotten to the point where i have to really push and say do we actually have the money for this and he'll still tell me do you guys not sit down and talk about your money no no okay well let's have this marriage like exist longer than a few years and a good way to do that is sit down and actually understand where our financial picture is right yeah i say that as someone who's never been married but at least i understand the finances around it yeah why why have we not sat down and talked about this i've got money in any way whatsoever i feel like my responsibility as a man is to make sure that i'm living below my means which i'm not that's a responsibility as an adult that's nothing about you being having a to provide to provide for her yeah so that's why that's why it's hard for me to tell him no is that where you guys are mentally no i think he feels guilty about not giving me things that i would like if that makes sense like he i'm at home with you pressure him into getting things no does she pressure you into getting things she says that we're broke a lot which makes me feel bad then why do you get the things if you're the spender if you specifically say hey we're broke then why do we go spend money as the spender i will say i'm also the spender okay then what the i'm dead by a thousand paper cuts and she's like so you do the big purchase he does lots of small purchases yeah okay yeah i'll give him that he does get like the what are you getting What's your thing?

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6:53But LifeLock monitors millions of data points per second. If your identity is stolen, our U.S.-based restoration specialists will fix it, guaranteed, or your money back. Don't face drained accounts, fraudulent loans, or financial losses alone. Get more holiday fun and less holiday worry with LifeLock. Save up to 40 % your first year. Visit LifeLock.com slash podcast. terms apply because my minimum monthly credit card payments were like six hundred dollars a month and it was either it was it was either not pay them or take out a heloc i couldn't i think you guys had kids too early yeah i would agree with that yeah was it a not an accident the first one wasn't we actually planned him the second yeah so i i feel like we were really good with our finances we bought a house at 18 What?

7:41You said at 18 you got a massive credit card limit and maxed it out. That was like a year or so later. I'm just saying they gave me that credit card limit when I was 18. So I feel like we were more financially responsible when I had a job. And then I went 1099 in insurance and just wasn't working out. Yeah, he didn't really work when he was in insurance because he was working from home. But then we had just had our first son. And I guess he felt guilty about leaving me at home with him, even though i was like kind of okay and so he would just not stay home or if he would hear him like fussing and stuff he would just come downstairs and like help out and everything instead of going to sell insurance okay so you took it out to pay off the credit card debt to be clear correct girl any more kids no not yet no not right now okay but but okay so okay as long as as long as that's not in your media future i'm just trying to determine because we are not starting this family off in a financially secure way and then our spending is just ridiculous i mean to be clear i mean spoiler alert spoiler alert we will we will total income that came in and this includes some extra stuff that came from your insurance days i guess some reoccurring yeah i still get i i get paid every month yeah so if we're bringing in five thousand one hundred sixty in total six thousand six hundred thirty dollars and fifty five cents going out is uh insane yeah so we went to oklahoma i think during that statement for a cousin's wedding and we just kind of went crazy i will say if we didn't have to go to oklahoma i would not have wanted to go to oklahoma it's not my prefer but we like kitty kind of made that a vacation so yeah but but but we have debt to pay off right we have kids to take care of right so you vacation what vacation why what kind of responsibility is that you guys are young but you've taken out a lot now it's time that we were growing up yeah i guess it was just like we had to go to oklahoma and we were like if we're gonna be there yeah as well go to oklahoma cost two cents to exist in oklahoma over-exaggeration calm down i am it but you did not have to go crazy dude not even close yeah but we did i know you did but what makes me afraid is doing it again yeah yeah if we don't understand that it's completely bat wrong when we're out of when we're in terrible destructive absolutely terrible debt how do we know we're not going to do this again that scares me too all right not giving me a i guess that's kind of why i guess that's kind of why we're here is just to since we don't create a budget we just kind of like don't look at it and spend yeah well we're obviously going to put you through the budgeting program like any other couple so make sure you take that take the education build the budget but all the actions that have led up starting at 18 from you now five years later later what how's your finances been since you graduated high school towards now okay so we basically we met when i was 17 he was about to turn 18 high school sweethearts no he's homeschooled yeah so no we met at his sister's wedding sure yeah um so basically he i didn't know anything about finances because they don't teach you that in school which they should um and so he was the one that was really doing everything and i was just kind of working he was helping me figure it out got me a credit card to build up my credit yeah then we did you teach her the fundamentals of credit cards i don't think so because you're your own cards okay so cool yeah what were you doing i did buy her a car in cash though okay yeah we didn't take it alone so that's good yeah okay cool high five that's just That doesn't negate any of this stuff here.

11:36That's not how this works. Okay. This is insane. This is ridiculous. Let's just start diving. Actually, before we dive in, give me a financial score. I'm going to say 3, 2, 1, go on go. I want you to both give me your household financial score. Zero to 10. Zero being the worst, 10 being the best. So 3, 2, 1, go. And then you say it. 3, 2, 1, go. Zero. Oh. What the f***? That is a big difference by 50 % of the scale. yeah she's just not involved in our finances okay well that's an immediately that's an immediate red flag you guys got to do this together even if you're not out there earning i mean at some point you probably will again it'll be many years down the road and maybe not doesn't have to be a requirement but just typically that's what we see these days um and still you guys need to come together understand where we're trying to get to what goals are we trying to achieve what does it take to hit those goals along the way those are conversations we need to have together if one person's dominating the household finances that's that's a recipe for disaster looking forward because at some point you're going to want to be more involved in the conversations if you're jumping into the deep end of an absolute mess and confusion and you don't know how to work with someone at that point because you've just been doing it so long together it's going to be a mess i think that's part of the reason why i don't bother with it is because it is so like i just don't want to burden her with it you're burdening her by up the finances and she's having to deal without knowing what's going on.

13:00True. That's a burden. You're not burdening someone by giving them, well, you can burden someone by giving them. Well, I do tell her that we go more into debt every month. If you guys want your hammer financial score, though, it's linked in the description below. It's free. But speaking of, yeah, going into debt every single month, we're pay advancing. We're pay advancing. Do you know he's pay advancing? I don't know what that is. He's getting parts of his paycheck early and then having to pay it back. Yeah. She doesn't even know that? no no you've never told me that never what do you think because that's like scary like what are you doing that for for bills that come up what bills because our bills come out the first of every month not all of them the ones you've told me no not all of our bills come out the first of the month but so here here's what happened i is are those in february i i accidentally paid my car this month i accidentally paid my car payment twice okay but that doesn't account for everything here you pay advancing constantly well yeah but it's it's one of those things you get into one once you pay advance once then you just need it the next time around and the next time around but not necessarily though because these are like close to four hundred dollars okay that's not an insignificant amount of money but four hundred dollars it's one hundred dollars okay but when you pay it back you when you do the reset okay i see what's happening yeah you're doing a hundred at a time yes okay well that makes that makes what i was about to say even easier it's a hundred dollars yes for many people you get into that and that's a hard cycle to break hundred dollars is not even close to a make or break for someone who's bringing in net fifty three thousand dollars a year yeah what is going on man gotta give me something here i gotta get some kind of insight so i guess i finally decided to like close our credit cards or lock them or whatever however that works and i was just like starting off in my checking account with like nothing um because kind of the way like my mindset worked was and i feel like i learned this just throughout my childhood except for my parents made a lot more money than me uh they would now they would put like everything on a credit card and pay it off so i would just put everything on a credit card not knowing how much i actually spent on it and then i go to pay it off at the end of the month than i can't i don't know i mean i i mean i know how to manage pnls and stuff i'm pretty good at that but i just never dealt with my own how do you feel how do you feel you're getting you're hearing things for the first time a lot i need to know how you feel how is the status of your guys's marriage right now mostly revolving around the finances but where are we sitting today i mean it's concerning that i didn't know that he was taking out part of his paychecks early um i've definitely feel like that's something i should have at least known yes he doesn't really involve me in the finances but i feel like i should have at least known that on if he was taking out parts of his paycheck before getting paid don't you think you should have told her yeah why didn't you i don't know i honestly just i don't know the answer for everything no no i didn't i didn't think about it i didn't but like you didn't think i've not included her in our finances since we got married so i just didn't think about it if you ever asked to be included in the finances no why it's just really confusing for me it's stressful yeah and i well it's clearly going to get more stressful if we don't ever yeah okay so yep we're borrowing that and then we have the fees on top of that he lose he loses four bucks every time so that's a four percent four percent immediately gone from the money that is borrowing from his paycheck yeah all right and then on here so here's the two so we have a paid for car you said you got to pay for a car for her but yourself no no i i bought my car in cash but the so that car ended up going out first off it was a coupe and we had two kids which was i have been begging him to get rid of that car for a really long time yeah why didn't you get a car within what makes sense for your finances because we had we had no cash and when my car died that doesn't answer the question you have no cash how does that equal get a more expensive car than you can afford usually that would mean getting a car within your zero dollar budget huh i mean i i didn't have any cash so so how does that equal getting a car you cannot afford that doesn't make sense i don't have any cash that means i get a car i can't afford instead of a car that's within my budget buddy you got to give me something well what am i working with okay so i mean it's it's hard to drive around a small cheap car when you have two kids and a car seat two car seats yeah but i think you went a little overboard for what you needed you could have got a jeep cherokee like my jeep cherokee for about 12 000 bucks 2019 jeep cherokee that's what it's worth about and you could easily fit them in there it's safe i think where he was coming from is we know we're eventually gonna have more kids well that's why i said at the beginning you guys said no we said yes yes but not like not right not right when when probably in the next year and a half no it doesn't make sense why not clean up your finances first kids aren't cheap you can still have them while you're getting out of debt yes and while you're building wealth sure absolutely but a lot of your things i don't know because you're delaying a lot of things that set you guys up for success which pushes a lot of the pressure on them at some point yeah i want you guys to be in a better place before we start bringing in before we start popping up more i i think one more planned one more planned i'm getting snipped after okay so i i think i think my justification for that was it's a it's a good reliable car what is it it's a toyota sienna and even still that what you just said didn't make any sense because my jeep likely holds you can't put a third car seat no no no you're not supposed to try oh well that's me That's on my lack of knowledge.

18:56Maybe if you get some of the more expensive car seats that are really skinny. So what, this has a third row? Yeah. It's a van. Seats eight people. Okay. Yeah, I don't know what I'm talking about when it comes to car seats. Car seats. It's not my field of care. Giving a shit anyway whatsoever. That's okay. Toyota Sienna for$21 ,281.28. At an interest rate of what? It's 8.9. Not great. 90%. Minimum monthly payment? Of$549.50. Because it had over 100 ,000 miles, the banks will only do 48 months. What is your... What do you mean? Banks will only do... You mean that's the longest they'll go? Yeah. Why would I want you to go longer than that?

19:40That's terrible. No, no, no. I'm just saying that's why the payment's high. Payment's high because you probably got something that you just couldn't afford right now. Well, your paid off car, what kind of car is it? No, that's her car now. I took over her Toyota Corolla. Okay, so you're never going to drive around the kids? well no he didn't see it doesn't make more sense okay so sure i had the lack of knowledge in terms of where you have to put a car seat and that's you know fine okay that's awesome you're preparing when you got this for this new kid that just again we've already established and you guys kind of agreed that maybe you had kids a little too early yeah uh does that flow in with having another one right now now maybe you're just trying to keep the ages like less get so that there's a family planning perspective and then there's a financial perspective and it's hard to mess what were you gonna say i mean i could probably only go through having one more kid i almost died with my last one oh my gosh yeah it was a whole whole ordeal i would not recommend almost dying it was not fun yeah you want to almost die again no which is why i want to wait a little longer if i even want you said a year well yeah you guys are not decided on this no it's more like why do we buy the car for it then instead of waiting until getting the car then that's because that's all i was going to suggest is this was not necessary right now right right now you could have gotten a car that was about ten thousand dollars cheaper that would fit your situation now and then figure it out financially at that point yeah get a credit score it's better get a better loan that's the thing too when i is having a fully funded emergency fund but you want to have a kid without a fully funded emergency fund anyway like i mean no i mean i know you're already in the situation you're in but without having a fully funded emergency fund our situations is so dangerous financially speaking as a household yeah yeah i think also the reason the interest rate is so high is because my credit score when i took that out because my credit cards were at 110 utilized yeah it was 580 when i took it make sense to have done this at that point i would say no 12 12 interest in what 32 000 uh that's a credit limit oh my thing No, that's it's maxed out.

21:48Oh, me. What are we? What are we doing? Why? What? Did you do you know this is maxed out? You know, he has a maxed out card at 12 percent. It's a HELOC. Oh, this is the HELOC. There it is. Yep. The HELOC when. OK, I need to. When he went and did the HELOC, were you consulted in any way whatsoever? Yeah. And I agreed with it. OK, did you understand it? I did. He explained it. OK. it was that or just not pay our credit cards but you said the minimum of the payment was like 500 bucks a month right it was you know on one card oh all together well it was like it was like 900 bucks a month how much were you making in your previous position my household income went up about like 500 bucks a month so you mean now yeah last time yeah i mean depending on your living expenses you could have made it work you could have also done maybe yeah i mean i think the fact that i only work 40 hours a week yeah um any consolidation did you look into any kind of consolidation yeah but my credit cards are like 110 utilized so i couldn't get anything and the only reason i got that is because it's a credit union so 32 419 53 cents yeah 12 percent the payment of 330 41 yeah it's interest only for five years part of the reason it's so high is because we also had a second lien on our house because the are you kidding me so we were in a program that paid for our down payment for our house so we closed on our house for 20 dollars and they forgave it like that means 20 a year well that's okay so we had to pay off 6 000 for the second i think you guys have uh rushed into something yeah trying to be a little older than you are right now sure at some point it would have made sense in the history of the united states and the prices of homes for someone your age range to have bought a house immediately like oh we're gonna go pump out some kids and just go get a house for uh you know box of donuts that's like that's not i think you guys are rushing into the wants of this life this dream life that we've envisioned we've just gotten ourselves into a risky situation in general um i think sometimes not that much though yeah yeah i don't think about the fact that i'm 22 yeah you guys have baby face so hold on to it while you have it it gets sad real quick does it freedom just wear sunscreen every day i've heard that okay 2446 dollars i see you're not close to maxing out this one no interest is this in an interest-free period or do you pay this off every month i am not sure it was paid off before that month it's not anymore no why why'd you do this we had 1500 in car repairs well your spending is also ridiculous starbucks and car repairs on what the corolla the 2009 corolla it was 1507 and i had to do it because it was the part of it was the evap system so it couldn't pass inspection 40 minimum payment inspection uh isn't something we have to do in texas anymore what do you mean i don't know if that's been officially been applied yet but you no longer have to get an inspection to get registered really yeah they passed that law i don't know if it's effective yet uh is that smart let me spread misinformation well from it blew my mind when i moved down to here in texas that the inspections are even a thing because that's not a thing in michigan oh you had to do yeah you didn't have to do that up in there you just got your car registered.

25:27Hmm. F*** me. It's because of a car repair. The pink lines are all bulls***. The pink lines are all bulls***. The pink lines are all bulls***. Two pages of this. Do you even know you're spending? You guys don't go over it. Do you even know what's happening at this household? Wendy's. Amazon. Wendy's. Juice Bar. Which, by the way, is supposed to be giving you money, not you giving them money. Panera Bread. Liquor. Raising Cane. Sonic. Life Cafe. juice bar raising canes just make a juice just make a juice they won't know oh no don't don't steal from the company raising canes no i get them viock i i do get them for free but there's like some bottled stuff that i don't stop so i get like the acai bowls and juice for free stop then stop then stop spending money i know what doesn't make any sense disney store taquitos taquitos mcdonald's what is this black rock thing coffee that's me great coffee panda express juice bar juice bar once upon a child hello wisp koopa yo starbucks taquitos mcdonald's taquitos amazon marshalls black rock coffee water burger black rock coffee taquitos taquitos taquitos water burger pizza netflix thrift it's the gas station he says oh so i take it you're the watcher of the show you're not yeah i watch in passing oh in passing so taquitos essentially means stopping at a gas station and just getting some okay yeah we we eat a lot of chips okay go to the grocery store i'm talking about get massive bags for much cheaper you stop at the gas station for chips for chips?

27:15Never heard of people doing this. Who stops at gas stations for chips? Go get a big bag in the grocery store. He comes home every day from work with beer and chips from the gas station. No, I wouldn't say every day, but like... You're gonna get fat when that metabolism dies 23 years old. That's what happened to me. The Doritos are just so good and they don't have them at HEB, so... They don't have Doritos at HEB? Not the ones that I... Which ones do you get? The FireLime ones. Go to Walmart or something. Okay. i will say a lot of those food and spending is him he gets food fast food quite a lot the only things on there that are mine is black rock the kid stuff and then marshall's yeah brahms store taquitos chick-fil-a double shot coffee double shot coffee kitova mcdonald's brahms store taquitos Brahms store, Laundryne Baking, More Banking.

28:11That's when we're in Oklahoma. Yeah. That goes into Oklahoma. Great. Rise and grind. Your spending habits didn't change whether you're in Oklahoma or not. It wasn't like a unique situation. You're just spending going crazy. Rise and grind. Brahms store. Tequila. And baking again. Taquitos, Taquitos, Starbucks. Taquitos and Carl's Jr. here the spending's wild you said you have a new balance on the freedom card right yeah oh oh right there this is the one that i was using yes okay so written on this one is like new balance came in so that's the same thing that was okay no need for that one and then on the apple card 839.88 the minimum monthly payment at 28 oh shocker what's the things on here are bull in fact there was only one thing that wasn't bullshit and actually it probably you know in fact it definitely was because it was only five bucks so i know you stopped and got some chips where was it yeah and i will say also he has told told me that we can't afford things and we can't afford to eat out and i'll cook at home for myself and the kids and then he'll get off of work and he'll say hey i'm so hungry i'm gonna stop and get food i'll tell him we can't afford that and I'll still stop.

29:27What are you doing? Why? I don't know. That is not an answer. I don't. If you can't get to the core of why you're doing, how are you ever going to change? I feel like it's because I work, you know, for like eight, whatever, however many hours. And then I just don't. You work eight hours a day. No, I know. No, I know. Oh, it's hard. I know. What? Well, I'm just saying it's like one of those things where I don't take any breaks at work. So I just get off and I'm so hungry. So. oh but he has a job yeah a job where he has to do work and to be fair also he could get a free acai bowl yeah instead of going to a fast food restaurant yeah sure and metabolism man when it dies in a couple years your husband's gonna be a fat watch out i hope not door dash chipotle starbucks chipotle starbucks starbucks so who's the starbuckser it's right next door to my work Congratulations, make coffee like a human adult.

30:26I know. Nectar juice bar. And then some taquitos and taquitos. Juice bar. DoorDash. DoorDash. Crust pizza. See, I thought we were at least picking up food on the way home, but we're getting doorDash. Crust pizza. Taquitos. Starbucks. Starbucks. Starbucks. DoorDash. DoorDash. And also, DoorDash is him. I draw the line there. What are you? I will get DoorDash like once or twice a month. he i will go to bed and lay down and i'll come out in the morning and there's like wing stop on the couch and he'll tell me like oh yeah i ordered door dash is your guys relationship and communication and everything how is your relationship i would say it's pretty good other than the finances yeah really yeah so that's the one hard part yeah have you guys done anything to help to try to mend the financial financial part of the relationship i mean we're here it's a good first step yeah so this is it this is the first step you haven't done anything until now no when did you guys get married again we got married yeah it's 2020 wow it's a long time to wait to try to do anything francis okay okay here's our mortgage this mortgage is incredible and i'm uh it's disgusting that you ruined it the heloc so you took a risk by doing that down payment financing thing it worked out in the end risky yeah at a 2.7 rate it's delicious yeah we got that sounds kind of high i thought it was 24 i thought it was 2.25 but oh yeah 2.7 so high compared to now yeah i guess it's like the one good thing we've looked at i'm happy 1 ,236 dollars a month and four cents 40 cents which it did go up quite a bit property so pmi no so it was um my home insurance doubled so i got a new home insurance policy and i signed stuff that said that they would cancel the other one and it never canceled so my escrow account got hit with three thousand dollars in home insurance okay and you take care of it yes kind of and then also i have i didn't file my home set exemption why i don't know i know When you guys talk about things and have conversations I filed it now.

32:38This is an answer I don't know about everything. Yes. I did file my home set exemption now when I saw it went up because my mortgage used to only be like$9.50. Checking account. This scares the f*** out of me. The absolute f*** out of me. $121.67 in our checking account. At the time of the statement. That's insane. We have kids. we have kids but we choose to go out to eat and get starbucks and do all this every day and even shop at our own place of work and we have a hundred twenty one dollars in our checking account no we're borrowing money from our paychecks here's this aqua thing and more doordash nectar juice spotify the juice water bill okay and then the juice bar apple cash sent apple cash sent clear cover what's that wait that's my car insurance but can i talk about the apple pays those do get reimbursed for me that's like if an employee buys something for the store at kroger zelly not money adobe who's a zelle to adobe um we canceled that good we gotta buy our way out of it though yeah a firm someone affirmed some hair removal at home yeah things i justified that in my head because it is cheaper than hair removal he wanted that yeah

34:04right um don't need to go into that earning repayment nbc peacock peacock nothing on there apple bill amazon there's the apple cash sign up but we understand that now juice bar chick-fil-a some taquitos juice bar amazon amazon taquitos kindle unlimited which you know i'm not opposed to you having that at some point get out of debt first at least have an emergency fund for the sake of your family first go to the library until then juice bar taquitos and apple bill amazon taquitos taquitos taquitos apple cash sent we went over that though adobe she signed up for photoshop on two accounts by accident yeah don't ask me and lightroom and lightroom it was it was like a hundred dollars a month McDonald's, Wingstop, Taquitos, Apple Bell, Taquitos, Juice Bar, another Adobe.

35:06Three. Three. All of them are canceled now. What are you? It was$100 a month. There's the Apple Cash and McDonald's. And then our savings went from$400 to$0. So our finances are$100 in our checking account with two children wanting to have three. But yes, removing hair is the important thing. Yeah. It was sold to me like it was sold to me. If it prevents you guys from getting in other children, immediately grow that hair. The way it was sold to me was like you would save money not buying razors and shaving. All right, all right, all right. But the fast food. Come on. So again, we spent about$1 ,000 more than came in.

35:43Debt payments total net in the end, 5.6 % of our spending or$371.17 net because, you know, we put more money on debt. So, but net, that's how that worked. Housing total, 22.7 % of our spending or$1 ,502.77. Phone total, 0.8%. Transportation total, 23.5 % or$1 ,555.94. Necessary food going to the grocery store,$1 ,036. That's not unreasonable for a family of four. 14 % when going out to eat or$926.25. So essentially double the grocery budget. i will say the kroger the grocery budget is highly inflated because of my job and i get reimbursed for some of it all of it no yeah what like if i if i buy something at kroger for okay there were a few of those sure yeah and that groceries though we we've talked about cooking at home and not eating out anymore i will do that he won't why be a i don't agree with that i really don't why how do you not agree with that so i'll give the disagreement here like yesterday um i was like on my way home and she's like we have no food in the house and i listed off like five different things that we had in the house and she was basically didn't feel like making it is that true yeah okay so why are we putting the blame on him well we hadn't gone grocery shopping this week but we we had food in the house eggs hot pockets mac and cheese yeah there's hot pockets in there all there are hot pockets in there she also said there wasn't mac and cheese in there i got home and i showed her the mac and cheese there are also hot pockets in there there's food in our house so what do the kids eat it too huh what do kids eat it too everything everything a lot of fruit a lot of fruit a lot of fruit my kids are basically fruititarians yeah which is kind of expensive so we've gone to buying bags of frozen fruit not a bad idea yeah it takes them longer to eat unknown shopping total 518 and 31 cents or 7.8 spending that's usually walmart amazon in your case mostly amazon and target because we just do not know what was bought there 1.2 percent of spending spend a color health care 1.9 with subscriptions 0.6 with miscellaneous bs which is mostly just stopping and getting some bs because we threw the krogers in your grocery which a lot of those were stopping and getting something small but i guess you're saying you're getting reimbursed for those at work sometimes i do get off work and we'll i'll get like three gallons of milk because i also work next to it yeah our kids go through like a gallon of milk a day sure yeah okay yeah but i will say that sometimes i will go i don't normally drink coffee but sometimes i will go and get some if oh my gosh guys get a mr coffee for like 25 everything it can be cheap coffee just give you that little that little high that you crave so much i like coffee but i don't like the taste of coffee it doesn't so off drink tea drink anything else that has caffeine diet coke i don't care if you don't like the taste of coffee but you need the caffeine take a caffeine pill well i like getting the sugary coffee drinks that don't taste like okay so you like the dessert yeah yeah okay well shut the up and stop is what i would say next time you want to go get that it's called be a big girl yeah but if i'm if i'm waking up in the middle of the night with my kids and i'm not getting enough sleep and i'm tired and stuff i will say i the one that wakes up with the kids so our kids sleep through the night now but i wake up with them at four o 'clock in the morning when they wake up yeah and then he we wake up at 5 5 30 yeah because i gotta work at six so what you just said was incorrect so that was your excuse for getting your little dessert coffees but it wasn't true well she does still get it pretty early just because i leave for work pretty early to just make coffee fill it with sugar and milk like figure it out you can't afford it it's as simple as that yeah okay other large purchases 6.2 percent of spending are 410 dollars and 39 cents let's see how those broke down marshall's sport clips and miscellaneous oh that's where all the stopping and getting the things went that's where we put it okay where and the other large purchases we just combined them as essentially one big thing got it what is our goal financially Where are we right now in terms of our goals as a couple?

40:31I've mentioned to him, because he has told me multiple times now, that we go further into debt every month. So I have mentioned putting our kids in daycare and going to get a job, but he doesn't want me to go and get a job. Why? Well, because, so this is one thing. I mean, that's not what she ultimately would like. I would like to stay home with my kids, but if I need to go out. So you choose. I do only work 40 hours a week so I can go out and make more money. I can't get another job where I have a commitment but I can go out and do like 1099 side hustles. Let me I like to come at this. Where he's coming from also is the income I would bring in would basically be the same amount as a daycare.

41:16It was$2 ,400 a month. How much a month? She's very particular about the daycare though. Fair enough. My kids are going there. um i used how much how much 2400 yeah how much 2400 okay i'm up yeah so i guess it's probably you buckling down and making some more money yeah if we're not gonna compromise on anything and even like they're at a daycare right now while we're filming this and it was 25 an hour that we are paying for thank you very much thank you okay let's do your budget yep so total income across everything was the okay so what came in was five thousand one hundred sixty one dollars okay let's get your minimum of the debts

42:06947.50 for debt payments now our mortgage which i'm not including in that is one thousand two $236.47. Love the rate. Water. What was that water bill? What's our water bill on average? It's usually like$20 a month. Okay. Gas and electric? Nothing. How? Oh, electric? Oh, it's$265, but that's another one that's just highly inflated. So we didn't live in our house the first like eight months. It was there, and I enrolled in average billing. So the first year, the payments were like$60 a month, but they really weren't. How many square feet? um it's 1309 okay and then it went to 265 let's say 100 okay but it is it's 265 every month for how long i think it i think the average billing resets in september okay 265 internet it's 50 a month to mobile home internet gas on average room room car gas um probably 400 a month car insurance is 296 I'm at 196 sorry for both yeah okay total paper fund for the house we gotta get things for the kids we gotta blah blah blah blah blah it's really anything and everything else you need to survive around the house is get all the goodies when you take the button program it's gonna be more intensive and you're gonna line out everything but 200 bucks necessary food okay I think we could do about$900.

43:42Should be. You're going to figure out the exact number, but I think we should be able to do about$900. Medical, health care, gym, that kind of stuff. So, we don't... Our health insurance is like$25 a month depending on what I... If I start any side hustles, that's what it costs. But is that taken out of your paycheck? No, we're on Obamacare. My job doesn't have insurance. So... But you work 40 hours a week? yeah i thought that was the law did they reappear that part of the law it's a small business so yeah oh okay but if i go out and do like side hustles and stuff since it is based on income yeah subscriptions nothing we don't have any right now anything else in your budget that i am missing these are the usual go-to's obviously your uh phone phone we pay 50 it looks like no that was t-mobile home internet oh okay um we pay 116 a month to my parents that's those are the zills to your parents yeah why is it so much because my phone is financed once you pay that off dude switch to helium i partnered with them specifically so that i can get people like you on like 20 a month plans to use the same towers.

45:00It's crazy. 116. Yeah, the lines are 55 each. Have you considered a work from home job with the kids? I have actually. I just haven't been able to really find one that's suitable for me. Most of them you have to be on the phone and we just got to wait a little bit longer. So the kids can be quiet. But that could be something cool. One thing you could do, I mean I'm just thinking of the resources that we set up people with. if you want to do like a tech work from home thing i could probably set you up with a certification through course careers we could probably do that because we partner with them as well um that'd be cool i would like to bring in money no absolutely and i was actually not not anymore because he's in an actual preschool now but i was for a while watching my nephew and they were my our my sister and brother-in-law were paying me to watch him and i was bringing in about four hundred dollars a month doing that so at least it was something it was something that would cover your gas right i mean gas is so expensive and only you drive no oh you drive a lot she drives to her mom's house an hour away oh how often geez like twice a week to grandma's okay sure she's happy one thing that is really cool i know i've talked a little i'm cheeky about children because they're just so but like um one thing that is actually really cool and this is something that you know i'm lucky enough being the first born when my parents were 19 and 18 what is cool is these two and potentially three they're gonna have a long time with you guys which is really cool you guys are gonna be able to be young and active when they are able to go do things you can take trips and all these things but in order for us to live that cool life and stuff we got to take care of our finances now so that you can do those trips and things that you'll want to do when they are able to you know form core memories and actually do things you want to be those fun young active parents i think that's a argument that i've made with him about me going to get a job is because i have said that i want to be able to live comfortably and be able to do that stuff with them and listen if you want to you can how much can okay so this was what what town does grandma live in how far away from houston is um it's about 30 40 minutes what if hear me out here this would suck this would take some grinding wait what does grandma do right now she works from home she does oil and gas is she able to do babysitting i know it's okay so i'm just i'm i'm just gonna brainstorm yes and no um i could potentially get a job in cyprus because she lives yeah that's yeah like she lives like 20 minutes from like all the stuff in cyprus even if you're making 725 an hour and she was babysitting for free that's still more money in y 'all's pockets now it might not cover the gas that's required to get there but even still that's just an example right so if she's able to if we're able to utilize her and you still have to drive like it'll be inconvenienced but if you're able to bring an extra 500 maybe even a thousand dollars a month that pushes that pushes us closer right now we have a necessity of three thousand four thousand three hundred fifty five dollars and ninety cents a month to survive that's our minimum how much four thousand three hundred fifty five dollars ninety cents yeah it's life buddy it's expensive you guys got yourself into a mortgage i mean it wouldn't be much higher than your rent would be honestly but um it's probably lower well i mean depending people think they can't really find bargains and then i pull up the bargains show them and i know it's in a safe area and they're like well i guess i just never looked yeah but either way yes that's probably what it would be about anyway but it's gonna be like it's gonna go back to 900 a month next year yeah after after it re-escarates yeah no for sure that will be fantastic yeah that'll be incredible it'll be different at that time also for the groceries i feel like it's a little high since i don't well i mean if i eat at work five days a week so well you shouldn't so right yeah you should be getting your breakfast lunch you should be getting your free stuff not buying that's what i'm saying yeah yeah but you'll still eat dinner at home and then i have to cook food for myself and the kids.

49:31Well, you know, again, you guys will figure out the exact number when you take the program. This is I'm trying to be a little more conservative on numbers just so we can figure out our debt payoff strategy. Guys, it's a new year and you need to make your money work for you. You can do exactly what I literally do right now and put my money in the best high yield savings account so far. I get a 4.6 % yield on my money and I also took advantage of the bonus of up to$250 when I signed up. You can start 2024 off amazing by doing the same by going to the link in the description below. Should have an extra, let's call it$800 a month.

50:10That's our lovely little extra money. Nothing in savings. $0 in savings. Only have$100 in checking. Well, we do have money in savings. What? I've been just set up auto savings of$200 a week. And how much is in there? $400. right how much is in retirement nothing okay it's irresponsible as a parent how much is in retirement you don't make any money so zero dollars okay very irresponsible as a parent i've gone in the rant multiple times i feel like i don't need to anymore but blah blah blah blah essentially your kids will have to take care of you for retirement because they're they'll feel morally responsible too and you're putting mcdonald's over that so yeah okay you have four hundred dollars in there so first month let's put a hundred dollars uh eight hundred dollars aside that puts a thousand dollars in savings usually we don't want to start doing things until we get a one month emergency fund but even still man also one takes five months takes over five months to get a one month emergency fund yeah what one thing you did miss in here

51:19was that this is the current balance on my card so the monthly payment is no i thought you said it was this was after it went up sorry i thought it went down from 5 200 to 2446 no that was the the car repairs like just recently but it's so scary it's gonna take five months to get a one month emergency fund before we can even start tackling our debt but then it's gonna take then it's gonna take i know and then it's gonna take six months to pay off the freedom card and it's it'll take one month to pay off the apple card so it's seven months to pay off the credit cards and the heloc that's gonna take that's insanity

52:00that's gonna take 40 months 40 death months and we've got to pay off the car which is at a nine percent horrible rate i could definitely refinance that not with your credit score no it's seven it's 750 now really after i got the heloc yeah i shot up even with your current credit card balances yeah okay uh and then that'll take 26 months to pay but your balance will still be the same regardless yeah and then 26 months to be off the toyota so this is a what five six year process five six year process so if you can bring in any 500 hours accelerates this about 33 3 % if you can. And then, yes, you talked about going and getting another job, pegging ham and cheese for your dinner in between.

52:42Sure, if you do that, that's great. Listen, if you double this to an extra$1 ,600 a month net, I mean, that takes it down from six years to three years. Three years to sacrifice is nothing. The kids are going to be five. They can barely remember anything around that anyway. They're starting to form their memories. So, I mean, that's great. Then they'll only know a life of their parents not being stressed about finances. So, let's to say that worst case scenario with a bunch of sacrifice it takes three years to pay off all the bad debt how you see mortgage roll letting set and paying off that month payment until it's paid off um but everything else we're taking care of as quick as possible say it takes three years that's nothing three years in the remainder of your life 25 26 it's nothing it'll fly by so quick you guys have such great potential in your life such a great life left to live as a couple and for your kids and to bring another kid in this world there is a lot of potential here and man if it's a sacrifice for three years it is so worth it so it's going to be a little harder for you to figure out potential income situations but if you can again i'm happy to gift you a certification to help at least kickstart that you'll have to take the education but that's a good way to kickstart uh which will be good for work for home stuff but and then you if you can work just a few extra shifts you know at a different job or at that job if you can i don't know what's available but even if it's at an other job a couple nights a week if we can bring this from an extra 800 a month to 1600 bucks a month for three years which i think will be the worst case scenario if you bring in 1600 bucks yeah in in like a month and a half or so i'll be traveling all around houston to different nectars different stores what should i do with the mileage money put it towards gas but you don't spend 62 cents a mile on gas right right right right well if there's anything extra just put it in the whatever method you're going towards okay yeah if you Anything extra, just include that as you're getting towards that doubling the$800 goal.

54:50Okay. Yeah. But also, remember, this is also taking into account maintenance on your car. It's taking into account a lot of things. Yeah. There's going to be expenses that pop up the more miles you put on your car. A car that's already needed a massive repair. Yeah. And it's 2005? 2009. 2009. Even though it's a reliable car. Yeah, there's bearing noise in the transmission. Yeah. it's aging is there any budget did you put any budget in there for like other things that might come up like what i don't know one thing that comes to the top of my mind right now is that we like desperately need a hard water softener it's like ruining everything in my house my toilets my showers my tile well typically that's what we put the toilet paper fund in this conversation because this conversation it would take hours for us to uh you and i to all sit down here and come up with an actual line by line budget so we do the toilet paper fund which covers like it shouldn't be 200 a month ghosted toilet paper that's not what it is it's those extra things it's going to be a little bit of a cushion where some of it goes to the next month to cover larger expense you know and it just kind of rolls over and then as you're going through the program you're going to get an actual line by line budget that you build and the only way for you to actually do a budget that you stick to you need to build it you need to build it not someone else build it for you you need to go through your and figure it out you're going to do it together because if you guys do not approach this together it's not going to work okay okay sacrifice man go yeah sure you can make it last six years or you can go bring in an extra 800 bucks a month net make it last three years bring it even more together and it'll go even quicker so it's up to you guys what you do from here but you need a budget can't go out to eat anymore can't do all that it's a temporary sacrifice you're going to be in your mid-20s by then and just follow the 50 30 20 50 on needs which is easy to fit with your mortgage um 30 on wants and 20 is good enough for your investments at that point max out your workplace retirement accounts and if you do that open up brokerages you can do muumuu like i do you can do anything and everything from there that's where the fun conversations start that's where the fun conversations start until then it's the pain in the conversation which is this so any final thoughts neither of you i don't do you no okay so you said five you said zero for your financial score let's figure out your financial score spending in a budget when we're making payday advances and we only have a hundred dollars in our checking account it's harder for me to get viddie or higher than two debt is not helix not great but it's not the worst of the worst debt but it's really not good either so probably a two out of ten there emergency fund you have four hundred dollars now so i'll give you i'll give you one retirement there's nothing at all anything real estate is good there might be a 401k somewhere great he like brings it down so it's gonna be about a four out of ten it would be higher you keep saying that is that should i have just kept the credit card debt we would have had to approach that situation in that moment man i don't know but that doesn't all of a sudden make the HELOC good.

57:59True. If we sat down in that moment, we could have figured out different solutions and brainstormed. I don't know what you looked like at that point. I don't know where your income was. I don't know where your spending was. If your spending maintained this in any way whatsoever, the amount that you spent on going out to eat would have covered those credit card bills. Hammer Financial Score, 2 out of 10. Make sure to check out all the resources linked in the description below as they are what I use or would use in specific situations including the best budgeting program in the history of the internet.

58:29Thanks to all of our Patreon producers for making this episode possible. If you want to participate in an episode of Financial Audit and you're able to make it to Austin, Texas, please fill out an application in the survey linked in the description below. You can also send a link to your friends or family who you think might be good to be on the show. If you have any questions, you can email casting at calebhammer.com.