Create a (Frugal) One Page Financial Plan

we're kind of going through. This is something we're doing in our Frugal Friends club membership, and we are sharing it with you because we think it's great and we want you to be able to benefit from it. And if you really dig it, you can join us in the club and we have a whole video series and workbook on it and other stuff. Something that feels so attainable. I love it when someone just says, oh, it's a one page it's a one page report, it's a one

page plan, it's a one page Oh that's fantastic. That's digestible. But also it helps us to know how can we get these things on paper, even for some big or financial goals that we may have just a guide and we don't really hear people talking about this in other spaces, and we're really excited to have created a pathway forward for our community that still creates room to breathe and tailor it to yourself. So we really hope that this is helpful for you if you're just kind of all right,

how do I get all this in order? Yeah, and we know that a lot of people aren't talking about it because we just spent ten minutes redoing the outline for this episode, because the articles about it they didn't fly like. We got together and and Jill was like, I don't get it, and I was like, neither do I. So we just did the we in the last ten minutes, we redid this entire outline for you, and we are winging it. And let's see who this episode is brought

to you by. Who's winging it with us? The Spending Symposium audio flash sale. Thank god, it's a good one. So prices are still rising and that's one of the reasons we're sharing the Radical Middle method here and now. And it's becoming increasingly difficult to plan and stick to a budget. We know it's getting harder and harder, and that's why we held the Spending Symposium last month. We had twenty experts teaching you their tips for spending less

and saving better. So while that is over, the full all access passes no longer available, we did want to give you one more opportunity to get the MP three versions of all of our expert interviews from this year's summit, and we're actually going to throw in last year's as well, So that's almost forty interview MP three you're gonna get that you have never heard on the show. I think it's thirty nine interviews. So if you need more help

controlling your spending right now, check it out. We are only offering them for one week, so had to Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash audio to see every session and start listening. Oh that's exciting. Yes, So if you need more than the what two hundred and twenty five episodes and forty interviews in the audio flash sale, So here are there? There are so many. Here are some good ones to queue up after this episode that really align and go deeper into what we're talking about today.

So the first one is episode one, goal Setting and Strategizing, and we kind of tailor it for the New Year because that's when the episode released, but it's in general just about goal setting and strategizing. Episode one seventy one. Should you focus on paying down debt right now? That's a big top still a big topic. And then episode one understanding the stock market and investing with Bolos. It

couldn't be. We have a lot of episodes on investing, but this is my favorite one about understanding the basics. She was awesome. She really helped down in a real way. Yes, and I love her book is one that I recommend quite frequently, which is Understand the stock Market, Grow your Money from Clever Girl Finance. So let's get into our new headlines, but we'll go over kind of what our when we say a one page financial plan, this is what we're talking about, and this we literally made this

up because that I couldn't. I feel like a one page financial plan is really good. I feel like it's really attainable when you So there are different ends of the spectrum, and we always come back to the to the middle. But when we look at the ends of the spectrum, we there have the advice that says do this only this. If you do anything any deviation from this,

then it's wrong. So you have like the one sentence financial plan essentially, and then all the way over to financial planners who will literally give you a like a three ring binder of a financial plan of stuff that you don't really understand and will never execute. And while I love stickers and highlighters, no one's going to be able to implement on a three ring binder. Yeah. So so these are the extremes, and so we're like, Okay, what's in the middle, what's attainable? And I think one

page that you create yourself is super attainable. It's not just listening to what other people are telling you to do, but it's also not planning so intensely and so complexly that it doesn't leave room for deviation. Because life changes, people change, relationships grow, and there is and change does not mean failure. Deviation does not mean failure, and it

more often than not means growth. Um And so a one page financial plan will give you room for flexibility, for customization and also do ability, which is what we're very much about. I love doability and ease, and I think we are supposed to review this. This isn't a set it and forget it. This isn't I wrote something on a piece of paper and it was one page, and that felt good, and then I forgot about it.

This is to be reviewed regularly, if not sensually, and so we just want to again, there's not like a specific article on what is the Frugal Friends one page financial plan. We go into that a lot within our membership and we can talk more for those who are interested in that, but we want to give it to our broader audience as well and how it works. So there's not a specific article that's just here's what it is, and then we're going to use articles to support how

we can implement on that one page financial plan. So that's kind of going to be the way we moved through this episode. Yes, so there are three parts to the one page financial plan. It's goals, foundations, and then freedom. And so your goals are your short and long term goals or even short mid long term depending on your income and your life plan. Uh So the time it will take you to reach those goals will kind of dictate whether they're short, mid, or long for you. And

then your foundations, your savings, and your debt. So we believe debt is neutral, but you do need to have a plan for paying it back because that's an agreement

that you made. So there there needs to be a plan for saving your money and then also for paying your debt back, and then free edom, which is investing which we do support investing while you're paying off certain types of debt because time in the market is uh, we'll save you the most money overall when we're talking about buying freedom, because that's essentially what investing is is buying freedom. And the earlier you invest, the less you have to pay for that freedom, and the earlier you

get to enjoy it. So those are the three parts, especially for our lower or medium income earners, this is gonna be what's going to set you up the best in the future is time in the market. Absolutely, and even in today's market, I'll put that little caveat in there, we say the same thing knowing that we are in a very different market today than we were even a year ago, even two years ago. Uh So we still

stand by that statement. So the first article that we are going to get into is about goals, and it's about the short and long term goals, and it's by It's from Investipedia, and it is talking about how to set financial goals for your future. How did you feel about this one, Jill? Did you like it? Better. I really liked this better Again, our quick pivot in the last ten minutes is fantastic. So for me, I think anyone who's listened to us for a while it will

I might sound like a broken record. I love tangible tips. It's something that carries over into the mental health field. For me. While there's no quick fix for all of the different circumstances that we may face in life, having some sort of idea of what could I be aimed at or what are some of the tools and resources that would be helpful for me as I aim at well being? And this article felt like that to me.

Of it's not going to look the same for every person, but it is good and benefit a shoal for all of us to aim at short term, mid term, and long term goals. And I even like that they didn't make that this aloof mysterious thing. They gave some really great examples of what could fall into each of these categories for those of us who just aren't quite sure, what does what? What would a short term goal look like, what would a long term goal look like? What do

I need to be having my sights on? And then what are some questions that I can be asking myself, So that felt really great to me. I would recommend this article. So when we talk about a one page financial plan, I think reviewing an article like this would be really useful to say. If our one page financial plan begins with goals, and we're talking short term, mid term, and long term, well, then here's the things to consider. So this one from Investipedia begins with the short term goals,

and they can include things like setting a budget. Uh, at least looking at the debt making the goal of reducing I know, we get into foundations of maybe the how to, but that can be a goal, and starting an emergency fund maybe if you don't already have one, and I like how they highlight that having a budget can help you know where you're going, Like, you can't know where you're going unless you know where you are right now. I know we've got a spectrum of opinions

on budgets, and that's okay. We can hold the tension between I don't want to ever look at a budget or I love budgeting and like, give me the three ring binder. We could find ourselves somewhere in the middle. But it is important, at least at this stage when we're doing a one page financial plan, where are we right now? If we can even look at a budget in that sense, that's going to help us know where

we're going. And so again, examples of some short term goals could be creating that emergency fund, paying off credit card debt. Highlighting the credit card debt because that is

the highest interest debt, most likely that we have. Back to Jen's point that debt is neutral, but we and and not all debt is created equal, So there could be different tiers of priority within your debt payoff absolutely, and again it will what is short, mid, and long term for you will be customized to you because based on your season in life, how much you earn, your earning potential, where you are even, like when we talked about like creating your dream life, that's what you have

to do before you create your financial plan and create that separate from money. Everyone talks about like their goals in life, and like when I hear someone say their first goal is like financial, I'm like, but why why is it? Why do you have that goal? So you have to have your life goals first and and have those established, and then that really does dictate what is considered short mid term and long term. But these are

really good um ages on what to expect. I mean, definitely, everyone should start with a budget, and that is a goal. Like the budget isn't just to get you to your goal actually being able to budget regularly and not essentially stick to a budget perfectly every month, that's not a goal, but to make budgeting a habit that that's your first goal.

And people so quickly skip over that, and they skip right to the debt payoff or the savings, and they're like, why can't I meet my goals, because well, you didn't first establish a budget. That is a goal to be able to create that habit. So I love how they pointed that one out there. And then they move on to the mid term goals um which is like get life insurance and disability income insurance. So we love term

life insurance. We think it is very essential to a hole a stick financial plan, and not a lot of people have it. But you don't know you need it until you need it. So something like that, payoff student loans, so we we move from these higher interest loans um to the kind of mid range student loan or maybe like a personal loan or stunt like that stuff that's lower than a credit card but higher than a mortgage.

Right now, if your student loans are still zero percent, that's not included in this, but when inevitably they do come back um or if you have private student loans, that kind of would be would be the next tier. And then and then they say, consider your dreams. We already know that you want to consider your dreams first. But I love that they actually put this in a mid term goal because we often view it as a long term goal. Is like, whatever the dream is, that

it's the long term goal, but it is closer. It should be closer to a midterm goal. So breaking creating your dream life plan and breaking it apart and breaking it apart until you see what's the what's the step by step? How can I not maybe get there all at once, but I can get there in the mid term and then see it fully into completion in the long term, but not necessarily waiting and for twenty years

and putting it off that long. And if you listen to our episode about creating your dream life, then you're you're already there. You've already done this step, but yes, it needs to be done at some point and should be a part of your one page financial plan, and again permission to revisit and change some of those things. I know some of my goals, many of my goals I've shifted. The core of who I am hasn't changed that much, but the way that I think that that's

gonna look does shift. But if we've got some financial planning around that, and there's room to shift it, So either way you slice it, paying attention to our finances and making good decisions is going to really help us. And then of course it moves into the long term financial goals, which is going to be part of that one page financial plan, and this article highlights which I would agree with. One of the biggest long term financial goals for most of us is going to be saving

enough money to retire. One one common thing that people will recommend is saving ten to fifteen percent of every paycheck into a tax advantaged retirement account. This would be your four O one case four three B S or traditional IRA raw IRA. Of course, if you can save more than that in every paycheck, you're all the better off to be able to do that. But connected to this long term goal is the need to estimate what your retirement needs might be. There's a lot of different

ways to approach that. Of course, none of us can totally for sure, No, we don't. Depending on how far away retirement is for us, that could be that could be a few decades, and we don't totally know what life is going to look like in a few decades, which is why I appreciate they say estimate. We are

just estimating. Some of that includes considering what you're desired annual living expenses during retirement is going to be, uh, subtracting the income that you will receive, so this would social Security, I don't know for those of you who are close to retirement, that's there for you, with those of us who are further away, UH, t b D, t v D. And estimate how much in retirement assets you need for your desired retirement date and based this on what you currently have and are saving on an

annual basis um. There's tons of online calculators that can help you figure that out. This episode isn't to totally go into how do we do that, so giving a little bit of the overview of how would we save for long term goals? Yeah, and we would recommend this this part of the financial plan maybe be like a quarter of the page and really just having like your ten,

your five and your one year goal. And we're very, very into having one financial goal at a time, like just focus on one thing at a time, and that is going to get you the fastest results. And when we're trying to do things sustainably, doing things efficiently is

really important. So having your ten year goal and then create a five year goal based on that, and then creating a one year goal based on that, and then breaking it down and just working on that one year goal and then if you reach it sooner than a year, then you can go on and create another year goal based on that five year But we you can have

like a twenty year vision for your life. But when you start getting into goals up to twenty years, that's when you get that big binder like financial plan and it's not you're going to change. Probably in the next five years, even your ten year goal probably won't be the same. So give yourself flexibility and room four goals to change, but still have that north star, um that's pointing you in the direction of your your dream life. Yeah, one that gives you flexibility to change your mind. We

don't have that flexibility if we've not created it. Yeah, So the next part of your one page financial plan is the saving, debt and investing portion, and so that is broken up. We break it down kind of into foundations and freedom. So your foundations are your savings and your debt, and they are the things that make buying freedom easier. If you do the foundations right, then it comes easier to purchase your freedom. And there is no

one right way to do the foundations right. The right way for you is to make it as easy for you to buy your freedom in the future. But you still need to plan obviously to save, to become a saver, to say, for short term expenses, and to pay off your debt because it is an agreement you signed that

you would pay it back. So it's not something that you can't ignore unless you know, maybe there's some student loan forgiveness which you know, which would be great, But let's let's focus on our our entirety of our debt too. So our next article then is going over how to balance saving, investing, and paying off debt. And while balancing is probably my least favorite word because balancing is stressful, um and I don't think money has to be stressful.

The article does, I think, provides some good questions to ask what do you think, Jill? Yeah, I'm just stuck on the balancing word and can't get the balanced beam out of my mind. I don't know why our society is so obsessed with balance when if you've ever been on a balance beam, it's impossible and stressful and usually ends in pain. So agreed. The radical middle is the picture. The picture in the article is this woman who has

like four hula hoops. She has to hula hoops on each arm and she's just she's swinging them around like they're balancing, and she's just smiling and laughingly. She's having the best time in me. I would be over here with four hula hoops, like, ah, so what do I do with all this? I'd rather just stand in nature. Yes, So, this article I think is helpful and determining what's going

to be best for you. And we're talking again about this one page financial plan and longer term goals and investing and once we've looked at savings and debt payoff, where do we want to put our money? And the question that this article is attempting to answers, save, invest, payoff debt? How do I approach all of these things almost looking at each one like a tent peg? And where do I place them? And how do I hold it all intention in a way that creates a nice

tent and shelter for me? Uh, I have never really gone tent camping, like maybe once and I hated it. Uh, trailers for me maybe, But still I think it's a helpful illustration of everyone's tents are gonna look different, some of them are going to look like an RV, But how are you going to hold each of these pieces intentions? So they ask questions pretty much throughout the whole article, which for someone who's a social worker, that's my favorite.

Just ask questions. You don't even have to have all the answers, just ask all the questions. So the first one that they ask is, well, what kind of debt do you have? If you want to know where should I be putting my money? Am I able to invest? How much can I invest? One of the first questions is going to be do you have debt? And what kind? And again they highlight not all debt is created equal. We think it's neutral, Like we don't use the terms

good debt bad debt. But there are debts that have higher interest rates on them that we would want to pay off sooner. There are some debts that have low interest rates or no interest rates, and so in that case we might not need to prioritize them as much and there could be space in the budget to be able to invest. H. Yeah, these plans on on this one page financial plan because you want to review it

every year, like around every year. Maybe less, maybe a little more, but but you are really focusing on Okay, what's what what are the finances do I need to get me to that five and ten? But what do I really need to be focusing on the next year? So looking at the type of debt you have and seeing, oh, it's going to be much easier for me to buy more freedom if I have less of this debt. And we we categorize anything over seven percent as pretty high interest,

and so anything over that really should be prioritized. So this kind of goes into the next one. What's your rate of interest averse rate of return? The reason that we say seven anything over seven is high is because a diversified portfolio is probably is going to overtime with inflation typically return anywhere from seven to ten percent. If you are all inequities, you're going to see closer to ten or twelve. But if you're diversified in some more

conservative securities, then we're looking at seven to ten. And that's not the best, but that's typically the the average, and so that's the benchmark we use. Can you do better? Absolutely? Do we talk about how to do that on this show. Not much um for us to talking about how to save money on purchasing freedom and time in the market does that, and so that's why you want to pay attention to your rate of interest first, rate of return.

If you have higher interest loans that severe. I mean, if you're seeing seven percent in the market and you've got a seven percent car loan, that cancels each other out, so you want to pay off that debt so that

you can get more into the market. Um. But if you're seeing if you refinance, and you're seeing like a two and a half percent mortgage, um, while you could get seven percent in the market, then that one's kind of a no brainer to Or if your student loans or zero percent right now, putting more into the market right now it is all so a great decision. The next question to considers do you have an emergency fund? They just use the term healthy emergency fund? UH can

can help you avoid expensive debt. That can help us determine how much we can start investing or continue investing if we've already got some of these basic foundational things done. Of course, what is healthy to one person might look different for another. There's various metrics for what an emergency fund can or should be. Some people will save three months worth of living expenses as an emergency fund, others six months worth of living expenses for an emergency fund.

Others will save UH medical deductible for an emergency fund. So decide what's right for you. Know that your one page financial plan can include a tiered approach to that of well, here's where it's at now, but here's where I want to get it to be. But that doesn't mean that I can't focus on something else until that becomes maybe the next prioritized goal. But some version of an emergency fund we want to look at. That's a

good question to ask ourselves. Yeah, uh so the last one on here for me that all that I liked is um the obviously are you meeting your employer retirement contribution match? So that is the first thing that you should be doing always because that is part of your compensation package. You if you do not take it, you're essentially telling your employer, no, you don't need to pay me what we agreed upon. Uh So this is something

that's just part of your compensation. That is I don't even believe counts as investing when we're looking at it on the scale of investing, but it is something you should always be getting your employer retirement contribution match at any time. So if you're not doing that, do that. And the last one I want highlight on here I love that it's in this article is the question of how can you best manage financial stress? And again, this

is going to look different for all of us. Our capacities are different, but our mental health and financial health are both extremely important and oftentimes do influence and bear weight on one another. So when we're thinking about eliminating debt or saving or investing, we do have to ask ourselves what's going to be the pathway of peace for us? What is going to create the most calm inside of us, the most assurety clarity, just just what feels peaceable to

us mentally, emotionally, relationally. And so that's why I think you see so many people making so many different approaches. There certainly could be some quote unquote wrong ways of going about finances, but there's certainly a lot of right ways, and they don't all have to look the same. Right for the person who pays off their mortgage early versus the person who chooses not to and just invest, both

can be fine. It really has to do with what does financial stress look like for you, and how can you create the most peace in the midst of it. For many people, it does include a lot of things going on autopilot, not needing to think about this on a daily, hourly basis. I think anytime we need to think about something or be consumed by something regularly, it's

going to cause stress. So this one page financial plan can help with that, finding ways to put our goals on autopilot where it doesn't have to be top of mind, but we have peace of mind in it. This is an incredible question to ask ourselves. Consider your own self in this, how you want to move forward again in a way that's going to reduce some of that stress

but still be helpful for you. Yeah, and I'll give you a bit of a teaser from our episode coming next week with Jordan Grammant where he act really gives a really he gave me like I was very like mind blown about how do we find out what's causing like us financial stress and not just what we're being told is financially stressful, but like, look at your fears

about money, Like what's your biggest fear about money? Validate that and don't give into the fear, but create your financial plan to air more on the side of serving that fear, so there can be a balance of our fears. Tell us who we are, but when we're healthy, they inform our choices. When they're unhealthy, they paralyze us. Anytime we can respond rather than ignore, we're going to be better off. Absolutely. You know what I love to respond to and never ignore. I want to do it all

the time. I'm never fearful about it. That's right. It's time for the best minute of your entire week. Maybe a baby was born and his name is William. Maybe you paid off your mortgage. Maybe your car died and you're happy to not have to pay that bill. Anymore. That's bills, Buffalo Bills, Bill Clint, this is the bill of the week. Hi, guys, I wanted to call. I had two things I wanted to let you know for Bill of the Week. UM So, I just want to

start this off. I have life insurance. I bought from Life Insurance probably like I don't know, seven years ago. Um So I've had this accidental plan, a life insurance plan, for probably like twenty years. I'm thirty seven, so so less than that, but a long long time. And it was just something that I signed at my bank, and I have had fifteen dollars removed from my account every month forever. And I've wanted to cancel this for like

a really long time because it's such just stupid. But I've never picked up the phone to call because I was just dreading a call and I was always like, well, I'm not gonna be able to find them the number. I don't even know anything about the policy. Anyway. I finally I've been I found you guys like a month ago. I've been binging podcasts and I'm like, I should just call because fifteen dollars a month is a lot of money. Um Anyway, it took me twelve minutes. They didn't even

find me on it. They canceled it in two seconds. Again, I have term insurance for myself and my husband, so it was just a waste. And I'm just blown away that it took like no time and that I should I should have. I just I'm gonna I'm not a mathematician, but it's a lot of money. Other than also, I listened to this old podcast about like going out to the state to see if you have any money, and my husband is like a hundred and forty three dollars

as well sitting at the state from that podcast. So also, I just have to get something notarized at my bank and we're going to get a hundred and forty two dollars just for listening to Thanks guys, Wow, I am so pleased. If you'd like to send us a commission for that, like the commission Friends podcast, pay fifty cents to send us one dollar. Yeah, that's awesome. I love I love it when people get their money and they take it away from people it doesn't belong to. That's great.

And the fact that I don't have to take it myself. I'm not Robin Hood, but the fact that I could help you be around Robin hood is great that Jill and I could do that for you. Guest, take what's rightfully yours. Yes, we've had so many people respond saying, yeah, I looked up with the state and turns out I had some money sitting there. Yeah, everyone should go. That was from our friend Lisa Rowan from the Money Hacks episode, and everyone should go buy her book Money Hacks as

a thank you. Like use everybody who's found money should just take part of their found money to buy Money Hacks by Lisa Rowan's amazing. She does not pay me to say that. I just And also this canceling of if I'm understanding correctly, accidental insurance. You still have the term life insurance, but you recognize you didn't need this portion of it, and now that's money back into your account, which is fantastic, And it's so funny. We don't listen to these before, like this is the first time we

heard that. We just mentioned how great term life insurance is. So thank you for for validating that and not embarrassing us as well. If you all listening, want to submit your bill of the week, visit Frugal Friends podcast dot com, slash bill leave us your bill. If it's a bubble bill, we love those. If it's a person, we love those. If it's found money, we love that too. What of them is? Just leave it for us. We love it. If you like it, we like it. And now it's

time for we went more fun with that. Yeah, I mean, I'm having a good time. I'm on that high from that Bill of the week. I love it. I'm so pleased. So today we are going to share our one year financial goals. How's that sound? Chill? It sounds great. You love this, you love it too much? Well. So one of the really cool things about the membership for me personally, because as we all know, we do this podcast and we do our membership for ourselves because it helps us.

And I do this podcast because I just want to hang out with you more. Jen. Yeah, we are selfish. We we did this within our membership with our members of creating various goals and holding each other accountable to create these goals. I'm not necessarily like a goal oriented person. That sounds kind of funny. I'm an achiever, but just kind of whatever is right in front of me, like I'll just work hard, at it and achieve it. I'm not necessarily thinking five years down the road, what do

I want to do? Anyhow, it has been really helpful to get my brain and body working in this kind of way. I am a calendar year type of goal setter, so this question is hitting at the halfway mark for us in or in the summer, and so for me, I'm evaluating what I kind of said at the beginning of the year, which for me, my main one year financial goal and one of the things that you challenged us with in the membership jen was that that one year financial goal be something that you can do with money.

That and I'm probably butchering it, so so correct me if I'm wrong. But my recollection is what can you do that in doing that thing helps to create more money. That's my summary of it. So for me Eric and I, having bought the house that we live in two years ago, one of the things that I've been wanting to do with it is to create an airbnb to bring in more money, but I want to cash flow the renovation portion.

So this is a goal for me. Of course, it was a vision that I had when we bought the house, but there's a lot of other things that we had to do SOO was cash flow the Airbnb renovation, so that when that's done, it can be a stream of income for us, an additional stream of income. This is the one year goal. We're halfway through. We have hit many barriers, so there's a part of me this is very vulnerable to share because I don't know if this goal is going to be accomplished by the end of

the year. You can check back in. I don't know, but I think that that's what makes it a goal is it feels like a little bit outside of reach for us. Some some barriers that are outside of our control. We have hit, mainly with permitting, but that's okay. We will persevere. But my my hope is for that to happen. And so far, so far, we're doing well. We are

cash flowing it. I just really hope that it doesn't go beyond the ear because I'd love to allocate then the money that we had been allocating to renovations into some investments. But slowly but surely, it doesn't. It doesn't happen overnight, and it has not been for lack of trying. You have been trying, like a twenty ft long by three ft deep trench across our entire house. I got real buff in that one. Then that trench is just decoration.

The trench is still there, all of the dirt and say and I dug out now has grass growing on it. And we are just a despicable neighbor to have right now. But I'm working on it. If any of my neighbors listening to my podcasts, it's not her fault, it's the city. Yeah. So yeah, so we also that. I mean, so our one year goal last year was to buy an investment property, and we did that. We completed that in May, and

now well we did a workaround. We moved and then turned our old house to an investment property because that's what we had to do because we don't have just four dollars sitting in the bank like other investors do. Uh. So that happened, and so now our one year goal is to finish the renovations for for this year, finished renovations on the rental side of our new property, because we are turning part of it into an airbnb or

maybe a mid term rental. We'll see. So that is the goal for the rest of twenty twenty two is to finish that and uh, check again, we got we got high home December of this year, we'll have to Yeah, we'll have to share in December what we finished on our renovations if we are able to rent out the rentals. Have a feeling tail between my legs. At least we're not doing anything that requires digging or permits or anything. So it is really all on us. I will I

will say, well, this isn't I know. We talked about like focusing on one thing, but this was a very easy thing to do. But I did get Erica roth Ira for those of you who were wondering that it happen, and now that's on autopilot and I had hoped for that to happen in so one thing's accomplished. And Jill did that all on her own. I was not there. She told me about that. Actually, we were on a call with our membership when she told everyone. I was like, what I didn't by myself. Yeah, I'm an old dog

can learn new tricks. And that's true, but it worked for me. It's impressive because you set up a roth Ira like maybe once or twice in your life, so like every time I help somebody set up a roth Ira. I have forgotten how did you? Because I'm not doing this every day, so I kind of want you to check it for me. I still am like, I think I need to bring my computer over and we need to check and make sure that I actually did it. Yeah, I will, I will check for you than um. But yeah, okay,

renovations rental both of us where we're at. That's where we're at. You guys keep us accountable. They will, you know, they will. Thank you everyone for listening and for keeping us accountable. We are sharing, we've we've put it out there now, so shop shops, bad Snip Snap podcast, it's out there. You can't change this. Once Christian edits it, it's there. And many of you know that we have a private community who also keeps us accountable. We got it coming at us at all angles, and we do

monthly monthly money challenges which is really fun. Again accountability groups, so not just accountability for us, but accountability for each other. We we share the wealth there and we want to congratulate one of our members for a big win. Christie kW shared with us that she just completed well, she says, just completed my graduate Certificate of advanced studies and educational technology and new literacies. We got some some accomplished people. Yeah,

it's fifteen credit hours b on my masters. I was able to cash flow taking one classes semester for the past year and a half, and we'll use what I learned in my current job. It will also help me in my side hustle of online tutoring. And because I make a little more money for every three credit hours of classes I take, will increase my final average salary when I retire in six years. Hashtag still got it do Christie six years away from retirement and still just

crushing it. Learn and learn a new thing. That is definitely early retirement, Christie. Christie is not. You don't know that's going to be early retirement. Oh my gosh, awesome, Christie. Yeah, Thank you everyone for listening. If you want to check out our monthly challenge community, head to Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash club to see what challenge we have coming up next. Love to see you there, We'll see you next time. By Frugal Friends is produced by Experiality Jill.

How is the permitting going? Um? Oh? Jen It's Eric has gone in person multiple times to the permitting office and gets different answers ericas I've not gone with him. I feel like I kind of want to at this point, just so it can be a family affair. Oh my gosh, they essentially messed up the permitting. I don't want to go into too many details because well, we don't have time for it, and maybe other reasons, but essentially they filed the wrong permits and now they have no record

of it. Goodness, one part of it is done and paid for, Like we paid three hundred four hundred dollars dred something like that, and we're like, well, but where are these permits and they're like, oh, you don't have those. We must have filed it under this other permitting thing. It's just like there's only so much capacity and emotional energy that we have for this part of the process. I will say, the actual labor of the renovation seems totally doable. I just can't wait till we can pick

up a hammer again. Oh and also Eric did try and do some work that he could do without the permit, uh and sliced his finger with the chop saw. He like finally worked himself up to hey, I could do like these things and that would be fine before inspection. Uh ten minutes over in the Airbnb side of the house and slices his finger with the chop saw. Like we were debating do we need to go to the hospital. We decided not to because you know us um do as we say, not as we do. We super glut

it and it worked. I ran to the store and got him a finger splint and super glued it and it's healing up great. So he's all right, well glad, right, Oh my goodness, we will. I wish we could hold the city accountable, but I guess we can't do that. But wishing you perseverance and cocktails to survive. It's all you need. It's the secret. Mm hmm