Modifying the Baby Steps with Merilee of Easy Budget

this is a show with a guest on it. Yeah, and uh, we are excited to welcome back Merrily. She doesn't know she's being welcome back, but here she is. She'll probably find out one way or another. Talking about how her family modified Dave Ramsey's Baby Steps to become debt free and how you can make some similar changes, um,

and make your debt free journey your own. Yeah, it was a great episode, um, and I think again spread this message of freedom within our financial journey, that it doesn't have to be so black and white, but we can find a way that works for us with our budget and the way that we make money with how much money we make so, Yeah, I'm excited to replay

this one. Yeah. But before we get into our sponsors and the episode, we just wanted to take this time to give a little public disclaimer about what we believe Frugal Friends is about and how we believe that that's super relevant for what you may be experiencing in your

online lives right now. And so if you've been listening to the show for any length of time, you know that we're very passionate about it's not enough to just know what to do with your finances, but you actually have to put it into action, um, to actually do it. So it's not enough to know that you shouldn't be getting Starbucks every morning, but you actually have to take

the effort to start making your coffee at home. It's not enough to know always should start investing, I should start doing that one day, but you actually have to take the steps to become informed and to take chances to maybe do some things wrong, but to take steps in the right direction. Um. And so we have felt over the past several weeks UM looking at our black brothers and sisters in the personal finance community and realizing that knowing that their voices are are powerful and heard,

are important. Is not enough and that we have not done enough to UM to amplify their voices on the platform that we have UM. And so we just want to admit dropping the ball on that and and to admit and to say that we'll do better in the future, and just saying it is not enough, but to put action to it. And this is one of the actions that we hope to be engaging in in our personal lives as well as in our professional lives. Yeah, it's

been a real UM soul searching time for me. I know we've talked a lot about this as well and kind of what what is this require of us for the platform that we do have, and this is one of the ways and also encouraging all of us to put our money where our mouth is too that we can be supporting our black brothers and sisters in their endeavors with our money, with our voices, with our support

and so that's yeah, that's my desire. Yeah, because we have a podcast, but you have a platform as well, and so I hope that UM this episode empowers you to take what you have and do with it what you can. And we have another episode coming up that I'm really excited about recording that I hope will also empower you to do what you can with your quote unquote platform UM, so to not just know um, but

to to do. And now our sponsors and first sponsors, our sponsors, let's forget it, you know we don't have sponsors. Let's get into the interview. H merely so great to have you on the podcast, and really excited to talk about some of your debt payoff journey. We are a little bit long overdue to talk about this on the podcast, so I'm sure a lot of our listeners are going to be super soaked to hear about your journey. So

let's start at the beginning. I mean, not like the real beginning, not like birth, unless that's where it starts, but when you came out of them that yeah, like, oh man, I gotta get going on this thing. I don't know, maybe, but tell us give us some background, like when and how did your debt free journey start? Yeah, so my husband and I had both been graduated from college. I had been graduated for a couple of years and

my husband had been graduated for about eight months. And the thing that really got us kind of kicked into gear was that I reread The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey. So that's a book that I had read several years before when I was a freshman in college. Um, but then I didn't have any debt then, and so I just didn't think much of it. So I reread it, and Um, what happened was we had a credit card

and we were paying it off every month. But there was one month where my husband purchased something that was too expensive for us to pay off that month, and oh man, I hated how it felt. It felt so so wrong, and so I reread The Total Money Makeover and just went crazy. I just I didn't like how it felt. I knew we had all these student loans that that we had carried with us from college, and so that was the real event that kind us kind of kicked into gear and started our git free journey.

So within a few weeks after that, we were making payments on our debt, on our debt, extra payments. Wow, was your husband on board right away or did that take some convincing. I think he was on board pretty quickly. He and I were different in approach to money. And hopefully I'll get to talk about that a little bit later. But he's much more entrepreneurial in the way that he thinks, and he's much more liberal with the way he handles

money and the risks he's willing to take. But he did read the Total Money Makeover as well and agreed with me that we should get the student loans gone and so um, he did read it get on board, and he kind of allowed me to take the reins and start making extra payments in doing the budget. He was happy to see me doing something other than just spending our money, so he was he was pretty on board. That's a pretty cool place to start in having the

common ground of having read a book. I think that that's there's probably some good tips and wisdom in doing that that you have a common framework to be discussing and then launch from. Is that how you found that to be or is that a recommendation that you would have for people? What do you think on that? Absolutely, if you can get your spouse to read book or read that book, and then I think that that's a

terrific place to start. My husband is frequently suggesting books for me to read that you know, investment books or um, all all types of things that he wants me to understand where he's coming from. So I think that's very very useful if you can get your spouse, sorce significant other two to read a book to get on board. Yeah, the Total Money Makeover was how we got on board together.

And my husband is not a big reader. But The Total Money Makeover is written in a way where it's um got stories sprinkled in and it's more visual, so it's really you don't have to read the whole thing like a novel, um to get the big pictures. So that was really helpful for him. So yeah, I totally agree with that. Or there's audio books or podcasts, yeah, plug plug ourselves. Yeah, there's all sorts of resources. I

think I actually read it on my phone. Um, there's like an app where you can read free books online, and so I think I actually reread it on my phone, and then I purchased the paperback copy for my husband to read. It doesn't really matter how you access the information as long as you access it, so exactly. Yeah, we talked about in our library episode. Apps Libby and hoop La have a ton of e books and audio books. Um,

so I'm sure you can find it on one of those. Uh. But going back, so you mentioned your approaches to money, Um, they were different. Uh. Expound on that a little. So I would consider myself, um, neither a spender nor a saver or him. I can't really say that either one of us is strongly one of the other. We're both kind of both. But my husband is just so risk tolerant. He will put anything out on the line, and he

believes in himself. He's a really hard worker, he's really smart, but he just has a very high tolerance for risks. So he's willing to do things with our money that I'm not. And I feel like I'm much more conservative, so I would rather be putting our money. Let me give an example. I'm much more conservative. It's hard for me to take risks. It's hard for me to try new things. It's hard. It would be hard for me

to start a business. Um. So for an example, I would, you know, at first thought, put our money in a four one K because to me, that feels safe. For him, that does not feel safe. He does not like that. He would much rather invested in a business, invested in himself, something that he creates, and that feels very risky. For me, and so one or the other may or may not be better. It depends on kind of who you are, but we just have really different risk tolerance when it

comes to what we do with our money. Wow, I really like the way that you're describing that, that it's not like, oh, ones than you just said one is not necessarily better than the other. That like, this is how he is. He's risk toler and he's entrepreneurial. You are more conservative, he's more liberal. And I think it's really dignifying to not place like a good or bad on either one, but just to recognize this is where we both are. And so yeah, probably Jen, you had

a question about how how do you negotiate that? Yeah, it's I mean, because it is great because it's hard for one the person on one side to see the point of view of the person on the other side. So I'm really interested to how you guys got to this mindset. It's very tricky and we're still navigating it. I think we'll be navigating it in our entire lives. But what it comes down to is that we have

to find some kind of compromise. So we recently purchased a home and it was very important to me to have a kind of a beefed up emergency fund since we had that home. He doesn't care about that. He's he's totally fine with taking that money and investing it in in business ideas and investing in real estate and things like that. Lots. He has a lot of great ideas. But for me, that feels safe, and he respects that,

so he's allowing me to do that. But now we have this other big chunk of money, and I'm I said him, I would rather take this money and put it in a four oh one K, But I respect you and your opinions and beliefs and desires. So we're gonna take that big chunk of money and it's yours, do you know, put it where you think you can do the best with whatever investment or idea that you have. So we we have to both allow each other to take chances and to take risks and to do with

whatever chunk of money we think is best. And that's what we're trying to do right now. But I think it will be always I think it will always be, you know, trying to compromise with each other about that, And there's foundational things of respect and believing the best in each other that are coming out in those decisions. You know, and as we talk about and harp on episode after episode, it's not just about money. It brings out other value systems and how we relate and all

these things. So yeah, for you, I see a lot of this respect for one another even in finances coming out in this which is amazing. That compromise, recognizing that it's going to be a lifelong journey and it's not just discovered. And here's the magic thing that you implement when you've got these two people coming together with their finances. So it's really helpful. And I should also add that

that is not always so easy and simple. Sometimes there's disagreements, and sometimes it takes us weeks or there's a standoff on what to do with money. It's it's really not so simple and so cut and dry. But we're trying to work through it. So that's what we'll always be, just trying to work through it and and solve each problem as we come to it. And I hope that we can balance each other out. YEA, even in a depth free journey where you're trying to pay offfe fast,

it's worth it. To take the time to figure these things out because I mean a marriage and a life and money in general, those are lifelong things. Paying off debt doesn't last forever. So yeah, I agree, yeah, but it also makes me think up so, like over this time, kind of what struggles have you faced um and like overcome? So in regards to this specific issue, like how we just have seen money differently kind of thing. Anything, I feel like that would be a big source of it,

but obviously doesn't have to be. Yeah, that has been a big thing. I think a few months ago we kind of got to this place where we were paying off debt really rapidly, very intensely, and we kind of got to this place where we wanted to re evaluate, and so then it became this. Now it's a constant discussion every time we have extra money what we're gonna do with it. Whereas a year ago or two years ago, when we were really rapidly paying off debt, it wasn't

a discussion we put it towards debt. Period. Now, every time there's extra money, it's is it going to the emergency fund? Is it going to debt? Are we going to buy plane tickets with it? To visit family. Are we going to put it towards a rental house? Are

we gonna invest in a form one K? So now there has to be a lot more communication, and that's been a struggle that we've had for the last few months, is trying to figure out what to do with that money since there isn't a super clear, one single goal that we're working on right now. Yeah, because you're a single income family for the most part, right correct. Yeah, And that's so true about the ongoing financial journey that that we're talking about in this that yes, there's debt payoff,

but then what happens after that? And you can be so singularly focused on one thing, but then when there are more options, Holway smokes, there's a whole lot more to talk about and need to compromise on and be on the same page with. And yeah, there's always new challenges and barriers. Isn't that exciting? Yes, exactly. But honestly,

we're not done paying off our debt. So when over the course of about eighteen months, we paid off about fifty thou dollars and now we for the last six months have slowed down quite a bit, and we had eighteen thousand dollars left all student loans and over that time, the last six months is when we've had to make all those decisions on But that's what life after debt is like. To after that last eight thou dollars is gone, that's what it's going to be like for the rest

of our lives. Is what are we gonna do with this money? So yeah, I remember we did not prepare well enough when we were paying off our debt for that time to come. We stayed laser focused um in our heads in the stand for two years um. And it was great because we you know, paid it off so fast, but we didn't plan what was coming after it until maybe like a few weeks before we became debt free, and then Hurricane Irma comes through and yeah, and and all of this stuff, and we were just

very unprepared. Yeah. So I mean it's it's not like I would, you know, recommend against what we were doing. But I love the way that your perspective is on it. Yeah. So you've paid off a ton of debt, you have eighteen thousand left to go, and is this correct to see on Instagram that you've got a goal of having that gone in two thousand nineteen. For sure, we have to be able to do in I know we can. And how how many years have you been putting towards it?

So far you've paid off fifty and how long it's been almost exactly two years. So we started January. Dang, you guys are going hard at that. Yeah, and almost all of that was in the first eighteen months, and so we really have paused quite a bit in the last six months. But we've also come a long way in the last six months. We've and you know, we purchased a home, so we've put equity into a home and some other things like that. So well, I think

that that's encouraging for for people to hear. For me, at least it is, and I'm sure for our listeners that you are doing this, but you're doing it your own way. You're making modifications along the way, You're doing what works for you. You're compromising with your husband, who comes at finances a completely different way. Let's talk about

some of those modifications. It sounds like you are somewhat basing this debt payoff journey and other financial things on the Dave Ramsey like baby steps, but also that there's some modifications. Can you tell us like what those are and and and are you happy with some of those choices that you've made. Absolutely, So we started Dave Ramsey and we started that in January. And I was really a purist. That's just kind of the personality that I have.

So for about eighteen months, we were paying off a ton like three thousand a month or something like that towards dead and being really gazelle intense. And that was mainly on a single income. I do have a small side income, but that was was not really a significant part of it. So for the first eighteen months, super

gazelle intense. And then what happened was I started branching out in what kind of financial information I was taking in, So I started listening to other podcasts, I started reading books, so I started reading other financial books. A couple that I read were Jail Collins Simple Path to Wealth Favorite that's a good one, and Smart Couples Finished Rich by

David Bach. And one thing that I realized was that while I loved Dave Ramsey's philosophy, and I realized that he has this brand that he's selling and he has to stick to his brand even if there's some things that maybe wouldn't be the best for all types of people, like my husband, for example, who doesn't want to work until he's six d five at his current career. So I realized that there's all these other people out there

that have been really successful with money. Why am I only listening to one person or why am I only following one person? So after that I talked to my husband and he was like, well, I totally agree. I would like to do some other things. And so one of the first things we started with is contributing to our four oh one k again. So we had um stopped paying into our four oh one k, stopped receiving my husband's company match, and we were giving up free money.

And you know, it felt right when we were doing it at the time, and I actually don't regret that year or year and a half that we didn't do it. But we started paying into the four one k again and getting our match. Um. That was one of the first things we did, and then kind of some other things snowballed from there. We we made a move and a career change, and we decided to purchase a home when we moved, and it was absolutely the right decision for our family. We didn't want to be renting again.

Renting was expensive here. Um, we were going to have the cash that it took to pay a down payment, and so it was the right move for our family. So a couple of a couple of things like that, and then, um, you know, we have a larger emergency fund than Dave Ramsey would recommend. We're almost at six thousand dollars. That's to help if anything happens with our home, and that just feels right for us. So those were kind of some of the main things that we changed.

But um, you know Dave Ramsey's baby steps, they're amazing, and I still say I'm on baby step too, because it's the right framework. You know, it's the right framework. But we don't we don't want to retire when we're sixty five years old, and so we have to we have to work a little bit of a different plan, our own plan. Yeah, it's cool to here you say that you saw value in sticking laser focus to one thing, but then once you got comfortable with that, saying, hey,

there can be more voices in this pot. I can decide for myself. There's freedom in this holy smokes. What a novel concept. Yeah, it's it's amazing that journey. I hear a lot of people branching off of the emergency fund thing, and I think that's why we all have to decide for ourselves. What is that going to look like? I mean, I remember when I was newly married at twenty two and I took a Dave Ramsey course and I heard thousand dollar emergency fund. I was like, heck, yeah,

I can do that. Like it was encouraging for me that, like, oh I can do this baby step, like yeah, that's that's amazing. And now I'm like, that's not realistic, like expensive pop up that are far more than a grand like I need more than that. So it's good for certain people in certain stages of life, but you've got to take into consideration what does your life look like, how many kids do you have, where do you live, how do you get to work all these things? So

thanks totally exactly. Yeah, And I see unfortunately, like in Facebook groups and Instagram, like, I see a lot of like baby steps shaming, and it's so sad because and what is baby step? It's people when they're deviating off the baby steps, um like the purest will will shame them and like make them feel bad for deviating from the plan, because that's another sham where the people are trolling Jill. But but yeah, so Dave's really adamant about working the plan as it is written. And yeah, exactly

what you said, merrily. He's got a brand to run and it's so large he cannot afford to have stipulations to every single baby step. So like, I have always understood why he does it. But I also deviated from some of those baby steps. I just wasn't like vocal about it because I can't. I can't be shamed. I'm not strong enough exactly exactly those shamers. Man, just freedom is better. So and if you have ever been shamed for being vocally like deviant from a baby step, like

know that that you're okay. Like there are a ton of people out there and they get started with the baby steps and they do them and then they find other things that suit them better and they do just fine. Yeah, yeah, I really have perceived a lot of flak. I think it. Maybe it's just the way I word my posts. I'm a very like peacemaker type person, like confrontation, So maybe when I'm sharing on Instagram, I'm just, you know, not as um assertive as some people are. But I really

haven't gotten any mean feedback. I've gotten nothing but support. So I'm so hard sweetheart on Instagram, like nobody, nobody should humanly be able to shame you, so sweet. So You've got your kids up there and all of your encouragement. It's if you have an Instagram, you should definitely follow easy underscore budget mm hmm, so good. It's fun stuff. I love sharing our journey. It's been good for me.

Lots of good tips on there too. Yes, So this process is taking quite a long time for you, and there have been months where you haven't made like any debt payment, which I know that I would feel like super discouraged. How do you stay motivated through this? And

how do you plan to stay motivated through two thousand nineteen? Yeah, I am a very black and white thinker type of person, and so once I've set my mind on a goal, I can't let go of it, even you know, even if it's not good anymore, I still hang on to It's just kind of how I am. And so I'm really motivated to get the debt paid off. It's it's such a concrete goal, and I think it's so important.

And so back when we were talking about deviating from Dave Ramsey's baby Steps, I think the best way to go is to finish baby step two and then kind of just fly free, little bird, you know. And so I really want to finish that baby step two because I think getting rid of the debt is the perfect foundation to then figure out your financial future. So I'm still really motivated to get that debt gone. And my husband still is too, even though he has other ideas

that are floating around in his mind. So on those months when we don't pay off anything, it really stinks. But we only do that when we have something else that's really important to do. So we're buying plane tickets to go visit our family for Christmas, that's the easy decision, you know. Or we're taking a little bit of money to invest in one of my husband's businesses. It's important for him to have the freedom to do that. He has a creative mind and if he I can't stifle him,

that's that right, you know. And so the things that were replacing the debt payment with are very important. We're not just like spending too much money. You know, it's not just a crappy month because we spent way too much and we didn't think about it. It's it's a no debt payment month because we had something else that was really important to do, an active decision making process, not just whoops, how did that happen? But oh, yeah, no,

we planned for this. Which speaking of that, can you talk to us a little bit about how you budget how often? What does that look like? Oh? Yes, I love my budget, so I everybody says that, But seriously, if you don't feel that way about your budget, it's just because you haven't reached that threshold yet. I used to feel that way to like it's like you're in the end. Yeah. Really, Um. We we had two kids when we were still in college, so I am I

had graduated in college, but my husband hadn't yet. So we were really, really poor. And I tried budgeting so

many different ways. I tried writing it down on an envelope, I tried tracking, and nothing stuck until that moment, you know, when I reread the Total Money makeover and my husband bought something on the credit card that we couldn't afford, and we got really gazelle intense, and I learned about zero based budgeting, which is where you track every single dollar coming in and every single dollar going out every month.

That clicked for me so well. I had done just you know, lazy budgeting before, where I I was keeping track of the things that I purchased, but it wasn't zero based. So once I learned a zero based budget, I made a spreadsheet on Excel where I tracked every single dollar that comes in, every single dollar that's going out, and I make a column where I list what I've planned and budgeted for, and then a column where I

list what I actually spent. And then I sit down about once a week and I reconcile it to make sure that everything on my bank account matches on what's on my budget. And I always sit down before we get paid, and I'm just keeping track of it regularly. Otherwise I get lost and confused if I don't sit down that often. So that has worked so well for us. That's amazing, Merrily, and it's so cool to hear your

enthusiasm because it excites me. But I noticed that on Instagram that you that you budget weekly, and that's part of the reason for my question because I haven't heard that before. I hear people say monthly. If that so, can you talk to us a little bit bitut, how did you choose weekly? How did that come about? Do you like that? It sounds like you like that. Yeah, So I actually my budget is actually based per pay period.

So I have like a little budget for all the money that we get the first time we get paid in the month, and then a little budget for all the money that we get paid a second. But I actually sit down and reconcile it every week, so I'm not actually like creating a new budget every week. I'm just sitting down to make sure everything is squared away

once a week. If I do it less than that, like once a month or every two weeks, there's so many charges coming in and out that I just get lost and confused and I forget what certain things were, and it just messes up the whole thing. I can't zero it out, so I sit down every week to reconcile it to make sure that I can get it zeroed out, no where every penny went, and stay on top of it. Wow. I'm glad you mentioned that, because monthly budgeting can be overwhelming and people. That's the first

type of budgeting people try. But budgeting per paycheck UM or budgeting weekly or even just reconciling weekly is a really great idea for starting and maintaining your budget. It's much less overwhelming to track transactions once a week than once a month. And I'd say budgeting per paycheck is the smartest thing because that's when the money is actually coming in, and then you need to budget where it's

actually going. So yeah, I agree to degrees. This can still work for people who who do own their own businesses or aren't receiving those regular paychecks month the month. You can still forecast what you anticipate to be making based off of what jobs you have, what clients you have lined up. However that looks um Yeah, because that's how I do it. I agree. I also like the reconciling idea. Thanks for sharing that. That's a really easy,

I mean way to stay on top of it. It may it may not work for everybody, but we love options. Keep throwing up options because there is freedom in this process. Yes, yes, you know what I love even more than zero based budgeting, Jill, But I don't love it more than freedom. But it's still really great. Freedom, definitely better, But like second best is the bill of the week. 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 bills, Buffalo bills, bill claim. This is the bill of the week. Merely every week we have a listener who shares with us their favorite bill of the week, and as a guest on the show, we'd like to invite you to

share your bill. So I'm a busy mom. I have a four year old and a three year old, and I'm pregnant with our third working Yes, I'm working husband, and so by far, my favorite bill is our fourteen dollars in six cents that we pay every month for Amazon Prime. Because I do not like going out and going shopping. I order everything I can online and get it shipped to my door so I don't have to bring my screaming children out in public. Yeah, the freedom

of shopping at home. Yes, that's the best. I need it. I'm never giving it up. Yeah, I think Prime was made Her mom's like what's the weirdest that you get through Amazon Prime? Oh my gosh. Well, there's this little thing called tinkle razors, and I use them to shave the little peach fuzz off my face. If you don't have you need them. Okay, I'm blonde and I have like blonde peach fuzz on my face. So it's not like a mustache or anything. But they're these little tiny razors.

They're called tinkle. I mean, how weird is that? Like that's a good name. Okay, all tinkle. You're not just googling maybe you know. I saw it through um an instagrammer actually a girl named Michelle Money, and she's just like a beauty Instagram or whatever, and she just shared the hack and you just use it to like scrape the peach us off anyway. Face is amazing. It's not furrier and and so that's the best thing I get

through Amazon. They're like five dollars every six months, and you don't have to buy them in the store and be seen with tinkle razors. If I'm going to get a virus on my computer if I look up tinkle razors, I have concerned I'll have to or something. We don't shut down. Hey, you asked, you all got a weird Yeah, you were right on it. You didn't skip a beat. Yeah, girl, that's not even the weirdest thing we've heard on Bill of the Week. So this thanks for sharing that. I'm

really glad that Amazon Prime exists for you, Merrily. It sounds fantastic. If you want to submit your Bill of the week, um, if you also love Amazon Prime, or you just want to call and say who do believe? Visit Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash bill. Currently our Bill the Week tank is empty because we've inserted all of them into different episodes, so you could hear yours real soon. So definitely Frugal Friends Podcast dot com slash bill.

Leave us a voicemail right there, boom, let's dive back in, Merrily lightning Around. It's not we don't we don't do those, Okay, lightning around? Just one question very soon, and it doesn't need to be don't understand, I don't know. I just like, I just want to say, can you tell us a little bit about some side hustles? Fir stay at home moms? Is that something you engage in? Do you have thoughts

on this? Ideas? Tips, what you got. Yes, So I've almost always contributed to our finances in some way because honestly, when you're a single income family, any bit of second income makes a difference. You know, two hundred five hundred thousand dollars, all of that makes a huge difference for your family. That's your grocery money, or your fun money, or your gas money or whatever. So I was working at a full time job when my first son was born. Then after I quit to be a stay at home mom,

I started nannying. That was one thing I did, so I brought my little guy with me and I worked for a family who just needed help with their son in the summer and for after school care, and they made pretty good money doing that. Then when my second daughter was born, I started working for an appraisal company and I worked from home and I just basically did paperwork and UM assess the appraisals after a home appraiser

was finished. And I did that for two years and I made probably about five D eight hundred dollars a month doing that, and that was just on the workload that I took on. And then UM, I started doing easy budget so you know, I UM will talk more about that later, probably by I run my little X shop and that was bringing in money too. It still is, and so I've always contributed just doing all these little things, and every little dollar that's brought in helps my family immensely.

So my thing that I would recommend to moms, especially stay at home moms, if you're looking for a job, is to be creative and ask around. The way that I got that little appraisal job, which was awesome, was through a friend and it was just a random little side job that only a couple of people would would hear about by word of mouth. But ask around on Facebook. Let people know that you're looking for something from home,

and you'll be surprised what you can find. There are lots some jobs that you can do from home now, and you know, word of mouth is the best way to find those little gems. That's great. Can you talk a little bit about how doable, how feasible, how reasonable is it for you to do some of these side things at at home? Yeah, that's nice. It provides some flexibility,

but you're still working. So what does that look like when you've got two kids like to almost like pretty much toddlers, and then growing another human inside of you, which I'm sure it takes energy. How how reasonable is it to be like, yeah, and I'm also going to throw on more work on myself. Yeah, because I hear that's like the biggest When I talked to two moms, that's their biggest hold up is like, but I'm going

to still exists. Yeah. Absolutely. It's very tricky. So one of the reasons that I quit the appraisal job I was doing and just switched to easy budget was because I was only able to do that job during naptime. It required calling people for something for a short interview. Can only do it during naptime, and it was really stressful. I had to get my kids done for a nap that day or I couldn't do my job, and it

was really really hard. So I think you've really nailed it on the head that it's tricky and it's not going to be for every mom. So you need to find something that you can do and spare time if you want to do anything at all, or you know, it just depends on the mom. Some moms are twiddling their thumbs and wasting time on social media. I do

that a lot, and they have time. They have time and they need and they want to be productive and they want to feel like they're contributing, and they want to use this creative energy that they have, And a side hustle is perfect for that kind of mom. If you're a mom that's barely keeping your head above water and you've got one or a bunch of little kids around and and you're just you know, you can't fathom having a side hustle, it's not for you. What you

do is plenty, it's enough. It's very important. Kids need attention, they need time, they need love, and that's plenty. So just depends on what my mom, you are, season of life you're in again. Freedom. Something that comes to mind for me here is that there's different seasons and there is different capacity. Some people do have capacity for a lot in their life more than others. Okay, so that's

like on the table, but also different seasons. So I'm sure that once this third child comes into this world, like, that's gonna make some shifts for you and and for others. You know, it's different when your kids are at her home versus when they're in school and all of these things. So just yeah, I mean again, freedom, freedom for everybody but like for moms too, because I know that this can be like, well what is other moms doing and why can't I do enough? And why can't I do?

So this is just offering options. But yeah, the different seasons and the different capacities is a really big thing here. And what you said that if this is, this may not be for everybody, So don't feel like you're listening to this and that there's more pressure or shame to like take on something more. I totally agree. You know, most of what I was doing was out of necessity. When we were those first couple of side hustles. We we were so poor. We were in college and my

husband couldn't work, he was an engineering major. We needed money or we weren't going to eat, and so that's how desperate it was. Now it's less desperate, much more flexible. So the seasons they make a huge difference in what you're capable of doing. I totally agree. Yeah, there's this Instagram post running around that says women are expected to work like they don't have children and raised children like they don't have jobs. Yes, and totally true. It's yeah,

like you don't have to do both. There's there's grace and freedom. So I love your perspective on that. I hope all moms here that and just realize, like where you are right now is okay, and if you want to be somewhere else, then you can do that. But if you can't, don't feel pressured to, don't feel guilt. Find what works for you, and what works for you may change next month and then okay, so merely tell us about easy budget and you're etsy story. You got

some cool stuff in there. Yeah. So when we started a debt free journey, we realized that I was a very end driven person, so I needed to know when our debt was going to be paid off or I couldn't even start this thing. So my husband, he's a genius, he's an engineer. He's like, I can whip up a calculator spreadsheet that can calculate our debt path and I was like, okay, sure, So he did and it was amazing, and we were able to plug in all of the

extra debt payments that we wanted to make. We were able to plug in how much we wanted to pay towards that every month, and it would it told us when we would be debt free and that that end goal was so motivating for me. It's like I compare it to trying, you know, going out running and not knowing how far you're gonna run, or like running a marathon but you don't know if it's going to be thirty miles or ten miles. It makes a difference, you know. And so knowing the end made a huge difference for

for us. And so then my husband's like, hey, we can we can market this, like people need a product like this. There's nothing really good online that really works. I know, I know, he never he never stops you guys, He's he's a serial entrepreneur. So most very enjoy that life you've got. I Um, I started my Instagram where I basically just started sharing our journey and then I

started sharing the calculator too. And one of the reasons I decided to put it on etc. And charge people for it and not just make it a free resource was because, first of all, um side hustle. Second of all, I don't have a blog or anything. All I have is my Instagram, so I don't have affiliate income or anything like that. And because people really value what they paid for if you get something for free or you know it's free. You might never open it, you might

never look at it. You might spend one minute tinkering with it and then throw it away. You've paid for something, you value it, you want to use it, you want to make sure it works. And that's the kind of thing that I think helps people. So I think I've gotten more people to look at it, more people to use it, and actually help more people pay off their debt by by charging for it on my Etsy. Yeah,

and it's inexpensive for what it's providing. It's great. Yeah, it's only ten bucks, so very cheap, and it's just kind of a neat little tool to have in your armory when you're paying off debt. Yeah, fantastic. Yeah, So if you're serious about paying off your debt and you need a good debt snowball calculator, we will have Merrily's Etsy store link in our show notes and definitely go pick that up. Yeah, you can find us easy Budget on Etsy and easy Underscore Budget on Instagram too. Yes,

definitely check both of those out. And thanks so much Merrily for hanging out with us. This has been super fun and enlightening and I've I've loved it and incur. Yeah, you guys are fun. I need to do this more often. It's just fun to have somebody to talk to. You're welcome to do it is you know, kids are in bad it's fun. It is fun. This has been great. Thanks so much for having me on you guys. Thanks for joining us Merrily. Thank you so much for listening

to our interview with Merrily. I hope you if you didn't catch it the first time, that you got something out of it. And if you did that, maybe you took away something new and uh yeah, that's yeah, Yeah, that's what there's to say. That's what I have to say about that. We also want to continue thinking all of you who are listening to us, and for your kind kind reviews on iTunes and Stitcher like this one. This one's called Frugal and Fun and it comes from Mary.

She says, I love that Jen and Jill provide great advice about frugality in a fun and relatable way. I also love that they make a clear distinction between being frugal and being cheap. Great podcast for a woman in her late twenties who is trying to make smart choices with her finances. Mary so helpful. Mary to know who this podcast is great for, so others who are in their twenties can know they might get some good tips. Yeah, even though we're out of our twenties yaikes, but we can.

We can still talk to you we think about. We also want to thank our friends who shared these episodes on social media. So um, if you've been sharing on Facebook or Instagram and tagging us at Frugal Friends Podcasts, um send us a screenshot or just make sure we get it in our you know, in our social media tags, so you can be entered for a ten dollar Amazon gift card and keep leaving us your reviews on iTunes or Stitcher and screenshotting those reviews and emailing them to

Frugal Friends Podcasts at gmail dot com. Don't forget to tag us both ways enter you into our drawing for today Amazon gift car doesn't want that. We will see you next week with a really awesome episode. I'm sure you're sitting on the side of your seat in your car, just the side of it. The side of it. That's it by Frugal Friends is produced, edited and mixed by Eric Syria. Um, thank you for your assaults. Are earlier to get the stain out of my shirt. You are welcome.

It did get the stain out, mostly mostly Jen. Literally. I got raspberry vinaigrette salad dressing on my white white shirt, and Jen and very quickly offered me the very beverage she was currently drinking, which happened to be a Seltzer, which I guess could get stains out. I think poured it on my white shirt. I could be wrong, um, but I thought that that's no I like to happen. Club soda is often used to get stains out, and it's like, I get it, what your mind went to.

That's probably the same thing. Zero calorie, zero sweeter, though I am seeing like a bigger stain. It looks like a shadow. Yeah, I think. Well, it's all dried up. Now we're ready for a video on her next episode. Bye already