Episode three point thirty one, what to do with a windfall or unexpected money.
Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast, where you'll learn to save money, embrace simplicity, and live a life.
Here your hosts Jen and Jill. Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast. My name is Jen, my name is Jill, and today we are talking about windfalls, unexpected money like rebates or tax returns, or somebody left you some money, or you've won the lottery. Who knows, could be anything, but we're talking about what to do with that. And this was actually a request from your own Jillian Sirianni.
Here they're like, who's that. It's Jill, it's me, Hi, it's Jill. I had this thought, like what would we do. I've been having a lot of conversations. I have friends who are the generation above me, and they're experiencing death of loved ones, which is a difficult, painful process, losing
aunts and uncles and parents. And yet in the midst of those grieving processes, receiving money that has been left behind for them or some type of inheritance, and recognizing for my own self, what do you do with that? What do you need to consider? What would be the wise, most frugally stewardship way of managing that. But of course that's not the only way that we can come upon money, you know, a large gift, a bonus, like you said,
a tax return. So I think anytime we receive a large chunk of money, it's worth considering what's the best thing to do with this?
And this is definitely going to come up most often with tax returns. But I think it's important to also hit on the topic of talking with your parents about their finances so that you can be prepared for something like this, know if you should expect something or not, because that can be like on both sides of blindside, right, like you're expecting something and you realize nothing's coming, or you're not expecting something and something's coming and you feel
guilty about taking it or doing anything with it. You just don't know. So I know these particular episodes aren't directly related to Windfalls, but episode sixty two talking about your parents' finances with Cameron Huddleston, this is an episode that's very near and dear to my heart. Cameron Huddleston wrote a book about how to talk to your parents
about their finances. I'm actually in that book as like one of the stories, because you'll probably hear throughout this episode my experience with this maybe, and then episode two eighty five how your parents' finances affect you and what to do next. So if you are not sure if you're going to get something from your parents or you just don't know, definitely, episodes two eighty five and sixty two for sure want good ones to queue up. But this will also come a lot with the tax returns
and maybe unexpected money. I know that our episode with Lisa Rowan, I can't remember the number right now, but people they love that episode because of the tip of found money. So you'll have to listen to the episode to get the website because I'm drawing a blank on it right now. But people all the time email us and say that they have found money through the site. It is not a scam. It is awesome, So it could be stuff like that too. Definitely, those are two
good episodes to queue up. But before we get into this one, this episode is brought to you by opt in for text alerts. You know how stores will ask you to opt in for text alerts when they're doing like sales, and it could be any kind of text alerts, So the car wash can opt in, you can opt in for text alerts there, or the home depot outlet storing clear water can text you, or the thrift store can tell you it's National thrift Store Day. But you may not need to opt in for any of those
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Yeah, on the day that we're recording this, it is thrift Store Day, National.
Thrift Store National thrift Store Day.
And apparently the local thrift store texted you Jen letting you know that, but you already knew because you get the friend letter, and the friend Letter tells you it wrangles up all the deals that you could take advantage of, so it's a one stop shop. I highly recommend get that free newsletter. Okay, we're going to get into these articles. The first one comes from Forbes and is titled sixteen smart steps to take when you receive an unexpected financial windfall.
We're not going to go through all sixteen. We're going to pick three each, but I am going to start at the very end with number sixteen and take us backwards just to be fun, but also I do feel like this is a helpful blueprint for the rest of what we're talking about. I don't really understand why they put it at the very bottom, because they do think this sets the framework for how we should approach unexpected money. And so number sixteen is treat it the same way
as expected or earned money. So whatever windfall unexpected cash that you get, whether it's one thousand, ten thousand or more, treating it as if it was earned and expected. So they reference how impulse purchases can kind of come from this faulty mental accounting that found money doesn't really count, and we might be more apt to frivolously spend it and not really leverage it in a way that's going
to make a big difference for us financially. I think I would even add to this something that stood out to me as I read through this article is almost treating a windfall or an influx of cash like you would with the rest of your financial plan. So whatever it is that you are already focusing on doing, this boost of finances can be a help towards that direction. As far as the big picture financial goals that you may have, we'll definitely tease that out more as we
get through this. But I think our mentality going into it how we're approaching If it just feels like fun money, blow it on, whatever, then that's not going to be the best stewarding way of the cash, and we might not see a massive difference in our financial landscape as a result, versus if we treat it like Okay, I have to approach this like I approach my salary. I have to consider my overall financial goals alongside this additional money that has just been entrusted to me.
The second one for well, the first one for me, second one on the list that I like is actually number four, I'll let you have number one, Jill, I'll let you.
Have Jen because I'm just going to bounce bookends.
Yeah, some of these are repeated, which I don't like, but for the sake of word count, I guess that's what you do. But number four is really I think should maybe be. Number two is to set up an interest bearing account. So we often call these high yield savings accounts. It could be viewed as maybe an investment. If you already have an emergency fund, then you could if you wanted to put it in an investment, But I would really recommend opening a high yield savings account
just for this. Depending on the size of the windfall, open up a separate high yield savings account just for your windfall, so that you don't confuse it with the money that you have. Normally, you don't look at your bank account and see like, oh, I'm rich. You just keep it separate so that you can spend it wisely and it doesn't give you that false sense that this is regular money. Right now, we really like cit Bank.
It has I think about four point six y five ap y But really anything right now over four percent is going to be great. If your high heeled savings account is under four, you should really consider getting something else because a lot of the good ones are over four. Yeah, but yeah, that would be the first thing that I do is open it and have the wind fallse scent to that account so that you can sit it there and figure out what to do with it away from your regular spending and saving accounts.
While it's earning interest. And that's right, depending on the amount of money, that's just a significant amount that you're earning on that cash year over year as it's sitting there.
Yeah, it's not going to keep up with inflation as it is right now, but it will be a little bit of inflation. And if you have enough savings to where you feel good enough to actually put this in an investment account while you sit and wait to figure out what to do with it, something like M one
would be a really good choice. If you want like a kind of a roboadvisor or just a regular brokerage like a Fidelity or a Vanguard something like that, park it in an index fund up to you, But I think the hi old savings account really is the way to go. Frugal Friends podcast dot Com, slash c thank you.
Yeah, We have links for them in the show notes as well. Definitely, if you're considering it, click on that link first. Okay, I'm jumping back to number one because we like book ends, and that is I think should then be number three on this list. We're rearranging for Forbes. You're welcome. That's what we do on the show. Yeah, so spend a small percentage and invest the rest immediately. And so I would say, immediately you get the money, put it in a high yeld savings account, then you
can spend a small percentage. That's my tweak to this, but you will most likely have an impulse to buy something to treat yourself, to recognize and celebrate the reality that you've come upon additional money that maybe you weren't expecting, and that's exciting, and you should because I think complete deprivation is not going to do well for us in the long term. So they recommend that that small percentage
you spend be about ten to twenty percent. So whatever the amount is, consider what ten to twenty percent might be and take that to buy a gadget, go on a vacation, have a spa day, whatever it is that sounds really really nice to you. I've also heard some people who might have received the money as an inheritance from a deceased loved one, and they've considered what would be most honoring to them, what did they enjoy doing, what would they want to see me do with this
money to honor their memory. So I think that's another really beautiful way of kind of pairing the grief process with the reality that money has now been given and entrusted, like using that word rightly, And how can you honor them with their hard earned money that they've now chosen to pass to you, And the rest of it should be put into an investment account, should be saved in some regard where it can earn money as you go.
There's other tips that you could do, of course, if you've got debt and that kind of thing, we'll talk about that next. But the main point of this one is give yourself permission to spend a small percentage of it.
Yeah, this is the one I will take from you, Jill Is. The next on this list should be number seven. Pay down high interest debt. So investing is going to look different depending on where you are with your finances. If you have credit card debt, that's at twenty percent interest maybe more, then investing for you looks like paying
off that credit card debt. We just hit a milestone where there's over a trillion dollars of credit card debt, right, what a great milestone, and that the average family has about ten thousand dollars of credit card debt, and that is debt that needs to be gotten rid of. But I will caveat by saying another way to invest is by getting your emergency fund set. So if you don't have an emergency fund, and you pay off all your credit cards and you have an emergency, then you're going
back into credit card debt. So it behooves you to sit with twenty percent interest if you can get a small emergency fund, maybe it's just five hundred dollars maybe, and then pay off that debt and then get a larger emergency fund of one thousand or two thousand or whatever makes you feel safe. But I think that with something like this, it can skyrocket your progress to financial security.
If you take money that you don't usually get and you just put it towards your high interest debt, it's so free, but still saving ten percent of that for fun money, fun spending but I really think that if you have any credit card debt, really anything above ten percent interest. Most of the time we say anything above five percent, but interest rates right now are pretty high, So I will amend that to say ten percent, and anything above that should really be first priority.
And that emergency fund that you're working on can still sit in that high yield savings account.
Yes, and that should not be invested.
Frugal friendspodcast dot com, slash c Yes.
Your emergency fund should not be invested.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You want it to be liquid, you want to be able to pull it out, but yet still be able to earn some interest. So I'm now going to choose number five on this list, which given the other numbers we've chosen, I think it's adequately positioned. Now.
Number five is okay to be number five. Contribute to a roth IRA, So if you have not already been maxing out your IRA with what you are bringing in regularly with your salaries your work, then this is a really great opportunity to use that extra cash to max out that IRA. Of course we're talking once we focused on the high interest debt, we've got an emergency fund.
If you're like, yeah, check check check. Then now we want to be thinking about investing for retirement and putting that money as much as you can above and beyond into these investment accounts, namely maxing out that ROTH.
The one caveat to this is that if your windfall can be considered actual taxable income that will affect your taxable rate, then I would consider maybe a traditional IRA, or even putting the money into savings so that you can max out.
Your four oh one K.
If it's not enough to where it's going to bump you up over to the next tax bracket, or if you're making just not a lot you really think you could make more in the future, you think your job prospects are better in the future, then sure, cool, go wroth IRA. If you're pretty tapped out and you get more money on top of that, just do the math consider raw versus traditional. And that's kind of the point where you would want to consult a financial advisor, a
Certified financial planner CFP, a fiduciary. This is one of those instances where you may not want to do it yourself. So there are times a lot of investing can be done yourself, but there are times where it behooves you to get the advice of a fee only financial planner, and wind falls are one of them, especially if like it's a significant size. Wind falls are one of them. Maybe it's your spouse who is deceased and you're getting life insurance money CFP. Do it. You will thank yourself later.
So the next one for me would be to think about college. And so this is a unique thing. This is kind of so number thirteen can invest in continued education. But there's also number where is it twelve? Set aside to twelve and thirteen? Okay, so definitely your retirement and your investments come first. But if you can put a windfall into a five twenty nine for your child and just let it sit there, it can gain a lot more interest and compound interest than if you're contributing every month.
So if contributing every month is something you want to do anyways, go ahead. And if you're going to put like one hundred dollars a month into a five twenty nine and you get a twelve hundred dollars windfall, go ahead and put the twelve hundred in there now instead of the one hundred dollars a month, and you actually will be better off. You'll have more money at the end of it when your kid goes to college than if you had done all of them at the same and this is it's not like a I can't guarantee
you'll have more. Obviously, the stock market is volatile.
Sometimes make promises, say extreme things.
If the past is indicative of the future over eighteen year time spans, you should benefit from doing a lump sum investment into a five twenty nine versus monthly and then you can just keep one hundred dollars a month for a year or you get the explaining like the example. So that would be my last recommendation.
Okay, moving into the next article. This second article comes from Forbes. Again we're loving on us some Forbes, Forbes and ful Friends collab and this one's looking at some top mistakes. So it's titled Unexpected cash Windfall. Don't make these ten common financial mistakes. Again, we're not going to go through all ten, but I do want to start off with number three, which is overlooking potential tax obligations.
Jen already touched on this, but I will say one of the reasons for wanting to even do this episode had to do with this very thing of what do I need to consider, Like what if someone yeah, gives a substantial amount or even a house, Like there's actual real estate attached to an inheritance, and we're not going
to go into a deep dive there. What we're going to recommend is seeking experts on that type of thing because there are real tax obligations connected to these types of receiving of goods and money, and so seeking out, like Jen said, a certified financial planner who can help you understand how does this affect my tax bracket? How is this money considered? Is it? Because most likely it's going to be different than your salaried money that comes
in each month or even if you're a subcontractor. So having that understanding is going to be really important rather than just thinking great, I can have access to all of this money. Most likely not most likely you should anticipate needing to fork over up to twenty percent of that money back to the government. But again, talk with a certified financial planner to kind of understand what that's going to look like.
Yeah, that is where the certified financial planner really comes into is will pay for itself? Because I know a lot of people get worried about estate tax on stuff like this, and there are I had no idea until
I wrote an article about estate tax. There are so many ways around a state tax, especially for when it's not a huge amount if you're not a high income earner like in millions and millions, So there are so many ways around it, and you don't know unless you get the help from somebody who is an expert in hacks strategy. So that is probably the number one reason to consult with somebody when you're getting a windfall like this.
You will pay more when you don't know what you don't know, so that's exactly the reason. Let them help you so that you can get the most in your own pocket.
Yes, I'll go with number one for my first is financing something that does not appreciate and it is our favorite thing. When we see like people win the lottery and they go out and they go by the BMW or the Tesla or something that they really they could not afford before and will not be hipple to afford. It's a bad move financially, whether it's a BMW, a wave runner, a boat, I don't care. Don't go out and just because you have the dow payment finance something
that doesn't appreciate. That's why it behooves you to put the money in a high healed savings account. Think about it for a little bit, because a lot of times when you get money like this, there is a period of either if it is a loss, there's a period of grief where you're not thinking clearly. This happened to my mom when my dad died and she got the
insurance money. She was in this state of grief and she was being kind of forced to make financial decisions, and she made very horrible financial decisions in that season because she thought she had to. I don't think she consulted with the right people that had a fiduciary interest in her, but she just made poor financial decisions when she could have just parked the money and said for three months, I'm not doing anything with this money, nothing,
not a thing. I'm not spending a dime out of sight, out of mind, and having some time to get things in order before you know, so you don't make like finance all these things, or even one thing, even if you've wanted it for a really long time that you can sit down and figure out, can I afford to upkeep this, make the payment? Can I afford to take it out? People get boats. Boats are so cheap in Florida, but people can't afford to take them out. That is
the real expense. You can't afford to hold it, to dock it, and to take it out. The gas is so expense. Like, just you got to think about the stuff.
Yeah, Jill notes about every yeah, just about every time you got to fix the boat. It's going to be one thousand dollars. Yeah. Anyhow. Number eight on the common mistakes here is changing overall spending habits, which kind of goes in line with buying or you know, going into debt taking out a loan for some of these more
luxury items. Some of the most common mistakes people make with a surprise cash influx is changing their spending ha habits overall based on the thought that, oh, maybe this type of luck will just kind of keep happening indefinitely.
Or I can treat this as if it's a monthly amount of money that I get to increase my spending with, when really it's a one time thing that has happened, and so making a one time purchase is fine, but treating it like it's this ongoing, never ending Now I can change all of my spending habits is going to
put us in a really tough position. So one time influx could mean a one time purchase, but not the one time purchase that leads to monthly spending that is above and beyond the norm or outside of your typical means.
And it's not something you're going to do on purpose. You're not going to get a windfall and say, oh, now I'm going to increase my monthly spending. No, it's like you put it in with your money and you see that you have the extra money, and you're like, oh, I can afford to go out to eat one extra time this week, and then that turns to two or three, and I can afford this extra coffee or this extra
hundred dollars at Target because I have this money. And then the money runs out and you have built these habits because you're like, I'll only do it one time. I'll only do it one more time. And that's how it starts. And that's why we're such big proponents of keeping the money out of sight and out of mind so it doesn't cloud your judgment with stuff like that. So the next one for me is number five paying
off mortgages or other debts. And so I know I just said paying off high interest debt is a super important thing that you should do with a windfall, But this is more directed at paying off mortgages, and this is more for like life insurance, big like six figure payouts. Be sure that you don't need that liquid cash before you pay off a mortgage. And I know you know everybody wants to be mortgage free. We just don't want
to have to worry about that monthly payment. But if you need that money more, there are always ways to get help with a mortgage payment. But if you've paid off your mortgage, doing a reverse mortgage is not the best idea to get more money. Think about what you're going to need in the future, and that's another reason you want to just let the money sit for a few months so that you can figure out, Okay, what do I have to do? Is it better? Am I at a point in my life where it's better to
invest this money? Can it grow higher through investing in the stock market versus paying off my mortgage? Where am I in my career? Am I disabled? Do I have any health conditions that are going to have force me out of the workplace early. So thinking about all of that before you pay off your mortgage. It is not a bad thing to pay off a mortgage, It is great, But if you've considered all these other things that come around needing liquid.
Cash, yeah, what could that money do if it was invested instead? Lots of leveraging to do there. My last one on this article is number nine, which a common mistake can be not carefully considering a windfall of more than one percent of your income. I found this to just be a helpful metric as well when considering, all right, well, at what amount of money do I really need to have sights on this? And they're kind of identifying that anything less than one percent of your income is a
relative blip on the radar. It's not going to make that much difference in your overall financial landscape. You can kind of do what you want with that, but anything above one percent of your total annual income should be deserving of a little bit extra thought and intentionality. And this is where you want to pay attention to all of the other things that we've said in this episode so far of should you pay down debt, should you
invest should you pay off your mortgage? And a lot of those questions are going to be well answered with a certified financial planner and your own considerations of your financial goals that you've already had laid out, because that amount of money could make a decent dent in some of those long term financial goals. And if you don't know what you want to see for yourself in the long term financially, this is a great time to start
considering that. Even if you aren't facing a windfall or unexpected money right now, that ended, that just sounds great, awesome plan now for what you want to see for your finances. Is your number one priority and goal right now? Paying down debt? Is it saving for a how is it investing for retirement? Do you want to kind of be doing a little bit of all of those things?
And you don't have to wait for a windfall, You don't have to like hope you find money someday, start putting money towards those things, and then you now already have the blueprint for what you want to do if you ever do experience some unexpected cash flow.
The last one for me is going to be for big and small windfalls, alike, but especially for small windfalls. I'm going back to number two. It's spending it right away, and I'm going to sound like a broken record, but even this article says you should keep windfall in cash for six to twelve months, I don't think you need to keep it that long unless it's a big one. Then the bigger the windfall, the longer you need to sit with it before you spend it. Let's just say that.
But if it's a tax return or some kind of rebate or back child support something like that, then we can sit with it a little less. But what you don't want is to spend it right away. Like you hear all the sports ball players spending all their advances almost instantaneously. Don't be like that. Be like Shack.
Don't do sports ball.
You could do sports ball like Shaq who just invests in literally every company that's anywhere and is now so wealthy. But he was really frugal and good with his money throughout his career so that he could do that, and very lots of respect for him. But sit with it and make a plan that you feel really good about before you spend it all. And again, spending a little bit on yourself and ninety percent on things that are
going to better your life. Because even if this was a gift from somebody who's no longer with us, think about why they gave you this gift and how they want your future to be because of it, and how
you can maximize it. They don't want you to squander what they have saved, But what are the best ways that you can use this money and increase it and let their legacy live on to an even bigger extent to where you can say, like, hey, Grandma gave me five thousand dollars here and in twenty years, think about how much it could be and how much Grandma's legacy can be built even after she's not with us anymore.
And again, this is the time to consult, ask people, be patient, put it in a high yield savings account, and consider what's the best route. And this is not a decision that you need to nor should make on your own. Find the trusted experts to help in knowing how to leverage this as best as possible. And speaking of leveraging and best use of treating something as the best way.
Yeah, 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. Duck bill, Buffalo bills, Bill Clinton, this is the bill of the week.
Hey, Jan and Jill. My name is Adrian, and I want to tell you about my bill. So, my dog Fiochi, who I've had for about twelve years, is getting on and so she needs a monthly allergy shot and also arthritis meant medications. That's pretty expensive for me as I'm on a low income. But turns out my nicotine loss and chabit after quitting fabing over a year ago, costs about the same as Fiochi's monthly medical needs. So I quit my nicotine and instead I'm paying for Fiochi's vet bills. Thanks.
I am so happy to hear this on so many levels. A, It's not just saving you the money you're spending every month on nicotine, it is saving you the cost of medical bills that will come as a result of that. So you're doing this for Kyoki yoch now, Piochique, you're sweet puppy. Now you know adult puppy and for yourself later. Adrian, this is fantastic news, and it's a great example of getting creative and not saying like I can afford this,
but saying, how can I afford this? So this is such a great bill.
Yeah, Adrian, I'm celebrating with you because you're caring for yourself as you care for Fiochi. And what a beautiful win win win pairing across the board. You've really done it. We're so glad to have you. Thanks for submitting your bill of the week. If you all listening, have some win win wins, you're just crushing it. You're caring for yourself, you're caring for your pups, you're caring for your kids.
Or if you're just out there like just focused on you, we're fine with that, especially if you're.
Gone smoking or quit vaping, like call us up and say like I've saved this much money.
Yes, we want to know. And if you're a bill who quit smoking, yikes, oh gosh, I don't know if we can even handle it, but please do call Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash bill leave us your bill. Now, it's time for right, John, which question are you going to pick?
Yeah, you have added a question, so I can assume that maybe you want to answer the question you have added.
Well, I just feel like it might be more advantageous to our listeners, so like, okay, we can be transparent. There's two questions here. One is what would you treat yourself to if you got unexpected money today? And that's just kind of like a fun Okay, obviously I'd go on vacation, but that doesn't give real insight for people. Or have you ever received a windfall or unexpected money and what did you do with it? That feels more vulnerable to me.
Okay, So there's a fun one and a serious one, and I think we should do both.
Okay, there you go, yep, go for it.
Okay, all right, So okay, I'll answer the serious one.
First.
I have received a windfall before, besides like tax returns and stuff, and I didn't actually see any of the money that the life insurance money for my dad. But when I was a baby, my uncle is an insurance agent. He sells insurance, and my grandmother took out a whole life insurance policy for me when I was a baby. Why, I don't know. To help this guy out, you do
not need whole life policies on babies. What's the point And people are gonna don't want star review me for that, Like that's just my personal opinion of like what is a baby doing to contribute to the family financially that they need a life insurance policy. Like, you got to answer me that. If you're gonna want star review me, you have to answer me that. So fast forward to my adult years.
Well, if you're negotiating with our one star reviewers, I guess if they're gonna play fair.
I'm at that point in my career now, so I am an adult and my grandmother is no longer with us, so I have control of this insurance policy and trying to pay off our debt, and I'm like, you know what, I would rather have a twenty year term life insurance policy than this whole life policy because nobody's paying for it at this point. My grandmother's no longer with us, and it's just taking money from the investment. And so
I got that. It was a couple thousand dollars and my uncle actually pleaded with me to not take it, and I was like, dude, sorry, and I did it anyways, and put that money towards my student loan debt.
Wow, I didn't know that you could do that with insurance.
With a whole life or universal anything that has an investment portion to it, you can cash out and take anything that's in it for it. And that's one of the reasons they take whole life policies out on babies because they're told that it's a good investment. It is a much better investment to put some money into a five twenty nine or to employ your child in some capacity and put money in a roth iray for them. Those are much better in my opinion.
So did you shove all the money towards debt like one hundred dead? Entirely? I did?
That was me at that moment in my life. I was on that train and I couldn't get off. So that was my windfall experience. And then what would I treat myself today if I got some unexpected money.
It depends on how how much the money is. Yeah, what is ten percent of the unexpected money? Right?
So I would either find somebody and pay them an exorminant amount of money to finish the renovation of my house. There's a lot of money. If it's a little bit of money, I will go out to a sit down restaurant, maybe with my husband, maybe by.
Myself, and pay for childcare.
And pay for childcare.
Wow, yes, we'll see. What would you go to?
Oh I don't know. I don't know what restaurants? Oh I do know what I would Oh no, so bell, who is that considered sit down? I would go to Carabas because it's it's the fancy olive garden.
I've never heard someone describe as like that. I'm pretty sure the lateral move. I'm so embarrassed. No it is not.
Oh no, no, Carabas and olive Garden are both wonderful. Carabas is definitely a fancy olive garden. You cannot deny that.
I'm denying that lariously.
I am vulnerable. This ended up being the more vulnerable one.
You didn't You didn't have to say that. You could have chose different. Well, we better get sponsored by Garabos for that. Okay, Well, never have I ever received a tax return? Wah wah, So that's not even like, oh, yeah, you know, not counting tax returns because I can't even say that. But there was one Christmas where Eric's parents his dad had owned an ice plant and they sold it and they were like, rather than waiting till we're dead for you guys to get some money, we're gonna
give it to you now. And it was a few thousand dollars for each one of their children. So Eric and I got which was a very unexpected, exciting generous Christmas that year to receive a few thousand dollars. So we decided to We did take a small percentage of that money and bought a digital camera, which Jen is the camera that you and I planned to use to record our videos for the Frugal Friends podcast. I haven't
done it yet. Oh actually no, that's the camera we recorded our debt Free stories Debt Free Stories on YouTube. We have a YouTube channel. Check that out. Recorded. We recorded said camera with that camera. So that was our kind of fun way of taking a small percentage in buying something for ourselves, and we did shove the rest towards debt. At that time, I didn't have in my sights like put start an emergency fund and put money
in a high healed savings account. That wasn't on my radar, And it felt really amazing to shove like three thousand dollars towards debt and definitely made a big debt. It probably increased or decreased the amount of time it took to pay off debt by at least a couple of months, if not more, because we were not making a lot of money at the time. So yeah, look at us. We just want that debt gone so badly.
And where would you go? I know you said you'd take a vacation with.
Your money, probably, I mean, yeah, I guess there's so many things I would want to do with money. I mean, yeah, are you saying you wouldn't go to Carabas? No? No, no, No, that's like a Tuesday. That is not a oh my god, I expected to win.
Wow, okay, good for you.
Tuesday.
I'm sorry I should not have made that voice. That's great. I love that life for you.
Yeah, I am still so hard on this train of really wanting to stack up investment and savings that honestly, I'd be the boring one who would just probably put it all towards those types of endeavors. But if you're saying it was a lot of money and you feel okay about spending a few thousand on a vacation, it would probably be grease.
Yeah, Italy, we could take that cruise.
I would get that private.
Yeah yeah, I would just get on a big boat. But you take some money for carabas well.
There you haven't Folks the fan fear ol of Garden. Thanks for listening. We love having you here. It's like this third silent person listening in on us. It's not weird judging me. We also love reading all of your kind reviews. We especially loved this one from Jessica eight four eight seven three nine four seven ninety three, who
said upbeat Advice. Jen and Jill are the perfect duo to not only pull you from your debt ridden slump, but they give you tons of advice to really start fighting your way out of whatever overspending you've been doing, especially if you weren't aware of it. A treat to listen to every week. Jessica, you got a lot of numbers, or you're real old, or that's like your bank account. That'd be fun. Hopefully it's not your social hope number, Sarity. I think it's too many numbers for that even but
what a kind review. Thank you so much. Please feel free to leave us a review like Jessica.
And if you could title it the fans like the Carabas of podcasts. If you could do that, that would be great, and we will for sure read it on the show if that is the title.
And they'll know they'll know what they're getting themselves into as a result. Okay, see you later, Bie.
Google Friends is produced by.
Eric Sirianni Okay, Jen, I'm realizing and recording this episode that there's a couple of things subconsciously semi consciously in the way that I moved throughout life. One being one being that I sometimes think like, oh, I might win the lottery, and then I'm like, dang it, I don't play the lottery. Like you can't win the lottery if you're not playing the lottery. So that's something I have to remind myself of a lot Another thing is pretty much every time Eric and I are out and about,
which honestly isn't often. We both work from home and it's kind of sad to watch what life looks like for us. But when we are out, I will often say to Eric, keep an eye out for the money, like where's this money I was promised? Because I think I'm gonna find money on the ground. I'm always thinking found money is gonna be there for me. And granted, there are lots of pennies and nickels, and it's a good day if it's a dime a dime for a dime piece, and that's exciting. That's not the found money
we're talking about on this app. But it is still fun. And then, of course, so you all know how I like to trick myself with found money, like hiding twenties with my Christmas tree.
But and this is where I realize that we are opposites on this because I always assume that there's never going to be any extra money, like there's no money. I don't I'll never play the lottery.
And I just have the growth mindset that you don't have. And I find pennies everywhere.
Yeah, and I just know that it's not going to be out there for me, that I have to work for it if I want it.
There was a time outside of a Planet Fitness, that there was like a wad of two fives. Can I call that a wad probably not crumpled up five dollar bills? Two of them? And that felt like winning the lottery. I mean, you can do something with ten bucks.
I will say Okay, this is one time in my life where that has been wrong. I once pulled up to a gas station with twenty dollars on the tank and it was just for the next person who filled their tank. So I got to fill my car with twenty dollars worth of gas like that I didn't pay for, and I've always wanted to do that. I feel like I have done it once. Yeah, I've definitely done it once, but it is something that I would like to in the future.
Do more of.
Yeah, that's really.
Cool because that was such a great surprise.
Yeah. Yeah, there was a time speaking of thrift stores. Outside of a thrift store that there was a true WoT of cash. I mean, I would say at least one hundred dollars in like various types of bills, but also a cell phone. So I ended up taking all of it to like a clerk and being like, clearly someone left both of these things. I'm not gonna lie.
If the cell phone hadn't have been there, I might have treated myself to a want of cash, but I was like, Okay, someone's come and act for both these things, and I'm not going to take their money. The clerk probably did I'm like, I'm probably handing this over to someone who is going to be like, no, they only return to phone. Yeah, I know the truth. I walked away with a clean conscience. Yeah.
Well, I guess here's to finding money that's not yours and being able to keep it