AMA: Better Know the Podcast Hosts! #602

a little a little bit of a cold here. But this is like like a more casual episode and instead of diving into financial tips, different stories, different guests that we thought would be interesting for the podcast, we are hosting inn A m A and Ask Me Anything for those who like to spend time over on Reddit and Joel. You posted in the Facebook group asking for just basically if you had a question for us or Matt and Joel about anything non money related. Those are the questions

that we wanted to hear from you. And specifically, when we say non money related, we didn't want it to be like an ask htm episode right where you're asking money questions that you have. But some people did ask about our financials. They asked about how our podcast makes money. We're gonna get to those questions during this episode. So there is there's a little bit of money, and that's just like one question. The rest of them are very very personal, honestly, and so I don't know about your

lower back tattoo. Matt Joel actually does have a tramp stamp, and we'll get to that right after we introduce our beer. And actually we wanted to should we did? You want to explain the better No your podcast hosts. So it's

like a throwback to the Colbert Report, that's right. So one of things out there best segments in TV history was when Stephen Colbert, who was at that point not nearly as well known, and he would sit down with a congress person from a small district and a random standom state and and so he it was called better Know a District, and so he would interview a congress person and ask him off the wall questions and it

was just like TV gold and so good. The Colbert Report good segment was one of the best shows on TV at that point in time. Easily we're back to back between The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. Was like, that was an hour worth of just utter beautiful political insanity. But which Kate and I attended a taping. I don't know if we've ever talked about that. Okay, yeah, we

got there. They were free back in the day. It was right before he stopped doing it, right right before he it was Yeah, it was the last year, last season, and we lucked out and got tickets to one of the tapings. Yeah, so it's a fun time in the same way, you can feel free to humiliate us with your questions and maybe we'll do another one of these

in the future. But we were like, listen, like we we've done matt our personal stories, you and I where we kind of interviewed each other, but it was more of like the our personal finance background essence and like our history of money, how we approached money, how we got to where we are today, and if you want to know more of those backgrounds will link to both of those episodes in the shows. But but this is

really just a way for you to ask your questions. Like, if you've listened for two months or for two years, you probably have some questions about who we are, what we like, like, what we do, and so we just got to be fun to take some of those on today's episode us. Right, But first let's introduce our beer, which is Double Top, which is a Double I p A by Academia Brewing Company. Looking forward to enjoying this one with you today, buddy, and we will share our

thoughts at the end of the episode, for sure. Yeah, this one was a collab with one of our local bottle shops, which is the best bottle shop in the area. We'll we'll give our thoughts on this beer at the end of the episode. But let's get to it, Matt. Let's do the a m a uh and give you guys a chance to know us a little bit better. There were some great questions posed on our Facebook group. By the way, if you are not a member of the how to Money Facebook group, go to Facebook dot com.

If you're you know, if you're so inclined, joined the how of Money Facebook group, we'd love to have you. It's a bunch of awesome people asking each other money questions, giving each other helpful financial advice, encouraging each other. It's the hive mind at work and there people are sweet in there, which is nice because that's a rarity when it comes to online engagement. But let's get to our first question, Matt, that someone in the Facebook group posed.

This one was from Susan and it says, how did you guys first meet each other. Alex also chimed in he wanted a friendship history, so you want to start on that one, you may kick it off. So I would say, basically, it was a game night. So we've got some mutual friends, and they invited Kate and I as well as you and Emily and maybe like another couple or two over. I cannot remember, but I know that y'all were there. I know that we were there.

I'm pretty sure we played Settlers of Catan. I'm pretty sure I'll probably one unlikely and so honestly, I'm surprised we are actually friends because I know you hate getting beat competitive, but that was that was when we first met and pretty much we've been friends ever since then. But yeah, that's actually okay, So I take it back. That's the first time we met you two as a couple. I had met Emily. Kate and I had met Emily

before previously. We talked about Monday Night Brewing. They make Atlanta's best beer, but back in the day, they used to brew in one of the founders garage, Jeff's garage, and I remember meeting Emily way way back in the day. This is before you two started dating, act right, Yeah, that's a good point. So, yeah, you guys have known each other longer. I'm slightly longer than little bit longer than you, but yeah, we've been friends for now something

close to thirteen years. I guess that's gonna be a long time close to that. Yes, I think it is the beginning of yeah, so so yeah, and and it's one of those things where Matt and we just kind of very different personalities in a lot of ways, but we have a lot of things in common. We care about a lot of the same things. We also went to the same church for a long time, so that's that's part of it. We're actually we've got a couple of faith based questions that we'll get to in a

little bit too. Yeah. Well, okay, so kind of related to how we met each other. Megan asked, how did you meet your wives? And I already explained how I met your wife, Joel, how did you meet your wife? Yeah, so interestingly enough at church, and so her other question was,

I'm curious if you guys are religious at all? And yes, my wife and I we met it well, actually, the first time I ever met her was at a friend's wedding, and I remember seeing her on the dance floor and she has dance moves like no other, and so I was like, who is this girl with those phenomenal dance moves?

And it turns out she was dating someone else at the time, and so I had to kind of like I asked around behind the scenes, got the got the down low, and finally she broke up with that loser, and I immediately asked her on a date and it didn't take well. Actually, uh, the first three dates did not go so well. Um, we just didn't connect at all, and I was like, I'm just not gonna ask her out again. I don't know. She felt very guarded and

so we didn't really hit it off immediately. But then we kind of started to hang out his friends more and more and we realized that we liked each other started dating again. Didn't have to date very long before we knew, hey, you're the one for me, before we put the big question that you are engaged. And so this is when y'all are both in your mid twenties, you are kind of like young professionals. Kate and I we met when we were in college, and so she

was a freshman. I was more of a young unprofessional. By the way, you still got to wear your jeans and stuts. Kay was a freshman. I was a senior the year that we met, and so it didn't make a whole lot of sense for us to start dating. But we had a lot of mutual friends. Is it because of that we started hanging out some and then started hanging out more one on one started dating that last semester before I graduated. So it was one of

the didn't really make sense. But you know, agial love, It doesn't really make a whole lot of sense sometimes, does it. But yeah, that that is how public philosopher money and uh well yeah, and Megan that the second part of our question. I've always been curious if you guys are religious at all. Yeah, and Carol. Carol had a question too that followed up on that, based on the Ancient Money Wisdom episode. She said, I'd like to hear more about how faith factors into your money decisions

at all. Those are kind of connected, connected questions here. But yeah, so I I was raised Catholic, I grew up Catholic, and then over time I found myself in other branches of Christianity, But does that factor into any of our money decisions? And I would say absolutely. Um, it's hard to tell which aspects, which parts of faith directly influenced money decisions. We recently had an episode about

being charitable, about giving your money away. That is a way in which it directly impacts how it is that we handle our money. So in in the Bible, there's the tithe which is giving away ten percent of your income, and that's kind of the Old Testament print ball. And then the principle in the New Testament that Jesus bouses is to sacrificially give your money, right, which I think is kind of like even a higher standard exactly. Yeah, And so I mean that's one of like one of

the direct ways. But ultimately, like I feel like one of the core tenets of Christianity is just about it's about loving other people, right, like loving your neighbor, loving your enemies. And so when it comes to just how it is that our family handles our money and just kind of what it is that we do here on the show, Joel, I think, Uh, basically, maybe an oversimplified filter is does this action does it demonstrate love to

other people? To our listeners, and I think by running almost every decision that we make sort of through that filter. And granted it's not like we're sitting sitting down and like literally asking that question every time we have to make a decision, but that kind of it tends every

decision that we make. It it's sort of like this underlying current that helps to guide us when it comes to whether just different advertising opportunities that we're faced with, or just the kind of content and how it is that we want to approach topics. It's I think, to

one of things. We we don't really explicitly talk about our faith on the show a whole lot, and we've had listener emails from time and time to like you said this on the show that sounds like somebody who might like go to church or have a specific kind of faith, and and they they want to ask more questions. We're more than happy to discuss it. But it's it's one of those things where there are people who are really outspoken about their faith who oftentimes do more harm

than good, I think. And so it's it's not that we want to hide what we believe, but it's it's the reality is we've seen people use their faith sometimes as a cudgel when they're in in places of prominence, and so we want to be careful of how we talk about our faith, and so we want we'd rather live it out more than yell at out. But yeah, we appreciate those questions and and so, yes, faith plays

an important factory factor in our lives. Carol also said, you have rules or guidelines forgiving that help you overcome your natural frugality, which I think is honestly, he's like one of the toughest things I've had to wrestle with because I'm naturally frugal, and so giving money away feels painful in a lot of ways. And we reference to the episode we just did Matt about giving money away, and yeah, so I think that is an important part

of it for me, is to like a counterbalance. Yeah, and it helps me reframe what's true and remember what's true, the fact that I'm not promised tomorrow and that my money isn't what's gonna save me, and so giving it away is part of something deeper and more important, uh and more fundamental than probably I even we even talked about in that episode totally. All right, let's keep moving. Derek said, at this point, why haven't your family's gone the commune route. It seems like it could be the

most frugal option. What do you think about that, Joel. We talked about it, We really did, because when we talked about moving, a part we talked to that's closer to the truth than you realize. We talked about moving south of town as opposed to north of town. And there was like this property with like a creek running through it in this giant house, where like, what if we all hold up in this one house, is there

enough space for us? Or we could build We even talked about like building two places side by side sort of thing. There's this lot that we looked at, uh, and it would have been a lot that you could it was a pretty big lot, and the idea was to potentially purchase this home, demolish it up, divide the lot, and then create two houses on this side by side. So if you didn't think we were weird already for having moved our whole families together, we're literally considering going

this route. But I mean, honestly, I'm glad we didn't, though, because such space is good, I think, especially for your family compared to like our family. We're more social beings. And you, guys, you love your neighbors. You guys love I love your people too, But I think we might be if we were your next door neighbors, it might be a little intense for you guys. Yeah, we'd have to have like visiting hours like before this time, and

after this time, you were not allowed over here. Nobody nobody is allowed over You'd have to build a teller fence to keep me out. Probably, so h Sheila wants. She she's been a listener for a long time and she and I actually go back to college. So she listened. She listened tell them about your hitchhiking adventures. So yeah,

I don't mind doing that. Back in two thousand six, I guess I had my I had my first job in radio, and it didn't pay much and it was morning video, so not just morning radio, but like early early morning, early early, so I had to wake up by like three at the show I think was on from five to eight, and it was just like a punishing job. So I did it for like six months. It was an amazing learning experience. I'm so glad I

did it. But then I quit the moment I could, because it was just not ideal for me to wake up at that time and I want to do something else, but I quit. Actually, I'd saved up enough money, even on this meager salary, to go on a road trip around the country with one of my best buds at the time, and yeah, three months in an old beat up Hondai court station wagon, got to visit most of the United States, see some amazing spots. So those were

my vagabonding months. And that's one of those things too, when you talk about like compounding rates of return Matt and investing young, that's kind of one of those things that a traditional financial expert would tell you, No, no no, don't, don't do that. Those months are so important when you're young, but so are the memories. And so we're like taking time away and I saved up enough to make it happen,

and I'm so glad. I still look back at those months with fondness, the people I met, the things I got to see, just kind of the learning experience that it was. Jason, he's asking if we keep a spreadsheet of all the craft beers that we've had on the show, and Jason, unfortunately we don't have a spreadsheet, which sounds counter to how I like to approach life, but I

do have a folder. It's a beer folder inside how the money folder on my desktop on a computer, and so I'm able to quickly go in there when it comes to specifically when we're like, oh, have we had this beer on the show before? And then I can quickly jog my memory and oh, yeah, no, we we've already had that one, or we haven't had one like that yet. And if you're wondering what we've had on the on the show before, we're kinds of beers specific ones.

You just follow us on Instagram and you can scroll back through there pretty quickly and you can be like, oh, you can get a sense of which beers we've had trying to post pictures of yeah, of all the beers that we have. But ideally, man, we would have a single pager on the website that had every single beer listed out and then maybe one of these days, I feel like that's something that we can hire out for

someone to do, like on fiber or something. But then you click the beer and then it links to the episode where we had that be But I mean, at this point, we've had like almost four four hundred something. Yeah, we had more episodes than beers because we don't have beers on Friday flights, and so that's why the numbers don't line up exactly. Um Actually, related Lydia, she asked if we've tried hot water before, do you know what that is? Or? She says, if not, would you would

you try hot water? Joel, I don't know. I guess I'm not really sure what it is either. I think lung and need Us at one point came out with some sort of like but I've given a shot, but it's probably not something. I either want to drink water, I want to drink beer. I don't necessarily want to blend the both. But maybe it's awesome. I'd give it a shot. If someone gives me one, I'll try it, all right. Josh wants to know, have either be tried homebrewing,

and if so, how is the experience? I'll start. No, I have not tried homebrewing. People ask me that all the time as a craft beer lover, but one at the time it takes to get up to speed to become a decent homebrewer. It seems like it would take a while and a lot of wasted, crappy beer that I have to drink in order to get there, and there's people doing it on such an amazing level. Like there's no way it's even possible for me. I mean, I don't want to say nothing's possibly. It's not impossible.

It's not possible, but it is. How how long would it take me to be be able to brew a beer as good as other half I p A s or as good as a barrel age sour from Casey Brewing blending and brewing or like, it's just it would take me so long to anywhere near that vicinity. I'm just gonna drink the good stuff that other people make.

That's true, but there is some I mean there's a frugal side of it as well, right, because imagine once you did dial in, like right now we're drinking the double I p A. Would if you were able to dial in a killer, hazy double I p A. It's one that you're able to keep on draft at your house and anytime friends came over, you would you had the honor, the joy to be able to pour them your very own double I p A. Y How awesome with that? No, that sounds yeah, that sounds like really

fun to be able to do that. We we did talk with a brewery at one point about doing a collab beer, which would be really fun. Remember that, Well, so it's one of my favorites and and it would be really cool if you get to go down there and brew a beer with him one day. Okay, remember, yeah, so we'll see. I don't know, maybe that will happen at something that would be awesome. That would be cool. Uh, yeah,

I've I've tried it. I did it once early on in my craft beer career, and so because it was early on, I'm guessing I probably remember it being better than it actually was. But it was a Russian Imperial stout and we brewed it, me and my roommate at the time. We brewed it with another friend of ours who was a pretty serious homebrewer. But I remember it being being solid. I even gave a couple of bottles to my father in law because I thought he liked beer.

I mean, he does like beer. But the Macro produced loggers that first the hot water, which is basically what Bud is right exactly. Yea, uh, and so that was Josh. Lauren asked, do you have any other craft beer equivalence besides beer, Joel, Yeah, we both do. And so that's one of those things where, yeah, we we say a few craft beer equivalents, right, so that you prioritize not just one thing, but typically for the average person is gonna be something like three or four, three or four things.

So my other craft beer equivalence, Well, the thing is they changed too. So I would have said international travel it varies, was one of those things ten years ago, pretty kids, it was something we did at least once a year. We got to see some really great spots. Actually have a question about that later, but uh, now that's kind of changed. We we've actually our craft beer equivalent now is local places to eat is one of those things. We spend more money eating out than we

do on travel these days. Um, it's just kind of gone up in our book and hopefully that will change as we get older and we'll go back. We'll revert back to more travel once once our kids get get bigger. But one other thing I've always talked about on the show is full heart. We buy weird art, uh, and that's something my wife and I are into at least one piece a year. The weirder the better, the weird the better. Joel always said, I know, I like the

funky stuff. And we actually just went to a full heart festival not too long ago about like four awesome pieces, but that the cool thing was none None of those pieces were more than fifty bucks. So even even so, but we we're willing to spend hundreds and hundred dollars on a great piece of art once a year if we find the right right thing. Yeah, like you said, craft beer equivalence, I think they do evolve and more

from change over time. But and so right now, I would say my craft beer equivalent is most definitely paying for my cross fit membership, because it ain't cheap. Anybody who has not only joined a gym, but specifically joined a cross fit gym knows that they can be quite expensive because you're not just paying for access to a bunch of weights that are sitting there, or like a rolling machine that kind of thing. You're you're paying for the jobs of a bunch of different trainers who are

they're guiding you through the movements and teaching you. Uh. And so for me right now, that's most definitely my splurge. It's cross fit and actually a little money tip a listener I cannot remember her name, but she emailed in

and shared after that episode. You know, we did the you know, going full CrossFit on your finances a few weeks ago, but she emailed about this, uh, this service called street parking, which is something it was something like twenty bucks a month and it gives you access to programming. So obviously you need to have some sort of foundation under your belt before you kind of dive into d

I y ing it at home. But this is totally an option that I think for a lot of folks who are looking to maintain that habit but who are also looking to not pay off the nose for the expensive CrossFit membership, that's definitely worth checking out. Again, it is called street parking. Yeah, well we'll link to that in the shore notes as well, just so you can

you can check that out if you're interested. But Mat and Matt you would say that you don't necessarily you don't have to have cross fit, but for you, especially as you're learning, it's it's really good and for you, the coaching part is really it's been awesome. Yeah, So and you might not do it. Provides that perpetuity. Oh yeah, well, and that's I thought. What you're gonna say is that I may not do it except for the fact that I do have coaches not yelling at me, but just

the accountability that comes with being there. At the certain classes, Folks come to expect that you're going to be there. There's a certain level of accountability. So I guarantee I've done it more than I would have if it was just left to me at home by myself. But again, over time, if that's a discipline I can develop, and once I learned some of those basic movements, then I could Well, I mean, I am all about d I Y and stuff and saving money and you know, doing

stuff at home. Thus the craft beer homebrewing conversation we just had, Jole, But in this case, I'm just not quite there yet. Cool cool, all right, Well maybe one of these days, but for now, you don't mind spending the money. It's one of those craft beer clements. When you name it like that, totally my splurge, you know, it becomes a lot less. It's difficult to funnel money

in that direction when you've kind of named it as such. Well, yeah, I mean, that's that's the tough thing about it, though, is because it's typically at the beginning of the year. At the end of every calendar year, we sit down and we look ahead, and we forecast and we dream and we decide sort of preemptively what we're going to spend our money on. And this was one that basically showed up in the middle of the year. And so because of that, I think there is sort of this

sense of guilt. But I know next year it'll be a lot easier because it's something that we've already spent money on, and so I will then be able to say, no, this is something that is important, whereas this year it kind of felt like it, uh kind of found its way onto the budget without as much planning, but makes sense alright. So Lindsay wants to know when did each of you become interested in money and financial literacy. Well, for me, I'll say that, uh, necessity is the mother

of all invention. I became interested in personal finances when I realized they didn't have any money. Like I had taken my first job out of college and I was realizing, Man, my paycheck is not going nearly as far as I thought it would. And so that's when I learned about budgeting. That's when I created my first budgets at that point in time. It's also when I discovered Dave Ramsey. Though at that point I didn't have any any any debt,

but I still realized the importance of budgeting specifically. And so yeah, that started the process of me thinking about money talking about it. Kate and I were engaged at that point in time as well, and so it was a discussion that her and I were having as well. So it wasn't just something I was doing, but it's something that we were talking about, which made it more comfortable, I think for me to then talk about personal finances

with other people. I think that may may have led to me feeling comfortable with talking about money with you, Joel, and which maybe ultimately helped lead us to the podcast as well. The fact that was a part of our friendship early on. Was just talking about money for sure. Yeah, and for me. You can hear the full, the longest version of the story in that that podcast episode where Matt interviewed me about my money story. But childhood, it was it was my parents not being great with money.

It was about the troubles that that caused the fights, and so I tell kind of like the long form story in that one. But and then and then getting to to work for a radio show that was for fifteen years. It was all about personal finance too, ra advocacy, and that combined with my past, like with with what I experienced in childhood, just to lit this flame in me for a care to to do well with my own money and then to help other other people do

the sense of the perfect recipe for you. Uh, last question here before the break, Kevin asked if you weren't financial gurus, which I'll put an asterisk next next to that right there. Uh what financial idiots? Know? What career do you think you would have gone for? Joel? All right, So, I've always loved broadcasting. I got into radio because I thought it was the coolest medium to reach people. Long form audio, to me is is really the most effective

way to get something across. And I love the relationship you can build with a listener just by being in their ears for forty five minutes, three days a week. And so but for me, it would have been being the Braves announcer probably like, uh, that's what I wanted to do. The dream job yeah, I took a sports podcasting class in college. It I mean, it's possible. It's possible,

like that's I mean, I don't know. Maybe it's easier for me to think this way because for you, I guess, like it feels like a continuation of your previous career.

But for me, being a photographer, this has been a completely massive pivot in my life, and so it's not very difficult for me to imagine the different future, I guess, other than talking about money with you while drinking beer here on the show, but generally speaking, I found that one of the most rewarding aspects of what we do here on how the money is seeing the positive impact

on individuals lives. The fact that we've been able to encourage and provide the information for folks to completely change their life, to to change the trajectory of their life has been incredibly rewarding. And so I guess kind of going going along that path like finding some way to like this is gonna sound super woo woo, but like life coaching or like some sort of like general wellness.

Money is one aspect of living a full, complete, happy life, but there are other aspects as well, like um, like physical fitness. I mean, like, again, that's something that you and I have kind of thought more about recently. But like social wellness, spiritual health, men, well, like, there are all these aspects of personal health that I think oftentimes get overlooked, and folks don't give all these other aspects the time that they should in order to find the

balance that they need in their own lives. Some people just don't have the time, or they feel like they're crunched and think that or they don't feel that they have the time when instead it's like, well, maybe if you weren't watching Netflix or watching whatever, like whatever it is that they're doing. I think if it's yes, I think we do. And I think oftentimes we're so focused on our careers or whatever specialty that we give all of our attention to, that we don't give time for

these things. Um that would allow us to become like more generalists basically as opposed to specialists. And I think we might need more generalists in our world, or at least more of a generalist approach when it comes to living a balanced life. All Right, I got it. I like that. I like that. All right, So we thank you for all those questions we've got a bunch more. We want to get to just so many, so many

good ones that people sent in. So yeah, we'll get to our thoughts on a bunch more of your questions. We'll get to those right after this. All right, we're back from the break to hit the ground running. Nate. He is asking how many bikes do you individually have and what's the best one? Are ones that you like? I have two bikes, and I don't know have in our garage as a whole. Basically everyone in our family has one bike. I have too, and that's because I

have my road bike and I have my Radwagon. My Radwagon is the electric cargo bike, and so that helps me slinging my kids around town, and the road bike helps sling me slinging myself around town. And that's all I've really felt like I needed. I'm kind of considered getting a mountain bike, but haven't boiled the trigger yet. Yeah, we've got like around I think around seven bikes likely to I feel like our fleet is likely to increase over the years, as as the younger ones are riding

more as well. But I've got to I've got the the Salsa, which is my gravel Bike, which is the bike that I ride to work here in our office every single day. And then I've got the u BA Mondo, which is the long tail cargo bike, which honestly I'm not riding nearly as much, which is kind of sad to think about. But maybe I should consider selling it. But your kids are getting older too, Yeah, they're they're getting a part of it. I still take mind to school,

you have to do your schools. Not close exactly exactly, but it's yeah, definitely worth considering because I would love to have a road bike like Ugel, Like the gravel bike, it's just like a general all purpose bike, awesome for just banging around town getting to wherever I need to go. But I would love to consider getting like a road bike to be able to get on the roads and

just the ability to go fast to those rides. So I'm like, absolutely, man um, but but yeah, I mean, but ultimately, Nate, I would say, like, if you're asking this because you are curious and getting a bike, I would say, get whatever bike that you're gonna be able to ride. And I think oftentimes utility biking is it's basically underrated, and that is finding ways to bike to some of the places that you're already gonna go in life. As those hybrid bikes, by the way, are typically perfect

for a lot of people. They're somewhere in between, kind of like a gravel bike and a road bike. Tires are a little bit fatter. So yeah, I think that can be a good choice for a lot of folks. Yeah, And honestly, just to be honest, like the type of bike, like focusing on the gear oftentimes just gets over It's overrated. I think the vast majority of the kind of biking that folks are looking to do can honestly be done on any type of bike. Um. But that being said,

those are the kind of bikes we have. All right, let's get to the easiest question, Matt. This one's from James. He says, what are the three most important decisions you made in your lifetime? And then he says what factor questions you say, yes, exactly what factors went into the outcome of those decisions? And he says, timing, luck, priorities, etcetera. So, all right, three most important decisions you made, buddy? What

don't they? Um, I thought you're gonna you're gonna call you and me start, well, I mean, I think who who I'm married? Huge? Huge, Like that was okay the first.

I don't know that there's any more important decisions I've ever made, because you're you're basically tying your fate in your future to someone, And especially when you're when you're young and you get married, like you're kind of dumb, you grow a lot, and so you're hoping that you grow together in wisdom, in love and so oh, I just feel really fortunate to have been married to the right person and just the ability that hopefully your partner

can provide you the balance that they can provide you, Like I would be such a worse human being if I had married Kate and you're already pretty bad, Like could you could you imagine exactly? Like could you imagine? So, I yeah, that was totally my first one as well. I'm curious to see if our top three decisions mirror each other. Having kids number two, it's been massively formation I left I left the kids. Okay, I think it's been.

It's been huge for me that that just well, it's brought a lot of joy to my life having kiddos, and it's also made me grow up in a way that ways that I otherwise would not have. So I think the ways in which yeah, you you talked about your wife being formation on mine too, but my kids

formed me in major ways as well. And then faith, faith, But I kind of think of faith as like this uh, continual decision that I have to make in in in in a in a similar direction what Eugene Peterson, a theologian, calls along obedience in the same direction, I kind of think of that My faith is that so hard to boil down the three most important decisions of your life and in like thirty seconds or last But that's what I would tell James, Yeah, because I would say that

both of those last two are also very important to me, but I did not include kids or faith. Like So, my second decision I put down was choosing to work for myself because the just the the entrepreneurship spirit that

that instilled within me. I mean, I know I had a degree of that, but just actually doing that and getting a taste for that freedom where no one nobody is necessarily setting my schedule for me, it's it's me, or in this case it was Kate and I. We were working together, and just the ability that we had the freedom and the flexibility and the autonomy that we had during the I mean, it was a decade plus that we had being able to live the life that

we wanted to live was incredible. And there were times when I considered going back to like a more of a corporate nine to five kind of job, and every single time we considered it, we quickly came to the realization that there's no way that we can do this.

Like once you have a taste of you know what you and I would now call called I don't want to say that it's like good life, but the entrepreneur entrepreneurship life, well, we we're basically hard to go back become unemployable because we're so addicted to the kind of lifestyle where for me being able to do that was largely it was largely being in creative control, so in control amount it was important, but just not not being subject to someone like, well, we want to go in

this direction, and if I don't think that that's the right direction to go in, I don't have any say if I'm employed by by someone else, a giant machine, by a big cog when is our thing. It's just like you and I have to sign off on it, which I think it's great. Sometimes we have to flip a flip a coin if it. Um. So my last one, I'm going to really lay the guilt on you with this one, Joel, Is you buddy, Joel? So not only just I did they cross my mind that I thought

about it? Um? Not not only like obviously we had years and years of friendship um, and just you know, the good memories, the awesome years of not only like you and me, but Kate and Emily traveling together, camping, holding each other's first babies. Like the problem is it says decision that you made, and well I chose you, choosing to be friends. And so there's like this whole

personal side of our friendship. But then you can also even sort of isolated to to financial because even before we started the company, before we started how the money, we were still we were challenging each other from a financial standpoint, right Like we were saying, oh, what are you thinking about about doing here? What are you thinking about doing with your tax refund? And in some circles it would be there would be a lot of talk about spending that in ways that would basically just lead

to consumption going to Bahamas. But we were just talking about ways to be smart with that money, about ways to invest that money. And and so they're like, I know before we started, how the money we were. I I can say that I know we were in a better financial spot because of our relationship with you and Emily. But then you add how the money or originally poor, not poor, you add that to the mix, and just the ability for that just to add even more fuel

to the fire. The ability for us obviously to work together and spend inordinate incredible amounts of time together. But then also too, obviously the business, how the money, it's been profitable. It's something that we've been able to now do for full time for a couple of years. It is incredible. So when I think about, I guess the most recent years, I'm like, man, that was a big

stinking deal, big Harry deal. And then had we not met, like, you know, twelve years ago, whatever, And think about the things that we've done together, just little things and also big things like moving our families at the same time, so big, yeah. And when you find I think that's one of the things it's all my fault. No, it's been it's been a lovely thing, I think both of our families. But that's one of those things too. I think we we undervalue deep, meaningful friendship in our society.

And we talked about the stats. I don't not too long ago, but people have fewer friends than they used to have, fewer deep friends that they can count on. And so when you have those friends, man nurture of those friendships because they're gonna take you places, they're gonna encourage you, especially especially all the men out there. Yeah, for sure, Yeah enough friends. And James mentioned timing, luck

and priorities. I don't. Yeah. I think there's that question at the end of every depends on how I built this about whether it was luck or skill, right, And I think that's a really hard question to answer. Um, I think there's both, right. There's a lot of intentionality. There is a lot of good fortune. I think our parents have played a massive role in the people that we are wives have as well. Everything altogether, it's a big old cauldron that's that's stirring and a bunch of

things thrown in, and so we feel really fortunate. We also try to work hard to live up to our standards. Right that we have for this show, but for our families, for for um our broader goals. Yeah, I would say it's not like luck hard work. It's like a hundred percent of everything. It's it's everything, it's all of it combined together in order to to get us to working off the math works on that. But I Paul, now you're starting to sound like a football coach. That's kind

of what it feels like. Um Paul said, tell us more about your long term fitness goals, Joel, do you have any Not really? Honestly, it's funny. We did the CrossFit Your Finances episode and when I was thinking about this question, I was like, my main thing is to be consistent, right, My main thing is to slowly game strength, is to get a little more fit. But I don't

have any major thing. I'm talking with my brother in law about doing an abbreviated iron Man like this this like it's basically like sprint exactly, so it's like a five k and like seven yards swim and rind like that's something I can do. Maybe that's a goal worth striving for doing that in the spring, But no, my

ultimate I don't have any long term fitness tools. It's just to be consistent because for all of my life, I've never really worked out, and I've been fairly consistent here for like four months, and so I just want to keep that going. Yeah, yeah, same here. It's I don't have like these. I mean, I want to be stronger, I want to be like my ultimate goal is just to be healthy. I mean, the whole point is to have a functioning body that is able to allow me

to do the things I want to do in life. Right, I think that's where I had, Like a focus on fitness and health can eclipse the other goals, like what I would would argue might be the more important things in life. Right in this way, like health and fitness, it's like exercising, it's a means to an end in my mind. It's not the end in and of itself.

Like it's certainly fun and it's certainly something I en really and I understand that there's a lot of folks who who even make their living by coaching or being an instructor or a trainer that kind of thing. But for me, I think for the common person, I think it's helpful to think about it as a means to an end rather than the thing in and of itself.

Same same thing with amassing money, right, It's like money is the tool, and if your goal is to mass tons of money, like I don't have a goal to like bench press four hundred fifty pounds, that's just not It's something I care about, and I think it's fine. If that's the kind of the metric that you use,

that's fine. Um, and I think it's I think it's more harmful in terms of money when I think your focus could be so much on amassing more and more that you forget that it's a tool to accomplish the things that matter to partaking your craftier equivalent and build wealth so that you can so that you can amass freedom and then also find ways to get give that money away to the benefit of other people. But Alice

get next question. This one comes from Tiana. She says, if you were a first time HomeBuyer in Atlanta, what areas would you recommend. I think we can be brief on this one, but uh, we love we love it Ana. We just moved just north of the city, but we still think it's one of the greatest cities. And actually I think it was Money Magazine said Atlanta's number one, Uh, the best city in the country, and Atlanta's got it

going on. I'm not going to disagree that our fair city was ranking number thirty five where we moved to actually interestingly enough, but I would say Capital View and East Point. Oh yeah, those are the two neighborhoods I would say look there because I think they have long term pidential I thought you'd have more specific neighborhoods. I feel like you like you have your ear to the ground more when it comes to to like newer, up

and coming neighborhoods. I thought I was going to say those, and I thought you were gonna be like, oh, those were those are yesterday's neighborhoods. Now I still really like those. But yeah, no, I agree with I think that Tri City area, that Hapeville College Park, East Point, like all those are great towns just south to south the town and and and I think later on in the Facebook

post she mentioned her budget. I think she said four thousand and there are other neighborhoods that we could recommend. It just depends on the side of the house and stuff. Uh, Like we could say, oh, Inman Park's great. Imman Park is a great neighborhood, but it's also really really expensive. So if you're talking about living somewhere that is like has is cool in town living, but that doesn't cost

a ridiculous amount of money. The couple of the neighborhoods I would consider truly are probably Capital of View and East Point yep Sylvan Hills that's near their near Capital View,

kind of that Purkison Park area. But I mean generally speaking, focus on the neighborhoods to like, don't just look at the financials, but look at the infrastructure, look at what they what those communities have that you're looking for when it comes to it to where it is that you want to live, but find you know, the ability to find a community, a neighborhood that feels like it's it's got some some runway ahead of it where you do

see it improving. Yeah, and they're just waiting on those folks to show up and invest some of that that time and energy into making those neighborhoods and making those communities into what it is that you and and other folks were moving in. What you're looking for. And I think when you see a sense of neighborhood pride, stuff

like community gardens. When I'm driving around, those kind of things strike me as like, wait a second, even though maybe this community hasn't been as loved or hasn't had the same infrastructure like input from city developers over years, there's something happening here. And I think Capital of You was one of those places where and we've already seen like a lot happened there in the past since you

and I bought our first property. Yeah, but then with east Point, Like, what's great about east Point is it's on the Marty Line and so you've got that direct public transit, that direct connection to the city, and so that's something that you don't want to overlook as well. Uh, let's keep moving. Joel Kyle says, when naming your kids, did either of you have a name that you really wanted but your wife vetoed? Did you that happen with y'all? Well, just the middle name for Ezra, I really wanted. My

dad's middle name is Luther. My grandpa was a Lutheran minister, and so I wanted Ezra's middle name to be Luther. And then tell you that I don't really like that. So now he went, he has my middle name and my dad's first name, which is so it's Ezra David. But and I do remember showing for the hospital to meet your second daughter, and she was named something different than she is today. Well, we had named her, but the more we used her name there in the hospital,

the more we realized, this isn't her name. I don't know what it was, but it just didn't flow off the tongue like we were expecting. And so we literally we called him audible, and we did. We'd already told our parents and everything, but then when they showed up in the hospital, we told her. We told them her new name, and they thought we were joking. But I am specifically thinking of Kyle Um I our third daughter.

I wanted to name Savannah because I've got this thing for girls that have boy sounding names, like Andy, what's another one, Um, There's a bunch of a bunch of names out there that are traditionally considered boy names, but they can also be Taylor, Taylor, uh. And so with Savannah, the idea was that we would name her Savannah, but I wanted to call her Van, which I thought was going to be the coolest thing ever. Kate disagreed. She just couldn't get behind naming her like the super southern

sounding names. Savannah the Van is the leading lady in Atlanta. Zazzi beats his character's name, which still one of my all time paper shows. All Right, what's a hobby, Matt? You you aren't into, but you wish you were? Go back to going back to homebrewing. I kind of wish I was in. That was also one from Kyle by the way, Yeah, yeah, like if I was a master homebrew again. The ability to have some amazing beer on hand. Uh. I wish I was into smoking meat. That's not That's

something that you've kind of gotten into. And I feel like I'm slowly testing the waters a little bit, getting the field for but it's not something I do at all right now. But I kind of wish I did, all right. I wish I reade more. I wish I read books more. I read a lot of period I read a lot for the show. I read a lot during my five I wish I wasn't so dang tired at night and then I could stay up and read more books. Also, pick pickleball. Everybody's into it. I kind

of want to get into it too. I want to join the Bandwagon. I'm not gonna lie. Have you ever played? I have not. No. I played one time and I had a blast, Like it was one of the most fun things I've ever done, So I would I would totally do pickle ball well. On a related note, what are some of the best non financial books that you've read? This is another one from Kyle. Anything by John Steinbeck and Anything and Everything by John Stebacks is my number

one favorite book of all time. I also like books on more Town like so When Breath Becomes Their and Being Mortal. Um, those are two of my favorite books. Those are good. UM. I like one that stands up my mind, Coddling, The Coddling of the American Mind by Greg Lukianof and Jonathan Height. It's such a good book. I would and I would recommend recommend it for multiple reasons. One, it kind of explains like the polarized culture that we're in today. I think it explains a lot of how

we arrived at that point. But then also for parents out there, as you are looking to raise resilient, adaptable, smart, functional children in this world. They spent a lot of time talking about like fragility and what it means to be anti fragile and what it means to be like a kid that can be just resilient in the world today. And so yeah, just from a just from a social commentary, and it's back by research as well. But it's interesting from that angle, but also from a from a parenting

angle as well. I would I would recommend that one. Nice. Yeah, No, I like that. I like Jonathan knight Is is one of the social psychologists doing great works. Smart smart dude. All right, Izzy says, does the daily stress of life go away when you are financially stable? What you think? No, No, No, I don't think it does. No. I think there's still a lot of things to stress you out in life, especially as a dad with kids who are going through

a bunch of stuff. But I will say, uh, to not have money as a stressor in addition, and it's not that we don't stress about money at all, right, but to have it largely off the table as something that creates arguments or something we have to worry about frequently. Yeah, No, it dials down the temperature of a lot of things that we have to discuss. And so I think it's really important to strive after a certain amount of financial independence, of more peace hot money, of just more margin in

your life, because I do think, yes, it will. It can make your relationships better, and it can. It can. It can mean that there's less money becomes less of a source of constant friction. Yeah, it just depends on

how many other daily stresses you have. If all your daily stress comes down to financial anxieties that you might have, then yeah, having some financial margin, having that what you and she said, financial stability, that would absolutely help, right, Like to not have to worry about whether or not you're going to have your power cut off or the water turned off like that kind of thing. Oh my gosh.

I yes, to be able to have some financial margin to where you can remove those worries from your plate, that is priceless. But at the same so on one hand I would say yes, but on the other hand, I would say no, because it depends on what you then do with that additional margin. Because the typical cycle, I think most American consumers, they they basically arrive at a certain point, they remove a bunch of stresses from their life, but then they uh sign up for additional obligations,

additional financial obligations that then add more stress to their life. Right. So I've known people who are financially free, who are not in a good place, who are not happy people, and who are stressed out because for other reasons. So even having enough money doesn't Yes, what if you're only looking at financial issues? Right, Like does more money equal like less stress? And I think that depends on what

you introduced into your life. And so what I was gonna say is that, like, like you used to maybe be concerned with having your utilities cut off, right, but then like you mentioned like a boat earlier, but like, let's say you decided to buy a boat because you know what this said. Two, I'm in a place where

I can afford a boat. Well, if you're barely getting by to where you can afford that boat payment or the additional expenses, and like it just escalates, like the wealthier, the wealthier you become if you continually sign up for additional debt obligations. Essentially, those financial stresses can always be there. It's just you're stressing over things that you never would have thought you would have been stressing about in a

previous line. And I guess I think I interpreted the question a little different because did she she said, does the daily stress of life go away? And look at Elon Musk, look at Rogates. Those guys probably pretty stressed out with divorces, with taking on way more than might not way more than they can chew buying a social

media company. There will always be things that happened in the world that there will always be some sort of instant, like something that's gonna make you make your footing feel like you're standing on sand. And if you think that money is going to cure all of your ills, you're dead wrong. And so yes, yes, having more money it's a tool and it can help certain things, but there's a lot of things that it can't speak to. There's a lot of things that it can't fix, So you

have to know that going into it. Joel Alex asked what are your favorite music genres? Okay, my all time favorite music genre alt country, so not radio country, but the old country stuff, so like old school Ryan Adams, like Jason Isbell, I like to try by Truckers, like Tyler Childer's right now or all the bands I've heard you mentioned, but and then just probably indie rock. So some people say I like all the music, and I'm like no, I kind of like just a little bit.

We've got the indie rock indie rock overlap, like I lean more and like the electronica like post rock kind of genre. And so I mean for I mean, I still am You're a big name back guy. I don't listen to as much music as I used to because it is oftentimes filled with podcasts and audio books. But like Radio Ahead, I probably have listened to more Radi Ahead than any other band in my entire life, like tron like Sun Lux Tycho, So maybe a little bit

more of that ambient electronic music. But then like like Bony there and like Sufion, like these are all folks that's we overlap. Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of bands that we both like. It's not but but then I also like there's some bluegrass that I really like. I've been to. I think I've seen more nickel Creek not nickel Back shows than any other any other band in my entirely be in heaven. If nickel Back opened up for nickel Creek, that would be like the top bailing

for you. I wish I could even sing a line or two of a Nickelback song, just to drive the point home. But I don't. I can't. All right, So on that note, Sandy says, what song when it comes on the radio, can you not resist singing out loud to Also what movie? No matter when you tune in, do you have no choice but to stop and watch the rest because you love it so much? All Right?

I got the song. I would say any song on Third Eye Blind's debut album, like literally, I think I know the words to every single song on that album and when I saw them live recently along the whole Time journey for me, probably almost any journeys, like how can you not try to mimic step Verry even though nobody can? Movie? I don't. I don't have a movie like I mean, honestly, movies just aren't really a part of our life and we It's just I don't feel

like I can give an honest answer. Willy Wanka for me, will Wanka the track Collectory, not the Johnny Depp version. Gosh darn ITTT the original hate that one. Sorry. I have a lot of animosity towards the Johnny Depp version because it's not nearly as good and I'm obsessed, like will that might be? That's Top five movies of all time for me. So if I see it, it just brings back so much nostalgia and I love the Gene Wilder's performance in that version, so it's fantastic. Yeah, it's

a good one. All Right, We've got more to get to. More ask me anything questions from you guys. Our listeners will will tackle a few extras right after this break. All right, we are back from the break, Joel. We've got a few more questions we're gonna get to. These are questions that listeners submitted in our Facebook group. Someone did want to know, partly because in the post I mentioned that we could cover your deepest, darkest secret if the question was asked. We don't have time for the

actual I feel like we're even now we're gonna go. Yeah, it's gonna be long than usual, but okily, as Matt ports the soul out in this third segment, it'll be worth it. This one is from Michael. How do you guys juggle family life and podcasting life more effectively? I'm sure there's a learning curve, but when transitioning into self own business, what we're your successes and pitfalls early on

around family life and personal life, you gotta response. So first things first, starting something new and trying to do it at a high level means extra work when you're getting started, and so I think the key is communication, right, Like having that conversation with Emily was like, Hey, if this is something that you're behind and you think it is a good idea for us to start and see what happens, just letting you know I'm going to be a little more absent and it's going to take more

effort and work, but we think that there's light at the end of the tunnel that this can be some thing. And so you have to have buy in and everyone kind of has to agree, and you have to kind of continually come back to communicate about Okay, how's it going, and like are is it worth it for all the parties involved? So I don't know, it's a learning curve,

but communication is key. I totally agree. Communication. And then I feel like, I mean, honestly, I learned a lot of these lessons when Kate and I started UM started our company doing photography, but it was our life like it consumed everything. It's saturated every fiber of our being, Like every second of the day, I felt like we were talking of photography stuff, and that was great and on one hand because it meant a very successful business,

but on the other hand, it was detrimental to our relationship. Uh, there's a lot of things that we didn't prioritize because we were so concerned with talking about business things. And so what that meant is I learned that for us,

boundaries were really stinking important. And so for for what you know what that means with how the money is keeping like fairly hard boundaries when it comes to the you know, the work that we do here, you know, for the show and then the life I lead at home, Like the kids like they know that I've had a podcast that you know, Daddy and Mr Jolie sit down and they talk about beer, and they kind of like, I feel like our kids are starting to get older, and they kind of make fun of us a little

bit because they'll hear us pull up an episode in the car, like we'll check it to make sure certain things are playing properly. You know, we're not sitting down listening to our own show. But they always kind of I think they get excited when the height of humors when they hear our show come comes up. If you're that in love with the sound of your own voice. But but otherwise they don't really know much of what we do. And for me, I think that's that's something

that's something I'm proud. I'm proud of. Um. Granted, there's some overlap if I'm I'll read an article or read a book or something like that that has to do with work at home, because I'm just interested in it, and there's certainly some overlap. But for the most part in my life at least, it means they're they're some clear boundaries between work life and personal life. And that's probably to Matt while why you and I we don't put ourselves out there on Instagram a whole lot. It

would just be more invasive. And it's it's not that we're against obviously we're answering all of your questions today on today's episode. We don't mind sharing those things, but we working right now, yes, and when it breaks into kind of our personal time, our personal lives, uh, it's we love meaning listeners, listener hangouts, we love answering your questions, like,

we love that engagement. But typically between the hours of like like Monday through Thursday, half days on Fridays, and if we get whatever we can cram into there and at that time it's like pure joy and uh yeah, So so for us, we gotta we gotta make sure we keep those barriers intact so it doesn't feel like it's overwhelming, uh, the things we get to do and and enjoy at home, because that's the reason we're working right, uh, to sustain our families and to be able to really

enjoy the time that we have away from here to all right, Michael says, and this is interesting, one says, most of the people advising folks on financial stability didn't get their wealth doing what they preached. They amassed it by selling a service teaching you about it. He says, I'd be curious to get a glimpse inside the financials of how running a podcast, investment properties, etcetera. Produces income in your cases. In the past, you've referenced spouses education

goals and expected job dividends, etcetera. But I don't think i've ever heard personal results. Well, okay, so Michael, you know you're saying that other folks are would he said, selling a service teaching you about it? And I would argue that is not all that different than what we are actually doing here on the show. I think that's what he's saying. He's saying, like, so how do you did you guys? Are you guys only making money from

the podcast or did were you? I read his question as in like, like, you guys are practicing what you're preaching. But what I'm saying is that, like I feel like we're more we've got more in common with those other folks who are out there selling themselves on the internet than maybe it would appear, right like, I mean, like those folks have courses and classes and mastermind groups and all that kind of stuff that they're selling, and that's

one model. But for us, like we're talking about similar things, but we just have advertising. And so I guess what I'm highlighting here is that we're not all that different I guess maybe from some of the other content creators out there. But maybe what's different than is the spirit in which we do things where we're not I mean, sort of like what we were saying earlier, you know, the ability to ask the question is this something that's

going to be able to provide value to listeners? Being able to run decisions through that filter helps us to maybe approach everything that we do with a slightly different spirit than just what's that gonna mean for our bottom line? Like how's this, how's this going to affect the income? That's not the question that you and I are asking our right. Well, we also talk about things on the show that we have done personally, things that we've studied

this stuff extensively and we've put it into practice. And so I think there is the reality that we've talked about on the show before, Matt, there's a lot of TikTok influencers the meanwhile, they just don't have the knowledge and they don't have the depth of knowledge from doing it for a lot of years. You have started your own business. You and I have been personal finance nerds on this journey for at least fifteen years, and so uh and it was my full time job producing personal

finance radio show for fifteen years. So it's one of those things where yeah, we're not financially independent right now, right and income from the podcast is a good thing. It does help us put food on the table. But I mean, I say, like, so he was sorry to interrupt, like he was asking to like how much of our income? Maybe he's asking that right, Like how much of it does come from the podcast, and we don't have exact numbers, but like the majority of our income does come from

the podcast. We which have a handful of brunt of properties, which definitely which means that we have uh income from other areas. And so do we need the income from the podcast, Like, yeah, we do need to from the

podcast right now? Do we need it five years from now? No, Like we've we've built up a reservoir as we've invested intelligently over the years, and so now like if if the revenue of the podcast went to zero, that would be that would be difficult, right, It's but but we are not, like you said, selling a service teaching people about it. We have over the years, I would say, amassed our wealth by doing the things we talked about, and now putting those out in podcast format is is

a way to continue making money. But it is also something that we're passionate about and that we have extensive knowledge about, that we talk about regularly totally well. And and and the fact is if we let's let's say for instance, that I heard just got cane sold or went bankrupt or something like that, Um, we could totally survive without income from the podcast. It's something that we are leaning into right now because honestly, it's the most fun thing that I do every day when it comes to the

work that I do. Uh, it currently does make the most money from a time spent, but it also has the most potential as well. It totally has the most future potential, but the ability there there's other things that we are both interested in, and I think it would not be difficult for us to kind of fire up

these alternative sources of income if we wanted to. If all of a sudden, I had eight hours of my day back every single day too, then focus Like it makes me think about the like you hired property management recently, and does that eat into your rental property income totally? But you're able to use that time in ways that you want to, whether it be with how the money

or just the other things you're interested in. And so there's there's different trade offs that you make throughout life, and I think what's important is to for there to be multiple options available to you. That doesn't mean that at certain times, at different given points in time, that you're not leaning into one of those areas a little more heavily than you otherwise would Does that make sense?

You know it does, And I think the reality is there are a lot of people out there who have dabbled in some of these ideas who are still kind of fresh and new, but they do they are good at social media or they are good at online content, and so they're trying to make their money on the backs of teaching people in a way that might be costly to them, although beneficial for the creator themselves. And

so that is our goal is to avoid that. We I know podcast ads are annoying, but it's our goal to keep how to money content like free and readily available. We think that it's uh, it's advice and information that the masses need to hear, that that everyone out there needs access to. And uh, there's nothing that needs to be behind a multi hundred dollar paywall. Uh and and hopefully we can keep all the content that we create re accessible down to earth. That's the goal absolutely. All right,

let's hear from Katie. She said, I told a friend of mine about your podcast and your craft beer equivalent angle. Her response was the problem is I have too many craft beer equivalents. So what would your advice be for someone like this who has a hard time narrowing down a few areas to splurge on. Jilly, you have advice for Katie's friend, I would send her our Money Mission Statement. It is something. It's speaking of free resources. This is

notthing Matt and I took our time to create. We think that walking through these questions and answering them will be helpful to you and will be helpful, specifically to your friend Katie as she's trying to hone in on a why. We We think that when what it's it's the Nietzche quote Matt, that he who has any y can bear anyhow. It makes it easier to forego like frivolous purchases when you have a deeper y attached to

where your money is going. So, if you know, I'm saving up for this really important goal over here, it's gonna take me like sixteen months to get there. Well, if you have a problem with frivolous purchases, it's it's actually going to help keep those in line when you know the bigger, more important thing that you're saving for. So yeah, the Money Mission Statement hopefully will be helpful to her. It's free download a pdf will link to

in the show notes. Knowing, Yeah, honing in on your wife, spending some time doing a little bit of like interior looking, I think can help you figure out what matters to you. And then just in that process it almost by necessity, devalues a whole lot of other things that you did kind of uh prioritized at least to some degree. That's right, man,

I love it. Can I just say to like, I think if you have a ton of crappy equivalents, maybe you don't really get what that means, because I think you have to zero in on a few things, and and you can, you can say that everything matters, but then if everything matters, then nothing really mad. And so you have to prioritize a few things, like what are the things that really really move the needle in your life.

The more you can focus on those things, zero in on on those things, pour your money intentionally into those areas, Uh, it's going to move the needle, and then those other things are gonna look like, well, they don't really matter in light of that. Yeah. Yeah, A lot of times it takes a little bit of soul searching to figure out what it is you truly value. Becca asked, she said, favorite places you've traveled to and places you most want to travel to if money or life phase for instance,

kids were no object. Joel, I'm just saying, probably our trip to Norway Emily and I, just the two of us, was the best trip we've ever taken. Scotland is probably the place we most want to go. You Scotland absolutely, because it combines two things I love, fantastic drink with a country that is beautiful. And we're actually kind of talking with a friend of ours actually who's over in Scotland and we're trying to find a way to make

this trip happen. But yeah, I mean generally speaking, like when I think about some of the favorite trips that that Kate and I go on, it it oftentimes does include natural beauty and just amazing food or drink. Are usually a Bucky's for you, not not a Bucky's. But like, so you mentioned a road trip that that you went

on with your friend like years ago. Kid and I we've only ever done this once, but we took a road trip out west and randomly kind of stopped in at some the different wineries in Napa and Sonoma, and we could not believe how much we loved it out there, because I mean, obviously you're you've got some amazing wine, you're there talking to other folks who also are into it, but then they've got these trails that you can go hiking on, and so it was just this perfect combination

of enjoying the land but then enjoying the fruits of the land. I don't know that there's just something fully encompassing and where it felt like we were just fully immersed within this particular region, and I think, yeah, in a similar way, we would also get that in Scotland, and so yeah, that's definitely at the top of our list as well. So hopefully how the money tripped there soon all right? Shari says, what's one piece of non financial advice you want to instill in your kids? She's

another big one. Do you have an answer for this one? I mean, just the thing I tell my kids all the time, and it's what I want them to know is that they can do hard things. I think, especially in an era of great wealth in this country where we have a lot of things at our fingertips where we can order something on Amazon and get it that day or the next day. Uh, it's easy to become soft, and the reality is, like, we need to know that we can do hard things. It is a comforting reality.

And so I want to push my kids in that direction, not like make them sleep outside and the freezing cold or anything like that to develop some sort of hardness, but I want them to know they can do hard things and to tackle hard things, because I think that's where a lot of the joy in life comes from. Nice. I love it. I'm gonna take it back to a

recurring theme love. Uh. Maybe when we're talking about faith earlier on, I feel like that's kind of the underpinning of so much of what I at least try to do right and what it is that I that we're trying to teach our kids. I mean, straight from the Bible. Greater love has no one than this, he who lays down his life for his friends. That's a loose translation, but again, the ability to refer back to that and

find ways to put others before yourself. I think that if I had to like distill it down, boil it down to you know, what it is we're trying to teach our kids, it would be that. Uh. And again you can take that and go in whatever direction you want. You can take that and then go in the financial direction and figure out how that applies to your money. But that would be my my response there, Joel. Let's get to our last question. This is from Tori and she said, if you had to pick an all time

favorite beer, what would it be? And also Joshua asked if there was only one style of beer that you could have for the rest of your life, what would it be. This is again one of those impossible questions. But do you do you have a favorite all time beer jewel? You know, not really, but I would say

i'd associated with the memory. So when Emily and I were in Belgium, I just remember going to the canton and ranking and drinking from the source, and so that that's probably my favorite beer memory is those two days with her at canton. But yeah, I don't know, any raspberry sour it's probably my favorite. Like that'd be the this style that I'm really fond of. What what would

I want for the rest of my life? I don't know, probably like the finest hazy I p a s in all likelihood, but I love food hours too, So I mean each beer has its own time. You know, I mean there there, I want different beers at different points in the year, and I can't even like the season right now, I know. Like so I would say an underlying theme of all of my favorite beer is oftentimes

is that they're barrel aged. And so whether that's a barrel aged sour, a barrel age stouts, but anytime a brewery is able to pull that off, man aging beers on would add such an additional level of complexity of flavor that just takes it up to the next level. Would you drink a barrel aged bud light. I'd give it a shot. I totally would, because honestly, that kind of sounds like innocent gun out of the UK whatever somewhere out of Europe. I'm sure innocent gun is better

than that. But those are I don't know, those are some bales or loggers or something like that that are barrel aged. But I love that taste of oak or whatever woods that they that they choose. And so I don't have a particular favorite beer or even a favorite style, but barrel age sours, barrel aged stouts, and those delicious hazy I p a s That'll be my non answer, uh to Tori in the job. But I think the best like memories associated with great things to me are

what you know. It enhances the ability of the taste is one thing, but like, how much more meaningful is the glass of wine you had when you were in Sonoma versus the bottle maybe you drink when he's the one you bought at the grocery store, maybe even from the same vineyard. Right. Uh, there's something about being there, participating, partaking, um, which is why going back to Becca's question about where to travel, it's got to include somewhere with either good

food or good drink and good nature. It's still important for sure. All Right, Well, um, that's enough. Yeah, that was a lot to wrap it up. Yeah, thank you guys so much for submitting those questions. Some easy ones, some hard ones, but a lot of fun to get to go over those. And maybe we'll do another one in the future if if you have more hard hitting a m A. Questions for the hat of money, guys, we'll build another year. Yeah all right, but let's get back to the beer we had on this episode, Matt.

This one was called Double Top Double I p A. It was a collab between our local Body bottle shop Sprayberry Bottle Shop and Academia Brewing Company. What are your thoughts? Uh? I thought it was really solid. Man. It has been a minute since we've had a hazy I p a let alone a double here on the show, and because of my the slight cold that I have, I'm not totally sure if I was able to pick up all the nuances of flavor of the different types of pops

that they used to say that. There wasn't a ton of nuance, So I don't think it's your cold, and it wasn't. It wasn't me. It was good. It's a little sweet, a little sweet for my take, but it was still. It was still I would say it slid. Yeah, solid beer. I'm glad you and I were able to enjoy this one today on the podcast, man, but that it's going to be it for this episode. We actually did refer to a couple of resources like the Money

Mission statements. That will be sure to link to that and others up on our show notes on the website at how the Money dot com for sure. But until next time, Matt, best Friends Out and Best Friends Out