You Don't Need Money To Be Happy

You go to, like, Panera, you'll drop 20 bucks. I'll spend 20 bucks for lunch at Panera and leave hungry. And yet there's a line. I'm like, how is this a thing? How is this?

That's in Georgia, too. I bet it's more expensive.

I just don't get it.

I hope you guys are enjoying this series. We have called Back to the Basics, but we're just basically talking about the vowels and, like, what does that mean? And today we're going to talk about for richer or for poorer. Horror is hard to say. Horror.

For richer or for poorer, we've been poor. Funny little clip. You can look. Look it up on YouTube. When Shaquille O' Neal got married and they said, for richer, for poorer, he changed the vow and said, for richer or for richer.

He did. I remember. I saw that.

And, you know, in his case, it has been for richer or for richer. He's a very savvy businessman.

Sometimes that happens. I mean, hey, like, half a.

Half a billion dollars. So go Shaq. But most of us are just kind of in a different situation financially.

Yeah.

And there are going to be seasons where it's leaner. And we've. We've certainly been there. I mean, we have had a lot of financial struggle, especially early on, where we were young and brave.

Very young. And had one income for a long time, too.

Yeah. I mean, honestly, the first. Really over the first decade, but specifically the first decade of our marriage, it was constant financial struggle because, you know, we had young kids, we had one income. While we were having those young kids, the one income we had wasn't huge. We just had to stretch every dollar, get as creative as we could. We learned to be resourceful. We learned to be scrappy. But we also made a lot of mistakes. You know, we got into credit card debt early on. We talked about that last episode, and we just. We were just trying to keep our heads above water. And, you know, little by little, we've learned financial principles that have really helped. We're not financial experts by any means, but we've gotten out of debt. With the. With the exception of our mortgage. We still have a mortgage, but we don't have car payments. We don't have credit card debt. We don't have student loan payments. And there's such a freedom, I'm telling you guys. And our cars are old. Don't picture a bunch of Ferraris in the.

In the driveway like we said last week.

Yeah, we've got some old cars that still. Still run by the grace of God.

Yes.

And I'm telling you, only thing better than a new car smell is a paid off car smell. It is. My car smells.

It doesn't smell bad. Well, we take good care of our house.

We do Febreze and old stains. But hey, it smells like freedom to me.

It smells like freedom. And you know, we, you know, we, we've alluded kind of to how we had a lot of debt in the beginning of our marriage because I was still, I mean, just to, for those of you who do not know, I was still in school when we got married. Like, Dave graduated one weekend, he's two years ahead of me. And then we got married the next weekend. And then he started working from college.

Not, not high school. We're from Kentucky, but we didn't get married. It was exactly 22 and 20.

That's right. And so he gets married, we get married the next. I'm sorry, he, he graduates, we get married the next weekend and he starts a job at our college. And then you were kind of an interim youth pastor and then eventually a full, like a full time youth pastor and then teaching pastor. And so, and would take it.

We would like take on other jobs wherever we could. Like I, you know, I got, Yeah, I taught part time, a public speaking class, you know, several schools. In those early years, it didn't pay a lot, but it paid something. And I was able to do that part time to supplement our income. Ashley, even when she was at home with little ones, would get really resourceful and she would, she'd like buy things at Goodwill and resell them on ebay. I called her my Ebabe because she was just so resourceful.

It was really big back then too.

Yeah.

But I mean, I think it's still. You can do that now.

Yeah, well, now I mean, you've got.

Even more, A lot of.

Yeah, you've got, you know, Etsy, Facebook, Marketplace. You've got a million ways to sell, you know, sell things. But it's just about being scrappy sometimes and resourceful. And it's like, what, what do we, Excuse me, What do we have that we could sell? What, what skills do we have or opportunities do we have to maybe pick up some extra income? And let's be willing to do that because, you know, we live, you know, here. Here we are in the United States. I know it's not like this everywhere in the world, but there's so much opportunity. Every time I talk to an immigrant who comes here, every time I get into like an Uber Or a Lyft. And usually my driver is somebody who works another job.

Oh, definitely.

And very often, like they're from another country. English isn't even language. And here they are learning a new language, taking on work, and then working in their free time to just continue to help provide for their family. And it inspires me, guys. It absolutely inspires me and challenges me to think, you know what, I have no right to complain because just by the blessing of having been born in a place where there's so much opportunity, it doesn't mean that you're automatically going to thrive, but it means we've got so many more opportunities then throughout history, around the world, other people have had. And we should make the most of that. Not to be workaholics, not to just. Just try to get as much money as we can, but to know that we never have to live in scarcity, wondering, like, if we're going to eat or not. I think that between the, you know, the social services that are available, the church charities that are available, like at our church, where there's food banks, and then just the opportunities to earn income in creative ways, that all of us, if we're willing to learn the principles, God's principles of managing money, realizing that we don't own it, we manage it. Everything in the world belongs to God, and we're just temporary stewards of it. But if we learn his principles, he can trust us with more. Not so we can raise our standard of living, but so we can raise our standard of giving and we can help others, we can provide for our families, and we cannot have the stress that comes from scarcity.

I totally agree. And you know, when it comes to managing money well, because it's all God's anyway, we have to remember that, like, God has given me what he's given me, and I am a steward of this. Like, I'm, you know, together we are managers of what he's given us. And so it really is. It's a. It has, you know, different facets to it. And so there is the making more money facet where, like, try to make as much as you can so that you cannot have scarcity, so that you can give more and more and not worry about money enough that you don't have to worry about it. But there's also that other end of it where it's like, where can you save money? Like, where is there spending that's out of control? Where it's. Whether it's on your food or on your clothes or, you know, what Are we overspending on? And I want to just share a few tips. So like, especially in the lean years, but even till today, because you know, we haven't changed the way we do just because we do have some more money. Because we're both, we've both been full time employees for a while now, but it's like, you know, how do we still keep on storing this money well and saving money? I really am a huge fan of consignment when it comes to clothes. Like, one of my favorite stores is Uptown Cheapskate. And it's all around the United States. I love it. And basically if you don't know what Uptown Cheapskate is or what consignment is, you know, basically most of these places that are consignment stores is you can, you can bring your gently used clothing, you know, that's still in style, bring it there and you can say like, here, I want, I'm willing to sell these or trade these. And so like what I do is I do this regularly. Probably every two months I do this. I go through my closet. If I have not worn something in a year, I don't need it because clearly I just didn't even think about it for a year. And so I will put it in the bag. I'll go through Dave's too. He could care less what I put in that bag.

I don't care. And people always ask me, hey, where'd you get that shirt? Or what?

I don't even know.

I don't know. Like, I mean, Ashley got it for me.

Or your mom?

My mom or my mom or Mary, my, my mother in law, who they, they all have great fashion sense. And those three la. Keep me dressed. I don't, I'm thankful for all.

You really don't love shopping. And so he's glad. So we go through the closets, kind of keep everything organized. And also not just, you know, not having a lot of extra. And basically I take it to Uptown Cheapskate. They go through it and they say, hey, this is what we want. And what they don't want, I say, can you just donate it? Because I don't clearly don't need it. And so they'll donate it to a local charity. And then basically they give you either cash, if you want cash, or they'll give you the trade in value, which is higher. And so like just recently I went through our closet. I took some things in there and they took, I want to say it was like 100 bucks worth. And I was able to get, like, some jeans, several shirts, and like a blazer and maybe some shoes and, like, I even got earrings and I still have money on my tab there. Like, so I didn't spend any money. And like, most of my clothes, like, if you've ever come to an exo conference, nearly most of the time I'm wearing probably a Goodwill or consignment outfit. Okay. And, and I love it because not only do I do this and I know that I'm against buying new, I will like Target. I'll get something new or I'll go.

You got the money? Something you want? We're not saying you got to.

Oh, my gosh, no.

You got to do it a certain way.

We did Stitch Fix recently.

Love it. New new sponsor, the podcast.

I love it. Yes.

You know, use the promo code naked. And it's a great thing. They take the guesswork for you. One thing I was looking up, I wasn't trying to be rude. Looking at my phone a minute ago, if you're watching online, I was looking a specific promo code for you guys because we, we were using something called Rocket Money.

Yes.

Which is a sponsor of the podcast now. And Rocket Money looks at your whole financial picture. It makes it so easy, it helps you with budgeting. But for me, the most practical thing they do is they identify all of the recurring payments that you have and see if you want to cancel any of them. And what they found is most people, including us, had recurring payments, recurring subscriptions from this free trial you signed up for, and you gave them your credit card and you didn't cancel it. You've been paying five bucks a month ever since for something you're not using. And, and we've saved hundreds and hundreds of dollars by just having them cancel stuff. So if you want to go to Rocketmoney.com naked, they have a, you know, a special just for listeners of this podcast. We've used it, we like it. It's user friendly, and it helps you stop money from flying out the window. And all of us have money that's just flying out the window. And like Ashley said earlier, just finding ways to not. To not spend money you don't need to spend.

Yeah.

Is a big part of it. It's not always just making more. It's sometimes figuring out how to, how to just save more. Stop the flow. And you can do it without even changing your quality of life because a lot of this stuff you're paying for, stuff you're not even using. So. Rocketmoney.com naked check that out.

I'm telling you, I love it because one of my other favorite things about Rocket money is, like, they will show you, where are you spending the most? And they'll give you suggestions on how to spend. Sometimes it's convicting. It's like, it's very convicting.

We're spending that much on food.

It's very convicting. And we. This has always been a struggle. Like, I remember when the kids were young and even before we had, like, I've always enjoyed eating out. My family would budget so that we could eat out. Like, my mom would find the deals in town. We go to, like, these steakhouses where we could share certain meals and, like, then bring home the bread and the butter and, like, certain little freebies that came with it. Like, I. We were always on a budget, but they would find ways to eat out. And so I was very accustomed to eating out. And I remember we realized really quickly.

Which I learned way too much love my. My wife through that, because I'll eat home at, like, every day for lunch. Enjoy that of, like, probably $3 a day, probably on lunch, based on, like, the groceries that that took. And. And I'm looking at, you know what my. My love is, is buying for less food. You go to, like, Panera, you'll. You'll drop 20 bucks. I'll spend 20 bucks for lunch at Panera and leave hungry. And yet there's a line. I'm like, how is this a thing? How is this?

That's in Georgia, too. Evan's more expensive.

I just don't get it now.

I stopped Panera because I did feel like. I mean. No, no, no.

Yeah, your soup's great. It's just not worth $15.

No, it's just too much money.

But anyway, so.

No, I'll tell you what I do.

I enjoy eating at home because I feel like I'm winning when I eat at home.

Yes.

But for. For Ashley, I love serving her in this way because for her, it is. I don't know, she enjoys it. She, like, deeply enjoys being able to get out of the house, get something. And so, like, we just kind of budget to say, you know what? It's fine. And so something we talk about a lot on here is don't try to ever shame your spouse for having needs that are different than yours because they're not you and you're not them, and that's okay. And they're going to want things you don't care about. You're going to want things they don't care about. And so try as best you can to let them have that. Within reason, Ashley loves to eat out more than I do.

Yes. I mean, I tried. I've tried. He's taught me to do this.

I don't. This is the most I've said about it anywhere. Just. Just for the sake of conversation, I just don't say. I'm like, I want you to be able to go do that. I want you. You know, that's important to you. You enjoy it. It helps you be at your best. We'll make it happen. And she's very, very. She's the most resourceful person I know. She is not frivolous at all. I mean, she's. She's just really not. But that's something she enjoys. And I want. It's a. It's a pleasure to me to help her enjoy that. You know, I, you know, I'll spend money on other things. It's not as much eating out. I still spend too much eating out. But it's not as much on that. It might be something else. And she's cool with that. Like, no, you know, you go and do that. That's something you enjoy. That's important to you. You go and do that. And so try to budget where both of you can get what you need.

Yeah.

There are going to be times when both of you have to have to say no to your own desires because there's just simply not enough money there. And being content even. Even when you don't have as much as you'd like to have, but saying, you know what? I'm thankful for what we have. I'm thankful to. We're going to choose to live within our means. We're not gonna. We're not. We're not gonna let, like, greed or envy or trying to pressure each other to. To. To do whatever. We're not gonna let that creep in and steal our joy. Uh, because your. Your marriage is more valuable than anything you could buy. And your peace is more valuable than anything you could buy.

It's so true. And I want to say this, like, I, like, in the beginning of our marriage, just on the eating out, we. We would. Again, we barely had any money, but we would, like, take. We were in youth ministry. We'd go out with the youth to Applebee's, like, one night a week or whatever, and we'd budget for that. But we did eat in a lot because we just, frankly didn't have money. Like, I remember making sandwiches during the day. And if. If, you know, I was still in School. But I. And so. But I wasn't on the meal plan anymore, so I would just come home and I would eat, you know, in between classes. And I remember too, when I had my first job, I would bring my lunch most of the time, I think once a week I would go out. But then where I really got in the habit of eating out, where I was like, I was like, sweetie, I need. This is. When we had our first child, we had agreed to be a one income home because we wanted, you know, we both had stay at home moms and we really. We highly value that, both of us, and we wanted me to be able to do that. And so we knew that we were having to cut some things. But I really, like, for my own mental health, needed to get out with a baby.

I totally.

And meeting with my mom when I was living in Kentucky, meeting with my mom and friends there was really important to me. And then once we moved to Georgia even that was how I made friends was like getting with mom groups and then going to lunch.

It's worth it. The relational aspect is always worth it.

Yeah. And have it going to a play place like at Chick Fil a or something.

But it's okay too, that a lot of times just is. Is the introvert that you are, you need to get off by yourself and be able to sit someplace.

Well, nowadays. Yeah.

And. And so it's not just the social part sometimes.

No, it's not.

You just need to recharge and you like to recharge at Chick Fil A or.

Well, I recharged at Jimmy John's during COVID Like I was going batty just being at the house and I needed a moment and I would. We had a drive through Jimmy John's and every day, literally I would say five days a week, I was like, sweetie, I've got to get out of the house. And I would listen to a podcast for an hour and I would go get a Jimmy John's sandwich and then I'd be good because we were, you know, we had to homeschool the kids briefly because everybody did because of COVID And I am very introverted and Dave was so sweet to not make me feel guilty about that. And so with all that said, I think that when it comes to marriage, because this is, you know, it's about the, you know, for richer, for poorer in marriage. The bottom line is we're going to all go through different seasons of this. Like, you know, we might start out really wealthy and then have a season where the money is not there. Or maybe we start out very poor, and then all of a sudden we have money. And where. What I've seen with this sometimes is it's not always better having more money. Like, sometimes more money is more problems. Like, these rappers knew what they were talking about. Like, money, more problems sometimes. But it's like, you know, because then it's like you have different ideas of what you're supposed to do with that money. Sometimes, you know, one's more of a saver, one's more of a spender. Maybe you're both spenders or you're both savers. And it feels just, you know, the main thing is it's communication. It's getting on the same page. I'm of the firm belief that there usually is a primary person. Like, right now, it's day for us that is a primary person over the money. But I know what's coming in and going out. Like, you mentioned Rocket Money. Even before rocket Money, we had apps where we would both see everything coming in, everything going out. We talk about our taxes. We talk like we're both at that appointment. It's not like I'm blind to it.

It needs to be both of you, even if one's the primary, which just makes sense.

Which we understand. Yeah.

But make these decisions together. You guys are a team. Everything you have is both of yours. The debt is both of your debt. The resources are both of your resources. When you start thinking mine, yours, his, hers, you're thinking like divorced people and not married people. And so, yeah, just don't let any amount of money, little or small, come between you and your spouse. All right, as promised, let's get deep. We're ending these episodes with one question, one conversation starter from let's get deep. You asked first last time, so I'll ask this one.

This is sweet.

What are you extremely opinionated about? Let me just say all kinds of things. She has strong opinions about many things. She has what I refer to as.

Her list, but I'm very easygoing.

Very easy. She's super chill.

Yeah.

There is a list ever growing, and I'm making it my life mission to be an expert on the list, so I can stay off of it. But there are certain things you want to talk about recently that just annoy her and she feels passionately about them and.

And they're not even important things.

No. Like lately, she pointed out, like, that, that whistling men who whistle, like, in public, like, just trying to whistle a tune. Whistle a tune. She is, like, deeply offended by. Oh, everybody hear Your old whistle. You just creep.

Well, no, I just removed myself from the situation. I went over today. We were at an airport, and I just needed a moment. Like, we, you know, we keep busy pace and we're off doing things. And I love it. I love every minute of it, but. Every minute of it. But again, I am an introvert, okay? And those of you who are introverts, you realize it's not about loving people. I love people and I love being with people. But it's about where you get your energy from. And sometimes you just need a moment of quiet. I would say everybody introvert or extrovert, we need a moment of quiet. And so, like, it was kind of. And not that an airport's quiet, but if you have just the ambient noise, it kind of fleshes out and you can kind of have a moment. Well, there's this dude just whistling away.

Just thinking he's blessing him. Like, you're not blessing my wife.

And you could tell everyone around him is totally annoyed and. And he's just like.

It's the. It's the equivalent of like somebody, like, banging their base in their car when they.

Yeah, I can't stand that.

It's just hurting your head in your ears and them thinking like that. That people enjoy that. I. I mean, nobody likes it.

I really enjoy it.

Nobody likes it. Put. Put on your headphones, man, and you just take that. Enjoy it yourself. But deafening. The rest of us like. To me, that is. That is just. That's so rude.

And do you not like whistling, too?

The whistling? I just laugh. It's entertaining to me because I know how much you hate it, but there's a long list of things that. That you like, that. I just think it's funny that she.

Gets only, you know, she gets annoying. Now you guys know about one of them.

But I'm telling you, there are a hundred things like that on the list.

Little things that you probably do ple. Plenty of stuff that's.

You're on her list and you don't even know it. So I.

It's not usually personal. It's just a thing that. That someone does.

Right.

Random thing. I mean, it really is. It's very random, but.

Right.

You know.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't take baths, for instance, in part because, honey, our boys take baths.

Shower people.

But like, men who take baths.

I don't see. I love a bath. Like, that's.

She loves a bath, but she thinks men who take baths, that's like.

You think.

I think that it's True. You know it's true.

It's not true if you need a bath. Like one time you were sick and I was like, will you take a bath? And you're like, you're never looking me the same again. And I was like, that's not true.

Yeah.

Anyway, he thinks that's one that I would disagree with. I do not believe that. Whistling. Please just go do it by yourself.

Men playing video games.

Yeah, see, grown like 45 year old men. If you're not playing with a kid or your friends, even if you're playing with your friends, if you're getting away from your family all the time playing video games, it just is concerning to me.

I think it's more. I bet there's. It's like.

Well, it's not what you. You don't do it though. So it's not like I have.

I'm just saying we all have ourselves. I'm sorry, I've not hijacked your. Your answer.

Mine's really sweet. Mine is. What does happy mean to you, being with my sweetie?

Happy mean to you, being with my sweetie? Oh, I just love it.

And not whistling and not whistling and.

Staying off your list.

You're never on my list. I mean my, My bad list. You're always on my. You're number one on my.

You know what's on my list?

My happy list? Your kiss. Your kiss is on my list because.

Okay, all right.

Number eight is cheesiness.

Guys, we appreciate you so much. I hope you're enjoying this, this series. We're getting back to the basics. So join us next week as we'll do the next marriage bow together. It's gonna be a lot of fun. We'll see.