Josh & Ryan's money transformation. Making good out of a sad situation | Pennywise Coaching

I am here with two of my clients, Josh and Ryan, and they have so kindly agreed to share a little bit about their experience with Pennywise Coaching and what this whole journey has been like. I think we've been together almost 6 months, probably. I just love to hear from you about what brought you to coaching, what your experience has been like, maybe any epiphanies or ahas you've had along the way. So one of you want to jump in first?

Yeah, for sure. Earlier last year, unfortunately, my aunt passed away and, um, I was given an inheritance of a sum of money that I have never seen before. So I just, I did not want to waste it. I did not want it to go to zero in the matter of 3 months, you know, and So I was like, I need help. So we were referred to Penny Kidd and it took me a little bit to get on the cube and the budgeting aspect. Now, since I've been like actively doing it every single day, I've like, my whole life has just changed, like different. I'm able to save money, I'm put money aside for like special trips and anything that I need to do, but also be able to financially support myself. And also, yeah, um, for weeks and just make that money grow. And also, like, Qube has definitely helped me tremendously, helped us tremendously too.

Uh, Qube is the Qube money spending app that we like to use, and I know it's a bit of a learning curve at first and kind of moving things around and processes and But tell me what you like about Qube.

I think reverting back to quickly what you said before, I jumped on because Ryan was— needed to get it under control, right? And we were both very adamant about making sure that— he was very adamant and I was backing him on saying that, like, we didn't want this to go to waste. We wanted to make sure that this was used and respected in the way that it needed to be. And I think along this process, I have learned so very much on my own finance journey. When I went into it, I thought that it was going to be a lot heavily focused on Ryan. And I feel like I have gotten just as much out of it as Ryan has. I think that Qube is incredible because I tell people all the time, they see me using it or they'll ask me like what it is that we're doing. And we'll say things like it's essentially like the old envelope system, but I view it as this like virtual updated, upgraded version where you really get to have control over your entirety of your finances. You get to feel the sense of financial freedom because it's either there or it's not. And we're paid weekly. So for us, each week we go in, we allocate funds and we get everything, you know, where it needs to be. And it has dropped such a weight that I didn't even know I had that. I learned so very much when we first started this. One of the first questions was like, What's your definition of budgeting? I am so grateful that we went through the, like, emotional aspect of it and that we went through and you asked us questions. How do you view money? And it— what I— I mean, we both grew up where we were told to budget but never shown what that was. Yeah, right. I think that now knowing how to budget, what it is, how to find the spreadsheet, taking the time to actually talk about it and be more mindful within, like, each section. Totally. Yeah. And to be open and have the talk and the conversation of, like, Oh, hey, I'm going to be getting this subscription. And we end up seeing the checks and balances because we're able to see each other's, but we're also able to communicate and say, oh, well, I've got this because I know that you've got that. Like you said, being mindful of the actual dollar amount that you have, but also that like for the first time ever, I actually have like a real savings account. We went on a vacation recently. We were able to save the entirety of the vacation. Normally we would have just. Said the next paycheck will come and it'll just be a little tight for the next week and it'll be fine. But really we were able to be fine before, during, and after because we actually saved for the dollars that we needed and the dollars that we wanted.

And kind of decided before you went how much you were going to spend instead of just whatever impulse came along.

Exactly. And running up a credit card bill or going even further into debt. Not that we were like in immense debt before, but I'm so glad that you helped us both to zero out our debt. We have tax stuff, but not that's ever, you know, that's not debt and it's going to—

it's going to be. Yeah.

So I think changing our mindset again, like Ryan said, being mindful, but most especially I think that financial freedom has been a weight off my shoulders. I didn't even know I needed. And it was a stress that was relieved. Truthfully, I didn't even know it was a stressor. I think that like every young couple ever should talk about this, even if for whatever reason they don't end up— I think that there should be like a required 90-minute course That is by Penny Kidd, and every single couple should be required.

You adopted this child along the way.

Even this is a big expense too. And he was— he has been expensive. Okay.

But we have the money set aside, like in our— we have a Tony Q that we both do. So we're like, if we go to the vet, we have money in there for the vet. If we go to the pet store, we have money for the food and his toys and whatnot. And so every week money's going into the Tony Cube.

And right. Well, you guys have kind of an interesting situation in that you both, you work in the arts theater district and you have irregular incomes. And I know at first when we first started talking, it was a little bit like, oh, how are you supposed to budget when you don't know what you're going to make next? And people tell me that all the time. I can't budget because I have an irregular income, but That's all the more reason you need to budget, right?

Correct.

Correct. And Ryan's now doing great with— he's been applying and he's been doing all this stuff and he's working on his next job upgrade and leveling up in that way. Yeah, but for a little while he was relying on the money that was given to him. And again, to make sure that that was respected and that it was utilized to its full potential. I don't know that we would have been savvy enough to have been able to accomplish the goal and in the way, in the manner that we have. We've definitely done a little bit of YOLOing.

And do you want to explain what YOLO is for some people?

Yeah, we call it—

yeah, we talk about it as if you only live once. It's a quick, fresh decision to decide to purchase this or purchase that. And I think that that's like the one thing that you've taught us most is that like our mindset shift. And that's been the most important part of all of this is that really this idea that things have to come right this very second and that we need it right now has completely left. Out of our brains in a matter of seconds.

That's cool.

Just crazy to think about. But I even just did it yesterday. I had an Amazon shopping cart that was filled and I thought, I don't need most of this and some of this I'll get at the grocery store because we're also being mindful about not spending on Amazon, but we're being mindful about that and we're spending our money where we need to. And then we're like, oh, we don't need this right this very second.

Meanwhile, we end up finding things out while we're maybe for less expensive and also more mindful about Cooking at home and not going out because with the city life, you're always on the go. You know, Josh is so sweet and makes me lunches for work and—

That's huge.

And breakfast, you know, and he also makes coffee in the morning. Like this morning we just stayed in and we had leftovers, used leftovers, and I made a little egg situation.

But normally we would have been like, oh, who's ordering?

We set aside once a week to like have our little like diner date in the mornings, you know?

Nice.

We have like that money set aside for the week and we know this is approximately how much it is. So it's like we're just, we're very mindful of those few things.

I do remember that conversation, especially with Josh, where early on he was very protective of his coffee money and don't take my coffee money, Penny. It's not going to happen.

Yeah.

And I still am a little, but I now, I have intentionality, mindfully being like, okay, well, I don't need like the largest thing, or I also don't need like the most expensive thing. And dwindling down what it is that, you know, I was doing so much, so many more options and just getting whatever, whenever. And I was like, oh yeah, blowing through an entire paycheck in a week is now looking back is absolutely ludicrous. I don't understand who, why I would do such a thing. But I think, you know, people do it all the time. And obviously I did it for a long time and Yeah, I think being mindful and really intentional on the decisions that we're making as far as coffee go, as far as like your treats in the mornings go, or like whatever else. I think that like we still treat ourselves. That's actually helped us because now we really only eat out like twice a week. Usually we come home and we're like, all right, let's get our like dinner together. But we get off really late. So yeah, it's usually that like we're ready to go to bed and we're ready to like wind down, eat a quick meal. Yeah, but well, we're going to the store, we're going to get specific things that are quick. But also when you're going to the store, you pick healthier things. So I think that all of this has definitely—

we have salads a lot and we were not doing that before.

Yeah, right. It's not— I mean, like, whatever's easy, whatever's open late is not salads, right? It's not.

That's true.

Salad, you know. So yeah, I think that like it has helped our waistline quite a bit, but most especially it's helped our wallet. I think I've never had this much money in savings in my whole entire life. And I think that it is obviously all to do with you, Penny, and then most especially to do with Qube. I think that has helped us tremendously. And then I— learning new tips and tricks on like how it works and finally getting direct deposits in and then finally making the choice, the full switch and everything of like, okay, well now, now what do we do? And like each week I think that it was all planned out so well and so specifically that I am so happy with how this journey has went. There's definitely been frustrating times for sure. Yeah, like, talk about that. Like, we haven't touched the spreadsheet yet this week. Me and Penny Kidd, and we decide and we're like, oh well, because we spent money, we're like, oh well, should we just like maybe skip this week or should we call in sick or whatever else? But we've contemplated it and then we both decided it's like, no, we're not. We can't.

We still get something out of the conversation.

Yeah, exactly. So I think that all those things have really changed our mindset, but most especially changed our entire outlook on money. Yeah. And I do think that we're a lot freer now that we know what the dollars are supposed to be and that we can see a savings account that's growing and we can say, okay, cool, like all of this is very specific and intentional.

I love that you're fairly new into a relationship. You know, you haven't been together decades and trying to undo things. You're really trying to build from the foundation up and say, okay, what do we want our relationship to look like? And to have these open conversations, because I don't think when we first met you were talking a whole lot about it. Most people don't talk about money. There's all this kind of shame and embarrassment, and I don't know, you feel like the other might judge you if you talk out loud about what you want or what you, what your goals are or whatever. But I, I agree that all young couples should spend some time looking at this. We hear it all the time, whether it's fact or fiction, but that money causes breakups, right? We have many other things to worry about in relationships. Money shouldn't be the source of the conflict.

I don't want this to come across as like, oh, it's been an easy cakewalk and like it's going to be the easiest thing you've ever done. Really, it's like to get it into the system of almost like autopilot and like making sure that everything's done correctly. We definitely bickered or argued, if you will, at the beginning of like, okay, well, you're not using Cube as much as we need to and vice versa. I think that it was a huge wake-up call to start with the spreadsheet of writing everything out and all of our transactions and deciding, remember, and seeing how many dollars we were spending every week. We were like, I was like, what? At the time we were like, you know, joining houses and we bought like, you know, we were specific and bought a new couch and we bought lots of like We've made lots of large purchases over the time we've had you, but I think that we're not broke and we have money to— in a savings account, also in our checking. So all of this is working, right?

And our credit card is paid off.

It's a very weird feeling to like sort of be settled with money. And I think growing up it was like, oh, we don't really talk about money. And we— and when we do talk about it, it's like very weirdly specific on like this one line item and then that's it.

It's a, it's a big investment in yourself, I think. And that's, you're saying exactly what I try to convince people of is that if you spend a little money to invest in this, it's going to pay you back in spades.

I thought this last week too, of we were sort of doing some minor calculations and all of the money that we have saved over waiting a minute and then deciding, oh, well, maybe we don't need this thing, or all of the, like, lack of eating out that we do now and like the money that we've saved now, making sure that it's the right decision or the right thing. For the right choice has paid for this journey probably at least 3 times over.

Minimally. Wow.

For sure. I'd say truthfully, and that sounds like an exaggeration, but I could dare to say almost some, some are close to 4 if we really—

pretty factually. Yeah. Yeah.

With all of the money that we were just spending and blowing all the time, just like, yeah, whatever, we're going out every night, we're doing all this and we're having a good time. It's not that we don't go out anymore. We're just intentional.

Right.

But then we also are changing our ways of like, we're having people come over more and we're also like hosting and they'll bring some things and then we'll provide other things as well. And we'll, um, have a nice like game night. We don't need to go out to have fun. We can always have fun here too.

Right. And it is a journey. I love that you said it hasn't always been easy. Most things that matter are not, right? I hope you never felt like I was telling you you had to X, you know, you had to quit eating out, you had to whatever, because I don't think that's realistic and everybody's at their own pace. And I do use a spreadsheet to help me plan my money. But if you fall off the wagon, as long as you're being mindful somewhere as saying, here's what the boundary is, it's not about the spreadsheet, right? It's about the conversations.

My favorite thing that you did was the need versus want, right? Is this necessary or is this a want? And then really, again, you're like, well, that's not a need. And so then we decide and we break things down. And I think that we sort of needed that, right? Like a little bit of Mama Bear love in the toughest way. And I think that we really need— we needed that. We asked for that too. And we said we need a little bit of harshness. I now ask myself that all the time and I think that we have the like cognitive understanding, right? Like our brain tells us what a need versus a want is. But I don't think that I ever had it down like in my everyday autopilot every day, right? Like it was never something that was like, oh, it, to me it was always a need. Everything was a need.

Yes. I need this.

And since I need it, I need it very fast.

Right.

And that is an obvious and complete different change of mindset that we've had. So that's what I'm most grateful for too. I'm, yeah, truthfully.

And ditto to that. Honestly, I'm super grateful. Yeah. We had to put it into practice and like, and just, and do it. So we're at the store, we need the toilet paper, but we don't need that shirt today.

Yeah.

We want that shirt, you know, but like, right.

And it's okay to want. And I think that's where it's not a bad word. You just need to be mindful about Does it fit today? We've talked about travel and that's a value of you guys. When and where and how much and how big, and let's plan for it instead of that YOLO kind of like, but if I don't go, I'll never go. And, you know, kind of putting it back in perspective of saying, yeah, I wanna go do that and here's how I want to do it. And what am I willing to cheap out on and what am I willing to wait on? And sometimes it's like, I think food is complicated because you do need to eat, but do you need to eat out? Do you need to eat steak and lobster, or, you know, you're just hungry and you're hangry and all that piece, right? So if you're planning a little for the working late and whatever, it shouldn't be a shock. But you guys live in New York City and you have to— you walk by some amazing food every single day. Yeah.

But all of that amazing food comes at a cost.

Yeah.

And we were going out all the time and we would go out to drinks and our total would come and we'd be like, how is it that we spent $200? Because in the moment we're like, oh, we need, you know, we need to eat. So we're going to go, the only thing that's open. Oh, they happen to have drinks. Some friends come with us. Oh, we're going to pick up this appetizer. Oh, we're going to do this. $200 later. Okay. I guess that's what we did, you know?

Yeah. Now we do it at home. Like a bottle of wine is equivalent to the price of like almost 2 glasses. Restaurant, right? It's cheaper to do that. If we do want to make a cocktail, we have that.

When you break it down to what did you really want? You wanted the friendship, you wanted the social. We might want a glass of wine to go with that.

We want the environment.

Oh yeah, for sure.

You want the environment. But again, planning for those times and deciding that like, oh, we're not going to do it every night so that it is special. And then you want more and more, so then you're going to more expensive places and you're going to do more expensive things. And then you're like, wait a second, what are we doing here?

Yeah, I think it's even— it's just so much fun to be able to talk and just relax and just being here and just not going out as often. You know, it's just like connections, you know.

Yes. And like you said, we were combining houses and we built this really nice home and we're excited to now show it off to everybody. Did all that spending. Now we're ready to like bring them.

It's a vulnerable thing to open up in front of somebody and say, here's my spending. I remember At first there was a lot of apologizing on y'all's part, and I would say, I'm not judging, I don't care. I tell people it's kind of like death by a thousand cuts, right? You don't feel the first one, but then all of a sudden you started to see the list when we made you write it out. I don't care where you spent it, just write it out, let's look at it. And that has impact too when you start going, oh, when I have to see it, I better decide, do I want to see that again next week, or how much less, or where would I rather have put those dollars, right?

Then it becomes, do you want to take trips and be able to afford those trips, or is it that you want to continue to spend the way that you do? And I know there were several sessions where that's all we kind of talked about, was like, what— where our mindset is, like, what are our values? What are the things that we actually want to be spending our money on? What are the things we want to be saving our money for? And how are we being intentional about doing all that stuff? I think that when you start actually making the choices and it comes into your everyday and again gets you back, gets you, gets formulated into your autopilot of every day, it becomes easy and it becomes— that's when it really becomes mindless and you start automatically saying, oh well, I don't need this, I'm just going to get this. Or like, I don't need the large coffee, I'm just going to get the little one with extra. But then like that's going to be my suffice for the day.

So, or I'm going to take coffee from home so that I can do whatever. Exactly. Yeah. Well, I so appreciate you guys, and you have been very open and transparent to the whole process all the way along.

Genuinely, I, I can't even express again the like weight off my shoulders, the like stress that we originally shared with the inheritance, and to be able to like It's scary to see all that money. It's—

I know, it's a big money, money, money. But also, like, when it's actually in front of you, it's scary, right? So, like, and you— I don't want to, like, I didn't want to waste it.

So many people do, right? You know, they get that. It's like winning the lottery, right? We hear all the time that people win the lottery.

You've helped us to even find a CPA to be able to help with taxes with this because we had no idea what to do. And You helped us with some investment advice pieces, connections, right?

Yeah.

And connections of the people that we need to be speaking to about all of that. And so we were like, we don't even know where to start. Everybody has an opinion too, by the way. That's the other thing.

Yes.

Everybody has an opinion on what you should do with it, how it should be spent, who you should give it to. You know, all of these are like, oh, you need to give 10% to church and then you need to do this and you need to do that and you need to like, this is how you should be investing. And if you give a little bit to me, I know a guy, right? And then you're like, I, Well, I know a gal and she's a hell of a lot better. I can tell you that right now. The financial freedom is the thing that I am most grateful for. And now to be set up for the future and even to be set up for success is even— is truly what the icing on the like 18-layered cake at this point. I never thought that before 30 I would be having all like our future sort of planned out in a way. Yeah, financially. And to have our future sort of like continue to level up and for us to continue to live a life that we want to make memories and to share experiences and also to feel financially free to be able to do those things. It does take a little bit of planning, but in order to get to those spaces, to get to those places, it requires planning.

Yeah, you're sweet. Well, it's been really my, my pleasure. And I know that, like you said, originally Josh thought, well, this is for Ryan, I'll just come I want to be supportive, and that's cool that you're even willing to do that. And I know that you're friends of my daughter, and she talks about money all the time, and I'm sure you got a little bit where you would roll your eyes like, oh, here she goes again. Um, but once you get it, you can't help.

She tried to give me some cubes. She's like, oh, well, you know, you need to go. And I had it, and I even got the cart, and I, you know, I set everything up, and I was like, okay. And then it just sat there. And I was like, I needed the kick in the pants and I needed the person to tell me, you need to start doing this.

Try it.

We're going to just—

exactly.

You were like, if this isn't what works for you, then we're going to work on something else. This like avalanche of like, oh, we tried it. Oh, it's getting better. Oh, it's getting much easier now. My direct deposit is coming through. Oh, now it's the default on everything.

Yeah.

And we're using it every single day without even thinking about it again on autopilot, thinking about nothing. And still being super intentional about budgeting.

It's my top card on my, um, my key card on my Apple Pay.

I think one of the fascinating things that was unique in your experience was the kind of those micro spends on transportation for you guys, because you don't have a car, you don't have that lifestyle that I have. So we had to really adapt. Okay. What's important in your world and how can we make this work in your world? Not fit you into my Colorado world. Simplify it, but not say, oh, don't do that. Don't ever Uber. That's not realistic. We have to figure out what works in your world, right? And your schedule and your weekly pay versus monthly. I think everybody talks about budgeting like it's a monthly thing. And for me, it's not been monthly. It's per paycheck because it's like, where are these dollars going to go? But you do have to look at your— some, most of your bills only come in once a month. So how do you even out that rollercoaster?

Really, your teachings and your spreadsheet was like putting every single bill that ever, that has ever come in. You're like, oh, well, this one comes in on this date, don't forget. And then we're like, oh yeah. So then being able to like, we do like our own weekly check-ins now and we're like, okay, well, how are we doing? And now with Qube, it's again on autopilot. You start putting it in and then you start funding those Qubes. Netflix is already going to be paid for and Hulu is paid for, Disney Plus.

And getting ahead of the bills.

Right.

Right.

Yeah, already budgeted out so that now you no longer focus on any of those dollars. Now you still have a savings account that's growing, and I can still Uber tomorrow if I, if I— it's been so crazy to think of where I started. Even just right before I was with you, I was literally Ubering every single day, and I was like Ubering to and from and spending all this money on Uber. And then it was like, okay, we need to train it in. We need to not be doing that anymore. So now I'm very intentional about taking the train and Even so, that becomes expensive, right? When you really stop and decide to make the change, that's when change will happen.

Is there anything different that you would say, especially with Penny, but just in general for some coaching and accountability?

I think that Nike says it best and just do it. Just do it. We were both a little hesitant on it. I think we were both like, I know it's going to be a little expensive. This is going to be worth it. And we're both like, we just need to try it. And then we both finally decided to say, we're just going to do it. We're going to take it for 6 months, be super intentional, be very specific. Like, again, really dig deep into it. And 6 months later, this is how we're feeling. Is the fact that we're able to talk to you like this is crazy. It's almost mind-boggling to me that like, it's like you've unlocked this super secret passcode that not everybody knows about. And it seems like something so simplistic that everyone should just know about it.

I know it may be easy for you at first, but it might be hard at first, but just do it. There was a lot of hesitation for sure, like Josh said, but, and I was just like, I don't know, I don't know if I am good enough to like, we'll be budgeting and all this, that, and the other. I was like, I'm gonna be so confused and whatnot, but it just cube and Your input and your guidance and everything is just— it makes budgeting fun and easy.

Basically. Exactly. Who would have thought it'd be fun to sit down and decide where's my money?

I like putting my money in Cube and then clicking it and it's like doing that.

It's fun with the money puzzle and you're like, look at all— and then it does become fun because you say, wow, look at— I'm already starting for the next vacation. I already have money in a Disney fund that's already started. And it is fun to watch that grow. We already talked about this, but it was the most incredible feeling to go on that trip, to already have all the dollars saved, to come back and be good as gold. And because of how our paychecks land, we didn't get a paycheck for 2 weeks after we got back and we were fine. And that has literally never happened. We would have had to pull from savings or use the credit card for a little bit and then like slowly paid it all off and like whatever else.

And now you're always playing catch-up when you're doing that game. This way it's like, okay, we know when we We don't work, we don't get paid. We have to plan for that around. That's part of our travel expense, really. Thank you so much. I really appreciate all that you've shared. It's been a joy to work with you guys, and I'm excited to see where the next little bit goes.

I know. Well, yeah, you're not going anywhere, by the way. I've got you on lock for a little.

We're attached now.

Yeah.

So, all right. Well, great.

Thanks, you guys.

Be well.

Thank you.