RPF0094-Saving_Money_on

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00:00:28.000 | Have you ever read those news articles that

00:00:30.000 | talk about how much money it takes to raise a child?

00:00:33.000 | [CHUCKLES]

00:00:34.000 | How much babies cost, and therefore, why they're so

00:00:37.000 | expensive that you shouldn't even consider?

00:00:39.000 | Well, today, we're going to bust those myths.

00:00:41.000 | And I have brought a very special guest

00:00:44.000 | onto the program to help me do it.

00:00:46.000 | Today, you're going to meet Mrs. Radical Personal Finance

00:00:49.000 | herself.

00:00:50.000 | [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:00:54.000 | [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:00:57.000 | Welcome to the Radical Personal Finance podcast.

00:01:10.000 | My name is Joshua Sheets.

00:01:11.000 | Today is Monday, November 3, 2014.

00:01:15.000 | This is episode 94 of the show.

00:01:17.000 | Today, we're going to be talking about ideas and methods

00:01:20.000 | for saving money for babies.

00:01:22.000 | How do you actually cut out some of the massive expenses

00:01:26.000 | and possibly even maintain a better quality of living?

00:01:29.000 | [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:01:32.000 | And like I said in the introduction,

00:01:42.000 | today, many of you have wondered about her,

00:01:44.000 | whether she really exists or whether I made her up.

00:01:46.000 | And today, you are going to actually get a chance

00:01:49.000 | to meet Mrs. Radical Personal Finance podcast herself.

00:01:52.000 | Real quick before I introduce her, though,

00:01:54.000 | she is sitting right here ready to go, live and in person.

00:01:57.000 | But before I do, I wanted to just make a quick note for you.

00:02:00.000 | I forgot to mention on Friday's show,

00:02:02.000 | I did an interview last week for the Family Adventure podcast.

00:02:06.000 | If you are interested in hearing me talk with Eric Hemingway

00:02:09.000 | about some of the ideas and the methodologies for basically

00:02:14.000 | ways to save money on travel and save money for travel,

00:02:19.000 | he took our interview and he's releasing it

00:02:21.000 | in two different shows.

00:02:22.000 | The first show is a lot about some of the inspiration

00:02:25.000 | and the ideas that's already been released on his site.

00:02:28.000 | And then next week, he'll be releasing some of the tips

00:02:30.000 | and tools and tactics specifically

00:02:32.000 | that I walked through with him, some of which

00:02:34.000 | you've already heard on this show.

00:02:35.000 | But if you're interested in that,

00:02:36.000 | I meant to say that over the weekend

00:02:37.000 | so you would have something to listen to over the weekend.

00:02:40.000 | But I forgot.

00:02:41.000 | So here we go, Monday.

00:02:42.000 | And today, we're going to be talking about saving money

00:02:45.000 | on babies.

00:02:47.000 | So I want to introduce to you my wife, Tiffany.

00:02:50.000 | Tiffany, welcome to the Radical Personal Finance podcast.

00:02:53.000 | Thanks.

00:02:54.000 | It's great to be on.

00:02:55.000 | It's great to meet everybody.

00:02:56.000 | So many of you have asked about her.

00:02:58.000 | And today, she's on so you get a chance to hear from my wife.

00:03:01.000 | And let's see, we've been married two--

00:03:04.000 | Going on three.

00:03:05.000 | Almost three years now.

00:03:06.000 | And we've been enjoying life together very much.

00:03:10.000 | We've known each other for almost--

00:03:12.000 | probably almost a decade.

00:03:13.000 | Six, seven, eight.

00:03:14.000 | Yeah, about 10.

00:03:15.000 | Yeah, it's almost a decade.

00:03:16.000 | And we have a one-year-old son.

00:03:19.000 | So today's show, we're going to talk about saving money on kids.

00:03:22.000 | And I've got to give two disclaimers right off the bat.

00:03:24.000 | First of all, people are very touchy when it comes to kids

00:03:27.000 | as far as saving money and the different things

00:03:30.000 | that you should do.

00:03:31.000 | I know that saving money is not the goal in everything.

00:03:33.000 | And that is clearly not it.

00:03:36.000 | I don't actually particularly consider

00:03:38.000 | us to be all that frugal.

00:03:39.000 | I think we do some things that are frugal,

00:03:41.000 | but we actually-- there are a lot of people

00:03:43.000 | that are way more hardcore than we are.

00:03:45.000 | We're just going to share some ideas that we have found

00:03:47.000 | to be helpful, things that have helped us.

00:03:51.000 | And primarily, we're doing this show so that--

00:03:54.000 | I was inspired by-- we had a friend of ours over last week.

00:03:56.000 | And he and his wife, they were talking about maybe having kids

00:03:59.000 | at some point.

00:04:00.000 | And I said, how much does it cost?

00:04:01.000 | So we're just trying to give them some of the ideas

00:04:03.000 | that we've learned.

00:04:04.000 | And so now, we're going to create a show that can be here

00:04:06.000 | as a resource for people.

00:04:08.000 | Second disclaimer is that you just pick and choose

00:04:11.000 | what you want.

00:04:12.000 | We're going to talk through some of the things that

00:04:15.000 | have worked for us.

00:04:16.000 | But you have to recognize we only have one child.

00:04:18.000 | And he is one year old.

00:04:20.000 | So a lot of things that work for us

00:04:22.000 | probably will not work for you.

00:04:24.000 | We have learned from observation that every child is different.

00:04:28.000 | And just pick and choose what you want.

00:04:30.000 | So one of the things I do want to start with,

00:04:32.000 | though, is that I have seen-- I've shared with all of you

00:04:35.000 | on the show before.

00:04:37.000 | And the place to start is you have to recognize, I think,

00:04:42.000 | that kids will cost exactly what you have

00:04:44.000 | or decide to spend on them.

00:04:46.000 | If you look all around the world,

00:04:47.000 | you will see populations of people throughout the world

00:04:50.000 | who have nothing and have plenty of kids.

00:04:54.000 | And they give their kids exactly what they have,

00:04:57.000 | which is not much.

00:04:58.000 | And then you look in some extremely wealthy environments,

00:05:01.000 | and you find many people who have plenty

00:05:06.000 | and spend plenty on their kids.

00:05:08.000 | So frankly, kids will cost exactly what you have

00:05:11.000 | or hopefully, if you're listening on this show,

00:05:15.000 | what you decide to spend.

00:05:17.000 | That's up to you.

00:05:18.000 | I don't care what you do or don't decide to spend.

00:05:22.000 | But we're going to talk through this in a couple of areas.

00:05:27.000 | And we're going to start with just a couple of themes.

00:05:31.000 | And the first one that I think is one of the biggest impediments

00:05:34.000 | to people for being able to save money

00:05:36.000 | is the idea of having time.

00:05:40.000 | A lot of the things that you can do to save money require time,

00:05:45.000 | because a lot of times what you're spending the most money on

00:05:48.000 | is the idea of convenience.

00:05:49.000 | Now, you could take this to its extreme end,

00:05:51.000 | and you could say, "Well, we could make all of our own clothes

00:05:55.000 | and make all of our own food and grow the food from scratch

00:05:59.000 | and train a horse of some kind and build a wagon."

00:06:05.000 | I mean, you could take it to the extreme.

00:06:07.000 | So I wouldn't go there.

00:06:08.000 | I'm not interested in doing that.

00:06:10.000 | But the point is that we pay for convenience.

00:06:12.000 | And there are certain conveniences that are probably worth paying for,

00:06:15.000 | and then there are certain conveniences that you've got to decide.

00:06:21.000 | But one of the first ways to save money is to have time.

00:06:25.000 | I really think that in a relationship, in economics,

00:06:29.000 | generally if you have a higher division of labor,

00:06:32.000 | in general you'll wind up with lower costs.

00:06:34.000 | And in a marriage you have exactly the same thing.

00:06:36.000 | So there's a lot of things that Tiffany is able to do now,

00:06:40.000 | where she's home with baby, that she wasn't able to do before.

00:06:44.000 | What are some of the ideas and the things that have changed

00:06:47.000 | since you stopped working outside the house

00:06:49.000 | and started working inside the house

00:06:50.000 | that you now have time to spend a little bit more time on?

00:06:53.000 | Well, one big thing--I don't know if this is necessarily baby-related,

00:06:57.000 | but it's food shopping.

00:06:59.000 | One source of--not contention, but stress for me--

00:07:04.000 | is I really don't enjoy cooking and doing the whole food thing.

00:07:09.000 | So being at home gives me time to sit down, get out my app, plan my food,

00:07:14.000 | and then go to the grocery store and feel like I can be at ease about it.

00:07:18.000 | And then when I come home I have time to cook it,

00:07:20.000 | and I can cook it while baby's napping.

00:07:22.000 | One thing that's nice about being home with a baby,

00:07:24.000 | specifically switching over from groceries,

00:07:26.000 | is that I can put him to his nap whenever he looks tired.

00:07:30.000 | I don't have to be dependent on some daycare schedule.

00:07:33.000 | If he's tired, he can have a nap.

00:07:35.000 | And if he's hungry, I can give him a snack.

00:07:37.000 | He's not on some institutionalized schedule.

00:07:41.000 | I know that's not a reality for everyone,

00:07:43.000 | but that's one advantage to being able to be home with him,

00:07:47.000 | that I can look at his individual needs each time

00:07:51.000 | and just make a decision in that moment.

00:07:54.000 | Yeah, it makes a big difference.

00:07:57.000 | I remember back to when we were first married,

00:08:00.000 | and when both of us were working outside the house,

00:08:02.000 | it just seemed like there was money leaking out all over the place

00:08:05.000 | simply because we didn't have time and didn't feel like it.

00:08:08.000 | We wound up eating out at least three times a week, four times a week maybe,

00:08:12.000 | and usually it was just simply because both of us would get off work late,

00:08:16.000 | have some schedule, something planned in the evening,

00:08:19.000 | and we'd be so busy we never had time to--

00:08:22.000 | or we never made time to be able to plan ahead to be able to eat at home.

00:08:28.000 | It's just simple things like that.

00:08:30.000 | And then even just the stress of both of us being outside the house all day,

00:08:36.000 | we wanted more higher impact, more go, go, go, go, go activities

00:08:41.000 | and points of entertainment where I've noticed that transition in our life.

00:08:46.000 | And even just like with baby, there's so many free things

00:08:48.000 | that you can do with baby during the day.

00:08:51.000 | I know you walk to the library for library story time.

00:08:55.000 | You can go to the park.

00:08:57.000 | I mean there's a wealth of free things that you can do with kids that are fun,

00:09:02.000 | but most of them are going to come during the day

00:09:04.000 | and not going to be to come on the off hours.

00:09:06.000 | So I would strongly encourage consider making the time for at least--

00:09:13.000 | consider making the time for mom to be at home.

00:09:15.000 | It makes all the difference in the world.

00:09:16.000 | I think it's a better lifestyle for everybody.

00:09:19.000 | Do what you want to do. Live how you want to live.

00:09:21.000 | I don't get why people want to live the stressful lifestyles they do.

00:09:26.000 | Is your stress level higher now or was it higher before?

00:09:30.000 | I don't know if it was higher or lower. It's a different kind of stress.

00:09:33.000 | It's more, "Do I hear him waking up from his nap?"

00:09:36.000 | instead of, "Oh no, this project is due."

00:09:39.000 | Right, right. It's a different kind of stress.

00:09:42.000 | And so there's massive--if you can build time, especially for mom,

00:09:47.000 | there are massive amounts of savings, again, daycare costs,

00:09:51.000 | and then just all of the other things that you never had time to do

00:09:55.000 | when we were both working outside the house.

00:09:58.000 | Next category on our outline here is source your stuff for free if possible.

00:10:05.000 | And it sounds silly, but we live in the land of massive abundance

00:10:10.000 | in the United States of America.

00:10:12.000 | And if you look at the fact that the families that have kids

00:10:15.000 | often only have one or two kids,

00:10:17.000 | there is free kid stuff and free baby stuff everywhere.

00:10:21.000 | So we start with the fact that, A, kids really don't need that much stuff.

00:10:26.000 | Some of you need more clothing for your kid than we do.

00:10:29.000 | We don't have snow.

00:10:32.000 | But frankly, they don't need that much space and they don't need that much stuff.

00:10:36.000 | And then the stuff that is useful to have,

00:10:38.000 | because there's tons of stuff that's useful to have

00:10:42.000 | and that makes life a little bit easier,

00:10:44.000 | but that stuff is basically just floating around our society entirely for free.

00:10:49.000 | We've had great luck with curb diving.

00:10:52.000 | My wife is a master.

00:10:55.000 | She's trained my eyes to be better.

00:10:57.000 | She's a master at finding free stuff on the side of the road.

00:11:01.000 | But let's see.

00:11:02.000 | So you found a free rocking chair, the rocking chair you use, right?

00:11:05.000 | Oh, yeah, that rocking chair is awesome.

00:11:06.000 | I prefer it to my glider that we also got for free.

00:11:09.000 | And that was a $200 rocking chair, basically.

00:11:12.000 | It was a nice one.

00:11:13.000 | We painted it just because I wanted it a different color,

00:11:16.000 | but it was in great condition free.

00:11:18.000 | Yeah, free bassinet, right?

00:11:20.000 | Free bassinet, free baby swing.

00:11:23.000 | Baby swing, yeah, we found that on the side of the road.

00:11:26.000 | And a baby bathtub, which I wasn't even planning on getting,

00:11:29.000 | but now that we got one for free, I just think, "Wow, this is actually somewhat useful."

00:11:34.000 | And we got some toys and an anti-slip bath mat thing,

00:11:40.000 | stuff that I haven't even used we got for free on the side of the road.

00:11:43.000 | Free bookshelf.

00:11:44.000 | Oh, yeah, yeah.

00:11:45.000 | His bookshelf now is free bookshelf.

00:11:47.000 | We got a free--was the car seat that we started with, was that one free off the neighbor's?

00:11:53.000 | Yeah, your brother's neighbor was moving, and she had a bunch of baby stuff.

00:11:57.000 | So she gave us her old infant car seat with two bases,

00:12:01.000 | which is interesting because we only have one car.

00:12:03.000 | And we were able to ask her, "Has this been in an accident?"

00:12:09.000 | We could check if it was expired or not.

00:12:10.000 | It was in great condition.

00:12:11.000 | All I had to do was wash the cover.

00:12:12.000 | Good to go.

00:12:13.000 | If you want to set the baby forums--by the way, if you don't have kids yet--

00:12:17.000 | if you want to set baby forums on fire, just talk about getting used car seats,

00:12:22.000 | and you will incur the wrath of the Internet world on you.

00:12:28.000 | And I get it.

00:12:30.000 | You do need to make sure, I think, that you need to make sure--car seats, actually,

00:12:33.000 | we found out, learned that they have an expiration date.

00:12:35.000 | You want to make sure that they're not used too long.

00:12:38.000 | And if a car seat has been in an accident, then that does damage the integrity of it.

00:12:43.000 | So I think it's a good idea to change it.

00:12:45.000 | But I have yet to see the study--maybe you've seen any of the parenting magazines--

00:12:49.000 | but I have yet to see the study that shows there's a band of car seat hoodlums out there

00:12:54.000 | going and taking car seats from wrecked cars and pawing them off on Craigslist

00:12:59.000 | to try to destroy parents that care about their kids.

00:13:04.000 | We've gotten--let's see--we've gotten plenty of free toys.

00:13:07.000 | We got a free bed.

00:13:10.000 | The crib, yeah, from a co-worker.

00:13:12.000 | He and his wife had had their second child.

00:13:14.000 | They were finished--decided they were done having kids and didn't need the crib anymore.

00:13:17.000 | So that was free.

00:13:19.000 | And I think this is one of the keys is there's some keys to being given stuff.

00:13:22.000 | A, announce that you're having a kid, and then all of a sudden mention that you're looking for stuff.

00:13:26.000 | And then B, be a good donor is the way I think about it.

00:13:29.000 | People like to give you things, and we like to give stuff away too.

00:13:32.000 | I mean, it makes you happy.

00:13:34.000 | In our world where there's so much stuff floating around,

00:13:36.000 | it makes me happy to be able to send something to a good home where it's going to get used.

00:13:40.000 | And so I think we've probably developed a reputation as being good gift recipients.

00:13:46.000 | And that comes with some extra work because a lot of times maybe you're given things that you don't--

00:13:51.000 | you know what?

00:13:52.000 | Some people think we're good gift recipients and some people don't.

00:13:56.000 | As far as--there are some things--my wife and I are aspiring minimalists,

00:14:00.000 | so there are many things that we often accept with joy,

00:14:04.000 | and then sometimes we're probably not so gracious in refusing certain things as we should be.

00:14:10.000 | But it's hard to--you have to fight to keep clutter out of your house.

00:14:13.000 | But if you just simply get--are good at receiving things, and you don't mind sorting through stuff,

00:14:19.000 | a lot of times we'll get bags of baby clothes and just go through and sort through what you like and what you don't like.

00:14:24.000 | And what Tiffany does is she will go through and sort out the stuff that she likes that is good,

00:14:31.000 | sort out the stuff that is good but she doesn't really like,

00:14:34.000 | and then we'll try to give that to another parent or parent-to-be,

00:14:38.000 | and then go through and sort out the stuff that's maybe not so good

00:14:41.000 | and that she doesn't think someone else will serve.

00:14:43.000 | But we've been able to bless other people with some other things as well, so that's been useful.

00:14:47.000 | What do you think--one of the things you're good at is cleaning stuff.

00:14:50.000 | Oh, yeah. We're on a first-name basis with the Shout Gel.

00:14:54.000 | Right. And I think this is important because it grosses a lot of people out, the idea of getting free stuff.

00:14:59.000 | You don't know where it's been. You don't know what the history is.

00:15:02.000 | But if you can get good at cleaning stuff--I'll tell you, we have a pressure cleaner,

00:15:06.000 | and I actually bartered for the pressure cleaner a couple years ago.

00:15:10.000 | I did some pressure cleaning for my friend who owned the pressure cleaner,

00:15:14.000 | and in exchange for it, he was willing to give it to me.

00:15:18.000 | And since then, I've had just a pressure cleaner that's certainly powerful,

00:15:22.000 | and that helps a lot because you can get stuff off the side of the road that just looks not so great,

00:15:27.000 | but you take the pressure cleaner to it, and you can shine stuff up like crazy.

00:15:31.000 | And this is what all the stores do. You get something in that doesn't look good,

00:15:34.000 | you clean it up and move it on.

00:15:37.000 | And so get good at cleaning stuff, and a pressure cleaner is extremely useful.

00:15:41.000 | Just this last Saturday, we had a bunch of play equipment that we got for free

00:15:46.000 | from my brother who was moving, and we were able to get all that play equipment,

00:15:50.000 | bring it to my house, I pressure cleaned it all, and it just sparkled it right up.

00:15:53.000 | Some of the red is still a little bit faded from the sun, but it looks great.

00:15:57.000 | Another theme I think that we don't use enough in the United States is to borrow and to barter.

00:16:04.000 | And so one advantage we have is we live close to a lot of families,

00:16:08.000 | a lot of babysitters, which is useful, and we try to babysit for our nieces and nephews.

00:16:12.000 | We enjoy being with them, and then that gives you options for being able to have babysitters for your kids,

00:16:19.000 | so you can go out on date night when you want to.

00:16:21.000 | And so for us, we have a lot of family. We have a very close church family that makes a big difference,

00:16:26.000 | and I would encourage you, if you don't have this, it is certainly challenging.

00:16:30.000 | Needing to hire babysitters, it adds up.

00:16:35.000 | So being able to live close to family, barter services one with another, and then also to borrow baby stuff.

00:16:42.000 | So there are certain items I'm thinking right now of baby carriers.

00:16:46.000 | So if you've ever seen Moms and Dads with – this is all the rage now in the crunchy baby circles.

00:16:51.000 | Baby wearing.

00:16:52.000 | Right. There are all these names for this stuff.

00:16:55.000 | And my wife and I, we didn't start at Set Out to Be, but we've long since discovered that we're beyond crunchy,

00:17:01.000 | and that's our term for the – I don't know. You figure it out.

00:17:04.000 | Like natural sort of things.

00:17:07.000 | Yeah, and what's funny is we were both pretty critical of all that stuff until you start doing your research,

00:17:11.000 | and you start doing your research on the stuff.

00:17:13.000 | That's what's overwhelming about having kids is you just have to do your research,

00:17:16.000 | and all of a sudden – you sent me a thing one time. It was like 10 things only crunchy dads –

00:17:22.000 | Oh, yeah, and you were like – you knew all of them plus two?

00:17:26.000 | Exactly, and I'm like, "Well, they missed this, and they missed that."

00:17:29.000 | So we've turned into beyond crunchy, but that's cool. No big deal.

00:17:33.000 | But like – so there's this whole theme about this idea of baby wearing,

00:17:38.000 | and basically you snuggle with your kid in a little carrier, and it's super useful.

00:17:43.000 | It's a super great way to keep your baby with you.

00:17:45.000 | It keeps your hands free.

00:17:47.000 | Right, keep your hands free. But those things are expensive to buy.

00:17:50.000 | So we were able to – and the thing is you almost need two different kinds

00:17:54.000 | because there's special considerations for ones that are appropriate when the baby is an infant,

00:17:59.000 | and then there are special considerations for when the baby has grown a little bit.

00:18:02.000 | So we were able to borrow – what was the – Catan?

00:18:06.000 | Yeah, there was – one of our church families had used a baby Catan,

00:18:10.000 | and I didn't do any research on slings or wraps or anything, but I knew she had one,

00:18:15.000 | so I said, "Oh, I'll just borrow whatever she has."

00:18:17.000 | And we borrowed that for the first four months or so.

00:18:21.000 | Incidentally, baby did not like it.

00:18:24.000 | Right, yeah.

00:18:25.000 | So it was nice that we had borrowed it.

00:18:26.000 | And then we borrowed a more structured soft carrier is what it's called.

00:18:31.000 | Ours is an Ergo brand, but there's tons of them.

00:18:33.000 | And this we borrowed from Joshua's sister, and it's been really great.

00:18:39.000 | We still use it even though he's one year old.

00:18:42.000 | We still use that Ergo, and he tolerates it much better than he did the baby Catan.

00:18:45.000 | So you don't want to spend a whole bunch of money and then find out your kid doesn't even like it.

00:18:49.000 | Right, and so it's good to borrow them first, and then they're only used for a certain amount of time.

00:18:54.000 | So even if another family has one, I mean, the Ergos are expensive.

00:18:58.000 | So even if another family has one and you can just simply use it while they don't need it,

00:19:03.000 | and then who knows, maybe they'll need it again and you can pass it on.

00:19:05.000 | But it should be pretty durable.

00:19:07.000 | They can certainly last more than a couple of kids.

00:19:09.000 | And then we got one--the problem with the one that we borrowed was it didn't fit me.

00:19:13.000 | I'm a little bit more rotund than my wife is, and I'm also a little bit taller.

00:19:19.000 | So we were able to switch, and we got one on Craigslist.

00:19:22.000 | We researched what their biggest one was that would fit me and got one of those on Craigslist for, what, $40?

00:19:27.000 | $40, and evidently we were first in line, and it was quite a line according to this woman because that was a deal.

00:19:34.000 | Yeah, yeah.

00:19:35.000 | So barter if you can, borrow if you can, and especially with some of this baby gear, it just doesn't wear out.

00:19:41.000 | The kids don't use it that much, and I hate to see the stuff thrown away.

00:19:44.000 | It seems so ridiculous that we use stuff one time.

00:19:47.000 | So in our society, look for that.

00:19:50.000 | One of the other themes that we have learned is--and I think is a valuable way to save money

00:19:55.000 | and also maybe have a better quality of life is if possible, try to make things or buy things, use things,

00:20:02.000 | that are reusable instead of disposable.

00:20:05.000 | And probably the best-kept secret is the cloth diaper world.

00:20:10.000 | And many people--we've learned in having these conversations, you get very mixed feelings when you start talking about diapers for kids.

00:20:18.000 | That's one of the major expenses that new parents face.

00:20:21.000 | And you either get people that are like hardcore cloth-dipering fanatics--

00:20:26.000 | It's their religion.

00:20:27.000 | Right, or you get a lot of people that just are hardcore, like that's the worst thing in the world, that's disgusting.

00:20:33.000 | How on earth could you do that?

00:20:35.000 | But what I thought it would be to do if you're eating--I don't know, maybe you want to come back to this,

00:20:38.000 | but I'll give you some practical tips.

00:20:40.000 | We never--at least I never--I'll ask you a second, babe, your story on diapers.

00:20:45.000 | But I never had any positive memories of cloth diapers.

00:20:49.000 | I knew they existed, but I thought that was utterly disgusting when I was a kid growing up

00:20:54.000 | and when you're a young man and you're not paying attention to family stuff, to my own discredit.

00:20:59.000 | But I specifically remember--it's funny, I used to work at a market research company,

00:21:04.000 | and there was a senior--one of the senior guys at the market research company.

00:21:08.000 | We did a lot of research for large companies, product development, trying to find--what they call their--

00:21:15.000 | your white space opportunity in the marketing lingo is trying to figure out where do you have an ability to put a new product.

00:21:21.000 | And we did a lot of consumer research with quantitative and qualitative testing on new product ideas.

00:21:28.000 | And the example that one of the senior consultants always used, he said,

00:21:32.000 | "If you ask moms and dads what the number one thing was is that they're looking for is they want--

00:21:39.000 | in a diaper product, they want something that is environmentally friendly.

00:21:43.000 | This is what people say they want."

00:21:44.000 | But he says--he would always say this story--he said, "The solution exists now."

00:21:48.000 | So even though they say they want environmentally friendly, they clearly don't because nobody uses cloth diapers.

00:21:53.000 | They just use disposable diapers.

00:21:56.000 | So I always had this very, like, hardcore negative impression in my mind of what cloth diapers were like

00:22:04.000 | until my wife got interested and educated me a little bit, and then that helped to--where I learned what I didn't know.

00:22:10.000 | So how did you find out about or get interested in cloth diapers? Do you remember?

00:22:14.000 | I think my first kind of little seedling was planted by my cousin.

00:22:20.000 | She had a baby girl and decided that she wanted to use cloth with her baby girl.

00:22:24.000 | And her baby shower, instead of wanting presents and having a registry, she wanted money for cloth diapers

00:22:31.000 | or, like, gift cards or something--somehow, something cloth diaper-related.

00:22:35.000 | And so that was my first thought, like, "Oh, people do this."

00:22:39.000 | And then I--whenever we got pregnant with baby, I read a book called The Business of Baby.

00:22:46.000 | Jennifer Margulis, I think, is the author.

00:22:49.000 | And in this book, the author talks about your different choices for lots of different baby-related things.

00:22:57.000 | And one of her topics is diapers.

00:22:59.000 | So she discusses cloth diapers, and I got more of a feel for, you know, this could be a solution for us.

00:23:07.000 | And I thought about it a little bit more, just let it simmer.

00:23:10.000 | I was like--one day I approached you and just said, "I think I'd like to do cloth diapers."

00:23:14.000 | So I got with my cousin and started researching online, and it is a whole world.

00:23:20.000 | Once you open the door to the cloth diaper world, it's a whole different language.

00:23:24.000 | It's a whole different--just, like, things that you did not know existed with cloth diapers.

00:23:31.000 | It's not the same kind of cloth diaper that we grew up with.

00:23:34.000 | It's a world of variety and options and prices and people that sell them.

00:23:43.000 | It's just--people get very particular, too, about it.

00:23:49.000 | But anyway, we've saved a lot with cloth diapers.

00:23:51.000 | Right, and that's the key is, I think, that if you are older, like, if you have memories of how cloth diapers used to be,

00:23:58.000 | you can still get the same cloth diapers that maybe you grew up with or that you're aware of 20 years ago.

00:24:04.000 | But there are a host of new options and new ideas that basically take that reusable concept forward and make it a lot better.

00:24:13.000 | The amazing thing, though, is that this is not a dying market.

00:24:18.000 | I could not believe--you would not believe how much these things cost.

00:24:23.000 | It's amazing the cost that you can pay for new diapers.

00:24:27.000 | And even if you go and you buy them new, then you'll find that they're going to save you money over disposables.

00:24:35.000 | And by the way, saving money is actually not the only reason why some people do it.

00:24:39.000 | There are a lot of--do your own research, but there are a lot of people who do it--who would do it,

00:24:44.000 | who would use cloth diapers instead of disposable diapers, regardless of the money savings,

00:24:48.000 | whether that's because you don't like sending dozens of diapers a week to the landfill that sit there and take years and years to break down

00:24:55.000 | or whether you're concerned about the health of the baby and all of the junk that is in the diapers that makes them so absorbent.

00:25:02.000 | There are lots of--

00:25:03.000 | Or your child gets a rash with disposable or you don't want your child's parts wrapped in plastic.

00:25:10.000 | Right. Right. So there are a lot of different options.

00:25:14.000 | But the thing I couldn't believe is that there's just this massive market for them, and they're not cheap.

00:25:18.000 | So real quick, it's hard in an audio format, but give a couple of the different types that are available.

00:25:26.000 | Well, I'll try to just be brief for those of you who aren't as interested in baby things, but I guess you're probably skipping this episode anyway.

00:25:33.000 | There's basically three or four kinds of cloth diapers.

00:25:37.000 | There's pre-folds, which is what we grew up with in the '80s or so.

00:25:41.000 | Yeah, this is a strip of cloth that you just lay out and you wrap around and you basically use--

00:25:45.000 | It's got about four to six layers in the middle and two or three layers on the outsides.

00:25:51.000 | You fold it in thirds and lay it inside a cover and wrap that around the baby.

00:25:56.000 | Then there are flats, which are like pre-folds.

00:26:00.000 | Well, I think flats are more like a towel, like a flower towel.

00:26:03.000 | If you buy a flower towel, evidently that's similar to a flat, but we don't have any of those, so I could be wrong.

00:26:08.000 | Then there are pockets, which is what we have mostly.

00:26:12.000 | There's a fleece layer--well, picture a disposable diaper shape.

00:26:18.000 | Then the inside is a fleece layer, which keeps the moisture away from the baby's body.

00:26:24.000 | The outside is polyester with a lining.

00:26:29.000 | It's called PUL. I'm not sure exactly what the urethane lining means, but it's waterproof.

00:26:35.000 | Then you stuff in the inside an insert, which absorbs all the wetness.

00:26:38.000 | So that's a pocket.

00:26:40.000 | The other one is the same concept, but you don't stuff it.

00:26:43.000 | The insert is attached, so there's no stuffing.

00:26:46.000 | There's no matching up after the laundry.

00:26:50.000 | You just use them and then wash them and use them again.

00:26:54.000 | That's real helpful for dads who might not be as into the cloth diapering as their wives.

00:26:58.000 | Probably the one we have the most of is a brand.

00:27:03.000 | I think it's one of the leading brands called Fuzzy Buns, which are the insert ones.

00:27:06.000 | How much do they cost new without getting a special deal on them?

00:27:09.000 | Approximately $20.

00:27:11.000 | It's about $20 a diaper.

00:27:14.000 | You can find them on Google. I didn't do the numbers before this.

00:27:17.000 | Do a DuckDuckGo search and go and find somebody who writes out the cost of that versus disposable.

00:27:25.000 | Even if you bought completely new ones and used them for one kid, I think you still come ahead financially.

00:27:31.000 | The key is trying to figure out some ways to buy them for cheaper.

00:27:35.000 | My wife is a wizard when it comes to this.

00:27:37.000 | What is your current average for all the diapers that we have?

00:27:40.000 | I have two averages.

00:27:41.000 | One is the average of diapers that we've purchased and one is the complete average including the free ones.

00:27:46.000 | What's the purchased one first?

00:27:48.000 | Purchased is $6.41 each.

00:27:51.000 | For each diaper that we actually have?

00:27:53.000 | Including the free ones, it's $4.07.

00:27:56.000 | Nice.

00:27:57.000 | Here's one of the things I couldn't believe.

00:28:00.000 | If you're not into babies, if you've never had a kid or whatever, this shocked me.

00:28:05.000 | You would not believe how much money you have to pay to get a used diaper.

00:28:09.000 | It sounds so ridiculous to say but you wouldn't believe it.

00:28:13.000 | You go on eBay and you start looking and you find out that the new ones sell for $20 and the used ones may sell for $11 or $12.

00:28:21.000 | That's pretty accurate.

00:28:22.000 | Yeah, depending on the brand, $7, $10, $12.

00:28:25.000 | Yeah.

00:28:26.000 | You're like how is it that there's no depreciation on these diapers?

00:28:28.000 | It's amazing.

00:28:30.000 | So what Tiffany did was – so tell us what the different strategies that you used to be able to get a bunch of these because we've got tons of them now.

00:28:38.000 | Tons.

00:28:39.000 | And how did you get them for deals?

00:28:40.000 | Well, I've already mentioned we got a few for free.

00:28:43.000 | One set was from a family we know who started out.

00:28:47.000 | They were going to do cloth but didn't really catch on in their family.

00:28:50.000 | So they had the diapers lying around.

00:28:52.000 | They weren't being used so they gave them to us.

00:28:54.000 | Then there was FreeCycle.

00:28:56.000 | I put out on FreeCycle that we were looking for cloth diapers.

00:28:59.000 | I mentioned that I could replace the elastic and it didn't matter if they were stained.

00:29:03.000 | People need to get rid of those because they can't sell them for the $12 if they're stained.

00:29:08.000 | So that makes it easy for them to give away on FreeCycle.

00:29:12.000 | So we got a few of those.

00:29:13.000 | Also, the ones that we did buy, I got on eBay in lots.

00:29:18.000 | If you buy them in twos and threes on eBay, they're going to be $10, $12.

00:29:23.000 | But we got them in lots of 30 diapers, 50 diapers.

00:29:28.000 | That was how we kept the cost down because at that point, people want to get rid of them.

00:29:34.000 | When they're selling all their diapers at one time, they just want them to be gone and they're willing to make a deal.

00:29:39.000 | Right. And you understand the psychology.

00:29:41.000 | I mean if you're not going to have any more kids and you've got all these diapers, you don't want to sit there and do individual auctions.

00:29:46.000 | So it's just a matter of getting rid of it and eBay is the way to do it.

00:29:49.000 | Yeah. So that saved us a ton.

00:29:52.000 | Can you think of any other ways?

00:29:54.000 | And the key, real quick, on the staining thing, diapers, they're not gross like you think.

00:29:59.000 | And that's one of the things that I learned is that – and I won't go into that because I don't think it goes into this.

00:30:04.000 | But it's not – the idea of the diapers being disgusting the way that I always thought what it was is not how it is.

00:30:12.000 | So the staining is not even from the – necessarily from the material there, although it can be.

00:30:18.000 | But it's not like a diaper is just this nasty brown thing.

00:30:21.000 | They're not. They're perfectly clean and you can hang them in the sun and you get rid of a lot of the stains.

00:30:25.000 | And then the elastic is something that – where it goes around the leg hole and around the –

00:30:31.000 | The back.

00:30:32.000 | The back, yeah.

00:30:33.000 | And so there's elastic to hold them snug to the baby's body and that elastic just gets stretched out with use.

00:30:38.000 | So you can go in there and what Tiffany does is goes in and just pulls that elastic out and does some new one.

00:30:44.000 | It takes, what, ten minutes of diaper type of thing.

00:30:46.000 | And you don't even need a machine to do it, just a needle and thread and some scissors.

00:30:49.000 | And so then they're basically good as new.

00:30:51.000 | That's the only thing really that wears out for them.

00:30:54.000 | So, yeah, you can get them for free.

00:30:56.000 | You can buy them broken, fix the elastic, get them on free cycle.

00:31:00.000 | And what Tiffany has done is kind of recycled them through, get the lot, take the ones she wants, pass the other ones along or set them aside in kind of a rejects box or send them along to another place.

00:31:11.000 | And that way we've – you've kind of a ridiculous collection at this point.

00:31:14.000 | I know. It's actually really sad.

00:31:16.000 | Because you don't need that many of them.

00:31:18.000 | No.

00:31:19.000 | And my reject box actually came in handy the other day because one of the ones I had gotten, the snap broke.

00:31:24.000 | Right.

00:31:25.000 | And I needed to find a snap, but I didn't want to buy one of those snap pressy things because they're expensive and I only needed to replace one snap.

00:31:33.000 | I could have bought a new diaper with the cost of the snappy thing.

00:31:37.000 | So I used my reject diaper for one of the snaps and just put that older snap on this diaper that I wanted to keep using and good to go.

00:31:46.000 | Yeah. And so there are different sizes.

00:31:48.000 | There are some sizes that are called one size that you can use all the way through.

00:31:52.000 | So if you're starting off for the first time and you're researching it, you might want to consider that, right, if you're building a collection?

00:31:57.000 | Yeah, if you're building a collection, the one size can be useful.

00:32:01.000 | The only thing is they're not actually – I mean you can't use them until the baby has grown a little bit.

00:32:06.000 | Right, right. So we have what, a newborn collection?

00:32:09.000 | Well, like you said, it's ridiculous.

00:32:11.000 | So this is not anything to aspire to.

00:32:13.000 | We have newborn. We have smalls in the fuzzy buns.

00:32:17.000 | We have one size fuzzy buns and then we have one size various other things that we just got off from FreeCycle.

00:32:23.000 | Right, right. So do your research if you're interested.

00:32:27.000 | A couple of quick other notes because this can save you a massive amount and here's the deal.

00:32:32.000 | It can save you a massive amount.

00:32:34.000 | It can save you some I think with one baby.

00:32:37.000 | It can save you a massive amount with two babies.

00:32:40.000 | If you have more than one or two kids though, I mean there's nothing that wears out about them except the elastic.

00:32:46.000 | And so if you think of how much money the average parent spends on diapers, it's not insignificant.

00:32:52.000 | And when you can say, well, we can buy a set of diapers essentially one time and they will last through as many kids as you wind up having,

00:33:02.000 | that can be a massive, massive financial savings over time.

00:33:07.000 | And there certainly is additional work and so this is one of the things.

00:33:12.000 | There are a few things I think that keep most people from choosing cloth diapers.

00:33:16.000 | Either A, they may not be – they may not know about it or they may have the idea that it's the same as it was in 1973 and it's just simply not.

00:33:25.000 | It's not as difficult as it was in 1973 where you just got the – it's not as difficult as it was back then.

00:33:32.000 | There is a lot of innovation that's gone in to make it just crazy easy.

00:33:37.000 | Or a lot of times is you have to have the time.

00:33:39.000 | So you're going to do a load of laundry every day to wash the diapers basically.

00:33:43.000 | You don't really want to go more than a day or two.

00:33:45.000 | I mean you can go a couple of days.

00:33:47.000 | But most parents, if both parents are working outside the house, then they just simply don't – you don't have the time to deal with the laundry.

00:33:54.000 | Or you do it at night and then you can't hang them on the line because there's no sun left.

00:33:58.000 | So you have to put them in the dryer, which is OK.

00:34:00.000 | And you got to run your dryer all the time.

00:34:02.000 | So if you have a – I mean there's an energy cost you got to figure out there if you got to run the dryer constantly.

00:34:07.000 | So there are reasons why people don't – why people don't do it.

00:34:10.000 | And I get it.

00:34:11.000 | Just I would encourage – consider it.

00:34:12.000 | If you've got the time, it really doesn't take – put it this way.

00:34:16.000 | The rest of the world deals with cloth diapers and they don't have fancy machines where you push two buttons and the whole thing is done for you.

00:34:23.000 | We are so blessed.

00:34:24.000 | I think it's a little bit silly that we don't take advantage of some of the stuff that we can.

00:34:28.000 | It's pretty disgusting when you look at how much of that stuff winds up in the dump and it seems so absurd.

00:34:33.000 | I mean one of the things that is a personal deal for me, I think it's so silly how much of our food comes – I mean you've got water.

00:34:39.000 | It comes in this giant plastic bottle and the food comes just packed in plastic.

00:34:43.000 | And so it comes in on the – it's disposable on the way in.

00:34:46.000 | And then on the way out, we wrap it up in plastic and send it away when it's entirely – it's foolish.

00:34:53.000 | It's entirely – could be entirely clean organic matter that's dealt with on a responsible basis instead of wrapping it up in plastic and sending it off to the landfill.

00:35:03.000 | So it just seems utterly out of control in my opinion.

00:35:07.000 | A couple of other quick ideas.

00:35:08.000 | You do need to use special soap.

00:35:12.000 | So don't use your normal laundry soap with the diapers.

00:35:16.000 | Was it – the fillers?

00:35:18.000 | Why not?

00:35:19.000 | There's brighteners and enzymes and softeners and all that stuff builds up in the diapers and causes them to repel, which is not good for diapers.

00:35:28.000 | Right.

00:35:29.000 | So the whole idea of the cloth diaper is there's an insert in there that absorbs the urine.

00:35:32.000 | And so that needs to be absorbative.

00:35:36.000 | It needs to absorb easily.

00:35:38.000 | And if you use normal soap, it's got so much crap in the normal soap that it just fills it up.

00:35:44.000 | And you can't even – even just the normal homemade soap, lots of people make their own homemade soap.

00:35:48.000 | We have homemade laundry detergent.

00:35:49.000 | That's easy to do.

00:35:50.000 | But even still, we've done that.

00:35:51.000 | But you still can't use that.

00:35:52.000 | You've got to use a special soap that doesn't have all that extra stuff in there.

00:35:56.000 | We get the stuff on – we get it on Amazon.

00:35:59.000 | Charley's?

00:36:00.000 | We used Charley's for a little while, but we have really soft water, which is great.

00:36:04.000 | But it makes it – it takes longer to get the soap out.

00:36:07.000 | So we switched to Country Save, which is working out really well.

00:36:10.000 | And they do have name brand cloth diaper detergents.

00:36:13.000 | Fuzzy Buns has one and there's a popular one called Rockin' Green.

00:36:16.000 | But those are a little bit more expensive.

00:36:19.000 | So those are options.

00:36:20.000 | We just get the cheap one off Amazon.

00:36:22.000 | We get the five-pound container.

00:36:24.000 | It works great.

00:36:25.000 | Yeah.

00:36:26.000 | So that's one cost.

00:36:27.000 | And then if you're getting a washing machine, if you have any idea of it, A, you do need to consider the cost of laundry.

00:36:32.000 | So there's a cost in terms of time.

00:36:34.000 | You're going to need to run a load of laundry every day and – or just about every day.

00:36:40.000 | You don't want to let them sit for a couple days.

00:36:43.000 | They start to smell bad with the urine buildup.

00:36:46.000 | So you're going to want to do laundry every day.

00:36:48.000 | If you're in a situation where you don't have a laundry machine where you can easily do that, it's probably not going to be workable for you.

00:36:54.000 | There are diaper services that you can subscribe to where they will come and pick up your diapers and bring you fresh ones.

00:37:00.000 | So you can check that out in your area, see if that exists.

00:37:03.000 | And see if it's actually a savings at that point.

00:37:05.000 | Right.

00:37:06.000 | And then that would be where, again, a lot of people choose to do it not because it saves them money but because they don't want to send a bunch of plastic down to the landfill

00:37:13.000 | or they're concerned about the health of their baby with the stuff that's in the disposables.

00:37:18.000 | Also, if you're going to get a washing machine, consider we don't have this but it would be valuable.

00:37:23.000 | The way that you clean them, by the way, is to make sure that they're clean is you knock any – if there's any solid waste in the diaper, you knock that off into the toilet.

00:37:32.000 | And that usually is just pretty clean and it doesn't leave anything in the diaper.

00:37:36.000 | It's not that big a deal.

00:37:37.000 | Then what you do is you do a pre-rinse on them.

00:37:40.000 | Then you wash them in hot water.

00:37:42.000 | And then you do a second rinse.

00:37:44.000 | And so with the pre-rinse, washing them in hot water, and doing a second rinse, the diapers are sanitized and they're thoroughly cleaned between every use.

00:37:52.000 | And it would be – we don't have this but if our washing machine breaks, we're going to replace it with one.

00:37:57.000 | You can get these machines now where it's just you push two buttons and they'll automatically do a pre-wash.

00:38:02.000 | They'll automatically do a wash.

00:38:04.000 | And then they'll automatically do a second rinse.

00:38:06.000 | So what we have to do is start it, do the pre-rinse, start it to do the wash, and then start it to do the second rinse.

00:38:11.000 | So you got to go there three times.

00:38:13.000 | So if you're thinking about this or if you're shopping for a machine, consider adding that to the list of your necessary features.

00:38:18.000 | It would save a lot of time.

00:38:20.000 | And then continuing on the just reusable, you made our own wipes, right?

00:38:29.000 | So we don't buy wipes.

00:38:30.000 | Yeah, we had received some blankets from other people who didn't use them.

00:38:34.000 | We have lots of blankets because people give them to us.

00:38:36.000 | Don't buy baby blankets.

00:38:37.000 | People will take care of those for you.

00:38:38.000 | Yeah, and then we live in Florida.

00:38:39.000 | So I don't really even know what they're for.

00:38:41.000 | But anyway, we had received some nice flannel blankets, and they had been well used, well loved, but still functional.

00:38:49.000 | So I took them over to your mom's house, actually, because she has a nice machine, and she sewed up all the corners for me.

00:38:56.000 | We made little square wipes out of it, out of this blanket, and they've served us really well.

00:39:00.000 | Another option is to just get, if you find some cheap baby washcloths, that works really well for wipes, too.

00:39:06.000 | The only thing you got to watch for is get mostly cotton and not mostly polyester.

00:39:11.000 | A lot of the cheap ones are mostly polyester, and they don't really absorb water very well, which is not good for wipes.

00:39:15.000 | So watch for the material that you're using for the wipes.

00:39:18.000 | And the flannel ones are better, because they're nice and soft.

00:39:20.000 | I like them, because they're nice and soft.

00:39:21.000 | And the thing is that you can then use reusable wipes and reusable diapers, and you don't ever have to buy wipes and diapers.

00:39:28.000 | And that saves money.

00:39:29.000 | Even if you get the thousand-pack at Costco, I mean, they're still --

00:39:32.000 | Even if you use disposables, you can still use reusable wipes and just put them through your regular laundry.

00:39:38.000 | Yeah, it's not that big a deal.

00:39:39.000 | And then also other reusable things, just basically buy high-quality gear that can last and extend it over multiple kids, and just try to find things that are reusable if you want.

00:39:51.000 | One other thing -- I don't know if this is comfortable for Joshua to talk about, but I'll share -- is with breastfeeding, you often get these little bra pads.

00:40:02.000 | They go in the bra, and they absorb any leakage that may occur at inopportune times.

00:40:08.000 | And so they sell these that are disposable, and they're a lot like, well, feminine pads, where there's an absorbent layer and a waterproof layer, and they're kind of crinkly.

00:40:21.000 | So you can get these disposable, but we chose to get the reusable ones.

00:40:26.000 | I think they come in six packs, and we got a few.

00:40:28.000 | And you just -- you can either rinse them out in the sink, or you can send them through your laundry if you have enough to wait until you're doing laundry, and just use them over and over and over and over.

00:40:38.000 | They're just cotton.

00:40:39.000 | There's no waterproof layer, which allows the -- we're going to get graphic -- which allows the breast to breathe, and that's good for breastfeeding, right?

00:40:49.000 | So you can consider getting the reusable bra pads instead of the disposable ones because I think they're a lot more comfortable, and you don't have to keep buying them.

00:41:00.000 | Yeah.

00:41:01.000 | And it's just funny how this whole reusable versus disposable thing can be applied in every area of life.

00:41:05.000 | I hadn't planned to talk about it, but even like feminine supplies, they're perfectly great options that are not disposable.

00:41:12.000 | And we'll ignore that for now, but go online or start Googling, and you'll find all kinds of people.

00:41:17.000 | So consider just buying quality stuff that can last and extend it through multiple kids.

00:41:22.000 | Another thing that we've done -- I mentioned this on a previous show, but that I had no idea of, but Tiffany got interested in, is another crunchy thing.

00:41:28.000 | It's called EC, and so this also helps.

00:41:32.000 | And I think this one can apply whether or not you're using cloth or disposable diapers.

00:41:36.000 | And the idea is even if you're using disposable diapers, would you like to cut down on your -- the number of diapers that your kids goes through by probably greater than 50 percent?

00:41:45.000 | So explain how you found out about this.

00:41:47.000 | I think I got turned on to this first by a friend and then that same book, the Business a Baby book.

00:41:53.000 | And your sister-in-law had mentioned it, and I didn't really ask her too much about it at that point.

00:42:01.000 | But then I read this book and got more interested and thought, "Wow, this is great."

00:42:04.000 | So EC stands for Elimination Communication, and it's an unfortunate name, but that is what it's been labeled, so people recognize that name.

00:42:13.000 | And basically it's giving your child chances to use the potty from an early age.

00:42:19.000 | Some people do it from birth, some people from a couple weeks, from six months, from eight months, from 12 months, whenever you choose to start.

00:42:26.000 | It's just giving your child a chance to connect with those muscles so that he or she doesn't think, "I use the diaper, I use the diaper, I use the diaper."

00:42:36.000 | And suddenly when they're three, you switch it up on them and say, "Oh, actually you use the potty."

00:42:40.000 | It just gives them a chance to maintain that connection with their muscles and know that the potty is an option.

00:42:47.000 | Right, right. And so one of the statistics that I never realized that I guess would have come from that book or from your research is that some of the people who have written about this say that 50 percent, right?

00:42:59.000 | Or, wait a second, the majority of the world's population, is that the statistic?

00:43:03.000 | I don't know the numbers, but basically a lot of people.

00:43:05.000 | Basically outside of the United States of America, basically practically most of the world has their kids potty trained by about one year, right? Give or take.

00:43:12.000 | Yeah, that's what the book said. And then we have some friends who visited from Nigeria.

00:43:17.000 | So I took the opportunity to ask this mom, "Tell me about your kids' potty training."

00:43:22.000 | And at first she kind of gave me this funny look like, "What's potty training?"

00:43:26.000 | What are you talking about, right?

00:43:27.000 | So I said, "You know, when they stop using the diaper." "Oh, oh, okay."

00:43:31.000 | So she told me about when she did it with her kids, and it was basically when they could stand up on their own.

00:43:38.000 | That's when she took off the diaper. She had them go diaper-free.

00:43:41.000 | We've done a slightly different approach, but she said her kids were trained at a year, ten months, and I think a year and three months or something.

00:43:50.000 | I have a family member who is Egyptian, and I know his mom always said I think that he was potty trained at under a year old.

00:43:58.000 | Yeah, nine months.

00:43:59.000 | Nine months.

00:44:00.000 | And then I just talked with a girl on Sunday. Her mom's from St. Lucia. Well, they're both from St. Lucia. And her mom had her trained at before a year.

00:44:06.000 | Right. So what's really startling is that I never even knew this existed, because you just always assumed.

00:44:12.000 | I always heard of friends and family members potty training their kids at two or three years old, I think is about normal in our culture.

00:44:18.000 | I never even knew it was possible to do anything different.

00:44:22.000 | And then you start researching, and you find, wait a second, the rest of the world does it at this.

00:44:26.000 | And then again, there's a whole, you want to open up a can of worms among all the parents, and you're going to damage the psyche of the child, and you're forcing your kid, and all this stuff.

00:44:35.000 | But what's funny is that, my opinion, and you do what's right.

00:44:40.000 | I think in anything, in parenting, you need to watch what's working and what's not working in your own kids and in your own family.

00:44:46.000 | And just simply observe that and work with the situation.

00:44:49.000 | If what you're doing isn't having the desired results, change.

00:44:53.000 | And if you're seeing stress or you're seeing something, then change what you're doing.

00:44:56.000 | Don't become a slave to a certain philosophy or idea.

00:45:01.000 | Focus on what's working and what's not working for you, and take what's useful and discard the rest.

00:45:06.000 | But what's interesting to me is that if you research, you'll find some people who believe, I have no idea what's true, and I don't care that much to research it out.

00:45:17.000 | But some people would say, well, who gets rich off of a delayed potty training?

00:45:22.000 | It would be the diaper company.

00:45:24.000 | So I was talking with a friend recently, and we labeled it Big Diaper.

00:45:28.000 | So you can be glad that you can profit from Big Diaper in your consumer staple companies in your portfolio.

00:45:36.000 | And again, whatever. I don't care much about that.

00:45:38.000 | But the point is that if you were dealing with cloth diapers and you didn't have a washing machine to use,

00:45:46.000 | you would have a much bigger incentive to help your child learn to control his or her bathroom needs at an earlier age than we have,

00:45:53.000 | where it's relatively convenient just to wrap it up in a little piece of plastic and toss it out.

00:45:58.000 | So it's pretty cool.

00:45:59.000 | So we started with our son two weeks, and basically just giving him the connection between when he needs to go to the bathroom and letting us know that and kind of working through it.

00:46:12.000 | I don't want to go through details on it.

00:46:14.000 | You can go and research it. There's better resources.

00:46:16.000 | It's called EC, though.

00:46:17.000 | But the point is that it saves a bunch of diapers, and it's not unusual for us to go through -- well, it's unusual for us to have a bowel movement in a diaper.

00:46:27.000 | So that's -- it does still happen.

00:46:29.000 | He's certainly not potty trained in the sense that we all expect where there's no accidents.

00:46:33.000 | But it's unusual and kind of a surprise when we have a bowel movement here at, what, 13 months old in the diaper.

00:46:39.000 | And then even with him needing to urinate, we may go -- I mean, probably many days we often have two diapers.

00:46:48.000 | Two to three.

00:46:49.000 | Yeah, two to three diapers on many days.

00:46:51.000 | Yeah, sometimes I wonder if it's worth doing the laundry.

00:46:53.000 | Right, right.

00:46:54.000 | And some days, you know, some days maybe it would be five or six because, you know, it goes in phases when you're working at this age.

00:47:00.000 | But if you can go from -- again, we can go from -- well, with the cloth diaper, you don't do the 12-hour diaper thing.

00:47:08.000 | You can do it with a very disposable -- excuse me, a very absorbent disposable diaper.

00:47:14.000 | But, again, two to three diapers in a day is not unusual.

00:47:17.000 | Some days it will be one, and some days it will be six.

00:47:20.000 | But probably average would be, you know, two to three.

00:47:22.000 | And so that's a real -- that can be a real savings even if you're using disposable diapers.

00:47:26.000 | And one quick note while we're just finishing up with the cloth diapers is some people think that cloth diapers are pudgy.

00:47:35.000 | They think they're too fluffy and give the baby's bum a fatter look.

00:47:40.000 | I disagree.

00:47:41.000 | Maybe it depends on the brand.

00:47:43.000 | I have not had that problem.

00:47:44.000 | And we used disposables on a trip one week.

00:47:47.000 | We went out and didn't want to haul our cloth diaper collection and try to find laundry facilities.

00:47:51.000 | So we were like, well, we'll use disposables.

00:47:54.000 | And I noticed that the disposables, when they get wet, they puff up and get all squishy and smelly.

00:48:04.000 | So in my opinion, the cloth diapers are actually skinnier, slimmer than the disposables because those things puff up.

00:48:12.000 | I always chuckle about this.

00:48:14.000 | I was talking with a buddy of mine recently.

00:48:16.000 | And my wife is -- she's being very careful in how she expresses herself.

00:48:22.000 | But she is not a fan of disposable diapers.

00:48:24.000 | And it's very funny to me how you can have two different people that can look at the same set of facts around the same subject and get polarizingly opposite perspectives.

00:48:37.000 | So my wife is very polarized in the direction of I can't understand why people use disposable diapers.

00:48:43.000 | But, yeah, she's in the vast minority, majority, I think, of moms would be horrified at the idea of doing reusable cloth diapers.

00:48:51.000 | And they're like, well, it's so great.

00:48:53.000 | They're awesome.

00:48:54.000 | So you do your own research.

00:48:56.000 | Decide what you want to do from there.

00:49:00.000 | Two last quick areas to finish up here.

00:49:02.000 | Food.

00:49:03.000 | So one of the things that is also helpful -- and I think that you have to deal with what your own situation is as far as medically.

00:49:11.000 | And there are certainly always special situations with all of these things.

00:49:15.000 | But you can save a lot of money if you breastfeed.

00:49:18.000 | And we have lots of friends who are not able for various reasons.

00:49:21.000 | And if that's the situation that you're in, you can deal with it.

00:49:24.000 | But I know for us, just simply breastfeeding exclusively, we didn't -- again, we don't do any of this stuff because it's just we're going to save money and not spend money on our kid.

00:49:34.000 | But that winds up being a big savings.

00:49:38.000 | And I know it's certainly challenging at times, right?

00:49:42.000 | Yeah, we've definitely had our issues.

00:49:44.000 | Breastfeeding is not easy.

00:49:45.000 | Yeah, probably the thing that surprised us most as new parents is we prepared a lot for the birth of the baby, but we weren't prepared for the challenges of breastfeeding.

00:49:54.000 | But has it been positive?

00:49:56.000 | Oh, yeah.

00:49:57.000 | It's been worth it.

00:49:59.000 | It's been worth it.

00:50:00.000 | There have definitely been rough patches.

00:50:02.000 | We've had problems.

00:50:03.000 | And if you're not committed to it, you can easily just say, "I'm done with this."

00:50:10.000 | And many people do, and that's their decision.

00:50:13.000 | But for us, we did breastfeeding, and it did save a lot because that formula cost can add up.

00:50:20.000 | Yeah, and it's just a lot more convenient, too, in many ways.

00:50:23.000 | You don't have to always have all this paraphernalia that goes with the bottles and all that stuff.

00:50:30.000 | We got given some of that free stuff.

00:50:31.000 | We used it like three times type of thing.

00:50:33.000 | Yeah, and we have friends who the breastfeeding didn't work.

00:50:39.000 | She couldn't or they--I'm thinking of two people.

00:50:42.000 | They couldn't breastfeed for whatever reason.

00:50:43.000 | Their children wouldn't latch on.

00:50:45.000 | So they pumped exclusively, and that had a lot of paraphernalia, but they were so committed to giving their babies breast milk.

00:50:52.000 | And again, don't feel condemned if this isn't you.

00:50:55.000 | I'm just saying that it just depends on your level of commitment if you're able.

00:51:01.000 | Right, and so you can get a free pump if you're going to pump on your health insurance.

00:51:07.000 | That's the standard now after the Affordable Care Act is that that's covered as part of the policy, all the policy definitions.

00:51:14.000 | So check that out for yourself.

00:51:16.000 | But more--breastfeeding is fairly self-explanatory, but one of the other interesting things is where did baby-led weaning come from?

00:51:24.000 | Is that the same--

00:51:25.000 | I think I just kind of picked it up on all the mommy blogs and stuff.

00:51:28.000 | Once you start getting crunchy and you start reading the mommy blogs and you get into the forums and whatnot, you find all this other crunchy stuff.

00:51:34.000 | And then once you get comfortable with challenging your own assumptions and you're like, "Oh, I wonder what that--oh, wait a second.

00:51:40.000 | Here's another thing I don't have a clue about," and you start researching.

00:51:43.000 | And what's funny to me, my brother asked me one time, he said, "Joshua, why are you so weird?

00:51:48.000 | And why do you just do all this weird stuff?"

00:51:50.000 | And I didn't get a chance to respond to him, but later I was thinking about it.

00:51:54.000 | And I said, "Listen, I never set out to be weird.

00:51:57.000 | My goal is not to be an oddball, but it's when you start looking at certain things and you have certain information and you start looking at facts, I always look and say, 'Who can change my mind?'"

00:52:06.000 | That's side A and side B, you present the evidence.

00:52:10.000 | So if my kid could be out of diapers at 12 months or if my kid can be out of diapers at 36 months, convince me, lay out your evidence and show me why I should do one or the other.

00:52:21.000 | And I just find that a lot of times the weird stuff has better supporting evidence, and then you take it and you try it out.

00:52:27.000 | So one of the weird things that we found is something called baby-led weaning.

00:52:32.000 | I think that's the name of the book that popularized it, right?

00:52:34.000 | Right.

00:52:35.000 | And explain what that means and how it works and the impact of it.

00:52:38.000 | Again, this is one of those terms that has been popularized, so that's what it's called, but it doesn't necessarily make sense to our culture.

00:52:45.000 | Evidently, it was started or popularized in the British culture.

00:52:51.000 | So they use the word weaning, from what I hear, to mean not stopping the milk, but rather introducing food.

00:52:59.000 | So when they say baby-led weaning, they mean baby-led feeding.

00:53:04.000 | Right.

00:53:05.000 | And the idea of this concept is that you don't give the baby mush and you don't just shove it in their mouths.

00:53:16.000 | Instead, you give them pieces of food that they're able to pick up.

00:53:20.000 | There's all kinds of guidelines.

00:53:21.000 | You don't just give this to your newborn.

00:53:23.000 | Read the book.

00:53:24.000 | Don't just go baseball over yourself.

00:53:25.000 | Yeah, don't do anything without reading the book.

00:53:27.000 | But basically, you follow the guidelines and you give your six- to seven-month-old about two-inch pieces of food, real food, not mush, and they will pick it up in their fist and stick it in their mouth and start gnawing on it and chewing, just learning how to eat food and learning about textures and different tastes.

00:53:48.000 | So instead of getting mushed up peas and carrots every single day, which I don't actually enjoy eating, the baby can choose what he or she is feeling that day.

00:53:58.000 | And at this stage, we're not worried about you need to eat this much protein and that much vegetables because he's still breastfed.

00:54:04.000 | He's still breastfed. Right.

00:54:05.000 | But at that early stage, it just gives them a chance to choose what they want to eat and explore the different textures and learn how to bring their food to their mouths.

00:54:16.000 | It's good for their coordination.

00:54:18.000 | And it just gives them a lot more independence because they're not having something forced into their mouth that they haven't even seen.

00:54:27.000 | They get a chance to pick it up, look at it, taste it, wave it around in the air and feel how heavy it is.

00:54:35.000 | It's not just all the same, same, everyday mush, mush.

00:54:38.000 | Yeah.

00:54:39.000 | And the reason it's important to read the book is that in order to do it safely – I mean, the primary reason that we feed – I think in our culture, we feed kids mashed up peas.

00:54:45.000 | We feed mashed up baby food is because we're concerned about them choking on solid food.

00:54:50.000 | And that is an incredibly valid concern.

00:54:52.000 | I mean we keep a very close eye on our son and, I mean, he doesn't eat.

00:54:57.000 | There are some important safety things that you need to observe when working with babies.

00:55:03.000 | But the key is actually that you can observe those safety things without having to mash all the food up.

00:55:09.000 | And we were a little skeptical at first but we tried it out, tried it very carefully and we learned that it's actually true,

00:55:16.000 | is that babies can learn to eat without having to go just to the solid – excuse me, just the mashed up foods.

00:55:22.000 | They can learn to eat with the solid foods and the soft foods as they work into it.

00:55:26.000 | And there are other ancillary advantages if you believe the proponents of the theory.

00:55:30.000 | There are other benefits as far as – for example, we never make baby food.

00:55:34.000 | It's just whatever we're eating, that's what baby eats.

00:55:36.000 | And a lot of – some of the things he can eat, some of the things he can't eat, physically eat,

00:55:39.000 | but he'll still expose himself to the taste of it.

00:55:42.000 | At eight months old, there's not a chance he was gnawing on a raw carrot.

00:55:46.000 | But he still can stick the raw carrot in his mouth and get experience with it and he's not actually getting any of it.

00:55:51.000 | But the cooked carrots, he can.

00:55:53.000 | So at this point, he eats all the food that we eat.

00:55:56.000 | So that saves you having to A, buy baby food, but even it saves you having to make baby food.

00:56:01.000 | We have a lot of friends that are very concerned, careful about this.

00:56:05.000 | And one of the methods that they use to save on baby food is by making it.

00:56:09.000 | So they have a baby – these grinder things.

00:56:13.000 | Yeah, like some kind of machine that steams it and like mashes it.

00:56:17.000 | Yeah, there's all this special paraphernalia to make your own baby food, which is awesome.

00:56:20.000 | I think that's cool.

00:56:22.000 | But we decided to try this other thing.

00:56:24.000 | And so far, it's been a positive experiment, at least with this son.

00:56:27.000 | Who knows?

00:56:28.000 | Maybe with another baby, it would be very different.

00:56:30.000 | But it's been a positive experience and you can just feed the kid what you're eating.

00:56:34.000 | And then by being exposed to a massive range of flavors, then ideally, at least those research,

00:56:41.000 | partly through babies who are breastfed, oftentimes are exposed to a much broader range of flavors.

00:56:47.000 | Yeah, because the formula tastes the same each time, whereas the breast milk changes based on what mom ate.

00:56:52.000 | Right, so they have more adventurous tastes because the breast milk changes flavor.

00:56:55.000 | And then also with the approach with the baby-led weaning, baby's trying everything.

00:56:59.000 | And what's interesting is that they'll try some things and not eat it sometimes.

00:57:02.000 | And the next time, they'll try it and not eat another time.

00:57:05.000 | So my wife and I, we really enjoy Thai food and Mexican food.

00:57:08.000 | Man, that kid was not a fan of Mexican food the first couple times we gave it to him.

00:57:11.000 | But he did like the Thai food.

00:57:12.000 | He did like the Thai food.

00:57:13.000 | But now, Mexican food seems to be no problem.

00:57:16.000 | So he enjoys the different flavors at different times.

00:57:19.000 | So check that out.

00:57:20.000 | It can be a useful idea because if you can eliminate the cost of baby food and just simply feed the food that you're eating,

00:57:33.000 | and then if you can eliminate even the extra cost of time to make your own baby food from the food that you're eating,

00:57:38.000 | which is what many parents do, maybe that can be helpful.

00:57:42.000 | And one other advantage with the baby-led weaning is you can eat your food because baby's feeding him or herself.

00:57:49.000 | You're not sitting there with a jar and a spoon trying to get the food in.

00:57:53.000 | Here comes the airplane.

00:57:54.000 | You just eat your food and let baby eat his food, and it's just comfortable for everyone.

00:57:59.000 | You can still talk to your family.

00:58:01.000 | It's more social that way, and baby learns social interaction at the table because he's eating with everybody else.

00:58:08.000 | It just has been -- I mean it frees up your time while you're eating your food.

00:58:13.000 | It frees up your time not having to make the baby food, and it frees up your time while you're eating.

00:58:18.000 | Dave Korsunsky Yeah, we've never fed him as far as like take the fork and stick it in his mouth.

00:58:21.000 | We've never done that.

00:58:23.000 | Again, don't go based upon this.

00:58:25.000 | If this piques your interest, awesome.

00:58:27.000 | Go and research it.

00:58:28.000 | There are some important things you need to do to care for the safety of your baby,

00:58:31.000 | and so the best thing is read the book called Baby-Led Weaning.

00:58:35.000 | So read the book and follow the suggestions there.

00:58:39.000 | Oh, one thing we don't save money on.

00:58:43.000 | Baby food, whoever invented the little pouches of baby food, that person deserves every dime of profit they get.

00:58:52.000 | One of the things that we do that is the best invention ever is that you can buy baby food where instead of coming in a little glass jar that you've got to sit there with a spoon and feed it to the kid,

00:59:03.000 | it just comes in the pouch, and the baby can just stick it in their mouth and eat it.

00:59:08.000 | We do use that.

00:59:10.000 | So we have fed that.

00:59:11.000 | If you're in the car or something like that and you need food, those pouches are awesome.

00:59:16.000 | So that is one place where we pay.

00:59:19.000 | We try to get them on sale, but that is not cheap, but they're worth it.

00:59:22.000 | Yeah, that's one thing we don't save on, and we don't use them every day.

00:59:26.000 | Just when we're out or if we're traveling and you don't know what food's going to be served, baby's not a huge fan of pizza right now.

00:59:32.000 | So if we're having pizza, he needs a pouch just to get him through that meal, and those pouches are so great.

00:59:38.000 | You can get the organic ones if you're into that, and they're all BPA-free packaging and all this GMOs and stuff like that.

00:59:47.000 | So you feel really good giving this to your kid.

00:59:49.000 | It feels like it's worth the $1.20 you paid for it.

00:59:52.000 | They've got good labeling.

00:59:53.000 | They're not cheap, but they are.

00:59:54.000 | Although we did try to make some of our own, so we used the spouts.

00:59:58.000 | It was kind of, I would say, probably a semi-successful experiment.

01:00:01.000 | The problem was that since we don't really feed baby food at home, and it's purely if we're on the road and trying to figure out what do you give baby when you're on the road,

01:00:11.000 | then making it yourself and then what we did is we used the spout, the mouth on it, and we put it in a plastic bag, and then you put the food in the plastic bag.

01:00:20.000 | I think that would be a good solution if your baby were eating baby food, but ours kind of eats the normal food.

01:00:26.000 | So the pouches are more for the idea of having this thing that's not going to spoil with you wherever you go.

01:00:33.000 | Yeah, and I saw another idea on a website.

01:00:36.000 | I think it might have been Money Saving Mom, but sorry if I'm wrong.

01:00:40.000 | It was she used a piping bag, frosting piping bag, and put the mouth spout in that bag, and that seemed to work really well for her.

01:00:50.000 | I've never tried it, but that's an idea too.

01:00:52.000 | If you like the idea of the pouch but still want to make your own or try to save money on buying all those pouches, that's an idea.

01:00:59.000 | Yeah, for sure.

01:01:00.000 | And then probably the last theme, the short theme that I have here is I think it's consistent.

01:01:05.000 | One of the key ideas is basically planning ahead.

01:01:09.000 | If you wait until the last second and you don't have – if you haven't planned ahead, then you're subject to the market conditions wherever you happen to be at that time.

01:01:20.000 | So the food is a simple example.

01:01:22.000 | If you haven't planned ahead to buy the little pouches on sale and have them with you, then you got to buy whatever you have there.

01:01:30.000 | Sometimes you find that. Sometimes it's cheap, and a lot of times it's not.

01:01:34.000 | So little things like making sure you have the food with you in advance and being prepared.

01:01:38.000 | Again, most parents find out they need – I don't know a parent who doesn't think this way.

01:01:42.000 | But then that also can be applied to other things.

01:01:45.000 | So for us, we get lots and lots of clothes, but they don't all fit babies.

01:01:49.000 | So we have a – I got one of those shelving compartments.

01:01:53.000 | What do we have, eight bins of clothes, seven, something like that?

01:01:56.000 | I think we have five for boy stuff and one for girl stuff just in case in the future we should have a girl.

01:02:03.000 | It's my stuff from when I was a baby.

01:02:05.000 | Right. So I built her – we got one of these shelving units and it has a bunch of those big, giant, rubber-made bins on it.

01:02:11.000 | And then it's labeled out zero to six months, six to 12 months.

01:02:14.000 | And that way you can be ahead with the clothes and you can collect them when they're cheap and have them stored.

01:02:20.000 | Now you need storage space.

01:02:21.000 | So if you're living on a sailboat, this is not going to work.

01:02:24.000 | But then if you're living on a sailboat, you don't need that many clothes.

01:02:26.000 | So you can economize in that way.

01:02:30.000 | But planning ahead makes a big deal.

01:02:32.000 | Another little thing that we did is when we were choosing a car seat, we chose specifically – we did research.

01:02:37.000 | And you use – for the first few months, you use those little infant carrier things, and that was great.

01:02:42.000 | And again, we got one of those for free.

01:02:44.000 | But then we needed to buy a car seat.

01:02:46.000 | And so we planned ahead and researched the kind that is skinnier so that you could put them – multiple ones across in the back seat.

01:02:54.000 | There's this one. Ours is –

01:02:56.000 | Deono Radian RXT?

01:03:00.000 | Yeah. So Deono Radian RXT.

01:03:03.000 | And the idea here is that if you do have multiple kids – and we're hoping to have more kids.

01:03:06.000 | If you have multiple kids, then you can put even three car seats across in a small car.

01:03:13.000 | So that allows you to not have to get a larger vehicle.

01:03:16.000 | We have a minivan, but that would mean maybe that we could rent a full-size car if we were on a trip instead of having to always rent a minivan.

01:03:23.000 | Who knows? I mean the minivan is way better than a car, but as far as just lifestyle stuff.

01:03:27.000 | But so that's one little way that we thought – I think we thought ahead. We'll see.

01:03:32.000 | And then it also – that specific seat goes from almost infant to –

01:03:36.000 | It goes from 5 pounds to 120.

01:03:38.000 | Yeah. So it's –

01:03:39.000 | It's an infant seat, a kid seat, and a booster. You just take off the strappies and it becomes a booster.

01:03:46.000 | Yeah. So theoretically, if you had one kid, there could be one car seat that could work for that whole time.

01:03:51.000 | So that would be an option as well.

01:03:53.000 | Oh, and then any other thing else as far as planning ahead that you have ideas on or anything we missed that you wanted to say?

01:04:00.000 | Not that comes to mind right now, but I'll let you know.

01:04:02.000 | Okay. So last thing, and I don't want to – this is too touchy as far as people – you need to look into what you actually have.

01:04:08.000 | But one of the thoughts is also that we paid a lot of attention to is during pregnancy,

01:04:13.000 | trying to figure out how to make sure that you're doing everything you can to control any potential costs with having the baby.

01:04:20.000 | I would never prioritize financial costs over a safe baby.

01:04:26.000 | To me, that would be – there are some things that you need to economize on and some things that you don't need to economize on,

01:04:33.000 | and one of those is planning ahead carefully for making sure that you have the best childbirth experience possible.

01:04:41.000 | However, in that context, there are a lot of things that you can do to maybe avoid some of the not-so-fun aspects of childbirth

01:04:49.000 | that might also result in a large financial cost.

01:04:53.000 | So we worked very hard to try to make sure that we could avoid having a C-section,

01:04:59.000 | and so we did things like had prenatal chiropractic care all through Tiffany's pregnancy.

01:05:06.000 | So that – and that can make a big difference, and we feel it was really helpful for us.

01:05:10.000 | If all the bones and the hips and everything are lined up properly, that makes for a much easier natural childbirth

01:05:15.000 | instead of potentially having a C-section, which can take your pregnancy costs from, what, $5,000 to $35,000.

01:05:23.000 | And in the United States of America, you've got to work very hard to avoid having a C-section.

01:05:29.000 | Thank God the technology has been invented because, man, there have been hundreds of thousands of moms' lives saved

01:05:36.000 | and babies' lives saved with it, but we wanted to do everything we could to avoid that.

01:05:41.000 | So those are some of the ideas that we have.

01:05:44.000 | Anything else I missed that you want to mention before you want to just say hi to the audience,

01:05:49.000 | thank them for listening because I give you the reports.

01:05:53.000 | Thanks for letting me come on the show.

01:05:55.000 | It was great to have my 15 minutes of fame on the ever-popular Radical Personal Finance podcast.

01:06:01.000 | Yeah, I thought all of you might enjoy hearing from my wife, so now she's been on the show.

01:06:06.000 | And we'll see. If you liked it, let us know. Let her know.

01:06:08.000 | She's a big factor in my ability to be able to do the show.

01:06:12.000 | Thank you all so much for listening. I appreciate your being here.

01:06:15.000 | That's it for today's show. This week I'm going to be airing--it's going to be a good week on the show.

01:06:18.000 | I'm going to be airing a couple more interviews. Let's see.

01:06:20.000 | I think I will release the--I have like five interviews saved, and I'm not sure which two I'm going to release this week.

01:06:28.000 | So I should have thought that out before hitting record here.

01:06:32.000 | I'm going to release, I think, one of the ones with Joe from the Money Mustache forums on should I pay off debt first or should I invest.

01:06:40.000 | So I think I'll release that, and then I've got--which one of the other ones am I going to do?

01:06:43.000 | Soon. I'm not sure. Check back tomorrow, and you'll see which show I release.

01:06:47.000 | Coming up on episode 100, I'm going to give you guys some information.

01:06:50.000 | I'm going to launch a member support program for the show.

01:06:53.000 | So if you like the show, if you're enjoying it, if you get a lot of value from it, then that will be available for you.

01:06:58.000 | Oh, and I got one email from a listener.

01:07:01.000 | If you listen to the music, you're going to hear a lot of texture with the music.

01:07:08.000 | And the reason for that is actually that for the first 80 episodes of the show, I had a cable that wasn't actually playing the song.

01:07:18.000 | With all that fun texture and all the background.

01:07:22.000 | So I finally got a new cable, and I feel so bad for Dano, the guy who wrote the song and recorded it,

01:07:29.000 | that there was just so much texture to the song that wasn't being recorded because my cable, for some reason, wasn't getting the output correct.

01:07:34.000 | So it wasn't until I was doing my show in FinCon where I heard it was somebody else's cable, and I said, "Man, what is that?"

01:07:39.000 | So enjoy the texture of the music. Be back tomorrow with another show.

01:07:42.000 | Thank you all for listening. I hope you enjoyed this little diversion from the normal day-to-day.

01:07:47.000 | But I did want to know many of your parents, and those are just some of the ideas that we've had that have helped us.

01:07:51.000 | Would love your ideas in the comments. Come by today's show at radicalpersonalfinance.com/94 and comment.

01:07:57.000 | [music]

01:08:26.000 | Thank you for listening to today's show.

01:08:28.000 | This show is intended to provide entertainment, education, and financial enlightenment.

01:08:36.000 | Your situation is unique, and I cannot deliver any actionable advice without knowing anything about you.

01:08:44.000 | This show is not and is not intended to be any form of financial advice.

01:08:52.000 | Please, develop a team of professional advisors who you find to be caring, competent, and trustworthy,

01:09:01.000 | and consult them because they are the ones who can understand your specific needs, your specific goals, and provide specific answers to your questions.

01:09:13.000 | Hold them accountable for your results.

01:09:16.000 | I've done my absolute best to be clear and accurate in today's show, but I'm one person and I make mistakes.

01:09:22.000 | If you spot a mistake in something I've said, please come by the show page and comment so we can all learn together.

01:09:29.000 | Until tomorrow, thanks for being here.

01:09:32.000 | The holidays start here at Ralph's with a variety of options to celebrate traditions old and new.

01:09:37.000 | Whether you're making a traditional roasted turkey or spicy turkey tacos, your go-to shrimp cocktail, or your first Cajun risotto,

01:09:45.000 | Ralph's has all the freshest ingredients to embrace your traditions.

01:09:49.000 | Ralph's. Fresh for Everyone.

01:09:51.000 | We've locked in low prices to help you save big store-wide.

01:09:55.000 | Look for the locked in low prices tags and enjoy extra savings throughout the store.

01:09:59.000 | Ralph's. Fresh for Everyone.

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