RPF0242-Derek_Olsen

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00:00:30.800 | Today on Radical Personal Finance, let's talk about money and marriage.

00:00:34.800 | So, husbands and wives share a bed.

00:00:38.800 | Should they share a bank account too?

00:00:40.800 | Welcome to the Radical Personal Finance podcast.

00:00:58.800 | My name is Joshua Sheets and I'm your host.

00:01:00.800 | Thank you so much for being with me today.

00:01:02.800 | We continue our interview blitz on Radical Personal Finance.

00:01:06.800 | Check back in October for more of the normal flow of the show if you get tired of interviews.

00:01:10.800 | But today, I got a good one, so give it a shot.

00:01:13.800 | My guest is Derek Olson.

00:01:16.800 | He and his wife, Carrie, have written a book entitled, "One Bed, One Bank Account.

00:01:21.800 | Better Conversations on Money and Marriage."

00:01:24.800 | [Music]

00:01:29.800 | This is a subject that I think affects every couple that's out there.

00:01:36.800 | How on earth do we handle our money and how do we communicate about our money?

00:01:39.800 | And I'm not even going to pretend to say that I've got it all figured out.

00:01:45.800 | I've got a little bit of experience, but being married, what, a little over three years now, I think.

00:01:49.800 | I think I'm just starting to scratch the surface on my own practical experience.

00:01:52.800 | But my guest today, he and his wife have endeavored to take this on and tackle the subject in a straightforward manner.

00:01:59.800 | And I hope that it's useful to you.

00:02:05.800 | Money certainly affects every part of our lives and our relationships certainly affect every part of our lives.

00:02:11.800 | And they affect each other, so hard for me to think of a subject that's more important.

00:02:16.800 | Special bonus tip before I hit play on the interview here.

00:02:19.800 | Stay tuned.

00:02:20.800 | You're going to hear me come back and wrap up at the end of the interview.

00:02:24.800 | But then following that is a special bonus portion of the interview.

00:02:28.800 | What happened is I did a full normal interview with Derek and then later, after I turned the recorder off,

00:02:36.800 | I found out that he and his wife are actually living a pretty hardcore radical lifestyle.

00:02:42.800 | So stay tuned after part one for part two and you'll hear a little bit about the realities of what they're doing right now.

00:02:50.800 | Here we go.

00:02:51.800 | Derek, welcome to Radical Personal Finance.

00:02:54.800 | Thanks for having me.

00:02:55.800 | Had you on today.

00:02:57.800 | We were trying to get you and your wife together because we're going to talk about couples finances.

00:03:01.800 | But as is normal with many couples, she's taking care of your daughter.

00:03:05.800 | Right.

00:03:06.800 | It's nap time.

00:03:07.800 | That's the life that we face as parents and we're happy to do it.

00:03:10.800 | So we'll have to do the male perspective today, but hopefully you and she wrote a book together.

00:03:16.800 | So make sure you properly present her perspectives and her side.

00:03:20.800 | I can speak for her a little bit.

00:03:23.800 | We'll see if I say anything dumb and she can correct me later.

00:03:27.800 | I was going to say, remember, she's going to listen to this.

00:03:29.800 | So you got to make sure you accurately represent her perspective.

00:03:31.800 | Sure.

00:03:32.800 | So as a quick start, introduce yourself.

00:03:34.800 | Share with us a little bit about your background as it relates to money and how that wound up with you and your wife, Carrie, just writing a book.

00:03:41.800 | Right.

00:03:42.800 | So my name is Derek Olson.

00:03:44.800 | The website is DerekAndCarrie.com.

00:03:47.800 | And on the website, we encourage couples to have better conversations about money.

00:03:53.800 | We've written a book called One Bed, One Bank Account.

00:03:56.800 | It's a book and a workbook combination.

00:04:00.800 | And it's also in audio form.

00:04:02.800 | And the way we got started was an event in our life early on in our marriage when we were engaged, actually.

00:04:10.800 | Carrie had previously bought a house before we even met.

00:04:16.800 | And when we were engaged, the house was in danger of being foreclosed on.

00:04:22.800 | And we're heading towards our wedding date.

00:04:25.800 | And I'm looking at the situation going, "Oh, my gosh."

00:04:28.800 | I was debt-free at the time, and here she is bringing in a house that's about to be foreclosed on.

00:04:33.800 | And I'm going, "Oh, my gosh."

00:04:35.800 | What am I going to do?

00:04:36.800 | What am I getting into here?

00:04:38.800 | And so fast forward a little bit, and we avoided foreclosure just barely because we did a short sale, which is still bad, but I guess not as bad.

00:04:48.800 | But that's kind of like people say, "Oh, it's not as bad as a foreclosure."

00:04:52.800 | Well, that's kind of like saying that 120 degrees outside is hot and 122 degrees is hot.

00:04:58.800 | And it's like, "Well, that doesn't really matter.

00:05:00.800 | It's all hot."

00:05:02.800 | So we did a short sale, which basically, one way you can look at it is she brought the house into the marriage, and I had to write a very large check because I brought the money into the marriage.

00:05:13.800 | I had to write a huge check to make this situation go away.

00:05:19.800 | So that's where our marriage started.

00:05:22.800 | Did you consider not getting married?

00:05:24.800 | I did not, not even for a second.

00:05:26.800 | But a lot of people have brought that up because I'm sure that's happened.

00:05:31.800 | I mean, I'm sure that happens all the time when, you know, if you're dating or maybe you were even engaged.

00:05:35.800 | Let's say you're dating, and you find out that this person's in a horrible, you know, $200,000 in debt or whatever.

00:05:43.800 | I'm sure that that has ended relationships before marriage.

00:05:46.800 | I mean, it ends marriages.

00:05:49.800 | So you've got to think that it ends relationships even before marriage.

00:05:52.800 | Once you get into—I mean, marriage is very much a business relationship.

00:05:56.800 | And once you've been married a little while, and the feelings of love and the feelings of the fluttery heart wear off, as they always will, you're in a business relationship.

00:06:06.800 | And that stuff matters.

00:06:07.800 | Very true.

00:06:08.800 | That's very true.

00:06:09.800 | But the thing for us was we went through this, what you could say was a financial disaster.

00:06:16.800 | I mean, this was within three months of getting married.

00:06:19.800 | Okay, so we were dealing with this all through our engagement, literally during our honeymoon.

00:06:24.800 | And two months after we got married was when the short sale was finally done.

00:06:29.800 | That's a romantic honeymoon.

00:06:30.800 | "Here, honey, we got another offer from the attorney today."

00:06:33.800 | Yeah.

00:06:34.800 | So, but here's the positive side.

00:06:37.800 | And here's where—this is, I guess, a long way to sort of answer your question, "Where did all this come from?"

00:06:44.800 | We had to get on a budget.

00:06:46.800 | I mean, we had to.

00:06:47.800 | There was no other option.

00:06:49.800 | And we had to work together to make this whole short sale thing, to bring it to a conclusion and get past it.

00:06:58.800 | And it actually turned out to be really good for our relationship.

00:07:02.800 | How so?

00:07:03.800 | Teamwork, communication, getting on the same page, grace, understanding, patience.

00:07:13.800 | I mean, we had to practice it all.

00:07:15.800 | And so that was the thing that fascinated me about the whole situation and ultimately got us into what we're doing now.

00:07:21.800 | I realized that you could turn what essentially is a tough situation, a situation that ultimately can break apart marriages and relationships,

00:07:29.800 | and you can actually use that for good.

00:07:31.800 | So you started in a place of disconnection.

00:07:35.800 | Would you say that at this point you and Keri have been able to learn to communicate more effectively about money?

00:07:41.800 | Yes.

00:07:42.800 | Does it ever crop up as far as like the feelings of frustration of, "I brought all the money"?

00:07:47.800 | Oh, no, not that so much.

00:07:49.800 | Immediately when we got married, what was mine was ours and what was hers was ours.

00:07:55.800 | So there was never any, "Gosh, this is my money or your money, and I'm upset because it was uneven or unequal or whatever."

00:08:06.800 | There was never any of that from the beginning.

00:08:08.800 | It was very much, "This is ours."

00:08:11.800 | Because the challenge is, when my wife and I got married, we weren't facing financial disaster like that.

00:08:16.800 | But one of the challenges that we faced is, I had been starting a couple of businesses, and I had made some stupid business decisions.

00:08:28.800 | Instead of having some very profitable years, I had made some bonehead business decisions, and they had been very expensive.

00:08:37.800 | So when we came, my wife on the other hand, she's excellent as far as being frugal and careful, and she'd been working.

00:08:44.800 | She hadn't made a lot of money, but she'd saved a lot of money.

00:08:47.800 | We both had money saved, but because of my stupid business decisions, all of my money was locked away in retirement accounts.

00:08:56.800 | She had some money in retirement accounts as well, but she had a lot more liquid money.

00:09:01.800 | We have an excellent relationship.

00:09:03.800 | We're able to share with one another and talk with one another.

00:09:06.800 | But even still to this day, it still crops up from time to time as far as that feeling of resentment.

00:09:11.800 | We work through it and we talk about it, but even though I'm with you, when we married, what's mine is yours, what's yours is mine, and there's no going back.

00:09:20.800 | We're in it together. We're one.

00:09:22.800 | But that doesn't mean that the emotions are all solved.

00:09:24.800 | Absolutely not. No way.

00:09:26.800 | I mean, even to this day, it's not something that you just...

00:09:32.800 | Well, here's one thing that I often say is that money is not something that you solve.

00:09:37.800 | It's something that you manage.

00:09:40.800 | A better way to put it actually is money is not a problem that you solve.

00:09:44.800 | Money is a problem that you "manage."

00:09:47.800 | I would even say that it's not even a problem.

00:09:49.800 | But anyway, it's something that you manage, not something that you solve and move on to other things never to return.

00:09:55.800 | It's continual, and it provides space for growth continually, I think, throughout the entirety of a relationship.

00:10:04.800 | So what led to writing a book?

00:10:06.800 | So I got really, really excited about... I had never done a budget before all of this, and we got on a budget, and it just changed everything.

00:10:16.800 | I mean, I was actually kind of kicking myself, "Why haven't I been doing a budget this whole time?"

00:10:22.800 | And it's amazing, you know?

00:10:24.800 | But you had money, right? You had done well financially, even without a budget.

00:10:27.800 | Without a budget, I just knew that I was making more than I spent.

00:10:33.800 | I knew that, because actually the moment I got my first real job out of college, I immediately started putting $200 a paycheck into a mutual fund.

00:10:46.800 | And then I immediately, I think I had to wait a year, I maxed out the... I don't know if I maxed it out.

00:10:51.800 | I guess you don't max out a 401(k) but...

00:10:53.800 | Signed up for it.

00:10:54.800 | Yeah, I signed up for it, and I think I was doing the max match, I guess, 4% or whatever it was.

00:10:59.800 | So, geez, I was putting away maybe $500 a month.

00:11:03.800 | That's a pretty decent chunk.

00:11:05.800 | And so I had that going, and I just knew that I was making more than I spent.

00:11:10.800 | But we got on this budget, and I just got so excited about it.

00:11:15.800 | And I actually started coaching other people within, I think, within a year.

00:11:21.800 | But I think six months after we got on our budget, I was coaching other people.

00:11:25.800 | That got me really excited.

00:11:26.800 | And I was creating my own spreadsheets that I would print off myself and go help coach people.

00:11:35.800 | And after a little while, about another six months later, I realized, "Hey, I could just take all these worksheets and turn them into a book."

00:11:44.800 | And then I'd have a book that I could sell.

00:11:48.800 | And so that was actually... we actually had another book that's been previously unpublished called "The Four-Week Financial Turnaround."

00:11:55.800 | We figured everything out ourselves.

00:11:57.800 | We self-published it.

00:11:58.800 | It was in print and Kindle, and it did pretty well.

00:12:02.800 | And then we decided to change our brand so that brand doesn't exist anymore.

00:12:07.800 | And what you see now is Derek and Kerry.

00:12:09.800 | And so essentially we had to write another book, basically.

00:12:13.800 | And we wanted to focus specifically on married couples.

00:12:17.800 | And so our other book didn't really reflect that.

00:12:20.800 | So that's why we had to write this new book.

00:12:22.800 | So the title of your book is "One Bed, One Bank Account."

00:12:27.800 | So let's start with that because this is a pretty controversial subject.

00:12:30.800 | Yeah, it is.

00:12:31.800 | You believe evidently that couples need one bank account.

00:12:34.800 | If they're going to share a bed, they need a bank account.

00:12:36.800 | Okay, that's what the book would obviously suggest.

00:12:39.800 | Now, that's what we do.

00:12:41.800 | That's what works for us.

00:12:42.800 | That's what we recommend.

00:12:44.800 | However, I'm not going as far to say that that's what you should do.

00:12:51.800 | I'm stopping right before that.

00:12:54.800 | Well, maybe.

00:12:55.800 | Maybe I am saying that.

00:12:57.800 | But you know what I'm saying.

00:12:58.800 | A better way to put it is if you believe that having one bank account is best for your relationship,

00:13:07.800 | we're here for you, and we will support that, and we encourage that,

00:13:12.800 | and we'll provide tools and resources for that.

00:13:16.800 | So I'm not necessarily trying to convince anybody or change anybody's mind.

00:13:20.800 | Maybe.

00:13:22.800 | But if you're already there, which a lot of people are, then that's cool.

00:13:27.800 | And a lot of people disagree.

00:13:29.800 | I haven't read the book yet.

00:13:31.800 | Did you research the quality of marriages where they have one bank account versus quality of marriage where they have separate bank accounts?

00:13:40.800 | Any insight on that?

00:13:41.800 | You know, there are studies that say--I can't bring them up right here on the spot--

00:13:47.800 | but I did see a study that said the longer a couple remains married, the higher the chances are that they have one bank account.

00:14:00.800 | So the longer a couple's married, the more likely it is that they have combined finances.

00:14:07.800 | That's one study.

00:14:09.800 | And I did--the book isn't super heavy on stats or studies or anything like that.

00:14:15.800 | But we do have our own personal story, and then we tell the story of, I think, two or three other real couples, real friends of ours.

00:14:23.800 | So that's what the book is mostly comprised of.

00:14:26.800 | I think about the subject a lot because obviously with financial planning, this is a bit controversial.

00:14:30.800 | I appreciate that you gave it a little bit of nuance because I see a few distinctions that really should be made.

00:14:40.800 | It's hard for me to imagine how a couple can stay together long term if they are not agreeing on the big picture plan of their life together.

00:14:53.800 | Marriage is tough, right?

00:14:56.800 | Marriage is--for me, marriage is tough.

00:14:59.800 | It is challenging.

00:15:00.800 | And if you're not focused on building consensus and communication about the goals for our family together,

00:15:09.800 | it's hard for me to see how you're not just over time as the natural process of life happens and you drift apart, how you're going to be able to stay together.

00:15:16.800 | Go ahead and comment, and then I'll continue.

00:15:18.800 | My comment there is for us--and again, I'm not trying to convince anybody or change anybody's mind--but for us, marriage is oneness.

00:15:28.800 | And oneness can't be separated out.

00:15:31.800 | So we're one over here, and yet we're not one over here.

00:15:35.800 | To me, that's not possible.

00:15:37.800 | To me, that's not possible.

00:15:39.800 | So finances, you're one.

00:15:41.800 | Children, you're one.

00:15:43.800 | In your bedroom, in the bed, you're one.

00:15:47.800 | So to me, if there's any one single area of your relationship where you've separated and you're not one, well, to me, the whole thing isn't one.

00:15:59.800 | It's got to be everything is one.

00:16:01.800 | You can't separate something out.

00:16:03.800 | That's my response.

00:16:05.800 | I agree with you.

00:16:06.800 | And that's from the beginning.

00:16:09.800 | That's the whole point of marriage is that focus on oneness.

00:16:15.800 | And when it comes to actually practically implementing that, in my mind, that would be where it would be important to look at things a little bit more deeply.

00:16:23.800 | And so my wife and I, we share one checking account.

00:16:28.800 | And we need, in my opinion--it's very important for us to be accountable to one another because she's in my life for a reason.

00:16:35.800 | I need her.

00:16:36.800 | She is so much better than I am with so many things.

00:16:41.800 | If I had been married earlier and I had talked with her about some of my business decisions that cost me a lot of money, I would have made better decisions.

00:16:49.800 | Now, it's a bit humbling to take that place.

00:16:52.800 | It's very humbling for me to talk with my wife about my business decisions because I would much rather say, "Well, don't you know that I'm Mr. Fancy Pants businessman?

00:17:00.800 | Well, I, of course, make good decisions."

00:17:02.800 | But I find in talking through things with her, it's really valuable because it's a good point of safety for me to have her counsel and her wisdom.

00:17:11.800 | Absolutely.

00:17:12.800 | But on the other hand, it is important to have some--it's important to have an ability to--I think for each of us, at least for us, it's very important that my wife has enough money that she can do what she feels is valuable about without talking to me about it.

00:17:31.800 | Without talking to me about every little thing.

00:17:33.800 | Right.

00:17:34.800 | Because oftentimes, it can feel a little bit overwhelming, I think.

00:17:37.800 | If she wants to buy a milkshake and she's like, "Well, I don't know if I can spend the money."

00:17:42.800 | One of the things, especially in our--I don't know.

00:17:45.800 | Do you and your wife both earn income?

00:17:47.800 | Yes.

00:17:48.800 | Okay.

00:17:49.800 | So, in our relationship, I'm the one who brings in the income to the family.

00:17:52.800 | And I'm especially sensitive to that because it can be a very challenging thing for my wife if she's not creating income.

00:17:59.800 | If I'm holding money over her and saying, "We've got to be accountable for every dollar," in my mind, that's not a healthy aspect for a relationship.

00:18:07.800 | So, even though we have one bank account, I think--and that helps us to agree on the big picture.

00:18:11.800 | If possible, if there's enough money in the family budget, I think it's important for her especially and for me to have some money that's not accountable to the other person.

00:18:21.800 | Right.

00:18:22.800 | Oh, absolutely.

00:18:23.800 | That's part of the plan.

00:18:24.800 | So, our book is one bed, one bank account.

00:18:28.800 | And so, people--well, that doesn't work for us because we need separate money so that we can do whatever we want with it.

00:18:36.800 | Well, absolutely.

00:18:37.800 | That's part of our plan.

00:18:38.800 | We talk about that all the time.

00:18:39.800 | You just work that into the budget.

00:18:41.800 | So, that is--well, then people say, "Well, I'm confused.

00:18:46.800 | How is that my money?"

00:18:48.800 | And we need to have this separate money is what people say.

00:18:52.800 | We do that too.

00:18:54.800 | It's just worked into the budget.

00:18:56.800 | So, we just--for us, it's really simple.

00:18:58.800 | We do $50 a month that is her money.

00:19:02.800 | And you don't have to ask me permission on what to buy.

00:19:06.800 | You know, if I want to go buy a milkshake, I don't have to call my wife.

00:19:09.800 | It's my $50.

00:19:10.800 | Right.

00:19:11.800 | And so, in that way, it is a little bit separated out but not really.

00:19:15.800 | It's agreed upon.

00:19:16.800 | Right.

00:19:17.800 | So, we have agreed with this money you can do whatever you want.

00:19:20.800 | So, therefore, we don't have to be so micromanaging over each other.

00:19:26.800 | It's worked into the budget.

00:19:28.800 | We all have some things that we do with money that are probably a little bit frivolous.

00:19:31.800 | If we had to cut our budget to the bare bones, there are things that we could cut out.

00:19:35.800 | But those things add to the quality of life.

00:19:37.800 | Sure.

00:19:38.800 | And it's important to account for those.

00:19:40.800 | And at least for us, having some wiggle room, I think, is very important--

00:19:45.800 | Oh, yeah.

00:19:46.800 | --especially in the dynamic of--and this is where many people come--

00:19:49.800 | in my observation, many people come into the question of whether each earn an income and say,

00:19:54.800 | "Well, I get to spend my income."

00:19:55.800 | Right.

00:19:56.800 | And, okay, I see that.

00:19:58.800 | But especially when you're in that dynamic like my family where there's one income source.

00:20:02.800 | Right.

00:20:03.800 | It's got to be careful about handling that well.

00:20:06.800 | You know, that's interesting you bring that up.

00:20:08.800 | And here's what--I don't know if you've experienced this and you might experience it in the future--

00:20:12.800 | but there's a lot of couples out there that the income earner switches back and forth several times throughout the marriage.

00:20:20.800 | So let's say, for example, there's a young couple.

00:20:22.800 | And let's say that the wife has already graduated from college and she's working and earning an income.

00:20:30.800 | Let's say that they're married and he wants to go back to grad school.

00:20:33.800 | Well, so she's the income earner and he's not earning an income.

00:20:37.800 | And then he graduates.

00:20:38.800 | And then for a few years, they're both earning an income.

00:20:41.800 | And then they decide to have kids.

00:20:43.800 | And let's say that she decides to stay home.

00:20:45.800 | Now he's the income earner.

00:20:47.800 | And then let's take it out a little bit further and let's say that in a few years, let's say he gets laid off.

00:20:52.800 | And then she has to go get a part-time job.

00:20:54.800 | So it goes back and forth.

00:20:56.800 | And this happens to lots of couples where it goes back and forth to varying degrees.

00:21:02.800 | And so my thing is, okay, if you're going to keep separate accounts, it's just going to be like this constant battle.

00:21:10.800 | You know, well, I'm earning the money now.

00:21:12.800 | Yeah, but in a year from now, I'll be the one earning the money.

00:21:15.800 | So what does it matter?

00:21:16.800 | It's all going to sort of even out.

00:21:18.800 | And it's not even about it evening out.

00:21:21.800 | It's just about being one and being a team.

00:21:24.800 | So I'll earn the money for this season of life.

00:21:27.800 | And maybe later you'll earn the money for a season of life.

00:21:31.800 | And I don't want that to affect our relationship in a negative way.

00:21:35.800 | I want that to be a positive.

00:21:37.800 | And this takes advantage of one of the primary aspects of marriage.

00:21:42.800 | Marriage, if you look at the statistics, married people are overwhelmingly more likely to be richer than single people.

00:21:49.800 | And I think there are multiple reasons for that.

00:21:51.800 | One of the reasons is for the efficient use of dollars for expenses.

00:21:56.800 | Two people living together and sharing expenses is a much more efficient way to handle family expenses than one person living alone or two individual people living alone.

00:22:06.800 | Also, if you look at the actual psychological effects, the benefits of marriage, married men make more money than single men.

00:22:14.800 | Married men are happier than single men.

00:22:18.800 | I don't know.

00:22:19.800 | I have not researched in depth the statistics on married women, so I can't quote those.

00:22:24.800 | But my bet is that they would be--

00:22:26.800 | Maybe they're unhappier.

00:22:27.800 | I don't know.

00:22:28.800 | I don't believe so.

00:22:29.800 | But I just want to acknowledge when I haven't researched something.

00:22:32.800 | But married men, they live longer, they're happier, and they're richer.

00:22:37.800 | So a lot of that comes from having a clarity of focus and a place that our family is going together.

00:22:44.800 | And when you put the energy into shared goals, then it can really create a lot of power behind it.

00:22:50.800 | Yeah.

00:22:51.800 | It's not simply, as you're saying, it's not simply the mechanics of it being cheaper to, let's say, have a roommate.

00:22:58.800 | Because that's kind of what you're describing, and just the purely financial mechanics of it, it's like a roommate.

00:23:03.800 | Well, of course, your rent's going to be half.

00:23:05.800 | Right.

00:23:06.800 | But it goes beyond that.

00:23:07.800 | It goes into the emotional, the psychological, and even the--

00:23:11.800 | I find that accountability.

00:23:14.800 | And like you said at the beginning, we're a family unit, and finances is part of this business relationship that we have.

00:23:23.800 | And so if you don't have a quote, in this example, a business partner, you don't have somebody to encourage you and to maybe motivate you and all that kind of stuff.

00:23:33.800 | So there's a lot that is to be said for being in a marriage and not only being in a marriage, but counting everything as one.

00:23:42.800 | And for that to produce not only these mechanical financial benefits, but also, I mean, psychographics and emotional and behavioral and all of those things that come from being one with your partner on every level.

00:23:58.800 | There are some additional technical financial planning considerations that I don't want to go into right now that I could also make an argument would lead to individually titled accounts.

00:24:09.800 | Right.

00:24:10.800 | And the reasons why it can be helpful for a couple to have individually titled accounts.

00:24:15.800 | But the general press, I think, of moving together and moving towards the same goals is important to acknowledge.

00:24:21.800 | And I'll go over on another date the reasons to have individually titled accounts and how that can be helpful.

00:24:26.800 | I want to move on to the topic of communication and ask you about what you have learned.

00:24:31.800 | So you have been coaching some friends and you've written a book on the subject.

00:24:35.800 | What thoughts and ideas do you have around what are the major problems that occur in communication?

00:24:41.800 | How can couples work at that?

00:24:43.800 | You know, there's a lot.

00:24:44.800 | The first thing that comes to my mind is what I see usually happening is, let's say, a couple has been married for however many, let's say, two years.

00:24:54.800 | What usually happens is one or the other will get super excited about money.

00:25:01.800 | And what a bump in the road can be if you're the one that gets super excited about money, but your partner just hasn't gone there yet.

00:25:10.800 | Right.

00:25:11.800 | You know, they're just not excited.

00:25:12.800 | They haven't caught the budgeting bug yet, you know.

00:25:14.800 | And so sometimes bringing that up, the way that you bring it up is probably the most important.

00:25:21.800 | Because chances are you're right, quote.

00:25:24.800 | You know, you've got this idea that, man, we need to get on a budget.

00:25:28.800 | Man, we need to pay off our debts faster and we need to be paying attention to our money.

00:25:33.800 | And your partner is like, huh, what?

00:25:35.800 | When you bring it up to them, sometimes they can get defensive.

00:25:38.800 | Right.

00:25:39.800 | And you think, oh, you're accusing me of -- you know, it's very personal.

00:25:43.800 | Right.

00:25:44.800 | Oh, you're accusing me of making dumb decisions and, oh, my gosh.

00:25:47.800 | You know, there isn't any problem.

00:25:49.800 | I don't see the problem yet like you do.

00:25:53.800 | And so the approach is very important.

00:25:57.800 | So we suggest not approaching in an accusing way or an aggressive way or anything like that, but just simply saying something like, hey, honey, I started looking at our money.

00:26:10.800 | And I think that maybe it would be helpful for us in our relationship if we take a look at our money.

00:26:15.800 | That's it.

00:26:16.800 | You don't even have to say do a budget.

00:26:18.800 | You don't have to say we need to stop spending money on all these things and we need to stop eating out because your partner, if they're not excited about it yet, can see that as sort of threatening and say, oh, my gosh, they're about to take away everything I love.

00:26:32.800 | You know, they're about to tell me I can't do this and do that.

00:26:35.800 | So that approach is really important.

00:26:37.800 | How do you overcome a bad reputation?

00:26:43.800 | What do you mean?

00:26:44.800 | Explain.

00:26:45.800 | What do you mean?

00:26:46.800 | Because I've observed this often happens.

00:26:48.800 | I have let's put it on me.

00:26:51.800 | So I've been wasteful.

00:26:53.800 | I've been frivolous.

00:26:54.800 | I've spent money constantly all over the place.

00:26:57.800 | Then all of a sudden I turn on the Derek and Carrie show and I'm all excited about money or I turn on radical personal finance and all of a sudden like, yeah, we're going to get our money.

00:27:05.800 | I turn on Dave Ramsey and we're going to get out of debt.

00:27:08.800 | We're going to do these certain things.

00:27:09.800 | And so all of a sudden I get excited and then I come to my wife and I tell her, listen, honey, I've got a plan.

00:27:14.800 | We're going to get out of it, but we're going to get on a budget.

00:27:16.800 | We're going to pay off our debt.

00:27:17.800 | Like we're going to do all these things.

00:27:18.800 | And the first thing that needs to go is you need to cut back on the groceries.

00:27:22.800 | You need to stop spending so much money on clothes and we're going to sell your car because it's the one that we have the big car payment on.

00:27:28.800 | What do you think?

00:27:29.800 | You know, I think you've got to see the goal.

00:27:33.800 | So you've got to see what the result you can't just focus on cutting back and doing without and all the negatives.

00:27:40.800 | And I'll because I don't I don't view them as negatives.

00:27:43.800 | It's it's a it's a higher purpose that we're going for here.

00:27:47.800 | And so if part of the plan is cutting back on groceries, it's that don't stop there.

00:27:52.800 | We're not just cutting back on eating out.

00:27:54.800 | It's for this other reason.

00:27:56.800 | There's all these other goals that you're trying to go for.

00:28:00.800 | And when going out to eat too often is preventing you from reaching all of these other goals that you care more about,

00:28:07.800 | then it becomes easier to cut back in all these other areas because you see what you're going for.

00:28:14.800 | And really, it comes down to I you can't change anybody's mind or change anybody's opinion.

00:28:21.800 | That's up to them.

00:28:22.800 | But when they see, holy cow, going out to eat constantly is preventing me from paying off my debt or preventing me from paying off this car.

00:28:33.800 | Or if we just cut our food bill in half, we could start saving more for retirement.

00:28:39.800 | Once you get excited about that, it makes cutting in this example going out to eat.

00:28:44.800 | It makes it really, really easy.

00:28:47.800 | And that was one of the things that was actually the first thing for us when we did our monthly budget.

00:28:53.800 | I would have guessed. In fact, we did this.

00:28:55.800 | We kind of guessed like, oh, how much do you think that we spend going out to eat?

00:29:00.800 | I guessed $100.

00:29:03.800 | And then we did a recap from last month.

00:29:05.800 | It was $450.

00:29:08.800 | So I don't know if that number is shocking to anybody.

00:29:13.800 | To some people, they're like, oh, $450 is not that big a deal.

00:29:16.800 | Forget about the number and focus on the fact that I was off by a factor of three and a half.

00:29:21.800 | I was three and a half times off.

00:29:24.800 | So that's huge because that's the mindset behind what was going on before we were doing a budget.

00:29:32.800 | That's just a mindset of, oh, yeah, we're probably spending $100.

00:29:36.800 | Oh, no, $450.

00:29:38.800 | And I didn't even know.

00:29:40.800 | And so where that really got my attention was I was allowing myself to do something that had I known I was doing it, I never would have allowed myself to do it.

00:29:51.800 | So I was out of control and didn't even know it.

00:29:55.800 | Didn't even know it.

00:29:56.800 | I was out of control.

00:29:58.800 | That, in my mind, is exactly the first place to start because it's simply finding out where you are.

00:30:04.800 | You notice this if you talk with people about weight loss.

00:30:06.800 | And oftentimes what happens is we just simply don't get in tune with ourselves until all of a sudden we see a picture from a wedding that we went to.

00:30:14.800 | Who is the fat dude next to the pretty lady?

00:30:17.800 | Oh, wait, that's me.

00:30:18.800 | Or you step on the scale and say, wait a second, I was 200, now I'm 260, and I didn't even realize that.

00:30:25.800 | Or you find out your blood markers.

00:30:27.800 | Same thing with money.

00:30:29.800 | I don't see how it's possible.

00:30:32.800 | And the first step in any kind of change is to sit down and start with having an idea of where you are.

00:30:38.800 | And starting with how much money do we have?

00:30:41.800 | What's the value of our assets?

00:30:43.800 | How much are our debts?

00:30:45.800 | And how much money are we spending on a daily, weekly, monthly basis?

00:30:50.800 | And just simply looking at that.

00:30:51.800 | And if you just do that, I think you can coach yourself to anything else.

00:30:54.800 | Oh, yeah, that's where the light bulbs go off, man.

00:30:57.800 | That's where the "aha" moment.

00:30:59.800 | Because we're not stupid.

00:31:00.800 | We just don't pay attention.

00:31:02.800 | We're not stupid people.

00:31:04.800 | If we sit down and look at the numbers and say, oh, this is good, here's what I'm spending, that's not really in line with my goals.

00:31:11.800 | Or, look, this is in line with my goals.

00:31:13.800 | We're just busy and we don't pay attention.

00:31:15.800 | Right.

00:31:16.800 | And you're exactly right.

00:31:17.800 | We're not stupid.

00:31:18.800 | So anybody can do a budget.

00:31:20.800 | In fact, you could go online and figure out how to do a budget, obviously, without a financial coach or without any assistance whatsoever.

00:31:30.800 | Anybody could figure out how to do a budget.

00:31:33.800 | Anybody.

00:31:35.800 | But it's the motivation.

00:31:37.800 | It's the "aha."

00:31:38.800 | It's the moment when you go, oh, my gosh, if we keep paying the minimum on all these debts, it's going to take 12 years.

00:31:45.800 | It's that moment when you finally come to -- and then the rest of it you can figure out.

00:31:52.800 | Now, maybe you'll hire a coach or something to get some assistance, and it's often a good idea.

00:31:57.800 | But you're right.

00:31:58.800 | We're not stupid.

00:31:59.800 | We can all do this.

00:32:00.800 | It's just that motivation.

00:32:03.800 | It's that "why" that you've got to get for yourself that then will motivate you to then do a budget.

00:32:08.800 | Walk me very practically through a month of money management in the Olson household.

00:32:14.800 | What tools do you use?

00:32:15.800 | How do you manage things?

00:32:17.800 | How do you talk together?

00:32:18.800 | What are the very practical steps that you and your wife take with regard to money to manage it together?

00:32:23.800 | So let me answer it this way.

00:32:25.800 | Let me go back to the very first few months because we did a little bit differently back then.

00:32:31.800 | It's not that different now.

00:32:33.800 | But I want to say this for a reason.

00:32:36.800 | The very first, I think, six months, we actually used pen and paper.

00:32:41.800 | We didn't even use a spreadsheet or anything.

00:32:43.800 | We used a calculator and a pencil -- not even a pen, a pencil so that we could erase.

00:32:49.800 | And we wrote down -- we would do like -- so we would print off our bank statement.

00:32:55.800 | We would go through with another scratch sheet of paper and write down all the categories.

00:33:00.800 | And we would add everything up with a pencil and a calculator.

00:33:04.800 | And then we would put it into a spreadsheet on paper.

00:33:09.800 | I loved doing it like that because it just felt so much more real.

00:33:15.800 | I felt involved in the process.

00:33:18.800 | And it was real whenever we would write down, you know, restaurants, $450.

00:33:23.800 | And when I had to write that down with my own hand, it was like, oh, gosh, you know, I'm really feeling this.

00:33:29.800 | Instead of -- say, for example -- and I'm not against like any of those apps that do the adding for you

00:33:35.800 | or they reach into your bank account and they categorize everything for you.

00:33:38.800 | That's fine.

00:33:39.800 | That's not for me because I want to be involved.

00:33:42.800 | I often say that that's like letting somebody else study for a test that you're going to take.

00:33:48.800 | Not very helpful.

00:33:50.800 | You know, you can kind of see the relationship there.

00:33:52.800 | So that's how I view that.

00:33:54.800 | So we print off the bank statement.

00:33:56.800 | We put everything into a category.

00:33:58.800 | From last month to see how we did.

00:34:01.800 | And then we do a new budget for next month.

00:34:04.800 | So then if you fast forward another month, we've done a budget for that month.

00:34:09.800 | And then we again print off the bank statement for what is now the month that's gone by.

00:34:14.800 | And we find the difference.

00:34:16.800 | And that's where I think that's the most important part.

00:34:20.800 | Because if you do a budget and then you don't do a recap, it's like you're missing half the equation, you know.

00:34:27.800 | So you do a budget, you do a recap, you find the difference between the two to see how far off you are.

00:34:33.800 | That's where I think the true change and the learning really takes place is the difference.

00:34:39.800 | If you start with the manual process, then you can internalize how it works.

00:34:43.800 | And probably a good example would be there's a reason why we teach young men and women how to add and subtract and multiply and divide by hand.

00:34:52.800 | And then we introduce the calculator.

00:34:55.800 | I hated that when I was in third grade.

00:34:57.800 | And it's like, "Well, look, the calculator does it. I don't need to remember it."

00:35:00.800 | I've paid the price since then for my laziness in internalizing the manual process.

00:35:05.800 | But if you internalize the manual process and then you add some tools to it, you'll be able to consistently do it.

00:35:10.800 | And when you're trying to get control of an area of life, the first thing is awareness.

00:35:15.800 | So if I'm trying to get control of my time, the very first step is where is my time going?

00:35:20.800 | And I find the more manual I can make that process, the better.

00:35:23.800 | Yes, it takes longer, but taking longer is not bad because taking longer is focusing me on something that I've said, "This is important."

00:35:30.800 | And it's across time management.

00:35:33.800 | It's across dieting.

00:35:35.800 | The first step is awareness.

00:35:36.800 | Write down.

00:35:37.800 | Keep a food log.

00:35:38.800 | There's no diet out there that doesn't start with a food log.

00:35:40.800 | I'm sure there's some, but that's common to all.

00:35:43.800 | Same thing with money.

00:35:44.800 | Start with awareness.

00:35:46.800 | Absolutely.

00:35:47.800 | At this point, do you still do it on paper?

00:35:48.800 | We use a Google Doc spreadsheet, and it still looks almost just like the paper one that we used to use.

00:35:57.800 | But we still print off the bank statement from last month, and then basically the only thing the spreadsheet automates is really two things, I guess.

00:36:07.800 | We did a formula where we can put in each expense into the category, and if you visualize the spreadsheet, those go out to the right.

00:36:17.800 | And then they add up and put it into the column.

00:36:22.800 | And then so we have what happened last month, and then we do a budget for this month to the column to the left, and then the column to the right shows the difference.

00:36:33.800 | So it does a little bit of the automation just as far as the addition and subtraction, but we're still punching everything in.

00:36:39.800 | Have you tried using YNAB?

00:36:41.800 | No.

00:36:42.800 | You should because --

00:36:43.800 | I've heard it's great.

00:36:44.800 | I am a long-time spreadsheet guy.

00:36:46.800 | For the last five years, I've managed things with an Excel spreadsheet.

00:36:49.800 | And a month and a half ago, I was deciding to -- and the first time I saw YNAB, I thought it was just a spreadsheet.

00:36:57.800 | A month and a half ago, I put out a call on the show for people to suggest potential sponsors for Radical Personal Finance.

00:37:04.800 | I got, I think, over a dozen emails from people saying, "You should call YNAB.

00:37:10.800 | YNAB is awesome."

00:37:11.800 | So I went ahead and downloaded it, started to use it.

00:37:13.800 | It is fantastic.

00:37:15.800 | I've heard.

00:37:16.800 | And so try out the free version and just see if it helps you because it is exactly focused on those two things that you want,

00:37:22.800 | the tracking of last month and the budgeting of next month.

00:37:25.800 | And it's the best I've seen.

00:37:28.800 | I wish I had been using it the last few years instead of my spreadsheet.

00:37:31.800 | YNAB has almost like a cult following because everyone that uses it loves it.

00:37:36.800 | They're not just like, "Eh, it's okay."

00:37:38.800 | I didn't get it until a month and a half ago because I thought it was just like it used to be.

00:37:41.800 | I preferred envelopes, but they're too expensive.

00:37:43.800 | I wasn't willing to pay the price because they pay a monthly fee.

00:37:45.800 | But once I started a month and a half ago and I've been using it since then, I get it.

00:37:49.800 | They did a great job with it.

00:37:52.800 | Is it still just the one-time fee for--?

00:37:54.800 | One-time fee.

00:37:55.800 | I think it's $60, one-time fee for that.

00:37:58.800 | So check that out.

00:37:59.800 | Yeah, we will.

00:38:00.800 | I mean, I've considered because the one thing that is missing from what we do now is basically like a--

00:38:08.800 | I don't know if YNAB even does this.

00:38:10.800 | I don't know if you can tell me, but like percentages and a pie chart and graphs, does it do that?

00:38:15.800 | They do.

00:38:16.800 | They have a reporting function.

00:38:17.800 | Here's why YNAB is great, and here's what's missing with most of the budgeting things.

00:38:21.800 | With my spreadsheet, if we were over budget, it's not easy to say, "Well, where is that money going to come from?"

00:38:27.800 | But YNAB makes it simple to do what they call the zero-based budget.

00:38:31.800 | So if you recognize that we had budgeted $400 for groceries, but we had a couple people over

00:38:36.800 | and we made some fancy food and now it was actually $470, you can mentally just quickly say, "Okay, where am I taking that money from?"

00:38:44.800 | And you can easily adjust that other category, and you know where you're taking the money from instead of saying, "Oh, well, we were over budget."

00:38:50.800 | Right.

00:38:51.800 | Because that's what happens.

00:38:52.800 | You get, "Oh, well, we were over budget."

00:38:53.800 | Yeah, and what's the point?

00:38:54.800 | But what do you do?

00:38:55.800 | You know, it's not like you're in second grade and the teacher's going to smack your hand if you get over budget.

00:38:59.800 | Like we're adults.

00:39:00.800 | It's our money.

00:39:01.800 | And so it's not about, "Oh, we have to feel bad because we spent too much money."

00:39:04.800 | It's not about feeling bad.

00:39:05.800 | It's about saying, "Okay, I am aware that I chose to spend more money here than I had planned on.

00:39:10.800 | Now, where am I going to get that additional money from?"

00:39:13.800 | Because that's the thing is that it's going to come from somewhere.

00:39:17.800 | Exactly.

00:39:18.800 | And so when you, like you're saying, then you have to -- it kind of -- what I'm hearing you say is it kind of forces you to choose, "Okay, where are you going to pull that 70 from?"

00:39:28.800 | And that's a good thing.

00:39:30.800 | That's not a, you know, shame on you.

00:39:32.800 | Exactly.

00:39:33.800 | Because that 70 came from somewhere.

00:39:35.800 | Exactly.

00:39:36.800 | It just, by default, it just does.

00:39:39.800 | And so it forces you to kind of think, at least think, about where did it come from.

00:39:46.800 | And then I think the program almost -- it almost forces you to, right, that's how it works.

00:39:54.800 | It's like, "Okay, you have to."

00:39:55.800 | So with ours, with just a spreadsheet, we try to do that.

00:40:00.800 | So we do a zero-based budgeting.

00:40:04.800 | That's the format, if you will, that we use.

00:40:10.800 | But with a spreadsheet, it sort of puts the responsibility on you to actually do it.

00:40:15.800 | And with something like that, it's like you have to.

00:40:18.800 | So anyway.

00:40:19.800 | It doesn't force you to where it's like, "Okay, you can't use the program, but you've got this annoying minus $75."

00:40:25.800 | And you should train yourself to say, "I'm over budget here.

00:40:28.800 | Where am I going to take that money?"

00:40:29.800 | Yeah, that's good.

00:40:30.800 | Otherwise, I'm going to be spending more than I make, and I know ultimately that's a problem.

00:40:34.800 | And the cool thing is, by allowing you to build up accounts, I can say, "Oh, I'm taking this money from my slush fund or my emergency fund or whatever."

00:40:41.800 | Final question.

00:40:43.800 | What is -- so you've written a book with your wife.

00:40:46.800 | Yeah.

00:40:47.800 | Which puts a tremendous responsibility on you because now you've got to practice what you preach.

00:40:51.800 | I'm curious.

00:40:52.800 | What is the area that you guys are still working on where you feel like, "Man, we just aren't doing great in this area, and we're trying to figure it out"?

00:40:59.800 | Yeah.

00:41:00.800 | And, man, that's kind of a tough question, so I'm glad you asked it.

00:41:05.800 | We try our best to practice what we preach, but we are just like any normal couple out there.

00:41:11.800 | We don't always get it right.

00:41:13.800 | We make mistakes and all that.

00:41:15.800 | And we try to be really honest about that on our podcast.

00:41:17.800 | In fact, we post our monthly budget every month on our blog, so when we make mistakes, it's out there for everyone to see.

00:41:25.800 | Actually, I would say the biggest thing that we're struggling with right now is Carrie and I both work for ourselves.

00:41:33.800 | So I sell the books.

00:41:35.800 | I do the majority of our blog business, DerekAndCarrie.com.

00:41:39.800 | Carrie is a voiceover actor.

00:41:42.800 | And so she does commercials, radio, TV, online stuff.

00:41:46.800 | So the thing that we're probably struggling with right now is we're both self-employed, and so the income is irregular.

00:41:52.800 | Right.

00:41:53.800 | Oh, man.

00:41:54.800 | That takes budgeting to a whole different level.

00:41:57.800 | Yep.

00:41:58.800 | And we've only been both self-employed for seven months now, so it's still very new.

00:42:05.800 | So the whole irregular income thing, oh, it's a huge struggle.

00:42:09.800 | And I make no claims to be any sort of irregular income budgeting expert.

00:42:15.800 | It's still new to us.

00:42:17.800 | So we struggle there every single month.

00:42:20.800 | I've done--I share the struggle for years.

00:42:24.800 | I just said I don't budget simply because there's--with my income, there would be months--I think my biggest month I made over $30,000.

00:42:33.800 | I think I made like $36,000 one month.

00:42:35.800 | Good for you.

00:42:36.800 | And then I had months where I made zero.

00:42:38.800 | Yeah, man, it's crazy.

00:42:39.800 | And so you learn, and it's just so tough to do it.

00:42:43.800 | And this whole show is turning into a commercial for YNAB, but after I've been using them, I really like it because I still have an irregular income.

00:42:50.800 | But one of the cool things is it allows you--what their software does is it allows it to project forward and see how many months basically of expenses are sitting in the checking account.

00:43:00.800 | And so you can not only budget for one month easily, but you can also budget for coming months.

00:43:05.800 | And you can kind of see when the problems are there.

00:43:07.800 | That's good.

00:43:08.800 | It might be helpful for you.

00:43:09.800 | Jesse Mecham should be very happy with our massive YNAB commercial here.

00:43:14.800 | So tell us about DerekAndCarrie.com.

00:43:17.800 | Tell us about the book, where people can get it.

00:43:19.800 | I haven't read it yet, but I plan to.

00:43:20.800 | And then I'll try to do a book review when I get it read.

00:43:22.800 | That'd be great.

00:43:23.800 | So the website's DerekAndCarrie.com.

00:43:25.800 | That's D-E-R-E-K and C-A-R-R-I-E.

00:43:30.800 | The book is there.

00:43:31.800 | The book's also on Amazon.

00:43:33.800 | Again, it's one bed, one bank account.

00:43:35.800 | There's a book and there's a workbook edition too.

00:43:38.800 | So they go together as a pair.

00:43:40.800 | You can get them together as a combo on the website.

00:43:44.800 | And then we do have a podcast where it's Carrie and I, both, every single episode, the two of us together.

00:43:50.800 | That's on iTunes, Stitcher, our website.

00:43:53.800 | It's called Better Conversations on Money and Marriage.

00:43:57.800 | And so we just, every week, it's about 20 minutes.

00:44:01.800 | And we just pick a topic that's related mostly to married couples or people in a relationship as it pertains to finances.

00:44:08.800 | And we just talk.

00:44:09.800 | We keep it real.

00:44:10.800 | Usually, it's stuff that we're going through too.

00:44:13.800 | So hopefully, it's relatable and people say it's encouraging and people even say it's fun.

00:44:18.800 | So tune in.

00:44:19.800 | So helpful because oftentimes in marriage, we feel like we're the only ones.

00:44:23.800 | And we feel like, "Well, I'm the only one that has a problem.

00:44:26.800 | And there's something wrong with me because I love my wife.

00:44:28.800 | But yet, how do we communicate around this without getting frustrated?"

00:44:32.800 | And you're not the only one.

00:44:34.800 | It's a common experience for all of us.

00:44:36.800 | And no matter how perfect any marriage seems from the outside, it ain't perfect.

00:44:40.800 | There's no such thing.

00:44:42.800 | It's just a matter.

00:44:43.800 | But it can be improved as you learn skills and develop tools and practice habits that lead to, over time, an incredible growth of the relationship and peace.

00:44:53.800 | I couldn't have said it any better.

00:44:55.800 | That was perfect.

00:44:56.800 | Derek, thanks so much for coming on.

00:44:57.800 | I appreciate it.

00:44:58.800 | Thanks for having me.

00:44:59.800 | Hope that discussion was useful to you.

00:45:03.800 | It's a bummer that we couldn't get Kerry also on the microphone.

00:45:06.800 | But I'm not sure how anybody would ever get me and my wife together on the same microphone at the same time unless it were late in the evening with kids in bed.

00:45:13.800 | And that was the reality of the circumstances there at the conference.

00:45:17.800 | In just a moment, there will be a special part two of the show.

00:45:21.800 | Stay tuned if you're interested in Derek and Kerry's actual kind of radical lifestyle.

00:45:26.800 | But I'm going to go ahead and do my little wrap-up comments here.

00:45:29.800 | Get over to DerekandKerry.com.

00:45:31.800 | Derek, D-E-R-E-K, and Kerry, C-A-R-R-I-E, dot com.

00:45:37.800 | Check out their work.

00:45:38.800 | Check out their writings.

00:45:39.800 | You can find their book, the workbook, and all of that.

00:45:41.800 | It might be a useful resource for you and your relationship with your spouse.

00:45:45.800 | I hope that you find it helpful.

00:45:47.800 | Thank you, each and every one of you who listens to Radical Personal Finance.

00:45:50.800 | Thank you for supporting the show.

00:45:51.800 | I appreciate that.

00:45:53.800 | Check over to on the Patreon page.

00:45:55.800 | The goal for September here is to finish the month with a total of 250 patrons.

00:46:00.800 | That would be a really, really tremendous milestone in the history of Radical Personal Finance.

00:46:06.800 | And I would be thrilled if you would be part of that push.

00:46:09.800 | Go to RadicalPersonalFinance.com/patron.

00:46:11.800 | If you are supporting the show financially, thank you.

00:46:14.800 | If you are not or even if you are, one other way that I would truly appreciate your help is tell somebody about the show.

00:46:20.800 | That is how Radical Personal Finance primarily has grown up till now.

00:46:24.800 | And that is my goal as the primary way to continue to grow.

00:46:28.800 | I want to continue delivering as much value as I possibly can to you and get you to the point where you're so excited you want to tell other people about it.

00:46:35.800 | The best way to tell somebody to listen is just tell them to go into the App Store on their phone, search Radical Personal Finance, and download our app.

00:46:43.800 | Free app gives access to the show.

00:46:45.800 | That's the simplest and easiest way to tell somebody, especially somebody who might not be a podcast listener.

00:46:49.800 | If they are a podcast listener, just have them go into their podcast – what do they call it?

00:46:54.800 | Podcatcher.

00:46:57.800 | Have them go into their podcatcher of choice, whether it's your phone or however it is, and search for Radical Personal Finance.

00:47:02.800 | And we should be in most of the major directories.

00:47:04.800 | Thank you all so much for listening.

00:47:06.800 | Stay tuned for part two.

00:47:09.800 | And here that is.

00:47:12.800 | So, Derek, we do this whole long interview yesterday with Radical Personal Finance, have this great discussion about couples, finances, and all of that.

00:47:23.800 | And then we're talking last night, and I find out that you're living in a travel trailer.

00:47:28.800 | Forgot to mention that radical part of our lives.

00:47:31.800 | Yeah, that's what the show is about.

00:47:33.800 | And I said, there's no way in the world that two working professionals who are living in a travel trailer are not coming back on Radical Personal Finance to tell the story.

00:47:42.800 | So, dude, what's the deal?

00:47:44.800 | Tell me the details of the path, because we didn't go into detail on this yesterday, from the corporate world to independent entrepreneurship.

00:47:51.800 | Oh, man, that's a really long answer.

00:47:55.800 | I'll try to keep it short.

00:47:59.800 | I'll actually start with when Carrie, so I had previously quit my job two years prior, and then Carrie, my wife, got into voiceover acting, and that allowed her to work from home.

00:48:11.800 | She replaced her salary within three months of starting voiceover acting and quit.

00:48:17.800 | Dude, that's not normal, right?

00:48:19.800 | No, that is not normal.

00:48:21.800 | So how did she do that?

00:48:22.800 | She got a coach who had been a professional voiceover actor for 17 years, still is, so that really helped because voiceover acting is acting.

00:48:36.800 | It is not easy.

00:48:37.800 | People think, oh, you just talk on the radio and just say the words.

00:48:42.800 | No, you're acting, and you have to get into character.

00:48:45.800 | Anyway, so she did that.

00:48:47.800 | She started auditioning on a few websites that are specifically for voiceover.

00:48:51.800 | She had success, and she landed a big client early on, and she continues to get hired almost every single day, and it's gone really well.

00:49:02.800 | So that allowed her to come home, but it also is basically independent location working, so she can do that from anywhere, and so she does the voiceovers from our travel trailer.

00:49:15.800 | Wow.

00:49:16.800 | Yeah, and she started off doing it from the bathroom.

00:49:19.800 | Really?

00:49:20.800 | We would hang up these really heavy -- they are specifically acoustic blankets, or acoustic sound-deadening blankets, and we would hang those, drape those over everywhere in the bathroom, and she started off doing it in there, and then we built an actual booth that is collapsible.

00:49:38.800 | In your travel trailer?

00:49:39.800 | Yeah.

00:49:40.800 | It's collapsible.

00:49:41.800 | Oh, okay.

00:49:42.800 | So she can collapse it down and actually store it on the bed whenever we are not using it, and then she can set it up to do her voiceover in the travel trailer.

00:49:52.800 | So she's doing TV commercials or reading audiobooks?

00:49:55.800 | She actually hasn't done any audiobooks, but she does mostly -- she's done some radio, some national radio campaigns.

00:50:03.800 | She's done a few television spots, local, nothing national yet, and then a lot of it is actually just online stuff, so things that would be maybe internal explainer videos is the hot topic, like if a company is coming out with a product and they want to do just a little intro video.

00:50:24.800 | And so when you think about it, those are everywhere.

00:50:27.800 | Oh, yeah.

00:50:28.800 | It's funny where you think -- we didn't realize how big the voiceover industry is, but when you start thinking about it, voiceover is absolutely everywhere.

00:50:39.800 | Online, radio, TV, cartoons.

00:50:44.800 | Waiting on hold at your local Comcast.

00:50:46.800 | She's done on hold stuff.

00:50:49.800 | Wow.

00:50:50.800 | It's got a specific name.

00:50:51.800 | I can't remember.

00:50:52.800 | It's not called on hold.

00:50:53.800 | There's actually a specific industry term for the on hold.

00:50:59.800 | Press one for this, press two for that.

00:51:01.800 | There's a whole industry just for that.

00:51:03.800 | Does she just record the audio and send out a raw file, or does she edit it and add the compression and do all that stuff too?

00:51:09.800 | It's about half and half.

00:51:10.800 | So actually, it's kind of funny, but it makes sense.

00:51:14.800 | A smaller job, she'll do all the editing because they don't have an in-house person.

00:51:21.800 | So that kind of makes sense.

00:51:22.800 | A bigger paying job, like a huge client, they just want the raw file, and then they have their own engineer.

00:51:29.800 | So it's actually easier for her to do a bigger job because all she has to do is voice and send the raw files.

00:51:37.800 | So it's kind of interesting how it plays out.

00:51:39.800 | Techno geeky here.

00:51:41.800 | What kind of gear does she use?

00:51:43.800 | She uses a condenser mic.

00:51:45.800 | It is a AKG Perception 120.

00:51:51.800 | And that thing only costs like $100.

00:51:53.800 | And she just records into a laptop or into an audio recorder?

00:51:58.800 | I'm not sure what program.

00:52:00.800 | She records right into her Mac, so she doesn't go into a digital recorder.

00:52:05.800 | She goes right into a program.

00:52:06.800 | I can't remember the program.

00:52:08.800 | So a microphone and a computer, and that's it.

00:52:10.800 | And a sound booth.

00:52:11.800 | Yeah.

00:52:12.800 | And we already had most of that because we're podcasters.

00:52:15.800 | We already had almost all of the equipment.

00:52:18.800 | Her startup cost was almost -- I mean, if you want to count her coaching because she paid for that,

00:52:24.800 | and then I think she bought a software that she's actually no longer using,

00:52:28.800 | her entire startup cost was less than $500.

00:52:32.800 | And she was profitable within three weeks, and it's mostly -- I mean, her profit margin is like through the roof

00:52:40.800 | because there is no overhead.

00:52:43.800 | You're living in a travel trailer.

00:52:45.800 | There's nothing, man.

00:52:47.800 | And the only overhead, I guess, is somebody to babysit your daughter when it's time to record, and that's you.

00:52:52.800 | Which is me.

00:52:53.800 | Yeah.

00:52:56.800 | But the coaching made the difference to her being profitable.

00:52:58.800 | Coaching was huge because it is acting.

00:53:01.800 | I can't stress that enough.

00:53:02.800 | You're not just reading a script.

00:53:03.800 | You're acting.

00:53:04.800 | You have to get into character.

00:53:06.800 | You have to think, "Okay, I am an early 30s single mother who is busy and wants to buy this product because it will make my life easier."

00:53:18.800 | Right.

00:53:19.800 | Like that's a certain character, and that's almost not even a character.

00:53:22.800 | It's a real human being that's trying to identify with this.

00:53:26.800 | And there's so much to it.

00:53:29.800 | It's acting.

00:53:30.800 | There's so much to it.

00:53:31.800 | You need to try to connect with the person who is potentially going to purchase this product.

00:53:37.800 | You need to get inside their mind.

00:53:39.800 | It's the whole give them an actual name.

00:53:42.800 | Like Janelle is 32, and she's a single mother and whatever.

00:53:46.800 | So she does a lot of that.

00:53:48.800 | And she's just -- Carrie, my wife, is just really good at -- she was already good at getting into character in a funny way.

00:53:59.800 | And so she had never done any acting or anything like that before, but she was also very naturally gifted in that way.

00:54:06.800 | Great.

00:54:07.800 | So where did the travel trailer idea come from, and what was the process?

00:54:11.800 | Because you guys were just normal people living in a normal suburban house or whatever, right?

00:54:16.800 | Yeah.

00:54:17.800 | So we had a house.

00:54:18.800 | We were renting, and it all kind of fell into line at the same time.

00:54:22.800 | So she quit her job in October.

00:54:25.800 | Her lease was up the last day of March, so you could say April 1st.

00:54:30.800 | And we just didn't renew our lease, and we spent a few months getting rid of things.

00:54:35.800 | We literally got rid of 75%, 80% of all of our possessions.

00:54:39.800 | We sold or got rid of 80% of our possessions.

00:54:43.800 | We put another maybe 10%, 15% in a friend's basement.

00:54:49.800 | So there is a little bit of stuff in my friend's basement.

00:54:51.800 | And then we took about 5% of everything that we had previously owned, we brought in our travel trailer.

00:54:58.800 | Our travel trailer is 133 square feet.

00:55:01.800 | Little one.

00:55:02.800 | It is tiny.

00:55:04.800 | Okay, so we brought some clothes, some stuff for the kitchen, and that's it.

00:55:10.800 | So like a scamp or what is it?

00:55:12.800 | It's called a--what is it?

00:55:14.800 | It's a coachman.

00:55:15.800 | Okay.

00:55:16.800 | So it's not quite as small as a scamp.

00:55:17.800 | Those are tiny.

00:55:18.800 | Yeah, they are.

00:55:19.800 | Yeah.

00:55:20.800 | It's a little bit bigger than a scamp, but it's small.

00:55:23.800 | But it's got everything we need.

00:55:25.800 | It's got everything we need.

00:55:26.800 | It has a bed.

00:55:27.800 | It has a full bathroom.

00:55:28.800 | It has a shower, a toilet, and a sink.

00:55:31.800 | It has a refrigerator and separate freezer, microwave, oven, stove, sink, and then it has a whole bunch of storage.

00:55:41.800 | A whole bunch of storage.

00:55:42.800 | I mean it's like tiny, you know.

00:55:44.800 | It feels like it.

00:55:45.800 | And then it's got a couch.

00:55:47.800 | Spoken like a true RVer.

00:55:49.800 | It's got tons of storage.

00:55:51.800 | It feels like it.

00:55:52.800 | It really does feel like it has tons of storage.

00:55:54.800 | And then it has a couch that folds down into a bed, which is, I'm telling you, extremely comfortable.

00:56:02.800 | I was so surprised at how comfortable it was.

00:56:04.800 | I was like--I took one look at it and I was like, yeah, that's nice.

00:56:08.800 | You know, it folds down into a bed, but I'll bet that thing is so uncomfortable.

00:56:11.800 | It's incredibly comfortable.

00:56:13.800 | Is this a bumper pull or a fifth wheel?

00:56:15.800 | Bumper pull.

00:56:16.800 | And how much did you pay for it?

00:56:17.800 | $5,800.

00:56:19.800 | Wow.

00:56:20.800 | We stole it because we had been--that's a cool story.

00:56:24.800 | Don't tell anyone.

00:56:25.800 | If you stole it, you shouldn't admit that on the air.

00:56:27.800 | That's not very good.

00:56:28.800 | Sorry.

00:56:29.800 | We stole it.

00:56:31.800 | We looked forever online.

00:56:33.800 | We looked at--I mean we literally looked at thousands online.

00:56:37.800 | That sounds like a lot, and it is, but you can look at a trailer for five seconds and know that it's not the right one.

00:56:43.800 | So you can look at a thousand pretty quick, actually.

00:56:45.800 | And we looked for four months online.

00:56:49.800 | And then we looked at about, I don't know, 50 or 60 in person.

00:56:54.800 | But then my wife, Carrie, the voiceover actor, she had an alert set on Craigslist.

00:57:03.800 | I don't even know how you do it, but somehow she did it.

00:57:05.800 | And she would get an email with a specific criteria of this amount of money, this size, this whatever.

00:57:15.800 | So when somebody posted that, she would get an alert.

00:57:18.800 | So she got an alert, and she emailed this guy within 15 minutes of--because she knew.

00:57:24.800 | She was like, "This is the one."

00:57:25.800 | Because we had looked at so many.

00:57:27.800 | You knew the market.

00:57:28.800 | You knew the conditions.

00:57:29.800 | You knew the price points.

00:57:30.800 | Exactly.

00:57:31.800 | And she was like, "This is the one.

00:57:32.800 | This is the one."

00:57:33.800 | And it was a Saturday or a Sunday, I can't remember.

00:57:38.800 | And it was being stored at an indoor storage facility that was actually closed on the weekends.

00:57:44.800 | She emails the guy.

00:57:45.800 | He said, "The earliest I can show it to you is Monday."

00:57:48.800 | And we said, "We want to be the first ones to see this.

00:57:50.800 | When does it open up?"

00:57:51.800 | And he said, "Like 9 or 10 or something."

00:57:53.800 | We showed up right when it opened up.

00:57:55.800 | We looked at it, and we put down--we brought $200 cash with us because we were pretty sure this was the one.

00:58:02.800 | So we gave him a $200 cash deposit to hold it for 24 hours, and we actually ended up buying it later on that day.

00:58:09.800 | Because we knew it was the one.

00:58:11.800 | That's awesome.

00:58:12.800 | Where was the--what was the genesis of the actual idea to live in a travel trailer?

00:58:17.800 | Did you always want to do this?

00:58:19.800 | I guess it kind of goes back a few years.

00:58:23.800 | I went through an obsession with tiny houses.

00:58:29.800 | I would watch YouTube videos about tiny houses.

00:58:33.800 | For hours, I would watch YouTube videos about tiny houses, and I was just so obsessed with them.

00:58:39.800 | And then that was 3 years ago, 4 years ago.

00:58:44.800 | And we never pulled the trigger, and it was like, "You know, that would be cool, but, man, it just almost sounds impossible."

00:58:52.800 | Fast forward, and lo and behold, this is so funny because I didn't--I was obsessed with tiny houses,

00:59:01.800 | and I'd be like, "That'd be so amazing to do that someday."

00:59:03.800 | And then this whole trailer idea came up, and we did it.

00:59:07.800 | And it wasn't until after we did it that I was like, "You know what? This thing's 133 square feet.

00:59:13.800 | We're living in a tiny house."

00:59:15.800 | But I didn't quite put it together.

00:59:18.800 | Because, I don't know, the whole idea of a tiny house and a trailer are a little bit different.

00:59:26.800 | But a trailer--you know, most of those tiny houses are on trailers.

00:59:32.800 | I think they're beautiful, but I'd take a trailer every time.

00:59:35.800 | They're really cute and really cool, and that's what's attractive about them.

00:59:38.800 | But as far as the functionality, I'd rather have a travel trailer.

00:59:41.800 | Exactly, because they're built for that.

00:59:43.800 | And a lot of people build their own tiny house.

00:59:48.800 | I wasn't going to do that.

00:59:50.800 | There's no way I was going to build my own tiny house.

00:59:52.800 | So a trailer is--it is.

00:59:55.800 | I mean, it's pre-built. It's already built, and it's got everything you need.

00:59:59.800 | And it's even--you know, a lot of those tiny houses have a composting toilet.

01:00:02.800 | I'm not going to do that.

01:00:04.800 | These have flush toilets.

01:00:06.800 | You hook them up to city water, you hook it up to the sewer,

01:00:09.800 | and it's just like you're living inside a house, really.

01:00:12.800 | So have you used this thing, or is it parked in the backside of an RV park

01:00:16.800 | somewhere in the middle of Texas, or are you actually traveling?

01:00:19.800 | We traveled full-time for two and a half months.

01:00:23.800 | Full-time.

01:00:25.800 | We were from Kansas City. We started in Kansas City.

01:00:29.800 | We took about three or four weeks to go all the way to San Diego.

01:00:32.800 | We took another three or four weeks to go all the way up to Seattle.

01:00:36.800 | So we went almost from border to border, which is crazy.

01:00:39.800 | Another three or four weeks to get over to--actually loop all the way around to North Dakota,

01:00:45.800 | back down through Denver, and then back to Kansas City, and then to Oklahoma.

01:00:48.800 | So that was all this summer, 2015?

01:00:50.800 | Yeah.

01:00:51.800 | That took about three months.

01:00:53.800 | And we lived in it full-time during that time, and it was amazing.

01:00:56.800 | And then we kind of took a little bit of a breather where we parked it at--

01:01:00.800 | it's currently parked at my parents' in Oklahoma.

01:01:03.800 | And we stayed put there for two weeks, and then we did a short Texas run,

01:01:08.800 | and then we went back to Oklahoma.

01:01:11.800 | And then we came here.

01:01:14.800 | Where are we? Fort Worth?

01:01:15.800 | Yes.

01:01:16.800 | Which I just learned that Fort Worth actually exists.

01:01:19.800 | I always thought it was Dallas.

01:01:21.800 | Just Dallas.

01:01:22.800 | Fort Worth is an actual city, I guess.

01:01:24.800 | We're in Fort Worth now, and then we will return, and then we'll do a short to and from FinCon, actually.

01:01:30.800 | To and from FinCon, which is in Charlotte.

01:01:34.800 | Get your tickets at radicalpersonalfinance.com/fincon.

01:01:37.800 | There you go.

01:01:38.800 | And check out YNAB.

01:01:40.800 | We just popped some affiliate links in here all over the place.

01:01:43.800 | Inside joke callback.

01:01:46.800 | And then that'll be it.

01:01:47.800 | But we love the trailer so much that when we get back to our home base of Kansas City,

01:01:51.800 | we're going to hold on to it and live in it--well, not permanently,

01:01:57.800 | but we're going to live in it--what am I trying to say?--and not travel.

01:02:01.800 | So stationary, we're going to live in it for an undetermined amount of time.

01:02:05.800 | We're not going to commit to anything because there's no need to commit to, like,

01:02:08.800 | "We're going to live in it for a year."

01:02:10.800 | Because it doesn't matter.

01:02:12.800 | Just until we don't want to anymore.

01:02:16.800 | And if that's 10 years or if that's a month, time will tell.

01:02:21.800 | How much has this lifestyle cost you over the last few months?

01:02:25.800 | Oh, um--

01:02:27.800 | And I know you've been traveling, so you could always do it cheaper.

01:02:29.800 | You've been doing tourist stuff.

01:02:31.800 | But just a guess.

01:02:33.800 | Um, I don't have numbers.

01:02:36.800 | I meant to keep track of everything, but it was too--I mean,

01:02:40.800 | living on the road was a lot more time-consuming than we thought it was going to be.

01:02:43.800 | But anyway, it was maybe--my best guess is that we were spending $4,000 a month

01:02:50.800 | on everything.

01:02:53.800 | That's on everything.

01:02:55.800 | But you were hardcore traveling.

01:02:56.800 | You were visiting tourist destinations.

01:02:58.800 | You weren't slow traveling.

01:03:01.800 | No.

01:03:02.800 | You were moving.

01:03:03.800 | We weren't necessarily doing the touristy thing, but we were moving rather quickly.

01:03:09.800 | It was a faster pace than I thought it was going to be.

01:03:13.800 | And, um, but really--so--but here's something that might be helpful to sort of answer that question.

01:03:20.800 | Is the first month, we did nothing but RV parks.

01:03:25.800 | And that gets expensive.

01:03:27.800 | Right.

01:03:28.800 | The second month, we spent--let me just--let me say it this way.

01:03:34.800 | The first month, we spent an average of $32 a day on RV parks.

01:03:39.800 | The second month, we spent $32 total on camping and RV parks.

01:03:46.800 | Where did you stay?

01:03:47.800 | We started doing--we started just doing stealth--what would--you know, boondocking and stealth camping.

01:03:52.800 | So we would just pull into a neighborhood and just post up right there in front of somebody's house.

01:03:58.800 | Also, we found a website called boondockerswelcome.com.

01:04:03.800 | And that is a website that's sort of like couch surfing, but you stay on another RVer's property.

01:04:11.800 | Oh, cool.

01:04:12.800 | Either in their driveway or their backyard or their front yard or whatever.

01:04:15.800 | And you stay there for free.

01:04:17.800 | And most of the time, they allow you to hook up to power and electricity.

01:04:21.800 | And it's free.

01:04:23.800 | And we did that a lot.

01:04:25.800 | And so that's why our cost dropped dramatically from the first month to the second month.

01:04:30.800 | That's awesome.

01:04:31.800 | Yeah, traveling is not cheap.

01:04:34.800 | However--

01:04:35.800 | Depends on how you do it.

01:04:36.800 | That doesn't mean that you can't travel cheaply.

01:04:39.800 | You know, the campgrounds, national parks, they're beautiful.

01:04:42.800 | They are not cheap.

01:04:44.800 | And when you start doing 30 ducks a day, plus you add the gas to get there,

01:04:50.800 | it's not necessarily going to be a real steal.

01:04:54.800 | Tips, experience, honest reflections on traveling with a one-year-old.

01:04:59.800 | Oh, yeah.

01:05:00.800 | Did we mention that?

01:05:01.800 | We had our--she's now 15 months old.

01:05:04.800 | So we actually left right after--we left the day after her first birthday.

01:05:12.800 | And then we traveled for four months.

01:05:14.800 | We've been traveling for four months.

01:05:17.800 | The first two and a half was full time.

01:05:21.800 | And tips on traveling with a one-year-old, patience.

01:05:28.800 | Patience.

01:05:30.800 | Yeah, man.

01:05:31.800 | I mean, you just do it.

01:05:32.800 | It's possible.

01:05:33.800 | It's doable.

01:05:34.800 | Absolutely.

01:05:35.800 | I mean, I don't just say that to say, like, yeah, it's maybe doable if you get lucky.

01:05:40.800 | No, it's doable.

01:05:42.800 | There's a lot of people who are doing it right now.

01:05:44.800 | We did it.

01:05:45.800 | Right.

01:05:46.800 | So I'm not saying, like, oh, it's doable maybe if you get lucky.

01:05:49.800 | No, it's doable.

01:05:50.800 | You can do it.

01:05:51.800 | So, yeah, it worked out fine.

01:05:53.800 | And it can give you the flexibility because now that you're planning to stop, you've got your trailer.

01:06:00.800 | You own it.

01:06:01.800 | You don't have any payments on it, right?

01:06:02.800 | Right.

01:06:03.800 | We bought it straight out.

01:06:04.800 | So you own the trailer.

01:06:05.800 | We own our house.

01:06:07.800 | And as you're starting--as you're building your business and getting the book out there,

01:06:11.800 | getting the workbook sold and doing all of the work associated with that, and as Kerry's doing the voiceover,

01:06:17.800 | there's no reason why you can't park it in a friend's driveway for a month,

01:06:20.800 | and then your cost of living just cuts to $722 or something like that.

01:06:26.800 | Oh, it would be super cheap if we did that, yeah.

01:06:29.800 | And if you can do that in a world of Facebook, the thought I have is just simply in a world of Facebook,

01:06:34.800 | if I were going to--especially even now with Radical Personal Finance and you with your community,

01:06:38.800 | you could go on and just simply say on the show, "Hey, I'm coming to Georgia.

01:06:43.800 | I'd love to find someone where I could stay for a few days in Georgia,"

01:06:46.800 | and you can build a wide enough network of people all across the country that you'd be able to stay with.

01:06:52.800 | Totally could.

01:06:53.800 | You can really build and be able to cut those costs enough to where you've got the freedom

01:06:58.800 | and the flexibility to move everything forward, and you're not sacrificing that much.

01:07:03.800 | You're living an adventure.

01:07:04.800 | Yes.

01:07:05.800 | That's very doable.

01:07:06.800 | Now, it is--at least in my experience--it is a little bit challenging to figure out,

01:07:11.800 | "Am I in work mode or am I in vacation mode?"

01:07:13.800 | And you've got to learn a new workflow on a daily basis of work versus vacation,

01:07:18.800 | because most of the time when we're on vacation, we're used to sleeping in,

01:07:22.800 | we're used to doing what we want, we're used to hanging out.

01:07:24.800 | If we're traveling, "Oh, let's go here, let's go there," and it's tough to make--

01:07:28.800 | all of a sudden find out I've been devoting 32 minutes a day to work.

01:07:32.800 | That's not going to get it done.

01:07:33.800 | So if you can find a balance there in some way, you can really build this lifestyle,

01:07:37.800 | and it can be a perfect win-win way to start a business, cut your expenses,

01:07:42.800 | but also be the win because it allows you to have some fun and build some adventures.

01:07:48.800 | Yeah, absolutely.

01:07:49.800 | And it's hard to--you've just got to get out there and jump in

01:07:54.800 | and then figure out the schedule along the way,

01:07:57.800 | because until you're out there, it's really hard to understand

01:08:03.800 | and wrap your mind around what that schedule looks like.

01:08:06.800 | So you just have to stay flexible and learn as you go.

01:08:10.800 | Yeah, yeah.

01:08:11.800 | I would guess--I mean, do you work with the baby?

01:08:13.800 | Do you work early in the morning?

01:08:14.800 | Is that your time?

01:08:15.800 | Man, it's kind of--our schedule is mostly Carrie works during the day

01:08:23.800 | because the auditions and her jobs that come in,

01:08:28.800 | it's mostly during the day when those auditions are being posted.

01:08:31.800 | And they need to be turned around quickly.

01:08:32.800 | Yeah, she needs to turn them around quickly.

01:08:34.800 | What I do with DerekandCarrie.com and our writings, that's much more flexible.

01:08:40.800 | So I squeeze my stuff in whenever it's more convenient,

01:08:44.800 | and it's sort of--we've sort of built it around her,

01:08:47.800 | because hers is the fixed schedule and mine is the flexible schedule.

01:08:52.800 | So there you go.

01:08:53.800 | Has the Internet worked?

01:08:54.800 | I mean, you've got a Wi-Fi hotspot, I assume, and 4G, and she's able to do it?

01:08:59.800 | Yes.

01:09:01.800 | The funny thing is--so Wi-Fi is everywhere.

01:09:06.800 | So most of the RV parks have Wi-Fi, because if you think about it,

01:09:11.800 | these people who are traveling full-time, they want to be on the Internet,

01:09:15.800 | and they demand Wi-Fi.

01:09:16.800 | So a lot of these places--the first place we ever went,

01:09:20.800 | their Wi-Fi was faster than it was at our apartment.

01:09:23.800 | It was so fast.

01:09:24.800 | I was like, "This is awesome."

01:09:25.800 | Now, we've been to a few--

01:09:26.800 | The second place.

01:09:28.800 | We've been to a few places where it was almost non-existent,

01:09:31.800 | where they claim to have Wi-Fi, and it's like,

01:09:34.800 | "You guys shouldn't even advertise that," because it was so slow.

01:09:38.800 | But we did buy this ultra--I mean, it was kind of expensive--

01:09:43.800 | this Q wireless thing that turned out to not work all that great.

01:09:47.800 | What we ended up doing was just using my iPhone as a hotspot,

01:09:52.800 | and that worked really well, really well.

01:09:55.800 | So we never ran into a situation where we were like panic mode looking for Wi-Fi,

01:10:02.800 | because it's just everywhere nowadays, everywhere.

01:10:05.800 | There's always a solution.

01:10:06.800 | I know even--just because you're in a fixed situation,

01:10:10.800 | when you're running an Internet business, that doesn't mean your Wi-Fi is good.

01:10:13.800 | I switched from--I was so sick and tired of dealing with Comcast,

01:10:17.800 | but they were the only two providers where I live, Comcast and AT&T.

01:10:22.800 | And so I finally, after years of threatening,

01:10:25.800 | I finally canceled Comcast and I started AT&T,

01:10:28.800 | only to discover that my speeds had dropped to--I don't remember the number--

01:10:33.800 | but some abysmal number.

01:10:35.800 | And I'm uploading these big audio--not even that big,

01:10:38.800 | but I'm uploading these audio files to online,

01:10:41.800 | and what was taking 30 seconds to upload now is 37 minutes.

01:10:45.800 | So I was several days where I couldn't get the Comcast to come out to re-hook me up.

01:10:50.800 | I had to go to the library, you know, or go to McDonald's.

01:10:52.800 | And the library has really great connection speeds.

01:10:55.800 | There's always a solution if you're flexible.

01:10:57.800 | That's the world we live in, and you can plan ahead and, hey,

01:11:00.800 | if you miss a job because you had bad Wi-Fi, you miss a job.

01:11:03.800 | Yeah, there's a give and take, sure.

01:11:06.800 | Well, thanks so much, man, for sharing that story.

01:11:08.800 | I just thought it was cool enough.

01:11:10.800 | I'm sure you'll be able to profile those types of ideas,

01:11:12.800 | and I thought it was cool enough to record this part 2 of our interview.

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RPF0242-Derek_Olsen_Interview