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You heard about it here. Again, that's longangle.com. Hello and welcome to another episode of All The Hacks, a show about upgrading life, money and travel all while spending less and saving more. I'm your host, Chris Hutchins. And before we jump in, I just want to thank all of you for your support because this show has already grown beyond my expectations.

In fact, it's gotten so big that I've decided to start looking for someone to help out part-time. That includes everything from reaching out to guests, helping edit episodes, creating social media posts and so much more. I thought I'd share this with you first in case there's a listener out there looking for their own side hustle.

So if you're interested, please shoot me an email at chris@allthehacks.com. Okay, so this week we're talking to Andy Hill, the founder of the award-winning podcast and blog Marriage, Kids and Money. He and his wife, Nicole, have two kids and have been on an incredible journey together. They started out with $50,000 in debt when they found out they were having a child and aggressively saved to be debt-free before she was born.

But they didn't stop there. Over the next 10 years, they managed to pay off their mortgage and build their net worth to over a million dollars. In this episode, we'll talk about how they managed to do all of that. We'll get Andy's relationship hacks, especially about how to manage money with your spouse and learn what he's doing to teach his kids all about money.

I'm really looking forward to this one. But before we jump in, I have to remind you, Chris Hutchins works at Wealthfront. All opinions expressed by Chris and his guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of Wealthfront. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon for investment decisions.

Andy, thanks for being here. Thanks for having me, Chris. Appreciate it. Yeah, it's always fun to get to talk to someone on a podcast that you've known for a bit. We've met at FinCon a few times, so this is really exciting and I want to jump right in. Absolutely.

I'm in. So, you've built an entire brand around marriage, kids and money, and we haven't really delved in this show into the marriage or the kids. We've talked a lot about money, so I want to start off on the relationship side and just understand, what do you think some of the common misconceptions are when it comes to relationships and money?

Oh man, I think personally, and then I think of some of the folks that I've been able to speak to on the show, but one thing that pops up into my brain, just because you're one couple doesn't mean you think with one brain, right? So, we've said yes, we've said I do, but that doesn't mean that our ideas and our concepts around money are the same.

And I know that's definitely not the case with my wife and I. And as we got married, we didn't have a lot of those conversations beforehand. We didn't have a lot of those discussions on our finances, where we wanted to go, our dreams, our goals, things like that beforehand.

But those definitely came up well after the fact, after we were married and we realized that we definitely had quite a bit of differences with regard to our finances and our goals and things like that. And only through conversation were we able to improve that. And I've definitely seen that through a lot of the couples that I've interviewed on the show too.

It's just because you are one couple doesn't mean you share one brain, for sure. And, you know, outside of that, I would say, you know, another maybe common misconception is that marriage is like an action and that it happens on that day. You're done, right? You know, we've got married.

We crossed the aisle and said, I do, but it's really a verb. It's action-based. It's one of those things that requires consistent work and it evolves over time. And you need to be ready for that change. And if you're stagnant and you say, Hey, this is how we've always done it.

This is who I am. That's when I've seen relationships fall apart. And I even see that with my relationship with my wife, where it's one of those things, if I am just saying, Hey, this is how we've always done it, you know, deal with it, that's when things don't go well.

So those are some of the common misconceptions that I've seen. Yeah. I think to your first one, it's interesting how I don't think anyone believes that their spouse and them have to have the same favorite food, right? They have to have the same like favorite vacation style. And you make that work.

You go on, my wife and I went on a trip and you know, maybe one day I want to go see something crazy that she doesn't. So she comes along one day, she wants to do something. I do that. And that's totally fine. Is that harder with money? Is there, are there ways to have a kind of approach to money that meets two different attitudes or two different styles, or do you really need to try to merge them and find one way to manage your money together?

I think a lot of it just comes from a few things, understanding where your spouse comes from with money. We are, we are who we are today based on our history. And that sometimes comes from our upbringing. That comes from how our parents raised us. So, well, my parents raised me in a different way than my wife did.

Other couples, the same thing, but some of those realizations don't come up until later on when there's some real strife or so maybe money fights that are happening that pop up, well, I've always thought this way and you think this way. That's wrong. You know, I, I know that this is right.

This is wrong. It's not wrong. It's just different. And for me, for a while in our relationship, I had that hardheaded mentality of, Hey, I've been reading about money. I know money stuff. This is correct. And what you're thinking of is wrong, but really it's not wrong. It's just a different way of thinking.

And so until I took my stubborn hat off and put my empathy shoes on, I didn't really take the time to understand her position, but when I did that, then I could really take her position and understand where she's coming from. And I know that helps out a lot of couples when you're able to do that, when you're able to think in terms of their feelings and their situation and maybe where they're coming from.

So a good example of this is at the beginning of our relationship, Nicole and I, I got really geeked about paying off our debt, I got really excited about becoming debt-free. I thought that idea was really cool. We had $50,000 of debt, you know, 30,000 student loans and 20,000 car loan.

And I'm like, I think it would be really great to be debt-free by the time our daughter comes into the world. We learned that we were going to be parents talking about becoming parents. And I said, that's a way that I can be a good father and protect this family that's going to be moving forward.

So I said, hey, why don't we, you know, get rid of your luxury car and maybe spend a lot less money and then we'll pay off $50,000 in debt in one year. What do you think of that idea? And she immediately said, are you crazy? That sounds horrible. That sounds like deprivation.

And it sounds like you want me to get rid of my car. What was that? And then she just sort of like walked out of the room and I'm like, wait, no, no, no, no, this is a fantastic plan. Where are you going? Why, why? And what I realized is that I wasn't speaking her language at all.

Really, I was speaking in numbers and facts and figures and she didn't really talk that language. And so after I, you know, picked myself back up and had some more conversations with her, I started to understand more of her motivation. What, what, what, what is her motivation? Well, she's excited about being a mother too.

And she really doesn't dig the job that she's in. Okay. This is an opportunity for us to look at ways that we can both win. I would love this debt-free life. And you'd eventually like to go from maybe full-time working at a job you don't really like to maybe part-time or eventually full-time stay-at-home mom.

And that's where we started to connect a little bit. I talked more of the number side of things originally. And then I started talking more of the emotional benefits of what you can do when you work together in your finances. So I think just sort of realigning your language can help quite a bit when it comes to marriage and money.

And I've definitely learned that and failed at it quite a few times in our 11-year marriage. Yeah, but you're still married 11 years later. We still are. Yes. Got that going for me. Are there questions that you would tell people to start asking whether they're early in a relationship or, or haven't really gone deep that you think can kind of bring out some of these, you know, potential issues in the future that would let them get on the same page?

Yeah. You know, I've talked about that with couples who are dating or maybe in that sort of engagement phase where it's like, Hey, you don't want to ruin the romance by, you know, talking numbers and figures all the time, but to my failure point, why don't we talk more about goals and aspirations and desires for the future?

And with that, then comes the money. So for example, a big one, do we want to have kids? Is this something you were interested in? Because obviously there's a financial ramification to that, but there's also just sort of a life partner goal with that. That's a big one. And if we have trouble having kids, would you be open to something like IVF or adoption?

These are important topics because if that comes up later on in your relationship and you didn't have some sort of pre-conversation about it, that can be a really tough point. How about little things like, Hey, what do you make as a salary? What, what kind of debt do you have?

Like sort of opening up, you know, taking, taking the blinds down and saying, Hey, here's who I am. Here's what you're marrying. Here's what you're going into this relationship because what's mine is going to be yours, even the debt stuff, you know, so having some of those conversations beforehand can kind of help you to understand what you're getting into.

So there's not a lot of surprise. I wish that I was a little bit more open and honest with my wife as I came into, you know, our relationship and talking about some of these bigger things. We did have some important conversations through some premarital counseling, but it was less on the financial side and, and more just sort of on the, you know, religious and life partner kind of side.

So I wish we would have opened up a little bit more with regard to our finances. But those are some of the questions that help a lot of couples out there. And that, that I've heard about when I've talked about on the show as well. It's amazing how everyone seems to know that we don't talk a lot about money in our society, but even in relationships, right.

It's, it takes so long before it comes up. Yeah. If someone's listening to this and, and they've already kind of handled like chapter one, those questions you just mentioned, they're married, you know, they know how much their spouse makes and they know how much they've saved. Are there other big questions that you think come up down the road that are opportunities to address earlier?

Yeah. You know, I would say a lot of it, a lot of the things that I think would be helpful for couples too, is regarding your career or your aspirations, things like that. Are you in a career? Are you on a path towards being a business owner that you enjoy?

Or where do you see yourself going later on? Because maybe those expectations of what you as the, the partner are going to get into because you're married to this person, you need to know what you're going to get into. So having those relationship conversations and getting an understanding of those goals and aspirations beforehand really help you to know where you're going to be going as a couple, because those can be difficult, you know, if you're saying, Hey, I'm already working at a job that I really dislike, and I'm interested in becoming a full-time photographer.

Okay. That's an important thing to talk about because as you move forward, those are going to be some big transition points. Maybe there'll be a point where you're fully funding the relationship and taking care of the healthcare and the income while that person's making a transition into entrepreneurship, that's going to be a point that's going to require a lot of, you know, partnership and communication.

So having some understanding around those career aspirations, those goals, and getting an understanding about that beforehand can definitely help. Yeah. I hate to treat a relationship like business, but one of the things that I found was very interesting as a conversation was, you know, if this thing goes well financially, meaning if we end up making a lot more money than we think we will, what do we want to do with that?

How would that change our lives? And the other side of it, if we end up not doing well financially, if we have problems, are we willing to cut housing? Are we willing to work more hours? What kind of life do we want to live? And I think the closer you can get to being aligned on not necessarily wanting to do the same things, but understanding each person and their motivations, I think it can really, really help.

Yeah, and I think making space and time for those conversations is important because as you get married, as you know, Chris, when you get married and then you have kids and you've got the job, you've got everything, your time together, your time to communicate becomes smaller. So putting marriage first and making that a priority to always set aside time to connect.

This is our time to talk about the important things because when that goes away, that's when the big fights start happening because people don't feel like they are being heard. They don't feel like their buckets are being filled and they take it out on the other spouse and that's definitely happened in our relationship for sure.

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And for me, it was about figuring out what we're saving and understanding the impact that'll have on our future. For my wife, it was a monotonous task of going through Mint and recategorizing their terrible descriptions, you know, saying, "No, this thing at a gas station was actually a vacation," and that didn't go well.

But as we talked about why we were doing it, what the purpose was, that helped. Now we have a child and time is less, you know, abundant. Are there times of the week, month, year that you think are good to have these conversations? Are there ways to make them more fun?

I feel like it almost never is the right time to talk about money. Yeah, I hear you. Yeah, in the beginning of our relationship, we set up something. And when I say "we," it was me, just like you. I was grabbing the mint and being the money nerd, saying, "Hey, let's have a budget party.

Let's sit down and review the budget." I threw the word "party" on it so it sounded like a little bit more fun, and maybe she'd show up. I brought some, like, wine and pizza, and that kind of helped a little bit. Just put a little marketing spin on it.

And it worked because she showed up. But as time rolled on, our lives changed. We had to get a little bit more inventive with this thing in order to keep that connection. So when we had little kids, it was like, "Okay, well, we need to connect. It's important to do that.

Let's do that after they go to bed so we have some time to speak." And then as the kids got a little older, we said, "Okay, well, they're clawing at our legs. Why don't we take this to, like, a play place?" So we would go to, like, a place where the kids could run around, go down the slides, and jump down while we were planning our lives and having time together or drinking a coffee.

And we even took our budget party to, like, a restaurant one time where we said, "Hey, let's have dinner while we go over the numbers and have the receipts on the table," and everybody looked at us kind of funny. But we were planning our lives, and we were figuring things out together, and we didn't care.

So it's just kind of being inventive and making it a good time because, yeah, when you talk about it like that, just saying, "Hey, let's stare at a spreadsheet and talk about numbers," my wife just, you know, glazes over and is like, "Dude, can we do anything else?" But if you add some fun into it and also maybe don't just always talk about the numbers.

We're talking about, "Hey, what's going on this month? What activities do we have going on with the kids? Is there a wedding coming up? Is there birthday parties that are coming up? What do we have going on this month that's going to be, you know, taking over or that we need to schedule out?" And then, and the back end of it, "How are we pursuing those goals, those things that we've always talked about being excited about, whether it's a vacation or hitting some financial goals like, you know, paying off debt or anything like that?

How are we doing on those goals that help us to give us more freedom and more fun today?" So having a little fun with it, you know, and getting inventive has helped us a lot. I think having that list of shared and independent goals is really, really valuable. I know there are things I wanted to do, like start this podcast that was going to take up extra time and for a while take up extra cost.

And then there are things we wanted to do like vacations. And so I think starting off conversations, getting aligned on where you want to go, why you want to go there and understanding it is really valuable. Absolutely. I think one of the things that I find as a frustration, or I guess maybe more well put, my wife finds as a frustration, is I treat things very logically, right?

I'm like, "Well, of course it makes sense to do this thing because the rate of return on this thing is better. And so we should of course do this." And so that taken to its extreme can be a frustrating conversation. One thing that I know you've talked a lot about is how you guys got a mortgage and paid it off in about five years.

And I know a lot of people give the financial advice and I've probably given it to people as well, which is, "Well, the market return over the long run is better than mortgage rates." So I don't know how I could possibly make that decision. For you, it wasn't about just always being financially logical and doing the economic best choice.

How did you guys talk about making that decision? And then ultimately also, how did you do it? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So in the beginning, it was one of those things. I had bought a house the first time around in 2004, and I feel like I did it the wrong way.

I put too little down and got into a situation where I didn't really understand that there were costs outside of the mortgage, like bills and fixing the place and closing costs, all sorts of stuff that I didn't even plan on. Over time, I ended up taking a pay cut at my job in order to move to a different position because the first position was a little too stressful for me.

I looked at maybe this house and the costs that are associated with it, taking up about 50% of my income. I just felt like owned by the house instead of owning the house. And so I hated that. I hated that position. I ended up getting roommates to help me pay the mortgage eventually, which was an old version of house hacking, I guess, to help me out there.

But even with that, the Great Recession came to Metro Detroit and hit us really hard, so there was a point in time, I think it was around 2008, 2009, that my $200,000 house that I bought was now valued at $100,000. So not only was the cost of it just consuming me, but the asset that I purchased was just a dud.

And I just felt like, "Man, is this really how it's supposed to go?" Eventually sold the house about 10 years later for pretty much break even. So when my wife was like, "Hey, let's get a bigger house and a nicer neighborhood, better schools," I'm like, "I am down, but I do not want to have a mortgage.

I do not want to have something that I feel like is on my back, that I'm going to have to keep paying for it. I'm going to have to keep working at this job that I don't really like that much in order to pay a mortgage that I'm not really that excited about." And so I said, "Hey, we'll get the house, but let's keep aggressively saving and we'll pay it off in five years." And she said, "Cool, that's fine.

Let's do that." So what we did is essentially just lived on half and kept on making massive principal payments each month. Anytime we got new money that came in, whether it was a tax refund or a bonus or selling stuff on Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist, we would throw it at the principal.

And a little bit less than four years later, we were mortgage-free. And with that freedom, we were able to make some changes in our lives. We were able to travel a bit more. We were able to make some career choice changes that I eventually made. And that initial conversation with Nicole, to your point, it wasn't easy, but I think she got it.

She understood. I mean, she understood my motivation around home ownership. She understood my interest in not having a payment that would be hanging over my head for so long. And to your point on investing, we did both. We invested and we paid off the mortgage. We maxed out our retirement during the time we were paying off our mortgage.

And so we did both. And I understand sometimes it's a either/or kind of thing. We saw this as an and opportunity, invest and pay off the mortgage. And now we're in a position where we have enough in our retirement funds that we feel like we can let that coast as well as having a paid off house.

So life's good right now. Yeah. So it sounds like that was a great outcome and you guys got on the same page easily. I know you've talked in the past about things that you haven't necessarily gotten on the same page. Are there things that either you or people you talk to are common sources of frustration or arguments about money and ideas on how to tackle them?

Yeah. I mean, I can tell you one that finishes that story. It's right around the time we paid off the mortgage, I got really excited about something else called financial independence and forgot to tell my wife about it. So when we paid off the house, I said, OK, now new goal, we're going to buy rental properties and we're going to keep saving half of our income.

And that way we can keep buying rental properties until I'm able to kind of leave my nine to five and just own rental properties. And that's what we're going to do. It's our financial independence plan. And she said, well, we've been saving so much for so long. Can we enjoy life a little bit and, you know, vacation and travel?

And maybe I can upgrade this house that we've been living for a while. And I was so frustrated with my career at that point in life that and the fact that we had such little kids and I sort of lost it, man. I lost it in a bad way.

I lost it and was very frustrated that my wife and I weren't seeing eye to eye on this this idea. And we had a really big glow up. We had a really big volcano type fight that she describes it as. It was one of those things where we just were not seeing eye to eye on what to do with this money.

We were in a very well off way. And, you know, obviously people can fight when they don't have enough money and then people can fight when they have enough money. And we were fighting when we had a blessing of money coming in. We just did not agree on what to do with it.

So what we ended up doing is going to marriage counseling. And it was one of those things that at the point I was like, man, I feel like I am failing this marriage. I feel like going to marriage counseling means that you are failing. And. Unfortunately, I was wrong, or fortunately, I was wrong, for that matter, I went to my first session with with Nicole and found out that this wasn't something to be sad about.

It was something that was providing us some coaching on actually how to speak better to each other, how to communicate better as a couple. We likened it to almost like a physical trainer. You know, if you want to you want to get stronger, you want to be healthier, you can outsource that to somebody who's a great third party coach that can show you how.

And that's what our counselor did for us. They helped us to communicate better. And one thing that our counselor did for me was to allow me to empathize with my wife's situation a bit more. Hey, man, she was staying home as a stay at home mom and was taking care of two little kids for a really long time and wanted a little bit more joy and fun in her life.

And her husband now wants to use all that extra money for more hard charging savings. And for her, that was just like, hey, come on, let's let our feet off the gas and have a little bit more fun and learning a little bit more during counseling about how she grew up.

You know, she grew up with a single mom and an apartment. And for her, success meant a nice home and fun and excitement and vacations. And now that we have the money, we can't even do that. So we found some middle ground through our counseling sessions and through some conversations for us to both kind of realize some of our dreams and goals.

And again, sometimes that takes a third party to get there. And for us, it did. Any other interesting lessons or tactics that you learned through that process that were helpful? Yeah, absolutely. I would say that one thing that we like to do during that time frame was let our kids know what was going on, because marriage isn't always easy.

There are ups, there are downs. And letting our kids know that we were working hard to have a good relationship. And sometimes that means that you need some help. And so every time we went to our sessions, we would let our kids know. We would say, hey, mommy and daddy are working on our relationship.

We're working on being able to communicate better with each other. And we are putting in the work and we want you to know that. And so we wanted our kids to see that. We wanted them to know that marriage takes work. And just like any relationships that they have or will have in the future, if you care about it enough, you really have to put in the effort.

So that was one thing that we definitely let our kids know about. Yeah, that's fascinating. My daughter's just turned one. So I'm in that struggle that I can't really communicate with her in the way I want to. But I'm really excited to do that. And I definitely in a few minutes want to jump into some of the things you're doing with your kids and money.

But before that, something I often hear people talk about is the topic of combining finances. And it's something that I think can go in a lot of directions and people can do it different ways. Are you of the school of thought that there's a best way? Or how should couples whose finances maybe aren't combined and are thinking about it, think about it?

Yeah, I definitely think this is an individual choice in your relationship. I don't think there's one right way. That being said, Nicole and I chose to combine our finances at the beginning of our relationship. We've looked back on it and being like, why did we do that? You know, I think it was just sort of like, that's how our parents did it or that's how we understood it to be.

But yeah, there's multiple ways you can slice it. You can do completely combined like Nicole and I do, or you can do something like yours, mine and ours. So you've got maybe their funds that they like to spend on, yours that you like to spend on. And then there's a collection of, hey, here are the things we'd like to spend on as a family.

And then there's completely separate. And all of these work for different relationships in different ways. We found in through conversations with other people that when you add kids into the mix, that's when things can get a little bit more difficult. Right. If you're completely separate, then, you know, where do diapers go?

Who pays for those? You know, is that part of yours or mine or ours or daycare? Like, where does that go? So I like joint because I feel like it means like we are on a mission together. We're working on common goals. We're working as a team. But what we do is sort of like a little little compromise.

It's not yours, mine and ours, but we do joint with individual budget line items because there are certain things that she really wants to have. Like she needs her haircuts. She needs her clothes. She needs her home decor. And these are all things that we have in our mint budget that are line itemed out.

And she gets them no matter what. Oh, definitely one is the cleaning lady. I think I tried to I tried to frugal my way out of that. That did not go well. That was that was a that was a highly valued line item that that did not go well when I brought that up as something that maybe we should consider not having.

But I've got the same thing. I've got some line items for my stuff, you know, like guys night out and other things like that. So I think, you know, it's all particular. It's all particular to the couple, I would say, maybe for second marriages. Maybe there is a little bit more hesitancy in combining everything together.

And yeah, it all depends on your relationship. So I don't think there's one right way, but joint has worked for us. Yeah, a hybrid of joint that we do, and this really stemmed from I was in a job where I had a lot of expenses for work, I was taking trips, or if I was in a city, I might throw an event and put the event on my card.

And so it became pretty stressful for my wife to see a credit card bill be like, "Hey, why did you spend $20,000?" I'm like, "No, no, no. Actually, it's like $18,000 of work expenses and $2,000 of non-work." But to her, she's like, "Well, I don't know. This is a bar.

This is a flight. This is a hotel." And so we actually had a separate account and a separate credit card that I used for work stuff so that I could say, "Look, I'm going to put all this here." So it wasn't 100% joint because some things were work, but it was like reimbursable work versus if you have a business, I would highly recommend keeping that separate for both business tax reasons and other things.

But sometimes if you're spending a lot of money for work and you don't have a corporate credit card, it can make sense to keep things separate just so people have an understanding of where things are going. And it's hard sometimes to monitor and get a sense of how much you're saving when the amount of money coming in and out is variable because of work expenses.

So that was one thing that happened. And then gifts. So we still have our own separate credit cards that get paid out of a joint account just because I think we're the kinds of people that would see it and be like, "Oh, what's this?" Like, it just doesn't matter.

There's small enough expenses that I think for us, it's better to just keep on our own. And then we created a kind of rule that we've evolved over time of if something's going to cost over X, and I think at one point in our relationship, it was $200. And I think now we're like, "Maybe we should upgrade it to $500." It's like, if it costs over that, let's talk about it.

Otherwise, we trust each other and we don't have to say, "Should we do this? Can I go out to dinner with my friends?" And that kind of stuff. So that's what's worked for us. So joint checking, but separate credit cards and kind of a rule about spending. I like that a lot.

Yeah. And I have a small business now. And so sometimes I'm able to lump some of the family expenses that used to be in our budget over there. You know, for example, we have family photos that I ended up putting on my website and things like that, but they end up being great family photos for the family.

So these are things that I can now put on my business expenses. But to your point, I get to go to conferences. I get to buy dinners and things like that. And that can all be a business expense. So that could be sensitive if she doesn't have money for that type of stuff too.

So just having open conversation about it has helped us. Yeah, absolutely. That's all money in marriage. But I know that, you know, you've talked a lot about things about marriage that aren't money-related and, you know, the show, "All the Hacks." Are there relationship, marriage kind of tricks, hacks, things that you've used to have a successful relationship or enjoy more time together?

Yeah. You know, one thing that I have used in my relationship and I talk to a lot of other couples too, is just knowing my spouse's love language. You know, this comes from that book, "The Five Love Languages." And for Nicole, her language is time spent, for sure. And acts of service.

So over the past few years, I, after, you know, consuming that book and understanding a little bit more about my wife's languages, I've started to create some habits for myself that allow for more time spent with her and more acts of service on the daily. So a couple of years ago, I'm like, "Okay, well, she loves coffee.

What if I just bring her coffee in bed every day?" Because I always get up before her and she would probably really appreciate that. So over the past, I think, year and a half now, I bring her coffee in bed every day. And so I would say I'd give myself maybe like a B plus, A minus with this over the last year.

Maybe 300 out of the 365 days I've done this and she loves it. It's just one of those things where I understand who she is. I understand her styles for love and it just sort of helps her to start her morning off on the right foot. So just kind of understanding a little bit about who your spouse is, how they like to be loved can go a long way.

Because for a long while, I really like words of affirmation. When somebody says, "I'm doing a great job," or "She loves me," or whatever, that makes me feel great. So for a while, I would just project that on her. I'd be like, "Well, I'm going to write her a note and tell her how great she is," or "I'm going to verbally tell her." And for a while, it would just sort of like, it wouldn't connect.

And I'd be like, "Well, what's wrong with her? I've given her all the love, but she doesn't feel it." But I was just sort of loving her in the wrong way until I learned that, "Hey, she really likes just time with you, man," or "She really likes when you help around the house or do nice things for her." So that took some trial and error on my part, but I'm still learning every day.

So... Yeah. If I'm sick, I'm the kind of person that would love someone to take care of me. Come over and bring me a tea. And my wife's like, "When I'm sick, I want to be left alone." And so we had this whole challenge where I was like, "I want this." And she's like, "No, you don't need that." And then we kind of realized, "Oh, you want something different from me, and I can give it to you even though I don't want it." She's like, "But you also have to respect that I don't want it." Yeah, that's true.

In some cases, it can actually be too much. Absolutely. So I actually have a running note on my phone that's just like subtle reminders. And anytime I notice something in our relationship, I just kind of write it down to make sure I'm like, "Hey, you know, Amy doesn't love this thing." Or, "This is an opportunity to improve." Or, "She really likes this." And one thing that I think has really helped in our relationship for me is, as I keep these notes, every now and then, I just kind of take a look at them.

And I'm like, "Oh, you know, this thing, she really liked this thing. Let's pick that thing up after work and bring it home." Or, "Let's just take a pause and just tell her about a few things this week that she's done that I really appreciate." And these things are so easy for us to forget to do.

And they're so easy. Like the act of pausing and just telling someone something meaningful they did or how they made you feel, it's such an easy thing that it's not fake. It's actually true. You actually feel it. Sometimes life gets so busy that you don't get to share it.

So, I try to keep a log of things that I appreciate her, just little things that she might like, and check it regularly. I don't actually have a calendar event, but I probably should. So, I think it would add even more value if I did it more consistently. I think that's great.

I've got a similar list. It's called Nicole's Happy List. It's right on my phone, the little notes app. And just kind of look at it every once in a while, add things onto it. But yeah, to your point, if you could just like how we talk about hacking or habit stacking, it's like, what can I do to make this a recurring thing that I do every day?

Even if it's just 5, 10 minutes of an action that can go miles. One other thing that we didn't talk about, but you've talked about how it's kind of an impressive journey, right? You started at debt, paid it off in a year in advance of your child coming. Then you paid off a mortgage.

And then in less than 10 years, you took that negative debt net worth all the way to a million dollars. What along that journey made that possible? Were you both on board with that kind of a goal and how did you get there so quickly? Yeah, it was a good story and a good successful journey.

Honestly, obviously, a lot of it has to do with how much somebody can make. Because this story for somebody making $50,000 a year would be a lot more difficult. We, on average, during that 10 years, we were making $190,000. And that's two working professionals in the Metro Detroit area.

And we worked hard and got progressive raises and things like that to help. But a lot of it was just sort of growing that gap between what we spend and what we save. And having that gap helped us to consistently do some great things. In the beginning, it was using that gap to pay off our debt.

And then it was, "Hey, let's max out our retirement accounts so that we have a great investment balance as we grow into the years that we actually need this money." And then again, with that gap, we paid off our mortgage. And a lot of the things that are in our net worth right now are a half a million dollar home and about a half a million dollars of investments.

And then obviously, cash and cars and things like that kind of round everything out. But that's really it. I mean, investing early and then paying off our home is what it is. So you think millionaire and it sounds flashy with cars and watches and all that stuff. It's like, it's boring stuff, man.

It's like a big old traditional IRA and a Roth IRA, HSA accounts, things like that, and for home and some cash. And that's pretty much it. But a lot of it was from us just allowing ourselves to not inflate our lifestyle as we continue to grow our income. In the beginning, I was making $30,000 a year.

And by the end of my career, I was making closer to $200,000 a year. But we consistently lived on half during that time period. And we were able to enjoy life. I mean, obviously, even half of a lot of money is still a lot of money. So we vacationed, had fun, but we were able to do some incredible things that really helped our family create some freedom for ourselves.

It's been great. Any unusual things that you guys did to kind of grow that gap that, obviously, cutting things out of a budget or just being more frugal are regular things. But are there anything unusual in there? Honestly, none of it was too irregular. Just consistently investing during the period, having some automation with our investing.

So it just happens without us even thinking about it. And over time, you look back and you say, "Wow, this balance is built up to an incredible amount by me just physically not doing anything, not touching it." I feel like success with investing is less about what you do and more about what you don't do.

It's just like, if I didn't touch this thing and see the balance grow as it has, that's really where we've found most of our success, just investing in low-cost index funds and letting it ride. And we've had a very nice bull market over the past, whatever, eight to nine years that has helped us out quite a bit.

But it's one of those things we're just going to stay on the roller coaster and see where it goes no matter what. So yeah, I love that. Sometimes the smallest changes make the biggest impact and Trade Coffee is a great addition to your new year routine. And I am so excited to be partnering with them today.

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So we haven't talked about kids much, but you have two kids. I have one kid. I haven't even thought much about children and money. But you know, one of the stats that I think everyone kind of really rubs into your head is it costs about $200,000 to have a kid.

It costs a million dollars to have a kid. I've seen everything. I've never seen anything that's lower than that. No one ever says, "Oh, no, no, it's actually only a hundred dollars." Yeah, right. So it's very clear that kids cost money. How do you feel about these numbers? As someone who's put a lot of time into saving, are they real?

Are there ways to improve them? How do you think about it? Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't doubt that. I think I've seen the majority of the statistics I've seen is around $200,000, something like that, $200,000, $250,000. I believe it. I believe it. Yeah, they got to eat. They got to go to school.

They have to have clothes. You know, it's all that important stuff that needs to happen from zero to 18 years. But then college isn't even included that. And I think our in-state public university, by the time our kids go, is going to be about $200,000 for four years as well.

So that's $400,000 because I've got two kids. And that's a crazy cost. But I mean, would I do it any differently? No, I love them. I love them. They're worth every penny. And I mean, talk about coming to your point on mathematical decisions. If I was thinking about math all the time, then I definitely wouldn't have had children.

But it is hard to make an economic decision. Exactly. And they are worth every penny. Absolutely. I love being with them. And I mean, the college thing is different. That's going to be kind of tough to swallow. And I'm not sure we're going to be able to get up to $400,000 of savings for them to experience college.

But outside of that, no. Worth every penny. And yeah, we'd do it all over again. Yeah. You've saved a lot, obviously, for yourselves. And I think one of the challenges that people who don't just have an abundance of unlimited money face is you've got your own life, and then you've got your kid's life.

And in a perfect world, you could have all the money you need to do everything you want, give your children all the money they need to do anything they want. And that reality is just not true for most people. And so how do you balance saving for yourself versus saving for your kids or their education?

And how do you think about whether you should deprive yourself from a few more vacations in order to leave them with enough money to pay for college and not have to take on debt? Yeah. Again, I think that's all personal for each family. But for us, what we like to do is make sure that we're all set for retirement before we worry about our kid's college because they can take student loans, but I can't take retirement loans.

So it's one of those things where we want to make sure that we're all set. And we have been. We've gotten to ourselves to a position where we feel like we are going to be able to kind of coast to retirement and feel pretty comfortable with what we have.

Outside of that, our kids value vacations. So I think there's something to life experiences today in those zero to 18 years that the kids are really going to remember. And them going to college isn't a for sure thing. They might not want to go to college or they might not have the drive to go to college.

We're going to encourage them to. We want them to. But making time for fun today is very important to us. In fact, after we paid off our mortgage, that was one of the conversations that Nicole and I had. We value vacations so much that we need to be setting aside at least 10% of our income towards vacations.

And so that's what we did. We sort of filter that money into a different account that's outside of our checking account that just sits there and starts to build up so that when we look back, we're like, oh, man, we got five grand in there. Where are we going to go?

You know? And then if we use travel hacking, we can go even further. So that became a priority of ours. So when people talk about making memories and making fun for it, yeah, if you've saved up and you are not paying high interest credit card debt and you're checking the boxes to save towards retirement, money's for fun, man.

Use your money and enjoy your life. I mean, yes, check those important boxes. Make sure you're not going into credit card debt to experience all these things. But if you're checking all the boxes, all the important financial things to do, you've got enough saved in an emergency, you've paid off your high interest credit card debt, and you are saving for retirement, then yes, enjoy life and bring the kids along with you.

And what would you say to someone who's like, gosh, I just really struggle with the idea of spending more money and enjoying my life, knowing that I'm not putting it towards my kids' college and that they might have to take on debt? How do you think about that? Because I think you're a very rational person.

You've talked to lots of people about this, and I think that's something I struggle with is how do you balance that? And obviously, you want enough to take a trip, but do you take two trips? Do you take three trips? Is there a point at which you balance and start to save for both?

I think college has a lot more ways to slice it than people think. Obviously, you can invest and save at an early age through a 529 that can help you build up a good balance. When they get to that point, let's say you don't have enough, scholarships can be earned.

You can spend some time on the weekends before they graduate where they're filling out scholarship applications each weekend. You pump enough of those things out there, you can get tens of thousands of dollars towards college for sure. I've talked to enough families that say, this is a reality. This is something we did to pay for my entire college experience.

It just requires time, dedication. They can also work in high school. They can get some experience, understand what it means to do hard work and save up for something. They can also work in college. There are ways to hack college a little easier than just saying, hey, I better have every single penny to make sure we've got enough for them to go to college because otherwise, they're going to be trapped in student loan debt.

There are different ways to do it. They can go to community college for the first couple of years and get their credits at a fraction of the price and then still finish their degree at the university if they want. There are ways to do it. I just think sometimes we just take things at face value and I know that I have in the past.

When I took on my student loans, you just take it as face value and you just go to the university and you pay it and say, well, everybody's taking on student loans. You don't have to. You can do things a little differently and there's lots of different routes to do it.

Yeah, I mean, I think something important there is a lot of us in college, we hadn't really figured out money and so we took things at face value. We did what we thought we were supposed to do. Are you thinking about helping your kids understand money from an earlier age than maybe you did?

Absolutely. Yeah, and we have started that ever since I think Zoe was four years old. We've done like a chore and reward program at the house. So every actually now it's a daily thing with the kids. So they come home from camp or school and they've got one chore that they need to do to help the family.

So they're understanding that they need to contribute. They need to help around the house. So that's ever since they were young, it's either like emptying the little garbage cans around the house, using the little vacuum to clean things, doing laundry. My son is seven years old and he knows how to do laundry.

And I know some 18, 20-year-olds that don't know how to do laundry. My seven-year-old knows how to do it. And so we're teaching them life skills, but then also giving them money to mess up with. So we give them a dollar for every year they've lived. So Zoe gets $9, Calvin gets $7.

And we now direct deposit that directly into their Ally savings accounts or their checking accounts. They have their own debit cards. So when they want to purchase something, they've got enough money in their checking account to do that. And I have conversations with my daughter about understanding that there's shipping, there's tax, there's things like that.

These conversations are happening early enough where I feel like she's going to be a smart, educated young woman. And yes, are there mistakes? Yes, I'm so glad that they're making mistakes now at nine and seven as opposed to 29 and 27 when it's $50,000 instead of maybe $5 that we're dealing with with the mistakes.

So I'm excited about those conversations that we're having together. They're learning hard work. They're learning that with that hard work, they get a reward. And not only are we talking about spending with them, but we also divide their earnings into other buckets. So they've got an investment bucket, they've got a savings bucket, and they've also got a giving bucket because we feel in our family that it's important to give back as well because not only it's the right thing to do in society, but we've had some privilege in our life.

So we feel like we have to give back. So we have a conversation with them every three months where they sort of empty that digital giving jar. And we talk about what they're feeling grateful for, what they're feeling excited about in life. And then we talk about charities that honor that thanks to people who maybe don't have that.

So, for example, my son is really happy with the house that he has. He really likes having a roof over his head. So he gives to a charity called, say, Detroit that helps people who don't have homes in Metro Detroit. And he's given to that charity now for two years.

We wrote a little letter to Mitch Albom, who runs that charity, and he featured Calvin on his radio show at, I think it was four years old, five years old. And that was one of those moments where I'm like, "Man, my son, he might not remember this, but I'm going to keep that video." And it's going to be one of those things that he's going to be like, "Yeah, I've been given since I was four or five." And he understands the power of that and understands that money can not only do great things for your life, but it can also do great things for other people who are in need.

So we're having lots of conversations with the kids, and I hope that they come away with something after this 18 years in our house. - That's awesome. Any lessons you've learned about teaching kids money that maybe weren't so obvious that have been really helpful? - Yeah, in the beginning, we would give them the money and we say, "Hey, here it is in your account.

Enjoy it and spend it." And then it was one of those things that we were dealing with contentment problems. So they would buy something, and then 10 minutes later, they'd be like, "All right, this isn't any fun anymore. Can I buy something else right now?" And in the beginning, it was like, "Oh, yeah, sure.

You got the money in your account. Yeah, go ahead." And then it was one of those things where it's like, "Man, we're creating little consumers. We're creating little crazy consumers. They bought this thing, they used it for 10 minutes, and now it's all sitting over in the corner, little plastic thing, and now they're going to buy the next thing." And then Nicole and I were like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, we got to stop this.

This is a little crazy. We're going to limit the purchases to once a month. You guys enjoy the toys. You can buy what you have. You have got the money in there. Enjoy it for a while, and then next month, we can try something new." Because we don't want to just create little mindless spenders because then they're not going to have any...

They're going to say, "Hey, man, this thing doesn't give me the happiness that I want. I need something else right away." And that's not what we want. We do want them to understand that not every toy is going to be fantastic, but we also don't want to have them buying things over and over again.

Because Nicole's more of a minimalist kind of design in the home, and she doesn't really like a lot of clutter. So when we've got a lot of things in here, it's either, "Can we sell this on Facebook? Can we give it away? Or do something else with it?" Have you taught the kids to start selling stuff on Facebook Marketplace yet?

Yeah, yeah. Zoe is currently... She's got what she got listed. She's got a couple of posters listed. She's got some toys listed. Calvin's selling some Beyblades right now. He just got $15 for some old toys, and that's going to go into his digital jars. So yeah, we do it together.

We take the photos together. Zoe's gotten old enough where she can kind of input the description and the photos and kind of do it all herself. So Calvin requires a little bit more help from dad. So... I just am now imagining my childhood of the garage sale, not the digital online garage sale.

Oh, yeah. Facebook Marketplace is fantastic because you can ship all around the country, and they print out the label for you. It just kind of creates it a little... Makes it a little easier. I love that. Now, again, outside of money with kids, I'm a new dad. I've got a one-year-old.

I've got a journey ahead of me. What advice do you have for me to make both the journey with the children and the journey with the family more efficient, more... Just better? Yeah, yeah. I especially remember the young years, especially with my kids. I would say a lot of it has to do with making the space and time to learn how they also like to be loved.

Calvin is very much like his mother. He likes time. He likes time with his dad, and he likes words of affirmation. And then my daughter's always more about, like, cuddling and affection and, you know, just kind of being close to each other. So learning how your kids like to be loved is also important.

And I've learned that over the years, that they like different things, and they require different attention. And with that attention, I have dedicated one-on-one time with them each month. So Calvin will get one month, and then Zoe will get another, where they get to choose for two to three hours, we're going to go do something, whatever you want to do.

We're going to go wherever you want to go. Calvin likes to go to, like, a play place with, like, trampolines and stuff like that. Zoe likes to go see Marvel movies. So just creating that dedicated time where I'm giving them all of me and putting away my phone and turning it off is really great for us.

And when you've got multiple kids in the house, it can lead to some, you know, sort of resentment and some jealousy. So when you're able to give that dedicated time, that's been very helpful. I got that, you know, a hack from a great book that I read called The Family Board Meeting by Jim Shields, where he talks about this concept of 18 summers.

We only have 18 summers before our kids are off to college or off to doing their own thing. So how can we make that time really special? And how can we make some great memories together? So that one-on-one time has been really special for us. Yeah, any other? I haven't read a lot of books on family and parenting.

It's all a little new. Any other recommendations there? Well, as far as the marriage side of things, I really liked this book from the Holderness family called Everybody Fights, so why not get better at it? And this is a family that is very popular on YouTube and online, but they wrote this book because they often fight.

They're pretty emotional, excited kind of people, but they talk about ways to make fighting, because it's inevitable, ways to make fighting easier. And one hack that they had in the book was just sort of being like, "Hey, if you've just recently been in a fight, try to think about what's an easy trigger that it caused.

You know, were you guys drinking? Was somebody really tired? Was somebody hangry? Did something add to this that made it even more intense?" And sort of recognize that as you guys are describing this horrible fight that you've been in now, and maybe have some humility and say, "Hey, you know what?

I was a little bit more tired than I normally was because I was sort of, whatever, day drinking, or I had not gotten good sleep the night before, or whatever it was." And just sort of approaching the fight with some humility. Also, understanding how people like to fight. For example, Nicole, when we get into fights, she needs some space afterward.

I'm always the one who wants to quick fix it, being like, "Okay, let's resolve this right now. Let's talk through it." And she's like, "No, dude. I need to kind of go away. I need some space." And so sort of understanding how people like to fight, how people like to resolve things was a good concept in that book, and I really enjoyed it.

- Yeah. I learned that the hard way, which is I'm like you. We're arguing about something, and I'm like, "Let's just see if we can resolve this thing right now." And in our relationship, one of the ways to get your point across is to find the most effective time to present it.

And for me, it's not right after a conflict. It's not right before bed. Like, I know that those two times make it less compelling for me to get my point across. And so in the same way that if I want to try to present an idea at work, I'm going to put the time and energy into when's the right time to share it with my team, maybe put together a presentation.

I just apply similar thoughts to, "Okay, when's the right time to present this idea?" I think maybe we should take an extra vacation this year. That's not something that I want to bring up. If we're going to bed, it's like, "Hey, I know you're about to fall asleep. But do you want to have this big conversation about how we could spend some money on a trip?" It doesn't go well.

And for me, I've tried to explain, "Well, look, we don't need to talk about it now. But just know that the reason I'm bringing it up isn't because we have to. I'm just so excited." And so it goes back to something you said earlier, which is understanding the motivations behind why people do things is really important.

Absolutely. Yeah. Nicole likes to squash that, "Don't go to bed angry." You know, that adage where it's like, "No, no, no. I just need to go to bed." Yeah. And understanding that is often very helpful. Absolutely. I talked about it in the introduction here. But what led you to be someone who decided this was going to be your career, right?

You quit your job and you now run Marriage, Kids, and Money. And you've got videos, you've got a podcast, you've got a blog. How do you describe how that became your thing? Yeah. About 5 years ago, I was having a really bad day at work. And it was one of those things where we got new management at the company.

And with that new management, all of a sudden, they made some changes on the teams. They said, "Andy, you're not on that team anymore. You're on this team. And the people reporting to you are now not reporting to you. You're reporting to this guy." And it was one of those things where I was like, "Man, I don't really have any ownership of my life here at this career.

It's something that I feel like I'm not in control of." And at home, I've got two very young kids at the time. They've got a 3-year-old and a 1-year-old. And I have no control there either. So I'm like, "Okay, what's something that I can do that's sort of like a hobby, something that I can grab onto that just makes me feel like, I don't know, I need something?" And so I had been listening to podcasts around that time.

And I said, "Well, why don't I just start a podcast? I think that could be fun. I have something to share. I want to learn from people. It could be a great way as an outlet." So I did that. I decided to start Marriage, Kids, and Money in 2016.

And it was one of those things where I'd share a little bit about our journey. And then I would interview really smart people that would help us on our journey or just help people who are listening as well. And then over time, people started to listen, which was great, outside of my wife and my mom, which was awesome.

And I started to get some podcast sponsors. And then people wanted to work with me on different things. And so it started to become not just a hobby, but a side hustle. And then over time, it started to grow even more. And it got to a point where I had amassed enough money and savings, and we had done well enough in our financial life where it was one of those things where it's like, "Let's take a risk.

Let's take a jump and try to do something that's not, I don't know, prescriptive, like what I'm supposed to do." And Nicole was very—actually, she encouraged me to do it, really. So I took the leap to do it full-time in January 2020. I had some contracts. I had some sponsorships.

Things were kind of set in place. And yes, it was two months right before the pandemic hit. But a year and a half later, I'm still standing. So there was lots of ups and downs with different contracts and clients and partnerships and things like that. But all in all, we've been doing well.

Life's good. Things are growing well. I really love the work that I do every single day. I get to learn. I get to help people. And at the end of the day, I'm extremely happy. I am doing work that I love, and I'm able to be paid for it.

So that's life to me, man. Yeah. I'm a big fan of all your work. Where can people find it? What are the different avenues that you produce content for? Absolutely. Well, if you're listening to this podcast, the best thing to do is just to type in "Marriage, Kids, and Money" in your favorite podcast player.

That is the great place to connect with me. We do YouTube videos as well. So if you're a YouTube person, you can type in "Marriage, Kids, and Money" there as well. Well, thank you so much for being on here. Thanks, Chris. I appreciate the opportunity. That was amazing. Thank you so much for listening.

You can find links to everything we discussed in the show notes. And if you're not already subscribed to the show, you can click subscribe or follow. I'm not sure. They keep changing the name, and you'll get access to all future episodes. Also, to listeners who've written in, I've gotten some amazing questions from you guys.

I love hearing from all of you, and I read every email you send. So keep them coming to chris@allthehacks.com. I'm actually excited to be talking about a lot of these questions in a future episode. So that's coming out soon. And that's it for now. So thank you so much for listening.

See you next week. I want to tell you about another podcast I love that goes deep on all things money. That means everything from money hacks to wealth building to early retirement. It's called the Personal Finance Podcast. And it's much more about building generational wealth and spending your money on the things you value than it is about clipping coupons to save a dollar.

It's hosted by my good friend, Andrew, who truly believes that everyone in this world can build wealth. And his passion and excitement are what make this show so entertaining. I know because I was a guest on the show in December 2022. But recently, I listened to an episode where Andrew shared 16 money stats that will blow your mind.

And it was so crazy to learn things like 35% of millennials are not participating in their employer's retirement plan. And that's just one of the many fascinating stats he shared. The Personal Finance Podcast has something for everyone. It's filled with so many tips and tactics and hacks to help you get better with your money and grow your wealth.

So I highly recommend you check it out. Just search for the Personal Finance Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts and enjoy.