Episode: 344 - How Misty & Mike Paid Off $14K in Debt and Transformed Thier Finances
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Managing personal finances can often feel like navigating a stormy sea of bills, debts, and unexpected expenses. Many individuals find themselves overwhelmed and unsure where to begin. Misty Gaetz’s journey from financial struggle to empowerment showcases that with the right tools and dedication, financial freedom is achievable. Here, we explore Misty’s inspiring story and the steps she took to transform her financial life.
Understanding the Starting Point
Misty’s financial background is familiar to many. Growing up between her divorced parents, she observed financial struggles but never received guidance on smart financial practices. As she progressed into adulthood, Misty encountered similar challenges. Transitioning through multiple jobs, financial uncertainty became a constant. The tipping point came when Misty and her husband faced the stark reality of their financial state, leading to significant changes.
The Wake-Up Call
Like many, Misty's debts crept up gradually, fueled by everyday essentials like groceries and gas. Over time, the pressure mounted, culminating in financial decisions that were more reactive than proactive. The realization that something had to change set Misty on a path to financial education and overhaul. She learned a crucial lesson: managing debt requires systematic commitment, not just temporary fixes.
Implementing Change
One of Misty’s vital realizations was the importance of structured budgeting. By examining her family’s spending habits, Misty identified dining out as a significant drain on their finances. The shift to meal planning and prioritizing grocery budgets over restaurant bills marked the beginning of a more conscious spending strategy. Misty learned the value of having a spending plan that allowed her to save without completely sacrificing the joys that were important to her family.
Developing a Financial Strategy
Misty found that using cash for daily transactions formed a crucial part of her new strategy, helping to psychologically reinforce her budgeting efforts. Alongside cash-based budgeting, Misty embraced the power of shared financial responsibility with her husband. Open communication and regular financial meetings helped ensure that both were aligned and committed to their financial goals.
The Psychological Shift
One of the most significant shifts for Misty was in how financial management affected her overall stress levels and well-being. Implementing daily check-ins and small, consistent engagements with their finances helped maintain a clear understanding of their financial status, removing the anxiety of not knowing where they stood month to month.
Conclusion
Misty's journey underscores the essence of patience, persistence, and planning in the quest for financial freedom. Her story is a testament to the fact that with the right mindset and tools, anyone can reclaim control over their financial life—transforming stress into security, and dreams into reality. Through effective budgeting, prioritization of essentials, and consistent communication, Misty Gaetz stands as a beacon of hope for those feeling overwhelmed by financial challenges.
Resources
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Transcript: Brad Nelson:
Hey, so are you drowning in money stress and unsure where to start? Misty Gates has been there, but over the last several months she has turned things around, saving and paying off thousands of dollars and making incredible financial progress. Now, in today's episode, Misty is here to share her journey and how she started building momentum with her money, and if you've ever felt stuck, this is the dose of hope and encouragement that you've been waiting for. Stay tuned.
Announcer:
You're listening to the Debt-Free Dad podcast with Brad Nelson. Brad and his co-hosts experience the anxiety of living paycheck to paycheck before learning the fundamentals of financial success. They are now on a mission to empower regular people to pay off their debt for good and enjoy happier, less stressful lives. Keep listening for inspirational interviews, tips, tricks and practical advice to gain financial freedom.
Brad Nelson:
Hey everyone, welcome to today's show. I am Brian Nelson, founder of Debt Free Debt. I paid off about $45,000 in debt. I have been debt free now for more than 12 years. I've also been fortunate to be able to help thousands of other people save and pay off tens of millions of dollars with the work that we do here at Debt Free Dad.
Brad Nelson:
Now, after listening to this episode, if you are ready to take things to the next level, you're ready to break free from living paycheck to paycheck. You want to reduce all that financial stress, maybe build a savings and finally pay off your debt for good. But maybe you're like many, including myself at one time you're just not sure where to get started. Well, we've created some incredible free resources here at Debt-Free Dad to help you get there, and I'll be sharing some details about that later on in today's episode. As I said, I would love to welcome Misty Gates to the podcast Now. Misty is 37 years old and she is married to her husband, mike, for nine years now Congratulations. They have two kids, matthew and Morgan, and a dog named Jewel. Misty says that they love to travel, kayak camp and visit amusement parks, and she adds we want to become debt-free so that we can buy a house, and that would be our only debt. So hey, misty, welcome to the Debt-Free Dad podcast. So glad that you're joining us here today.
Misty:
Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.
Brad Nelson:
Yeah, absolutely so. You recently joined Roots, back in January. As we're recording this, it's the last day of April, so you've been with the Roots Personal Finance Program for about four months and starting. We're going to get into everything that you guys have been able to do since joining, but the first thing I want to ask you is really just how you got started with learning about money and what kind of led you to the point of eventually joining this kind of a program and trying to get help with your finances. Can you kind of share, maybe, the ups and downs of your financial life as you kind of got out to being a kid, to being an adult, and how that all worked out for you?
Misty:
Yeah, so I come from a divorced family and I lived with my dad until I was nine and then I moved in with my mom. My dad worked 12 to 18 hour days, six to seven days a week, so we didn't really see him a lot. I have two older siblings that we just kind of took care of each other, took care of ourselves, and then when I moved in with my mom, she worked jobs off and on. My stepdad had a full-time job pretty much the whole time. They were together, at least the whole time I lived with them. He still works at the same place. He worked a lot of hours too, sometimes like a swing shift, 12 hours a day, two days on, two days off every other weekend. So they worked a lot and then she was home quite a bit in between jobs. But we never went without. But you could tell there were some financial struggles there. There was never talk about like, hey, this is how you responsibly use credit cards, you need to have money in the bank, you need to have a good savings, things like that. You know, when I moved out I went to college, I lived on campus, which, looking back now, I probably could have saved a ton of money living at home. I only went to school an hour from home, only went to school for 14 months initially, so I could have drove back and forth for that amount of time. I had a reliable car. I got a job at 14 and I've worked pretty much ever since then. Once I got my permit, we financed a car that I made the payments on. It was in my mom's name, but I made the payments on it. And then, once I turned 18, I bought a car in my own name and had a payment on that. I've pretty much always had a car payment. I've always. You know, like I said, I've always worked pretty much since then.
Misty:
When I met my husband, we worked at the same factory. We were working seven days a week, most of the time 12 hours a day. We were making pretty good money. We went ahead, bought a house and the payment was manageable, but we had two vehicle payments at that time and then we traded his vehicle in on another vehicle with a bigger payment and we had the house payment and it was financed at a good rate. I mean, this was 2016. Things were much better than they are now.
Misty:
Then our factory cut back hours. We were to the point where our income was cut in half almost, and we're like, oh crap, how do we get by? So he took a job at a trailer factory and it didn't pan out to make what he was supposed to be making. We were ended up it was costing us more for him to drive to work than what he was really making and we were like, okay, we can't do this. So he went to a foundry to work, and that's where he's at now, six years later, and that helped us out. Well, then I switched jobs and it was the same thing. It didn't pan out very well. And then we had our second child after I switched jobs, and when it came time to have her find a daycare that was affordable, with an hour drive to work for me, it just didn't work. So we're like, hey, I'm going to stay home. I started working for a business that his dad owns. I don't make a ton, but I make enough, and I didn't have daycare then. So it all set.
Misty:
And then our homeowner's insurance went up and, of course, while we were at the jobs where we weren't making what we thought we were going to be, we started racking up credit card debt and a lot of times it was groceries or gas. It wasn't frivolous things Some of it was but it just added up over time and we never really sat down and we're like, hey, how much debt are we in? Well, then our house needed repairs and we started doing that. At one point we were like the housing market was up. We're like, look, we got to get out of this now, before we lose the house. We actually took out a cash advance on one of our credit cards to be able to make our house payment one month. And that's when I was like something's got to give, we've got to do something different. So we talked with my father-in-law. We're like, hey, if we sell the house, can we move in with you for a while? Then he was like, yeah, that's fine. So we sold the house and we came out ahead on the house and we put that money in the bank and we sat on it for six months. As we're trying to pay off debt, we started having monthly meetings on our finances and in credit cards alone.
Misty:
When we sold our house, we were $70,000 in debt. I also have student loans, car payments, all of that, and it was. It was a lot so, and we sold our house two and a half years ago. So we've really been trying to get out of the debt so that we can buy property or a house, so we can move out on our own again. And we had $20,000 sitting in the bank and we're like, oh, that's great, that's a great down payment, but we're still struggling to get by.
Misty:
Every day, like week to week living, paycheck to paycheck, every day, like week to week living, paycheck to paycheck. And we finally were like, listen, we're going to take a chunk of this money and we're going to pay off this set of stuff. And we did that, which helped us. It helped our cash flow a little bit. We did do a debt consolidation loan, which has helped our cash flow. But we also, with that, went hey, this is what we were already paying on the set, this is what we're going to keep paying on this set. We were only getting about $2,000 a month paid off each month. As we're having these monthly meetings going, we're making progress, but not very fast. Then I had my vehicle needed a $10,000 repair.
Announcer:
And.
Misty:
I was like I can't afford a $10,000 repair when I'm making a payment on it too, because at that point we were down to about 2000 in the savings and I'm like I've got a little bit sitting here but I don't have enough that I can pay this 10 grand. Had we had the 10 grand, I probably would have just fixed it and kept driving it, cause I'm still making the payment. So we did trade it in, we did buy a new vehicle and I know that's one of the things that it's like don't buy new, but I'm like my luck with used vehicles has been awful. So this is what we're doing and it has been great. We're six months into that, but I do pay extra on it. What we were paying on everything when we sold the house is what we have continued to pay and we've been snowballing it.
Brad Nelson:
Right.
Misty:
I think I found the podcast.
Brad Nelson:
Until like so, but up until this point. So you guys were already kind of on your own plan. Like you guys you guys were I mean you paying off $2,000 a month. You moved in with family just to kind of help out, sold your house, so yeah, and now you found the podcast, so you were already kind of on a plan. So what do you feel like made that decision of like we're going to try this process.
Misty:
So I started listening to the pod and I've listened to all of them except the last probably five now and I was like man, these people are making a ton of progress. And Katie Hatfield really was the one that I was like if she can do that, we can do this. We've got this. You had advertised for the free life without payments workshop.
Announcer:
And I was like I'm going to do this we go to bed early, we get up early.
Misty:
But I was like, hey, this is kind of later in the day or, you know, late in the evening, but I'm going to do it, I'm going to dedicate time to this because something's got to give. We can't keep doing what we're doing because we're not making enough progress fast enough. And so I did, and I had talked with my husband about it. I was like, hey, what do you think about this? And I got the well, are we really going to spend money to get out of debt? And I was like, if it is the difference, then it's worth every dime we spend. So I did the life without payments workshop. I signed up that night and I put it on a credit card. But I was like, hey, next week we're going to have a little bit extra, I can just pay that off. It's just not in the checking account right now. And that's what I did. And we've made amazing progress since then.
Brad Nelson:
Yeah, and I want to dive into that Again we have that Free Life Without Payments workshop. We do them every quarter and you decided to join. Can you talk to me about what was in that workshop? You mentioned you've heard the stories Katie Hatfield I mean, katie is obviously a co-host on our podcast from time to time and I mean, as a single person, has paid off nearly $200,000 in debt. It's incredible what she's done. But what was it the thing that was like? You know what we need to do this, we need to try something different. Was it just the stories or anything that you heard in that workshop that made you pull the trigger?
Misty:
It was the stories. It was kind of like here's kind of the plan. There's more to it, but this is the basics. And if you do this all of these people again I've heard all of the stories and I'm like there's no reason why that can't be us. She's doing it single. I've got a dual income. It's like what can we do different? That isn't going to be a drastic change. To make this change that's going to take over and change things for us quicker. The way we're going, we're on track to be debt-free in three years and that's my student loans, the new truck, everything. Yeah.
Brad Nelson:
That's incredible. So when you joined again we're recording this at the end of April you joined mid-January-ish is when we did that last workshop. What were some of the early things that you started to do, and again I want you to share briefly here in just a minute, like what you guys have been able to do. I mean, you guys have paid off thousands of dollars already, which is absolutely incredible for just doing it for four months. But was there anything initially that you started to do that you know again you were doing 2000 on your own, but what really started to like push the gas pedal down for you, that you started to learn in roots that you could do differently.
Misty:
The biggest thing was you can't pay off that while still using that. So we stopped completely using credit cards. We've just unless it's something like we have a couple of cards that have a zero balance on them and like we have like our subscriptions and stuff on there and that gets paid off every month, but if there's not money for it, we also started doing cash stuffing. We have a checking account that we were using for just groceries. Well, that has become cash because we would go in and not be paying attention and overspend. Well, we'll just put it on the credit card now. Now I take my tablet in with me and I add it up as I go. I have a list, we follow the list and we may deviate from it a little bit, but one or two things, that's it. It's got to be on there. And taking the list to the store has been huge, but definitely just not using debt anymore.
Brad Nelson:
Yeah, when you were going through this process you had mentioned not all of your spending was frivolous. You did have some. But one of the big things that we have people do is go through and roots is really look at your past spending habits. Was anything eye-opening when you went through that process? Because a lot of people will say, brad, I'm convinced I can't save and pay off debt. But then when we have them go do this, they're like, oh my gosh, I can. I didn't even realize what I was spending on certain things. Did you have anything like that?
Misty:
We were spending. Yes, our eating out was our big one. We were spending between $700 and $900 a month for four of us to eat out.
Brad Nelson:
So you guys were spending $700 to $900 a month on eating out.
Misty:
Yeah, just on eating out. And then we were still spending you know $500 or more at the grocery store and I was like we there's no way we're eating $1,400 a month in food. Like yeah, especially when there was just four of us and two of them were little kids.
Misty:
I mean they're six and eight now, but they were three and five three years ago and I'm like my three-year-old didn't eat that much and my five-year-old didn't either. We've started meal planning. I sit down normally once a month and write out the whole month. Because we have busy schedules, I don't have time to do it weekly, I'd rather just do it monthly. And then I started going to the store like three times a week and on Sunday I go for Sunday, monday, tuesday and Wednesday and then on Wednesday I get the latter part of the week and then, if Friday we need to pick some things up, we do.
Misty:
But it was like, instead of trying to go once a month and you're like, what do I need for the month? Because that's what we were doing, and then we'd buy stuff and never eat it. You know, we cleaned off a shelf that we keep like our snacks and stuff on. I'm like I bought this two years ago at Costco. We never even opened it. It's got to go. So that's a waste of money. So it was very eye opening, like knowing that that's what we're spending on eating out. And now for the most part we eat out once a month and we really don't need to do that. It's so expensive and with the price increases that have gone on over the last few years it's even more expensive. I'm like I'm glad we're not eating out three or four times a week, because it'd be way more than $900 now.
Brad Nelson:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I think, well, and I think the thing that I love about this is that you guys were willing to, number one, really look at where your money was going and you discovered something that was like really eye-opening how much money you're spending going out to eat for other people. It could be other things, but you were also willing to look at it and say you know, this is going to be worth the sacrifice in order to get to where we want to go, and that's what I would be interested to ask you. Next is that you were doing this on your own. You were making some progress. What was it about? Like the system and the process that we share in Roots, how we lay it all out the step-by-step. How did that help you with your overall plan of going at this? Did you see a difference with that too?
Misty:
We did sitting down, actually sitting down together and going over things, doing the cash part of it, actually learning about the psychological connection with cash that you don't have with the card Because I was like, oh well, I use my debit card. It's not the same Looking in that envelope and going, oh, I've got this much Even today. We went and got groceries this morning and my son was like, hey, can we get Oreos? And I was like let's see what the total is when we get the stuff we need and then if there's money left, then yes, we can, but I've got to get these things for dinner the rest of the week. Just knowing that you've got the community support, like going through the lessons and listening to it and doing it with my husband and being able to bounce ideas off of him and going, hey, you know we could do this, um, but we. The other part of it was like you don't have to stop doing everything. Because that was his first question was do we have to not do anything?
Misty:
And I was like no, I was like but we have to be able to pay for it in cash. If we can't pay for it in cash, then we're not doing it, and that's been our big one and actually paying for it, not just going oh it's on the card, we'll pay for it later.
Brad Nelson:
Right, right. Yeah, I was actually going to ask you if your husband had any sort of pushback or, as you guys have done this over the last four months, especially when you first get started, because that is one of the number one things we get from couples is like, how do I get my spouse or partner on board? You know, I really want to do this. They're kind of dragging their feet a little bit. Did you have any of that experience? Obviously, you mentioned like we don't have to cut everything out, do we? Because that's usually what we hear from the other partners. They feel like it's got to go scorched earth, we're not having fun ever again, and you know we don't really teach that in roots at all, and it's quite different, honestly.
Misty:
Yeah, yeah, we're busy around the house, so like if we really want to spend quality time with our kids, we have to leave and go do something, because otherwise we're not really engaging with them or really spending quality time with them. So we have season passes to amusement parks and that is our big thing. My kids love it. They're both tall enough to ride most of the things. So he's like we're still going to do that. We're still going to camp. We don't spend a lot of time at camp. So we've started this year taking a small Blackstone with us that actually his dad has for his camper, but when he's not using it he's like you guys can use it when I'm not. So we've been able to make breakfast at camp, but it's like we're very minimal, tank campings cheap. So we're like, hey, we're going to go do that. We're going to camp for two or three nights, we're going to hit the amusement parks and it's all paid for. You know when we've paid for it with cash, and this is so much better. There's no stress about. Oh, hey, we spent $400 this weekend that now we have to, you know, either work extra or hey, where are we getting this money from? And that's how it was before. There was no plan, it was just we'll figure it out later.
Misty:
And at first it was like are you sure about this? Can we do this? And I was like let's give it a go. Worst case scenario we spent the money, we don't use it. I was like I think we should do this and we've not made it through all the modules yet. Life got chaos and I'm like okay, I've got to start sitting down and doing this again. But watching the videos with him throwing around ideas, going hey, this is what I heard on the podcast, this is what we taught or what they talked about. He's very open to it and it's the fact that he lives at home. Again, at 30 years old, he's like no, really, I want to move out. And one day our kids were like hey, when can we move out of Pawpaw's house?
Misty:
And it was like, oh, we got to do something. It's not exciting anymore three years later. And it was okay, we're going to do this. And we started doing it. He needs a different work vehicle. So him and his dad went and looked at one. They're like, hey, it doesn't run, but it just needs this part fixed and it'll run. Okay, well, he comes home. He's like, hey, I'm going to go do that.
Misty:
We borrowed the money from his dad for that and that's the family loan that we have that we're paying off. And it was, hey, we'll pay it back at tax time. That was the plan. And he goes I'm going to pick it up on this day. And then me and my buddy are going to work on it this day. And I said, hold on, you don't have any money in the auto repair envelope yet to fix that. How are you doing that? And he goes we'll just figure it out. And I go, no, no, no, that's how we got in this situation to begin with. Pump the brakes, we can do this, but you can't do it this weekend. And he was like, oh, okay, and so then we worked through that and all the repairs on it were paid in cash yeah and I was like, hey, I'm good with that, as long as it's paid in cash.
Brad Nelson:
I don't, I don't care yeah, that's what I love about it is that you know especially when you were talking about the camping, the amusement parks, and I think that's the key is that everyone needs to sit down. Your budget should allow you to be able to, because we all work hard for our money. Your budget is permission to go enjoy the things that you want to enjoy. Your budget, though, is also a good guideline of, like you mentioned, you guys discovered some really drastic overspending when it came to eating out. It's also kind of your guide of like you know this is fun to go eat out, but is it the most important things in our lives? And you guys determine, no, it's not.
Brad Nelson:
We're going to change our ways. We're going to do meal planning, but we're also not going to give up the amusements and the camping, because that is important to us, right? So I think when people need to understand that, when they're listening to this, that a budget is not ripping everything fun out of your life and only sticking to just paying down debt, it's really just making a conscious decision of these are the things that we really love and enjoy. We're going to prioritize this, but we're willing to sacrifice on other things in order to build an emergency fund and pay down debt, and you guys have done such a great job with that. So I'm curious, misty, can you share real quick what have you guys actually been able to save and pay off since you guys started here mid-January and again we're talking about four months?
Misty:
So we have saved $1,772 and we've paid off $12,850 just in the four months.
Brad Nelson:
That is incredible. I mean, you're talking over a $14,000 swing in just four months. When you look at that, did you think that would ever have been possible when you started?
Misty:
I did not. I was amazed. The first full month we were in the program, we paid off $5,500 and I was like there's no way this is going to happen again. The second month we were at $4,200, or it was $4,200 the first full month, and then the second full month it was $4,200 more and I was like holy cow.
Misty:
This is great. You know we're really doing this and we're staying on track. We're not seeing that we're losing out on anything. Yeah, we don't go out to eat as much, but is that really that big of a deal? Hey, we've got a plan and with the meal plan, there's no guesswork in it. It's not. Hey, what are we having for dinner? It's hey. Look at the fridge it's on there, yeah, right. That's what we're having. We're good.
Brad Nelson:
Right.
Misty:
So it's been a huge improvement for us and a huge help, and just the community being able to go in and seeing different ideas that people are doing has made a huge difference. Or being able to go in and go oh, this, you know. All we did this month was this and they're like no, that's great. It doesn't matter how small it is or how big it is like. Any progress is good progress.
Brad Nelson:
Yeah, I want to talk about the accountability and the support side of it, because obviously you were doing this on your own and and now you're not. You're obviously doing it with the help of Roots and the community that we have there, and we have the live meetups if you want to attend. I want to talk about the difference there. But first thing I want to ask is if you were at the point where it's like we got to do something different, can you talk about the emotions before versus how you feel now and the progress that you've made? Has there been a difference there as far as stress levels?
Misty:
hope things like that. I would get up at three o'clock every Friday morning to figure out what bills we were able to pay, how we were going to make sure everything, all minimum payments, were hit on time, make sure everything's paid on time. And now we do our Roots 15 every day. And it's like I look at it a little bit at a time and it's like, hey, this is where we're at. Okay, we're cool, like, and it's almost to a point where, like, the bill comes in the mail, we just pay it. It's not. Oh, okay, it's due the 25th. It's gotta be in the mail by this day or I have to pay it online the 24th.
Misty:
When I get paid, generally it's it comes in the mail. I write the check and it goes back out Like there's that cashflow. Just it seems to go. It seems to flow better. Like, you know, we're paying more off but we seem to have more money to be able to do it. It's way less stressful. You know, I get up when my husband leaves for work and I spend 15 minutes a day on the computer going okay, this is where we're at. Everything's balanced, we're good, and by the time, friday rolls around if there's anything that has to be paid online. It's a matter of going in again 15, 20 minutes and hitting pay and going on.
Brad Nelson:
Yeah.
Misty:
Not three or four hours in the morning doing it.
Brad Nelson:
Yeah, that's incredible, and you're right, it's amazing how much better a lot of the members feel, including myself, at one time when I first started. You know, just once you have a plan, once you start making that progress at one time when I first started Once you have a plan, once you start making that progress, the momentum starts building, you start getting those wins. It just feels so much better. You're just almost Well, you shouldn't say almost you are mentally in just a much better state of really working on your finances. So I want to talk to you a little bit about that accountability and support you mentioned. You can go in there, hear from other people and celebrate your wins. How much of a difference for you guys has that made in this progress versus, say, when you were doing it before on your own?
Misty:
It's wonderful having the other members cheering you on. We're going, oh man, we've only paid off. At the time before Roots we're like, oh man, we're only paying off $2,000. And then we hit that $4,200 mark and I was like, man, that's good, but is it enough? And then you post and people are like, oh, that's great, you're doing awesome, and it's just that extra encouragement and that dopamine hit of people being excited for you. It's great. Okay, I want to keep doing this so I can keep getting that encouragement and celebration with it. And then also going in and reading through other people's like different things that they've done and like, hey, I had this option to use and I finally used it. I haven't used it forever and it, you know, took care of all these things, or you know.
Brad Nelson:
You had mentioned. I think your husband said it and I think before we started recording I think you said your father-in-law said it too, I believe. Why would you spend money to say, save money and get out of debt? Because people might feel that way. Buying or, I guess, investing in this type of a service where we help you save money, get out of debt, give you a system and a plan a lot of people might say, well, that's counterproductive, why not, I just do it on my own rather than spend money there. Can you talk about that a little bit and how you've overcome that?
Misty:
Well, you know, it was a thought of mine at first, and then to hear all the stories, the success stories and stuff, and then to see our progress. You know we were doing $12,000 a year or in six months, and now we've done that in four months. So it's like we're seeing the progress and it was like at that point what do I have to lose?
Brad Nelson:
Yeah.
Misty:
I spent this little bit of money. But if it doesn't work, that's minimal compared to the debt I have. But if it does work and we're out of debt way sooner than what we would have been before, it was a risk I was willing to take because the success stories that I heard and I was like I'm no different than these people. You know Katie, for instance. She was making $12 or $13 an hour when she started. I'm like I may almost double that, like on my plus my husband's income. Yeah, we've got about $140,000 in debt, but I've got more income and we can do this. Just lay it out and do it and put the time and effort into it. And there's the accountability there. You're checking in weekly at least, and going hey, this is where I'm at. So I felt like I was going to be more apt to stick to it because of having to check in with it.
Brad Nelson:
Right.
Misty:
And the 30, 60, 90 day check-ins, it's like, oh, where are we at? And it's exciting to see that you know and have the encouragement of you emailing or commenting on the post in the group Like, hey, good job, that's awesome. And I'm, like hey, excited about my win.
Brad Nelson:
Right, Yep, and that's what it's all about. You know that community is one of the number one things, just like you said, it's not just the education, it really is. The big part of it is the support and accountability and it really is the driving factor for so many of our members who are doing okay, like you said, doing okay on our own, but really just wanted to do better, and it is the difference maker for so many people. Well, Misty, I just want to say thank you so much for spending some time with us here today.
Brad Nelson:
It's been incredible just to see your early progress Like I said before we hit record for you to come on and open up a little bit and share. I know it can be a little bit scary, because talking about money and you've been here and being very transparent of your experience and I know that there's going to be other people out there listening like Katie motivated you. There's going to be people out there saying, well, if Misty and her family can do this, you know we can do it too. So it's just so cool that you were able to come on and share a little bit with us.
Misty:
Yeah, Thanks for having me. I'm excited. I can't wait to see where we're at in a year or two years, you know. See if we can get that three year debt free mark a little sooner.
Brad Nelson:
Absolutely Love it. All right, guys, there you have it. If you want to get started, just like Misty has shared in today's episode, you want to break free from living paycheck to paycheck. You want to start reducing your financial stress, build a savings and finally start making progress with paying off debt. But maybe, again, you're not sure where to get started. Don't worry, we've got you covered.
Brad Nelson:
Simplify my Money is a newsletter that is sent to you each and every Sunday to your email. Now, simplify my Money is a step-by-step roadmap to better financial control, and you're also gonna learn easy-to-follow strategies to manage your money effectively. It's stress-free money decisions that are gonna help you simplify your financial life with proven tips that actually work, and you're gonna gain the tools and confidence to tackle your financial goals head-on. Sign up for Simplify my Money by clicking the link at the top of the show notes. Let's talk about debt. Turn into a debt-free debt. Turn into a debt-free debt and, as you guys know, that's all it means.
Brad Nelson:
It's time for the celebrations of the show, and today we are kicking it off with. Mary and I asked our Roots members what they've been able to save and pay off since starting, and here's three individuals sharing. So not only are we sharing what Misty did in just four months since joining Roots, but these are some other individuals who are also getting some great progress. This is Mary and as of April 5th of 2025, she has saved and paid off nearly $95,000. And Mary has been with Roots now for a little over five years. She's been working really, really hard, but to save and pay off over $94,000 is incredible progress, mary. So so proud of you. Claudia Ann, since joining in October of 2023, so at the time of this recording, about 18 months or so she says I have paid off over $21,000 since joining Roots. Claudia Ann, congratulations to you.
Brad Nelson:
And last but not least, today is Holly. She says since joining August 31st of 2024, I have saved $1,500 in my emergency fund and I've paid off $15,172.98. She says I just finished paying off my car loan and it feels amazing. She's like I never want another car loan again. It was killing her budget. Holly, man, I'm so excited for you and you're absolutely right, man Getting rid of those car payments and just having that emergency fund bill paying off over 15 grand since August of 2024. We're talking like nine months here. Amazing, amazing work, holly. Congratulations to you. Hey, as always to our listeners. Congratulations to all of you guys who are taking a stand for your financial life and are wanting better. Hey, we get that. Getting out of debt. It's not easy, but with our help and with your consistency and discipline, we promise you guys, this will be some of the best work that you guys do in your entire life.
Announcer:
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