September 10, 2025 • 53 mins
Want to live joyfully and abundantly on a shoestring budget? Is it even possible or is it something from a bygone era?! With headlines shouting that even high income earners making $300,000 are living paycheck, achieving financial freedom on a $40,000 salary sounds like a pipe dream. But our guest today is proof that it’s possible and that you can have a good time along the way, too. Hope Ware runs the site & YouTube channel Under the Median along with her husband Larry, to instruct and inspire others to spend less, save more, and live joyfully on a mid five-figure income. She emphasizes the importance of proactively prioritizing, tracking expenses, and setting financial goals. Hope discusses the mindset shifts necessary for effective money management, the significance of teaching kids about money and the emotional aspects of spending, the importance of balancing frugality with building wealth, e-bikes, and plenty more!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Hot to Money. I'm Joel, and today we're
talking financial freedom on less than forty thousand with Hopeware.
(00:26):
All right, do you want to live joyfully and abundantly
on a shoestring budget? Is it even possible? Or is
that something from a buy on era with headlines shouting
that million dollars isn't what it used to be and
folks making three hundred thousand dollars living paycheck to paycheck
as they exist far above their means. Achieving financial independence
(00:46):
on a forty thousand dollars salary kind of sounds like
a pipe dream, right, But my guest today is proof
that it's possible, and that you can have a good
time along the way too. You don't have to like
have no fun. So Hopeware runs the site in the
YouTube channel under the median along with her husband Larry.
They seek to instruct and inspire others to spend less,
(01:08):
to save more, and to live joyfully on a mid
five figure income. So, Hope, I am so excited to
have you on the show today. Thank you for joining me.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Thanks for asking me to join you. I'm excited to
be here.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Okay, first question, and I'm especially curious to hear your
answer to this, because we Matt and I like to
drink craft beer, nice craft beer. On occasion, you and
I emailed and you had just gone to New Glaris Brewing.
Absolutely splurg's on some delicious beers there. But also, when
you're trying to pinch pennies on a small salary, what
is your craft beer equivalent? What's your splurge?
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Okay, so I will say that our splurge was that
five day vacation to New Glaris, Wisconsin. We took all
four of our kids their families with us, and we
had a blast. And I think the thing is, we
figured out about three years ago we wanted to prioritize
that my favorite word in the whole wide world, prioritized.
(02:01):
We wanted to prioritize that. So we figured out, how
much money do we need to set aside every single month?
You know, what's the goal? What is the budget? And
we set that a long time ago, and we joyfully
spent every single penny of it.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
I love that you said prioritized and then joyfully spent,
because I think those two things go hand in hand.
Why is prioritized your favorite word in.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
The world, Because that is the main thing that people
need to understand. People put frugality in this box that
says frugal is equal to deprivation. Those two words are
not synonymous.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
For us.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Frugality is about really figuring out how to spend your
dollars on the things that matter most. So you're going
to spend a little less on things that aren't as
important to you, so that when you have the opportunity
to take a glorious five or six day vacation with
your family to Wisconsin, you have figured out ahead of
time you're going to do it. You've prioritized that, and
you're able to do it knowing the money is there
(02:58):
and you've planned for it and you're going to do it.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Is that a mindset shift or an action shift? Right? So,
because you're right, I think a lot of people there's
this mental hang up. They hear the word frugality, they
shut down. You're trying to ruin my life. You're trying
to prevent me from doing the things that I enjoy
that I want. So why have those why have those
words become synonymous? And what does it take to kind
(03:21):
of unlink that?
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Well? I think people people give up hope. So this
is The one thing that we have discovered in all
the years of running under the Median is that people
feel stuck, genuinely stuck. They have convinced themselves this is
the way my life is. It doesn't matter what I do,
nothing's going to change. So you have to realize that
(03:44):
the change starts with you. And here's the number one thing.
It starts with people figuring out where their money's going
in the first place. The number one mistake we see
people make is that they estimate, well, how much you
spend it on groceries, Well, I think I'm spending five
hundred dollars month, but if they track it in reality,
they're spending six fifty in a heartbeat, if not more
(04:05):
than that.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
They're the studies about how much people spend on subscriptions
versus how much they think they spend on subscriptions, and
people are wildly inaccurate in their estimations.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
You know, I just read a study. And that's one
of the things that we do is we read all
the time about saving money because it's like our passion
to figure this thing out. And there was just recently
a study done that said like forty percent of Americans
can't list all of their monthly subscriptions. They don't know
what they're even paying for.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
I believe it. I believe it. Okay, I want to
go back in your story just a little bit, and
then we'll kind of come back around to this. But
nineteen eighty eight, take me back in time when you
and Larry got married, and I even dug in a
little bit about your kind of like dating and getting
to know each other story, which is fascinating if other
people want to go down that rabbit hole, it's an
interesting one. But things weren't looking great financially when you
(04:54):
two tied the knot what was going on financially for
you guys at that time.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
So we get married and we we have had zero
conversations about money, which seems really odd that we spent
a lot of time dating and we never brought up, well,
how are we actually going to make ends meet? And
one should talk about those things before one gets married.
So spoiler alert, if you're dating somebody, you should probably
talk about those things before you decided to tie the knot.
(05:19):
We didn't, and we were living in an apartment which
was really too much rent for our income level, but
we didn't know it because we weren't tracking anything. Two
months after we get married, I open the bank statement.
It takes twenty five bucks to keep the account open,
and we've got like thirty two fifty in there. So
(05:39):
basically we got seven dollars and fifty cents. And I
called Larry and I said, do you have any money?
He goes, oh, yeah, I got I got twenty bucks
on my wall. And I'm like, great, we now have
a twenty seven to fifty until fay Day. And I said, look,
we are clearly because we got money for wedding gifts, right,
and it took us two months to go through that cash.
I said, I think we have a serious problem. And
(06:02):
we were paying on two cars. We didn't have credit
card debt, so that was huge. And I told him,
I said, I think that if we don't do something
really quickly, we're going to go down the rabbit hole
of credit card debt. In order to just survive from
one month to the next, we got to figure out
how to live within our means, because right now this
is our means. We got to figure out where the
money's going.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
So were you That was the catalyst. It's seen the
bank account with almost nothing in it was it hard
to get on the same page to and you kind
of had that, you had this realization that things needed
to change. Was it hard to convince area or was
like no, no, no, we got to get we got to
go after this together. Well.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
One of the things that was interesting because I told him,
I said, so, so my main goal is the next
time that we replace a car, we pay cash for
a car. And he said, you are crazy, Nobody does that.
I'm like, well, really, so we're going to be the
first then, because we're going to do this. And the
thing that I realized was that I am like this
visionary that says, oh, this is the goal, we're going
(07:01):
to go for it, and he is the concrete sequential.
You have to understand your partner's method of learning. It's
not even their love language. It's the way that they
learn and conceptualize information. And I said, if I make
you a chart that shows where we're at and where
we want to be and the steps we're going to
take to get there, does that work for you? And
(07:21):
he's like, gold, do it. And I did it, and
as soon as he saw it on paper, he's like,
I got it. So you have to understand that first
of all, your team you're going to work together, but
you've got to get inside your partner's learning modality and
say this is how you can see it.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
I think it's really helpful advice because a lot of
people say this is how I want to do it.
But you're in a partnership, so you have to think about, well,
how's my spouse going to respond to that as well?
If you're single, in some ways it is easier because
you're not dealing with another person's spending or savings habits,
or their hang ups or you know, having to get
on the same page. So what was that process like
(08:03):
then for you guys of actually dialing down and getting
started and what were your what were your initial goals?
Because you had some debt, you had those two car
payments that you had in your life that you didn't
want to have anymore. So was that like the absolute
first thing you wanted to ditch or or where were you?
Where were you headed?
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Well, the first thing we did was track everywhere the
money was going for thirty days because we had we
had no clue, and as soon as we saw it
on paper, we realized that the number one money sucking
habit we had was going out to eat. Now, we
weren't going out to eat anymore than the average couple
does in the United States of America, but for us
on our income, that was too much. So we started
(08:43):
to set like mini goals. We're going out to eat
once a month instead of every week. Then you figure out,
if we're not going to go out to eat, what
are we going to do? So we started going on
picnics on Friday nights. We started figuring out that if
you're going to reach financial goals, especially in the low income,
you got to figure out those substitutions so that you
(09:05):
don't begin to feel like you're not having any fun
in your life. So what is a creative substitution we
can use for this, or for that or for the
other thing. So we started figuring out substitutions for we're
not going to do this, We're going to do that.
You know that old book eat this, not that, And
it was kind of like that, We're like, we're not
going to do this, we're going to do that. And
(09:26):
once we got those down, especially on paper, because I
am a visual learner, it has to be on paper
in front of me or I just don't get it
if I even if I hear it, I'm like, nope, nope,
got to be on paper. I got to see it.
Once I see it and it's in my brain, I'm like,
I am on it. And so we figured out that
and then we were like, we got to move because
(09:49):
RT was our next highest famite and he was like,
where are we going to move? I said, I don't know,
but someplace other than here. And it was really weird.
We went for a walk, believe it or not, in
the neighborhood where we were, and we walked down the
side street and we're like, we saw this cute little
one bedroom house and it looked empty. And Larry goes,
there's a little teeny tiny literally it was a three
(10:11):
by five card right near the mailbox. And I'm like, huh,
and Larry goes, I'll bet it's for rent. I'm like, seriously,
you see a house that kind of looks empty, you
see three by five card and you immediately go to
it's for rent.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Well, it was sounds like Larry's optimistic was like he
knew it.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
Yeah, And so we looked at the little card and
it said for rent and we call and it was
by Golly less rent than we were paying for our
two bedroom apartment and it was a one bedroom house,
and we're like, we can make this work. You got
to figure out what you're going to do to make
things work, because look, the status quo wasn't working for you, right,
So we had to figure out how we were going
to change the pendulum of the status quo and come
(10:47):
up with a new normal.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
So okay, A lot of people in the personal finance
space would say, yeah, yeah, yeah, you can cut some
of those costs and that's that's a good thing to do.
And yeah, rent is one of the biggest line items
in your buy so good on you, super smart, you know,
cut that, cut that back. But then the other side
of the equation, a lot of people would say, you
have to grow your income though, like you got to,
(11:09):
you gotta up your skills and work more hours. And
you uh, you know, you worked in radio like I did,
and you and I both talking about before we started
recording that you know, radio is not the most lucrative
industry to be in, especially today, So yeah, what was
And that's a whole part I think of why your
message resonates with so many people is like we did
this and we never made six figures. We weren't like crushing, crushing, crushing,
(11:33):
and this wasn't our massive goal. Why did that not
enter the equation more for y'all as you were kind
of starting to get on that road to financial progress.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
Well, so for one thing, for us, it was figuring
out what equilibrium looked like. So we had to like
basically stop the bleeding and figure out how we were
going to write size where we were at now with
how much we were spending. For us, it was all
about figure out how to live within the means that
you have now. Now, we eventually picked up a few
(12:04):
little side gigs and figured out how to bring in
a little extra money here and there. But for us
it was also quality of life. It was how much
time are we going to spend together? What is important
to us as far as the amount of time we're
able to spend together as a couple versus the sacrifice
so to speak, of living in a one bedroom house
(12:25):
for four years that we were renting. For us, that
sacrifice was worth it, And it's all about you got
to figure out what's most important to you and could
we have made more income? I guess you know. We
were young. We could have gone back to school. We
could have, but in our industry, in radio, it was
all about experience. And I could have applied at some
other stations and things like that, but I wouldn't have
(12:45):
made substantially more than I was already making. I would
have had to change career fields.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
So spending less just was felt more like, that's what
I want to do. Like I'm not interested in going
back to school, in finding a new career. I'm not
even interested in kind of applying other places. You liked
your life, and so the goal of earning a lot
more money just like wasn't That wasn't a catalyst for y'all.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
No, it was the fact that we were really happy
with where we were. Yeah, and for us, making money
was never the end goal. You know, personal happiness and satisfaction.
You know a whole lot of people who make a
whole lot of money who aren't happy, not for sure,
Like happiness doesn't come from money and the other here's
the other thing. This was the other catalyst, and this
(13:29):
was important. We created a set of written goals. And
I tell people all the time, people don't want to hear.
They want to hear about saving money but they don't
want to hear about goals. And I'm like, I have
sad but true news. These are these are interlinked. They
go together. And so having written goals, and we could
see ourselves making progress toward those goals consistently and at
(13:52):
times far more rapidly than we thought we were going
to make progress, and we're like, could we go back
to school? Yeah, we probably could, but what do we
really want to do that because we're still we're still
hitting those goals, and that was important to us to
enjoy our life while we're doing that.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
Okay, I think one important thing that we have to
know making what y'all were making, making what you say
on your site less than forty thousand dollars a year
average over your over your lifetime earnings. Essentially you and
Larry that where'd you live and does how much does
like cost of living? Because I'm guessing people living in
(14:28):
New York City or Los Angeles or Seattle right now
listening to this or like, come on, guys, that ain't
going to cut it for me. I'm sure you hear
that retort also from people you're talking to.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
We were living in the Midwest and housing in the
Midwest s far south of Chicago is pretty reasonable. So
we were really really fortunate to be living where we
were living. And you got to remember, when the story starts,
it was nineteen eighty eight, and so you know, making
what we're were making nineteen eighty eight, which was I
(15:03):
don't know, we were making probably a buck buck and
a half above minimum wage each in nineteen eighty eight. Yeah,
that was still a fairly low income. But I mean,
I get that there's a disparity there. I totally own that.
I understand that. And that's why we say we made
an average of forty thousand dollars a year. Over the
first twenty years that we were parents. We averaged I
(15:23):
averaged our income every year for that twenty years, and
it averaged under forty thousand dollars a year. So we
always say we made around forty thousand dollars a year.
And that's when we were we were parents, and we
were having more children and things like.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
That, So which I want to talk about in a
bit too, because not only it wasn't just the two
of you, at some point four kids come along. So
we'll get to that in just a minute. I'm curious too,
more about like the positive changes you were implementing, because
eventually you get to this point in your financial progress
and with some of those goals that you have. I
remember you talking about wanting to pay cash for a house,
(15:56):
and I would imagine most people listening would say, making
less than forty a year, making like a dollar twenty
five above minimum wage, buying a house with cash, there's
like something missing in that equation. I don't see how
that works out, but you made it work.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Yeah. Well, by the time that we paid cash for
the house, we were making more than a dollar twenty
five an hour over minimum wage. So yeah, so that's
you know, that is in the equation as well. That
forty thousand dollars is an average over twenty years, so
we were making about forty forty five thousand dollars a
year when we decided, you know what, we bought our
(16:32):
first home. We put twenty percent down. It was in
an estate, so it was really inexpensive, and we bought
what we could afford. We paid it off in five
years and we lived in another thirteen years. Well, two
bedroom house.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
When you say we bought what we could afford, yeap,
what do you mean by that? Because when you're talking
to a lender, they'll say, you can totally afford this
as long as you take out a thirty year mortgage
like you can, you can probably handle those monthly payments.
But you it sounds like your definition of afford was different.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
Yeah, we took what the bank said, the maximum they
said they would loan us, and we cut it by
about thirty five percent because I was like, I looked him.
We looked at each other and said, I wouldn't loan
us that kind of money.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Yes, because that sounds really wise. That sounds really wise, just.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
Being really aware of what your threshold is and sticking
to that threshold. But you know, we have kids right now.
Housing right now has gone a little crazy. Even in
the Midwest. It's it's it's tough to get a home,
and we have our oldest son and his wife are
looking to buy, and so we go through scenarios with thumb.
One of you could get a better, better paying job.
(17:46):
You could do that, you could double down on saving
that down payment, because the higher your down payment than
the more mortgage that you can afford. Because you know,
if you're looking at a fifty thousand dollars down payment,
versus is a twenty five thousand dollars down payment. That's
a huge difference. So for us, like living on low income,
(18:06):
we were constantly running scenarios. It's like, all right, what
happens if we do XYZ and we read and I
mean read every book I could find on the library
shelf on personal finance. I made copious notes. We tried
things out. A lot of the systems that we use
now we're born out of those first few years of
figuring out how to make it work. So we would
(18:30):
make specific goals. We use what we call a pie system.
You figure out you plan, So you figure out what
your goal is, and you create a plan. The plan
is six or seven or eight steps that you're willing
to take to reach that goal, let's say in thirty days.
We just went through this.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
In fact, it's like micro goals.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
It is that big goal, yeah, exactly, and then you
track what you do on those for thirty days. You
implement it, and then we evaluated every thirty days. It's
like what worked, what didn't work? And part of getting
discouraged just figuring out, all right, we didn't meet the goal.
Did we move the needle at all? We just created
a goal to lower our utility bill and so spoiler alert,
(19:10):
we didn't reach the goal. We lowered it, but not
as much as we wanted to. So we're looking at
that right now and evaluating saying, all right, what worked,
what didn't work? Do we want to just change the benchmark?
Is are we not going to be able to reach
that goal? Are we going to be able to move
the goal? You know? Do you need to make lengthen
the goal so you're saving less every month to get
toward that goal. But figure out what you can do,
(19:33):
because sitting around and thinking about what you can't control
is just, honestly, it's not going to help you.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Yeah, kind of spending your wheels waste your time if
you spend too much time in that domain. But I
see it all the time, and it's true that there
are certain things that yeah, hey, the housing market has
become more difficult to enter than it was in twenty eleven, right,
But it's also there are no time to that I'm
(20:00):
aware of, and so yeah, that kind of just feeling
bad about the way things are that's not really going
to get you where you want to go. So it
sounds like too Gamification was a part of this, right,
some trial and error and some So how do you
feel like did that create like excitement for you guys
towards reaching those goals and some stick toitiveness? What how
(20:22):
did you think about the like making a game out
of some of that financial progress process.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Oh, we're actually huge even to this day on gamification.
It's looking at what we did and what we can
change and what the new goal is. And I always
tell people, Look, you set a goal, and when you
reach the goal, you have some sort of mini celebration.
It does not have to be a celebration that costs
you a boatload of money, but it should be something
(20:48):
that ear marks the fact that you reach this milestone.
You need that, like you need that emotional release of yeah,
we did it, and then you move on to the
next goal. Life is never without goal. That's the other
thing too. I Mean people set goals and they're like, Okay,
I've reached it. I'm done. Life is one big goal.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
And many along the way. YEA, yeah, exactly, I've got
We've got more I want to get to with you, hope,
including raising four boys on a non significant salary, and
also kind of want to dig into some of the
ways you view frugality, So we'll get some questions on
that and more with Hopewear right after this. We're back
(21:35):
for the break, still talking with Hopewear, talking about achieving
financial freedom without making big bucks.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Hope.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
I'm curious. I was digging around on your YouTube channel
and loved so many of the videos and love just
the way you and Larry, which, by the way, I'm
sad Larry's not here next time. We'll have to get
him on at some point. But I had one video
where you talked about items that people buy that are
totally overrated, and maybe it's good to dig into some
of that stuff, like what kind of frugal cuts were
(22:04):
you making that other people, at least until you press them,
are unwilling to make.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
Oh behind store brand, which just boggles my mind. I mean,
I'm old enough to remember that years and years ago,
store brands they were kind of so so, but they've
made huge strides, And truthfully, it's been shown over and
over again that a lot of those store brands are
made on the very same equipment, the very same conveyor belt,
(22:29):
the very same factory. Everything. It's a different label on
the box, So try it. Like look it's forty percent
is significant savings when you're looking at the difference in
general between store brand and name brand, and that's a
heck of a savings to look at. One of the
things that we did was that I made I made
(22:51):
all of our bread from scratch, four boys at home.
Once a week we would have baking day. I don't
expect everybody to be able to do that, but I
was at home with the kids. One of the things.
And we talked about priorities as we had kids. One
of the things we prioritized was having one of us
at home with them. And we homeschooled, so it was
important that one of us be there to be the educator,
(23:14):
primary educator for the kids. And so we did give
up a lot of stuff and we spent Instead of
spending money, we spent time. So it was the idea
of making the bread once a week from scratch. And
here's one of the other things. And people will miss this,
but hear me carefully, no matter what income you are
living on, you need to figure out how you can
(23:36):
serve others because giving is so important. And if you
don't have a lot of money, you can give of
your time, you can give you your effort. There was
a single lady that live next door, and she would
wait every Tuesday to see I put all of a
sample of all the big goods I'd made that day
on a tray and the kids would take it over
to her. And her sister told me, she said, you've
(23:58):
no idea what that means to her. She won't eat
lunch and tell and tell. Her little tray arrives and
she sees what she has to pick from. Yeah, And
so finding a way to bless others will keep you motivated,
because there's nothing better than reminding yourself there are other
folks out there who are also struggling, and doing what
(24:19):
you can to help them is just so important. At
any level of income.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
That's it. I think that's a great point, especially just
from your mindset, because it's really easy to feel sorry
for yourself or to feel like you're not making progresses quickly,
and then you see other people who are in more
difficult circumstances, and then it can hopefully right size your gratitude.
You on that list of things that you tell people
to buy, you put like napkins and hair care on there.
(24:46):
I think some people might be like, why we shouldn't
I find napkins?
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Hope?
Speaker 1 (24:50):
That seems crazy, Like most people dunk on the lattes,
the avocado toast, but napkins. Like what am I supposed
to wrie my hands with?
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Well, you know, you have all old clothing that is
worn out. You cut it into squares. There you go,
and you can use it. And we're not saying you know,
and we tell people all the time, we're like, look,
we're just throwing spaghetti at the wall. Yeah, we give
you hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of tips. You pick
the ones that work for you. If you tell me
I'm going to buy napkins, I'm going to say, well
you go. If those napkins are your priority, you buy
those napkins.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
But for people who are struggling and feeling like why
can I use other than napkins, Well, you cut things
into squares and then you've got them neatly folded in
some sort of a container in new kitchen. You grab
one of those and you use it instead of a napkin.
Then you can wash it up when you're done, and
you can use it again.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
You're making me think of just how cars and homes
in the nineteen seventies are not the same as cars
and homes in twenty twenty five, right, yeah, absolutely. You
compare a Toyota Corola, my nineteen eighty nineteen eighty nine
Toyta Corolla, my first car, to a modern Toyta Corolla,
and they're completely different from like size and fanciness and
(25:56):
all that kind of stuff. And we just get used
to fancy your stuff, and I think, yeah, it's probably
good for us just from like, from like an innate
human perspective to challenge some of those assumptions. Do I
need something that fancy? But also it can help us
save money, right right?
Speaker 2 (26:13):
And we talked some about seeking the minimum. So can
you buy napkins? Well, of course you can buy napkins,
but is your minimum Maybe that you're going to use
those class squares instead, And that's an okay swap for you.
We talk about frugal swaps all the time. That's an
example of a frugal swap. I'm going to swap this.
I'm cool with using this square of an old teacher
(26:36):
that isn't going to fit anymore, has got holes in it.
I'm cool with using that to mop up the spill
rather than buy napkins. If that's not cool for you,
figure out other frugal swaps that do work.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
You also talked about and you mentioned earlier that, oh,
I've read most of those personal finance books in the library,
And you talked about being a perpetual learner. You call
yourself a student of saving money, so you're teaching, but
you're also a student. How is that mindset been helpful
for you?
Speaker 2 (27:02):
I don't think I ever want to get to a
point where I think I've arrived. Yeah, that's just a
terrible place to be in life, because nobody knows it all.
And there are so many things that I can still learn,
even after over thirty five years of frugality, finding new ways,
different ways to do things. You know what the truth
is like things that are available in twenty twenty five
(27:22):
are different than the things that we're available as far
as frugality is concerned in nineteen eighty eight. And there
are new things that come out every day, and I'm like, oh, well,
that seems like that's a frugal thing. And so being
willing to flex and being willing to change, oh my word,
people have to be willing to change the behavior to
(27:43):
get the desired result.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
Where do you find when you're talking to people who
follow your advice that they're typically there's like a big
leak that they haven't recognized. Where are the number ones?
Is it the grocery store? Is it the is it
overspending on vacations?
Speaker 2 (28:01):
Like?
Speaker 1 (28:02):
Where are people who really do need to they're not
making six figures and they really do need to buckle down.
Where are those first places that they should look?
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Okay, two different places. One place is your grocery budget.
People don't understand how to go to the grocery store.
Shop with a list, shop buy those loss leaders. Lost
leaders are those items on the front page of the
flyer that they've made an ultra low price and you
go in and you plan. Let's say say Cauliflowers is
(28:31):
on sale, it's a lost leader. It's ninety nine cents
for a whole head of cauliflower, which would be huge,
that would be a really great deal. I'm going to
go in, I'm going to buy three of those heads
of cauliflower. I'm going to spend three bucks, and I'm
going to plan most of my meals that week around cauliflower.
When you do that, when you're consistently menu planning around
(28:52):
items that you got on sale or on clearance or
on markdown, your grocery budget is going to drop. You
also need to analyze your grocery receipts. What are you
spending your money on? Is fifty percent of your bill meet? Well,
if your carnivore, it probably is. It probably is. If
you're keto, it's going to be a lot of meat.
(29:12):
But what are those other areas you're spending money on
at the grocery store that you could cut back on.
For us, we're plant based, so it's easy for me
to say cut out meat because we don't need it,
you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
But I'm just covering my years and saying la la
la la la when you say that, because I don't want.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
To hear it. That's okay, because there are other areas
that you're dropping money on at the grocery store that
you could cut back on. It. It's all figuring out
where those leaks are. But the other thing that people
need to look at is they need to look at
impulse spending. Look, people spend money because they get depressed
because they don't have enough money, so they spend more
(29:47):
money because they're depressed about not having enough money. Do
you see what I'm saying. It's a weird vicious circle.
And when you stop, and this is one of the
things we tell people, you need to stop and analyze
that emotion. People are afraid of their emotions surrounding money.
They're afraid to acknowledge I feel powerless, I feel stuck.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
And because of that, the emotion is driving, yeah, purchasing
decisions and driving their financial life into a ditch continually.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Absolutely. But when they take a minute and they name it,
just sit and take a deep breath, put your feet
on the floor so you're grounded, and say, what am
I feeling right now?
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (30:21):
Why am I wanting to hit that big red by button?
Because clearly I don't need a thousand napkins, or maybe
you do. But you know what I'm saying, what is
it that's in your cart that you're like, I'm going
to push that button. I'm gonna push it now because
I am feeling what When you name it, it makes
it powerless? Yeah, and you're able to say, all right,
what can I do? Instead of I'm feeling sad or
(30:44):
I'm feeling deprived? What can I do? Instead that's going
to feel that emotional void for me without spending money.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
Yeah, so maybe it's a good idea to have like
a list of a few activities where it's like I'm
feeling this way, or I'm going for a walk, I'm
feeling this way. I'm gonna call my friend, right, have
maybe a couple things that you can do instead that
are also going to feel soothing, instead of doing the
thing that you've been doing for a long time that
feels soothing. But my goodness, it's ended you. It's put
you in a bad place. I'm curious about the lost
(31:12):
leaders though, going back to that when you walk into
the grocery, there's a reason the loss leaders exist, right,
So they're hoping you're going to come in for the
cauliflower and then stick around for the bags of chips
and they cost five dollars or something like that. Absolutely,
So how do you kind of get around that that
(31:32):
conundrum where the grocery stores are they want to get
you through those middle aisles of all the prepackaged foods.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
Yeah, and part of it is understanding marketing principles. So
I have a degree in radio and television, but in
getting that degree, I took a marketing class and in
that class, the prof was amazing. He went through all
of these ways that stores get you to spend money.
And it's been almost forty years and I still use
those same principles because the marketing tactics are exactly the same. Yeah,
(32:00):
so they're going to put stuff next to that cauliflower
that like.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
The physics class, which I haven't used since you know.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
Yes, right, that's so true. And so they're going to
put items next to that cauliflower that kind of go
with cauliflower, but their full price. It is called it's
called cross selling. They do it all the time. And
you're going to look at that and they're going to
convince you. Let's see, what would they put with cauliflower.
I don't know, hot sauce, because you're going to make
buffalo wings or something out of the cauliflower. So they're
(32:26):
going to put some other things that go with it
to convince you this is what you want to make
with your cauliflower. But you're paying full price for everything
that's sitting next to that cauliflower. They only go on
sale on that display is the cauliflower. So recognizing what
they are doing to try to get you to spend
money and then figuring out your tactics to avoid it.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
So are you looking at the ads ahead of time
and you're saying, here's what's on sale. You're making a
list based on the flyers before you actually go into
the store, and then you're sticking to it, or what
would cause you hope to not stick to your list
and buy something it wasn't on it.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
The only time I really don't stick to the list
is if I find something that's on markedown. Okay, but
here's how I deal with that. This is something that
we've done for years and it works super duper well
to be able to afford to buy something you find
on the clearance shelf or something in the marked down
ben that you're like, oh my gosh, this is a
fantastic deal. But if I buy five of these, it's
(33:20):
going to blow my grocery budget out. We do something
called the one fifths method. We take our entire grocery
budget for the month, we divide it into fifths one
fifth of that. So if you have a five hundred
dollars grocery budget, one fifth is one hundred bucks. That
one hundred dollars is the stock up money for the
whole month. So if we find a fantastic deal, we
can spend out of that one hundred dollars pool of
(33:41):
cash the other four fifths, which would be four hundred
dollars and a five hundred dollars grocery budget that's divided
into fourth so that that's your weekly grocery budget. Then okay,
and you can stock up and not blow your grocery
budget smitherings or wind up with twenty bucks for the
last ten days of the month.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
I like that it gives you a little bit to
that flexibility to pounds, because it's really tough to say,
that's such a good deal, and I would buy the
from In my case, because I'm a meat eater, I
would buy the pork butt that's on sale for a
dollar fifty a pound. But I no, no, it's not
on the list, you know, but it would. It would
bum me out because I'm like, that's a great deal.
It's gonna be like three dollars a pound next week.
(34:20):
So yeah, I like that you offer people a little
bit of that flexibility, or you create some flexibility in
your grocery budget that way. Let's talk about kids. You've
got four not just children, but boys who I've only
got one boy and two girls, and he's young, so
I'm like not sure at some point to think he's
gonna eat me out of house at home, but we're
not quite there yet. What did their childhood look like
(34:41):
and were they lusting after the Nikes or brand name
T shirts or like, I just remember when I was
a kid, and those are the things that I wanted.
I pestered my parents for. I still remember Jinko jeans,
I'm Gonna date myself and Tommy Hill Figure T shirts.
So it's amazing that those were even popular, but that
(35:03):
when you look back style man, But yeah, what was
that like? And being an incredibly intentional, frugal household but
having boys who wanted to fit in and be cool.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
Well, one of the things we did was we never
tell them no, we can't afford that.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
Mm.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
That's like you just what we did when we said, well,
let's put this on the list. There was a list
of things that we wanted. There's always a want list,
and then you start doing market research and figuring out
to set ever go on sale? When does it go
on sale? What's the second hand market like for this item?
Can I get it secondhand and still be happy with it?
(35:41):
And we would explain to them, like, there's a time frame.
You have a list of once, but you have to
have delayed gratification in those ones. And it's okay to
say I want the Tommy Hill figure the wait, I
want that clothing, but you might have to bide your
time and wait until that shop has a sale at
say thirty or fifty percent off, or you might have
(36:02):
to buy that long slave shirt buy it off season. Yeah,
because then when all the spring and summer stuff is
coming in, they're going to be selling that long slave
shirt for sixty seventy percent off because they wanted off
their shelves. It's all timing, and it's all figuring out
how to get what you want at a price you're
willing to pay.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
Was it ever for your boys? Was there the opportunity
to earn money so that they could save towards a goal.
If you're like, hey, that that thing you want to
purchase was pretty expensive, and it's not that we can't
afford it, but that's not a priority right now, and
if you really want that. That was one of the
things my parents said was like, we will pay this
(36:38):
much for your shoes. If you want to fancy Scottie
Pippen shoes, which is what I wanted, you have to
find a way, whether it's like birthday money stuff like that,
like you've got to bring a bunch to the table,
or you can live within the budget that we've set. Like,
were you having those kind of conversations, Oh?
Speaker 2 (36:54):
Absolutely so. One of the things we did with our
kids is when they turned thirteen, between the ages of five,
thirteen and sixteen, we gave them allowance from age five
to when they turned thirteen, and we had them buy
items they wanted out of that allowance. One of the
things we did was they would get five bucks and
want to go to Dollar Tree and buy five really
(37:14):
inexpensive plastic toys that were going to break in like
five minutes, and we never stopped them. We said, you
know what, and we would tell them, we feel like
that's not you know, you want to save up till
you get ten or fifteen dollars and get the quality item.
But if they wanted to spend their five dollars, they
could do it however they wanted to. But when that
item broke, we did not replace it. We told them
(37:36):
how sad we were for them that what they bought
for their five dollars broke and let's figure out a
new goal now to save toward the fifteen dollars item
that maybe is going to last a little longer. They
learned so much from that at the age of six
or seven that they wouldn't have learned had we gone
out and spent the five bucks which we could have
afforded to replace that small item from dollar Tree. But
(37:58):
the other thing we did was when they turned thirteen,
we told them, we said, we're not going to pay
you allowance anymore. Instead, we're going to invest in your
goals and your hopes and your dreams. You give us
a list of items that you are saving for. You
find a way to earn money from someone besides us
for half of the cost of that item, and we're
going to kick in the other half. And we bought
(38:21):
it cost us so much more than that allowance to
but it was worth every penny because they would start
asking around for friends, do you need your lawn mode,
do you need a babysitting, all kinds of pet sitting.
They did all kinds of stuff to earn money. And
as they started accruing money, we would say, well, let's
do some market research. Let's figure out what that item is,
(38:42):
figure out exactly what make, what model you want, how
much it's going to cost. Can you find it on
the used market? And so it was like a little
mini course in how to figure out what you want
to purchase and be happy when you get done that
you got what you wanted. But they had to give
us the list ahead of time because we had to
save up our half. We had a couple of boys
that didn't take advantage of it, and oh boy, we
(39:04):
had a couple of boys that they'd give us a
list of six things and because they knew when they
turned sixteen the deal was off because at sixteen they
got a part time job and they needed to buy
their own things. And my husband was like, I don't know.
I don't think he's going to say for all six
of these things. And I said, I think we ought
to plan for it.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
And I was right, well, that's interesting how different personalities,
right that some kids are like go getters. My oldest
child is she would totally take full advantage of that
and she get some babysitting gigs. My middle child would
walk into the class like, she's just not as interested
and it just doesn't quite have the same understanding of money.
So they kind of come pre made a little differently.
(39:46):
So I was going to say, you're boys, but really
they're grown at this point. You've had you had Daniel
on your channel recently to talk about whether or not
he follows the advice that you have given over many,
many years. So what yeah, what are what's their relationship like?
And I know it's going to be different because they're
different individuals, but what's their relationship like with money?
Speaker 2 (40:07):
It's so interesting to us because all four of them
are frugal in their own way, but I see all
of them prioritize different things. For my oldest son and
his wife, it's travel man. They want experiences, so they
set more of their income aside for just being able
to go out and do things than any of the
(40:28):
other three combined. Yeah, and that's okay because that's their priority.
But they're still hitting financial goals. They're the ones that
are looking for a house, so they cut back just
a little bit on experiences right now. But I've seen
all four of them figure out how to balance what
they want with what they need with their income level,
(40:49):
and it's been it's been really fun and really gratifying
to watch them as grown adults.
Speaker 1 (40:54):
That's cool. I can tell you guys have such a
great family relationship and that they trust you, and then
they've listened to you throughout the years and they have
their own take, but they're also they didn't abandon the
principles that you taught, so you should be proud of that.
Or We've got a few more questions I want to
get to Hope with you, including well, what about building
(41:15):
wealth as a frugal person? How important is that? So
we'll get to that, and then some random questions too.
You guys are e bike writers, which I'm a fan of,
so we'll get to that more in just a second.
With Hope, we're back still talking with Hope. We're talking
about achieving financial freedom with out making a ton of money. Hope.
(41:39):
One of the things that we haven't talked about that
I'm really, really really curious to hear your take on
is building wealth, because those are different sides of the coin,
right there is you guys incredible at being frugal, very
good savers. What's your take on building wealth and investing
for the future? And how do you prioritize that in
your life.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
Okay, first start young. This is a mistake that we
honestly made, and we're really open about this on our
YouTube channel. Is the fact that we really did not
start investing investing for retirement until Larry was in his
mid forties, and that was a huge mistake. We should
prioritize that when we were both in our twenties and
thirties rather than waiting that long. Here's what happens when
(42:21):
you're struggling to save money and you do have a
low income. You look at everything. Let's say, you look
at things like a pie chart, right, so so much
is going for food, so much is going for clothing, shelter, transportation,
all that, and you start looking at those slivers that
are left over and you think, oh, my lord, that's
a small sliver leftover for investing for the future, for
(42:42):
saving for future goals. And it can be really debilitating.
So one of the things that I did was I
created a spreadsheet which was prioritized, because everything in my
life is prioritized, and it listed the most important things.
But the other thing was it assigned a time value
to it. How many years out are we looking for
(43:03):
this goal, and for that goal and the other goal,
and it became a lot easier for me to look
at that sliver that was left over and assign it
to those specific goals, realizing that we're looking some of
the goals like retirement. When I first figured out what
Larry needed for retirement, I thought it was going to
pass out and I said, Babe, I think we're going
(43:23):
to work for I don't know forever. Well we didn't.
He retired two years ago, so you know, we managed
to reach that goal, but it was overwhelming. And when
a goal is overwhelming, you have to break it down
to smaller increments. You have to figure out what am
I looking at on a yearly basis, a monthly basis,
a weekly basis. When you do that math, we're so
(43:45):
big on that. Do the math. Do the math. Do
the math.
Speaker 1 (43:47):
Well, not having a home or a car payment should
help a lot, like you're going to have lower expenses
in retirement. So I think sometimes people you're right, get
started early, but sometimes people also overestimate. We've seen the
commercials where it's like you need two point four million
dollars in your retirement accounts in order to have a
decent living and I think a lot of people like
have bought into that and that Yeah it might be nice,
(44:09):
but you don't need.
Speaker 2 (44:10):
It, you know. And I think, and you mentioned Dott,
that was one thing that after we paid those two
cars off, we avoided debt like the plague.
Speaker 1 (44:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (44:18):
Now, we did take out a mortgage on our first house,
which we paid for in five years. We were both working.
We made double payments and we got that thing out
of there because we knew moving forward, the most important
asset we had was our ability to live lean because
we didn't owe anybody any money.
Speaker 1 (44:32):
Yeah, no, that's huge. I think the a casual relationship
with with debt that people have, it's like I'll hear
people go like, yeah, I got a couple grant in
credit card debt, like I'm doing better than everybody else
because look at that, it's not much. And I'm like, no,
like zero is always the answer. E bikes. Yes, I'm
a huge e bike rider. It's sitting right outside of
(44:53):
my office right now. I took my son to school
on it this morning. You y'all ride right and Larry
he got an accident And how big of how important
are e bikes do you think to saving money?
Speaker 2 (45:04):
Oh gosh, he has well. First, when I met him,
he was a long distance bike rider, so he would
ride fifty sixty miles at a stretch. He has always
loved bike riding, so as he got older it was
a little more difficult to pedal and things like that.
So he got an e bike and he wrote it
for thousands. In fact, he still does. He rides his
(45:25):
e bike every single day that he can. But yeah,
so he had an accident a couple of years ago
on his e bike. It was a week before our
oldest son's wedding, so that was an interesting experience. He
was in the hospital for five days and the kids
kept saying, should we move the date back, and I said, no,
your father's gonna be there, And so he was there.
(45:45):
He walked down the aisle with a cane because he
refused to use a walker. He was like, I'm using
a cane. It looks I'm not your right, babe. That
looks much less conspicuous than a walker. And yeah, he
had a traumatic brain injury, but he's all healed now
and back on the bike, and it's just it's super
important to him. He used to ride it back and
(46:07):
forth when he worked. He worked downtown, which was seven
and a half miles each direction from our house. He
would ride it back and forth to work all the
time and good weather.
Speaker 1 (46:16):
Yeah, almost exactly was my bike commute for a long time,
and it was. It is amazing. It did. Not only
did it save me money, but it made me really happy.
And there's a lot to be said for that. My
wife would know if I drove the car that day
because I'd come home and I just wasn't as joyful,
you know, there wasn't as much big of a smile
on my face because there's something about the bike ride
(46:37):
to and from that just like sparks joy in my life.
And yeah, I would love to see more people get
on that, I think, especially if you live and work
fairly close together and you can get saddle bags on
your bike, go grocery shopping with your bike, that's that
kind of stuff, take your kids to school on the bike.
That really adds up in saving miles and wear and
(46:58):
tear on your car. But it and for some people
it can even mean potentially ditching a car, which is
which is huge savings. Have you have you did you
guys ever have like one car family or anything like that.
Speaker 2 (47:09):
We did when when our oldest son was born, we
realized we could not afford two cars, and we went
down to one car for about I don't think it
was three or four years. Okay, by the time we
bought a second car, we had two kids, and we're like,
I feel like, maybe we need a second car now.
And then by at that point we had saved out
the money and we could afford to buy a second.
Speaker 1 (47:25):
Car, even doing it for just a limited time. Yeah,
like two, three years, the amount of money you can
save on insurance, and then like, yeah, you can you
can buy another car down the road. That's that's what
we did. We had one car for a while and
then added a second one because we needed one at
that point in time. But avoiding it for a little
while can kind of juice your ability to fund other
financial goals. All right, I'm curious too about your creation
(47:47):
of YouTube videos and you and Larry like you've been
doing it for how long now? How big is this
operation gotten? Because it sure seems like you had a
lot of subscribers. You're reaching a lot of people.
Speaker 2 (47:59):
So we've been doing YouTube regularly for about five years.
And remember I worked in radio, Larry worked in television,
so YouTube was a good fit for us. We knew
that right off the bat. What we didn't know is
how many people would be really interested in ways to
save money. Because the channel grew like exponentially the minute
we started putting videos up. We have two hundred sixteen
(48:20):
thousand subscribers, amazing, and we get upwards of four hundred,
four hundred and fifty thousand views a month. And it's
been fun. That's the thing. Like, I mean, we talked
about doing something just sparks joy for you, for us,
this is just fun to share with folks a little
piece of life with us and talk about how you
(48:41):
can spend less and save more and reach your great
big financial goals. We say, grab those great big financial
goals with both hands and refuse to let go. Because
that's what we did. We were like, if somebody had
said you can't do that in your income, which some
people did, we were like, really watch us, because we
were we were a team, and we're like, well, so
we're formidable together, we're gonna do this thing. And we
(49:02):
refuse to take no for an answer. And when we
reached a roadblock, we were like all right, we're either
going to go through it, we're going to go around it,
but one of the two things is going to happen.
Speaker 1 (49:11):
Okay, I Hope. This has been such a fun conversation.
I've really really enjoyed it. Where can how do money
listeners go to find out more about you and what
you're up to?
Speaker 2 (49:20):
All right, you can find me at my website under
the Median dot com. Oh, we named it that because
we raised the kids debt free on an income which
is consistently under the US National median income as where
under the median comes from. So under the Median dot com.
And we're on YouTube at under the Median.
Speaker 1 (49:37):
Wonderful, Hope, Thank you so much for your time. I
really enjoyed this.
Speaker 2 (49:40):
Thanks out a blast.
Speaker 1 (49:42):
Okay, what's not to like or really love about Hope?
What an inspiring person and her content that she creates
with her husband Larry is totally worth checking out over
at YouTube. We'll put links to her channel in the
show notes. I think I should offer a big takeaway.
I've got two things I really feel compelled to share
(50:05):
after speaking with Hope today. And I think just the
fact that she's proving something that most people would say
is impossible, that is possible to live well on less
than forty thousand dollars, to pay off a home in
five years, to buy the next home with cash, to
(50:25):
pay for cars with cash. I mean, all that kind
of stuff. People would say, no, way, not possible, and
she's like, I'm just going to do it, and then like, okay,
tell me it can't be done once I've done it.
And one of the things she said at the beginning
was that so many people feel a lack of agency,
like a lack of the fact that they're kind of
in control of their own story, and that leads to
(50:46):
a lot of the struggles saying encounter because it's really
easy to point fingers and it's really easy to feel
like you're riding not in the driver's seat, but in
the passenger seat of your own life. And so there's
like a mindset shift that needs to happen in order
to make this possible. And if you think it can't
(51:08):
be done, it's much easier for it to not actually happen.
But if you believe that it can and you're working
actively towards that end goal, you can do it. I
think the other thing that she said that really resonated
with me was when she talked about creative substitution, and
I think that really does prevent a deprivation mindset, because yes,
(51:28):
like that perpetual push toward frugality, it can feel like
a long slog and it can start to feel like
I'm not living the life of my dreams because gosh,
I'm cutting back in this area, in this area, in
this area. And if you can do some creative substitution,
not just at the grocery store, but when it comes
to the activities you participate in, Like on date night
(51:50):
last night, my wife and I went for a six
mile walk like a hike together. It was like one
of the best We thoroughly enjoyed it. It was lovely outside.
What is that that you can do a creative substitution
where it's like, well, normally we go to our favorite
restaurant and we get nice cocktails and a great meal,
and that's like fine and dandy and lovely on occasion.
(52:11):
But if you really want to make the progress that
you want to see in your financial goals, especially if
you're making less money, I think it is going to
take some creative substitution and that is going to allow
you to not feel as down about the things that
you're giving up because you're doing something else instead of
just giving up, instead of just cutting, you're finding something
(52:34):
else to replace it with. That is cost less money,
but it still brings joy. And don't forget to write
those goals down. I think that's really important. Something dreamed
up in your head like yeah, we could do that,
versus something that's actually written down and spoken out loud,
it can make a big difference in your ability to
achieve it. So big thanks to Hope for joining me today.
I hope you enjoyed this conversation and hope to see
(52:55):
you back here on Friday for a nice little Friday
Flight episode with me and Matt. But that's gonna do
it for this one. Until next time, Best Friend Out,
Welcome to Hot to Money. I'm Joel, and today we're
talking financial freedom on less than forty thousand with Hopeware.
(00:26):
All right, do you want to live joyfully and abundantly
on a shoestring budget? Is it even possible? Or is
that something from a buy on era with headlines shouting
that million dollars isn't what it used to be and
folks making three hundred thousand dollars living paycheck to paycheck
as they exist far above their means. Achieving financial independence
(00:46):
on a forty thousand dollars salary kind of sounds like
a pipe dream, right, But my guest today is proof
that it's possible, and that you can have a good
time along the way too. You don't have to like
have no fun. So Hopeware runs the site in the
YouTube channel under the median along with her husband Larry.
They seek to instruct and inspire others to spend less,
(01:08):
to save more, and to live joyfully on a mid
five figure income. So, Hope, I am so excited to
have you on the show today. Thank you for joining me.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Thanks for asking me to join you. I'm excited to
be here.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Okay, first question, and I'm especially curious to hear your
answer to this, because we Matt and I like to
drink craft beer, nice craft beer. On occasion, you and
I emailed and you had just gone to New Glaris Brewing.
Absolutely splurg's on some delicious beers there. But also, when
you're trying to pinch pennies on a small salary, what
is your craft beer equivalent? What's your splurge?
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Okay, so I will say that our splurge was that
five day vacation to New Glaris, Wisconsin. We took all
four of our kids their families with us, and we
had a blast. And I think the thing is, we
figured out about three years ago we wanted to prioritize
that my favorite word in the whole wide world, prioritized.
(02:01):
We wanted to prioritize that. So we figured out, how
much money do we need to set aside every single month?
You know, what's the goal? What is the budget? And
we set that a long time ago, and we joyfully
spent every single penny of it.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
I love that you said prioritized and then joyfully spent,
because I think those two things go hand in hand.
Why is prioritized your favorite word in.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
The world, Because that is the main thing that people
need to understand. People put frugality in this box that
says frugal is equal to deprivation. Those two words are
not synonymous.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
For us.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Frugality is about really figuring out how to spend your
dollars on the things that matter most. So you're going
to spend a little less on things that aren't as
important to you, so that when you have the opportunity
to take a glorious five or six day vacation with
your family to Wisconsin, you have figured out ahead of
time you're going to do it. You've prioritized that, and
you're able to do it knowing the money is there
(02:58):
and you've planned for it and you're going to do it.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Is that a mindset shift or an action shift? Right? So,
because you're right, I think a lot of people there's
this mental hang up. They hear the word frugality, they
shut down. You're trying to ruin my life. You're trying
to prevent me from doing the things that I enjoy
that I want. So why have those why have those
words become synonymous? And what does it take to kind
(03:21):
of unlink that?
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Well? I think people people give up hope. So this
is The one thing that we have discovered in all
the years of running under the Median is that people
feel stuck, genuinely stuck. They have convinced themselves this is
the way my life is. It doesn't matter what I do,
nothing's going to change. So you have to realize that
(03:44):
the change starts with you. And here's the number one thing.
It starts with people figuring out where their money's going
in the first place. The number one mistake we see
people make is that they estimate, well, how much you
spend it on groceries, Well, I think I'm spending five
hundred dollars month, but if they track it in reality,
they're spending six fifty in a heartbeat, if not more
(04:05):
than that.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
They're the studies about how much people spend on subscriptions
versus how much they think they spend on subscriptions, and
people are wildly inaccurate in their estimations.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
You know, I just read a study. And that's one
of the things that we do is we read all
the time about saving money because it's like our passion
to figure this thing out. And there was just recently
a study done that said like forty percent of Americans
can't list all of their monthly subscriptions. They don't know
what they're even paying for.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
I believe it. I believe it. Okay, I want to
go back in your story just a little bit, and
then we'll kind of come back around to this. But
nineteen eighty eight, take me back in time when you
and Larry got married, and I even dug in a
little bit about your kind of like dating and getting
to know each other story, which is fascinating if other
people want to go down that rabbit hole, it's an
interesting one. But things weren't looking great financially when you
(04:54):
two tied the knot what was going on financially for
you guys at that time.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
So we get married and we we have had zero
conversations about money, which seems really odd that we spent
a lot of time dating and we never brought up, well,
how are we actually going to make ends meet? And
one should talk about those things before one gets married.
So spoiler alert, if you're dating somebody, you should probably
talk about those things before you decided to tie the knot.
(05:19):
We didn't, and we were living in an apartment which
was really too much rent for our income level, but
we didn't know it because we weren't tracking anything. Two
months after we get married, I open the bank statement.
It takes twenty five bucks to keep the account open,
and we've got like thirty two fifty in there. So
(05:39):
basically we got seven dollars and fifty cents. And I
called Larry and I said, do you have any money?
He goes, oh, yeah, I got I got twenty bucks
on my wall. And I'm like, great, we now have
a twenty seven to fifty until fay Day. And I said, look,
we are clearly because we got money for wedding gifts, right,
and it took us two months to go through that cash.
I said, I think we have a serious problem. And
(06:02):
we were paying on two cars. We didn't have credit
card debt, so that was huge. And I told him,
I said, I think that if we don't do something
really quickly, we're going to go down the rabbit hole
of credit card debt. In order to just survive from
one month to the next, we got to figure out
how to live within our means, because right now this
is our means. We got to figure out where the
money's going.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
So were you That was the catalyst. It's seen the
bank account with almost nothing in it was it hard
to get on the same page to and you kind
of had that, you had this realization that things needed
to change. Was it hard to convince area or was
like no, no, no, we got to get we got to
go after this together. Well.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
One of the things that was interesting because I told him,
I said, so, so my main goal is the next
time that we replace a car, we pay cash for
a car. And he said, you are crazy, Nobody does that.
I'm like, well, really, so we're going to be the
first then, because we're going to do this. And the
thing that I realized was that I am like this
visionary that says, oh, this is the goal, we're going
(07:01):
to go for it, and he is the concrete sequential.
You have to understand your partner's method of learning. It's
not even their love language. It's the way that they
learn and conceptualize information. And I said, if I make
you a chart that shows where we're at and where
we want to be and the steps we're going to
take to get there, does that work for you? And
(07:21):
he's like, gold, do it. And I did it, and
as soon as he saw it on paper, he's like,
I got it. So you have to understand that first
of all, your team you're going to work together, but
you've got to get inside your partner's learning modality and
say this is how you can see it.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
I think it's really helpful advice because a lot of
people say this is how I want to do it.
But you're in a partnership, so you have to think about, well,
how's my spouse going to respond to that as well?
If you're single, in some ways it is easier because
you're not dealing with another person's spending or savings habits,
or their hang ups or you know, having to get
on the same page. So what was that process like
(08:03):
then for you guys of actually dialing down and getting
started and what were your what were your initial goals?
Because you had some debt, you had those two car
payments that you had in your life that you didn't
want to have anymore. So was that like the absolute
first thing you wanted to ditch or or where were you?
Where were you headed?
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Well, the first thing we did was track everywhere the
money was going for thirty days because we had we
had no clue, and as soon as we saw it
on paper, we realized that the number one money sucking
habit we had was going out to eat. Now, we
weren't going out to eat anymore than the average couple
does in the United States of America, but for us
on our income, that was too much. So we started
(08:43):
to set like mini goals. We're going out to eat
once a month instead of every week. Then you figure out,
if we're not going to go out to eat, what
are we going to do? So we started going on
picnics on Friday nights. We started figuring out that if
you're going to reach financial goals, especially in the low income,
you got to figure out those substitutions so that you
(09:05):
don't begin to feel like you're not having any fun
in your life. So what is a creative substitution we
can use for this, or for that or for the
other thing. So we started figuring out substitutions for we're
not going to do this, We're going to do that.
You know that old book eat this, not that, And
it was kind of like that, We're like, we're not
going to do this, we're going to do that. And
(09:26):
once we got those down, especially on paper, because I
am a visual learner, it has to be on paper
in front of me or I just don't get it
if I even if I hear it, I'm like, nope, nope,
got to be on paper. I got to see it.
Once I see it and it's in my brain, I'm like,
I am on it. And so we figured out that
and then we were like, we got to move because
(09:49):
RT was our next highest famite and he was like,
where are we going to move? I said, I don't know,
but someplace other than here. And it was really weird.
We went for a walk, believe it or not, in
the neighborhood where we were, and we walked down the
side street and we're like, we saw this cute little
one bedroom house and it looked empty. And Larry goes,
there's a little teeny tiny literally it was a three
(10:11):
by five card right near the mailbox. And I'm like, huh,
and Larry goes, I'll bet it's for rent. I'm like, seriously,
you see a house that kind of looks empty, you
see three by five card and you immediately go to
it's for rent.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Well, it was sounds like Larry's optimistic was like he
knew it.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
Yeah, And so we looked at the little card and
it said for rent and we call and it was
by Golly less rent than we were paying for our
two bedroom apartment and it was a one bedroom house,
and we're like, we can make this work. You got
to figure out what you're going to do to make
things work, because look, the status quo wasn't working for you, right,
So we had to figure out how we were going
to change the pendulum of the status quo and come
(10:47):
up with a new normal.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
So okay, A lot of people in the personal finance
space would say, yeah, yeah, yeah, you can cut some
of those costs and that's that's a good thing to do.
And yeah, rent is one of the biggest line items
in your buy so good on you, super smart, you know,
cut that, cut that back. But then the other side
of the equation, a lot of people would say, you
have to grow your income though, like you got to,
(11:09):
you gotta up your skills and work more hours. And
you uh, you know, you worked in radio like I did,
and you and I both talking about before we started
recording that you know, radio is not the most lucrative
industry to be in, especially today, So yeah, what was
And that's a whole part I think of why your
message resonates with so many people is like we did
this and we never made six figures. We weren't like crushing, crushing, crushing,
(11:33):
and this wasn't our massive goal. Why did that not
enter the equation more for y'all as you were kind
of starting to get on that road to financial progress.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
Well, so for one thing, for us, it was figuring
out what equilibrium looked like. So we had to like
basically stop the bleeding and figure out how we were
going to write size where we were at now with
how much we were spending. For us, it was all
about figure out how to live within the means that
you have now. Now, we eventually picked up a few
(12:04):
little side gigs and figured out how to bring in
a little extra money here and there. But for us
it was also quality of life. It was how much
time are we going to spend together? What is important
to us as far as the amount of time we're
able to spend together as a couple versus the sacrifice
so to speak, of living in a one bedroom house
(12:25):
for four years that we were renting. For us, that
sacrifice was worth it, And it's all about you got
to figure out what's most important to you and could
we have made more income? I guess you know. We
were young. We could have gone back to school. We
could have, but in our industry, in radio, it was
all about experience. And I could have applied at some
other stations and things like that, but I wouldn't have
(12:45):
made substantially more than I was already making. I would
have had to change career fields.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
So spending less just was felt more like, that's what
I want to do. Like I'm not interested in going
back to school, in finding a new career. I'm not
even interested in kind of applying other places. You liked
your life, and so the goal of earning a lot
more money just like wasn't That wasn't a catalyst for y'all.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
No, it was the fact that we were really happy
with where we were. Yeah, and for us, making money
was never the end goal. You know, personal happiness and satisfaction.
You know a whole lot of people who make a
whole lot of money who aren't happy, not for sure,
Like happiness doesn't come from money and the other here's
the other thing. This was the other catalyst, and this
(13:29):
was important. We created a set of written goals. And
I tell people all the time, people don't want to hear.
They want to hear about saving money but they don't
want to hear about goals. And I'm like, I have
sad but true news. These are these are interlinked. They
go together. And so having written goals, and we could
see ourselves making progress toward those goals consistently and at
(13:52):
times far more rapidly than we thought we were going
to make progress, and we're like, could we go back
to school? Yeah, we probably could, but what do we
really want to do that because we're still we're still
hitting those goals, and that was important to us to
enjoy our life while we're doing that.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
Okay, I think one important thing that we have to
know making what y'all were making, making what you say
on your site less than forty thousand dollars a year
average over your over your lifetime earnings. Essentially you and
Larry that where'd you live and does how much does
like cost of living? Because I'm guessing people living in
(14:28):
New York City or Los Angeles or Seattle right now
listening to this or like, come on, guys, that ain't
going to cut it for me. I'm sure you hear
that retort also from people you're talking to.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
We were living in the Midwest and housing in the
Midwest s far south of Chicago is pretty reasonable. So
we were really really fortunate to be living where we
were living. And you got to remember, when the story starts,
it was nineteen eighty eight, and so you know, making
what we're were making nineteen eighty eight, which was I
(15:03):
don't know, we were making probably a buck buck and
a half above minimum wage each in nineteen eighty eight. Yeah,
that was still a fairly low income. But I mean,
I get that there's a disparity there. I totally own that.
I understand that. And that's why we say we made
an average of forty thousand dollars a year. Over the
first twenty years that we were parents. We averaged I
(15:23):
averaged our income every year for that twenty years, and
it averaged under forty thousand dollars a year. So we
always say we made around forty thousand dollars a year.
And that's when we were we were parents, and we
were having more children and things like.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
That, So which I want to talk about in a
bit too, because not only it wasn't just the two
of you, at some point four kids come along. So
we'll get to that in just a minute. I'm curious too,
more about like the positive changes you were implementing, because
eventually you get to this point in your financial progress
and with some of those goals that you have. I
remember you talking about wanting to pay cash for a house,
(15:56):
and I would imagine most people listening would say, making
less than forty a year, making like a dollar twenty
five above minimum wage, buying a house with cash, there's
like something missing in that equation. I don't see how
that works out, but you made it work.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Yeah. Well, by the time that we paid cash for
the house, we were making more than a dollar twenty
five an hour over minimum wage. So yeah, so that's
you know, that is in the equation as well. That
forty thousand dollars is an average over twenty years, so
we were making about forty forty five thousand dollars a
year when we decided, you know what, we bought our
(16:32):
first home. We put twenty percent down. It was in
an estate, so it was really inexpensive, and we bought
what we could afford. We paid it off in five
years and we lived in another thirteen years. Well, two
bedroom house.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
When you say we bought what we could afford, yeap,
what do you mean by that? Because when you're talking
to a lender, they'll say, you can totally afford this
as long as you take out a thirty year mortgage
like you can, you can probably handle those monthly payments.
But you it sounds like your definition of afford was different.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
Yeah, we took what the bank said, the maximum they
said they would loan us, and we cut it by
about thirty five percent because I was like, I looked him.
We looked at each other and said, I wouldn't loan
us that kind of money.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Yes, because that sounds really wise. That sounds really wise, just.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
Being really aware of what your threshold is and sticking
to that threshold. But you know, we have kids right now.
Housing right now has gone a little crazy. Even in
the Midwest. It's it's it's tough to get a home,
and we have our oldest son and his wife are
looking to buy, and so we go through scenarios with thumb.
One of you could get a better, better paying job.
(17:46):
You could do that, you could double down on saving
that down payment, because the higher your down payment than
the more mortgage that you can afford. Because you know,
if you're looking at a fifty thousand dollars down payment,
versus is a twenty five thousand dollars down payment. That's
a huge difference. So for us, like living on low income,
(18:06):
we were constantly running scenarios. It's like, all right, what
happens if we do XYZ and we read and I
mean read every book I could find on the library
shelf on personal finance. I made copious notes. We tried
things out. A lot of the systems that we use
now we're born out of those first few years of
figuring out how to make it work. So we would
(18:30):
make specific goals. We use what we call a pie system.
You figure out you plan, So you figure out what
your goal is, and you create a plan. The plan
is six or seven or eight steps that you're willing
to take to reach that goal, let's say in thirty days.
We just went through this.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
In fact, it's like micro goals.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
It is that big goal, yeah, exactly, and then you
track what you do on those for thirty days. You
implement it, and then we evaluated every thirty days. It's
like what worked, what didn't work? And part of getting
discouraged just figuring out, all right, we didn't meet the goal.
Did we move the needle at all? We just created
a goal to lower our utility bill and so spoiler alert,
(19:10):
we didn't reach the goal. We lowered it, but not
as much as we wanted to. So we're looking at
that right now and evaluating saying, all right, what worked,
what didn't work? Do we want to just change the benchmark?
Is are we not going to be able to reach
that goal? Are we going to be able to move
the goal? You know? Do you need to make lengthen
the goal so you're saving less every month to get
toward that goal. But figure out what you can do,
(19:33):
because sitting around and thinking about what you can't control
is just, honestly, it's not going to help you.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Yeah, kind of spending your wheels waste your time if
you spend too much time in that domain. But I
see it all the time, and it's true that there
are certain things that yeah, hey, the housing market has
become more difficult to enter than it was in twenty eleven, right,
But it's also there are no time to that I'm
(20:00):
aware of, and so yeah, that kind of just feeling
bad about the way things are that's not really going
to get you where you want to go. So it
sounds like too Gamification was a part of this, right,
some trial and error and some So how do you
feel like did that create like excitement for you guys
towards reaching those goals and some stick toitiveness? What how
(20:22):
did you think about the like making a game out
of some of that financial progress process.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Oh, we're actually huge even to this day on gamification.
It's looking at what we did and what we can
change and what the new goal is. And I always
tell people, Look, you set a goal, and when you
reach the goal, you have some sort of mini celebration.
It does not have to be a celebration that costs
you a boatload of money, but it should be something
(20:48):
that ear marks the fact that you reach this milestone.
You need that, like you need that emotional release of yeah,
we did it, and then you move on to the
next goal. Life is never without goal. That's the other
thing too. I Mean people set goals and they're like, Okay,
I've reached it. I'm done. Life is one big goal.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
And many along the way. YEA, yeah, exactly, I've got
We've got more I want to get to with you, hope,
including raising four boys on a non significant salary, and
also kind of want to dig into some of the
ways you view frugality, So we'll get some questions on
that and more with Hopewear right after this. We're back
(21:35):
for the break, still talking with Hopewear, talking about achieving
financial freedom without making big bucks.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Hope.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
I'm curious. I was digging around on your YouTube channel
and loved so many of the videos and love just
the way you and Larry, which, by the way, I'm
sad Larry's not here next time. We'll have to get
him on at some point. But I had one video
where you talked about items that people buy that are
totally overrated, and maybe it's good to dig into some
of that stuff, like what kind of frugal cuts were
(22:04):
you making that other people, at least until you press them,
are unwilling to make.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
Oh behind store brand, which just boggles my mind. I mean,
I'm old enough to remember that years and years ago,
store brands they were kind of so so, but they've
made huge strides, And truthfully, it's been shown over and
over again that a lot of those store brands are
made on the very same equipment, the very same conveyor belt,
(22:29):
the very same factory. Everything. It's a different label on
the box, So try it. Like look it's forty percent
is significant savings when you're looking at the difference in
general between store brand and name brand, and that's a
heck of a savings to look at. One of the
things that we did was that I made I made
(22:51):
all of our bread from scratch, four boys at home.
Once a week we would have baking day. I don't
expect everybody to be able to do that, but I
was at home with the kids. One of the things.
And we talked about priorities as we had kids. One
of the things we prioritized was having one of us
at home with them. And we homeschooled, so it was
important that one of us be there to be the educator,
(23:14):
primary educator for the kids. And so we did give
up a lot of stuff and we spent Instead of
spending money, we spent time. So it was the idea
of making the bread once a week from scratch. And
here's one of the other things. And people will miss this,
but hear me carefully, no matter what income you are
living on, you need to figure out how you can
(23:36):
serve others because giving is so important. And if you
don't have a lot of money, you can give of
your time, you can give you your effort. There was
a single lady that live next door, and she would
wait every Tuesday to see I put all of a
sample of all the big goods I'd made that day
on a tray and the kids would take it over
to her. And her sister told me, she said, you've
(23:58):
no idea what that means to her. She won't eat
lunch and tell and tell. Her little tray arrives and
she sees what she has to pick from. Yeah, And
so finding a way to bless others will keep you motivated,
because there's nothing better than reminding yourself there are other
folks out there who are also struggling, and doing what
(24:19):
you can to help them is just so important. At
any level of income.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
That's it. I think that's a great point, especially just
from your mindset, because it's really easy to feel sorry
for yourself or to feel like you're not making progresses quickly,
and then you see other people who are in more
difficult circumstances, and then it can hopefully right size your gratitude.
You on that list of things that you tell people
to buy, you put like napkins and hair care on there.
(24:46):
I think some people might be like, why we shouldn't
I find napkins?
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Hope?
Speaker 1 (24:50):
That seems crazy, Like most people dunk on the lattes,
the avocado toast, but napkins. Like what am I supposed
to wrie my hands with?
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Well, you know, you have all old clothing that is
worn out. You cut it into squares. There you go,
and you can use it. And we're not saying you know,
and we tell people all the time, we're like, look,
we're just throwing spaghetti at the wall. Yeah, we give
you hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of tips. You pick
the ones that work for you. If you tell me
I'm going to buy napkins, I'm going to say, well
you go. If those napkins are your priority, you buy
those napkins.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
But for people who are struggling and feeling like why
can I use other than napkins, Well, you cut things
into squares and then you've got them neatly folded in
some sort of a container in new kitchen. You grab
one of those and you use it instead of a napkin.
Then you can wash it up when you're done, and
you can use it again.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
You're making me think of just how cars and homes
in the nineteen seventies are not the same as cars
and homes in twenty twenty five, right, yeah, absolutely. You
compare a Toyota Corola, my nineteen eighty nineteen eighty nine
Toyta Corolla, my first car, to a modern Toyta Corolla,
and they're completely different from like size and fanciness and
(25:56):
all that kind of stuff. And we just get used
to fancy your stuff, and I think, yeah, it's probably
good for us just from like, from like an innate
human perspective to challenge some of those assumptions. Do I
need something that fancy? But also it can help us
save money, right right?
Speaker 2 (26:13):
And we talked some about seeking the minimum. So can
you buy napkins? Well, of course you can buy napkins,
but is your minimum Maybe that you're going to use
those class squares instead, And that's an okay swap for you.
We talk about frugal swaps all the time. That's an
example of a frugal swap. I'm going to swap this.
I'm cool with using this square of an old teacher
(26:36):
that isn't going to fit anymore, has got holes in it.
I'm cool with using that to mop up the spill
rather than buy napkins. If that's not cool for you,
figure out other frugal swaps that do work.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
You also talked about and you mentioned earlier that, oh,
I've read most of those personal finance books in the library,
And you talked about being a perpetual learner. You call
yourself a student of saving money, so you're teaching, but
you're also a student. How is that mindset been helpful
for you?
Speaker 2 (27:02):
I don't think I ever want to get to a
point where I think I've arrived. Yeah, that's just a
terrible place to be in life, because nobody knows it all.
And there are so many things that I can still learn,
even after over thirty five years of frugality, finding new ways,
different ways to do things. You know what the truth
is like things that are available in twenty twenty five
(27:22):
are different than the things that we're available as far
as frugality is concerned in nineteen eighty eight. And there
are new things that come out every day, and I'm like, oh, well,
that seems like that's a frugal thing. And so being
willing to flex and being willing to change, oh my word,
people have to be willing to change the behavior to
(27:43):
get the desired result.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
Where do you find when you're talking to people who
follow your advice that they're typically there's like a big
leak that they haven't recognized. Where are the number ones?
Is it the grocery store? Is it the is it
overspending on vacations?
Speaker 2 (28:01):
Like?
Speaker 1 (28:02):
Where are people who really do need to they're not
making six figures and they really do need to buckle down.
Where are those first places that they should look?
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Okay, two different places. One place is your grocery budget.
People don't understand how to go to the grocery store.
Shop with a list, shop buy those loss leaders. Lost
leaders are those items on the front page of the
flyer that they've made an ultra low price and you
go in and you plan. Let's say say Cauliflowers is
(28:31):
on sale, it's a lost leader. It's ninety nine cents
for a whole head of cauliflower, which would be huge,
that would be a really great deal. I'm going to
go in, I'm going to buy three of those heads
of cauliflower. I'm going to spend three bucks, and I'm
going to plan most of my meals that week around cauliflower.
When you do that, when you're consistently menu planning around
(28:52):
items that you got on sale or on clearance or
on markdown, your grocery budget is going to drop. You
also need to analyze your grocery receipts. What are you
spending your money on? Is fifty percent of your bill meet? Well,
if your carnivore, it probably is. It probably is. If
you're keto, it's going to be a lot of meat.
(29:12):
But what are those other areas you're spending money on
at the grocery store that you could cut back on.
For us, we're plant based, so it's easy for me
to say cut out meat because we don't need it,
you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
But I'm just covering my years and saying la la
la la la when you say that, because I don't want.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
To hear it. That's okay, because there are other areas
that you're dropping money on at the grocery store that
you could cut back on. It. It's all figuring out
where those leaks are. But the other thing that people
need to look at is they need to look at
impulse spending. Look, people spend money because they get depressed
because they don't have enough money, so they spend more
(29:47):
money because they're depressed about not having enough money. Do
you see what I'm saying. It's a weird vicious circle.
And when you stop, and this is one of the
things we tell people, you need to stop and analyze
that emotion. People are afraid of their emotions surrounding money.
They're afraid to acknowledge I feel powerless, I feel stuck.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
And because of that, the emotion is driving, yeah, purchasing
decisions and driving their financial life into a ditch continually.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Absolutely. But when they take a minute and they name it,
just sit and take a deep breath, put your feet
on the floor so you're grounded, and say, what am
I feeling right now?
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (30:21):
Why am I wanting to hit that big red by button?
Because clearly I don't need a thousand napkins, or maybe
you do. But you know what I'm saying, what is
it that's in your cart that you're like, I'm going
to push that button. I'm gonna push it now because
I am feeling what When you name it, it makes
it powerless? Yeah, and you're able to say, all right,
what can I do? Instead of I'm feeling sad or
(30:44):
I'm feeling deprived? What can I do? Instead that's going
to feel that emotional void for me without spending money.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
Yeah, so maybe it's a good idea to have like
a list of a few activities where it's like I'm
feeling this way, or I'm going for a walk, I'm
feeling this way. I'm gonna call my friend, right, have
maybe a couple things that you can do instead that
are also going to feel soothing, instead of doing the
thing that you've been doing for a long time that
feels soothing. But my goodness, it's ended you. It's put
you in a bad place. I'm curious about the lost
(31:12):
leaders though, going back to that when you walk into
the grocery, there's a reason the loss leaders exist, right,
So they're hoping you're going to come in for the
cauliflower and then stick around for the bags of chips
and they cost five dollars or something like that. Absolutely,
So how do you kind of get around that that
(31:32):
conundrum where the grocery stores are they want to get
you through those middle aisles of all the prepackaged foods.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
Yeah, and part of it is understanding marketing principles. So
I have a degree in radio and television, but in
getting that degree, I took a marketing class and in
that class, the prof was amazing. He went through all
of these ways that stores get you to spend money.
And it's been almost forty years and I still use
those same principles because the marketing tactics are exactly the same. Yeah,
(32:00):
so they're going to put stuff next to that cauliflower
that like.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
The physics class, which I haven't used since you know.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
Yes, right, that's so true. And so they're going to
put items next to that cauliflower that kind of go
with cauliflower, but their full price. It is called it's
called cross selling. They do it all the time. And
you're going to look at that and they're going to
convince you. Let's see, what would they put with cauliflower.
I don't know, hot sauce, because you're going to make
buffalo wings or something out of the cauliflower. So they're
(32:26):
going to put some other things that go with it
to convince you this is what you want to make
with your cauliflower. But you're paying full price for everything
that's sitting next to that cauliflower. They only go on
sale on that display is the cauliflower. So recognizing what
they are doing to try to get you to spend
money and then figuring out your tactics to avoid it.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
So are you looking at the ads ahead of time
and you're saying, here's what's on sale. You're making a
list based on the flyers before you actually go into
the store, and then you're sticking to it, or what
would cause you hope to not stick to your list
and buy something it wasn't on it.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
The only time I really don't stick to the list
is if I find something that's on markedown. Okay, but
here's how I deal with that. This is something that
we've done for years and it works super duper well
to be able to afford to buy something you find
on the clearance shelf or something in the marked down
ben that you're like, oh my gosh, this is a
fantastic deal. But if I buy five of these, it's
(33:20):
going to blow my grocery budget out. We do something
called the one fifths method. We take our entire grocery
budget for the month, we divide it into fifths one
fifth of that. So if you have a five hundred
dollars grocery budget, one fifth is one hundred bucks. That
one hundred dollars is the stock up money for the
whole month. So if we find a fantastic deal, we
can spend out of that one hundred dollars pool of
(33:41):
cash the other four fifths, which would be four hundred
dollars and a five hundred dollars grocery budget that's divided
into fourth so that that's your weekly grocery budget. Then okay,
and you can stock up and not blow your grocery
budget smitherings or wind up with twenty bucks for the
last ten days of the month.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
I like that it gives you a little bit to
that flexibility to pounds, because it's really tough to say,
that's such a good deal, and I would buy the
from In my case, because I'm a meat eater, I
would buy the pork butt that's on sale for a
dollar fifty a pound. But I no, no, it's not
on the list, you know, but it would. It would
bum me out because I'm like, that's a great deal.
It's gonna be like three dollars a pound next week.
(34:20):
So yeah, I like that you offer people a little
bit of that flexibility, or you create some flexibility in
your grocery budget that way. Let's talk about kids. You've
got four not just children, but boys who I've only
got one boy and two girls, and he's young, so
I'm like not sure at some point to think he's
gonna eat me out of house at home, but we're
not quite there yet. What did their childhood look like
(34:41):
and were they lusting after the Nikes or brand name
T shirts or like, I just remember when I was
a kid, and those are the things that I wanted.
I pestered my parents for. I still remember Jinko jeans,
I'm Gonna date myself and Tommy Hill Figure T shirts.
So it's amazing that those were even popular, but that
(35:03):
when you look back style man, But yeah, what was
that like? And being an incredibly intentional, frugal household but
having boys who wanted to fit in and be cool.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
Well, one of the things we did was we never
tell them no, we can't afford that.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
Mm.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
That's like you just what we did when we said, well,
let's put this on the list. There was a list
of things that we wanted. There's always a want list,
and then you start doing market research and figuring out
to set ever go on sale? When does it go
on sale? What's the second hand market like for this item?
Can I get it secondhand and still be happy with it?
(35:41):
And we would explain to them, like, there's a time frame.
You have a list of once, but you have to
have delayed gratification in those ones. And it's okay to
say I want the Tommy Hill figure the wait, I
want that clothing, but you might have to bide your
time and wait until that shop has a sale at
say thirty or fifty percent off, or you might have
(36:02):
to buy that long slave shirt buy it off season. Yeah,
because then when all the spring and summer stuff is
coming in, they're going to be selling that long slave
shirt for sixty seventy percent off because they wanted off
their shelves. It's all timing, and it's all figuring out
how to get what you want at a price you're
willing to pay.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
Was it ever for your boys? Was there the opportunity
to earn money so that they could save towards a goal.
If you're like, hey, that that thing you want to
purchase was pretty expensive, and it's not that we can't
afford it, but that's not a priority right now, and
if you really want that. That was one of the
things my parents said was like, we will pay this
(36:38):
much for your shoes. If you want to fancy Scottie
Pippen shoes, which is what I wanted, you have to
find a way, whether it's like birthday money stuff like that,
like you've got to bring a bunch to the table,
or you can live within the budget that we've set. Like,
were you having those kind of conversations, Oh?
Speaker 2 (36:54):
Absolutely so. One of the things we did with our
kids is when they turned thirteen, between the ages of five,
thirteen and sixteen, we gave them allowance from age five
to when they turned thirteen, and we had them buy
items they wanted out of that allowance. One of the
things we did was they would get five bucks and
want to go to Dollar Tree and buy five really
(37:14):
inexpensive plastic toys that were going to break in like
five minutes, and we never stopped them. We said, you
know what, and we would tell them, we feel like
that's not you know, you want to save up till
you get ten or fifteen dollars and get the quality item.
But if they wanted to spend their five dollars, they
could do it however they wanted to. But when that
item broke, we did not replace it. We told them
(37:36):
how sad we were for them that what they bought
for their five dollars broke and let's figure out a
new goal now to save toward the fifteen dollars item
that maybe is going to last a little longer. They
learned so much from that at the age of six
or seven that they wouldn't have learned had we gone
out and spent the five bucks which we could have
afforded to replace that small item from dollar Tree. But
(37:58):
the other thing we did was when they turned thirteen,
we told them, we said, we're not going to pay
you allowance anymore. Instead, we're going to invest in your
goals and your hopes and your dreams. You give us
a list of items that you are saving for. You
find a way to earn money from someone besides us
for half of the cost of that item, and we're
going to kick in the other half. And we bought
(38:21):
it cost us so much more than that allowance to
but it was worth every penny because they would start
asking around for friends, do you need your lawn mode,
do you need a babysitting, all kinds of pet sitting.
They did all kinds of stuff to earn money. And
as they started accruing money, we would say, well, let's
do some market research. Let's figure out what that item is,
(38:42):
figure out exactly what make, what model you want, how
much it's going to cost. Can you find it on
the used market? And so it was like a little
mini course in how to figure out what you want
to purchase and be happy when you get done that
you got what you wanted. But they had to give
us the list ahead of time because we had to
save up our half. We had a couple of boys
that didn't take advantage of it, and oh boy, we
(39:04):
had a couple of boys that they'd give us a
list of six things and because they knew when they
turned sixteen the deal was off because at sixteen they
got a part time job and they needed to buy
their own things. And my husband was like, I don't know.
I don't think he's going to say for all six
of these things. And I said, I think we ought
to plan for it.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
And I was right, well, that's interesting how different personalities,
right that some kids are like go getters. My oldest
child is she would totally take full advantage of that
and she get some babysitting gigs. My middle child would
walk into the class like, she's just not as interested
and it just doesn't quite have the same understanding of money.
So they kind of come pre made a little differently.
(39:46):
So I was going to say, you're boys, but really
they're grown at this point. You've had you had Daniel
on your channel recently to talk about whether or not
he follows the advice that you have given over many,
many years. So what yeah, what are what's their relationship like?
And I know it's going to be different because they're
different individuals, but what's their relationship like with money?
Speaker 2 (40:07):
It's so interesting to us because all four of them
are frugal in their own way, but I see all
of them prioritize different things. For my oldest son and
his wife, it's travel man. They want experiences, so they
set more of their income aside for just being able
to go out and do things than any of the
(40:28):
other three combined. Yeah, and that's okay because that's their priority.
But they're still hitting financial goals. They're the ones that
are looking for a house, so they cut back just
a little bit on experiences right now. But I've seen
all four of them figure out how to balance what
they want with what they need with their income level,
(40:49):
and it's been it's been really fun and really gratifying
to watch them as grown adults.
Speaker 1 (40:54):
That's cool. I can tell you guys have such a
great family relationship and that they trust you, and then
they've listened to you throughout the years and they have
their own take, but they're also they didn't abandon the
principles that you taught, so you should be proud of that.
Or We've got a few more questions I want to
get to Hope with you, including well, what about building
(41:15):
wealth as a frugal person? How important is that? So
we'll get to that, and then some random questions too.
You guys are e bike writers, which I'm a fan of,
so we'll get to that more in just a second.
With Hope, we're back still talking with Hope. We're talking
about achieving financial freedom with out making a ton of money. Hope.
(41:39):
One of the things that we haven't talked about that
I'm really, really really curious to hear your take on
is building wealth, because those are different sides of the coin,
right there is you guys incredible at being frugal, very
good savers. What's your take on building wealth and investing
for the future? And how do you prioritize that in
your life.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
Okay, first start young. This is a mistake that we
honestly made, and we're really open about this on our
YouTube channel. Is the fact that we really did not
start investing investing for retirement until Larry was in his
mid forties, and that was a huge mistake. We should
prioritize that when we were both in our twenties and
thirties rather than waiting that long. Here's what happens when
(42:21):
you're struggling to save money and you do have a
low income. You look at everything. Let's say, you look
at things like a pie chart, right, so so much
is going for food, so much is going for clothing, shelter, transportation,
all that, and you start looking at those slivers that
are left over and you think, oh, my lord, that's
a small sliver leftover for investing for the future, for
(42:42):
saving for future goals. And it can be really debilitating.
So one of the things that I did was I
created a spreadsheet which was prioritized, because everything in my
life is prioritized, and it listed the most important things.
But the other thing was it assigned a time value
to it. How many years out are we looking for
(43:03):
this goal, and for that goal and the other goal,
and it became a lot easier for me to look
at that sliver that was left over and assign it
to those specific goals, realizing that we're looking some of
the goals like retirement. When I first figured out what
Larry needed for retirement, I thought it was going to
pass out and I said, Babe, I think we're going
(43:23):
to work for I don't know forever. Well we didn't.
He retired two years ago, so you know, we managed
to reach that goal, but it was overwhelming. And when
a goal is overwhelming, you have to break it down
to smaller increments. You have to figure out what am
I looking at on a yearly basis, a monthly basis,
a weekly basis. When you do that math, we're so
(43:45):
big on that. Do the math. Do the math. Do
the math.
Speaker 1 (43:47):
Well, not having a home or a car payment should
help a lot, like you're going to have lower expenses
in retirement. So I think sometimes people you're right, get
started early, but sometimes people also overestimate. We've seen the
commercials where it's like you need two point four million
dollars in your retirement accounts in order to have a
decent living and I think a lot of people like
have bought into that and that Yeah it might be nice,
(44:09):
but you don't need.
Speaker 2 (44:10):
It, you know. And I think, and you mentioned Dott,
that was one thing that after we paid those two
cars off, we avoided debt like the plague.
Speaker 1 (44:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (44:18):
Now, we did take out a mortgage on our first house,
which we paid for in five years. We were both working.
We made double payments and we got that thing out
of there because we knew moving forward, the most important
asset we had was our ability to live lean because
we didn't owe anybody any money.
Speaker 1 (44:32):
Yeah, no, that's huge. I think the a casual relationship
with with debt that people have, it's like I'll hear
people go like, yeah, I got a couple grant in
credit card debt, like I'm doing better than everybody else
because look at that, it's not much. And I'm like, no,
like zero is always the answer. E bikes. Yes, I'm
a huge e bike rider. It's sitting right outside of
(44:53):
my office right now. I took my son to school
on it this morning. You y'all ride right and Larry
he got an accident And how big of how important
are e bikes do you think to saving money?
Speaker 2 (45:04):
Oh gosh, he has well. First, when I met him,
he was a long distance bike rider, so he would
ride fifty sixty miles at a stretch. He has always
loved bike riding, so as he got older it was
a little more difficult to pedal and things like that.
So he got an e bike and he wrote it
for thousands. In fact, he still does. He rides his
(45:25):
e bike every single day that he can. But yeah,
so he had an accident a couple of years ago
on his e bike. It was a week before our
oldest son's wedding, so that was an interesting experience. He
was in the hospital for five days and the kids
kept saying, should we move the date back, and I said, no,
your father's gonna be there, And so he was there.
(45:45):
He walked down the aisle with a cane because he
refused to use a walker. He was like, I'm using
a cane. It looks I'm not your right, babe. That
looks much less conspicuous than a walker. And yeah, he
had a traumatic brain injury, but he's all healed now
and back on the bike, and it's just it's super
important to him. He used to ride it back and
(46:07):
forth when he worked. He worked downtown, which was seven
and a half miles each direction from our house. He
would ride it back and forth to work all the
time and good weather.
Speaker 1 (46:16):
Yeah, almost exactly was my bike commute for a long time,
and it was. It is amazing. It did. Not only
did it save me money, but it made me really happy.
And there's a lot to be said for that. My
wife would know if I drove the car that day
because I'd come home and I just wasn't as joyful,
you know, there wasn't as much big of a smile
on my face because there's something about the bike ride
(46:37):
to and from that just like sparks joy in my life.
And yeah, I would love to see more people get
on that, I think, especially if you live and work
fairly close together and you can get saddle bags on
your bike, go grocery shopping with your bike, that's that
kind of stuff, take your kids to school on the bike.
That really adds up in saving miles and wear and
(46:58):
tear on your car. But it and for some people
it can even mean potentially ditching a car, which is
which is huge savings. Have you have you did you
guys ever have like one car family or anything like that.
Speaker 2 (47:09):
We did when when our oldest son was born, we
realized we could not afford two cars, and we went
down to one car for about I don't think it
was three or four years. Okay, by the time we
bought a second car, we had two kids, and we're like,
I feel like, maybe we need a second car now.
And then by at that point we had saved out
the money and we could afford to buy a second.
Speaker 1 (47:25):
Car, even doing it for just a limited time. Yeah,
like two, three years, the amount of money you can
save on insurance, and then like, yeah, you can you
can buy another car down the road. That's that's what
we did. We had one car for a while and
then added a second one because we needed one at
that point in time. But avoiding it for a little
while can kind of juice your ability to fund other
financial goals. All right, I'm curious too about your creation
(47:47):
of YouTube videos and you and Larry like you've been
doing it for how long now? How big is this
operation gotten? Because it sure seems like you had a
lot of subscribers. You're reaching a lot of people.
Speaker 2 (47:59):
So we've been doing YouTube regularly for about five years.
And remember I worked in radio, Larry worked in television,
so YouTube was a good fit for us. We knew
that right off the bat. What we didn't know is
how many people would be really interested in ways to
save money. Because the channel grew like exponentially the minute
we started putting videos up. We have two hundred sixteen
(48:20):
thousand subscribers, amazing, and we get upwards of four hundred,
four hundred and fifty thousand views a month. And it's
been fun. That's the thing. Like, I mean, we talked
about doing something just sparks joy for you, for us,
this is just fun to share with folks a little
piece of life with us and talk about how you
(48:41):
can spend less and save more and reach your great
big financial goals. We say, grab those great big financial
goals with both hands and refuse to let go. Because
that's what we did. We were like, if somebody had
said you can't do that in your income, which some
people did, we were like, really watch us, because we
were we were a team, and we're like, well, so
we're formidable together, we're gonna do this thing. And we
(49:02):
refuse to take no for an answer. And when we
reached a roadblock, we were like all right, we're either
going to go through it, we're going to go around it,
but one of the two things is going to happen.
Speaker 1 (49:11):
Okay, I Hope. This has been such a fun conversation.
I've really really enjoyed it. Where can how do money
listeners go to find out more about you and what
you're up to?
Speaker 2 (49:20):
All right, you can find me at my website under
the Median dot com. Oh, we named it that because
we raised the kids debt free on an income which
is consistently under the US National median income as where
under the median comes from. So under the Median dot com.
And we're on YouTube at under the Median.
Speaker 1 (49:37):
Wonderful, Hope, Thank you so much for your time. I
really enjoyed this.
Speaker 2 (49:40):
Thanks out a blast.
Speaker 1 (49:42):
Okay, what's not to like or really love about Hope?
What an inspiring person and her content that she creates
with her husband Larry is totally worth checking out over
at YouTube. We'll put links to her channel in the
show notes. I think I should offer a big takeaway.
I've got two things I really feel compelled to share
(50:05):
after speaking with Hope today. And I think just the
fact that she's proving something that most people would say
is impossible, that is possible to live well on less
than forty thousand dollars, to pay off a home in
five years, to buy the next home with cash, to
(50:25):
pay for cars with cash. I mean, all that kind
of stuff. People would say, no, way, not possible, and
she's like, I'm just going to do it, and then like, okay,
tell me it can't be done once I've done it.
And one of the things she said at the beginning
was that so many people feel a lack of agency,
like a lack of the fact that they're kind of
in control of their own story, and that leads to
(50:46):
a lot of the struggles saying encounter because it's really
easy to point fingers and it's really easy to feel
like you're riding not in the driver's seat, but in
the passenger seat of your own life. And so there's
like a mindset shift that needs to happen in order
to make this possible. And if you think it can't
(51:08):
be done, it's much easier for it to not actually happen.
But if you believe that it can and you're working
actively towards that end goal, you can do it. I
think the other thing that she said that really resonated
with me was when she talked about creative substitution, and
I think that really does prevent a deprivation mindset, because yes,
(51:28):
like that perpetual push toward frugality, it can feel like
a long slog and it can start to feel like
I'm not living the life of my dreams because gosh,
I'm cutting back in this area, in this area, in
this area. And if you can do some creative substitution,
not just at the grocery store, but when it comes
to the activities you participate in, Like on date night
(51:50):
last night, my wife and I went for a six
mile walk like a hike together. It was like one
of the best We thoroughly enjoyed it. It was lovely outside.
What is that that you can do a creative substitution
where it's like, well, normally we go to our favorite
restaurant and we get nice cocktails and a great meal,
and that's like fine and dandy and lovely on occasion.
(52:11):
But if you really want to make the progress that
you want to see in your financial goals, especially if
you're making less money, I think it is going to
take some creative substitution and that is going to allow
you to not feel as down about the things that
you're giving up because you're doing something else instead of
just giving up, instead of just cutting, you're finding something
(52:34):
else to replace it with. That is cost less money,
but it still brings joy. And don't forget to write
those goals down. I think that's really important. Something dreamed
up in your head like yeah, we could do that,
versus something that's actually written down and spoken out loud,
it can make a big difference in your ability to
achieve it. So big thanks to Hope for joining me today.
I hope you enjoyed this conversation and hope to see
(52:55):
you back here on Friday for a nice little Friday
Flight episode with me and Matt. But that's gonna do
it for this one. Until next time, Best Friend Out,
Hosts And Creators
Joel Larsgaard
Matthew Altmix
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