333. Navigating Life's Financial Setbacks with Resilience and Preparedness

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In this episode of the Debt-Free Dad Podcast, host Chris Hawkins shares his recent personal struggles and how his financial planning allowed him to weather unforeseen difficulties. After facing the sudden death of his mother and the consequent financial responsibilities, followed by vehicle breakdowns and accidents, Chris discusses the importance of staying positive and prepared. He emphasizes how gaining control over your finances transforms major setbacks into manageable annoyances. Chris provides insights on maintaining a positive mindset, shares his experiences as an executor, and offers valuable advice for anyone facing financial challenges. Tune in for practical strategies and encouragement to achieve your financial goals. 

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Episode Transcript

Chris Hawkins (00:00):
Recently here on the Debt-Free Dad podcast, I did
an episode where I used thebook the Go-Getter and the story
of the main character to sharewith all of you that when things
don't go as well as you hopethey might, when you have some
adversity in life, when you havesome setbacks, to stay positive

(00:22):
, to realize that they are goingto happen and that you have to
work through them.
And only through working themcan you complete your journey to
whatever financial goal thatyou have set.
Well, little did I know when Irecorded that podcast that over
the weeks afterwards I myselfwould have to sort of adhere to

(00:44):
my own advice.
And so in this podcast I amgoing to share with you a little
bit of an insight into mypersonal life and what's
happened to me over the last fewweeks.
And my goal is to help yourealize that, even when the
worst things can happen, thatwhen you get on the right

(01:05):
financial journey, that you canhave a positive mindset, that
you can work through whateverdifficulties come in life and
you can learn from them and grow.
So let's talk about what'shappened to me recently here on
this episode of the Debt-FreeDad Podcast.
This episode of the Debt-FreeDad Podcast.

(01:29):
This is the Debt-Free DadPodcast, where we help normal,
everyday people like you takecontrol of your finances so you
can live a happier, lessstressful life.
My name is Chris Hawkins andI'm going to be your host for
today's episode, and from 2005to 2008, my wife and I paid off
just under $100,000 in debt andwe've been debt-free except for
our house ever since, and so, ifyou think about it, 2005 is

(01:53):
when we started our journey.
That's 20 years ago as of therecording of this in April of
2025.
So I've been doing this a longtime and I've gotten pretty good
at budgeting and managing moneyand cash flow, investing and
saving.
I've been doing it a long time,but it wasn't easy early on,

(02:13):
just like I talked about in thatlast podcast, there were lots
of difficulties, there were lotsof adversity and I had to learn
how to fight through that.
And I had to learn how to fightthrough that.
I had to learn how to keepgoing so that eventually we were
able to get out of debt, gofrom a negative net worth to
start building some wealth andgetting to the point where we

(02:35):
are today.
But I want to take you back toNovember of last year.
I got a phone call on a Saturdayafternoon that my mother had
had a stroke.
So I went to the hospital andmy sisters and I were there, and
that's when we got the newsthat mom best case scenario was

(02:56):
she would be in a nursing homefor the rest of her life.
But nine days later, nine dayslater, mom passed on November
19th and me and my sisters, wewere faced with having to plan a
funeral on a very short notice.
Mom died, had no signs thatthis might happen, it just kind

(03:18):
of came out of nowhere and so,fortunately, mom had a will.
Fortunately, mom had some lifeinsurance.
It wasn't quite enough to payfor her funeral and to bury her,
but it came pretty close.
But mom had no emergency fund,she had no money in savings and,
of course, as soon as you passaway Social Security, that stops

(03:38):
.
So in order to keep making hermortgage payment, in order to
pay her electric bill, waterbill and sort through her
finances, I had to put somemoney into an account to cover
those expenses and I'm veryfortunate that I went through,
from 2005 to 2008, all the painthat it took to get out of debt,

(04:03):
to get an emergency fund, toget savings to start saving
for's funeral and to contributetowards paying some of her bills
until we could sort of getthings straightened out.

(04:23):
The other beautiful thing is isI was the executor or I am, I
should say, the executor of herwill, and so having the
experience on how to manage myown finances allowed me to sort
of jump in and see what piecesof the puzzle were out there and
sort of put them together tofigure out what her financial
picture was like, and I probablywill do a podcast episode on

(04:45):
this at some point down the road, on what you can do just in
case something happens to you,so that when people have to
become your executor or theyhave to take care of your
finances, some tips that you cando to make it easier on them.
But I'm the executor of mymom's will and, again, my
experience has allowed me to goin and fairly quickly get up to

(05:09):
speed and figure out what needsto be done, including moving
everything out of her house,getting her house updated, some
paint we're going to have to donew countertops, new flooring
and fortunately for mom, shedidn't owe a whole lot of my
house, and so we're going to beable to keep the house and the
goal is to rent it out so fast.

(05:30):
Forward to about five weeks ago,I was going down to mom's house
it was about two hours and 45minutes from where I live each
way and I had been doing a bunchof work.
And there's two of us and wehave four vehicles.
We had two trucks and two cars,and I had been taking one of

(05:50):
the trucks, which was an olderFord F-150, back and forth, and
the truck was worth maybe $3,000.
And a check engine light cameon on my way back and before I
could do anything with it, Ilost power in the truck.
I had to pull over, have ittowed to a local shop where it

(06:10):
broke down, which was about athird of the way home, and a
couple of days later I got thebad news that the motor had
blown.
And a couple days later I gotthe bad news that the motor had
blown, and so I sold that truckto scrap for about $400.
So that's a $2,600 loss invalue.
But again, it was an extravehicle, one that we had had for
a while.
It was high mileage and itwasn't worth putting the money

(06:34):
into it to fix it up.
And after all of my thoughtprocess.
Well, I've still got two carsand I've got a truck, so I can
sort of weather that storm.
Well, last week and again we'rerecording this in early April,
so this would have been in lateMarch I once again was coming

(06:55):
back from my mom's house pullingmy trailer no-transcript and I
got an early start, early in themorning, while it was still
dark, to come home and I wasgoing down the interstate and
came to the top of the hill andas soon as I started going down
the hill there was a deer at 440in the morning standing in the
middle of the interstate.

(07:15):
And of course, as soon as Icame over the top of the hill,
light shining in the deer's eyesIf you've ever seen a deer in
headlights, there's that phrasethe deer froze didn't move and
so I had a choice and I chose totry to avoid hitting it.
But unfortunately I hit it.
But the action of trying toavoid it took me off into the

(07:36):
grass shoulder and pulling atrailer behind sort of whiplash
the vehicle to the point where Ihad to make a decision.
I was staring at the end of aguardrail and I didn't know what
was to the right because againit was dark, so I tried to pull
it back onto the freeway,knowing that I couldn't hit the
guardrail head on, and so when Ihit the guardrail, the right

(07:56):
passenger side made impact, andthen, of course, the trailer
made impact and it tore thetrailer off of the trailer hitch
.
And, to make a long story short,this was an older truck but it
only had 77,000 miles on it.
It cost me about $15,000 toreplace it and it's going to

(08:18):
cost about $8,000 to replace thetrailer, and both of them are
totaled.
Unfortunately, I have insuranceon the truck and we'll wait to
see what they give me in termsof value.
But I was given some bad adviceby my insurance company, and
the trailer carries liabilityinsurance, but it doesn't carry
comprehensive or collision.
So I'm going to lose the valueof that trailer and I'm going to

(08:38):
have to replace it, and again,that's probably going to be
about an $8,000 hit.
Plus I'm probably going to haveto pony up a little bit of
money to replace the truck,depending on what the insurance
company gives me.
So in the matter of a few weeks, I've gone from four vehicles
and two of them being trucks tono trucks and two vehicles, and

(08:58):
so I've had a hard time hererecently.
There's some other things thathave gone on in life.
It just seems like I've beenpunched, and I want you to know
that even when you get out ofdebt and you get emergency funds
and you get savings in place,it doesn't mean that financial
issues aren't going to pop up.
Now notice I didn't call it afinancial problem.

(09:19):
It's something that has to beworked through.
It's something that I'm highlyfrustrated about, but I'm going
to get through it.
Why?
Because I'm no longer piledwith debt.
I no longer live paycheck topaycheck.
I have a sizable emergency fundand, yes, I had to spend part
of it helping out my mom, andnow I'm gonna have to spend part

(09:41):
of it replacing at least thetrailer at some point and maybe
put it with a check from theinsurance company and replacing
the truck.
But I'm okay physically and forthe most part emotionally.
I mean, again there's thefrustration part, but it's a
speed bump in my financial road.
I'm not going to lose sleepover it.

(10:04):
And so here's the message Justbecause you get out of debt
doesn't mean that you stilldon't have financial issues that
come up from time to time.
But the big difference is whenyou're telling your money what
kind of life you want to live,instead of your money telling
you what kind of life you canlive.

(10:25):
When you prepare ahead of time,when you plan, when you get
good at budgeting, when you getout of debt, when you have money
in the bank, these issues likewhat I've gone through, they
just become minor speed bumps.
They become more annoying thananything, but you realize that

(10:49):
it's not going to keep you fromaccomplishing your dreams.
It's not going to keep you fromaccomplishing your goals.
It might sidetrack them for alittle bit, make it take a
little bit longer, but you havepeace, peace of mind, knowing
that you have prepared forsituations like this.
And so here's the main messageIf you're living paycheck to

(11:13):
paycheck, if you're strugglingwith debt, keep doing the things
that Brad teaches.
Keep doing the things that wetalk about on this podcast.
Don't give up.
Be a go, go getter, be somebodywho says it shall be done.
And, regardless of what happensin life, you pick yourself up,

(11:34):
you dust yourself off and youkeep going, and your financial
situation is going to get better.
And one of these days you'regoing to have a pretty tough,
you know, four or five or sixweeks like I've had, and you may
be annoyed by it, you may befrustrated, but it's not going
to create panic in your life,it's not going to make you feel

(12:00):
like you can never accomplishyour dreams.
It's just a minor setback, andso what may seem like major big
setbacks right now is whenyou're in your journey, when
you're trying to get out of debt, when you're trying to learn
how to budget.
Those big setbacks just becomeannoyances the better you get at
it.
So stick with it, keep going.

(12:22):
When struggles happen, just letit be like water off a duck's
back.
Learn from it, prepare for itin the future and when Murphy
seems to really visit you likehe's done with me lately you
tell Murphy to get lost.
That's my message.
Stick with it.
Things will get better and youwill learn how to prepare and

(12:48):
deal with financial issues inthe future in a way that doesn't
destroy you, that doesn't allowyou to become negative, and
that you can stay positive andenjoy life.

Brad Nelson (13:03):
If you're ready to break free from living paycheck
to paycheck, which, if you'relistening, I hope you are.
You want to reduce financialstress.
You want to build savings.
You want to finally pay offdebt for good, but you're not
sure where to get started.
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(13:25):
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You're also going to gain thetools and the confidence to
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You can sign up for Simplify myMoney by clicking the link at
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Thanks for joining us ontoday's show and we will see you

(13:48):
guys on the next episode.