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Couple Money Podcast

Build Your Marriage and Grow Your Net Worth

Know and Own Your Numbers with Debt Discipline

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Want to be financially independent, but have a ton of debt? Learn how Brian from Debt Discipline and his family worked to dump over $109,000 of debt and become financially free!

Subscribe to Couple Money Podcast via iTunes, Stitcher, or copy this link to use with a podcatcher of your choice. You can also find me hanging out on Twitter and Facebook.

10 Days and Many Ways to Financial Independence

Want to be financially independent, but have a ton of debt? Learn how Brian from Debt Discipline and his family worked to dump over $109,000 of debt and become financially free!

Financial Independence – sounds good, right?

It can mean more options or maybe a sense of security, but the road to it can be bumpy.  Depending on where you’re starting it can be hard to imagine getting to that point.

That’s why over the next ten episodes, we’ll look at the steps to becoming financially independent.

We’ll be hearing from past guests and sharing some extra stories that haven’t been released on the podcast before.

Each couple has had to struggle with different obstacles and figure out a strategy that made sense to them, but there are a few principles that have helped.

One of the big and first steps is knowing and owning up to your number, but as Brian and his wife discovered a few years ago, it’s not always pretty. With their five credit cards maxed out, the couple were over $100,000 in debt!

Having Debt Discipline Show NotesWant to be financially independent, but have a ton of debt? Learn how Brian from Debt Discipline and his family worked to dump over $109,000 of debt and become financially free!

In case you’re pressed for time, here are some big highlights from the show:

  • What Was the Breaking Point for Brian and His Wife
  • How He Got His Numbers and His Tool of Choice
  • Where They Saved on Their Expenses
  • Tapping into a Local Resource to Get Help with Credit Cards

Thank You for Your Support!

Couple Money Podcast is made possible because of listeners like you. Every tweet, Facebook like, rating, and review gets the word out. You can also become a patron and support the show. For a $1 or more a month, you can get behind the scenes access and extra bonuses.

Know Your Numbers with Personal Capital

This podcast is brought to you by Personal Capital, a free tool to not only quickly and easily track your net worth, but also analyze your portfolio. 

Selected Links from the Episode:

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Paying Off Over $100k of Debt as a Couple

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Are you deep in debt and ready to get out? Brian from Debt Discipline shares how he and his wife got rid of over $100k of debt while raising their kids.

Today we’re at #2 of the top 10 episodes of the Couple Money Podcast!

Subscribe to Couple Money Podcast via iTunes, Stitcher, or copy this link to use with a podcatcher of your choice. You can also find me hanging out on Twitter and Facebook.

Getting Rid of Debt Together

paying-off-over-100k-of-debt-together-couple-money-podcast

Today’s episode was actually my first show of the podcast. I had the pleasure of interviewing Brian from Debt Discipline just before he and his wife were about to finish paying off over $100,000 of debt while raising their 3 kids.

Very cool story with Brian going through the conversations and process he and his wife made to get there.

When I asked him how he got everyone on board for their debt free journey he had some wonderful advice:

I realized early on that my wife and I had to get on the same page for us to be successful. I focused on the end goal. Painting the picture of what our financial life will be like when we are debt free.

Having a surplus of over $2k per month to save, invest, and increase areas of our budget for entertainment, travel, etc. This remains our motivation today, once my wife and I looked at it in these terms we were sold on making the sacrifices today for a better future for ourselves and children.

Please visit his site to see what they are up to now!

Resources for Paying Off Your DebtAre you deep in debt and ready to get out? Brian from Debt Discipline shares how he and his wife got rid of over $100k of debt while raising their kids.

Looking to get more information and resources to get rid of your debt Here are  links to what we mentioned on the episode plus more:

Guess the Most Popular Show

Do you know what’s the number one show of the podcast? Take a guess and you may win an Amazon gift card!

Chat with me on Twitter or Facebook. You can also leave a comment here or email me. The first one to correctly guess it will get a $25 Amazon gift card.

Hope you enjoy the show!

Thank You to Our Partners

Support for this podcast comes from partners like Personal Capital. Easy to set up & easy to use. You can have all your investments, income, and expenses all pulled into one place.

Did I mention it’s free? Why don’t you give Personal Capital a try today?

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How Two Spouses With Opposing Financial Habits Can Win With Their Money

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Learn how handle your money better as a couple with tips from His & Her Money hosts Tai and Talaat. They give advice on how to start talking about money with one another, digging out of debt fast, and building wealth together.

Mastering your money can be a challenge, doing it as a couple – with different personalities and ideas on how to do it make it more complicated.

It can be done and that takes the two of you getting on the same page.
Learning to talk about money and deal with it as a duo is essential to achieve that.

This was actually something discussed in our second episode when I talked about how we began our financial journey.

Subscribe to Couple Money Podcast via iTunes, Stitcher, or copy this link to use with a podcatcher of your choice. You can also find me hanging out on Twitter and Facebook.

Managing Your Money as a CoupleLEARN HOW YOU TWO CAN WORK TOGETHER ON YOUR FINANCES EVEN WHEN YOU DON'T SEE EYE TO EYE!

Every couple has their own DNA and how they tackle situations, so today we’re having Tai and Talaat from His & Her Money to give their perspective and insights.

When they were married a little more than eight years ago, they were coming from two different places financially.

One of them had a stellar credit score, was on top of their finances, and had no debt. the other? Not so much.

These two share their story and advice on:

  • how to start talking about money even if you’re complete opposites
  • finding a way to manage your money and marriage with respect
  • digging out of debt as a team

They are a real couple who have succeeded so I hope their interview will encourage the two of you to become closer while improving your finances.

Resources Mentioned In This Episode

If you want to learn more about His & Her Money or how to talk to your spouse about money, here are some helpful links.

As always, leave your money questions in the comments below!

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From Car Loans to Buying Cars with Cash

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One big expense that many couples have in their budget is their cars. Besides maintenance, gasoline, and insurance, there are plenty of families dealing with a car loan or two.

While having reliable transportation is a necessity, going into debt for it doesn’t have to happen.

In this episode I’ll go into:

  • how I got into a car loan and what should’ve been clues that it wasn’t within my budget
  • our plan to become debt free and how we paid it off early
  • creating a system to buy our cars with cash

While not everything may apply to your situation, I hope our story can encourage you to get out of debt and into the habit of saving for big purchases.

Subscribe to Couple Money Podcast via iTunes, Stitcher, or copy this link to use with a podcatcher of your choice. You can also find me hanging out on Twitter and Facebook.

How We Paid Off Our Car Loan Fasterhow to pay off your car loan early

My husband and I agreed that having this car payment was not in our best interest and we worked head to pay off the car loan early.

The first step in paying off the car loan is finding money in your budget. If you’re living paycheck to paycheck this may impossible. For us, we  began to optimize our monthly  expenses. Some of our strategies included:

  • Examined our budget line by line. We looked at what was necessary and what was important to us and we’ve kept that in. everything else was reduced or eliminated.
  • Shopped around for the best deals. We looked at what companies could take care of our needs at the best price. We compared cell phone companies, cable options, and even car insurance to trim our expenses. (this actually produced the bulk of our extra payments as we were able to save about half on car insurance)
  • We had cheap fun. We looked for happy hour deals around town and met with friends then. We had potlucks which meant stepping up our cooking skills a bit.
  • Snowflaked payments. Our tax refunds and stimulus check went to lower the principal.

With this joint effort we shaved a few years off the loan.

If you’re curious about the specifics, please check out this detailed post on how we paid off the car loan early.

Buying a Car with Cash

With the car loan paid off we had some extra money in our pockets – it felt great.  However we also knew that even if we did our best with maintaining our cars, they wouldn’t last forever.

We needed to get started on our car fund.

Building Up a Car Fund

If you two are saving up for your next vehicle, you should begin by honestly evaluating your current car’s condition. According to Consumer Reports, well maintained cars last on average 200,000 miles.

I know that some may hate the idea of driving a car that long or owning an older vehicle, but please keep in mind that cars depreciate around 60%-70% in the first 5 years. The longer you can go without car loans, the bigger the fund for when the time comes to shop for your next car.

If you’re looking for general guidelines, here are my recommendations:

  • Current Car is between 1-3 years old- Wait 5-6 years for your next car
  • Current Car is between 4-6 years old – Wait 3-5 years for your next car
  • Current Car is between 7-9 years old – Wait at least 2 years for your next car

(Please take these with a grain of salt – I just want you to have some time-frame in mind when you’re saving. Adjust these numbers based on how well your car is doing now.)

Automate Your Car Fund Contributions

Believe it or not, if you want to get free from a cycle of car payments, you need to make some more. The good news is that these car payments are much more manageable and earn you money, instead of draining you.

Stash it away in a high interest savings account. We love using Capital One 360 and Ally Bank as they have pretty competitive rates.

Not sure how much to sock away? Start small and automate half of your previous monthly car loan payments. Your family’s monthly cash flow will have some more breathing room and you’ll be able to reallocate the rest as you see fit.

As you get closer to your goal, start looking around your area to see what cars are best suited for your family and budget.

Consumer Reports is a fantastic resource to help you find something reliable. Edmunds offers a True Cost to Own list that they update regularly.

If you decide to go with a private seller, make sure you have a trusted mechanic go over the car to make sure all the major components are in good shape.

Thoughts on Cars

I hope these tips help you two find the car you want and keep you out of getting a car loan. Please share any other tips you have on either paying off car loans or buying cars with cash in the comments below!

Do you have a podcast? Want to grow it, and make money with it? Check out www.theppodcasterssecretweapon.com

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Questions Answered on Paying Your Debt Faster

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I just finished up a Q&A session today.  It’s a more informal and much shorter than the usual weekly episode (I recorded this in the home office while my little one playing in her room).

The first episode of Couple Money was released this week and I’ve gotten some wonderful feedback from you. I’m using your suggestions for this week’s episode.

  • Subscribe on iTunes: Simply click on this link and you’ll be taken to Couple Money’s page where you can subscribe.
  • Subscribe on Stitcher: Please click here so you can catch all episodes.

Thank you so much for the words of encouragement and the questions you’ve sent my way. Speaking of questions, I though having a Q&A would be a wonderful way to interact with you (besides the regular episodes and these posts). This session covers two questions about paying debt faster.

How did you decide on those 5 steps for paying debt off faster?

Just a reminder, the five steps I mentioned last week were:

  1. Know How Deep Your Debt Is
  2. Review Debt Methods as a Couple
  3. Choose the Method that is Easiest to Keep
  4. Build Up Your Debt Payments
  5. Make It Automatic

When I was choosing the steps I was considering a few things. I wanted to get the essentials done and I wanted to make each step a manageable bite.

When changing habits, I want to make it as easy for you to succeed.  (If you’re familiar with Tim Ferriss’ book, The Four Hour Chef, you may remember him discussing deconstruction and selection in the meta-learning section.)

It’s my hope that cutting it down to only what is absolutely vital will get you over the hurdle and out of debt.

The second question:

Looking at the numbers, the debt avalanche the faster method of paying off debt. Why would you put the debt snowball as an equal option to it?

I love this because it gets into the purpose and intentions of this podcast. My goal for Couple Money is to help you two develop an effective financial system that fits within your personalities. Going back to the Four Hour Chef for a second, Tim shared how he worked through analyzing different methods of learning a new language and eventual new skills.

It boiled down to two questions:

  • Is this method effective?
  • Is this method sustainable?

Effective Method

Both the debt snowball and the debt avalanche/stack have helped people become debt free. Dave Ramsey has been hosting a highly popular personal finance radio show and one of the highlights is when people call in to announce they are debt free.

Sustainable Method

Put simply – how likely you are you going to keep at using the method?

Dave Ramsey likes to say that ‘Personal finance is 20% head knowledge and 80% behavior.’ I agree  – most people get into financial trouble, not because they don’t understand numbers, but they’ve developed habits that have made it easy for them to slip into debt.

If that’s you, then one of the major hurdles you have to overcome is to change your behavior.

Easier said than done.

How many times have we said you’re going to get better with the budget, get in shape, or pick up a new hobby?

One of  the best motivations to help you change a habit is to have quick and real wins. That’s how the debt snowball works – you get rid of your smaller debts upfront and the momentum works in your favor as you keep going until your debts are paid off.

And that’s really the goal – paying off your debt. I want the two of you to reach your debt free goals so you can focus on saving, investing, and using your income on more important goals.

The debt snowball and the debt avalanche both offer effective and sustainable ways to do that so I recommend both. You choose which is a better fit for you.

Thank you again for the questions. I hope my answers help. If you have anything else you’d like to ask me, please email me or leave a comment here.

Photo Credit: Open Source

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Paying Off Your Debt Faster as a Couple

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After all the prep, sweat, and tears, the first episode of the Couple Money Podcast is up!

For the premiere show it’s all about debt, specifically getting out of debt faster and getting rid of massive amounts of debt.

Paying Off Your Debt Faster

The guest on today’s episode is Brian from Debt Discipline. He and his wife have managed to pay off $100,000 in debt while raising their three kids.Learn how you two can get rid of your debt faster and grow closer as a couple.

Subscribe to Couple Money Podcast via iTunes, Stitcher, or copy this link to use with a podcatcher of your choice. You can also find me hanging out on Twitter and Facebook.

Resources Mentioned in Today’s EpisodeLearn how to dump your debt faster and draw closer as a couple!

For listeners looking to get more information and resources to get rid of their debt, here are the links to what we mentioned on the episode.

I also wanted to mention that Brian and his wife have JUST finished paying off their debt! Congrats to the whole family!

Love to Have Your Support

If you enjoyed the podcast, could you please share this with your friend or leave a positive review? I  read every review.

It’s my goal to make this podcast both motivating and practical for couples looking to building their marriage and finances.

Please feel free to reach out me on email with any topics you’d like to have discussed on the podcast.

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