Love & Money with Bri's Wife

Today Bri brings her wife, Addie, to the mic as they dive into the delightful world of love, money, and yes, even chicken nuggets (Addie’s Version)!

From the get-go, the banter is lively as Bri and Dr. Jay set the stage for a candid conversation about relationships and finances. Addie adds an extra layer of warmth as she shares personal anecdotes and insights into their journey as a couple.

Together Bri and Addie offer their perspective on the joys and challenges of merging finances in a modern relationship. From reminiscing about the early days of their marriage to navigating financial disagreements with humor and grace, this episode is as entertaining as it is enlightening.

Don't miss out on this fun and engaging episode of Childfree Wealth - the perfect way to celebrate love and laughter this Valentine's Day! 💖

Resources:

+ The Financial Diet Podcast: A Divorce Lawyer On Prenups, Ugly Money Arguments, & What People Don’t Know About Divorce

+ Ep. 60: Childfree Midlife Crisis

+ Couples Weekly Meeting Sheet

The Childfree Wealth Podcast, hosted by Bri Conn and Dr. Jay Zigmont, CFP®, is a financial and lifestyle podcast that explores the unique perspectives and concerns of childfree individuals and couples.

Like the show? Leave us a rating & review!

If you want to join the conversation, email us at media@childfreewealth.com, follow Childfree Wealth® on social media, or visit our website www.childfreewealth.com!

Join our newsletter HERE.
Schedule a meeting with a Childfree Wealth Specialist® HERE.

Instagram: @childfreewealth

Facebook: @childfreewealth

LinkedIn: @childfree-wealth

YouTube: @ChildfreeWealthPodcast

Disclaimer: This podcast is for educational & entertainment purposes. Please consult your advisor before implementing any ideas heard on this podcast.

Transcript

Dr. Jay

Hey Childfree Wealth listeners, we’ve got a fun one today. We have Bri and her wife, Addie. Now, Bri is much more brave than I am because I'm not bringing my wife on the podcast. I'm just saying I am not that brave. But they have said they would volunteer to come in here. And we're going to talk about love and money and couples and money management as a couple.

And you've heard a little bit of the stories because like we talked about some chicken nuggets a few episodes back. If you've been listening, well, we'll probably talk about chicken nuggets today. Two fun days there. But Addie, nice to have you and have you join. Like we’ve never even mentioned your name before. So, like, it's like a celebrity joining us.

Addie

Yeah, it's fun to be here. It's definitely been a journey over the past year. We're coming up on our one year anniversary. So I guess it's just some. Yeah, I'm happy to be here finally.

Bri

And you've never listened to this either.

Addie

I don't know what this podcast is about and so I'm kind of let's say I'm in the blind. I don't know what to expect. I wasn't really we were just talk. I wasn't briefed on what you expect today.

Dr. Jay

So, yeah, what you're missing is Bri, literally what that is like. Hey, you want to be on our podcast? She's like, okay, like.

Bri

That wasn't… I did say it was about combining finances and love and money, but beyond that, I didn't really describe. Also, I prefer that you don't listen to the podcast. You can just hear me in person all the time.

Dr. Jay

So my wife has started listening to the podcast and I'm not sure if I like it or not. And like the other day, I'm in my office and I'm hearing my voice in the kitchen and I'm like, Oh no, no stop. Like, you need some headphones? Yeah, it's okay, Addie. It's up to you if you want to do this or not.

But before we get into you as a couple, I got to ask about Bri because why not? Because, you know, we got you here. We had just recorded a session. We talked about head trash and other things. And you've seen Bri grow over the past year or so. What do you think's been the biggest change you've seen in Bri?

Addie

Not to sell her short and other things she's worked on before. But I think she has a real passion for this. This is like a real drive. She doesn't complain about the work she's doing for Childfree Wealth and finance in general. That doesn't mean she doesn't have struggles. It's a really hard industry to get into, but she doesn't complain about those struggles.

She takes them head on and tries to make the most out of everything. And I think compared to past careers, like sometimes when things got tough, I think you didn't necessarily find the fun and it still. Whereas with this you find the fun and even when it is a struggle which is really cool to see.

Dr. Jay

That is what we want to hear. Now, I didn't pay Addie for that, but I probably should have. But we actually want our clients, our people to enjoy what they do. And even on the bad days like, yep, I want to keep doing it, which I'm all that. Addie do not talk about how much she complains about me.

I understand like that. But you know, and also just to take you behind the scenes so I've been the working with Bri and Addie on the financial planning for now for five months is that about right?

Bri

Yeah, about that.

Dr. Jay

And when we started, Bri had like a budget on everything, right?

Bri

Yeah.

Dr. Jay

Yeah, that's a number and everything was kind of managing it all. But let's be real. You two weren't really talking about finances together. Is that fair?

Bri

Yeah, that's fair.

Addie

We were arguing about finances together.

Dr. Jay

What was the biggest arguments?

Addie

I think it was the timing of everything. I'm just and how and just merging our finances and how that was going to work because we are polar opposites and how we manage money and that one of us is 100% committed to managing money. And myself, I have never created a budget in my life or even attempted to do any of that.

It was just an overall lack of understanding, I think, and I think my insecurities around money kind of brought forth a lot of hardship in trying to combine finances because it's like not only did I not understand my own finances, but now it's like I have somebody coming in who has total understanding control of their finances and we have to just push it all together and somehow make it work.

Dr. Jay

And by the way, there's no perfect answer on this one. You know, my wife and I, I do all the finance stuff and I try to help her understand it. And some days she does, but I'll be honest, she doesn't participate in it much. Luckily, we don't have a lot of fights about it, but it's not the right solution either.

Like there's no perfect solution on couples and money. Let's just say that. I'm just calling that out. If you are a couple listening to this and you like, “Hey, we've got it all perfect.” I don't believe you. It's like somebody in there is not. Not no, there are a few. I've seen couples that do great. But then you two got married just about a year ago.

Bri

Yeah. So we're recording this in December, and by the time this podcast comes out, we will have just celebrated our one year anniversary.

Dr. Jay

So did you do finances together before you got married?

Addie

No, no.

Bri

We were. Everything split, like right down the middle. We lived together. So we moved in together after being together for, like, three months. And we've been together for six years now. So we've been living together for quite a while. But it was all your money. My money. And then we split rent in half and then groceries. Or we'd like take each other out.

But we did not combine anything.

Dr. Jay

Yeah, we call it the yours, mine and ours. Yeah, we had the three budgets, but it was like we all had our own world and good luck.

Bri

Yeah.

Dr. Jay

Now, did you two have, like, be pre marriage? Like, yeah, let me show you each other's credit score moment or like talk about finances.

Addie

I think so. One of us, me, was coming into this marriage with a lot of debt and I didn't hide it. I didn't try to hide it. I was very transparent about it before we even… I mean, pretty early on in our relationship, it just the debt. It's not credit card debt fortunately. I mean, obviously debt isn't great.

It was necessary for the industry I was going into. And so it is basically all my educational debt and then a car loan.

Dr. Jay

And let’s be honest, as a pilot, there's not really a great way to be a pilot without spending a lot of money.

Bri

Yeah, we went to the same college, and your education was three times the cost of mine.

Dr. Jay

Yeah. And by the way, we can have a separate discussion of whether it is that good investment or not. And what you know, it's worked out for you. Would you give somebody the same advice? Do it again? What we're not going to do that but that episode because that's a whole can of worms. But so Bri, you had no debt and you got married in January and you all of a sudden had debt.

Bri

Yeah, and I think we had also gotten a prenup. And you have to list out everything you have. And so it was very clear in both the letters, both of our net worth, and that freaked me out.

Dr. Jay

One of you had a positive number one had a negative number?

Bri

Yeah.

Dr. Jay

Why did you get a prenup?

Bri

Well, you (Addie) had suggested it initially when we first got engaged, and I was against it, and then I thought about it more. And I actually listened to a podcast from the Financial Diet back in February 2020 that they did with a divorce lawyer. And I was like, yeah, you know what? Actually, I'll get a prenup because it sets the ground rules for your marriage.

And so if, you know, God forbid we get divorced, like, I hope it doesn't happen, but we already know the rules have been established.

Addie

And the ultimate truth is and I've heard this from people, too, before, everybody has a prenup, whether you create one or not, it's just whether you create it or the state government creates it for you. And so we just wanted it to be on our terms.

Bri

Yeah.

Dr. Jay

And by the way, we are big fans of prenups because it gives you a chance to talk through it. And, you know, the legal document is important, but the conversation that got you there and those are the process is, in my mind. You know, it's kind of like I prefer to work with couples before they get married and there are some where I'm like, I'm not sure you're going to work, but they will work through it like they do.

Great. And some that don't and that's okay either way because at least we work through it in hindsight, should you two have done more work on this before getting married or waiting to get married?

Addie

I think with my career and how it progressed, I think the marble's just fell where they did it kind of. I don't think we really could have changed much more than we probably would have got married a bit sooner had it not been for COVID. And that kind of derailed our lives quite a bit, just like the rest of the world.

But we picked ourselves back up, dust it off and continued trucking forward.

Bri

Yeah, I think like if we would have done more work ahead of time, we would still have to do the work now anyway because we weren't going to combine things before we were married regardless. Like that was just a hard and fast rule for us. And another part of the reason we got a prenup was if we can't come to an agreement while we love each other and are very excited to get married, how are we going to get one if we're going through a divorce?

Like, how are we going to come to a good agreement there? That was part of it. We have to do work regardless. If we did it before or after. I think if you are okay with combining things sooner than it probably would've been helpful. But honestly, the timing just worked out really well for us.

Dr. Jay

That's fair. I will call it one thing. So we did episode a while back and we were talking with Bri about kind of like what's important in life, right? And we came to the conclusion that you need to have a wedding reception party.

Bri

Mm hmm. Yeah, we were talking about that. Yeah.

Dr. Jay

How’d that conversation go? Like, for those of you listening, go back to the episode. We'll put in the show notes. Bri has this moment. I mean, I hate to say it almost broke down on it and said, that's what I need to be doing, is getting that connection to my family and my friends and having this party have that discussion go.

Addie

I, yeah, I haven't pushed back on it at all. I've never been against her. She's brought it up quite a bit over the past nine months and I've never once pushed it out. I've always just said because it would more than likely be back in your hometown. And so a few states over. And I said, Well, I don't really have any ties there aside from you.

So it's kind of if you plan it, I'm there. I'm just going for the right. Give me a month's notice so I can have the day off work.

Bri

Yeah, it's like I'll do a party here if you want to. I love wedding dances. The one thing about me, good old country music and wedding dances, that is my thing. So I want to have a wedding party for that and to get everybody together and just dance like really ugly dancing. I'm not a good dancer, but I just enjoy it.

That is what I really want to do.

Dr. Jay

Now, I got to ask you guys, you like do this whole choreography for your dance and like.

Bri

No, no. That defeats the purpose of ugly dancing. No, it is really ugly dancing.

Dr. Jay

I don't dance. I just sit there and watch and go, oh, that's looks. Yeah. Okay, sure.

Bri

Yeah.

Dr. Jay

Alright. So we got married, started putting finances together, and how the first kind of 3 to 6 months go of finances together?

Addie

I think we can look at it in the three month phase and then the six month phase. And then where we're at today, like I'd say the first couple of months were pretty ugly. I think we would agree with that. And I personally look back on it and bear some of that responsibility. It was tough for me in the sense of just with the timing of our marriage and everything.

I fell into a new job and I was making more money than I've ever made before in my life, and all of a sudden it was just cut in half for no reason. It's like I'd see every paycheck I'm through, cut in half, and then the half I wouldn't be like, she gets 50%, I get 50%. It would be like our relationship gets all the money and then we get a little stipend from that money and it all became so like my rent.

I always joked like my rent doubled and my paycheck was cut in half.

Bri

Oh, you weren't joking. You were dead serious.

Addie

I was dead serious. Yeah. It was just really hard at first, again, because I didn't have my debt was high enough that it felt insurmountable at the time. I wasn't working with Jay or any financial planner of any sort. And I guess it's just I wanted to take the mindset of if I don't look at it or worry about it, it doesn't exist and it's not my problem, which is horrible. I'm sure the banks would be drooling at that mindset, collecting interest for the next 30 or 40 years, but I would say the first three months for us were definitely the ugliest.

Bri

Yeah. And I think you know thinking about it over the term of 30 years was very real because you had refinanced all of your student loans back in 2020 and it ended up being a 30 year term and interest rate on it was really good honestly. You went with a fixed rate, which at the time seemed high, but today we're thanking the lucky stars.

You did that. Yeah, but yeah, it was hard. And I was like, no. We want to do these things and have fun. We have to take care of this and create a plan and the anxious part of me that wants control did not like the fact that we weren't creating a plan. So that caused some arguments.

Dr. Jay

Yeah. And just to add to it Bri started a new job right at that point too.

Bri

Yeah, you did. Like you literally finished training the week before our wedding. Yeah. And then I started a new job and, and we had just moved across the country like four months earlier.

Addie

It was 2023, it was quite the year.

Bri

Yeah.

Addie

I mean, honestly, a lot of transformation I'd say. I mean, like so no matter how ugly and combative really those first three months could have been or were, I just never… we never fell out of love through it all. It always… Did you?

Bri

No. I didn't. That was sweet to say.

Addie

I was just like, you scared me. I was like, Oh.

Bri

No.

Addie

I guess we just we continued pushing forward and we sort help when we felt help was needed. And I think that was the big difference maker, because once you get outside help to help with your finances and not even to plug Childfree Wealth that could be any financial planner or financial assistant or just their marriage counselor. Anything. That third party being brought into the mix as a mediator maybe helps you to see the other side, to see where the other person is coming from and maybe why they feel that way and kind of rationalize those things.

At least that's what I found moving forward.

Bri

Yeah, I think you're totally right. And, you know, it doesn't it doesn't have to be when things are going wrong either. Like, like we've worked with therapists before, couples, therapists, and just to gain tools in the toolbox of marriage and relationships in life and both individually and together. And that's been super helpful. Having Jay acting as like the referee sometimes when we're arguing about chicken nuggets is really helpful because we didn't need to have an argument about $7 chicken nuggets like to the point we did.

Dr. Jay

We'll get to the seven dollar chicken nuggets in a second. Hold on. Like so I got to ask you this, Addie. So, Bri, I had said to her, I said, look, you work for Childfree Wealth, I'm happy to be your financial planner as they probably benefit. I'll go. I don't know. They get it up. And did she come to you like, hey, let's meet with Jay and talk about our finances?

That's a cool thing to do. Like I seem to remember the first meeting, she like kind of dragging you too a little bit.

Addie

Thinking back. Yeah, I was. She kind of laid it all out and she never forced me to a meeting. I will say that I came on my own accord. She laid out the reasons and I kind of went with I was kind of at wit's end at that point. We're combining our finances because I felt so disconnected from it all, because I just didn't have a lack of understanding that it was to a point like it can't get any worse.

I mean, and so that was kind of my motivation to come and I guess just kind of see to especially like as my year progressed and like as income changed that year largely for the better it was. Yeah, it just made sense at that point to start coming because I think, you know, maturity, adulting, right.

Dr. Jay

We call it forced adulting, but I'm with you. And when we meet with clients and I did the same with Bri and Addie, we often do what we call the money management system. So it breaks budgets into must, shoulds, coulds.

And Addie, I remember you look at the numbers going, Huh? Well, that's kind of where that goes. And I got to pay for this. And student loans those were just restarting, like the payments are starting, you know, like and the question we really got to is kind of like, all right, what do you want your life to look like?

What do you want your goals to be? And together it was like, alright, we want a different future, by the way, to do that, we need to get out of that. We need to finally to do all that stuff, which is different than like just dumping all the money in the joint pack bucket and be like, where'd it go?

Addie

Yeah.

Bri

Mm.

Addie

No, I would say yeah. I mean every month at least in the beginning it was kind of easy at first because I started making headway. And now talking to Bri about this, psychologically, I took the worst approach that you could. Well, I took the all or nothing approach that you could do debt. I attacked my biggest loan first.

And from a psychological standpoint, if you do that and fail, you're kind of left where you started. But if you do it and succeed, everything else is downhill from there. And fortunately for me, I'm just about done with the big loan. We set a goal of getting it done by the end of this year. We might just come up just short.

Bri

I don't think so. We underestimated.

Addie

That's fair. We did underestimate, but we'll see. We had some unexpected medical bills and car bills coming up within the last month.

Bri

I think we can do it. I'm not worried.

Addie

Yeah, I don't know if I'm picking up anymore days I'm tired.

Dr. Jay

And by the way neither Bri or Addie are giving themselves credit. So I got to tot their horn. Here's what I actually have it. We went through all this stuff. Talk about that. And Addie had kind of a moment like, huh, we could actually get rid of the debt and then do fun stuff. Now, by the way, at the same time, Bri sends me an email, this house down the street went on the market and I love it.

You know, I was like in that house, like, every day. I'm just hoping that the people want to sell it.

Addie

A week or two before that house went on, the market to Jay had a very, very stern conversation that we shouldn't be looking at houses and that there shouldn't be on our mind. Meanwhile, missy over here is on Realtor.com like every other day.

Bri

Listen, because that is the only house I like. This is one house that I've seen that I'm like, Oh man. Like that is a perfectly out for what we want and to entertain and all of that.

Dr. Jay

Now I'm going to flip that and say, okay, cool, if we get out of debt, we can buy that house.

Bri

I know, but now I know. I know that there's a house in our neighborhood where I want to be that ticks all the boxes.

Dr. Jay

By the way, the challenge there is not to go buy that house. Then when you get a Florida like and that's what people naturally want to do that and the way I look at is houses on average will go up the market every 5 to 7 years. So five years from now you'll be in a great place to do that.

What then happens is we do the math, we figure out and it can pick up extra shifts or, you know, extra hours and work it through. And we do this and I put that towards this and, you know, all of a sudden these are shared goals and make a huge progress putting loads of money towards debt.

Bri

Yeah.

Addie

I mean, I've over half my debt this year I think, and in about five months I should say because we started at six months. We started in June. Yeah, December 1st. So really five months just about half my debt is gone.

Bri

And we like saving money before that and paid off another one. So yeah, most of our money goes towards that.

Addie

Yeah. Pretty much all any overtime, extra hours for either of us or not as some big financial influencer would say, the only time we see the inside of a restaurant is when we're picking up extra hours. It's not entirely true. We still go out to eat and have fun.

Dr. Jay

So. Alright, so I get this. You know, they're making progress. I get this random text or chat from Bri. The world is coming to an end. We're going to get divorced over this debt.

Bri

Yeah.

Dr. Jay

What the heck happened? We went from all good to the world is coming to an end now. In a previous episode, we talked a little about this. This is where the chicken nuggets come in and Addie you want to tell your version of the story.

Addie

Have you already told your version?

Bri

No, I don't think so.

Addie

Okay. Well, I'll go first. It was a lovely night in September, and for one reason or another, I was craving chicken nuggets. I think it was September 27th. It was close to the end of the month, was nearing the it was over, under just over. It's over. It was over budget. And but I don't know. I was just I just I can't remember what we were even eating with it.

But I wanted chicken nuggets to like because I think it was some sort of Asian dish and they would have mixed in well, like a sweet and sour chicken or something. And it just would have been simple. We didn't have anything really defrosted and ready to cook, and I was like, Well, why don't we just run to the grocery store and grab some chicken nuggets.

I will fast forward a few years in our relationship or maybe like five, six years. And just just after we met about five and a half years ago, I have a tendency again and never budgeting or planning even for grocery shopping. I would grocery shop almost every second or third day and buy food for a specific meal, maybe cook with some of it, save some of it, hopefully use it another meal down the road or just let it go bad in the fridge and have to throw it away.

And Bri, for the past six years has been fighting that tendency, hard, to help us save money and be even more eco friendly. And I and so I've been struggling with that dynamic. That being said, that was kind of like the precursor to wanting to run to the grocery store as we were driving by because we had driven around.

00:23:47:17 - 00:24:05:11

Addie

I think we were looking at the autumn leaves that day where we live, the leaves are changing color. So it's really beautiful. So we did a car ride just around the area looking at the scenery and we drove past the grocery store and I was like, Could we grab the chicken nuggets right here? I mean, we're literally driving by and she's like, No, but we are driving away from our house.

We still had to drive past the grocery store one more time. And so we I kept on pushing and pushing for the chicken nuggets and arguing we make enough money. Like I said, I'm a professional pilot. We're comfortable. Even with my debt and the progress we've been making, we can afford it. What I argued was I think I said six or $7 bag of chicken nuggets.

I ended up working out it was like eight or $9 again pinching pennies here. We could afford the chicken nuggets. I think a lot of it, as Jay kindly pointed out in the coming days once again that it wasn't about the chicken nuggets, it was almost more about control. And I think Bri saw it as me drifting back to my old ways and she didn't want it to happen, whereas I saw it as we didn't defrost any food, we failed to plan and we're in a little bit of a pinch.

Why don't we just buy some chicken nuggets, Just Bare nuggets or whatever that we could toss on a cookie tray and have a simple protein for that night? I even offered like just like the little pieces of fried chicken from the deli. There's some sort of chicken from the grocery store that was already cooked and needed very minimal.

Dr. Jay

Okay, like, seriously, it's a $7 debate, and I got a text. We're going to get divorced and I'm like, I’ll Venmo, you're seven bucks. Okay?

Bri

I was like, no, you don't need to Venmo me.

Dr. Jay

I mean, literally, like, I'm like, are we talking about seven bucks or not?

Addie

We're talking about old tendencies and how old habits die hard.

Bri

But yeah, you grocery shop frequently. I grocery shop and plan like I'm stuck on the farm and I’m not going to be able to go to a grocery store for days. Like, I mean, that's happened before to me. So it's, it's valid, but that's my nature is like plan everything out.

Dr. Jay

So you yeah we did a separate episode and had trash and this is kind of part of the same thing. I'm trying to pull part of the head trash and figure out what the real issue is. We talk about a surface which structure the surface is the nuggets. The structure is two different ways of living. We had already gone over our budget.

Bri's like, What the heck? We all agreed to this budget. You're not sticking to it? And she's like, It's $7 and I'm hungry, like, and it's a huge issue. Yeah, we have to have an emergency meeting and work through this.

Bri

Mm hmm. I sent you an email, and it was 9:00, and then you texted me, and I was like, first of all, shouldn't you be in bed by now Jay? Secondly, no, it's fine. It can wait.

Dr. Jay

But right, so now I'm respond back. I'm like, I think we're going to do a meeting like 9:00 at night because this is a nightmare. So now I'm now riled up about these chicken nuggets. I didn't know any of the facts behind it. All I just know is that the whole world's coming to an end. Yeah, and we pull it apart.

And the actual issues, when you set a budget, there is a control factor that happens in there. Who's managing the money? Who gets to make decisions? We're doing it together. But, you know, and then we get what we call pocket money, the spending money that you have. So we would call allowance. I don't like using that word because that as a control function to it like this, all these things.

And if we don't pull apart what the real issue is, we're going to be still fighting about nuggets.

Bri

Yeah.

Dr. Jay

By the way, we actually had another fight about AirPods. Shoes, makeup, hair. None of these are real issues.

Bri

Yeah, yeah, they're there. And that's not to discount that they can be, but in our case, they are not.

Addie

Yeah. I mean, so that night or the I think the following day or couple of days, I think I went on a trip for work. So it was a few days later when we actually finally sat down. Cooler heads prevail that night. We eventually I don't even remember what we ended up having for dinner.

Bri

I have no idea.

Addie

What's in chicken nuggets. So back flash, if we go back to when we first started working with Jay, our very first meeting, I remember Jay told me he's like, for this to work, you will need to be an active participant and make decisions. And every financial like at least you got to be participating in the budget. And I think in the first few months, maybe the first month I was there, I participated.

And then the second, third and fourth month, it kind of faded away into the background. And Bri kind of came back into control of the budget, which then led to more control issues, which is why all this stuff started coming up, because I again, making a comfortable amount of money, see all this money, I see the paychecks because they come from my company and I'm like, where is all of this money going?

It just doesn't even seem right that we could be making all this money. And I wasn't participating in the budget, so I couldn't see. I didn't know where it was going. And so then after our meeting this past, I guess it would have been sometime end of September, early October, it was determined that I would have to step back and take control of the budget again.

Dr. Jay

Well, no, no, no. Not control. Budget again. Actually doing the budget actively.

Addie

Actively participate in the budget work.

Bri

Yeah.

Addie

You mentioned I manage the budget and I think that's helped because now I see the day to day expenses and participate and categorize and it really helps. Like I remember the first time I looked at it and I was just like, Oh, oh, okay, now I see where it's coming from. And I'm like, again, it's even like for people who don't, who have never really worked with the budget before, especially if all the money is accounted for.

It's like, oh, well, now we have an unexpected expense here. I'm like, well, where are the discretionary funds?

Bri

Oh yeah, this is always a question. What about my discretionary funds? Like you already spent it.

Addie

There is not discretionary funds. It's all accounted for. If we have an unexpected car bill that came up last month, money has to come from somewhere else to account for that. Now that I'm able to see this on paper and actively participate in the process, it's like, okay, this makes a lot more sense. Now I see where we're ends, where ends are meeting, and why we have the budget we have.

Dr. Jay

Yeah. And by the way, that was a trick that we tried, which was, hey, let's swap who's doing the budget and see how this goes my way. I've done that one before and it's not worked and I've done this work like, it's like one of those, like, you never know. But obviously for you, Addie, it's helped you learn.

Addie

Yeah. So yeah, the concept of it, it wasn't was I just had to find the motivation to actually sit down to do it. And I think the lack of understanding over the past lifetime, I have definitely led to me being able to sit down and crunch the numbers. I mean, I went back to my flight training days and I was so dedicated to managing my logbook and making sure all my flight hours were accurate, which is just managing a different type of number and currency.

It really when you look at my industry and so I think it kind of like it became easier to stomach handling or managing the budget with no previous experience.

Bri

Yeah, like one thing that we do all the time and I've told clients like, yeah, it's fine if you want to buy something, it's not budgeted for, but then you need to say, where is that money going to come from? And I've said that before, or you said that to me and you're like, where's that going to come from? Like, Oh yeah, we have to like look...

Addie

At the discretionary funds.

Bri

Yeah at the non-existent discretionary funds.

Dr. Jay

Well, I mean, my wife and I, I've had this debate. I have I like gaming and I have a gaming laptop and our dog knocked it down and it actually like like the screen flops in the wind as he smashed it. So I have like a C clamp holding my laptop together and it's pieced together like it was a piece of garbage and I've been using forever.

She's like, How about we just buy a new laptop? And I'm like, no it works. I can make it work. And she goes, well, I just got to check in for X. And I'm like, yeah, she does use that a lot. I like that one's already spent. That one went to this like I save it. She goes, but I just brought in like this and I'm like, It's all planned out.

For two years we've been fighting about this. I'm like, It's fine. Yeah. Like I'm also just being cheap and don't replace. I'm going to replace something. But these are the things we fight about. And there's not truly a fight. But it's this. Where's that money going? It sounds like Addie, you found it. At least.

Addie

I did. Yeah. I mean, just the other day, she told me I'm not too poor to buy new socks. Yeah, my work socks were on their last limb, and finally there.

Bri

Yeah, they're pretty bad.

Addie

And I've just been trying to save money, so I've been shipping out and getting new socks. And I mean, they work. I don't have blisters on my feet or anything.

But she finally looked at me and she's like, you can afford socks. And I think some of this comes from the mindset I'm trying to commit to the full on budget and attacking the debt and some necessity, some kind of sacrifice and that like finally work on.

Dr. Jay

Yeah, but the socks are becoming like a martyrdom thing. Okay, let's be real on that. Oh, I can't afford socks. Woe is me. Like I'm just going to have these holes in these socks. Look at how bad this one is, and maybe we can sell it up.

Bri

I've already sewn plenty of socks, but, like, the heels were gone completely. I'm like, just buy a new one.

Dr. Jay

Yeah, call yourself out on that one. Alright. One more thing I want to share with the audience. You have a thing you call Wednesdays for the wives. And you've had that for a while. What is that and how does that work?

Bri

What we do every I mean, primarily Wednesdays, but sometimes it's different days. Just once a week we go through and we sit down. And the first thing we do is we rate our week from 1 to 5, like how many stars we give it kind of just give a check in. We each individually do this.

Addie

It's two categories on the sheet, one for my side and one for her.

Bri

So yeah, do that to see how our weeks go. And then the next thing is our high and low. We share high and low for the week.

Addie

I don't know if I would have to see the sheet. Oh tasks or like to dos.

Bri

Yeah we do tasks something. We have action items every week. So how do the action item from last week go? Did we accomplish it? Do we still need help with it? And then we assign new action items. These can be things like booking our dog for boarding or, you know, paying medical bills.

Addie

Ordering a new table table top.

Bri

Or ordering a new table top that we just did this morning. Just anything that needs to get done. So that way we're both very clear on, okay, this is what needs to get done. Then we do gratitude, something we're grateful for that is really helpful to go through.

Addie

Here's the sheet we have. Of course, we talked about the stars process, the highs and lows, gratitude, the weekly. So last week's action items, a new action item, we say item. Sometimes it's items that kind of barriers just based on where we're at in our life, we do a budget check in and I've found the budget check in to really help.

A lot of times before this would be rather meaningless. Like, I don't know, I guess it's working on can have but when you actively purchase it when we both actively participate in the budget, I think it's a really good opportunity to sit here and talk about things and maybe put stuff in the open like, Hey, this is how I. So we're not blindsiding each other with stuff that's like, hey, like I want to be looking at this over the next couple of months and figuring out a way to make this work and kind of creating that plan.

And I'm like in a very civil atmosphere because we're when we sit down to do this, I don't this doesn't really ever cause a fight with us. It's just very calm. And the idea is just to see where we're at, especially with my career. I'm gone a lot like over half the month I'm on the road.

And so I think this enables us to really stay connected even with all the disconnections that exist in our relationship and in our life. Of course, then I need support from you with categories. So like just where we're struggling and may need help from each other, maybe because sometimes again being apart, we don't always see that in the day to day.

And then just an I love you because here I feel like the answer is always different. We always find different reasons.

Bri

Yeah. And I think it's like a good way for us to go through and make like we start with good things. We do the tougher stuff in the middle and then we end with good things too.

Dr. Jay

So we're doing a shit sandwich.

Addie

Yes, we can swear. I didn't want to say it.

Bri

Yeah, we can swear.

Dr. Jay

It's our. It's our podcast. What are they going to fire us?

Bri

But yeah.

Addie

I don't know. The FCC might come after you.

Dr. Jay

We'll, we'll link it in the show notes. It's a great tool. Just a good way to check in. I love weekly budget meetings. Our rules are the person that does. The budget can do it, but the other person has to make one change. Yeah, yeah. One suggestion, one something just to be part of it. I love the concept.

Doesn't have to be Wednesdays, but it just happens to work well Wednesdays for the wives.

Addie

I don't remember the last time we actually did it on Wednesday.

Bri

Yeah. It's like Fridays.

Addie

Like it just again, it's just all varying on the schedule. Sometimes we've done it over facetime. Yeah, yeah. For the most part we just try to do it once a week. It's what's important that works.

Dr. Jay

And Addie, I'm going to let you have the last word. What is the one advice you'd give to a newlywed couple trying to put finances together in their first year because you just did it?

Addie

Be patient honestly, looking back on the past ten, 11 months, I can almost laugh and maybe it helps because I just read The Gap and the Gain, but it just we made it work. It wasn't pretty in the present, but it has just worked out. And again, there's a lot of debt. It wasn't like I have five or $10,000, and half of it's gone.

There's a substantial amount of debt, like 30 year loan amount of debt. I think just being patient, creating a plan, sticking to that plan, admitting when you don't know what's going on because I found my lack of knowledge and the whole process was an insecurity within myself. And then once somebody is insecure, I would get defensive and as Bri would say defense since the first act of war.

Addie

I don't know who officially said that, it.

Bri

I got that from somebody. Yeah.

Addie

It's true. It really is true. And I think just being patient, being understanding and open minded that it won't be easy. But if you work together and do the right steps now and nine or ten months or however long it takes you, you'll look back and you'll be able to laugh or your finances are separate and just starting to talk about coming together and finances.

Dr. Jay

I like it. Well, thank you for coming. We'll have to have you check back in a year. We'll see if the story has changed. Who's doing the budget? You know, we have more chicken nuggets or something.

Bri

Yeah.

Addie

The big freezer might help with the chicken nuggets.

Bri

Yeah. We'll buy some tonight.

Dr. Jay

Yeah, I'll send you the $7.

Bri

Thanks.