Family and Finances: Episode 7, Part 1

Well, welcome back to the podcast, Ann. I'm glad to be here today. How about you? I'm content to be here. Well, we're going to talk about contentment today and how it impacts our family and our finances. Contentment is much more than just being emotionally okay. Some people think contentment is just sort of not worrying, being in neutral, but it's really much more than that. It's a state of being satisfied with the way things are. In other words, being able to say, nothing has to change for me to be okay. And I really think that's what Paul was talking about when he said, on either extreme, whether I have a lot or a little, contentment doesn't change. Contentment is unchanging, even though my circumstances may be changing. And in our life and in our journey, we found out that it's super important to live with contentment when it comes to our financial choices. We had, at least I did, I had a lot of ambition. And that ambition drove me to want more, bigger, better, faster. And those words are what the marketers use to make us discontent with what we have. You know, we've got one level of a phone that we like and works, and the next thing you know, a new one's coming out and people are standing in line for blocks to get the new one. And we had to learn that that would drive us into bad places financially. I remember when we got our first car, and you remember, well, not our first car, but our first car for children. Remember what we decided to buy? That green Volvo, brand new. And what was our motivation, remember? Safety. Safety.

They sold us on safety. It was supposedly the safest car on the road, so we went down and bought a brand new car. Car payments and all. You know, the worst way to buy a car, but we wanted the safety, and that marketing to us worked. And so we bought our little green boxy Volvo, had it, and I remember, I think we paid for it twice. We paid for it the first time, and then with repairs to try to keep it running. It cost us almost twice the original price. But you and I decided we were going to go for an anniversary, and our anniversary's in December, and we were looking for a deal. I think you found a great deal, so. Well we, yeah, around Christmas, there are typically good deals at hotels, and we found one at the mansion on Turtle Creek, which is a beautiful, beautiful hotel. I think it's one of the top rated hotels in America, and there were only 12 guests that December in the hotel. We were one of those 12. Well, and the weather was bad. Well, Dallas had a rare snowstorm, so we couldn't afford to eat in the hotel. So we went to some local restaurant that was much cheaper, and before we could drive back, the snowstorm hit, and we were stranded. And my car wouldn't start. The little green Volvo wouldn't start on our anniversary. This was before cell phones. Yeah, so I had to walk to a laundromat and get on the pay phone. Yeah, I went with you, didn't I? Yeah, we both walked to the laundromat, and we're there in the laundromat, and I couldn't get anybody to come get us. They were all busy. The taxis were busy, and here we were one night for our anniversary away from the kids,

and we were stuck at a laundromat with a broken down Volvo. And I finally called the concierge, and I pleaded with him to come and pick us up, and he did. He drove out in the snow, came and got us. We left our car there, and the next day, I called a tow service, and I said, would you go get our Volvo and tow it to the garage? And he said, yeah, I'll go get it for you. And I said, but I need a ride to my house, because I won't have a car, and I didn't want to take a taxi. And so with our green, broken down Volvo. Oh, I still remember this. We were waiting in the lobby, and that tow truck pulls into that circular drive in front of our car. And we asked the bellhop to put our luggage in the front of the tow truck, and we jumped in, and you were in the middle. And the concierge said, sir, I've had Cher as a guest in this hotel, I've had President Ford as a guest in this hotel, I've had rock stars, but I have never had anybody leave in a tow truck. I will never forget you. And that guy drove us home. in the tow truck. It was great. He was so nice. And you made him cookies and said thank you for taking care of us. It was December 22nd and but we tell that story because that was the beginning of us learning to be content with whatever circumstances we had and just to roll with the flow. Right. And over the years we've developed a mindset of being content with what we have and where we are and what it's done for us is if you imagine your finances as having two parts, an accelerator which is your income growth

and that's important but you also have an expense growth potential and what happens is so many people as their income grows their expenses grow and so we needed to learn to tap the brakes on the expenses so that the expenses stop or pause or decline while our income increased and that's when we knew we would start to make progress because up until then whatever we had we were gonna spend. Well yeah we got to the point where there were no exceptions not for anniversaries, not for Christmas, birthdays. Yeah and it wasn't just being frugal or becoming a minimalist. We had to say okay Lord these are our circumstances we've got to work through this we have to stop comparing ourselves to everybody else out there and in today's culture that's one of the big traps is social media allows you to compare what you have versus what other people have and there's always something new or better or safer or cooler you know coming down the pike. And so we had to learn to resist that. One of the simple ways that we've done it and I don't know about you Ann but I notice this every time I go out to eat not in a judgmental way but you and I have a practice to save money by going out when we go out to eat. We just order water. Always. With lemon. Always and that saves us two or three dollars each every time we eat out. And how many years have we done that? And if we were to add that up that is a really big saving. Thousands of dollars. But when we take a young couple out with us or even our children sometimes and they say yeah I'll have an iced tea or I'll have a latte or they'll order something expensive you know that's

that's an indication that they haven't quite learned some of the lessons that pay off in the long run. I'm not saying that it's bad to do that and we certainly are you know not upset for others doing it but it is a simple little way that we've been content with water. And you don't have to pay for that and we drink a lot of water not just for our health but also for our budget. We've also had lots of stories about cars Ann. Oh gosh I'm trying to think of some off the top of my head. I know we've driven used cars a long time now. Can't really remember. We talked about them on a previous spot so I just I was thinking instead of cars what about some of those haircuts I've given. Well we tried that for a while. I gave you one before you were headed out of the country. You got so upset. I got upset? Yeah you said that's the last one you're going to give me. I think I said it was I got two from you the first and the last. But what happened is you gave me that haircut and you were just being helpful because I couldn't we were trying to save money and and you didn't have any experience at it. But I remember I went on that trip and a person that was close to me said Chuck did you get a haircut and I said yeah what do you think and he said I was gonna tell you in the flattest way I can that it sucks. Your hair looks horrible. Whoever cut it don't let them do it again. And I said okay I was planning. I thought so thanks for telling me. I couldn't give you a bowl cut. That's what I was good at with the children.