Alright guys we're back here again for those of you that haven't watched this video, we're continuing our series. I think I called it how we live the HVAC, our life. The whole point of this was to bring to the videos basically just our perspective, of how this works and the stresses and the frustrations and the triumphs that we go through as HVAC service techs right. This is my wife Jill sitting next to me, hi, and we have again we've reek.

We've covered some of this stuff before, but I'm gon na kind of recap a few things for you guys. Okay, so we started this series, the first one we did was kind of an introduction. You know it introduced in each other and talking about how long we've been married and that kind of stuff. Second one.

We talked a little bit about some of my mental issues that I went through anxiety stress, that kind of stuff that I know you guys deal with. So I encourage you guys to go check those other two videos out this one's gon na be kind of a continuation and we're gon na go ahead and cover we're gon na start off with some financial things. But I want to start you know talking about recapping. Last year, so it's currently January 12th of 2020, it's a new year for us, some of you, you know, may consider this a new start, and if that is, I wish you guys the best I mean sometimes it's nice just to be able to look at that New year and say: okay, we're gon na we're gon na do things differently, we're gon na focus on new things.

You know some people call them new year's resolutions. I I mean we don't really. I don't think we really have new year's resolutions that we talk about, but I mean it's kind of a time to reflect. We definitely talk about things.

You know. Obviously, at the start of a new year, we one of our things that we talked about was getting back into our budget and that's fitting because we're gon na talk about that today, we started a few years ago and I wouldn't say a few: how long ago Was it that we actually started the whole budget? That's probably four years ago I would say it was four because it's been almost to where we haven't really strictly stayed on and then maybe it's been three yeah okay, a little bit of history here Jill and I grew up together. Essentially, okay, we met each other. When we were both in high school.

I was going into my senior year. You were going into your junior year, we've been dating ever since we got married very young. I think I was 21. No.

I was 22. You were 21 when we got married kids now getting married around our age and I'm like they're, so young we were and - and it was interesting too, as a young couple, because we had a lot of challenges, we had children at a young age too. I we had our first, our first daughter yeah, so our oldest right now is 13 years old and our youngest is 10 years old. We pretty much have known each other, I would say for half our lives yeah really.

You know we were not financially smart. When we moved in together, we moved in before we got married. We were looking. I say the way that I did this was.

I was chasing my parents lifestyle. When I moved out with you, my parents were at a point in their lives where they were extremely successful. I would say I mean my parents are not rich what I mean, but I guess that's a relative term, but even my parents were very successful. My dad was running a business and they were financially stable for sure and they were having parties.

I can remember, you know big luaus that they would have, and - and you know when we first moved into an apartment - the first barbecue that I wanted to have. I can remember like oh, I want to have just like my parents had you know. I want to have all this different stuff, because in my head, that was the lifestyle that I lived. So I wanted to continue it.

Unfortunately, we couldn't afford them. I can remember you know, flash-forward couple years later we move into our house the house that we bought that we never should have been able to afford. We didn't, I shouldn't say that we never should have been able to purchase because we could not afford it. We were one of the people that bought a house in the 2003.

I think we bought it in 2003, moved in in 2004, yeah, wait, no, no yeah yeah somewhere somewhere yeah. I think we moved in about 2004 right when the market was peaking before the housing bubble burst and the crash and all that stuff, so we bought on the way up. We didn't buy at the highest price, but we bought on the way up. We got an interest-only adjustable rate mortgage just like everybody else right.

We were sold that bill of goods that this is the easiest way. I want to say that our first mortgage payment was $ 2,400 a month yeah and we went from paying $ 800 for I waste more money on rent, and then I bet you I thought yeah. I bet you at that time. We were probably making off the top and they had maybe $ 3,500 a month.

Maybe if that we were upside down inside out, could not afford anything. So here we are in this giant house, and I can remember my mentality to young kid. Someone should have kicked me in the head, but when we were pre-qualified write that term pre-qualified for a mortgage of two hundred and forty thousand dollars or fifty thousand whatever it was, there's probably 260. To be honest with you, we were pre-qualified we in my head.

I thought okay, I'm gon na buy the biggest house that I can for that. Pre-Qualified amount, because in two years we're gon na sell this house and we're gon na make $ 100,000 and we're gon na move to the area where we want to yeah. That was my in my head that small area we can sell it later, yeah, which it didn't work out that way. Now, luckily, not judging anybody, we did not lose our house, but we struggled financially for many years living off of credit cards.

Building up debt paycheck to paycheck, barely able to afford everything. Credit card rates were climbing to the sky, stupid amounts of money. I I mean, what do you think the highest credit card debt we ever had? I mean maybe $ 25,000 $ 30,000. Maybe I don't know it was stupid amounts of money.

Whatever it was right, it took us, I mean you or the way you were in charge of the bills and stuff, so I just kind of got the stress end of it, but not like yeah severity of it. I guess you could say like yeah, I didn't really know to me to me. It was always okay. I never paid off a credit card with a credit card.

We never got to that point, but the balances were stupid. Expensive right - and I know you guys all probably went through the same stuff, especially if you're our age, and I realize now looking back on it. It put us in the place that we're in today and we learned a lot of life, lessons from it and we are in the process and we'll teach our children is. You know not to do that? Okay, because you know it was just crazy time.

So we went through all that learning, we're still not perfect, we are, we are and it took us out. How long do you think it took us to pay off that debt? So we we we, we started, I feel like I mean I don't even feel like it's paid off like debts paid off, but we're still paying for it. Oh yeah, we still pay for it yeah. So anyways we didn't lose our house okay, but what happened? Was it was in an undesirable area? We ended up talking about that on another episode of this, but we were in an undesirable area.

We lived there for many years. It was a large commune was never home yeah. I was at work all the time. I had a about, I think we've done the math.

It was about three hours a day commuting just to get home. That's just to get home guys that was basically three hours a day extra to get to my office. Essentially, now my commute during the day, you know I would work in eight nine hour day, but then, no matter how long your work day was between driving down the hill. We lived up in the high desert and driving up.

The hill was three hours a day. So when we moved into the place where we live now, which is right around the corner from my office, my commute to work is three hours less a day. If that makes sense, so it was a struggle. We had a hard time.

We it took us a very long time and where I want to get into this was it was actually my aunt, my aunt, you know just just vocalizing financial stuff to my aunt. While she was at work because she works for us, we, she would always tell me about this. Financial guy Dave, Ramsey, very religious person, and she would tell me that they went through this thing called Financial Peace University FPU. Now we did not go through FPU.

Fpu is through a church we're not associated with any church, but I liked the the the concept of the financial piece or whatever that Dave Ramsey preached right and as honest like, like down another way that he just the way he was across and you're like yeah. That's right, it's my you know it is our fault like it is. You know you put yourself in those situations by the decisions you make and it's just really kind of eye-opening and he that's what you need to hear. He doesn't sugarcoat it.

I mean I, you know we so after we found Dave Ramsey, we started watching his YouTube. Videos YouTube videos at many other faiths. He had a podcast in the radio and I just loved how blunt he was he's. You know you would watch a youtube video.

You can still search him up he's a great dude, but you can watch a YouTube. Video and he'll he'll be talking to someone on the phone he's like you're, an idiot just just blunt, like on the radio, just you're an idiot. Why did you do that? Why would you do something that stupid? Like I just love his he's just honest, and I love that about him, and you know listening to him talk again, my aunt told me about him and at first I was like this is stupid. We're not like we're not gon na go on a cash budget.

That's the dumbest thing in the world. That's what we we have credit cards. We just we'll just pay our credit cards off for years, probably a good year and a half two years. I thought no! There's no way and she was not as involved in the finances because of me, and it wasn't that I was hiding anything.

I just handled the finances, and one thing I will say is this: I I wouldn't consider us making stupid purchases like I didn't, go, buy a boat, we didn't go, buy, you know crazy TVs and all kinds of crap. Yes, we have bought stuff like that before TV's, not boats, but but we just spent our money in places. We didn't need to like, for instance, spending overspending on groceries and buying stuff that you want, but you you're buying too much at one time or it goes to waste and we're just every word is overspending in different areas, and - and so you know we eventually. I came around one day.

I don't know what the aha moment with me was, but I finally came around and she was on board with the Dave Ramsey things she had. I think you had another friend to friend, Jamie Jamie was going through your friend and Jamie was going through the whole budget thing and you were hearing from Jamie and success with it like doing good, yeah and, and then I you know again had my aunt talking In the back of my head and I started watching the videos and started listening to, he had a radio show at the time. So I started listening to his radio show on the radio and it was just like something clicked one day and I said: audible, books, yeah, the audible books and something quick, and I decided we were on board and it to be fair. The way that things were going, we've always had a good relationship, but I think that that was one of the places where I don't think I was fair to you because, when you think about it it was, I finally decided that we were gon na do this When she wanted to do it the entire time, so I don't think it was fair that I was listening.

It was like I was getting real tired of like we had money to do like certain things or we had. You know we had enough money to do work like pay our bills or when it came down to it, though, like I couldn't go, have a girls day or to take the kids to do like a simple activity. It was just like too much, and so it was like well something needs to change, so we can be able to afford these things because we should be able to, and so when you finally jumped on board, it was like. Okay, yes, like let's get our stuff in order and stop what we're spending and you know the wrong places.

So we could do the things yeah that we want to do sometimes in, and so I want to do to recap the way that we started. This whole thing or not to recap, but to summarize it the way that we started this whole thing was we read Dave Ramsey's book? I actually have it here. We haven't read it in many years. We should probably reread it, but it's Financial Peace University.

We both - or this is financial peace revisited, but we both read the book. We started listening to his audible books. We were watching his YouTube videos. I was listening to his radio program and we we didn't, follow the whole baby steps thing step by step, alright, but we we embraced it.

We use many parts of this so yeah. The main thing is looking at your income and your expenses yeah, seeing where everything's going out and budgeting for all of that and make sure you know see what you do have extra at the end of the month and save it yeah. And you know what what I kind of came up in my head: okay, the best way I had to make sense of what he was saying, because it wasn't always there all of it wasn't gon na work completely for us. You know we already had retirement, not a lot, but we were already actively contributing to our retirement and I honestly have a 401k plan and I never wanted to stop contributing now.

You know if you follow FPU, I believe we were supposed to stop contributing to everything and just start paying down debt. We kind of did things a little ass-backwards, but it worked for us, but the biggest thing we did was we started at the beginning of the year. We printed out our bank statements for the entire year previous and we went through those bank statements and scrutinized them. 100 % breaking down anything for groceries all year, like Oh gas station purchases, those were the worst for me because I would go to the gas station three four times a day buy a candy bar in a soda okay.

So when I wish I had those numbers in front of me, but I kid you not. I want to say between food, lunch and everything $ 40 day, but I want to say like again off the top of my head. I could be completely wrong, but the numbers that I was thinking was like at the end of the year, like 15 20 thousand dollars on, and I could be wrong guys but whatever for you tot forty dollars a day times 365. That's too big of a number for me to do in my head, but the $ 40 a day included, lunches, breakfasts and different things like that.

So we basically just took our numbers. We categorized everything from our previous year. We looked at credit cards, bank statements, everything categorized everything and then looked at those categorized numbers. We broke him down and separated him into categories like one of them was gas stations and fast-food.

You know we broke it all down that way. Then we looked at that number and we said: where can we shave and we just started shaving? We looked at this gas station and packing your lunch. I did I did. We started packed my lunch now.

I will say I started yes, I want to give her all the credit in the world because she started. I couldn't take it. No. This was a team effort.

She started packing my lunch. She would get up every morning with me. She would make me a lunch. Even if it was jelly - yes, yes, but she would do that, so I got to give her the credit, because she was helping.

This definitely was a team effort. I think a lot more on her part. I think she was more excited that we were actually starting on the budget and I think that's what got you just yeah. I assume that that's what motivated you to get up every morning with me and make me was like not being wasteful, it was, we were buying our groceries and being mindful with what we were buying and why we were buying it.

So I didn't want it to go to waste, getting up making your lunch, so we would go through it, and so once we made this commitment once we broke down our previous expenses from the previous year, we printed out every bank statement we scrutinized and we highlighted Them would categorize them. We came up with a general. This is what we spent the previous year. We started shaving the taught the money off saying: where can we save money? We realized, just like Dave.

Ramsey had said that we were not wealthy, but there was a lot of money and there was a lot of money that could be used in better places and just making it's like one of the things like you know. Your dollar has a purpose and doing that and making you know an envelope for birthdays, like you know, friends, birthdays, your kids, kids, friends, birthday parties like having money set aside for when those came up. It wasn't, you know like we, it was nice to have it and not like wonder where it was gon na come from so take money that we didn't have to buy and to give context what she's talking about was where I was gon na go next. Is we literally went to a cash-only life? We paid cash for everything and this is crazy guys we went and we followed the envelope system lots of different people talk about this, but we followed the envelope someone once we shaved everything off of our budget.

We saw how much money we had a month coming in. We were able to look at it and we said okay, how much of this money do we want to pay off credit cards? How much of this money do we need to live? We gave ourselves an entertainment in the entertainment budget was I mean in the beginning, I mean what did we have okay, so we had an entertainment budget. We each gave each other a hundred dollars in the beginning in the beginning. Actually you had $ 75.

I had $ 100, it was just like that's for like if you know I wanted to go, get something lunch with a friend there. That was where my money came. You know that money and, like she said we had a category for our children's friends birthday parties and I think we it was difficult to. We said that we couldn't spend any more than $ 15, ten or fifteen dollars on someone else's birthday gift and that's hard, because you want to do more for other people.

And you know it's hard when you can't, and it was a struggles had to do it because we had to put ourselves in a better position and - and it worked out and oh yeah, so one of the biggest things obviously is paying off your debts. However, you guys choose to do it. We chose to apply so much money a month to pain, down credit card debts and we really focused on it. That was the priority.

So once we had, you know this is what our life costs us bare minimum. What we could afford to live on right and then we said we need all this money right here for credit card debt and we started paying down credit card debt now granted we didn't follow the the financial plan - 100 % right, because we we didn't pick the The biggest we didn't pick the smallest credit card. First, I just didn't understand that one we picked the biggest one and started paying down the biggest one, but the whole concept was is that we went to a cash-only system. We withdrew a somewhat large amount of money.

Every single month I went to the bank. That was something that we'll talk about too, because I kind of worried about that. But I would, through a large amount of month from the bank, and then we brought it home and we organized it. Our kids were on board too.

We had envelopes, I carried an envelope. Actually, no, you carried envelopes with you. I just had my personal cash that I got to spend every month, but when you went to the grocery store, so this was a lot on your part too, because you had all the envelopes. If you went personal items, you know deodorant that kind of stuff.

She had an envelope for that if she went grocery shop and it wasn't down to a science like some months, it was like we needed more personal items or we needed more grocery items or more toiletries or whatever. So it was like. I would pull you know if I needed more for groceries. I could pull from personal some months and then some months I would have to pull from groceries and use it for personal items, like it just kind of balance itself out, but just try not to overspend the cash that we took out for the month.

Now. One of the struggles that we had was obviously we're HVAC our service techs right. We work busy long hours and I struggled with this budget because I found myself trying to justify purchases because I was sacrificing myself at work. I would be gone so long and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich just wouldn't cut it.

I figured in my head man, I'm busting, my butt. I want to go to sushi tonight. I want to do this, but when we got on this budget, that was that was how our expenses went so high. All the time was, you know, you know I'm never home yeah, I'm never home.

So we're gon na take a vacation and we're gon na go on a road trip to San Francisco and we're gon na. Not have you know, hotel reservations anywhere and we're gon na stop in Monterey and we're gon na stop in Morro Bay and we're gon na. Go to every fish restaurant we could. That was a vacation for us right and we spent so much money and it was fun.

I honestly, I think I would do it again, but I wish that we would have been a little bit smarter about it. Finance could have planned for it, and I mean - and I think where we're at now like this year, we're kind of seeing like I feel like we're for myself seeing some of the similarities we were doing in the past and so why we feel like we need To get back on the budget and the cash budget, because what just a few months ago was, I kind of feel like when you just thought that about Monterey is like when we went up to Mammoth and we didn't have reservations and we didn't plan it. And we probably spend a little too much, but we what's the word you just used, we justified it yeah, you know, and so it's like I, you know, I show those things after we went through that again you guys, I highly suggest you guys look up Dave Ramsey, if you haven't just look up Dave, Ramsey baby steps, if you look up that search term alone, ask the Google look on YouTube. Whatever look up Dave, Ramsey, baby steps and just listen just listen to what he has to say.

You guys don't have to adopt everything that got us out of debt. We we are, we are out of debt today, except for we choose to have a car payment again. Dave Ramsey has a different method of doing a car payment and he has a smart wheel and I kind of wish we didn't have car payments yeah so like it is nice to not. So if you can get around it and do you know, do the way that he - yes, I like that probably be pretty smart cuz, he does have a lot of hue.

Does a reason behind it. He does so so we are out of debt. We have a car payment by choice and right now we have been out of debt for a good three years because we spent the whole year getting out of that and yeah and you'll. Be surprised that if you follow like his baby steps and you focus and in mind you to another thing, was while we were doing this whole paint off our debt, we actually had money to save, we were actually saving money and the coolest thing in the world Was seen a savings account, you start with baby goals and I could be butchering these, but I think we started with a goal of one month of savings.

Basically, your income one month of income saved in the bank, and we worked for that and we struggled and mind you. We were still paying down credit card debt too. So again we were kind of going a little bit backwards with his baby steps. But then we went to three months: three months of income saved, guys that's Hulme and then didn't happen where we had like.

We were in the process of saving money and then did we go over this in the last one. Where then, our daughter had gotten? No, we didn't. We actually had the money to pay for the medical bills instead of wondering where it was gon na come from when, when our daughter got hurt, of course, you're gon na do anything you can do for your child right. Our daughter just look yeah.

She dislocated her elbow emergency rooms, all that stuff and the the best van I remember telling her was while we were sitting in there again. Of course, I would do anything for my daughter. I would bend over backwards max out. Every credit card in the world borrow money from anybody, but while we were sitting in the hospital and they had to put our daughter under just to set her arm or whatever to pop it back in the socket whatever - and I you know - I remember thinking for A split second because I was still worried, we're gon na be okay, we have them, we, it would now granted we had to pull from our emergency fund, but we had money to pay for that emergency for that emergency, and that alone was like.

Oh, my gosh. It was I, oh, that's really know myself, you know my goal, my personal goal, I don't know if you're quite on board. I think you're okay with it, but I think that you probably I assume that you don't want to be, as is a hundred percent like going at it like I do, but my life goal is to have one entire year of income saved an entire year of Income saved as an emergency fund. That is my goal, and I find myself sometimes because guys one thing about me and this will go into personal stuff - is I obsess about stuff and when I go into it like, for instance, when I started this whole video thing before I even when I was Just filming videos for my technicians before I even made them public, I spent stupid amounts of money on computer gear and all this stuff because I just decided I'm gon na and I just go in headfirst, I'm a toilet, yeah and now I got lucky in that.

This actually turned into something that could become somewhat. I get. I get a small income from this. I do make a little bit of money from these videos, so it justified my extreme purchases and purchasing all this studio gear.

Before I was even gon na make any money right so again with the whole budget thing like what I did. I think the reason that I was able to be on board with the budget was because I went extreme with the budget and I can remember it actually not. We weren't fighting each other, but I can remember some some discussions between you and I and I was like no that's not in the budget and where I think, and you could tell me where, where where I think I had a problem or you think I had A problem, but I think one of the things we got into an argument about just a little discussion was birthdays when you wanted to buy something for another kid's birthday, because it was a close friend of yours and I was like you got 15 bucks to spend And you were like, I can't we need - and I said no so ok, but so I obsess about things guys. That's like my OCD, so I wasn't overspending.

The cash you just didn't have to worry but uh. You know it's it's those things. So I focused hard on this stuff and just like obsessed about it, and that is my mental disorder, I'm sure something in that. So alright we got out of debt, we're still struggling right.

We still are out of debt, but it's even weird when you get used to paying with cash, to pull out your debit card to pay for groceries. I just uh. I still feel weird about it. After spending a year, paying cash and ya know the security of it is just like I like handing over cash recently so once once it was a struggle guys doing the cash budget.

It really was the day to go to the bank to get the money out. Yeah the day - and that was okay - so let's talk about that - the whole money thing, so it was a struggle to get me to go to the bank to make this large withdrawal. Do you want it? You want to pull it out in certain denominations. That was your thing you wanted, like so many fives you're like I have to figure out how many fives, how many tens, how many 20 I obsessed about it.

So I broke it down, we could put it in yeah. My cash withdrawal was ones fives, tens and I had it broken down a little bit. I was CD in there because it's helpful, but I obsessed about it and then there would be times where I couldn't make it to the bank and she couldn't do anything because I didn't get that because we were so strict about it. And but I wouldn't let her go to the bank again, not let I don't control her, but I was afraid for her to go to the bank and walk out with a giant envelope of cash that you couldn't tuck in your pocket.

So that was one of the struggles was making those withdrawals, and I realized I've talked to a lot of people. You know some people say well just do weekly withdrawals or different things, but again I it's in my head. This is how I do it. I'm not gon na change, I'm stubborn when it comes to that stuff, so we got out of debt took two years whatever it was and we started saving money.

Okay, we were putting away money every single month, which was the coolest thing in the world, and we finally got our three months of income saved up. We had money in the bank we were out of debt. Life was good, we ended up selling our house, so in that whole time I talked about it. No less.

We move down to a new house. While we were on that budget, we were still paying off debt once we sold our house that we were renting out. Actually, because we we couldn't afford to sell our house at the time, because the market was still upside down, we ended up renting our house out and we were losing money every month. So the moment we got the house sold, we had a large extra amount of income that we were losing on the the you know, the mortgage versus the rent that we were getting and selling of the house actually finally paid off our debt.

We took the very small amount of money that we made from the house sale, which was very small. It paid off the last little bit of debt and we were scot-free granted we didn't own a home anymore. We have a car payment either and we do a few months later in the car, but another cool thing when when the car broke down well, we had I mean - and I remember sitting in the car dealership when we were buying our new car again on a Car payment - and I remember thinking okay, we're gon na put down - I think it was $ 3,000. Okay, I think we're gon na put $ 3,000 down on the car, and I remember talking to the finance guy and he was saying you know if you put this much down, you can do this, and so I remember thinking you know what we I think we Were originally gon na put $ 3,000 down and then I think I ended up putting $ 7,000 down.

I think I pulled from my comfortable financial amount and I think I put $ 7,000 down on the car. If I remember I hand it was yeah, it was. I think we went a little backwards, but it was like we had the money to do that again because of the whole cash budget, but it was super comfortable guys to be able to have that money, and that was a very big thing for us. Okay, so here we are flash-forward a couple years later, we're doing: okay, we're not great but we're doing.

Okay. Unfortunately, we live in a state I joke around - and I say this a lot, but we live in a three income state. California, we live in the suburbs of Los Angeles, about 40 miles away from downtown Los Angeles. It's a very expensive place to live.

Gasoline is one of the most expensive in the country. One of the most I know if you go to Hawaii and stuff, like that's, probably more expensive, ridiculously high gas prices. Taxes are really high. Food costs are really high, so it's it's difficult, but the trade-off is.

It is 64 degrees outside and we're in the middle of winter. There's places that it's negative whatever. So you know, and in the summer though, the trade-off is 115 degrees. Summers where we live, it gets pretty hot yeah she'sshe's were 45 minutes away from the beach, with no traffic, no traffic 45 minutes away from the mountains when, in the winter time, with no traffic, so you know it's.

We choose to live here and it's a sacrifice. We have to make now our next step is we're gon na go back to the cash budget again, even though we don't have to we're gon na go down that Valley. We should yes we're gon na go down that path again and it's a struggle again going through looking at our previous year's finances, because we did a whole nother year without being cash. So it was easy for me to print out all the bank statements.

So I'm able to come up with what a week's you know what our expenses were and we're gon na go through and do it again and we're gon na get back on the cash thing. And it's a struggle guys in 2020 to spend only cash is a struggle because guys I can take my watch and I can go pay for something with my watch. I can use my phone, it's so convenient just to pull out your card or your phone or whatever and pay for something, but we're gon na get away from that we're gon na get back into the the cash budget because that works for us. I want to say another thing: is the cash budget if it gets you in a place where you start looking at like what you actually need, what you actually use, and so when you go to the stores, even not on a cash budget which we've tried to Do this past year, which is, I think, it's still stuck around the same, like I always tried to spend what we usually spent in cash.

You know. Sometimes it was probably a little over, but not by much, but just from that mentality of not overspending, not over. Getting not getting stuff that you don't need that you know like those random purchases that you never gon na use again like there. We've stopped do that a lot yeah, even Johnny, how it has, and but one of the things that you know is a struggle for us is.

I tend to overthink everything again coming with my self diagnosed OCD, not to take away from people that have a real OCD. Okay again, when I say things like my mental disorders and stuff, I realize that there's people that really really have issues and I'm not trying to downplay any of them. Okay, I self diagnosed myself as OCD, I'm sure someone can diagnose me. Otherwise, I've been diagnosed a lot of things, manic, depressant depressed.

What else was like other things too? I've talked about in other videos, but I've never been diagnosed OCD, but you know I overthink everything right and you really focus when you're like focused on something yeah. Definitely in my thought, process too. You know, for instance, you can come up with an idea, that's something that sounds great in your head and it could be something as simple as hey. Let's go to the mountains this weekend to Big, Bear our local mountain.

She can say - and I say I need to think about it and she goes well. You know I'm replaying a conversation here, she'll be like: let's just go, we can just drive up there the morning of and spend the day there and come home first off. In my head, I don't want to do that. I want to stay there right so again, I'm spending money that we probably shouldn't spend, but when I do that too, I go deep into all right.

What's the where we gon na go, which car are we gon na? Take I'm prepared what things am I gon na have in the car? Do the kids have the right shoes? Do you guys have jackets just in case we have to do this. What happens if the restaurants closed? What restaurant we gon na go to, and you know it's funny as I'm vocalizing this our youngest daughter gets it from me because she is an over-thinker. Just like me and she'll ask you where we go into today. Well, we might be going here, but if you don't have an answer for her, she gets downright frustrated because she wants to know exactly where we go and plan in her head and yes guys.

I realized that there's times that my overthinking really benefits us there's many times where really helped us, but it's also been a thorn. I know - and I know it frustrates the heck out of you, sometimes to the point that you probably want to punch me in the nose. But you know it's just something I have to deal with and I have to try to remember okay chill out, sometimes, even though I know, if I think about this and I think of all these different things I might avoid catastrophes. Sometimes I just have to let her do it, and I I'm not saying that I do I'm just saying I realize in my head.

I know that's the right way to do things, but I think I stand still overthink the heck out of everything, and I would imagine, and again I'm gon na admit problems about myself that I'm a Butthead when it comes to letting you do things and then them Not working out and probably saying well, if you would have done it my way, it would have worked pretty much and I'm gon na give a perfect example of where I know that I was an extreme bye head. It was very recently - and you know where I'm gon na say it. Yeah oh, come on just playing things out with the kids braces. You know and then me not having the right questions and I'm like.

Okay. If you have all the questions, then you need to be there and have you come to what this is and I'm gon na bring it up? Okay, because we're not gon na go crazy into this, but our kids ended up having to get braces again guys. Let's talk about the financial side of this before we go into my problems, guys not flexing okay, I'm not trying to brag or anything like that, but we had the money to pay for our kids braces. Now again, my obsession, my obsession and again you are probably right, but my obsession with this whole financial thing is my inability to use credit cards ever since we got out of debt.

We still have them again, not following Dave Ramsey's stuff completely. I didn't. I wasn't in I don't I wasn't in my head. It was stupid to cut up my credit cards.

Okay, not saying you are okay in my head. I didn't want to cut up a credit. We just have them for an emergency, but that was our choice, but I was obsessed with not using them when our kids needed braces and you initially came to me - you were you, you kind of. Actually, I think you had it in your head for you to get braces first, and then I shut that one down: okay, because our kids, our kids, needed braces first in my head, but you had the idea of using the care financing which 0 % interest.

It wasn't gon na cost us anything, but I said no, I said I will not finance our children's braces because in my head I wanted to so maybe I was wrong. Okay, maybe I wasn't but long story short. We ended up saving up the money and we ended up paying cash for the braces at a discounted rate - we're not extremely wealthy over here right, but it's in and again, though again it was phase one of the children's braces okay, but I let her do this And I told her I can't deal with this right now. I need you to deal with the braces, so she went and the first time she came back.

I had a bunch of questions for her and she didn't have the answers that I wanted to hear all right. I've never been through braces and I figure if they're gon na go through it. The place would tell me everything I need yeah. She didn't have the answers that I wanted to hear and we probably had a discussion about it and I know I was about head about it.

Okay, I'm not gon na say about head. I was a dick okay really and I again she's probably be pissed at me for the next week, because she forgets things and I'm bringing it up. But now it's rehashing issues. She forgot all about this, but then then problems happened with the braces where we had issues and she had a realization that this wasn't paying for the kids braces.

This is phase one and there's no guarantee about how many phases they're gon na need, so the amount that we paid for him potentially two years from now, we might have to pay the same amount and in two years who knows right. So it's it's an ongoing process, but in the beginning one of the questions that I had for you was: how much is this gon na cost and you were like it's just gon na cost this much and that was it and then you found out that it Wasn't that much and that we had potential that it was gon na cost more, and if you were to go with me to any of these appointments, would I tell him he can go to? He would get some more clarification that he feels like he needs, because I have a hard time remembering when the people and on doctor's office dentist's office when they're giving the information. I hear it, but it's hard to reiterate it a normal person. You remember everything and then I'm like well, you know they told me or this or you know, then, when our youngest got the brackets on.

You asked me about how she's supposed to floss her teeth and I'm like I don't you know like. That was another question. I didn't think to ask - and you know they're, so I'm an over-thinker things and I mean he should be there so, but but one of the things that I will say again not to make her seem like a ditz because she's not a ditz when it comes To everything - and there is an actual medical reason as to why she can't remember crap talking about her last thing with our health problems is she has hypothyroidism and she has a certain type of hypothyroidism, which is Hashimoto's right yeah and she actually has a large part Of her brain that she can't remember anything previous and then she has issues even with memory these days, even still which there could be other things going on too, but she's not a ditz okay, she's smart, but she just doesn't remember what I want her to remember And so our again guys we're talking about this, and we can laugh about this, even though she's frustrated with me or I'm frustrated with her guys is we have communication yeah, we we do communicate and we are not perfect. We get into arguments, we've never been in a fight where she's walked out and left.

I've never walked out and left guys, not judging anybody that has that situation, but we just don't roll that way. Okay, yes, we're pissed off! Honestly, I think if we get pissed off at each other yeah and then we will talk about it and deal with it. We are not perfect. All right, don't don't take them.

We are not these super successful people that have a business that makes us millions of dollars a year, I'm a small business owner, a partner in a business ship or business yeah. She works to this day, five days a week four days a week, so we we are still struggling with this all right and we are, we have goals, we have ideas, we have places, we want to be with our life and we're not there yet, and we Have to we have to make sacrifices, just like everybody, so guys what I, if you guys, can take anything from this the biggest thing first off for me, I'd like to hear what you think is, but my thing is communication yeah real life over here. Like wait, you know like, but we have to communicate and if you don't and you keep things I think that's when it boils - I mean you know you get matter in looking back at everything. I think that being able to compromise in a situation where I know in my head that I'm right and she's wrong, but you know what maybe I'm wrong and she's right and there's been times where.

Yes, I obsessed about something. And yes, maybe I was kind of right, but I think I was such a Butthead about the way that I think it just made it worse, and even if I would have just let her do whatever she was gon na do and yes, there would have been A problem with it, but I think the the stress and the anxiety that was built up, because we were trying to do something, and I was saying no and all this. I think it would have just been easier just to make a mistake and have a failure. Maybe not even a failure, but have it kick us in the by it, but at least we wouldn't be stressed out about it.

I don't know, I don't know if any of that makes sense, you know communication. That is the biggest thing yeah. That's one of the things that I don't like one of the advices that we were told early on, oh yeah, by dr. Roy, no, no dr.

Roy yeah and then my dad to use just like communication. That's the biggest thing you can have, and I mean you always hear those things like don't go to bed angry and it really holds true yeah. You know another thing too guys is. We are not jealous people, that's true we're not jealous people.

I know that some people are jealous and there's nothing to do about it, but we are not jealous okay, not like jealous jealous but yeah. I think like with your. You know like your: what is it you're obsessing about things you know and that kind of thing and you're like being on your phone a lot or something I feel like that, creates a little bit of what is the word. I am animosity or something so you know your your your leading me in a direction.

The last thing I want to cover on this little video that we're doing right now is these videos right. So I started these videos about two years ago, two years ago, again they were just for my employees. It turned into something - and I realized, probably in June. I think I technically film my first video and started my youtube channel and November of 2018.

I think - and I realized by June of 2019 that my channel was growing and I think I hit June or July. I think I hit a thousand subscribers, and that was the moment that I could monetize my channel. I think the first time I got a check for six dollars, I think or something like that it was kind of like I was all wow, that's silly and you were just like so ecstatic because you were like that was six bucks that you didn't have yesterday. Yeah, but what happened again with the obsessing and the really diving in headfirst into everything, was I went headfirst into this and I I was obsessed with the numbers.

I was obsessed with the views. I was obsessed with the comments. I felt the need to answer every comment and I will say, though, and I'm surprised it didn't come from you was that you didn't make a comment. I don't remember comments from you.

It was me that said I need to stop and I need to stop looking at the clock. I think it was like. Maybe he wasn't erect like we would joke with you. It would be like going to do something with the kids.

Really you can't even go anywhere without checking your phone or being on your phone like we would say you know things like that and maybe that maybe yeah that with you a little birdie in your ear yeah and too much and that's actually when I started the Livestreams guys when I started the livestreams, it was because I found myself staring at my phone and I felt the need to answer every single comment and I still want to answer all the comments and I still want to get to everybody. But that's when I started the livestreams, because I was like okay, I'm noticing that 20 of the 500 comments that I got are the same. So I can answer that once instead of typing it out 20 times so I started directing people to the live streams and then the live streams became a whole thing, and so I still deal with the OCD. I still struggle with obsessing about stuff, but again communication.

Yeah - and you know, I felt ashamed because I'm like I'm staring at my phone all day long and I just went to dinner with my family and I don't even remember anything that happened. I I don't remember it. We ate some food. I think it was okay, but I answered these five questions on my phone, the entire time you know so I felt distant.

I had to separate myself, so I know, maybe not all of you guys are doing videos but but you get stuck. I think a lot of us are stuck in that mentality of looking at our phones, yeah. I go everywhere and a lot of the times, I'm one of the people that maybe I'll get on my phone last, because everybody else is on their phone but like I can walk into a room and sit there without my phone kind of old-school status. And you know I'd rather strike up a conversation with somebody, but I, like a lot of people, are so connected on their phone yeah.

It's just one of those things that it's hard to find a balance and I still feel like I pick up my phone a lot, but you know guys we are human, we are human, we make mistakes, we have struggles. The whole point of this video series is to show our struggles to share them and when I say help others, it's not that I want you to follow our methods completely, but maybe one of you is watching this video and you say what they just said is Really stupid, so you don't do what we said again learning from us. If you think it's right or you think it's wrong, maybe you'll learn something from us. Maybe you learned that I don't want to do what they did so I'm gon na do the opposite.

Learn from my mistakes, you guys yeah, that's a great. We are trying to work on still and so we're gon na we're gon na close this out. But do me a favor guys if you guys are watching, send us an email, give us your thoughts? If you guys direct the email to Jill, so it you send an email to HVAC our videos at gmail.com in the headline put. This is for Jill and send her think she's gon na read them too.

Okay comments on this video great yeah emails comments. Facebook, whatever guys share your thoughts with us, tell us what you think of this series. If you think it's stupid, let us know I mean we're open to criticism, we're open to anything. What works for you guys financially, is the Dave Ramsey budget stupid anyway, yeah, let us know give us some comments.

Give us some feedback guys. We want to hear from you the reason why we did this. Video is because I've been getting so many comments. When are you gon na do another one? So you know the fact that I got those comments led us to start this again so share our comments like minds or conversations we've just been busy.

Yeah life has gotten in the way past months, so guys we are human. Just like you guys be kind to one another and that's pretty much it all right, we'll catch you guys on the next one and again give us some feedback down in the comments. Okay.