Wonder what it would be like to make a BIG CHANGE that starts your debt-free journey?
Today we are hearing from Bethany and Corey on their story of what that looked like in their life. When they decide to give up the ‘good life’ for the ‘better life’ and by better I mean hard and uncomfortable but moving towards financial freedom.
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I love hearing real-life stories from real people who are making the hard decisions that allow them to TAKE CONTROL and start steering their life in a new direction – one that is in line with their values and the call they feel on their life.
Bethany and Corey share a lot about what it looked like to bring God into the decision to make a move and get serious about changing their lifestyle.
This episode is part one of two.
Bethany and Corey’s story about staring their debt-free journey
- How they were raised to view finances and debt
- “Even though you know all the right things you can be very easily deceived”
- “It was little things that added up”
- How they handled the debt conversation between them
- Decreasing the budget to account for leaving a job to become a stay at home mom
- Using credits cards for regular spending versus paying in cash
- Wanting to give your kids everything and buying them things
- Making a big location move to support the debt-free journey
- Feeling a calling on their lives to make the big move
- When life seems to be good but you aren’t living fully inline with your faith
- When life is uncomfortable but also very uncomfortable
- Giving up your ‘good’ life as you know it for something ‘better’
- Starting a new job in a new town and taking time to build it up
- Acting like you don’t have any extra money and putting extra dollars towards debt
- Myths we believe about finances that can get us into trouble
- Playing the ‘credit card game’
- The comparison game
- “You have to find happiness in the pits. You have to find happiness in the crappy two-bedroom apartment and the junky car you have to try and start four times, if you can be happy there – you can be happy anywhere. But so often we get it backwards”
- Keeping up with the Joneses
- The cultural assumption ‘you deserve nice things’
Find the Adkins at the Millenial Mission Podcast and on Instagram @bethanyandcorey.
In the next episode, we talk about more practical budgeting tips, how debt repayment as impacted their family and that season of life where they weren’t making progress. So go check that out too.
FULL TRANSCRIPT
0:08
Welcome to Episode 102. There’s kind of this line you cross as a podcaster. Once you’ve done 100 episodes you like I, I powered to do, I held out, I did the thing. So it feels so great to be in the triple digits.
And it feels even better. When I hear from you guys hear the episodes you’re liking you bring it into the Facebook community, and ask for more topics. So I just love this podcast. And I love the community and the conversation that it is creating. And like I said in the other episodes, we are doing bathroom rentals. So there is some drilling and hammering going on. Just bear with us.
All right, I’m also sharing something today that I don’t do often. And that is interviews. Today I’m sharing two episodes, I’ve broken them up into two from my talk with the Atkins, Bethany and Corey Atkins, the having podcast called the millennial mission. And I was on their podcast in the fall, I met Bethany through a podcast mastermind group that I was a part of. And I really loved what their podcast did for about being a millennial, but still being on a mission being really purposeful in their life. And so I recorded with them back in fall. And we recorded this in December, because I just really loved their story. And I thought it would be encouraging to many of you who are interested in less debt, going debt free moving towards financial freedom.
Because Bethany and Corey have story. They had debt, and it was growing. And eventually they got to the point where they knew they needed to do something about it. So they did something big. They moved, they moved from California back to their hometown of Hawaii, Hawaii, Ohio.
1:50
Man, that would not be a bad move, they moved to Ohio.
And on paper in California, their life was good, good jobs, good friends, good weather, a great home, but they were going into debt. And they really felt like something wasn’t working. So in this first of the two episodes, our talk is around that they share their story of making this big move. And what I love about their story is the control they decided to take because they couldn’t stay in a spot and keep telling themselves they’re stuck, keep trying to manage, keep trying to feel helpless and deal with that feeling. But they decided to take control and take a big action and get unstuck with big decisions a big move.
I also want to say I know a lot of my listeners are Christian and some aren’t. So I’m just gonna lay it all out. This is a conversation about what God is calling us to do. And trusting him with it. And regardless of your faith, it’s still worth listening to. Because no matter what your faith is, we all deeply feel call on our lives, and I call it God. But these calls are pulling us out of our comfort zone into something new. What will we do with that call on our lives? It’s a question we can all ask. So let’s dive right into this episode Bethany and Corey are going to share their very inspiring story.
Right welcome, Bethany and Cory. Hi. Hi. Thank you so much for having us. Shawna. I’m glad you guys are here. I loved coming on your podcast, the millennial mission podcast. So I’m really excited to have you here talking about finances and what that’s like in a family situation. Oh, weird. This is like one of our favorite topics to talk about. So good to be here. Good. Because it’s a topic I actually get asked about and I don’t feel equipped. I don’t have the experience with it. So I’m really excited. Let’s start with Can you guys tell me a bit about who you are and what you do now? Yeah, sure. Do you want good? Okay, so we are Korean, Bethany, we are brother and sister
3:45
are husband and wife. We’ve been married for eight years now. almost nine. And
3:52
we also have a podcast. It’s called the millennial mission podcast, the heart behind our podcast is just to share,
3:59
interviewed different people and share their stories and their life journeys to show that everybody has their own God given purpose, and not all of our journeys with the same. And then through that podcast, we also share our own life journey on rails. So one of the big avenues that we talk about a lot is our debt journey. So we have been, we went to college, we got into a massive amount of debt. Both of us have school loans, we had mortgage and so we just kind of started off life, our marriage very early on on the wrong foot. And so right now we are just trying to correct all that and live out our God given purposes. And we have realized along the journey, that being in debt really has held us back in a lot of ways. So yeah, it’s not fun. It’s not fun. So we’re working on it.
4:53
So tell me a little bit about the unfun things. What were you experiencing before you decided to make a life shift
5:00
What was unfunded in your life? Yeah, I think that Sorry, I, I think that, um, you know, debt, I was raised learning a lot about finances, my parents equipped me very well, I had allowance very early on, I was taught to tie, save and taught to be careful about, you know, getting into debt. However, the thing that I think is tricky is even though you know all the right things sometimes because culture is just so
5:31
like, they really push immediate gratification, you know, you can buy stuff off Amazon at the click of a button, it’s very normal to have a car loan and go to school for $100,000, and rack up loans. So even though you know all the right things, you can be very easily deceived and go down the wrong path, unintentionally. And so for us, it’s not like we were going to Bora Bora every month and like spending money that way, but it was just little things that added up. And pretty soon, we found ourselves really financially strapped, we couldn’t. I mean, it was hard. We were using credit cards using credit cards. And then finally we’re like, Oh, geez, they’re maxed out. We don’t even know how we’re gonna pay, make the payments, let alone buy groceries. And so that is when it became not fun. Yes. And I think so many of us can relate to these types of debt that we think are acceptable, the school loans, the mortgages, and sometimes even a car like we need reliable transport, right? These are the things that we tell ourselves. So we’ve got this like, quote, unquote, acceptable debt, and then all the other debt, that’s just easy. They’re little purchases. And as you’re watching yourselves, go into this and get to the place where you can’t buy groceries, like, how are you handling that conversation between the two of you?
6:52
Well, I think, for us, it started with like, best set of as the the little things that started adding up. And it kind of goes back to a lot of people get in debt, because they want to keep up with the Joneses. And I think that we are, we gathered our debt because we were trying to keep up with ourselves. And because what had happened was is we were living in California at the time, we still had our student loan debt, we had
7:23
a little bit of debt with vehicles. But other than that we had sold our house before we moved to California. And we were renting. So that wasn’t a debt burden that we had anymore. But it was we tried to play the credit card game. And when we first moved to California, we were both working. I was running a business, and Beth was doing travel nursing. And so we had a good amount of cash flow coming in. And so we we just tried to, you know, get points with the cards, right. And slowly we started.
7:56
Beth didn’t want to, you know, do travel nursing anymore, she wanted to stay home with our kids. And so we backed off, and we decreased our budget with that. And then we decrease our budget even more, as she wanted to work less. And, but we didn’t decrease our spending really that second time, and we were both starting to make a little bit less money.
8:18
So when we kind of hit that rock bottom with our debt, where it was like, okay, we can’t keep doing this anymore. For us, we moved back to Ohio. Beth was not going to be when we move back, she wanted to stay home completely. So we had her staying home with the kids, I was starting a new job. So it was a lot of dramatic changes. For us, we came back with only one car. Only one of us was working. We were in a small apartment, we really decrease our spending. So I think the conversations to answer your question about groceries and some of those spendings we had such dramatic changes and deep pains with the debt with that, that it made spending less money on groceries and going out to eat easier, because we just reminded ourselves of the pain of debt and that we really couldn’t afford to get the extra things with groceries or to go out to eat or to hang out with friends or go to the movies and things like that.
9:14
Yeah, and when you kind of look back on that retrospectively, you can see what was happening with your money. It sounds like you can see like, our income went down, our spending stayed the same. Our outcome was still up here. So we knew we had to decrease our the amount of money we were spending. And so often conversations, for me at least and I think just talking to my friends, we say like I don’t even know where the money went, like how do I not have any more money? Where did it all go? Was that a conversation like was that a question? You guys were asking yourselves or were you pretty mindful of where everything was? So we did. We’ve always like had a budget and so we’ve always tried to be careful but I will say there was a point where we were when we were using our credit cards. It
10:00
did kind of get to that point? And it wasn’t even like where did all the money go? Because we weren’t spending our money to begin with. We were using credit cards and charging them. But it was like, how did we get to this point where, you know, we have over $20,000 in credit card debt. And it’s never, like I said in the beginning, it’s not really those big things like going to get a car or going on a massive vacation. But it’s the little things that really pick up on you like the trips to target or, you know, going to Starbucks, which I am guilty of way too much. And things like that. And even as a mom, it’s something I struggle with, because you want to give your kids the best life that they can have you want to, you want to our tendency is like to want to give them everything that they need, because we think that’s going to make them happy. But in reality, they don’t care about material things. They just want our attention and our love. And so that’s something that I have to constantly remind myself because I struggle with being present. And then I tried to fill the lack of being present with
11:04
buying them things. And then that’s another vicious cycle because again, you’re racking up your budget. And so it’s really comes back to just being intentional, with a budget being intentional with your goals as a family and what is truly important. Yeah, I really love that. I think it just makes such a big difference. When we look at money not as a tool to make us feel better or supplement something that money can get us things. But we there’s other ways we can get the things we want to right. Absolutely, yes. So you made this life shift where you move to Ohio, you got rid of a car Bethany’s at home, and for I think you covered it before that you had a career as a nurse before. So now you’re home. And when you decided to make that life shift, how did that decision go? Like who said it in the relationship? Who’s like we should move?
11:58
Yeah, I’ll let you talk about it in the second quarter. But I want to say, it seems that it’s like, like, as we tell our story, it’s like, oh, it was this big rash decision. But it was really a combination of many conversations, lots of prayer and kind of taking one step in front of the other. And we never really saw it wasn’t like, we were out in California. And then we’re like, okay, in three years, we’re gonna move back to Ohio. But it was kind of like, Alright, let’s take this step. Oh, that step is leading us here. And then eventually, we found ourselves back in Ohio. But I will say that when the time came,
12:36
I really I mean, we both we both lived our life in California so much. We were so happy there. We had a beautiful home close to the beach. It was just it was beautiful. Yeah.
12:48
Corey really felt the pull. I would say we both felt it. But I was very, what is even the right word. Like I was just like, resistant. I was resistant. But I was almost like in this trance of like, I wanted to stay in California and our beautiful, comfortable life. Yeah. And I knew and I didn’t want to go back. So ultimately, with lots of prayer, we decided that we needed to go back but Korea is the one, I would say he led the way and I kind of went kicking and screaming. I’m glad that we did now, just like you said retrospectively, but in the moment, it was very hard. Yeah. So the reason we moved to California was to help run a business. And our plans were to then either be partners in the business or own the business. And so those were our intentions going out our intentions were never to move home. And at that time, we felt, you know, through a lot of prayer and thought we felt God prompting us to move to California. So when we got there, you know, we started to the business was growing, we were building a team, everything was going well, Beth was being able to work less. We had a good church, really good friends, everything was seeming to come together. And we started like negotiating on either becoming partners or buying the business outright. And we kept praying over we were seeking counsel from mentors, and everything. And moving back to Ohio was really our last choice. It was the last thing that we want to do, but it was on the table.
14:22
And we kept we had over months. It was was it nine months, we had talks about
14:29
trying to figure out how this was going to work. And just in the negotiations, it just kept not coming out the way that that either party wanted. And
14:40
I really didn’t want to come home but I remember I was we were praying fiercely seeking mentors, Christian mentors of ours, and business mentors, and I was sitting in church on Sunday on one Sunday. I have no idea what the sermon was all about. By remember our pastor said go
15:00
Home, just go home. And it just rang with me It felt like God was sending me that message. I’m like, go home, like, I don’t want to go home. But you know what this really is looking like it’s our only option. So I came back and told Beth, I’m like, I don’t want to go home, you don’t want to go home. But I feel like that’s what God wants us to do. So that’s what pushed us to decide that neither one of us wanted to do it. But I really felt strongly that that’s what God wanted us to do. So with that, we kind of said, Okay, if we’re gonna go home, what’s that gonna look like? And that’s when this whole debt journey kind of unfolded. Because one of the things I told that said, If we go home, then you know, the job I’m going to take, we have potential that you could stay home.
15:42
And she said, okay, but let’s move into a small apartment, see if we can find something super cheap and small. We’ll just use one car for a while. And let’s let’s this debt is out of control, let’s just see if we can tackle the debt. So we came home with a game plan. And I mean, we prayed about it, and we ran it by God, and seemed like that was the right thing to do, because God doesn’t want anybody in debt. So that’s what kind of started this whole journey. I think that’s such a powerful tool to use, because it’s like you’re holding to two lives in your hands like one is we move back home, and we change things. One is we stay here and we keep trying to make it work. And we’ll figure it out. But just saying like, Okay, if we do choose to move home, what will that look like and giving it some kind of steps and plans, so your brains not just like freaked out by the thought of it. And I’m really curious, like, God doesn’t want us to go in debt. But here we are. Everything else was good. And we were prospering. And we had the home in the neighborhood and the friends and community and job. How did you reconcile like, aren’t you blessing me right here with you want me to just get give all this up and do something totally different?
16:54
Yeah, I, I felt like when I, we got to a point where most of the of the decisions we’ve made in our life, we’ve just followed what God has guided us to do. And when, probably the last year or two that we were in California, I felt like I was no longer doing it for God. But I was telling myself that I was.
17:18
Yeah, and I was kind of like, Alright, God, you got me here. This is what you want me to do. I got this. And I didn’t ever take into consideration that God took us there to teach us things for us to build a relationship with friends that we’re still friends with today that we will go and visit when we do go visit California,
17:38
that I learned so much about running a business and leadership skills, and all of these things that I could now use in this next phase of life. And I never took those things, really into into consideration. So I think that sometimes too, we get
17:57
it’s tough because Beth says it’s our It was our comfortable life. It was comfortable in some senses. But it’s also uncomfortable, because we were running a business and treating it like it was our own. So there wasn’t a lot of entrepreneurial sacrifices and long hours working and all those things. But we got comfortable in that. And we really felt like God just wanted to shake us from that comfort. Yeah, it was kind of like we were finding our identity more in the business and our lifestyle out there. And God wanted us to re evaluate and begin to again find our our identity in him. And we were losing sight of that out there. And I don’t even think we were seeing it at the time. But looking back, I would absolutely say we were and I will say you know, like I said I did not want to leave I like cried and acted like a toddler.
18:48
But I will say four years as I was a nurse, I prayed and prayed and prayed because I wanted to be home. And I often say this in the podcast, I would have given up anything to me home. And that was often my prayer like, Lord, I will give up anything. And I can just be home with my kids. And if I can just spend time with my kids. And I never really got that answer. You know, I was able to go down to part time I was able to have a flexible job, but I was never fully able to be home. And then it was like the one way that I could have been home was for me to go back to Ohio because the cost of living was so much cheaper. And we were going to be able to make that work there. So for me, you know, even though at the time I was like no, maybe I’ll just stay. It was like God was answering my prayer but he doesn’t always answer our prayers in the way that we want to raise my mind it was like oh yeah, you can be a stay at home mom and you can take your kids to the beach every day. But and his plan it was no you’re gonna obey. I’ll let you be home with your kids. But it’s going to take sacrifice and it’s going to take hard work and it’s also going to refine you and help you to guide you like guide your identity back to who you’re supposed to be.
20:00
I do want to say one more thing about comfort, because I think this resonates with me so well. And when I, your listeners may have even seen this, but in the movie, God’s not dead, this scene, more than any other scene just sits with me. But
20:17
in the movie, there’s an elderly lady who has I think it’s dementia, and she can’t remember her kids names. And she has a son that’s very successful, his runs a business, he’s got all the things that you could want in the world. And he never goes and visits his mom. And one of the scene is one night, he shows up and is visiting her. And he starts saying, you know, I feel
20:46
so bad for you, because you have been, you are the sweetest, most caring, loving person in the world. And you’re in you believe in God, and you’re faithful, and look at what has happened to you. And the whole movie, she can’t remember any of her kids names. And all of a sudden, she just says to him, Well, sometimes the devil will allow people to sit in a jail cell that’s filled with all the niceties filled with all the comforts of the world cars, vacations, all of these things. But the doors wide open, and we never leave the jail cell because we’re comfortable inside of the jail cell. And that just resonates with me so well, because as Christians, you know, having a good church, having good friends and all these things, the business is going well, that was our comfort. And we were stuck in a jail cell for the next step of our purpose. Because God didn’t want us to stay there anymore. But we wanted to. And we were just sitting in a jail cell with a door wide open. Yeah, that that feels really relatable. I’ve seen that movie. But it’s like, that’s very humbling to say, this is all around me. And it is good. And it is easy. And I’m just gonna walk out the store and, and trust that there’s something better, right? Give up the easy for the better, right? Give up the good for the better. How do you keep yourself on point with that? How do you keep yourself accountable?
22:16
Yeah, that’s a really good question. For the accountability, I think the biggest thing for us is just, or for me, at least, is like staying in the word. And I can tell when I’m not. Because my mindset begins to shift, my attitude begins to shift my perspective on life.
22:34
So that’s probably the biggest thing. And then other thing is we just really set goals with each other as a couple with our family. And we plaster those goals on our walls. During our family meetings, we talk about them in our podcast, because we don’t want to lose sight of those and the dizziness and the craziness of life. And to talk to each other about them. Talk to our kids about them. It really helps to help us keep pressing on I would say, yeah, yeah. And I would say it’s as simple as we just don’t give ourselves a choice. I mean, when we, when we first came back, the the emotions for me came a little bit later.
23:18
Because the position I was taking on was a it was a sales position. And when you start a new sales position, you have it takes time to build up your customer base. And I it took me some time to do that. And so I was just plugging away working, trying to work very, very hard, long hours, weekend sometimes. And
23:43
there was nothing to show for it. And for me, the emotions tied to that were just I felt like my identity was wrapped so much in how hard of a worker that I’ve been because I’m not naturally skilled at anything. I don’t think I think I’ve always had to work for everything. And my ego and identity got wrapped it up and we can just outwork people. And
24:05
I was plugging away working, working, working, I had no results. And so because of we were tight with finances, we didn’t have a choice to spend money on other things. We had to be strict with our budget, we had to watch every dollar that was coming out of our spending budget. And I think that that has it trained us over the course of that time to when at the beginning of this year when I finally started gaining ground and having success at my job we’ve just stuck with like the fact that we’re every single one of those dollars that’s extra isn’t ours. It’s our debts and it’s going towards that so we’re acting like we still don’t have any money.
24:45
Even though we’d have been blessed this year to have extra but all that extra is gone to what we
24:51
asked. So I think just not having a choice giving yourself no choice. I want I heard on a I don’t know if it’s a book or podcast one time but about
25:00
Burning all of your bridges. So you don’t have a plan B, there’s only plan a great, Plan B feels good, right? Right. Plan B feels good. If Plan A fails, and we don’t try hard enough to make plan a fail or work, then we can go to plan B. But we we had no option we couldn’t have a plan B.
25:17
I’m so happy you shared that mindset of like, so we’ve got this extra money, but we can’t spend it. Because I think that’s such a common thing is we see what’s in our bank account. But we’re not often looking at what’s on the line of credit, the visa, you know, the other things, we’re just looking at what where the green is, right? Where the pluses? What kind of myths Do you think that we fall into easily? When it comes to finances like things we believe that get us into trouble?
25:48
I would say a really tricky one is the course that we play the credit card game. So tell me what that looked like for you guys? Yeah, I think that there are credit cards out there. And they do have great benefits, you know, racking up points, and you can get free flights. And you can do all those things. But they all you have, in order to get all of those benefits, you have to spend money. And so if you don’t have the money to spend, you should you have no business having a credit card in the first place. So it doesn’t really make sense. And so I think sometimes we can say, Oh, wait, we’ll get this and then we’ll just pay it off. But then we end up racking up more and more and more. And then before we know it, we’re in a big minimum debt. And we don’t even realize it. But you have all the nice points, right?
26:33
Yeah, and I would say that most people can’t play that game there, you have to be extremely disciplined and on top of your budget, in order to actually make that work in your advantage. I wouldn’t say that. It’s 100%. Like, nobody should ever do that. But for us, we started out extremely disciplined. But then when our cash flow became less, we didn’t stop, we didn’t discipline ourselves in the later portion of it to take advantage of it. And then one other one I want to say I mean, there’s like a whole list of them that we could go through, but there’s just one that I feel is really important. And we’ve talked about this recently on our podcast, and it’s more of a mental thing. And it’s just comparison, I think that that puts us in such financial pitfalls. So frequently, because we look at Instagram, and we look at Facebook, and we look at other people’s lives from the outside looking in. And people look happy. And they have this beautiful car, and they maybe just bought a beautiful home. And we want everything that they have. And we think oh, well, if I buy that, I’ll be happy like that. Right? But the reality is, we have no idea what’s going on inside of, you know, from the inside. We have no idea. You know, what, what’s good, we just don’t know what’s happening. I, I faced this I there was somebody you know, previously in my life who I no longer talk to him. When we moved back to Ohio. We were in this apartment and I’m like, Oh, I’m so this is just like, yeah.
27:59
But they had this beautiful home. Now I was talking to my sister about it. Like I’m really struggling, you know, I’m almost 30 I’m living in this apartment. I know that we’re doing it for the right reasons. But I look around and these people I went to high school with they, they’re so much more established than me. And he was talking about this one person in particular. And then just a couple weeks later, I found out that they were going through a divorce. And it made me kind of reflect back on my life. And I’m like, you know what, I could care less what kind of car I drive or where I live. Because you’re not going to find happiness in those things. You have to find happiness in the pits, you have to find happiness in the crappy two bedroom apartment and the junky car that you have to try and start four times. If you can be happy there. You can be happy anywhere. But so often we try to get it back. We get it backwards by saying, oh, if I have the house and I have this car, then I’ll be happy. Yeah. And that’s just that’s not that’s not accurate. No, it’s just delaying our happiness, right? Yes, yeah. I’m just gonna add to that, because I think that’s, that’s the number one thing is the comparison because that leads to the phrases of keeping up with the Joneses. And
29:08
I laugh now, but there was even a point like we’re gonna be talking about comparison. When when I came back to the company that I worked for now, I had this whole, quote unquote, resume of doing all these things and successes, and I thought that I would like hit the ground running that things would start working well for me more quickly. And, you know, one of the sacrifices that we made was not having a car and then we had somebody gift us a car. And that kind of put my ego in check, but also made me very grateful. And there were moments where I was kind of embarrassed that I was driving this car. But now I laugh because I one of the things that helps me with comparison is if I know I’m doing what God wants me to do, and my
30:00
Identity is in him, then who cares what anybody else thinks. And I mean, even today, I have a couple of hours ago, when I was coming home from work, I cross my fingers, and I literally was walking out to my car said, God, please make my car start.
30:16
Literally, like, there’s been two times where it hasn’t started at all. And so much so that I’ve ran the battery dead and had to have somebody come over and jump my car, just to get it started. And I made a joke to the other day that every time that my car starts, and I’m driving, I feel like God just reaches down and puts his hand on an engine who’s making it work, because there’s no reason this car should be running. Right? I can relate to that. Like every time it turns over, it’s a miracle. Yeah. And I like, every time I started, a bunch of smoke comes shooting out the back of the office that I’m at the one time the owner of the company was standing in a meeting, got up from his meeting in the conference room, looked out the window, saw the smoke saw, it was me waved, and then I drove off. But this thing just kicks out all this smoke. But for for me, some people may look and say, well, quarries, you know, achieving success here. Why is he driving this car. And now God has blessed me immensely this year to where I’ve hit the highest qualifications to where I’m going to I qualified to win a truck for a year, next year. So I’m just hoping this car holds on to them. But I every time I start the car, I wonder if anybody’s looking out from the office saying, why is Corey driving this piece of junk when we know that he’s done this, and then I just start laughing. Because my identity is not wrapped up in what I’m driving. It’s wrapped up in who God says I am. And I know that I’m following what he wants me to do. Right. And it really challenges that cultural assumption, like you deserve nice things. And you should buy things that are going to make your life better and keep you secure. But you’re putting yourself in this situation that’s countercultural, where you are willing to turn that key everyday and trust it’s going to work and have to deal with it when it doesn’t, in order to see what’s possible in the future in order to have God kind of dictate what your future is going to be. Instead of you keep buying what your future is going to be really good.
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When you’re ready, you can head on over to the second part of this episode, we talk about more practical budgeting tips, how debt repayment has impacted their family, and that season of life where they weren’t making progress. So go check that out whenever you’re ready.