How You Spend Your Days

In this episode, I'm joined by Tawnya Schultz, The Money Life Coach, to discuss our mindsets around money and why zero-based budgeting is the best thing you can be doing right now, especially during the current pandemic.

Recommendations from Tawnya

• You are a Badass at Making Money by Jen Sincero
• Money, A Love Story by Kate Northrup

Follow Tawnya Online

• Get her free budgeting spreadsheet at The Money Life Coach
• Follow @tawnyaschultz on Instagram
• The Money Life Coach on Youtube
• The Money Life Coach on Facebook

My Numbers in Episode 2

• Credit Cards: $27,293.00
• IRS Back Taxes: $16,000.00

In Between Episode 2 and Episode 45:

• +$10,037 added to IRS Back Taxes
• New IRS Back Tax Total: $26,037
• Adjusted my payment plan with the IRS in light of covid-19 and accelerate my pay down of consumer debt

My Numbers in Episode 45:

• Credit card balance remaining: $27,443
• IRS Back Taxes remaining: $12,147

Next up for me will be to set milestone goal dates for my first credit card.

Have any questions, comments, or feedback? Want to share your own #debtfreejourney?
Get in touch!

• Instagram: @howyouspend
• Facebook: How You Spend Your Days
• Email me at [email protected]

This week I talk to Christian Zimmerman, CEO and co-founder of Qoins. We get to talk about the motivations behind Qoins, how it helps its users to pay off debt, and the importance of personal finance during the coronavirus pandemic.

Here are some of the links and apps that we mentioned during the show:

• Qoins - Pay off debt faster and save money without even thinking about it
• Follow along with Qoins' Tuesday Tips on the Qoins Instagram
• Plaid is a great tool for software developers building apps on top of financial institutions
• Catch - My go-to for automatically saving withholding taxes

Thanks, Christian! 

• Income
  • Unemployment
  • Pandemic Unemployment Assistance Program
• Spending
  • Taking stock in where your money is going
• Tackling Debt
  • Negotiate your debts
• Saving
  • Emergency Fund
  • How to Build an Emergency Fund during an Emergency from Paula Pant, Afford Anything
  • Life Happens Fund from Tanja Hester, Our Next Life
• Investing
  • Tips from Tanja Hester, @our_nextlife
  • Don't try to time the market
  • Invest consistently over time, no matter what the markets are doing
  • Avoid making panicked decisions with regards to the market
  • Think Long-Term
• Individual Stimulus
• Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL)
• Paycheck Protection Plan (PPP)

This is a little bit of a different episode since we've been on hiatus but I'm excited about the launch of Year 2! You can think of this as a Season 2 of HY$YD and I'll be documenting my continued journey of getting out of debt and investigating the habits that influence our decisions to save, get out of debt and live a healthy life - physically, emotionally and financially.

This episode is a little fast-paced as a lot happened since October. Buckle up and enjoy! Future episodes will have more structure and slower pacing ;)

Montage of October 2019 - April 2020

• October 30, 2019 
  • One year anniversary episode
• November and December 2019 
  • Holidays & heads down on work
• January 2020 
  • I accepted a new job (we'll talk about this more next episode!)
• February 2020 
  • I started my new job at Panty Drop
  • Chanelle and I went to the Dominican Republic (we'll also talk more about this later)
• March 2020 
  • March 8th we had a retreat for Reno Collective and we talked about our plans for renovations, our anniversary party, etc.
  • We started seeing the signs of the virus in other parts of the world over the next few days
  • Articles starting coming out about flattening the curve
  • Reno Collective decided to stop meetups and other large gatherings on March 12
  • 4 days later we announced we were closing our doors
  • "Non-essential" businesses have closed, restaurants are now only doing takeout or delivery, some have shut down completely
  • March 25th, The $2 trillion Stimulus was passed for pandemic unemployment, paycheck protection program (PPP) and funding for economic injury disaster loans (EIDL)
  • A couple of us at Reno Collective started researching DIY mask and PPE prototypes
• April 2020 
  • We are holding more online events than ever before
  • I'm working at my job and enjoying being able to focus on a single product and mission right now, especially given all that is happening
• April 14, 2020 
  • Date of this recording
  • Tomorrow would normally be the 2019 tax deadline, but that has been moved to July 15
  • After 4 weeks of shelter in place, "How You Spend Your Days" is more relevant than ever
  • There is SO MUCH to unpack in upcoming episodes
• Things I'm Enjoying 
  • Staying in with Emily & Kumail
  • Morning Brew email newsletter
  • Morning Brew's Business Casual Podcast 
  • This Week in Startups
  • Alton Brown has a Quarantine series on Youtube
  • The Daily Podcast from NYT
  • New York Times Coronavirus Briefing

Reposting this as this episode appears to have disappeared from our feed!

Ep41: Holy cow! We’ve hit one year of How You Spend Your Days!

In this episode, I look back on some of the conversations we’ve had since October 2018.

• Overview of how Atomic Habits has changed how I approach money
• One year update on my numbers and progress toward getting out of debt
• On track for being debt-free in December 2020.
• Radical Personal Finance
• Avilla Theory: Finances & Groceries

Follow HY$YD or send us questions/feedback

• Twitter: @howyouspend
• Instagram: @howyouspend
• Web: howyouspendyourdays.com

Ep40: We’re mixing it up a little bit this week with a meditation on money and life from philosopher and thinker, Alan Watts.

Next week we’ll be back to our regular episodes for episode 41, which marks exactly ONE YEAR of this show. I’ll be providing an update and talking about what has happened in the last year.

Follow HY$YD or send us questions/feedback

• Send me an email: [email protected]
• Twitter: @howyouspend
• Instagram: @howyouspend
• Web: howyouspendyourdays.com

Ep39: This week we talk to Monica Thompson about hitting one of her financial milestones and learn more about how she has taught herself what she knows about financial literacy today. We touch on buying cars, mortgages, credit cards and feeling financially secure. Congrats on paying off the adventure wagon, Monica!

Our Guest This Week

Monica Thompson

Follow HY$YD or send us questions/feedback

• Twitter: @howyouspend
• Instagram: @howyouspend
• Web: howyouspendyourdays.com

Ep38: In this episode, we talk about subscriptions. Today we have access to more subscriptions than ever. We have subscriptions for movies and television (Netflix, Hulu), toothbrushes (Quip), meal prep (HelloFresh), underwear (MeUndies), and even pet food (The Farmer’s Dog).

Now there is no judgment on this next part but how many subscriptions do you have? How many of those do you really use? Are they materially contributing to your life in some way or is it like a gym membership that you keep “hoping to get to someday?”

In this episode, I break down my own subscriptions. I actually don’t have very many thanks to my expense inventory from episode 4.

My Personal Subscriptions – $100/month

• Phone Bill – $22/month
• Planet Fitness – $10/month
• Spotify – $9.99/month
• PlayStation Network – $89/year – $7.5/month
• Bridgewire – Makerspace $50/month

My Freelance Subscriptions – $220/month

• Google Apps – $5/month
• Microsoft – !? $9.90 and I don’t know for what or how to cancel it
• Domains – Ranges from $10-$30/month
• AWS hosting – $1-2/month
• Digital Ocean Hosting – $22/month
• Adobe Creative Cloud – $52/month
• Ngrok $5/month
• Bonsai – $19/month
• Quickbooks / Bookkeeping – $70/month
• Pingdom – $15/month

Follow HY$YD or send us questions/feedback

• Send me an email: [email protected]
• Twitter: @howyouspend
• Instagram: @howyouspend
• Web: howyouspendyourdays.com

37: This week I’m talking about money in relationships and put my girlfriend, Chanelle Bessette, in the hot-seat. We walk through a list of questions to see how each of us manage money individually and how we approach discussing money in our relationship.

Our Guest This Week

Chanelle Bessette, Personal Finance Writer

Instagram: @crbessette‬ 

Follow HY$YD or send us questions/feedback

• Send me an email: [email protected]
• Twitter: @howyouspend
• Instagram: @howyouspend
• Web: howyouspendyourdays.com