A Force To Be Reckoned With
A Force To Be Reckoned With
221. Money and Marriage
What do car payments, surprise home repairs, and clashing love languages have in common? They’ve all put our marriage to the test—and taught us some unforgettable lessons.
In this episode, we’re spilling the tea (and maybe a few tears) about the current state of our consumer debt. From auto loans that have stretched our budget to gut-punch experiences like unexpected mold remediation, we’re diving into the realities of budgeting, debt, and finding financial harmony in marriage.
We’ll share what we’ve learned (shoutout to Dave Ramsey), why emergency funds are important, and how facing financial struggles together can actually bring you closer.
And because money isn’t the only thing that gets messy, we’re also talking about love languages—what happens when your “acts of service” don’t hit the same way for your spouse? We’ve been there.
Oh, and stick around for next week’s episode, where we’ll chat with a local small business owner about balancing relationships and running a biz. Let's figure this out together, one step (and laugh) at a time.
Episode Highlights:
- Get back on the bike.
- Let’s talk about our consumer debt.
- How did we get here?
- How money impacts our marriages.
- Love Languages and Relationship Dynamics.
Links Mentioned in Episode/Find More on A Force to Be Reckoned With:
- Jointheforce.us
- Follow us on Instagram @bethanyadkins
- Find us on Youtube!
This show has been produced by Adkins Media Co.
We are at war and it's not against our neighbors, spouses, children, politicians or whatever else we feel like we're battling against.
Speaker 2:So the questions are who's the fight against, and are we winning or losing? We're the Adkins, and we are a force to be reckoned with. Are you ready to join the force?
Speaker 1:are we live?
Speaker 2:yeah, oh man here now I can't say what I really wanted to say we're here to talk about an episode that we've been talking about for about a year now and we just keep putting it off because we're dreading it yeah, because we have a huge announcement, huge, huge announcement we are filing bankruptcy and breaking. That's not even funny. We good morning everyone, or afternoon or evening, wherever this finds you Middle of the night.
Speaker 2:We hope it finds you well. And if it finds you in a bad mood and you said, man, I'm going to turn on a force to be reckoned with, because they always put me in a good mood, well, we're glad you're here, but also we are going to put you in a good mood because, well, we're glad you're here, but also we are going to put you in a good mood because we're going to make you feel better about yourself.
Speaker 2:So, like we said earlier this year, we have our routine schedule for the year and the third week of the month is always going to be our money and marriage talks. So today we're talking about money and marriage, and what can we talk about to procrastinate this?
Speaker 1:Well, I guess I think I think you maybe had mentioned this before, but over the past, gosh, what has it been? Has it been? We've been in this house for how long? Two years.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So we've been in this house for two years, so really, Hasn't it been more than two?
Speaker 2:I think it's been three, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's been three. Dang Anyways, is that we've hesitated and you said procrastinate to share this because when we first started talking about money and I guess I mean we've still talked about marriage when we first started talking about money we were kind of new back in our area. We hadn't really rooted ourselves, we hadn't really had a lot had friends, we didn't know a whole lot of people in the community, you know, outside of our family, and so now it makes a little more awkward, I guess, to share, you know.
Speaker 2:But and not even that. But just like before, I think a big hiccup of why I kept putting this office before we, you were the only one actually bringing in an income. Because when I came, when we came back, I focused on being home, home with the kids and it was really kind of easy to figure out, like what you made and stuff, and at the time I didn't really think about it. But then I'm like thinking, I mean, not really.
Speaker 1:No, no, I didn't really think about it. But then I'm like thinking I mean not really, no, no, I mean, I think you would have had to have really pulled out some like Einstein formulas to figure it out.
Speaker 2:You don't think they're out there.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:Well, for me, in my head I'm just like we both work with friends and family and it's just an awkward thing to talk about. But also, does it need to be? Does it need to be an awkward like you don't want to gloat about the money that you make and you don't want there to be this like I don't know?
Speaker 1:yeah, I don't know. I mean, I think it would take a lot of work because you'd have to add up, like all of our expenses. You'd have have to figure out how much you know you're spending on this and that. Yeah, that's true, you know it would be a lot of work to kind of backtrack to figure it out. I don't even know if you could, because we don't. It's not like we sit here and share like what are the?
Speaker 1:actual like family revenue, gross revenue coming in, and then like we do have our expenses, but then you don't know how are we divvying this out.
Speaker 2:That's true.
Speaker 1:You know, I think it would be hard, yeah, so.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's true. So anyway, and me for myself, that was like a big part of it. I'm like I don't know, I don't want it to be weird, but all that to say. We did debt updates regularly before we even made like a debt.
Speaker 1:What was?
Speaker 2:it. We had a budget sheet. Yeah, that was an excel sell sheet that we shared. People, a lot of people had. We did it for free for a long time and then we, we did it for sale.
Speaker 2:People bought it it's probably still not out there um, I took it off I took it off our store um and yeah, so we're gonna do that oh and remember, we did those coloring sheets with the kids and we hung them on the door yeah, we should probably do that again we're gonna do just a little more simplified version, but still giving you guys candid updates, because, honestly, the whole purpose of our podcast is like, yeah, I, you don't have to share every single detail, this isn't a diary but at the same time, I think so much of our world it's like we just want to show. That's why we first started as the Adkins Highlight Rail. We just want to show the good parts, and where we really connect is on the hard parts, the struggle.
Speaker 2:So that's and that was I think what really drew people in the beginning was like that. People were like parts the struggle, right, so that's. And that was. I think what really drew people in the beginning was like that. People were like oh, the Adkins are sharing about this and they are in a lot of debt, but they're doing it and we can do it too.
Speaker 1:And people. I mean I can. I think in general people do, and I know I do. I appreciate like authenticity and transparency. To be honest with you, I think that's why a lot of people like you look at media. They've turned to podcasts and social media even to get their news and stuff because they realize that, like the corporate media wasn't like telling the truth about stuff Like you, look at politicians people appreciate authenticity there. Look at businesses how many products do you prefer to buy? Products from companies that are authentic and real and not like hiding stuff? You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1:So and this kind of I don't know. This reminds me I don't remember that dude's name, but you know the dude that started on January 1st. It was like sharing his weight loss journey and he was like very overweight and he's like walking every day he's still doing it that like to me, I was just like dude the level of accountability because if he, if he fails and just quits, like that's out there and that's gonna live on the internet forever yeah you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:But that's what we appreciate, because so many people, a lot of people will, at least historically, on social media and the internet, have waited to share until they actually accomplished it yeah, I always.
Speaker 2:Like we always said in the beginning um, people always wait to share their after, their before, until they haven't after right and it's like, but what if we talked about the before right now and we worked? Through the hard stuff in real time together, sharing the struggles and the victories and all of the stuff in between.
Speaker 1:And it gives us a level of accountability because in three months if we got to get back gone here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean. I'm honestly really nervous because we have a good plan, we have a game plan. We sat down, we talked about it, um, but we had a good plan last year and we didn't execute and it was really which is real real and it was really um easy to not execute, because it's very easy to. I think one of the biggest things that we fall in prey to is it's very easy to um to rationalize spending when you have a family.
Speaker 1:But isn't it like? It's like anything else too? And if you look at it like, I think one of the reasons we feel like we want to do this too is because we want to share with everybody else. It's like, okay, we got out of debt once and they're like that's not it. It's not like it's over. You know what I mean? It'd be like if you decided to be healthy for an entire year and you got in good shape and your health was great. You didn't get sick, like you had all this energy and then you fell back off. You know.
Speaker 2:Just get back on the bike.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's get back on the bike and let's let other people realize, ok, you're not alone. I mean, I would be willing to bet most people that are listening right now have set out to do something at some point in time and either failed and had to get back on the bike or accomplished it but then fell back off again. And that's that's real life. Life is a journey. Life is a is a struggle. That could be with your health, it could be with money, it could be with relationships, it could be with, I mean, how many people started? I mean this perfect timing starting in January, like how many people started? Like the total? What is that called? The total Bible recap or whatever and then failed.
Speaker 1:We we've done that. That that happens in so many different things. You set out to accomplish something and then you fail, or you accomplish it and then you stop doing it, and that's real life. So I think that our goal in this is one for us to have some accountability, because we have to get on this microphone and share with you guys and what we're actually going through and what you know where we're actually at with things.
Speaker 2:But it also is like motivation it should help.
Speaker 1:I hope that it would help some people out there to realize like hey, you failed, it's OK. Like just get back on the bike, like look, we did it too.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, and also the whole, like we, with the force to be reckoned with. We don't want to just be the force to be reckoned with. We want to have a community of families in our town, in our state, nationwide, who are willing to say, yeah, I'm stepping up, I'm rising up, I'm going to live the life that God has called me to. It's going to be hard, it's going to take some work, but we're in this together. So let's rise up and let's do this. And part of this is being a good steward of what God has given you, and debt really changed you down. So it's like let's just make this change. And if you're in this journey, like make 2025 the year and do it along with us.
Speaker 2:And we want to hear, we want to hear your updates and your progress and the funny thing is like the first time that we did this, there were people that did it with us and I think they're still out of debt.
Speaker 1:Yeah, probably.
Speaker 2:But, they're not as big of idiots as us, so they're not going to be doing it with us this time. Okay, so let's just jump into it, because I want to. We have a volleyball game to get to, if I'm being honest. So this is a stat as of the third quarter of 2024, you know what I'm just going to say. We might be pretty average, but what I'm about to say we are above average we're overachievers.
Speaker 2:So, as of the third quarter of 2024, the average american household has 104 215 dollars in debt. Are you listening? Yeah and did you hear the amount?
Speaker 1:say it again, again, sorry.
Speaker 2:The average American household has $104,215 in debt. This includes debt from mortgages, auto loans, credit cards, student loans and personal loan. Oh boy, so we're going to do this in segments.
Speaker 1:All right, you know what guys Never mind. Yeah, $104,000. We're not doing this anymore, so we're going to do this in segments. All right, you know what guys never mind.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're not doing this anymore so we're gonna do this in segments. So the debt updates that we are giving you, we're doing it in phases, like we're focusing this year on our consumer debt only yeah which, that is, credit cards and car loans. Basically Is that it, and we're going to explain how we got into the mess that we're in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, or if you had personal loans or something.
Speaker 2:We don't have personal.
Speaker 1:I know we don't, but for somebody else.
Speaker 2:So that's this. That's not the strategy that Dave Ramsey does. I mean, in the grand scheme of our debt snowball, we are still following Dave Ramsey, like we have a bigger amount than what we're sharing with you guys of debt, but we're only focusing on consumer debt for the sake of the podcast, because we're waiting to get out of consumer debt first before we focus on student loans and mortgage for the sake of interest rates. So this year our goal is to get out of consumer debt. So well, at least hack away at it. I don't know how realistic, yeah because if we follow, I mean we would be gosh.
Speaker 2:What probably like triple, triple the average yeah, I mean truly, like if we're including mortgage and student loans, we're we're so grateful for those student loans, you know which and we're gonna explain all this you guys, like you guys, are idiots. Yeah, that's why you listen to us. To feel better about yourselves, yeah, okay, but all that to say, do you? Should we just say the amount here and then we'll backtrack and come up?
Speaker 1:with all the excuses we just got to. We procrastinated a solid like 13 minutes right now, okay.
Speaker 2:Okay, so, okay. So I don't even know. This is consumer debt and we're almost above average with just consumer debt. This is not a laughing matter, by the way, guys.
Speaker 1:We're just laughing because if we don't, we'll cry Hold on.
Speaker 2:I'm going to put $22 more on our credit card right now, just so that we can have a round number. So, as of end of December 2024, we have. Well, should we explain why? First, bad choices.
Speaker 1:I mean, you just summed it all up.
Speaker 2:Well, so I'm going to leave you guys on a cliffhanger, okay, because I do have notes here talking about our debt, and this is what I do want to say about it. Like I said, it is so easy to rationalize choices when you have a family. You're like yeah, my kids, they do need these shoes, even though their old basketball shoes fit. They do need these, or you know?
Speaker 1:We need to do this house project.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we need to do this house project. Yeah, we need to do this house project. Or like, yeah, we should like. Going out to eat is another big one, um, and just like spending like I want my kid to have these clothes, or that's not even really our problem yeah, the purchase.
Speaker 1:I would say out of all of our, out of our purchases there were two things that we maybe could have got around but were kind of like emergency things. One the mold in our basement.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna get to that I'm just talking about. This whole point is like smaller purchases oh, they add up dude and so, like I think a big culprit is amazon prime, which is like do we get rid of amazon prime? I don't know, because I use it and it's so convenient when we have two babies at home and I need to get paper towels yeah it's so much easier just have it on a subscription for amazon prime.
Speaker 1:But then it's like the floodgate, the subscription. So they've got me like there are subscriptions that I had where it was like okay, okay, I don't need anything more. So I'd pause it, and then I wouldn't pay attention and the next thing, you know, the pause time was up and then it would charge us.
Speaker 2:Those are things I would say if you guys are going to tally up your debt, like, pay attention to subscriptions which we did, do that in December, we canceled some subscriptions and then be more cognizant about your online ordering in Amazon Prime because it's so easy to. That's where I talk about the rationalization. It's like I just spent forty seven dollars on Amazon Prime today because we needed court organizers, which that was a business expense and that's different, but like it's so easy to be like, oh yeah we need this toothbrush holder.
Speaker 1:It's like, do you really?
Speaker 2:it's ten dollars, do you really? So that is, that's the rationalization I'm talking about. But last year, over the last couple years, we had a three really hard hits to things that we didn't budget for.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And that is something I'm going to talk about right now. So the mistake we made the first time we got out of debt, which we didn't really think of it as a mistake until now, and I would say this is why we're back in debt. Do you know what? I'm going to say that?
Speaker 1:we didn't have like an emergency fund. We focused 100% of extra spending on paying in debt. Do you know what I'm going to say? That we didn't have like an emergency fund.
Speaker 2:We focused 100% of extra spending on paying off debt and it got us out of debt faster. But then we had no like major reserve. We had a small amount of reserve.
Speaker 1:We did the. I don't remember what Dave Ramsey calls it, but like the original emergency fund of like two grand, yeah, but then we didn't build it back up after that, because he has a whole strategy around that.
Speaker 2:I think that when you're young, you focus so much on the here and now and um now that we're old not even that we're old, but just like you need to start as early as possible building cushions. So whether that's paying into your rainy day 401k like taking advantage of those matches. It's focusing on the offense and defense at the same time, which I there might be dave ramsey lovers out there and this, I think, is a little bit going against what he says.
Speaker 1:Like he says, build the emergency fund first, focus on the debt and then focus on, like um, building your savings yeah, he I think I'm pretty sure and I could be wrong on this, but I'm pretty sure he focuses on get out of the consumer debt first, yeah, then he talks about I'm pretty sure it's building up like a three month emergency fund, so basically the amount of money you would need to survive for three months, dumping that into an emergency fund before you tackle like your mortgage and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but we're not telling you guys exactly how to do this, we're just telling you how we're doing this this time. So, with that said, over the last couple of years we had three big unexpected purchases and then one expected. So the first one was we bought a house and we had the money. We had a good down payment, we had a reasonable house payment. We didn't go. We qualified to spend a lot more than we actually spent, so we didn't go above our means there.
Speaker 1:Um, but we had a low interest rate because it was right after. Yeah, covid, like, because then we it, it was 2021, end of 2021.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but still like we didn't have this huge cushion to build a fence like we did, put in a playground, like we did. And then we were like, oh, that's fine, We'll pay it off. We'll pay it off Well, which we totally could have and we could have done it quickly. But then other things came up. With foster care, we went from three to seven kids pretty much overnight, which forced us to have to buy a new car, which, again, we have great credit and we have a good amount of income, and our other car was almost paid off.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and our other car was almost paid off. But just because you have a good income and you qualify for more, that doesn't always mean it's the best choice. For us, we didn't really have a choice. We got a vehicle that had as many seats as possible without getting a 15-passenger van, and we still were short seats. It was something we had to do. But we then had a car loan, a good-sized car loan.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because we didn't have money and savings, so it was house the car loan. Because we didn't have money and savings, so it was house the car loan.
Speaker 2:And then, not this past Thanksgiving, but the Thanksgiving before we had an accident where Maya fell off a swing set and had to be and like, got a really bad concussion and almost had to be flown in the helicopter, the air bear which thankfully she didn't, because our debt would be even higher. But she did have to ride in an ambulance for a really long time and those bills racked up. And then the last thing was again didn't have a cushion for this and really, even if we had cushions for these, we would have needed over a hundred grand saved up to pay cash for all of this. We found out that we had mold in our basement which was like $20,000 to renovate.
Speaker 2:Yeah so because we weren't being proactive and saving for emergencies. We really got ourselves in trouble, on top of rationalizing poor spending habits.
Speaker 1:And the mold. I think we maybe even mentioned this before, but the mold remediation that we did wasn't like your standard, typical, like bare minimum mold remediation, because we are sure that you and Carter both have, pretty sure that you guys both have like mold allergies, so you're extra sensitive to the mold, so we had to. You know, we talked about it on here but we had to be out of our house for like two weeks and, yeah, so it was a lot than that, was it?
Speaker 2:it was supposed to originally be two and it being like three, three, yeah so anyway.
Speaker 1:So that's why, if, like, that number caught anybody off guard, it's because we had to go way more, and and it was a huge project, like they had to rip out our entire basement basically, and yeah, we didn't just do the bare minimum, we did everything that we could to get it remediated.
Speaker 2:So, anyway, none of those are excuses. All of that is to say, those wake-up calls and realizations like, oh okay, so this time around, yeah, we need to get out of debt. We need to get out of consumer debt as quickly as possible, because interest rates are killing us, but also we need to focus on saving too, like being doing offense and defense at the same time, so that when another accident happens or because it's going to happen, that we're prepared.
Speaker 1:So yeah, so, with that being said, we are we're going to focus on consumer debt, excuse me.
Speaker 1:And then we said after the first quarter did we say that, or is it halfway through the year?
Speaker 1:I'm trying to remember?
Speaker 1:We said we were going to start researching like investment stuff.
Speaker 1:So, instead of just putting our money like in a savings account and letting it sit where inflation could really get to it, looking into some things that we could more easily more than like a 401k, where it'd be more challenging to like pull money out but like just something, some type of investment that we can do, that we can better multiply our money but get access to it more quickly. So it's something that we're not, you know, well-versed in, so some of you probably well, way more well-versed in it than we are with that but we're going to start doing some research and looking into some of those opportunities so that we can create that like rainy day fund when these crazy things pop up, so that we can, you know, make better use of our money there too yeah, so, and then the other thing is we do have another house project that we are doing this year and it's like we're really excited about it and it's a fun house project, but at the same time, it's something that needs to be done, because our pool is almost unusable.
Speaker 2:And at some point we're going to not live in this house.
Speaker 1:You could make an argument that it is not a need per se. However, like one of the reasons that we're doing it and so, like you can question us all you want, but it's like one of the reasons we had got our house was so that it would be a place that we can our kids want to be at and that, like, we can host friends and other people from the community, and that was like the main reason we got the house that we got, and part of that is it came with a pool. Well, the pool, it just needs a lot of renovation done. Our deck that's next to the pool is like borderline, falling apart, so there's a lot of work that needs to go into there so that we can continue to serve in that way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like because we want our house to be a ministry Right. So this time around, there's a lot of different facet like considerations that are going into this approach because, yeah, we could definitely not do the backyard this year and pay off debt even more quickly, but at the same time, it will be a huge asset to our house, like we really couldn't even sell our house the way that the backyard is, so it'll increase the equity in our home. We're making sure we only do what we can pay cash for and, like Corey said, service is a huge part of our hearts and our ministry. And like we want our kids' friends to come over and we want to be able to host. And that's been a big hang up for me is the backyard. It's like I don't want to have people over because it's not nice.
Speaker 1:And it was also part of the reason why we even did the basement, because after it got gutted it wasn't a usable at all. You know. So some of this um debt that we have too like we did some stuff in the basement, so yeah, okay, so with that said we have now procrastinated about 24, we're gonna share the total.
Speaker 2:Next money and marriage episode no, our total as of end of December 2024 for consumer debt is $91,978.18.
Speaker 1:Wow, I'm really glad that you said the 18 cents. I thought maybe you weren't going to even say the 18 cents.
Speaker 2:Oh no, because if all we pay off is 18 cents, this month.
Speaker 1:You want credit.
Speaker 2:I want credit. I want credit, but also I think that we can also share what we're putting in savings, Like one next month, because it might the debt amount might go down. But we can also say what we're putting in I don't know. Is that too transparent? We'll think about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Let you know, yeah, um. So yeah, that's where we're at. We'll keep you posted. Um, on the third february or the third week in february we'll give you our update and um, then, quickly, we'll just talk about the marriage part of this, what I mean, what else, is there to say we made some mistakes oh okay, so I mean there's more.
Speaker 2:That will say some episodes might be heavier on the marriage, like it might be a quicker debt update and heavier on the marriage. Um, but I think that for this episode, with it being heavy on the money, we can just talk about how money impacts our marriages, and there could be one thing so much more in depth about like money and marriage, and I think that that's the number one reason for divorce. I'm pretty sure that's a stat yeah, there's money money issues, um.
Speaker 2:But what I will say is that we are in a heavy, heavy not heavy like very full season of life with a lot of kids, and marriage often falls to the wayside.
Speaker 2:It's not always a priority, um, like we always love each other, don't always like each other, but it's just like you don't have that intentional one-on-one time and as much as you would like and I'm a quality time person- so that makes it hard, but what I'll say is that having goals like this like a common goal it it gives you both something to work toward and it forces you to touch base on stuff more frequently if you're going to achieve it successfully. So often, even though this debt issue is stressful and we'd rather be out of debt and completely financially free, we have found that when we're focusing on something like this together, our marriage is better.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100%, and I think that both of us operate better. And the more I think about this too is I think honestly that most people operate better on this, and the people that say that they aren't, I feel like maybe you need to if anybody listening and like I feel like you need to self-reflect but and just and think about it is that we operate better when we have like a structured um goal or almost like a structured challenge in a sense. You know what I mean. Like for me, like health-wise, I do better when I'm doing a 75 hard because I have accountability to this daily, consistent checklist. And it's the same thing with money.
Speaker 1:And I feel like it's the same thing with anything, because if you want to build a habit and a healthy habit, you need to be consistent daily, and that goes for anything. It could be work goals, it could be debt, it could be even and this might sound a little robotic but relationship goals, any of those things. If you're not being consistent with it and have something kind of structured to follow, oftentimes people don't achieve those goals. So when we give ourselves a structure like this of accountability and the budget and keeping track of our debt, then we're more likely to accomplish it and it gives us both that transparency for each other to see it and the scoreboard to look at and see where we're at, so that we can have this, this goal that we're on the same page with, to to attack.
Speaker 2:Yeah, totally, and when you talk about like daily touch bases, I think that's something that has helped us with. That is also part of just like our New Year's focusing and I know you said you didn't have any resolutions.
Speaker 1:I'm not like against the word resolution.
Speaker 2:I know, but we have been walking, Not every day. But I have a goal to walk a certain amount a day and you have to do two workouts a day.
Speaker 2:Oh, you're not going to say how many 10,000 steps, but some of them, like I'm also working toward half marathon training and I don't want to go into too many details here because we're going to talk about that in the life update in February. But I will say that what was I? Where was I going with that? Oh, we've we at night, after the kids go to bed. We're so tired.
Speaker 2:We usually don't look forward to this until we're actually boots on the ground doing it, but we've been taking walks together at night and just like touch, basing on our day on work, things that happen, you know, frustrations, things that we're excited about, talking about our goals and, like you know, money. That's a big like just regular touch bases. It keeps all of those things at the forefront of our mind and even though it's super late at night, that's just what has to be right now, because the rest of our day is consumed with kids and work and to do's. And I've just come to realize in this season and this doesn't work for everybody the goals that I have for myself. I either have to do them at like from the hours of 4.30 in the morning to 6.30 in the morning or like after 9 o'clock at night, and that's it sucks Sometimes 8. Yeah, sometimes 8. It sucks and also I'm trying to focus on sleep and sometimes it feels like this is impossible. How can I do all these things?
Speaker 1:But it takes away that frustration of but again going back to like the goals and and like this daily consistency of accountability is like if you weren't doing your 10,000 steps and I wasn't doing 75 hard, we would easily rationalize like I'm tired, it's cold, I gotta put all this on like I'm not not doing this, but because of that the added benefit has been on some nights that we actually like spend time together walking.
Speaker 2:And do you want to know I'm not gonna go too into detail, because since January, guess how many miles I've walked- oh, dude, that's gonna be okay, hold on you're gonna guess too high and I'm gonna hold on what's today 19 I don't feel like this is right. I just saw it earlier and it didn't say this number uh 38 40 wow I was close.
Speaker 2:If I'm talking about miles, I've walked altogether like that. I'm not counting as workouts, just like how much I've walked this year yeah, it's 95.5 miles. But as far as like intentional walking workouts, like okay, I'm outside, I'm doing this 40 miles, so that's pretty good. It's not even the end of the month. I bet you, by the end of the month I'll be at 60 miles, I mean it's two miles a day. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Basically, mine's got to be pretty much that too because, but some days I've walked like five or six miles and then a couple of days like I had the flu. So I think it's averaging out. Anyway, what do you want to add?
Speaker 1:I was just trying to see if this would say my oh, here we go month.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've had 41.49 oh, you always have to beat me I'll get out of here we're gonna do a challenge as to how many can.
Speaker 1:Who can do more miles?
Speaker 2:yeah, and I'm training for a half marathon, buddy.
Speaker 1:So for how long are we doing this?
Speaker 2:for the month of February.
Speaker 1:Of course you're going to do it in February, because my my 75 heart is over on, like February 2nd, I think.
Speaker 2:Yep, well, it'll keep you motivated. It'll be your next challenge. See, these are like what our conversations are like.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I got one more thing for the, for the all the dudes out there. I just got to say I'm not really a quality time person. I'm not. You know that. That's not my love language. Yeah, do you know my love language. Yeah, what are they?
Speaker 2:It's not anything I look forward to.
Speaker 1:I have one, and two Are you kidding me right now?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's words of affirmation, uh-huh, which is really hard for me because I don't like saying nice things and physical touch yeah.
Speaker 1:And yours is quality time and acts of service. But anyways, for all you dudes out there whose wife's love language isn't physical touch, I just got to tell you that when I do walks with my wife because she likes quality time, I get some physical touch. I'm not talking about that, Don't let your mind go straight to the gut.
Speaker 2:I know you're talking about hand holding.
Speaker 1:I mean she'd reach over and help my hand. I get more of my love language when I give her some of her love language. You know what I mean. It's just easy. I mean it's not easy. I mean it's not easy.
Speaker 2:But it's simple, yeah it is you know? I just yeah except it's just so hard. I was gonna compliment you on the podcast today but then you're not slipped my mind.
Speaker 1:Yeah, shocker, you know what's funny though what was it?
Speaker 2:oh, it's gonna pain me to say it do you know it?
Speaker 1:oh you're. All I gotta say is that your love languages take way more time than mine.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know, because yours could be done in like 10 seconds and like two minutes. Both of them Say one nice thing.
Speaker 1:That sounds oh boy. Okay, yeah, okay yeah, so you could accomplish all of my love languages probably in under five minutes and also I just want to clear the air.
Speaker 2:you guys, sometimes I'm hyperbolic, I make stuff up like what I just said, and also when I am joke around with quar the way sometimes I flirt because I don't, can't do words of affirmation, it's the opposite. So I say words of degradation yeah.
Speaker 1:That's not really going so well, just so you know.
Speaker 2:I do love you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, she's holding my hand right now, just so you guys know.
Speaker 2:And I'm looking him in the eye and telling him I love him and I'm working on it.
Speaker 1:And I'm working on it. Okay, working on it. I just gotta say your things take 45 minutes, because that's our quality time on a walk and then acts of service. Who knows how long that could take if you don't want to spend time with me?
Speaker 2:just say oh my, if you do tell you that all the time no, but really I am thankful for you seriously and I am so proud of you.
Speaker 1:I like you so much and I am so thankful that we're doing this and just so you know, it works in reverse too, like if you say nice things to me and like touch my hand or whatever and hug me and stuff, like it makes me more likely to want to spend time with you. Or you know, you know how many dishes I would do, you know how many like laundry baskets I would fold or carry. Yeah, it works in reverse too, but when I'm not getting it, I'm like bro, I don't even want to go on this walk right now because I do not so mean. That's awful. You know what? You haven't given me a hug all day. I ain't scrubbing one dish, not one, it's.
Speaker 2:She's going to be so mean. That's not true. What am I mean?
Speaker 1:Are you like actually asking this?
Speaker 2:We're not going to get into that. We'll save that for the next marriage episode. Most people who are married, their love languages are different. Yeah, that's not like it's very rare. If you have the same love languages, yeah, and so the thing is, you have the same love languages yeah, and so the thing is you have to imagine those. I mean, wonder what that's like you have to know what your person's love language is, because you usually give love how you want to receive love right.
Speaker 1:So there are times where I say nice things and I'm thinking I'm doing something for you, but I'm not yeah, I'm like yeah, no, he's full of crap. Or like I want to give you hugs. You're like don't touch me, bro, I've been touched all day by kids, you know. Or like it would be if you do my laundry and you're expecting me to be like oh my gosh, thanks for doing my laundry and I'm just like I don't say anything. Yeah, because that's I'm not. It just doesn't register.
Speaker 2:To me it's really important to have a tidy house and laundry caught up and everything. I'm not saying it's not important to you, but you're just like.
Speaker 1:Exactly that's the thing is it's not like it is, but it isn't. You know what I mean. Like I want a clean house but it's not like the way. I don't feel like loved because you did that you would be okay if you came home and the house was messy because you would was like oh, you're my rock star and the house was a disaster. I'm like cool man yeah it is what it is.
Speaker 2:Noted. All right. Well, we will catch you guys next month with Money in Marriage. Next week we have a guest. The interview was really awesome. She's a local small business that we love we use in the home and can't wait for you guys to hear that episode. And, yeah, we'll talk to you guys soon.
Speaker 1:Stay classy, bye.