Hey, this is Adrian. And this is Greg. And you are listening to Cash Talk. You can find us on Instagram at the Adrian Hall at Financial Fowler and at Cash Talk Podcast.
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Adrian Hall, NMLS number 175-232. Movement Work It supports equal housing opportunities, NMLS number 39179. www.nmlsconsumeraccess.org. Registered Representative Securities offered through Cambridge Investment Research Inc.
a broker dealer, member of FINRA, SIPC, investment advisor representative, Cambridge Investment Research Advisors Inc., and registered investment advisor. Cambridge Movement Work It and Cash Talk are not affiliated. I am doing, I'm fulfilling something I said I was going to do and it's like excelling my time a little bit and it has me freaked out. I don't know if I mentioned on the podcast before, but I will now.
So I, Jay and I, we bought our first house. He was 21. I was 22 if I remember correctly. I was just a suburban three bedroom, two bathroom house, nice little place.
I lived there for five years and it was a starter home. I think we probably could have lived there longer. We really, really wanted to, but we justified the reason why we should move and so we did. And I kind of went back and forth at that time.
Like should we sell the house? Should we rent the house? What should we do? I knew that I was wanting to get into rental properties.
I don't know why, but somewhere along the line something told me that was like the world's greatest idea. So I realized, hey, I should just do this with this house we have now. So in finance, let me go on that road for just one second. In finance, when you are getting a house, you're doing a mortgage, there's three of three types of mortgages.
There's owner occupied, there's second home and there's investment. Owner occupied being a home that you live in. Second home is like think a mountain home, a beach home, the Hamptons, you know, one percent or stuff. And the- But it has to be only used by that one person, right?
It can't be like a, it can't be receiving income on it though. Right, exactly. It can't be used by like, you can't turn a profit on it. And typically the rules has to be like a hundred, I think it's 150 miles from your current home because why would you buy a vacation home on the other side of town?
So it's usually like a distance from where you live. And then you have investment properties, which is any type of property that produces an income. You can't rent on anything, Airbnb, 12-month lease, that's an investment property. And the order that I said it, that usually dictates your interest rate and the reason why is like it's risk if, you know, you find yourself in a global pandemic like you are right now, you're more inclined to make payments on your primary residence than you are going to be on your beach house or you are on like that house, you know, down on Skid Row that, you know, you slumlord or whatever the situation might be.
So financially, somebody that, you know, we didn't earn tons of money, but we wanted to get into rental properties and we'd managed to scoop up a house because we did zero down loan and we were fortunate for it. We decided that we should buy, because we already had an owner occupied mortgage on our house, we should buy a new house that we would go live in and then we could rent our current house out. And so that's what we did was we bought this new house, we took the equity out of that house to buy this one, started renting that house out there's a whole landlord saga story, I'll tell you about some other time because we were the first renters put some hair on my chest. But once that settled down, so something that happened in that same window at a time was like the house directly next door to us.
That one had, like we knew the owners, they've been renting it out for years because they had left Knoxville to go work elsewhere. And right around the time we were moving, the tenants that lived there moved also and they went out of state to go to school for something. And we mowed the lawn for that house because we were trying to rent ours out, it's right there, you don't want to look shaggy because it makes you look bad. We mowed the lawn, we kind of cleaned up this and that and time went by and then more time went by and more time went by and nobody ever moved back into that house.
Like it just sat there and I could tell utilities were on because like the porch lights were coming on at night and you could hear that the HVAC, the acing press were turning off and on so they were paying for electricity, but nobody was there. And I think I eventually asked the owners one of many times, hey buddy, what's up? They were in a transition period also, the owners ended up divorcing and so they were going through custody issues and separation of assets and all that stuff. So this house wasn't a focus for them at all.
And we offered, Jay and I offered to buy it a couple of times and we were like, hey, we can like, well first and foremost, we try to get them in contact with the property manager, like hey, why don't you get somebody in there to help pay in some rent and they didn't really do anything with it. So then eventually we started asking, hey, you know, have you considered selling it? And the wife was on board and the husband wasn't and I was like, okay, sure fine, that's great, whatever, you do you. Time went on and time went on and was what it was.
Then one random day, not that long ago, I got a call from the people who rent my house and they kind of mentioned that, you know, somebody had been snooping around the house. Like they came over there and said, because I guess the people who rent my house next door, they were outside doing whatever and somebody approached them and was like, hey, you, are you the owners of this house over here? And they're like, no, we're not. We live in this one.
Like, all right, well, do you know where the owners are? We had the legal right to enter this property. We're going to be entering this property. And they said it to Jay actually.
And I was like, okay. And I thought about it and I was like, wait a second, wait a second, wait a second. But why? So we got in our car, we drove across town, went over to see what was up.
And where I work in the real estate industry, I know indicators like I have an eye, I can stay outside of the house until it's vacant. Like I can just boom, tell not because the grass has grown or because, you know, like little things like that, cars not there. But I mean, you can look in the windows and if the windows look a smidge too dark, boom, nobody's there at all. Like all the furniture is out.
Anything that reflects light is out. Like the house is vacant. So I knew the house was still vacant. And so I reached out to the owners and I'm like, hey, what's up?
Again, we've talked about this. We would still like to buy it. It's becoming obvious that something's happening. They like there was what I call the foreclosure banister where like if you have a back deck or you have some stairs leading up to your front porch that are too high, they get like the cheapest plywood they can get at Lowe's and tack that stuff up and just basically do the bare minimum meet code.
It had one of those on it and it had a lock box on the front door and I was like, this house is going into foreclosure. Huh. So I reached out and I was like, what's going on? We talked to them.
Basically that's what it was it was about to be auctioned off. And I was like, holy crap. Okay. So we still want to buy this.
We still want to buy the house. Like if you didn't get it from the other time we said it, we still want to buy this house. It would be such a killer freaking investment for us to have the house directly next door to the one we already own like yo. And so we kept reaching out.
Eventually we got an agreement, figured it out. We got everything in writing. I applied for a mortgage. I got to prove so and so forth.
We got ready to close and the husband disappeared and we didn't know what happened. I mean, keep in mind. So the house it was supposed to be foreclosed on. It was going to be auctioned off and they had only postponed the auction because of COVID-19.
Like we should have lost the house in a normal life because we found out too late, but they postponed it. And then I came to them saying, hey, here's proof that not just I want to buy the house, but like I got my mortgage together. The mortgage was final approved with no conditions. I showed proof that I had the down payment, the bank account to pay for it.
I had proof that the town company was going to pay the current lender off in full every dollar plus the fees plus the attorneys, everything. We covered all the closing costs. Like we said, here's all your money. And then the seller disappeared and we kept reaching out and writing him and I kept rescheduling the appointments, like every scotching the auction, getting contact with the current lender, pleading for them to give us a little more time.
And they reached a point where they're like, all right, Mr. Adrian, we appreciate it. We're going to be auctioning this house off on this day if you don't close. This is going to be the final extension.
And I was like, oh, shit. Okay. So then I sent one last message and this was coming out. I think this started in March and then we're in late May by this point.
I said, one last message to the sellers and I'm like, hey, how about this? I can give you a couple thousand dollars. Just like here, you can take the money in exchange for signing the house over to me because if not, it will go to auction, it will be a done deal. You'll have a foreclosure on your record that will follow you around for seven years.
I will then be mad at myself for the rest of my life because I could stare at the house and I tried to buy and failed and ask many times to buy and fail. It was a pride, like ego thing for me. And I gave him a week. It was the mail ego serious.
I gave him a week and I'm like, all right, you have seven days to say, yes, you want to do this or no, you do not. If you do not say anything, I will assume the answer is no, you don't want this deal. It will go to foreclosure and will be a done deal that day came around, day seven came around. I hadn't heard anything.
Totally off the grid. I had utility set up on the house because I had got the keys from the bank and I had utilities turned on so I can do inspections and make sure there's not some big glaring issues and cost me tons of money because I'm not a dummy and I'm not going to buy this house in as this condition and have a huge money pit. So I set up to turn the utilities off and Jane and I had already gone and taken out our paint brushes and a couple things we had over there and we were going to walk away. And then he sent me a letter and said, yeah, I'll do it.
And I was like, oh my God. Okay, so then we're going to do this. So I had to make a whole bunch of phone calls, get the auction postponed. He sent something in like snail mail.
He sent a letter physically. No, I should have done that. I was like, dang, that's like the slowest way to get 2,000 bucks over. Right.
Like put it in the mailbox and say, here you go. Yeah, seven to 10 days. No, so like that's what happened. I mean, truthfully, so I can talk about it now because they have signed or wait on the paperwork to come back to us so that we can sign and then the deal is done.
But yo, I don't know what the hell I was thinking trying to buy myself this little investment property in the middle of a global pandemic when I didn't know my business was going to crash and they were divorced and they were overseas and the homes and foreclosure. And I am exhausted. But it's like the numbers just made sense. And I'm fortunate enough at this point, like the timing was better than any other time I ever mentioned in my life.
We had the down payment. We had it for the first time ever. And I was like, yes, we had the down payment. We had the energy to go deal with it.
I found out right before it got on the auction block. We had an appraisal done. It appraised for like $55,000 more than we spent to buy the house in as is condition. So even if, you know, we bought the house, which we'll do next week, put a sign of the yard saying for sale and did nothing else to it, we're going to make $50,000 off the top.
So it's like, it's scary to me because it's such a big bold adult thing that I feel like only rich people do. And here I am extremely middle class doing it too. But I am so focused on trying to build wealth. Like I mentioned many times where my father was 61 and he passed away.
He was one of the first people in our family to everyone in the house. He was probably one of the wealthiest people in our family. And it's really like to speak on like a race thing. Black families don't have wealth.
There's no properties being passed down. There's no money in asset. And that really exists. So I'm focused on like trying to get my situation where I get to retire early and I also leave something for the next person.
So this is all just a mind, like a mind thing. I guess the root of what I have to say is sometimes things don't always work out. How do you think they're going to work out? But that doesn't mean that you should just give up if you know what you want.
You have to go for it because I nearly gave up on this. I don't know how many times I'm like, I can't do this. I can't do this. You won't reply.
We're going to lose it. I'm tired of being on the banks like mercy on the phone for an hour a piece. Like I can't do this. Side comment.
Right. If you're in that situation, talk to you, Linder, because we're the conversations I had. But anyway, that's the big development with me. Everything else is petty and it was like nothing else was happening until that happened.
So what's new and exciting with you financially? Well, as I said earlier, I've gone through some transitions and, you know, when you are living your life and you have your finances tied up with another person, whether it's another or whatever someone you share your life with. You make decisions together financially. And then when that ends, you have to split up your finances.
It sounds like the couple you bought the house for might have been in that situation. And that can really cause a lot of headaches. So for me personally, I'm going through a process where I cosigned on a vehicle for someone and now I am in the process of refinancing that vehicle and taking the vehicle back and just having it in my name because the person decided they didn't want it anymore. So it's one of those things where it's a protection for me to protect my own credit and go out there and get approved for loan and just keep the car.
You know, it's an opportunity cost thing where I can decide to sell it and try to recoup that money or whatever or just use it as a second car. I think I'm leaning towards keeping it as a second car and just using it for good gas mileage and I think that's where I'm at right now. So I literally just before we jumped on to record this, got back from a credit union and I was, you know, in there sitting down in person trying to figure out what I can, what I get approved for and what terms we're going to be and everything else. And I think the biggest thing I took away from my experience today was just that take your time on financial decisions and shop around if you need to, to find different rates for loans and things like that.
That's what I had to do today. Got myself in a few different banks and credit unions just to try to find the best rate. And that's what I've been today, man. Just kind of all over the place.
That's kind of my life for the past few weeks as well. So that's okay. And I think that if there's one thing that I could put out to the viewers and listeners of our podcast, it is that financial decisions are huge on your own and they're even bigger when someone else is involved and take your time thinking about things, think things all the way through for you and move forward with the purchase. Yeah, you're not wrong with that.
That's so controversial topic, but it's happened. Jay and I have been together for nine years and we have discussed divorce before, not as well as we have discussed, but as we've discussed what would that look like if we did? Like what would happen? Who would get what?
Like, I mean, because when you've been with somebody for any amount of time, but especially a decade at this point, like, sit in the room, like look at the room you're sitting in right now and look at all the stuff in it, the table, the chair, the lamp, the house plant, the desk, the carpet, the pictures on the wall, the curtains, who gets what it's a lot to just absorb. And where we do have our current home and our old house, there's questions like, you know, who would do what? Because I make, I make more money than he does. And it's not an arrogant thing.
It's a reality. Like one has to make more than the other. And I think that's the reality. I could afford to keep the new house, the house that we live in, we lived in the last two years, where it might be a bigger financial struggle for him to do it.
But he can't go to the old house because somebody's renting it right now and rent, like, Lisa's super seed most stuff. So like all that house is affordable, he couldn't immediately move in. And that house also has the majority of our equity because we live there for so long, paying it down for so long. So it's like, all right, I get the big house, but he gets the house that he could sell and make a massive profit on.
So who's winning or losing? And we've just, it's a lot to think about emerging, like emerging bank accounts, emerging 401k's, which is actually something. Like him and I have talked through, which blew my little mind. He knows, as I mentioned, even just a few minutes ago, I want to retire earlier than 67 because what's the middle life expectancy, like 69.
And I've been working since I was 14. I don't want to wait till last minute and retire. He's mentioned that he, if we were to go separate ways, he wouldn't fight me from a 401k and vice versa. Like I have over double in mind what he does because I was prioritized saving because I've always wanted to retire early where for him, it's, he's just kind of indifferent to when he wants to retire.
And his viewpoint was basically, why would I hurt you in the long run to spite you in the short run? And that's something that I don't think I would have thought out. Like I'd expected he want to go half and half on everything. And that's in a calm, pleasant mind space.
That's not in the heat of the separation with whatever caused the separation looming over you also and then all the pressure and society and friends and then what if one person starts dating too soon and you got all strung out. Like, there's a lot, but I think it's important to talk about stuff. Like I say that this isn't a popular topic because I wrote about on my Instagram not that long ago, maybe a few months ago. And most, most people were positive about it.
Most people were like, yeah, that's smart. You guys are smart for at least talking through it. And then a few others were like, like they clutch their pearls at the idea that like, why are you even discussing this? Do you just want your relationship to fail?
Like you shouldn't have got married if you know this is even on your radar. And I'm like, well, most, most marriages and not most, but about 30% of marriages end in divorce. And so I think anybody who gets together, they think they're the ones that's going to last. You wouldn't do it if you knew you were going to fail.
You wouldn't do anything live. You knew you were going to fail. But sometimes that happens. And that's not a failure as much as it is a progression, a transition.
Like life's just a little bit different now. And that's actually another conversation we've been having recently talking about differences is wills. So neither of us have a will. We don't have a power of attorney.
We don't have any medical stuff. We don't have any of those documents in order. But we are not having children either. So like there's no obvious succession plan.
Like if we were to pass away what happens all of our stuff right now, if we both died the exact same time, it'd probably go to probate court. And then the courts could decide what happens with everything. Because there's no clear succession on who gets what, who does what. And as we save money, as we get like our 401k balances higher and our savings accounts higher and the equity in our house continues to grow each year that we own it, that's things that you need to kind of spell out.
So it's weird. And it's weird. It's grim. We've sat down.
We've tried to talk about it. We've actually gotten a disagreement on how we'd approach it because it involves sensitive topics. Like he would want to leave some of his stuff to his half brother and half sister. And I'm like, okay, I don't have a half brother and half sister.
I could leave it to my siblings, but there's three of them to the two of you. And then if you want to live the next generation thing, because I'm the youngest by a margin. So the chance of me outliving my brothers and sister are pretty high. What about their kids?
There's eight of them. And one of them is pregnant with their own child. So I'm about to be a great uncle. There's a lot of kids and a lot of things.
And who said that it has to go to children? And these are just the things that like sales overstained did not prepare me for an adulthood. I'm just ill-equipped. Yeah, there's a lot to consider.
I think estate planning is something that never goes away. And that really starts as soon as you really start building up your finances to begin with. So I think it really makes sense that you bring that up. I mean, you and Jay are both very young people, but you are both kind of getting into your own financially and building your financial foundation.
So I think it definitely makes sense to be thinking about wills and power attorneys and stuff like that. But you're right. It's not just as simple as saying, oh man, we need to get a will. It is more involved with that.
And the more complicated and more involved your finances become, the more thought needs to go into that topic, that conversation there. So that's a good point that you bring up. And it's another area too, because with us being an OGBT couple, his father, just one person, as an example, his father is not appreciative. His father is not accepting.
They have not talked to each other in the broader side of 15 years. I've never met the man. I don't think I've ever been within a five mile radius of him in my whole life. And we've been together nine years.
But I'm not saying anything would happen, but money changes people and the perception that even if it's $1,000, that's not even put reality on it. Let's say there's $1,000 on the table, unaccounted for. It's $1,000 on the table and you're standing next to it and you knew that you could have it if you asked for it. When you asked for it and say, hey, buddy, can I have that?
That's the mentality I'm a little afraid about if something does happen because money changes people. There have been disputes regarding my own father's passing, not within my family, but in the periphery outside of it, expectations that, well, how come there wasn't money left for so and so? Or how come there wasn't this or there wasn't that? And I'm like, I'm his son and I didn't get anything.
It's just not there. So it's one of those things. Ultimately, you don't want the courts to decide because the judge is going to just look at it for material. They're not going to look at it for intent.
They're not going to look at it for much more. I mean, they'll try to do some obvious connections if they can make them, but most of our closest people in our lives are our friends. My best friend of 19 years, I'd like to leave her something, but they may draw the line to, I don't know, some random relative that's genetically closer to me than some random person was and say, oh, well, we should leave it to them because there they are. Sometimes you just got to have these conversations.
Yeah, don't leave it up to somebody else. And we were talking about something earlier that I'll bring up right now. And that is, you're a tendency to be a DIYer. I'm not as much of a DIYer as you are, but I do tend to be a way in some instances.
Legal documents is not the area to do that. Yeah, no, they're not. Oh, what I was going to say is that don't leave it up to somebody else exactly like you're saying, don't leave it up to a judge. And you work with an attorney that is really going to help you think about all these types of things because that's what they do, right?
If you work with an attorney that specializes in putting these types of estate packages together, you might not think of everything and they will ask you, hey, what about this aspect of your finances or what about this part of your family that you haven't brought up yet or blah, blah, blah. And that is something that I think is the real valuable piece of advice that we can give to our listeners right now is reach out and ask for some help with legal documents because there is a lot to consider. And you can get your head spent really quickly if you don't. That's actually, so with me being like this little baby real estate investor, I'm a part of a couple of Facebook groups and they talk about strategies on how to rehab properties and how to acquire properties and things like that.
This one person a few days ago actually commented saying, hey, I'm looking for a lease. Do you have a copy of a lease that I can use? And somebody had chimed in and be like, yeah, you can Google one and a couple other people were like, hey, you should talk to your real estate attorney and she's like, oh, I don't want to do that. And my two cents that I actually for once said was when it comes to your legal documents, I mean, like you just mentioned, Craig, there's certain things that you won't think of because you're just, you're not going to think of it.
It's just simply like you don't know to think about it. But also you have to construct something that is going to stand up in a court of law so that if anybody disputes it, this is a superseding document. This is something that is like, no, this is exactly what they said they wanted. Like in real estate law with leases, for an example, if your tenant makes you mad and you just you guys don't get along or like in my case, I had a tenant who he was making constant maintenance requests all the time and not, you know, me being a slum lot on fix it, but like I paid $75 for somebody to go reset a GFC.
I plug a little plug in the bathroom that you push the reset button on. I paid $75 for somebody to go do that. He said there was like issues with this and issues with that and this wired it and worked. And then all of a sudden he was getting sick because the police of the house had mold and we had tests done and the test proved there was no mold, but he had a doctor's note saying there wasn't mold.
It was going towards the legal avenue and I happened to find out like, hey, we should just like I offered him the ouch. I said, you can break this lease if you want to go. I'm not going to hold you to it. I'll give you the deposit back and everything.
And he accepted that. But there are people in like this, in that particular space who professionally they know how to get around it. They know landlord tenant laws. If they don't pay you, you have, you know, like you have your five day grace period typically.
And then after that, you have to file a notice and let them know. Like I think it's like a notice to quit or something. I'll remember the exact word which is file a notice and tell them you must pay or you must leave and then you have to file a second notice and using the background. If you know what you're doing, you have to go down and get the case started in eviction court and that's another 30 day to 60 day process.
So this person's not paying your rent for like 90 days, three months, if not more. And that's assuming you get it right. If you miss something along the way, then you are going to be extended even longer. And if you're at least once you get to court, once you have your day and the eyes of the law and you bring this piece of paper that everybody signed and you've had it notarized, but you didn't recognize all the notarized, the notaries doing is saying, yeah, the person who signed it is the legal person who signed it.
Like we've identified them, not that this is a legally sound document. And so you have things written in there that the judge can't enforce like that they owe you thousands of dollars in back rent when the jurisdiction you live in, like they can't charge more than 10%. Like there's, there's, there's things. So if you're going to write out contracts, especially if your money is involved, make sure you're doing it right.
Like ask around, you can use the internet as a resource, but don't use it as a gospel because that random website that you can't find again, that you Google that one time, they're not going to be able to defend you in a court of law. And that's, there are templates for everything out there. And you know, it gives you good idea of what you're doing in certain scenarios. But I think liability is a huge thing there.
And when you're talking about your next egg, especially when we're talking about wills and stuff like that's definitely important. And it's hugely important if you're involving third parties, like a tenant or something. So yes, definitely, definitely important to make sure you're crossing all your teas and don't know your eyes there. I know that when I look at legal paper, legal tender, I mean, stuff like that, it's just, oh gosh, it just makes my head spin out like, no, it's not, it's not written for you.
It's written like, it's written for lawyers, by lawyers, to lawyers, like it's tough, but that's what you want. You want a bulldog piece of documents, what you want. Exactly. But how have you, in like the situation you mentioned earlier refinancing your car, how is that, like I know you're literally in the midst of it.
So maybe it'll kind of make it more obvious time goes on, but what's your thoughts as far as how it might affect you financially? Because I know obviously you weren't expecting to suddenly have a car payment and a second car to ensure and to deal with. So how are you feeling and like, what's your thoughts with all that? Yeah, good question.
So the first thing obviously is that I reached out to a buddy of mine that does insurance and just said, hey, I've got another car to add to the picture and I'm just going to go ahead and pull all my insurance out and give it to you. Can you give me a quote then, and you know, insurance all my vehicles and motorcycle and everything else. So that was my motivation to finally pull all my property counts, the insurance is under one umbrella. So that was the first change that I made, just just for simplicity really.
It wasn't driven by price on the insurance or anything. It was driven by simplicity and the fact that I was working with an independent insurance broker that helped me find what fit my situation. So that's the first thing. Cost of the kill up because I added another vehicle that I was ensuring, but that's okay.
The next thing that changed for me is that obviously my debt to income has gone up. Well, technically it hasn't because I was already on the loan as a co-signer. So my debt to income has really changed, but now that I'm actually the one making the payments, my cash flow has changed a bit. It's not anything that's going to throw me off the rails or anything like that by any means, but it's something that I have to make sure that I am aware of in my weekly budget.
And I've been talking to a lot of people recently that when I talk about budgeting, they kind of shrug their shoulders and they're like, I don't really need a budget. I'm making up money. I've got money in the bank, whatever. I kind of detest that statement.
I don't agree with that at all. I pay really close attention to my budget. And that doesn't mean that I spend every dollar or that I live check to check, but I want to know exactly what I'm spending and how much extra I get to put away in my savings. So that's something I looked at.
It's like, I was going to affect the amount I saved every month. And that maybe I'm just weird that way, but that is something I did. I sat down and said, my budget is going to change now. I'm going to look at this.
Do I need to rework anything? Do I need to get rid of a subscription or anything like that? And I actually did decide that I was going to get rid of a couple of online TV subscriptions. So not because I had to again, but because I had an opportunity cost, I had to weigh my priorities.
A couple of shows that I like to watch on the subscription, but do I stop contributing the 20 bucks to my savings every month? Or do I just cancel the subscription? And the reason I started thinking that is because I knew I was adding another car payment to my cash flow. So that's where it was.
Another consideration was, do I want to just pay off the loan with cash? Which I can do. But I also was thinking about interest rates. Interest rates are really low right now.
I told you earlier that I was shopping for interest rates, good rates earlier. I don't recommend someone necessarily do that with a mortgage and talked to a million mortgage lenders in one day. But with a relatively small car loan, I didn't feel too bad about that. So I went around a few different banks and I'm the type of person likes to talk to people face to face and just trying to figure out what rate I could get.
And with the interest rate environment being so low right now across the board, there were definitely a couple offers that I got where I was just like, ah, that's funny. No, I'm going somewhere else. And so that was kind of, you know, that's what I've been. That was not because I was so worried about getting the smallest payment.
But I'm just more worried about making my finances as efficient as possible. It's like, yeah, I'm okay if I put food on the table and have a place to lay my head at night. Those are the essentials. And if I have that, I'm happy.
But past that, I want to make sure that I'm moving in a positive direction. And I think that's important when you are thinking about your finances in conjunction with another person, if it's significant other someone you live with or whatever. You have to be on the same page about that, you know. And that's where I am now.
I've got a full head of steam moving in the direction that I've been wanting to move for a long time. And you know, I think sometimes this is the type of thing in someone's life that causes you to do that. And so I've repivoted, you know, found the inefficiencies of my cash flow. I've gotten rid of a few things that I don't really need, prioritize my expenses and really just took the opportunity to look at everything and just plan out the next couple of years of my life.
As far as, you know, when am I going to have this paid off? Does it make sense to finance instead of just paying off now cash? What are my liabilities and, you know, what are the bills that I have come to do for the rest of the year that may be at risk if I do go ahead and take cash with people? A lot of stuff to consider.
And I think one of the things that I do sometimes is I don't do a good enough job of explaining to people how much there really is to look at. But when you go through a situation like this personally, it reminds you, wow, there's this and this and this and this. These little small details and yet it seems like it's not important. It seems like it might be a headache to deal with.
But just go ahead and do it and you'll thank yourself for it, you know, a few years to have a rep. That's kind of where I am now. Just trying to make sure my teeth are crossed my eyes and then. And now for the legalese.
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