Episode 186 - The Financial Challenges Of Caring For Kids With Special Needs
Welcome to episode #186 of the Debt Free Dad Podcast. Today I am excited to have
Merry Juerling on the show. Merry is here to share her story and talk about a topic that
hits very close to home for me, caring for special needs kids and the challenges that
families face not only financially, but also in advocating and getting these special kids the help they need to succeed in life.
What You'll Learn
- Listen as Merry shares her challenges and struggles in caring for a child with disabilities.
- Discover that even with the incredible challenges that Merry faced, she was able to turn her finances around with the help of Roots.
- Hear how Merry, partnered with Debt Free Dad, is taking her journey and experience and helping others.
Resources Mentioned
- Brad's Totally Awesome Debt Freedom Planner
- For more help, and a step-by-step process to get started, enroll in Brad's FREE online course, LIFE WITHOUT PAYMENTS.
Free Tools and Downloads at www.therealdebtfreedad.com
Connect With Brad
- Website - https://www.therealdebtfreedad.com
- Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/therealdebtfreedad/
- Private Facebook Group - http://www.facebook.com/lifewithoutpayments
- Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/brad_nelson_debt_free_dad/
- TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@debt_free_dad
- YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtbAadBrWLL81CZbA6sI5pg
Thanks For Listening
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Episode Transcript:
Brad:
Hey everybody, welcome to episode number 186 of the Debt Free Dad Podcast Today. I'm excited to welcome Merry Juerling on the show. Now Merry is here to share her story and talk about a topic that really hits very close to home for me as well, and that's caring for special needs kids and the challenges that families face, not only financially but also in advocating and getting these special needs kids the help that they need to succeed in life. Stay tuned.
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Brad:
Hey, how's everyone doing today? You can find us on Facebook, tiktok, youtube and Instagram. Just search Brad Nelson, debt free dad and, as always, guys, welcome to today's show. Remember to get all the resources, show notes and links for today's show. You can head over to our main website at thedebtfreedadpodcast. com. Check out episode 186, along with all of the other episodes that are out there. If you're looking to save more money, pay down debt, reduce financial stress, you're going to find so much great information there. So make sure you're checking out all of our episodes on a weekly basis and, as you guys know, we come up with a new one every single week and it's so great for you guys to be able to take some time and listen into this and focus on your finances. And, as I said, today we got a great special topic, a little bit different than we normally talk about here on the show and a little bit more unique to individuals' circumstances, but definitely in my family, and I was so happy that Merry was willing to come on and chat a little bit with us today. So I'd like to welcome her to the podcast, and Mary is a single mom who resides in Indianapolis, indiana. Mary prides herself on promoting and looking at the strengths and uniqueness of individuals towards better interdependent communities. Who answers the race question on surveys and applications as the human race and has used her experience in raising one of their children with disabilities to help others. I would also like to add that Mary is a past roots member as well, which is really really cool, and she's had some great success in improving her finances along the way. And Mary and I have also connected here and we are working on a special project with Mary, who's gonna share here in just a little while, which we are really excited about releasing here, and we haven't really talked about this a lot on the podcast, so I'm excited to share that information with a lot of you here that are listening. But, mary, thanks for coming on and being here today.
Merry:
Well, thanks for having me, Brad. I'm excited to kind of share what's been going on, and it's a little bit about my struggles in life, and both as a single mom with a child with disabilities, as well as financial struggles that go along with that.
Brad:
Yeah, mary and I have been talking, for it's been a year, mary. It's been a year. I know isn't that crazy. That's crazy Now. So we got connected with this project we're gonna be talking about here in just a little bit. So Mary and I have been meeting pretty much weekly now for an entire year. So we're like good buddies now. So, mary, if you could, can you take a minute to share a little bit of your history, your backstory? You have three kids, one of those with disabilities. What challenges do you face as a single mom, maybe financially? How did you make it all work and what types of things did you kind of uncover as you went about this journey? Because I mean, obviously I've talked about my own journey having a special needs child and some of the financial struggles that come from that, but what was your perspective on that?
Merry:
Well, I guess I'd have to go back to when my son was born. I realized it was just kind of like oh, this is like so symbolic of my journey with him that when he was born, my epidural like wore off on one side of my body and was and I didn't feel anything on the other side to where they had to like hold one of my legs during his birth. So it's like being a mom of a person or a child with disabilities is the biggest challenge, but also the greatest joy, that there are just so many things in our journey, throughout our journey, that were like I'd stare up at the sky and I'm like God, why me? And after a while I realized that I just had to stop asking the devil into my life and I felt God just whispered to me I made you for him and there was purpose in me being his mom.
Brad:
Oh Mary, you are touching at the feels way too early in this interview right now, man Sorry. But, there was also purpose of him being my child.
Merry:
You know, yeah, and you know, but you know from his birth. You know there is that all the pain and no pain, you know. And just his cute Mickey. I used to call him Mickey Mouse cheeks. Everybody wanted to pinch his cheeks. He had the biggest cute cheeks. You know, it's just. It's life for everybody. But with parents of children with disabilities, life is a lot harder and it's a lot lonelier too, and it's more so harder when you're a single parent. So my son has high ability autism, also known as Aspergers, meaning he's really darn smart and because of that he's kind of manipulative, sometimes just a little bit. He also has ADHD, so he is all the other thing with Aspergers. They, you know, because they're not as good as they are, because they have like super sensory, like their other senses are like really heightened, like if I need to have a private conversation, I literally have to go take a drive on the neighborhood because I can't have it in the house. He has a really good hearing With ADHD. You know, keeping him on task. He can only take one task at a time. Sometimes I still struggle with that and he's now 23. Okay, but he's learned to advocate for himself and he says mom, one thing at a time. Okay, okay, I'm sorry. And then the most difficult part of his disabilities, as he was growing up and in his we've come so far from this is obsessive defiant disorder, where it was all primarily directed at me. Yeah, sometimes it was his teachers, sometimes it was his siblings and it was not pretty. And on top of that his psychiatrist put him on a medication that made him psychotic. You know he was hearing and seeing things hurting himself and you know our family tearing up my house and that journey for advocating for him for what he needed to heal from that and to. I mean it was so bad, brad. At one point his psychiatrist actually gave me her personal cell phone number Wow, because he'd been in and out of the hospital. I'm talking to the psychiatric hospital. I'm not getting five times in three months. Um, it was where I had through my journey. I learned to when you know he was hurting myself or hurting somebody else or people or things, the rule was don't hurt people or things. That's was the, the written role we got to, and I always say we, but it's just me, yeah.
Brad:
Right.
Merry:
You know um I I called the cops. I learned to ask in Indiana to ask for a CIT trained officer. Not all police officers are trained in crisis intervention training um and dealing with mental health Um matter of fact, we just had an incident this week Um, and we continue to have them here in Indianapolis um about people with disabilities where they get shot and killed by the police because all the police officers are not trained um in CIT training. But I learned back then and I say back then because it's it's been quite a few years and we've gone through this journey already um to ask for that CIT officer Um. Most people don't know to ask for that Um, and I was just fortunate to come across that advice Um. So through this journey of getting him help um, I made the hardest decision of my life and that was to put him in a residential treatment facility um, which was like two hours from my house.
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Yeah, I was very?
Merry:
um blessed that I worked for a company that was very family friendly and I was able to adjust my schedule so that I could leave or come in to work early, leave early so that I could go see him and drive two hours once a week to go see him. Um and he was there for 18 months. Um, like I said, it was the hardest decision I made in my life. Um I knew, even though I mean as I was looking for help for him, and both his psychiatrist and psychologist um said that he needed that um, that placement. Um. I searched and in Indiana there was only one facility that would take children on the autism spectrum, one, and it was two hours away. I went to visit him. My private insurance, or my employer, doesn't cover and most employer private insurances don't cover residential treatment facilities Um it's. There are what's are called mental health um gatekeepers Um and there's only so many spots in these places Um. So I went and visited the place Um and it was only through his individualized education plan, or IEP, because that facility had a school on site, that I was able to get the IEP case conference committee to do an appropriate placement for him there at that facility, um, and I, you know, I remember just breaking down and bawling my eyes out because my son also didn't sleep. He wouldn't sleep for two, three days and then he would crash for 14 to 16 hours. So I was exhausted, my kids were. The kids were exhausted, um, and I was just blessed that at that time in Indiana they were able to do that through the IEP process. Since then, and shortly after he finished that, they uh, the Indian department of education cut those additional fundings to school systems to help pay for those things. Brad, this was at a cost of almost $400 a day, yeah, and he was there for 18 months.
Brad:
Right.
Merry:
Right, there's no way, as a single mom, I could afford that, Right, Even if, if my insurance did cover, I'd still probably you know, there sure would be, you know additional monies, Um, to cover it. I didn't I, there's no way. I, you know, I don't know, I was just extremely blessed and, um, it's funny, we have a stories of of these three guardian angels in my family um, that watched over me and the kids. Um, and while he was there at the facility, I got a call at like one o'clock in the morning and before he went he was a runner. Okay, so he would like run off and I'd have to chase him. Um, and he ran from the facility in his pajamas and no shoes at middle of the night, and I knew the facility was about two miles from a major highway. I was so scared that I was gonna lose them forever and after I got confirmation from the sheriff that they would keep me updated, I just fell to my knees and started praying and I sent my angel out to protect them. I said all three of them. I said we don't need you right now, you need to go get him and protect him. And I, literally I had a vision of these white wings fighting the demons off in the middle of the night. Protecting him, that was, like probably the scariest part of the whole thing of it. Outside of knowing that sending him there he could pick up worse habits. There was a lot of other kids that were worse off than mine, that have been abused and neglected, that had deviant sexual tendencies. I was just like I just had to trust that he would be okay and that he would get what he needed. But going back to the money, so my son, after he came back, he needed help and we got ABA and again I always say we, but it's just me Got an ABA therapy and the ABA therapist would actually come to my house because again, this my boy and my child. He had obsessive defiant disorder. So telling him to get out of bed, yeah right, Right, To get dressed to eat his food, whatever it is, whatever it was. An extreme challenge At one point I had to put in a house role for him is for every day that he refused to go to school, that it was two days with no electronics. That was hell on our family. I literally took the router with me to work so that he wouldn't have to have an after school. I plug it in when the kids had to get their homework done, I just knew I needed to do whatever I needed to do to get him to school. But going back to the money, so I worked out with the school system that the ABA therapy was covered by my health my insurance. However, I had a pretty steep deductible and that deductible the school negotiated that they would pay my deductible because it got eaten up like that first month or two of the year from all the expenses from the ABA therapy, which amounted to about $80,000 a year and he had now granted it. Took me three years to fight to get him a one-on-one in school. But once I learned that the school system couldn't use money as an excuse to provide what is free and appropriate, that's when the discussions changed at our case conference committee table so that deductible would be used up at the beginning of the year and the school would pay for it. But they're paying out like $80,000 a year. My insurance and I worked in HR, okay, so I saw those yeah Right, and I had to have a discussion with my broker every year. Yep, Cameron's number one, Cameron's number one. Yeah, right, right. What made it work? Honestly, the short answer is the grace of God helping my friends and my family.
Brad:
Yeah, because that's a lot. You're single, you're doing this all. Not only is it and just obviously my daughter's journey and your son's journey, we all go on these different journeys but I mean it's the emotional toll that it takes to do everything. I'm thinking about just the emotional energy. It just took you, mary, just to go through a lot of that stuff and now you've got the financial side of it on top of it.
Merry:
And you're doing it single.
Brad:
It's a lot for special needs families it really is, and a lot of people. And it hits you because when you're having a baby or when you're going to have a baby, you don't think that that's it. Like all of a sudden they say, hey, this is the situation and it's like it's like welcome to a brand new world. It's like you immediately step into this whole new role as a parent and you almost go into this elite level of parenthood to be able to handle a lot of the things that come with it, because it's more than just the financial side. It's the emotional toll that we go through as special needs parents to advocate, to be there for our kids, to make sure that they're getting the care that they need, to push the professionals Because the professionals aren't always doing the right thing either right, and so you're pushing them, you're making it, so it's just a lot. So, man, I'm thinking about all this and I'm just exhausted for you and I go through it my own way. You know. Yes, it's a lot. I'm going to mind that.
Merry:
Throughout the years. I'm exhausted here in what's been going on. I said, okay, we've just learned to change the discussion Because there are a lot of people who can't take it and I have lost friends and had issues with my family because they don't understand all the and it boils down to time. There's just not a time. I mean, brad, even you talked to me last week about you spent hours on the phone for one particular issue yeah, benefits is.
Brad:
And I'm still working on it. I'm still working on it, yeah.
Merry:
Mm-hmm. Yeah, so longer answer. You know I'm thankful for my German heritage work ethic. You know workaholism, my passion for learning and understanding the systems that support people with disabilities. I like to read laws. I've often been accused of being an attorney or a teacher and honestly, it didn't always work. You know there's no, there's no required parent training okay, in life or in high school, especially in Indiana, and I made mistakes along the way. So definitely giving learning to give myself some grace was huge in in mental health for parents with special needs children. You know that we're not always going to make the right decision. All parents are going to make the right decisions. As a matter of fact, I pissed off some, some school administrators. You know I've had to file due processes and I've won. But you know what was important to me was to teach my son how to advocate for himself Right, because I know I'm not always going to be here, and towards the end of his high school years he was coming to his IEP meetings with his own agenda. When we do quarterly case conference committee meetings, he brings his own agenda. You know where he's learning to advocate and speak up for himself Like no mom, I don't want to do that or I'm not doing that. Right, like great, awesome, glad you're able to voice that with me. So if you're not going to do it, I guess I don't need to care either, do I? Right when I'm at. There's one last thing off of my list, you know, and then later he might pick it back up. Oh, mom, I think I do need to do that. Okay, all right, well, that's your choice, because he's an adult now. You know and I think this kind of goes into where you know, you know, I'm not going to do that we as an nation are for people with disabilities were moving towards a person-centered care. There's lots of different systems to do that. I was fortunate enough to become a Charter in a Life Course Ambassador, which is one system that gives tools for parents to utilize in helping find the voice of those people with disabilities. Your child with disabilities of S2. What is it that they want and what is it that they don't want in their life? Even if they're nonverbal, they can speak for themselves. They can communicate just in their own way. A good friend of mine has a saying of when it comes to people with disabilities. Say you're communicating with someone who can't hear. Well, they don't have a disability. They say I'm not deaf, you can't sign.
Brad:
Yeah, I like that when you said that. You said that a couple of meetings ago. You said that and that's really good.
Merry:
Yeah, I mean because everybody has their own strengths. I keep thinking, until we as a society really understand that and value those strengths and realize that we're all interdependent upon each other, because we all don't have all the strengths, that we're really not going to thrive as a society. It's kind of like how I explained to my son of what are your human resources? Who else can you reach out to when you have a problem? Because we all have those gifts and there's some things I just can't do. I'm going to call the plumber, one. I don't like to deal with that smelly stuff. Two, I'm calling the electrician because I don't want to get electrocuted, because they're the subject matter experts. I don't have those subject matter experts. So that's the other thing with the turning of life course. It explores those areas that a person with special needs Is it something that they can do themselves? Do they need some help or do they need somebody else to do those things Right? So it just kind of expanded humans' minds and thoughts about people with disabilities. There's a lot to value. I kept telling my son that there's something. God has something great for you to do. I don't know what it is, but eventually it'll come around. I love that.
Brad:
So you had mentioned. If you have a plumbing issue, call a plumber. If you have an electrical issue, call an electrician. You joined Roots a while back ago. You went through the program and that's how we've got connected on this project we're going to talk about here in just a minute. Can you talk about—you've gone through this, I've talked about it. I've shared a lot on my podcast. We're a special needs family. We've got a daughter with disabilities. We found out very quickly how expensive we can get and thankfully there's lots of great programs here in Wisconsin that we've been able to be a part of. That's reduced a lot of those expenses for us, thankfully, but it's a lot. It is a lot. It changes your finances tremendously, and so you've obviously experienced this a lot in your life. Just going through your story just now, how did—how did going through Roots help you with some of those things? Obviously, I know you went through. As you know, your son was a little bit older than what he was when he was younger, but how did that help you?
Merry:
Well, I guess first I got to say I'm blessed that I came from a family who was pretty frugal. I'm the last of six kids, okay, so we always had a huge garden. I learned, you know, we canned a lot of vegetables and stuff. My dad actually charged us five cents a mile to use the car. So you know, I learned about the value of money. That is fantastic. Yeah, that sounds cool. But when I chose to go through Roots I was kind of like in transition of some of my kids. My oldest was in college. One child was determining whether she was going to college or not. She decided not and she got her cosmetology license and opened this salon. And then you know just the expenses of taking Cameron and my son into weekly psychology appointments and say you know, it does take a toll on a personal budget. And when, as we talked about earlier the time essence of parents with child with disabilities, I found I was eating out a lot. You know, I remember one time I had all three kids in three different schools for six years. Oh, my gosh, mary, oh yeah. There was a time when my mom actually was homeschooling my son because of his behavior and he had 17 suspensions one semester where I had to call for the manifestation meeting. It should have happened at 10. But I just needed to get a hold of my spending and get more disciplined and I needed some help with that. You know I was tired, just being a single mom with three. So I did go through Roots. I, you know, started my back up my emergency funding. I was able to save enough money to pay cash for a new air conditioner and furnace for my house. I paid cash for a newer to me car that I still have to this day, and through frugal planning I was blessed to be able to quit my job and take care of, help take care of my parents. My dad had Alzheimer's he still does, he's still around and my mom got blood cancer. So to help get him into memory care unit and get her blood levels normal which they are and then take her on her last road trip to for her sister's memorial was just such a blessing to be. And this is what you talk about. You know that. Debt freedom, yeah, in addition to that, since you know, going through Roots. Last year I almost lost my life. Yeah, I got COVID pneumonia and I got a abscess on my spine that the doctor told me that 25% of people who like had symptoms and stuff like me don't make it. Yeah, I ended up spending 16 days in the hospital and another almost six weeks in a nursing home having to relearn to walk because it messed up, you know, the spine. I didn't have emergency spine surgery To not have to worry about how I was going to pay my bills while I'm sitting in this nursing home, which was the most awful experience I ever experienced in my life. It was, and I was thinking my parents are in this you know type of facility. I mean, the nurse almost gave me the wrong medicines. They there was other stuff that was just wrecked awful. But to not have to worry about how my mortgage and utilities to be paid, my son's at home, I'm very fortunate. Again, it blessed the family and friends. I have wonderful neighbors that made sure that because he didn't cook or to leave my house. I had one friend that sent groceries. I'm like that's great, but he doesn't cook, so you got to send stuff it's microwavable. Another friend we were just joking about this past on a pizza through the window because he's very social. You know he doesn't do socially very well, so we were joking about that the other day, the pizza through the window. Oh yeah, mom, I remember. Okay, you have four minutes. Yes, okay, okay, so that I could focus on healing.
Brad:
Yeah. So, man, you've gone through so much and warrior comes to mind for that right, I mean just everything. You've gone through. Not only that, but you so just last year you went through all these major medical issues. Then you come knocking on my door and, like Brad, check out this project, right? So this is the kind of person Mary is Like. Here she is, she's going through all of this stuff, almost loses her life, still healing herself, and now she comes knocking on my door and wanting to still advocate and help out families with disabilities. With a new grant opportunity that the state of Indiana came out, Can you talk a little bit about this, this program that we were about to do?
Merry:
Sure. So as part of my advocating for my son, I watch news snippets and I look at websites and stuff for the providers that give him service so that I can hold them accountable for providing the services that they're supposed to provide. I'm not saying that all the providers don't provide the services that provide, but some of them don't, and so you got to learn. I felt I needed to learn what was important, and so I found out about an innovative pilot program grant and, having gone through Roots and knowing the importance of personal finance is not only to people without disabilities lives, but especially as I'm helping my son navigate all these systems and finding these restrictions on his income and resource limits, I really felt that it was a great opportunity to bring Brad's original personal finance program to individuals on a waiver a disability waiver in Indiana. So I asked Brad if he'd partner with me on this grant and told him I'd write the thing thing and manage it, but I just needed him to help participate with me and spend some time on it, which is when we started this conversation. We've been meeting every week for a year now. Every week, yep, every week. So we applied almost a year ago. It was the end of August that I asked you about it and we were accepted and I was like, oh my gosh, what did I just get myself into? No, I'm kidding, I'm kidding, I'm kidding. Now I'm like, oh my God, what am I doing? Oh my God, no, no, no. So I'm just blessed. So we expanded, we're doing expansion to add some curriculum to Brad's program for some high school students that are on a disability waiver and their parents are guardians. So it's a multi-generational approach. And we're expanding the program to add information about special needs, trusts, working while we're seeming, benefits and the differences between a supportive decision making agreement, a guardianship or POA, and all of this topics are stuff that I've been researching for my son, because he's at that age and he started to want to do work, and so I was like, dang, another blessing, I'm getting paid to research this stuff for my son, woo. I mean a lot of it, some of it I already looked at it, but I was like, okay, this is awesome opportunity. So we're doing two cohorts for and they do have to be in Indiana sorry, if you're outside of Indiana and you're not on a waiver a high school student on a waiver, so this is not applicable to you, but we'll see where it goes, because the goal is to do this pilot program over the next year and then hopefully we'll get approved for continuing services for disability waiver participants as well as possibly people on the wait list, because the last time I checked there was like almost 5,000 people on the wait list for a waiver. For those that don't know what a waiver is, in Indiana they call them waivers it provides additional funding for those appropriate services that people with disabilities need. It may be anywhere from. You know services for somebody who has a traumatic brain injury to you know, has disabilities with obsessive-defiant disorder and needs that you know that constant supervision. Or they may be like in a wheelchair or other you know physically restrictive restrictions where they need assistance every day. So a waiver just provides those additional services and the funding for those services. Absolutely, there are restrictions.
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You know, you don't get unlimited money.
Merry:
I mean, even our federal government has never fully funded special education, and they're supposed to provide 40% of what the states need, but they never have. So there's always restrictions, and so it was just a way of you know, I'm going through this and so I've got to have an opportunity to share, you know, not only personal finance, but also some special needs stuff.
Brad:
And I think it brings to the you know, I mean, like you mentioned, we all need. I mean I think all of us are in agreement, I should say all most people are in agreement with you know the fact that we need more personal finance education, and not just you know how to do payments and credit scores. You know we need to kind of think outside the box a little bit. How do we improve our behaviors? How do we improve our financial mindsets? How do we live on a budget? How do we, you know, prioritize saving? How do we do these basic things? How do we understand the basics of just personal finance? And you know that also includes people with disabilities because, again, people with disabilities are under even stricter guidelines as far as, like you said, mary, the income that they can make. It's scary, like if they're on benefits and things, the limited amount of income that they can possibly make. And you know they need to be even extra cautious on how to handle their finances. And if we're not teaching these kids these things, or their families how to teach their kids some of these things, it's, like you know, we're not really setting up these individuals for success.
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You know, we really aren't.
Brad:
And so I mean I think that's what I'm why. That's why I'm really excited because, again, as a special needs family ourselves, working with Mary was also special needs family. We understand how hard it can be and I know for a fact, like if I had not been in the situation that I was in, where I had got myself out of debt. You know, having my daughter and going through all of that would have been a financial disaster. It would have been very stressful and I'm just very thankful that we didn't have to go through it that way, but a lot of it is because of the work that we've done and now that we're teaching other people to do Right, which is what I love about this program, you know, and it's not. You know, we're not sitting here saying it's the fix all and be all, but it will definitely help so many people that are stressed about their finances and easing a lot. I mean, just look at Mary and what she was able to do since, since joining and going through it. It's incredible.
Merry:
So I'm excited about it. I'm excited too. I'm nervously excited.
Brad:
We're going to hit it home, Mary.
Merry:
I know it's just like, okay, we're going to keep working every day a little bit, just like your program you know over, you know do in 10 to 20 minutes day, you know on your personal finance, when you have goals, you just work a little bit more every day on them Every day.
Brad:
All right, mary. Well, thanks so much for being here. We appreciate you sharing your story, and I just also wanted to take the opportunity to allow us to share this amazing project that we're going to be a part of here at Debt Free Dad, and we're really, really excited about it and interesting to see how the next two years go. It's going to be fun, yes.
Merry:
Thanks for having me, brad. I appreciate it, you're welcome.
Brad:
o the Totally Awesome Debt Freedom planner is helping so many people make consistent progress with their finances, whether that be building emergency funds, paying down bills, budgeting, tracking paydays, saving up for larger purchases, goal planning and planning for those irregular yearly expenses that always seem to catch you by surprise. Now the Debt Freedom planner will help you take the stress out of managing your money. And if the thought is running through your mind, hey, I just need to have a simple tool to get my finances together. This planner is perfect for you. Head over to the realdebtfreedad. com, Click on the debt freedom planner in the menu at the top of the page and order your debt freedom planner today. Let's talk about debt baby. Let's talk about you and me. Let's talk about all the good things, all the bad things that may be. Let's talk about debt. All right, that's sound means it's time for the celebrations of the show and, as always, I just wanted to thank Mary for coming on and joining us. And again, proof that, no matter what your situation is, if you make your finances a priority and you learn these basic fundamentals of personal finance things like budgeting, saving, living below your means, learning to improve your mindset, behaviors, choices, habits. Time and time again, no matter the situation, we find that you can improve your finances, no matter the challenges that you're facing. And Mary is just another perfect example of that story, again having more success with her finances after going through roots, and we're really excited to be able to partner with her in this IPP program that we're going to be working with down in the state of Indiana and offering this program to other families with disabilities to help them with their personal finance, education and, hopefully, hunting some financial stress for a lot of those families. So great and excited to be a part of that. So celebrations. Today, terry, at Computaro I paid $812.72 towards debt. I added more buckets to my Ally account and automated deposits to them, which, by the way, if you're listening to this, I love Ally Bank. We do not have any sort of affiliate to them, but we just love them. Lots of great tools. If you haven't checked them out, go check them out. She says it will be great. It will be a great feeling when those bills come due and I already have the money saved to pay them. So, terry, awesome debt payoff and using those sinking funds and saving Great job. Ashley Wood used budgeted cash for all school supplies, clothes for my kids and I didn't go over, which is amazing was able to even finish their Christmas with the leftover amount. Man Ashley crushing it, getting Christmas done too. She says I got my budget completed and staying on track. Emergency fund is still intact, even after a $450 emergency fund visit I'm sorry emergency room visit and ate at home all week. Big win for our house, huge wins for your house, ashley. Again proof that the stuff we're talking about here on the show works. So great wins. Erica Richards five credit cards now with zero balances, erica incredible. She says. First, zero base budget is done. It's messy but it's done and that's great. And sending $300 to my emergency fund this coming week as well, erica great wins. This past week, mary Souther got an email from a credit card Seems. Since I haven't used the card in over two years, they were wanting me to close the card. Well, save them the trouble. I called them and said I'm going to close that account now, which is awesome, mary. Mary is on the streak of no credit card now. Credit card use now for three plus years. Mary is crushing it, doing very well. Great win, mary. And then Erin Hood. Final, last one today my student loans are officially paid off, which, by the way, for Erin, makes her completely debt free now. Huge congratulations to you, erin. I know you worked so hard on that getting that achievement. Such a great, great win. So huge congratulations to you guys. And congratulations to all of you guys and our debt free dad podcast listeners out there who are working and doing their finances different, wanting to reduce financial stress. We know it's hard work, but the hard work is worth it. So hang in there and thanks for hanging out with us here today. We love your feedback and it also helps us grow our podcast, so please leave us an honest review. We read every single one of those and, as you guys know, the debt free dad podcast is here to help you live a happier and stress free financial life. So if you know someone who could benefit from our show, hey, please give us a share. We appreciate you guys and we will see you guys on the next episode. Take care.
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