Kumiko (00:02.83)
Welcome to the Miko Love Podcast. I'm your host, Kumiko Love. And when I'm not educating about personal finance as the budget mom, I'm here diving into the exploration of my own passions and exploring a range of captivating topics. It's time to dive into conversations that ignite curiosity and inspire. Welcome to another episode of the Miko Love Podcast. And if you're new, welcome. I am so happy you are here today. We're going to be doing something a little bit different with this episode.

I wanted to do an Ask Me Anything episode where essentially I'm going to be answering your pre -submitted questions that I asked over on my social media channels. Now, one of the things that for me is so hard and I feel kind of a downside of having such large followings on your social media channels is, for instance, back when I started Instagram in 2016, I was able

to respond to every message, every question. In fact, that's what I absolutely loved to do. And that's why I started the Budget Mom. I never started the Budget Mom to start a business. It was to start a community and to connect with other people who were in the same or similar situation as I was, a divorced mom with a pile of debt trying to figure out how to provide the best life, a better life for her children.

And so for me, when it did become a business, one of the things that I absolutely loved was still being able to go in and answer everyone's questions, see everyone's comments, see everyone's messages. Now with over two or three million followers across our social media channels, it's hard for me. And even with Instagram, I feel like we get hundreds upon hundreds of messages and questions and comments just on Instagram alone. And I feel like

Instagram hides my messages from me. Like they literally appear in three different areas. Some of them I'll see, some of them I won't see. I'll see a comment that says, Miko, I messaged you, I never heard a reply back. And I go searching for it it's in this weird kind of area folder in my Instagram messages. So I haven't been able to answer every, and keep up on that, every question, every comment, every message. I still try.

Kumiko (02:30.146)
Me and Ryan, we still try, but it's getting harder and harder as our social media channels have grown. So being able to put up a question box and have a dedicated space, area, and time for you to answer your questions on a platform like Now The Miko Love Podcast makes me feel really good and hopefully it helps you as well. I'll be able to get to more of those questions.

So that's what this episode is all about. I'm gonna be going in, I have my phone next to me, and I'm gonna be going in and answering all the questions that were submitted. Now I try to put up a question box about once every four episodes or so. I'm not really sure of the schedule that I'm going to be taking with these Ask Me Anything type solo episodes, but I want to continue to do them into the future and I'll make sure to announce more of a consistent timeframe once I know when that may be.

So I'm just gonna dive right in. We just got little Dante down. All my boys, all my boys. Can I just say before I answer these questions how fricking hard being a parent is? all, I feel like we hit a happy milestone. So my oldest son turned 12. We're about to have his party, birthday party this Saturday. My other little, little one just turned one on July 28th.

and we already had his birthday party and these were all happy things, right? Kids are growing up, they're healthy, they're happy, nothing like awesome. But I feel like I am like, I don't wanna stay depressed, but I'm like grieving. I'm grieving, you know, the time spent with my oldest son, like that quality time when he was younger where we used to be, you know, closer as far as, you know, contact.

And all the ways he does know he no longer needs me. I mean, that alone, I'm grieving that. Like I'm like going to the kitchen. He's making himself lunch. What the heck? Just like another man living in my house. It's weird. And then my little, little one, we just had his one year checkup and now we're doing the whole weaning off the bottle and weaning off the formula and going to milk and all these things. And it's just like, I don't know, I'm feeling all the feels. So we just got my little one down. And of course with, you know, the one year checkup.

Kumiko (04:55.48)
comes those vaccines and so he had some shots and I'm just blessed he's asleep. Yeah, so it's just being a parent is fricking hard and I'm just gonna say that out loud. So let's jump into questions now that I'm done venting and crying and being happy all at the same time. All right, so first question, Miko, where do you get your drive from? this question is funny because

Not too long ago, I was out to lunch with two of my really good friends and my friend asked me the same question. She goes, she goes, where do you like it seems like everything that you set out to do, like you master it and become a perfectionist at it and do it really, really well to the point where you can monetize it and make money from it. And like you never stop. And it's true. I have always had the type of personality where if I want to learn a new skill,

If I want to try something new, I don't do it just to try it. I don't do it just to do it. I do it to master it. So for instance, there are many things in my life that have been like this. For instance, pottery. Not a lot of people know that I do pottery, but yes, I have a kiln and a wheel and I need to make space for them, but I have them, but I did pottery for a long time. I'm trying to get back into it because I love to

add some pottery to my other business, Pine Manor Naturals. That's another thing, soap making. I knew nothing about that when I started. Took absolutely no classes, learned all by myself. But it came out of an essential need and ultimately the values in my life as far as what I choose to put on my skin and in my body. So Pine Manor Naturals started and maybe I'll do a whole episode about starting

my natural skincare business, Pine Manor Naturals, but very quickly, little background, I started Pine Manor Naturals because after my first son, I developed really bad postpartum acne, adult acne, and it was really bad on my chin, like around my lips, on my chin, and a little bit on my forehead. I felt like no matter what I did, I couldn't get rid of it. And so I was seeing the dermatologist, right? And they were giving me prescription pills and,

Kumiko (07:19.746)
different topicals, lotions, things that I could try. And of course those things just made it worse and I'm like crying and I'm finally I'm calling my mom, I'm bawling. I'm like, I'm so embarrassed about my skin, about my face. Like I shouldn't be this old dealing with these types of breakouts. And I knew it was because obviously my hormones were all crazy. You I just had my baby, my son. And my mom says something that completely changed my life. She's done that a lot of times, okay. My mom was the type of mom where

My mom worked three different jobs. She mom raised two kids, worked three different jobs, all jobs that were hard. I mean, she worked at the front desk of a local pharmacy. She cleaned houses for a living. She worked as a waitress. So it's not like she had a college degree or was an expert on starting a business, of making money, all the things like making natural products, all these things.

but she always seemed to give me the best advice that absolutely changed the direction of either my business or my life. Okay, listen to your mama. Okay, that's a sign. Listen to your mama. But she said to me, Miko, stop trying to fix your skin issue with more pills. Instead, focus on your skin breathing. Give it a chance because I'm constantly putting like...

all peroxide and all these different things, right? This acid, all this stuff on my face. Let it breathe, use natural products, stop trying to fix your face, your skin with all these medicines and pills and all these things. I took that to heart. The very next day I went out and I bought my very first natural, natural if you can't see me, I'm quotes in the air, natural skincare products that I found at Walmart. It was definitely a lot better and a lot cleaner than what I was.

using, right? And something amazing happened. My skin cleared up and it was kind of like this aha moment. Like, my gosh, this connection in my brain of clean natural products, better, healthier skin. And so that night I typed into Google, like what's soap made of? I mean, really, if you think about, have you ever thought about that? What's soap made of? Three ingredients. Okay. The first thing I saw on Google, three ingredients, I'm like,

Kumiko (09:44.982)
looking at the soap and things that I'm buying at the store. So why I started my skincare business is because one of the topical lotions that that dermatologist gave me, not her fault, but gave me, had an allergic reaction to, I woke up and my eyes were swelled shut and they stayed swelled shut for two or three days and I couldn't see. And it was very scary. I'm like, I ever gonna, like, did I just go blind? Like it was horrible. And because when I looked on the back and we're trying to figure out what the heck I'm allergic to,

there was literally 180 ingredients on the back of this dang tube in like, you know, 0 .5 font that no one can read. And finally, I just gave up. I didn't even figure out what caused the allergic reaction, but that's what prompted me to talk to my mom and do all these things. So after I found out how easy soap was, I started down my obsessive rabbit hole and that's what happens to me when I want to try or do something. Like I said, I don't do it just to do it.

I do it to master it. And then I found out, my gosh, there's a whole world of natural cold process soap making with beautiful flowers and amazing clays and beautiful blends of essential oils. And I was hooked. And the same goes with my sourdough. Something inside me wants to understand how things work, not just doing it.

Why do I get the certain sourdough loaves that I get? Why does it turn out this way? Why does it have this reaction when I add this? My mind is constantly trying to figure out the why behind everything else that I'm doing, which then causes me to learn more and learn more and go down this black rabbit hole of being obsessive about the knowledge that I'm gaining and all these things. I do it to the absolute best of my ability. But I also said,

Do not confuse my busyness with ambition because I'm also in survival mode from just having a baby. I'm also on a grief journey from just losing my mom where every single cell in my body is telling me to stay busy because sitting in that hurt, in that pain, in that reality is too much for my brain to process. So I don't stop moving, which isn't good either.

Kumiko (12:05.23)
But it's not necessarily bad because everyone grieves in their own way. Everyone's on different stages. And in my mind, staying busy is better than giving up and not continue living, which is something my mom would never want me to do. Some people tell me, Miko, you do too much. I get up in the morning at six, six 30, seven o 'clock. I literally don't stop moving or using my brain or physically moving my body until I go to bed at, I don't know,

10, 11 o 'clock at night. And in that time, I never scroll my phone unless I'm working and I don't sit down and watch any shows. So that has a big part of it. If you think about how much time we spend scrolling our phones on TikTok or binge watching Netflix, and don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with doing these things, right? But it consumes a lot of our time if we don't pay attention to it.

And because I don't literally don't do those things, I use that time for learning, for growing, for growing all these different hobbies and things that I want to be doing. But at the same time, I stay busy for other reasons. So when people ask me, Miko, what's your drive? My drive is I want to be the best at what I do, period. What's the, in my mind, what's the point in putting in all this energy?

physically and mentally trying to do something if you're not going to give it 100 % and do it your best. And part of that is learning as much as you can about that subject or whatever you're doing and mastering it. And so I do put a lot of pressure on myself to be a perfectionist, which is also can be bad because that a lot of the time makes me feel have other thoughts like I'm a failure, I'm not good enough, right? We should never strive.

to be perfect, should be striving in consistency and doing the best that we can. But the drive is also this new kind of purpose in my life of realizing that my mom lives through me. And I kind of feel like when I wake up, know, my mom, there is no replacing my mom. I can never replace my mom, but I could pick up her torch and I can carry it into the future. That's something that I can do.

Kumiko (14:23.488)
All the values and lessons and all the wonderful things that made me who I am today, I can pass on to my children. All the knowledge and things that she gave to me, I can pass down to my children. I can tell my children and let them know how much grandma loved them. I can show them who she was. Right? So they know exactly who grandma surely is. All these things I can do. But part of that drive is also just staying busy so I don't have to hurt.

and that's just part of my life that I'm in right now. Okay, so what do you do with past expense trackers for checking account in your cash? I get that a lot because I'm a pen to paper gal and I've been that way ever since I figured out over 11 years ago that I'm a visual learner. Something happens in your brain psychologically when you write things down, when you bring pen to paper.

I've seen it firsthand in my life, how it's affected my life. It's completely different than say letting an app do it for you or doing something electronically. It's just different. That being said, I get asked, like I use, you know, the Budget by Paycheck workbook, the physical one. And people ask me, well, what do you do with that when you're done with it? So for me, I scan all of the pages onto a thumb drive and onto two backup external hard drives.

That way I have it in multiple different places and so I never lose it. And that's what I do with a lot of my important documents that I don't wanna carry in my house physically. They go onto a thumb drive, they go onto two backup hard drives that I have in different locations. So I have them also organized on those thumb drives by year and by month. So I have a year folder.

What you like, for instance, when I'm done with 2024, the folder will be named 2024. And then I have January through December labeled in there as well. It makes it really easy. And you might be asking like, what's the point of even saving them? I just toss mine. Don't if you're taking the time to write out your financial plan and attract your progress financially with your money, do not get rid of it. Keep it because I'll tell you what. In one year, when you look back.

Kumiko (16:45.198)
all the times you felt like you weren't making any progress, like things you were doing weren't matter, doesn't matter. It does when you look back after a year and see where you used to be. I've done that yearly. I've looked back five years ago, 10 years ago when I was still paying off debt. I go back to those pages often because not only is it motivation, but it's proof of what I'm capable of. And sometimes we need a reminder of that. So

thumb drive and then I scan the pages thumb drive and I'll tell you what, the best thing to have for that is a scan snap. If you don't know what it is, Google it. It will change your life if you scan a lot of things. Okay, I keep falling in and out of budgeting, really trying hard to do better. How? Okay, if you are on and off again on the budget bandwagon, something is wrong with the first step that I ask you to do in my budget by paycheck process. Figuring out your why because I'll tell you what, if you have honed down, got

real clear and descriptive about your why, you would not be going in and out on and off that budget bandwagon. Because your why is so important, giving up is no longer an option. If you were to fall off that bandwagon, trust me, when you think about your why, you're gonna hop right back on. Finding your purpose and why on this financial journey is not only good for motivation,

but it's a constant reminder of why you do what you do. If you give up, if you stop fighting, if you're not giving it your best, if you're not out there to improve and then to grow, it doesn't only just affect you. Your why is your reminder of that. That's huge. When you realize that what your actions and the progress and everything that you do in your life doesn't only affect

you it's a game changer, not just for motivation, but dedication and consistency. Dedication and consistency. Those two things form habits. Habits form willpower because you can't rely on motivation. It's never there when you need it. Sure, some days you wake up and you feel motivated, but I guarantee most of the time we don't wake up and say, yes, I'm excited to budget my money and look at my bills and pay my credit cards and do all these things. Right.

Kumiko (19:09.838)
Now it's a little bit different mentality once you figure out what you're fighting for, but most of the time I'm not motivated. This is coming from a money expert who's been doing this for 12 years, who's an accredited financial counselor and who's also worked in the investment advisory industry for nine years. I am not always motivated, but I tell you what I am. I have self -discipline, I'm dedicated, and I have some fricking willpower. And I've learned that also with my working out.

Because I feel like a lot of the skills that we learn on our financial journey, we carry into other areas and aspect of our lives. I found that to be so true with not only my relationships, but also like my whole workout part of my life and getting healthier as far as moving my body. Because I did not used to be consistent working out. Now I work out six to seven days a week. And that's just pure willpower and self -dedication.

100%, not motivation. So look into figuring out and getting really clear on why are you on this journey. All right. I'm a new runner too. Can you tell us a bit about how you got into running and your routine? Okay, let's go baby. I'm so excited to talk about this subject, it's true.

I've always been a runner. I've always been a long distance runner, but I've been a treadmill runner. It wasn't until recently that I got absolutely obsessed and hooked on races. After I figured out that I could do a 10K outside and I no longer had to be literally scared shitless of doing it, the reason I've always been a treadmill runner is because I like the control it gives me. I get to control the weather that I'm in, right? I'm in my cool basement.

I control the speed that I'm at. I get to control the hills that I'm climbing, my incline. I have control over my entire run. When you step off the treadmill and you do races outside, you no longer have control of those things, which means you have to be physically and mentally ready for whatever that race, that track, that route throws at you. That scared me crapless. But once I did it and I completed my first 10K, I completed that back in May of this year,

Kumiko (21:30.284)
I was like, and I felt strong crossing that finish line. I'm like, give me more. I can do more. I want to push myself. So I decided to sign up for my first half marathon that I'm going to be competing or that I'm to be completing, not competing. I will not be competing in any race unless it's just against myself, but I'll be completing that in the beginning of October. I'm actually doing the Jackass half marathon in Idaho. So if you're there,

and you see me, give me a wave, let's give each other hugs and support because it is scary. So let's talk about my routine. And I've done way further than half marathons. I've done 18, 19, 20 miles. So I know I can do it. Like I said though, it's elements, things that unknown, things that are out of my control. So I got into running, it actually has to do with my financial journey. See how it trickles into everything else you do?

I got into running because when I started my financial journey and I was in a ton of debt, one of the things that I had to come to terms with and learn about myself was my spending habits. And one of the things that I found was I was an emotional spender. So when I got sad, when I was hurt, when I was bored, guess what I would do? I would shop to feel better, to make those emotions change whatever I was feeling.

And so I decided when I finally, this clicked in my head, right, that this is what I was doing. And let me tell you, it took me a long time to understand those underlying emotional issues that was affecting my spending. But when I finally did get it, I knew I had to replace what I was currently doing with something else. What I was doing obviously wasn't working. I was putting me in a ton of fricking credit card debt. I started lacing up my shoes and going for a walk or a run.

Now for some reason I found out that my emotional spending happened between the time of three and eight p Yes, I mean, what you'll learn on your financial journey, it's a self -discovery journey. When you are, and I'm never just gonna say you're never done, but when you are further along, right, when you're on the track of mastering your money, you will know so much more about yourself than when you started. should. Because creating a budget and learning how to manage your money is

Kumiko (23:54.604)
the most personal thing you will ever do. And if the more you know yourself, the better your financial management and plan and budget will be. So I started lacing up my shoes every single time I had the urge to go shopping, because I was sad, mad, hurt. Those were my big, big feeling triggers. Okay. I would put on and I would go running and sit and then I found out that released different types of endorphins and feelings and all these. I loved it.

I fell in love with it. And then that became an obsession for me, but I'll tell you why I'd rather be running than spending on my credit card with money I did not have. So that's how I got into it. But my routine right now is Peloton. If you don't know me and you're new to me, I'm a huge, huge, huge Peloton user, okay? Everything I do, all of my strength training, all of my running training, everything is done through Peloton. I have seen amazing results.

I lost all of my baby weight after having my first C -section back. My son just turned a year old. I lost most of my baby weight by the time I was seven and a half months postpartum. They have the best postpartum and postnatal classes on Peloton and I took those religiously for the first four months. I focused on 100 % strengthening my pelvic floor.

regaining the muscles, strengthening the muscles in my pelvic floor, in my abs, in my core, also in my glutes, in my lower back. Focused a lot on breathing techniques and learning to be stronger from the inside out with just straight breathing techniques. And I did that consistently for four months. And then I really started getting into heavy lifting and straight training with Peloton.

all of my running, my running routine, my whole workout routine looks like this. Right now I'm currently doing Rebecca Kennedy's three -day split strength training program, and then I'm also doing four days of their half marathon. It's called Road to Half Marathon Program, which is four days of running. So I do my strength training Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and I do all my running on those off days. So I do a lot of miles. I do anywhere between 12

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to 18 miles a week, which for me is a lot. I'm in my current second week of marathon training, but before I started Peloton's training, I did Hal Higdon's marathon training and I did that for three months. So I knew I was gonna be doing this half marathon for quite some time. So I just started training way before I needed to and now I'm officially into my main training for my half marathon through Peloton. Okay, this is such, I feel,

feel like some of these questions can be so intrusive, but I mean, I'm gonna answer it. Do Chris and James get along? They look like they never get along. That is so funny because yes, they absolutely get along. James and Chris are really great friends actually. And it was Chris, feel like the way Chris bonded ended up bonding with my son. Now it wasn't until he was a little bit older. Now I've been with Chris since my son was one. He just turned 12.

So Chris and I have been together for a really long time, but I really saw, and he always made it a point to involve James, to try to be involved in his life. The thing with Chris is when, I feel like a lot of guys are like this when they come into a relationship with someone that already has a child, they're trying to figure out and learn those boundaries, right? And I never forget the day Chris came to me and he said, I don't want to step on any toes.

He didn't wanna do any of the disciplinary actions because he didn't, he's like, James already has a dad. I just wanna be a friend, is that okay? Absolutely. And so that's what they were. Now they really started bonding when James got older. My husband's a gamer. Okay, all the wives of the gamers, me and you girl, I'm high fiving you right now because it is a thing. My husband is a gamer, but my son is too.

And once they started gaming together, so guess what happened when they started gaming together? That opened a communication portal. That gave them a way to communicate in a different type of setting where my son was comfortable, Chris was comfortable. That's when they really started bonding and things started, that relationship really started building. Now that you can't get them out of the pool, they're constantly swimming together. Chris is constantly throwing the basketball around with him, yes.

Kumiko (28:31.214)
but they do get along. Such a funny question. So, okay. How do you keep your work life balance? What are some things you do to help with balance? So here's what I always say. If you are looking for, now, when you think of balance, I think like 50 -50, right? But I think in anything in your life, you're never gonna truly see 50 -50. And I think the word balance needs to be defined by you.

What I mean by this, for a long time, the only way I thought I could achieve balance was giving myself dedicated time for my work and dedicated time to be not at work. But your mind doesn't work like that. It's like having one of those jobs where you go home, you're clocked off, right? You go home, but you're still thinking about your job. That's still consuming for me.

So here's some of the things that I do that I've had to work on personally because finding this work -life balance for me even to this day is very, very hard because I'm a workaholic. I'm also a perfectionist. Those two things combined are never good. So, and I'm also the type of person that when I start a project, I literally cannot stop my body.

until it's done, even if it's like three days. Like I will deprive myself of food and no drinking water or like, I don't even want to go to the bath. Like I just want to finish it. That's the type of personality that I have. And so I have to tell myself the dishes will be in the sink tomorrow. And one of the things that I was talking to my mom shortly before she passed, we were talking about the things that we learn as adults that we wish we would have known when we were.

you know, in our younger years. Like my mom had the same mentality as me. She always used to tell me that she couldn't go to bed if she knew there were dishes in the sink and there were no vacuum lines on the carpet. She would literally have to vacuum the floor to get vacuum lines on the carpet. But as she got older, right, and we know that life is short, we start to realize this a lot as we're getting older. She always said to me, Miko, the dishes will be in the sink tomorrow. You can do it tomorrow.

Kumiko (30:49.422)
Spend time doing the things that matter most to you. Stop trying to get all this other things, these other things that aren't important, get them out of, like, don't think about them, don't worry about them. I think about that a lot. When I have a mile high to -do list, I give myself three priority tasks, even though there's 20 things on my to -do list, three priority tasks to finish that day. When I can get those done,

There's no more worrying. Those things will be there tomorrow. So that's a big thing that I do. I also give myself a lot of grace. You know, I am a stay at home mom, but I'm a working stay at home mom. so watching Dante while also running two different full time businesses, which Pine Manor Naturals has pretty much almost there. One Pine Manor Naturals, I run 100 % by myself.

With the Budget Mom, I do have help. I do have amazing Ryan employees and contractors that help. So that's awesome, but it is hard. And so one of the things with my work -life balance is I do give myself dedicated times, which is why you probably don't see me on my social media channels during the weekend. That was one of my boundaries. On the weekends, it's family time where I put my phone away.

And I'm present with my family 100%. I'm present with the people that I love, the people that are surrounding me 100%. It's another big boundary. You also won't find me on my phone past 10. I just am not gonna scroll my phone. know, like one of the things that I felt that affected my sleep a lot was scrolling my phone late at night. And so I stopped. That's another boundary.

but I'm still working on it. haven't mastered the work. I'm gonna be 100 % honest. I haven't mastered the work -life balance. And for me, balance is being in a place where I'm not constantly stressed or worried or, you know, I'm not living in this constant mentality of I have to get things done. I have this to do, I have this to do, I have this to do, and I still work on that because most of the time I feel like that.

Kumiko (33:07.862)
But you're absolutely right, work -life balance is hard. How is James transitioning to his new role as big brother? So up until Dante was about seven months old, James did not want to touch him at all. When we brought Dante home from the hospital, you could tell James was terrified to touch him. And it wasn't because he was trying to be mean or he's being dismissive and not loving his brother. It was because he cared and he didn't want to hurt him. He did a lot of looking.

I mean, there are times where he just sat there and stared and was like, you know, really curious and had questions and all these things. But it wasn't until I believe Dante kind of beefed up and he didn't look as fragile that James really stepped into that role of big brother. mean, James is amazing. He is such an amazing helper.

He helped me watch Dante. Sometimes I can catch him walking, carrying him around the living room, talking to him. He sings to him. He plays with him. It's amazing. And I'm not going to lie. I was terrified about that 11 -year gap between my kids. I'm like, my gosh, they're so far in age. They're not going to have any relationship. And you know what the surprising thing is when I say that on my social channels, every single response I've gotten from children

from siblings who are 11, 12, 13 years apart, we're best friends. We're literally like twins, but just we have an age gap. And that makes me so happy because that's what I'm starting to see. It's just a different dynamic. I mean, think about this. When Jameson is in high school, he can take his brother to school. He could take him trick or treating.

So it's just a very, it's weird to think about, but he absolutely loves being big brother. Okay, last question. What advice would you give someone who's in the middle of their debt free journey? So background, I paid off over $77 ,000 worth of debt in 2019, and I ended up buying my dream home with cash. One of the biggest pieces of advice that I would give you.

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if you are in the middle of your debt -free journey is stop focusing only on paying off the debt and making the debt payments. And here's what I mean by that. Don't focus so much on making the debt payments that you forget to learn the most important things along the way that will keep you out of debt in the future. You cannot believe how many people have come to me and said, I have paid off my debt.

but I got myself back into credit card debt a year later, two years later. And that tells me a couple of different things. Number one, we didn't realize or understand or take the time, work, and effort to understand what got us into debt in the first place. And then to take a step further and address why that is. Your debt has a story. You have a debt story. You also have an overall debt picture.

So first piece of advice is learn the healthy habits and how to manage your money in a way that sets you up so you never have to rely on debt again. My second piece of advice, if you're in the middle of your debt -free journey is don't forget to live. You know, I sit on that line and we wanna talk about balance, that line of life is short and preparing for the future.

We all know we're gonna retire one day. We all know we have to save and invest for our future, but we also know that we could be gone tomorrow. And so there's this fine line, and mine was kind of skewed after my mom passed, but that fine line of enjoying the life that you have, honoring the life that you want and you have right now with preparing and saving for the future. So.

I always hate that advice of you can only eat rice and beans if you have debt and you should literally surrender everything you love, everything that brings you joy, everything that you're passionate about, everything that fills your heart until you pay off your debt. No. That no. I don't believe that at all. So what you're going to do is you're going to work on paying off your debt, but you're also going to set aside a little bit of money for the things that fill your heart.

Kumiko (37:48.344)
because if you lose yourself on this journey, which I did for a really long time, and if you asked me back then what made me happy, I couldn't even answer the question. So you're going to set aside money, whether it's a little bit of fun spending allowance or fun category, whatever it may be, set some money aside to enjoy your life. And I think my last and third piece of advice would be make sure you establish an emergency fund.

I know it's hard because once we start saving for emergency fund, we see all this money sitting in savings. We're like, geez, we could just put that towards our debt and pay off our debt faster. Don't. The last thing that you want is an emergency or something to come up that's going to derail your progress on what you're doing with your debt. That does a whole shlue of things outside of just set you back financially. It also sets you back mentally.

So be prepared for the unexpected because this is also life and crap happens. And I don't want you to have to rely on debt as you're trying to pay it off if something were to happen. So those are my biggest three pieces of advice. Now, so if you like these ask me anything type episodes, let me know in the comments or get a hold of me on social.

at The Budget Mom or at Miko Love Podcast on Instagram and let me know because, also keep an eye on my stories. Make sure that you follow me on Miko Love Podcast or at The Budget Mom because I'm gonna throw up these question boxes before I do my next ask me anything type of episode. So thank you for being with me and I hope that my answers help. I'm a little long -winded, so I do apologize. So until next time.

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