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PJ  00:00

We support each other, and it's because, yeah, we don't have the same point of view on everything, where we actually turn out things actually turn out better than if we actually probably weren't completely 100% aligned, because we're able to find, well, what is the sweet spot for the different arguments and inputs that are happening right now and what we want the outcome to be like, not that we have a crystal ball, but we can at least try to shape which direction we want to go.

Jessica  00:27

It feels collaborative, and I didn't have that feeling

Jessica  00:29

in past. Relationships,

PJ  00:32

again, we're in it together.

Natalie Slagle  00:33

Yeah. Welcome to Money dates, the podcast that makes money conversations with your partner feel a little less taboo. I'm Natalie Slagle, a certified financial planner, and I'm joined by my husband and business partner, Dan Slagle, also a Certified Financial Planner. Say Hi, Dan,

Dan Slagle  00:54

hello.

Natalie Slagle  00:55

In each episode, we'll share honest stories and practical tips to help you and your partner feel more connected and confident on your financial journey, so grab your drink, get comfortable and join us for our money dates.

Dan Slagle  01:11

Today, on money dates, we have PJ and Jessica. Pj is a software architect with two decades of experience in tech, currently dedicated to the mission driven world of public service. A conservatory trained French horn player, originally from Minnesota, PJ brings a unique blend of classical discipline and technical precision to their life in Southern California, when not architecting complex systems, they are usually traveling or exploring an intentional second act with their fiance Jessica. Jessica is a licensed psychologist working in telehealth while building her private practice specializing in EMDR and ketamine assisted psychotherapy outside of work, she loves planning future vacations, trying new restaurants with friends and catching up on a good show. She's also a big fan of spending time in the sun whenever she can recharge while, of course, wearing sunscreen and donning the hat. PJ and Jessica, welcome to Money dates.

Natalie Slagle  02:14

Let's start off talking about how the two of you met. I'd love to hear a little bit about the beginnings. Let's go there.

Jessica  02:22

So we met in an online dating app in 2018 which app I'm looking at you like, is this right? Coffee Meets Bagel?

PJ  02:30

I don't know if it exists, but it was

Dan Slagle  02:32

never heard of you before.

Jessica  02:34

Lots of people haven't actually, yeah, but it was like a little bagel, a little coffee in the counter. I was actually still legally married, but going through a divorce, you had already divorced legally. Yeah. I don't know what else to say. It's eight years at the end of this month, actually,

Jessica  02:51

yeah, yeah.

Natalie Slagle  02:51

Was that a connection you had from the get go? Was just what you were going through

Jessica  02:56

divorce? Yeah, yeah. I mean, think there's other ways that we connected, but I think, like, of course, it was like a topic.

PJ  03:03

Well, I did a little bit. I was actually on a divorce occasion that my friend invited me out to visit for three weeks to just get away. So when you're on the dating apps, it uses your GPS to figure out your location to show people. I'm like, I don't want to look at people in Washington State. I don't live here. So I faked my GPS card location on my phone so I could see people in Minneapolis area where we were living, where I was living at the time. So I guess when we started talking like there was this delay that we actually couldn't see each other in person for, what, almost three weeks,

Jessica  03:37

yeah,

PJ  03:37

so we spent a lot of time just talking on the phone.

Jessica  03:40

Uh huh, like teenagers till two o'clock in the morning.

PJ  03:43

Oh yeah,

Natalie Slagle  03:43

I love that you had enough to talk about at till two in the morning.

PJ  03:49

Think I walked like 14 miles on the beach one night

PJ  03:52

in the dark.

Natalie Slagle  03:54

Oh, so

Jessica  03:55

you're like, is that our first date? Like I was walking on the beach with you. I was just at home. But

PJ  03:59

yeah,

Jessica  03:59

yeah.

Natalie Slagle  04:00

So this was in Minnesota, your first date?

PJ  04:03

Yes,

Jessica  04:04

okay, yeah.

Natalie Slagle  04:05

PJ, you were in Washington. Jess, you were in Minnesota.

Jessica  04:10

I mean, I guess is that our first date? Yeah,

PJ  04:12

yes, I guess, yeah, our actual first person date. You almost actually left.

Jessica  04:16

Oh my gosh.

PJ  04:18

I had a broken muffler on my car, and Judd, I rolled up in a nice, very loud Honda Civic, like, no way. And so she decided to still come in.

Jessica  04:29

Ahava, I took a pause. Yeah, I did. I was like, do I just ghost you now, judging based on like, the car that you're driving? And I was like, Oh my gosh, I'm not that. Like,

Natalie Slagle  04:38

if the tables were turned, if I drove up in a loud car to Dan, Dan would dip. Loud cars are not Dan's thing. Nope, he'd be like, I'm out. I'm out,

Dan Slagle  04:49

as long as you like, explained what was going on with the vehicle within maybe, like, the first few minutes. Then I think I would give you a pass.

Jessica  04:57

I'm

Jessica  04:58

trying to I don't even know if it came. Up on that date, necessarily, but you very shortly thereafter didn't know, because I was feeling like some sort of way about it. I don't know guilt or shame or something. So then I told you, but I also think, like, it probably just came up naturally, because you probably said something about your it was, like, your first and like, pretty much only car. You and your ex had another car, and she got that in the divorce,

Dan Slagle  05:22

but I like, broke right before I left, so I came back to a broken car, and that was just not something we could fix in time. What was the situation here? Were you like, Did you meet somewhere and just you heard the muffler or PJ? Did you

Jessica  05:34

We met at a distillery? No, we met at a distillery because I was like, we're meeting in person for the first time, and I'm not going home with this person, blah, blah, blah. So we're driving separately and meeting at this place, because then also, if your muffler is like, hanging off and I want to dip, then I could,

PJ  05:51

yeah,

Jessica  05:51

yeah.

Natalie Slagle  05:51

And there we go.

Jessica  05:52

But then I did follow PJ home anyway,

Natalie Slagle  05:55

at some point you started living together and being that we talk about finances and how couples handle the finances. Were the two of you talking about your finances and how you wanted to set it up before moving in together, or it all happened while you were living together. You were figuring it out. Talk to me about when those conversations first started. If you recall,

Jessica  06:25

I feel like they started pretty quickly.

PJ  06:29

I didn't want to repeat the same mistakes they had done before in the past. So it was really important to be upfront with if I was dating someone, and especially that we were moving in that like, hey, this wasn't really good for me before. I'd like to do this differently, not say that doing it differently will give different results, but was one of those things that we could actually sit down and, I guess, get a temperature check on, on, is this working? Is this not working?

Jessica  06:55

Yeah, because we each owned our own place. So PJ owned a house, and I owned like, a one bedroom condo, and so then moving in, we moved into PJ's house, and then we had to talk about, kind of like, hey, I need to rent this. And like, what does my mortgage look like? And then like, Are you wanting me to pay, like, rent for your place? Or, like I had, at the time, I had student loans, and that was, like, taking up a good percentage of my after rent, like my income,

PJ  07:23

I made a deal with you. It was, well, you don't have to pay rent. That seems stupid. My mortgage was really low at the time. It was in the days of like, 2.85% on interest rates

Natalie Slagle  07:32

rip Yes.

PJ  07:36

But I was like, Well, you have student loans, so don't pay any rent. Put all the extra money towards student loans. I would disappoint if that doesn't happen, because it's an opportunity to retire that,

Jessica  07:47

yeah, like,

PJ  07:47

a much faster rate than we were, than you were doing before, and that's what you ended up doing. I think we paid your student loans off in what, 18 months or something at that point,

Jessica  07:57

something like that, yeah, because I was able to basically put almost double, yeah, snowballs quite quickly.

Natalie Slagle  08:02

Okay, so when you moved in to me, I'm hearing that you two actually tackled jess's Student Loans kind of collectively, because of how you split things up. Am I interpreting that correctly?

PJ  08:16

Yeah, yeah, definitely. I was fine living alone and paying my mortgage on my by myself without any problems. So there was no reason to be like collect friends. It seemed kind of ridiculous if we were going to combine our lives together, yeah, which we had already sort of started in different ways at that point. It was just important that money is spent well.

Jessica  08:38

I also owned another property in a different state at the time. And actually, yes, so I was selling that property, and within the first month of us meeting, so we'd been talking maybe for not even two months. PJ and I got on a plane because I needed to go, like, purchase another property to, like, do the 1031 exchange.

PJ  08:59

Yeah,

Jessica  08:59

whatever. Anyway. And so yeah, and you were like, but this isn't my money. And I was like, but and I was like, but like, if we're together, then this is part of, like, a discussion we're going to be having, because it's like, a more, another mortgage that needs to be paid, and it's like, I'm dealing with tenants. That's part of what we're going to talk about my ex, which is, like, not interested in being part of that conversation. So I was very like, if we're dating, like, this is part of my life, and so, like, mine will be involved.

PJ  09:26

You basically were like, are you in? This is what you get, and

Natalie Slagle  09:32

we're

Natalie Slagle  09:32

going to talk about it, and we're going to put it on the table, and we're going to do you recall the initial feelings the two of you had when you were talking about money, was it scary? Was it fun? Was it nervous? Like, what were the feelings that were coming up when the conversations of money first started?

Jessica  09:51

I think I was in such a place where it wasn't like scary, because I just felt so like going through a divorce, you're just kind of like, well. I did felt like, really vulnerable. So everything was just kind of like on the table. And I was also very aware of like, things I wasn't, like, relational dynamics, especially related to finances, that I wasn't wanting to repeat. And this was one of them. And so it just was almost like a non negotiable, like, if, if you're not wanting to have conversation, you're not wanting to be a part of this, then, like, okay, that's fine, but I'm not really sure it wasn't, like an ultimatum, but just kind of like, I don't know if this

Jessica  10:26

is gonna work

PJ  10:27

out. I totally remember even before this, like at the very beginning, I was like, so here's how my divorce shaped out. Here's my divorce decree. This is how my finances look.

Jessica  10:36

Forgot about

PJ  10:38

that. Like within the first few weeks of us meeting in person, yeah. And I remember shortly thereafter, when you're finally all the judge, paperwork stuff took care of it, because that was just, they just delayed it so much. You're like, here it is. This is how they'll shook out. You need to know where I'm at based on where I ended up, yeah. So I think transparency, I mean, was maybe the key word from the beginning, yeah. I don't necessarily know that we went down and said, Hey, let's be transparent about this. I just there was a lot of dynamics of we don't want to repeat what we did before in the past.

Jessica  11:15

Yeah.

PJ  11:15

So it was naturally, like a magnetism to go towards.

Dan Slagle  11:19

Would you be open to sharing what some of those mistakes, I'll call them, were in the past that you were trying to avoid.

Jessica  11:26

I feel like my ex and I didn't really talk a lot about money, and so there were things that were going on in that person's personal accounts, that we had a joint account, but I don't think we really used it that much, but anyway, that I didn't know about, right? And so, like, I remember being at meeting with it was tax time, and so we were sitting with the CPA or whatever, and that's when I learned that my ex had taken out 401, K to pay for jewelry for but to give me for our wedding that I'd like, didn't even want. Well, okay, I don't mean it like, I didn't want it, but like, and like, asked for it. It wasn't necessary. And I was like, excited, of course, when I got it. And then I found that out, and I immediately was like, I don't need this jewelry back.

Natalie Slagle  12:18

I didn't want it paid for by that that made you not want it.

Jessica  12:23

Oh yeah, absolutely. I was like, this was not like, Yes, I was jaw on the ground, yeah, because I only had to pay a penalty.

Natalie Slagle  12:31

Yes. Oh, it wasn't even a 401 k loan. It was just a distribution oh no, oh yeah. And then you see that penalty on your tax return, and you're like, What is going on? Take it off. I don't want it. Who do I need to call?

Jessica  12:46

Like, had I known, I would have just been like, Nope, we don't. I don't need this jewelry for for this right occasion. But

Natalie Slagle  12:51

kind of an eye opening experience on Well, what else are is happening that we're not talking about? What about for you? PJ,

PJ  12:59

I came from a different point of view, I my ex and I only had joint accounts. We didn't have any separate personal accounts. That boundary wasn't there. And while that makes accounting relatively simple, it usually ends up just being one person who's taking care of it, which was mostly me. But then I also didn't feel like I could spend money on myself because it was coming out of a joint account or that I needed to, I don't know, ask for permission in advance. So there is, I basically learned I need to have a little bit set aside for myself, because I am working really hard for this. This is money that I made for myself, and yes, I'm willing to share my partner and put it towards our shared expenses. But I should have a little bit on side for myself that I didn't spend in any way that I want, and not have those Why did you spend $5 for coffee conversations? Well, I'm not going into debt. It's okay if I want to spend $5 on coffee this month.

Natalie Slagle  13:56

Yeah. So just needing a little bit more independence, Dan and I have also felt that we needed to create something for us that were like, I don't want to have to ask permission to buy a shirt. I'm an adult with a job.

Dan Slagle  14:10

If it feels like an allowance, I feel like something's not set up properly, you know? And I don't need to ask for for the to use the money that I'm I'm earning to a certain extent, right? Like I, especially in your example PJ like the $5 cough, I don't feel like you should need to ask for permission at the end of the day for something like that. And even if you don't need to it, just the feeling of like you should ask for it is not a comforting feeling. Definitely not

Natalie Slagle  14:35

so you two prior to the recording, when we were talking about things that we were going to talk about, one of the phrases that you emailed us about was kind of dropping this forensic accounting approach. And I like how you use that, because I'm sure when I say the the words forensic accounting, and especially when it comes to like cash flow and budgeting, people, people know what I'm talking about. And you know, not everybody. Likes that term. So what approach has been working for the two of you?

PJ  15:06

I think it's a redefinition of what equal means. I mean, I think it's very easy for us as humans to say, Let's split it, and our minds go towards 5050,

Natalie Slagle  15:17

yes,

PJ  15:18

and well, that's great and all, but both of us make different amounts of money, and it's $1,000 for me is different than $1,000 for Jess, and that's not equal if we're both having to especially a lot of big things, like, say, rent, since we're renting to spend 5050, we one person's left at a disadvantage. Other person has extra money, essentially. And it's kind of no fun to realize, like, Hey, we're in this together, which means our finances are paired together. But that doesn't necessarily mean we need to have that forensic accounting where we split things 5050, it's not worth it.

Natalie Slagle  15:58

What have you set up

PJ  16:00

quite well for big stuff we've talked about, like rent, we do, like, a 6040, split, and that's just automatically taken out of our paychecks and put into a joint account. So don't even see that in our personal accounts to spend. There's no temptation, and it just to me, I don't see any difference to it. It's like, oh, that's just money not there. I'm okay with that. It's normal,

Jessica  16:19

and that feels like equitable.

PJ  16:22

It does right.

Jessica  16:23

Because if it's whatever percentage right, it's like, doesn't have to be an equal amount right? We're not saying like, Oh, we're putting $1,200 in each right, or whatever. I'm just making a number up. But it feels like, yeah, I don't feel strapped. Then to feel like, Hey, I'm giving more, even if the dollar amount wouldn't have been the same. I feel like I'm giving more because I don't make as much.

PJ  16:46

But the thing is, you work equally as hard, not harder than I do,

PJ  16:50

right, right? So that's the difference.

Natalie Slagle  16:52

So the 6040, is it 60? PJ, 40? Jess,

PJ  16:56

right,

Natalie Slagle  16:56

yeah. And do you have to look at that percentage often? I know it depends on your jobs and how you're paid, but how do you know that 6040, is equitable?

Jessica  17:07

I'd say that our salaries each are pretty stable over time. You have some adjustments, like a cost of living adjustment that you might get that I'm not getting, and so I'd say that it's not something that I think about too frequently. If there's something where you're like, wow, I just got a promotion or something, and I'm making $20,000 more, and I'm still just, like, just making my same amount here, you know, like, we would maybe look at that, or have looked at that,

PJ  17:41

I think the last time was when our rent was raised. We looked at it, and we both were like, Oh, well, we're going to have to contribute a little bit more money to cover that, because we pretty much draw that joint account close to zero every month, because it's kind of that's our fixed expenses account. And so we basically redid our payroll deductions at that time, it was pretty much a vibe check. Like, how do you feel about that? I think you increased yours a little bit more than the 6040 and mine just a little bit less, but it's still roughly around 6040

Jessica  18:14

Yeah,

PJ  18:15

so we don't really look at it. It's something we've discussed, and it's,

Jessica  18:18

yeah,

PJ  18:19

it's for our lease.

Jessica  18:20

I think, yeah, it's less about sitting down and like, crunching the numbers, but we'll just have conversations about, like, if the car is needing to be fixed or something, or tabs, or things like that that come up and have like, oh, yeah, this thing again, okay? Or it's unexpected, a fix to the vehicle or something, right? We'll just kind of go, how are we going to do that? What feels what feels right, whatever that means to us that we both feel good about that we're contributing, but we feel it's again, like an equitable amount, or might just say, like, hey, like, first we go to Costco, and that ebb and flow in terms of how much you're spending, but it's in that same ballpark most times, and so we just trade off. So like, if last time you paid, I just know next time is my time, and that's just, I mean, we've kind of, like, spoken about that, and every so often we'll check in same thing with, like, vacation or different things.

PJ  19:12

I mean, there's times where we were, like, we just came back from a vacation, and we got back and we had a lot more expenses on our credit card. Not that we didn't expect that we spent money on a vacation. We had a great time, but there was a part like, oh, I went out and I looked at my credit card like, oh, this just doesn't feel great. Like, this is a and it's because I made a couple other purchases too, and I ended up making return for one thing, just because I'm like, This is not feeling great. I want to get to the end of the month and not feel terrible about what this bill looks like. And so I ended up doing that. So I think we both value our sanity in this over that. Like, well, we must be absolutely precise. And by the way, that's like, really hard for me not to want to be precise. As a software engineer, everything is ones and zeros. It's on off. So I. Letting go of this is kind of a big deal for

Natalie Slagle  20:02

me. Oh, I bet. I bet there is. I would struggle with that too. I think Dan is more of the high level, more of you know, what feels good. I tend to get a little bit more in the weeds. And the more I've started to let go of the details, the better I feel. And so I love that the two of you are talking about, well, just how are we feeling about this? You know, with we just got back, and I'm looking at my credit card and I had a not so good feeling, so I'm going to address that. Instead of only using the numbers to guide your decisions, you're actually just reflecting back. I really appreciate that. So you mentioned PJ you were talking about your previous relationship, everything being joined, and then not feeling like you had this individuality in how you get to you utilize your resources. So could you talk to us about a little bit about the mechanics, so we know the 6040 is happening, and so I'm assuming there's this joint account. Is that how it's working? And then you also have individual could you talk about the mechanics of how this is all working in your household?

PJ  21:07

Yeah, we both have our own individual checking and savings accounts. Essentially, we do see what, what's in each other's accounts. I

Jessica  21:15

never look.

PJ  21:16

You never look. I keep a little bit more of it. There's my forensic accounting going on there. I

Dan Slagle  21:20

just going on.

Natalie Slagle  21:22

So PJ you're looking at both. You're looking at yours and Jesses, yeah, okay, and Jess, you're like, I'm not even looking at mine.

Jessica  21:30

Yeah, I mean, I'm looking at my own. You

PJ  21:32

don't think you look at mine.

Jessica  21:33

But

PJ  21:34

hey, I can tell you why you don't look at it.

Jessica  21:36

Yeah,

PJ  21:37

we got engaged last year in December, and I bought Josh a ring, and I spent many, many 1000s of dollars on it, and just never noticed that money. I'm

Jessica  21:47

just sitting here chilling. I

PJ  21:48

was worried that you're gonna be like so I see this money, this number, is far lower than it was before. What's that about?

Natalie Slagle  21:54

So a nice little test.

Dan Slagle  21:55

You took the risk and it paid off. Congratulations, by the way,

Jessica  21:59

it did. Yeah,

Natalie Slagle  21:59

congratulations on the engagement. That's so exciting.

PJ  22:03

I had my own like, Okay, if she asked, I know exactly, I'm going to say, well, Jess, I was, you know, I worked during the government shutdown last fall, and therefore I drew for my savings, and I just haven't paid myself back yet.

Natalie Slagle  22:15

You had the lie. I

Jessica  22:16

remember having somewhat of

PJ  22:18

a, what terrible lie I have to make it somewhat true. So I had to like, Oh, I was, you know, working with

Jessica  22:24

truth. Yeah, I remember having a, like, very similar ish conversation about something like, Oh, hey, I might just move this money around for Expo. And I was like, Okay,

Natalie Slagle  22:32

great.

Jessica  22:32

That all makes sense to me, great. So I think you would like have the conversation with me, and I still had no idea what was going on. I was like, Yeah, cover yourself all right.

Natalie Slagle  22:40

So I like that you have your own checking and savings. We've got some joint accounts. But you mentioned something that I think some couples that a step that is forgotten about, which is still the transparency. So it's not like you're I mean, you two, it seems like have purposely chosen to be able whether you look or not is a separate decision, but you have the ability to see what's going on if you want, there's some transparency that you it sounds like you wanted to have this was an intentional decision.

PJ  23:14

Yes,

Jessica  23:15

yeah, because I didn't feel like there was a lot of that transparency in my previous

Jessica  23:22

marriage or relationship,

Jessica  23:24

and I think for me, there's something about, like, you know, it's like, just knowing that it's there, right? I could go access it anytime. And so that just provides some sort of, like, I don't know if it's about safety or something, right, but like, doesn't mean I'm gonna go look at it, but I could, right? It's like, Oh, I've stopped smoking, but I still have the emergency one in the glass that I could break if I need to. It's there. I'm never gonna use it. But like, it's just there's something psychological, you know, about that sense of safety or something.

Dan Slagle  23:55

So the two of you, congrats again on the engagement. You have a wedding, I'm assuming, upcoming, maybe in the next year or so. I'm sure you're in the early stages of of planning now. You've talked about how you go go, about splitting expenses on a day to day basis, or month to month proportionately relative to income. How are the two of you approaching such a large expenditure when it comes to, for example, like your wedding?

PJ  24:26

Think we figured out that the wedding is individually an equal experience for us in the terms of 5050,

Natalie Slagle  24:34

different

PJ  24:34

so we both want things. Yes, it's different.

Natalie Slagle  24:37

Okay.

PJ  24:38

Well, I mean, it's not getting how much you get paid per hour. So it's not, it's not how much time you spend to make $1,000 or for me to make $1,000 we're in this together, and we want it to be memorable. We I think it was just important that like it's about our love and how we want to celebrate it. And that's not a 6040, split. Well, I don't think we sit down and be like, Well, I love you more than you

Natalie Slagle  25:02

do, or vice

PJ  25:04

versa.

Dan Slagle  25:04

Careful, careful. Yeah.

PJ  25:08

So I think that was important. But like coming down for like, planning a budget for it, I think we both had different numbers in mind. Essentially, we wrote them down. We didn't actually write them down, but I said, Okay, you you pick what you think the budget should be based on what you know about our finances and what we would want to spend. Mind you, I don't think either of us wanted to go into debt over it, so we wanted to do it out of what we had set aside and saved before previously. And I picked my own number, and we both kind of said them out loud at the same time, and your number was exactly twice as much as mine.

Natalie Slagle  25:42

I love that. Do you mind sharing your numbers? Is that something you're comfortable

Natalie Slagle  25:46

sharing?

PJ  25:47

Oh, yeah,

Jessica  25:48

yeah.

PJ  25:48

What was yours?

Jessica  25:49

Oh, mine was, like, wasn't was mine? The actual

PJ  25:52

Yes, it was Yeah.

Jessica  25:53

Mine was, like, $40,000 yeah, I thought could be more. I actually, like, went down a little bit to try to have a middle ground. I could have probably said, so the way that I like to set a budget we'll start there is I like to be like, Oh, okay, I think that it might be something might be $100 so I will just automatically double it to 200 and then I'll do something else, and it'll be like 250 because I like to be able to say, Wow, that thing only costs $200 I put aside 250 and I am winning this. I have an extra $50 now, and that feels good versus, well, I put 200 aside and it's 250 and now I'm out $50 like, where am I gonna get this $50 from? I just, I can't. I want to leave that situation feeling like it was a success. I don't know what that says about me, but

Natalie Slagle  26:42

40 was yours. So PJ yours was 20,

PJ  26:46

correct, which was almost four times what I spent on my first wedding. So already felt like I was stretching it,

Jessica  26:52

and that was less than I spent on my first wedding. And we did, like, a lot of stuff all on our own.

PJ  26:56

Yeah?

Jessica  26:57

So I was like, dude,

Natalie Slagle  26:58

so what? What is the number now

PJ  27:01

it's 40. It's

Jessica  27:01

40.

Natalie Slagle  27:02

Interesting. How did we get to that?

PJ  27:05

I think it took like 30 seconds for me. Maybe it felt like 30 Seconds to me.

Jessica  27:10

I feel like, okay, maybe this is in my own fantasy. But I feel like I did a good job of, like, sharing with you why I thought 20 was not going to be enough, and that I had a non negotiable kind of,

PJ  27:23

are you saying you perform psychological

Jessica  27:25

warfare

PJ  27:25

on me?

Jessica  27:26

Well, she's

Jessica  27:28

a professional. It just happens, yeah, that I just was like, I'm not gonna repeat this. I'm running around to the liquor store because I am my own everything for this wedding and or that my spouse and I are, like, running around. I just it was so stressful. I will not repeat it. We had my ex, I had decided purposefully not to have a wedding planner because we just thought it was not an expense that was necessary. And I'm pretty much like, we've had a conversation, like it's, it's like, not, I can be a little bit flexible maybe, but I don't think I can. That's just me trying to max right now, it's a non negotiable, like, we're having a wedding planner, and they're going to do all this stuff, and I'm just going to show up and I'm going to be super chill, and I'm not going to be running around. I'm just going to be like, great if there's an issue I don't know about, because someone else that we are paying to do a great job keeping me out of it, is doing their job, and I'll happily give them some money for that. I would actually happily take money from somewhere else for that.

PJ  28:27

I will pay more for that. I had no problem with that.

Jessica  28:30

Yeah, that's great.

Natalie Slagle  28:33

Okay, so you're each you're each contributing 20,000 to the wedding, and is this coming from your single savings accounts? What is from cash flow? How did

PJ  28:47

that's both coming from our individual savings accounts of money that we had set aside, some of it being left over from our attempts at wanting to buy a place and having a bunch a big down payment, which that, of course, has changed to another story, but we took that money and we put it into a joint savings account, separate from our checking, which is our kind of like month to month stuff. And you know, that kind of account has buckets, so you can label the different buckets of money, and that's in a wedding bucket, and it's fully funded, and we're just not touching

PJ  29:18

it.

Natalie Slagle  29:18

It's already funded.

Jessica  29:19

Doesn't even exist

Jessica  29:20

to me.

PJ  29:21

Yeah, it's funded.

Jessica  29:21

Yeah, I don't

Jessica  29:22

have to worry about

PJ  29:23

it. So I think my only thing on the budget was, is, I don't want to go into debt over this. I feel like that's a terrible way to start a marriage. We've been living together for almost eight years, so, or seven years, I guess, and so I'm like, I don't want to backslide and want to continue what we've already built on. And so that was important. Like, I understand sometimes there are some small cost overruns, but what I didn't want to do is wake up the next morning and be like, so how do we spend $75,000

Dan Slagle  29:55

Yeah,

Jessica  29:56

yeah. That would feel awful. It would. I'd

PJ  30:00

be kind of disappointed in myself.

Dan Slagle  30:02

What about the timeline with your wedding? Right? You've mentioned that the wedding is already funded, which is incredible. I think the two of you have alluded to potentially waiting until 2027 I believe for for the wedding, is there a financial reason for that

Jessica  30:21

no, the reason, at least for me, was it takes a while to like, buy. I think you and I had very different wedding planning experiences. Literally, one of our conversations the other day when we were looking at a venue was you were like, the woman asked if we had colors picked out yet, and I said no, but my other my colors for my first wedding were like an orange and blue color. So I don't want to don't want to, you know, repeat that. And you were like, colors, what? And I was like, didn't you have colors for your first wedding? And you were like, No. And I was like, Didn't she have like, flowers? And you were like, Yeah. And I said, What colors were they that those are colors? Didn't you have things that, like, tie together, like, come on. Like, had this, like, welcome. Like, welcome moment, man, welcome. Anyway,

PJ  31:01

there was nine people at my wedding that included me and my ex, at the officiant that that actually married us. So there were a total of six guests.

Natalie Slagle  31:09

That's why your wedding was so,

PJ  31:12

yes,

Natalie Slagle  31:12

not a lot of dollars.

PJ  31:13

Courthouse, very, very small, and a very small reception afterwards. And so, I mean, I guess you would say We eloped. That was how it happened, when we actually mailed cards to our family announcing a that we were getting married, because they didn't know that was

PJ  31:29

happening

PJ  31:30

on the way to the airport for a honeymoon. So my parents got two field phone calls up. Oh, I guess they're married now.

Natalie Slagle  31:37

Yeah,

PJ  31:37

yes,

Natalie Slagle  31:38

okay,

PJ  31:38

so I didn't want it was very secretive, ultimately, looking in the back, way back. So it was just to avoid some family drama that was going on at the time. And I think now I'm older and more adept at like, Oh, this is my time if you want to go have a tantrum. And you can do that,

Jessica  31:57

yeah, I think, like, timeline wise, I didn't want to feel rushed, so we got engaged at the end of December last year, and I just didn't really want to, like, start January 2026, being like, right? And we got, yeah, yeah, we have six months, because we've arbitrarily picked some date, just because, right? I wanted to be able to be like, Let's enjoy. I did not enjoy so much. Like the planning of, like, my first wedding, and I wanted to be able to like, feel like there was enough runway for us to be able to like, enjoy the process. Because I also understand that, like, even if you enjoy the process and you love each other and you like, are so happy to spend the rest of your lives together, that planning a wedding can be stressful.

PJ  32:43

Can be

Jessica  32:44

I mean, it is,

Natalie Slagle  32:45

it is well, and you want to enjoy just being engaged.

Jessica  32:49

Yeah,

Natalie Slagle  32:50

let's just enjoy that. And then you can press go the you started to open up another topic, and I do want to go into it a little bit this whole down payment for a home. What's the story there?

Jessica  33:07

We

Jessica  33:07

didn't buy a home.

PJ  33:09

We didn't, I mean, that's, that's the that's the result. I mean, story has started off as we had three properties between us in the last five years, like at the same time, between my house, Justice condo, and then the place here in California, and those have all been sold and in the last five years, and so we've accumulated a fair amount of equity from those, and that was set aside, and we were going to buy a place. And we looked and we put in offers. We were actually in escrow on one before we decided that the 400 or 200 was it? 200 some pages of HOA documents was like Stepford Wives. I mean, they were regulating the types of plants and the colors of planters that you could have in your private backyard.

PJ  33:56

Oh, man, we just realized that we didn't

PJ  34:00

want to live in a community where, like, I understand the want for uniformity and for things to be nice, and people just don't have, you know, junk cars in the front, front lawn and stuff like that. But color planters, the material like, they can't be metal, they have to be ceramic or terracotta, and they can't be over three feet high, and

PJ  34:21

attorney,

PJ  34:23

so we ended up stepping away from that. I think that was a What about a three or $4,000 ultimately cost between inspections and other things that you know, we had prepaid to happen happen, but it was ultimately the best decision for us. I think we would have landed there and within a year, have been miserable.

Jessica  34:42

Yeah, I like, don't want to be like, I forgot about that. But yeah, it's, like, not a thing. I think about it happened, and then it was a little stressful at the time. But yeah, I think it was the best, and that was the best idea. Well,

PJ  34:53

I mean, I had to, like, double down for a moment and think, Oh, am I going to double down? We're spending, we've already spent this money. Yeah. You know on this we should just continue. And I it took me not too long, but I really had to think about like, even if we back out, the money spent is far cheaper than the ramifications of paying an HOA attorney, or dealing with an association that seemingly is extremely difficult, and

PJ  35:21

really, or owning

PJ  35:22

a house that you don't and then you don't want to live in the house that you own. I

Jessica  35:25

mean, yeah, I

PJ  35:26

even both of us understand one living in a house where you don't want to be there anymore.

Jessica  35:30

Yeah. I mean, I think to the piece that we've talked a lot about in terms of renting versus buying, is also the flexibility. So we both work from home, and we happen to live in California right now, and happen to very much like the weather, and so I want to keep enjoying that, but something might happen, like, I can't predict the future, and one of us might need to move, or we would maybe need to move for some reason, to take care of a parent or something I don't know. You know, like that happens, and it's much more difficult, I think, to then say, Oh, wow, we can't really move, or we're not flexible, or maybe we just decide, oh man, Southern California, we're done with that. We really want snow now. And I guess you could do snow here. We want to change it. We want to be back on the East Coast, okay, great, or the Midwest, or whatever. It just has a lot more flexibility if you don't own a home, versus, like, in owning these other properties, right? Like, when we sold your house, we still had, like, the two properties that I owned, and like trying to find like renters, I have been very, very, very fortunate to, for most of the time, have really great, had one negative rent renter experience, and somehow the rest of them were fabulous, right? I don't think that's probably the norm. And, like, it's just one less stress to have to think about, did they pay their rent? Da, da, da, like, all these things, or, Oh, does the lawn need to be mowed? Like,

PJ  36:56

well, numbers wise, too. It didn't. It was kind of a wash for us. Like, having paying a mortgage and keeping the place up and maintenance, versus having rent and someone else taking care of the maintenance, then we're also lucky. Our building is very responsive to maintenance issues. Like, it's not uncommon that if you put a maintenance issue in the morning, they're already there in the early afternoon.

Natalie Slagle  37:18

Wow,

PJ  37:18

care of that, which is not the typical experience. So we're using the fact that it'd be very different for us if that was not our case. And you'd be like, Oh, it's been six weeks and we still don't have a washer. Oh, I'd only like to do laundry a laundromat when we're on vacation, kind of type deal. I feel like I've grown up enough to have my own washer and dryer.

Dan Slagle  37:38

Yeah,

PJ  37:39

at home.

Dan Slagle  37:40

So you're, you sold your properties. I imagine you're sitting on a lot of cash from the equity of of the properties, right? And we know what 40,000 went towards, right? We talked about funding the the wedding, if you are comfortable sharing. Did you do with the equity, the proceeds from from the sales,

Jessica  37:59

that sat in an account for a while? Because I think it took us about I

PJ  38:02

call your cash is Queen Queen. You're the queen of cash. You like, you know, cash is king kind of phrase,

Jessica  38:08

yeah,

PJ  38:09

you like seeing that number in the

Jessica  38:10

account. Okay, so I think we sat on a bunch of it for about a year. Is that accurate to say, do you think? Because I think we were still, we hadn't, like, given up hope that maybe we would buy something, and then after about a year, we're like, renting is really great. We probably already

PJ  38:27

vagrants for about what, eight months where we moved from, like, long term Airbnb to another long term Airbnb, just to try out different areas. And so that kind of informed a bunch of stuff for us. Yeah, on where we where we might and might not live, and we ended up renting down here in downtown Los Angeles, which is where we're currently, and that's also several places where we have actually looked to buy. But every time we went out, we'd find a place and be like, Oh, that's this is great. This is perfect for our what we need, work wise and having try not to have shared walls between two offices, but it's 20% over our highest part of our already high like what we think we could spend, even with a really large down payment, and with interest rates being sky high, it was just really hard to Find something where we went. Well, great. We have this lovely place. I hope we really like it, because we're never going to go do

Jessica  39:27

anything,

PJ  39:28

always be at home.

Jessica  39:29

Yeah, we're gonna always be at home. And anyone that wants to hang out, they have to come here, and also they need to bring drinks and food, because we're just being a little bit whatever. But, well,

PJ  39:38

no one wants your home to be a jail, and that's what I mean. With the mortgage of that size, we would have could have afforded it, but it would have been a stretch to a point it would have felt very restrictive on enjoying other things in life. That's not just where you lay your head at night.

Jessica  39:54

I think I wasn't it took me Okay, so it takes me a little bit of time to kind of like make a transition. In with things. So like, we were looking for a while to own a place. I think I was still hanging on to that. I was still thinking, I'm gonna find this perfect place. And then we okay. Then we rented. And I felt like that really worked out. We had another conversation. Do we want to keep doing this? Yes. And then you're kind of like, well, we need to do something with this chunk of chunk of money. And I was like, we do. It's sitting in a high yield savings account. I'm looking at my few $100 coming in a month and thinking about how I have to pay tax on that, and that frustrates me. But like, yeah, I got $500 that month, or something like, this feels safe. It is far too much anxiety for me to, like, look at stocks. I just, I can't do it. It's too much. It's up, it's down. That's too emotional for me, so, but I know that I can just keep this going in this account, and that feels safe. And I'm the money, I feel like the money's still doing something, still earning something, right? And you're kind of like, okay, but we could be doing something else for, like, the long term. You're like, a long term game person. I'm like, This feels good now, which is

PJ  41:04

lost opportunity. I mean, for me, it seems like lost opportunity. If we're not going to do anything with this chunk of money for a long period of time, why don't we put it in the market? I realized that there's a risk to it, but we we don't need it for quite a period of time so we can write out years to overcome any sort of huge slump, if we really needed to, but it is lost opportunity. And why don't we make our money work for us? In this case, I mean, we worked hard to get this money. I understand you don't want to lose any of it, and that's like the sandy portion of it, but we're also losing by not taking that opportunity.

Natalie Slagle  41:42

Yeah,

PJ  41:42

there's a loss in the other direction. And I realized that, like, long term for me is a lot easier to envision and like, Be steadfast on and you prefer more, I guess, like the short term, like adrenaline, well, maybe not. Adrenaline hits, but feel good, like an oxytocin hits, kind of type deal. And so long term, it's hard to feel like, well, it's just it's never going to materialize. So why even think about it?

Dan Slagle  42:06

So what did you

Dan Slagle  42:07

do?

Jessica  42:07

What did we do? We

PJ  42:08

compromised.

Natalie Slagle  42:10

Of course, you compromised. How did you compromise?

PJ  42:13

Ultimately, after a lot of discussion, we decided that we would put a fair amount of the money into the market. We set aside money for, like, if both of us lost her jobs,

PJ  42:23

not

PJ  42:23

just one of us, both of us lost her jobs at the

PJ  42:25

same

Jessica  42:26

time, three to six months. Yeah,

Natalie Slagle  42:27

which that would probably, I would imagine that added up to quite a bit of money just that alone. It

PJ  42:32

did, yeah, like, it was, like, I don't remember what it was for me, $45,000 or something like that, for six months to cover expenses.

PJ  42:40

And

PJ  42:40

by the way, I was super glad that that was there when I was working without pay during the federal government shutdown, because that's I used that out of work or got fired, like looking for another job. That was the money that covered me until we actually reopened pay for my time job. So I didn't worry for that time like I had before in the past, had shut downs,

Natalie Slagle  43:03

yeah? I mean, that cat,

Jessica  43:04

all I was going to add to this is that you and I have these conversations, but we also have wonderful financial

Jessica  43:09

planners that we have conversations with, right?

Jessica  43:12

Yeah. And I think I'm just kind of like, well, if they said that, that's a good idea, and you're kind of like, that's a good idea, like, they're experts, so like, that's what I'm here for, and I will take that advice, and I might not want to hear it,

Jessica  43:23

but it'll, I'd chew on it, right? And

Jessica  43:28

so

Jessica  43:28

we'll take some of those that information right from those meetings, and then go, like, on, you know, have our conversation just casually, like on a walk, right? And it, sometimes it just takes me a little bit of time to, kind of, like, let things percolate. But also, I think another decision that we made based on some of those conversations with our financial planners, and like the two of us, is, I, I think you were ready to be like, here's $100,000 right now. And I was like, I'm having a panic attack. Like, we let this is what, don't do that. And so you were like, well, what's the amount? And I like, I don't know, $1,000 a year. Let's go really slow. So I think we were able to, again, find, like, a middle ground, and I can let go of some of that fear that I must have from from somewhere.

PJ  44:23

Well, I mean, ultimately, we chose to take that block of money and spread it over six months. So we basically dollar cost, average, the what we wanted to buy over that period. So it was all I think it was a lot less scary for you, because it wasn't, you know, roulette, real or hope we're putting the money in the market in a decent,

Natalie Slagle  44:42

right time, yes,

PJ  44:44

at the right time. And so that I think felt less was less scary. I mean, even the last two amounts, since this was last year, was even when we were when I was in the federal government shutdown. So we were still investing, even though I. Wasn't getting a paycheck,

Natalie Slagle  45:01

wow. And

PJ  45:01

it was because we felt okay about what we had, and you were

Jessica  45:05

buying me an engagement ring at the same time.

PJ  45:07

Apparently, I put an order in for the engagement ring the day before I found out I was going to help sellers. Now forget the next day.

Natalie Slagle  45:13

Wow, crazy. How that timing works. You had such different approaches and different desires and what to do. You talked it out, and you came up with a solution that worked for the two of you. I mean, that's that's incredible. And I'm sure there was a little bit of PJ especially if you think about last year and the way the market was, maybe if we all had hindsight 2020 we would have dumped it all in at that time. If you did at the beginning of the year, Jess, that would have made you spiral, and that would have been, and I think about if that would have happened, you wouldn't have even cared about the outcome. Who care? You know, it's just like there's such it's a blessing to be able to make financial decisions that give you comfort, and it doesn't have to be okay. What? What is statistically best here? It's like, well, what, actually, I can balance this with like, what makes me feel comfortable in this situation? Because you two are in such a unique situation, you accumulated all these dollars for a down payment, and then you said, Nope, we're not doing that anymore. And now what? That's a really big decision to make, and I'm glad, I'm glad to hear how you two were supported in that and and approached it collectively.

PJ  46:32

I will say Natalie, because I been reflecting on eight years now how different things are, not just like, but just in how you approach money. Jess, like, I feel like it's easier for me to look at you than it is to look at myself. And how things change, yeah, but when you, when we met, you were like, I don't need to save for retirement.

Jessica  46:50

I was like, I don't have a 401,

PJ  46:52

K I don't.

Jessica  46:52

I might have if I did, I had like, a couple 100, a few $100 yeah, not even 1000 if I even had one

PJ  46:59

now, if I remember right now, you're saving, like, 19%

Natalie Slagle  47:02

Wow,

PJ  47:03

of your pay. Yeah, so it's a huge difference. And you're like, again, you know, that's the long game saving for retirement. Justin's like, I don't want to do that, but

Jessica  47:11

I was

Jessica  47:11

almost gonna work. And then, yeah, I said, I don't

PJ  47:13

think you're gonna want to be working when you're 80. So no, I mean, it's a big difference, but I think we support each other, and it's because,

Jessica  47:21

yeah,

PJ  47:22

we don't have the same point of view on everything, where we actually turn out things actually turn out better than if we actually probably weren't completely 100% aligned, because we're able to find, well, what is the sweet spot for the different arguments and inputs that are happening right now and what we want the outcome To be like, not that we have a crystal ball, but we can at least try to shape which direction we want to

Jessica  47:47

go. Yeah, it feels collaborative. And I that didn't, I didn't have that feeling in past relationships.

PJ  47:54

Again, we're in it together.

Jessica  47:56

Yeah,

Natalie Slagle  47:56

very sweet, very sweet as we wrap this up, you have this wedding that's coming up, and you've already done the heavy lifting financially of figuring out a way that works best for the two of you, on how you talk about money, how you approach money, but like, what's next for the two of you? What are you looking forward to when it comes to your financial journey together?

PJ  48:21

Vacations,

Jessica  48:22

yeah, say, yeah. That's like the next the Yeah, we started having conversations, and we need, yeah, yeah. Well, typically,

PJ  48:29

before for vacations, even larger vacations, it would we pay it out of, like, cash flow, and so sometimes months felt very much more lean. And we've definitely been talking about, why don't we figure out how to pre fund vacations for 2027 so we can actually plan something with the money that we've already set aside, and we don't have to worry about, where is this coming from? Do I have to borrow a little extra money from my savings account to make the credit card payment when we get back? Because my paycheck is not going to come for another two weeks, etc, etc. So I think that's the next part. Is like, how can we enjoy the money that we make?

Jessica  49:10

Yeah,

PJ  49:11

and not let it be stressful?

Jessica  49:13

Yeah? Because I think it makes then Vacation Planning stressful, at least I feel that. And then we go, we have a great time, yeah, and then we come back, and then we're like, oh, let's look at these. Where is that money coming from? And then I think for me, that has related to, oh, well, it's great if we have this chunk of money that we're not before we started investing it, right? Because then it's just there, but now we're giving that like we're moving it somewhere else. And if we don't have that, then I was feeling like, anxious. I mean, we still have a rainy day fun and all of these fun things. But like, you know, it was just like this, yeah, I just want to go and have fun on vacation and not have to, like, feel like we come back and go oof, yeah, okay, a

PJ  49:54

little bit of planning and goes a long way.

Natalie Slagle  49:57

Yeah, and communicating around it. Talking about how much you're going to spend on the finances, and then you spend all the money and it's already been saved. You're just paying off the credit card with the money that was already earmarked for the travel account, and it's such a great way to go about it.

Jessica  50:12

Yeah, sounds cool.

Natalie Slagle  50:13

Well, thank you PJ Jessica, for being on our podcast. It was such a joy talking with the two of you. We really appreciate

Jessica  50:21

it. Thank you

Jessica  50:22

for having us.

Dan Slagle  50:25

Hey, if you've enjoyed this episode and are looking for personalized financial guidance, schedule a free complimentary consultation using the link in the description below, Natalie and Dan Slagle are the founding partners of Fyooz financial planning, a registered investment advisor. The information provided in this podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered investment advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any securities. Investing involves risk, including the potential loss of principal. Advisory services are offered to clients or prospective clients where Fyooz financial planning and its representatives are properly licensed or exempt from licensure. For more information, including our disclosures, please visit our website at WWW dot Fyooz financial.com

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