Ep. 4 - What to Do When You're Over $160k in Debt and Have 5 Kids? Kati Hyer tells her story.
Want to know what it looks like to pay off $160,000 in debt with 5 kids at home? Kati Hyer graciously shares her family’s story -- how they built their debt and the sacrifice, ingenuity and persistence it took to repay it. Whether you need real tips to get out of debt or just want a big kick to inspire your money goals, Kati is IT. We shed some tears and came out the other side better for it. Her family is now debt free and enjoying the resources to imagine big dreams in their future.
To hear more from Kati, she hosts The Kati Hyer Show where she explores Christianity and scripture's connection to money.
Episode Transcript
Christina Honkonen (00:12):
Katie. Hi. Thank you so much for coming on with us. We should let everybody know this is actually the second time <laugh> ju we're, we're chatting. Um, we wanna do back for more. Actually. I had some technical difficulties with that podcast, which we were all in love with, but we're back here again to, um, rehash everything and reshare, um, accurately and successfully. And honestly, I'm really kind of glad it happened, uh, selfishly. 'cause I love chatting with you and I'm glad that you're back on. Last time I cried. So we're gonna try <laugh>, maybe I'll try not to cry this time. I'll cry this time. Maybe I'll cry more. Who knows?
Kati Hyer (00:46):
Well, I'm glad to be back, <laugh>. Thanks for having me on again. <laugh>
Christina Honkonen (00:51):
Repeat guests. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Yeah. Um, so tell us a little bit about, I think when you reached out to us, we were most compelled on the surface by the amount of money, the large amount of money that you all ended up repaying. So maybe we start there. We know now, uh, that there's a lot more to your story and your journey, but I think that's a really great place to start.
Kati Hyer (01:13):
Sure. Well, I'm a millennial through and through and I grew up believing that if you went to college, you'd get a hundred thousand dollars as your first salary right. Outta school. So why not borrow a bunch of money to get there? Well, fast forward a decade and then some we're not counting. And we all know that's not true. That's not the way the world works. But the bottom line is, my husband and I woke up and found out that we had indeed, by ourselves borrowed over a hundred thousand dollars in student loans that we didn't need. We worked, we had parents help. We, uh, went to in-state schools, we had scholarships. I did an paid internship. But when that little letter came in the mailbox and said, you're qualified for student loans, I was thrilled to take it out. Just thrilled. And I did. And then we paid the consequences and we paid it all off. So that's a little background on our student loan journey.
Christina Honkonen (02:12):
Yeah. And tell us a little bit, I think if I remember correctly, you had some fun though. And I always love asking this question, like, yes, I know that we all have like massive regrets and they don't necessarily compensate for the pain that they that's there to, but, uh, I would love to hear like, what, wait, how did that money get spent? And is there anything that you don't regret doing?
Kati Hyer (02:33):
Yep. I appreciate that because you're right, there's mistakes that we've made with money and that's what I'm here to talk about today. <laugh> <laugh>. And yeah, there are a lot of regrets there, but it was fun in the moment and a lot of things we learned from, and I just appreciate your noting that Yeah, that fun did happen and yeah, there were consequences, but did we have fun? Yes. Let me tell you a little bit about what we spent our student loans on, because I don't know, you know this America, but after your student loans pay tuition for at your university, the rest comes in cash in your pocket and you can spend it on whatever you want. 'cause cash is not traceable, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So most responsible students take their student loans and spend it on food, video games, maybe a computer, but we spent ours on cruises, travel, <laugh>, new computers when we didn't need them. Uh, and I've, I actually counseled people later now that I'm on the, I'm on the good side. I'm no longer on the duck side, borrowing my way out. Um, that, you know, they're still paying off their student loans that they spent on fraternity dues, designer dogs, luxury furniture. I mean, it's cash. And a 19 year old like myself cannot necessarily make a good decision. And we certainly, we certainly did, but
Matt Honkonen (03:57):
I, I don't trust 38 year old me with cash.
Christina Honkonen (04:00):
I know, right?
Matt Honkonen (04:01):
Yeah. Cash is way, it's, it's a horrible thing to have. Yeah. <laugh>.
Kati Hyer (04:05):
Exactly. So there was no accountability with the leftover portion after the tuition was paid. And a perfect example of this is we were able to fund living abroad in France while I got my master's degree, thanks to our student loans. And there was, there was no student loan guidance counselor saying, no, don't take that trip to Scotland this weekend. That's a student loan amount of money you're spending, right? Uh, so we had a great time living abroad. We, we loved it, but we paid for it for the next seven years. <laugh>.
Christina Honkonen (04:40):
Yeah. I mean, what an incredible experience though that you may not have gotten without doing what you did.
Kati Hyer (04:46):
It's true. It's true. But could we have never done that? That said, we were working after we graduated and could we have saved up and paid for that ourselves? Yeah. We could have like, let me give myself the bad news. The bad news was I took the easy way out. And if I had just been patient just one year, if I had just waited one year and saved, instead of traveling, going on cruises, I didn't buy a designer dog, but buying designer dogs
Christina Honkonen (05:17):
<laugh>. Right, right. Then we
Kati Hyer (05:18):
Could have paid for it in cash and cash flowed it instead, you know, we did the cheap, the expensive quick way.
Christina Honkonen (05:25):
Yeah. So, okay. Tell us a little bit about like, the timeline of all this. So you take out the loans during college and then when do kids, 'cause I know kids come into your life. Quite a few. Quite a few.
Kati Hyer (05:35):
Quite a few. <laugh>.
Christina Honkonen (05:36):
That's my favorite part. Um, so tell us a little bit about like what, how that happened and then ultimately when you decided I've got to get this paid off and how you went about doing that. That was a lot. So maybe we start with like just a brief, like how did this all happen?
Kati Hyer (05:51):
Let's look at the timeline. When I went to college, I met my now husband barely into the first semester. And we were new, we were getting married, so why wait four years? Let's get married while we're in college. And we did. So we had our first baby just months after I graduated. We today, fast forward, um, since that beautiful day in 2009 when we got married, <laugh>, we have, I almost said 10 children. My oldest is 10 <laugh>. We
Christina Honkonen (06:18):
Have
Kati Hyer (06:18):
Five children. It feels like 10
Christina Honkonen (06:20):
Sometimes. <laugh>. I bet it does. You It's an exponential, um, noise. The more you have too.
Kati Hyer (06:28):
That's right. That's right. So I have a 10 year old and eight and a half year old, a five year old, a three year old, and then my baby's six months old at the time of this recording.
Christina Honkonen (06:37):
Wow. Wow. So, okay. That's funny because I don't remember your baby being that little. She's, is it a boy or girl?
Kati Hyer (06:44):
It's a boy. His name's Obie. He's the best. Oh
Christina Honkonen (06:46):
My gosh. That's so sweet. And I know I shared this, and listeners have heard this before, but our three-year-old daughter is, her dream is to have five babies. She wants to be you when she grows up to the number. To the number. Yeah. And if you say, like, if you show someone a woman with like four babies, she's like, no, no five.
Kati Hyer (07:06):
That's amazing. That is so sweet. Yeah. So we started out our journey with like shackles around our legs right. In student loans. And then, um, anybody listening to this podcast will know by now that I have a faith background, we're believers in Jesus in my house. And so there was a lot of prayer going on at the same time. And so we would be praying stuff like, God, please give us increase. But the only problem is if you're not specific, God will increase something else. So he increased our children when I was asking for <laugh> increase in salary. So every time we got a raise, it was like we had another baby. You know? Yeah. So the margin in our life stayed, uh, undesirable thin <laugh>. Sure. As we grew our family <laugh>
Christina Honkonen (07:45):
Yeah, yeah. As babies do to you. Yes. <laugh>.
Kati Hyer (07:49):
It's all worth it. Don't worry about the headlines saying it costs $300,000 to raise a baby. That's right. Don't worry about that. It's all worth it. I
Christina Honkonen (07:54):
Saw that the other day. It is horrifying, isn't it? It's probably not wrong.
Kati Hyer (07:58):
It's it's pretty rough. And I'm like, man, we really, we, we really gotta buy another car seat. Is that a necessity? All right. Yeah. It's a
Christina Honkonen (08:06):
Necessity. <laugh>, this bubble wrap is triple ply, man. <laugh>. That's right. It's okay. That's right. Yes. Okay. So the babies came along and then you decided, you woke up and, and decided what was that like?
Kati Hyer (08:18):
Yep. So by baby number two, we had been forced to address our financial situation because as anybody with student loans probably experienced, there's a grace period after you graduate, before you have to start repaying your loans in a normal atmosphere. Right. Not during a, a pause on student loans during a, a presidential administration. 'cause that didn't happen when I was, when my husband and I graduated there, there was no pause on having to pay your stuff back. So you have your grace period and then you have to start paying something back. And at this point, we graduated, we were outta school, and then I re-enrolled in a master's program. So our student loans still were not due. 'cause when you're, um, when you're actively enrolled, then they're not due again. So this is why there was so much time between first baby and second baby. And then finally starting to recognize how much we paid in student loans. 'cause I didn't mention this on this podcast yet, but we were totally oblivious to how much we had spent. I thought we had spent $40,000, which was Yeah. A colossal ton to me. <laugh>. Yeah. I did not know it was more than six figures.
Christina Honkonen (09:30):
Wow.
Kati Hyer (09:31):
And people say that
Christina Honkonen (09:31):
Would've been devastating to find out.
Kati Hyer (09:34):
It was. It was, it was devastating. Yeah. And so I will come back to answer your question, but just
Christina Honkonen (09:37):
Yeah, take your time.
Kati Hyer (09:38):
I love it. A little tangent, <laugh>. You know, people ask me, how could you possibly not have known how much you borrowed? To which I answer? There's literally a TV show called I didn't know I was pregnant. Right. <laugh>. Yes. And then at the end of the episode, they say, and then I had a baby mm-hmm. <affirmative>, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. We did not have that kind of administrative focus when we were right in our early twenties. We just simply didn't know. So anyway, when we had our son Huck, we were done being in the grace period. We had finally finished graduating all the extra things that we had enrolled in, and we just had to start paying stuff back. So as the letters started to come mm-hmm. <affirmative>, that's when the light bulb went off. And I tried to turn it off and it just kept coming back on as each new letter arrived saying, we want more of your money. Please. Wow. So anyway, my daughter was two. My son was an infant. And, uh, we've realized, oh my gosh, we have $40,000 in my, in student loans. That's when my husband said, uh, that's not right. <laugh>. And I agreed. I said, this is not right. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And we found out, no, it was 77,000 and then, oh, that's not right either. Wow. And the total was $156,000 we had needlessly borrowed.
Christina Honkonen (10:58):
Wow. What did you think?
Kati Hyer (11:01):
I didn't have a thought. Like my brain lined and it was just emotions. There was no thinking. It was just feeling, feeling like I have doomed my children feeling like I've made a huge mistake, feeling like I've failed my husband. Like we're, we're not, we're done having fun. We grew up right away. Right. Wow. Yeah. 'cause while my other friends who started having kids were taking 'em to Disney and, you know, renting a beach house with their family, we were trying to figure out how we could cram in extra jobs and spend yet less again on groceries to mm-hmm. <affirmative> to try to pay these suckers off. So it was awful. It was awful.
Christina Honkonen (11:47):
So for anybody who like is hit with that realization now, later whenever to whatever degree it is, what, what is your suggestion looking back to manage that emotion in any kind of way that's even resembles, you know, positivity or even just like being able to like, put your hands around it and, and manage it yourself instead of feeling owned by it?
Kati Hyer (12:12):
Yeah. If I could give a listener out there a hug right now and tell them it's gonna be okay, uh, I would say it's gonna be okay. Asterisk. That asterisk being you have to do something. Uh, you can't self-care your way outta this. You know, you can't anxiety meds your way outta this. If you're in a pile of debt as we were, there's only one way out. And that's paying it off. We, maybe your listeners have credit card debt. There's no cancellation forgiveness for car loans. Right. There's, so whatever it is, you're, you're gonna have to pay it off. And so
(12:55)
Try not to think about the whole thing. Think about the smallest thing. That's what we had to do. You know, we had 28 different disbursements and I could not think every day about 28 different loans that were due, I had to focus on the smallest thing. 'cause I couldn't pay off $40,000 in one fell swoop. I could not think about that largest loan amount, but I could think about that $600 loan and how okay, if I pay off 50 extra dollars every other week, that'll take however long that math works out too, with all the interests and stuff. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So focus on what you can achieve. What does the Serenity Prayer say? God, grant me the peace to, uh, change the, to know the things that can change mm-hmm. <affirmative> the serenity to not change the things I can't change. And the peace to know the difference, the wisdom to know the difference. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I'm sorry listeners for that awful
Matt Honkonen (13:50):
Paraphrase. <laugh>,
Christina Honkonen (13:51):
It got us there. I feel. Yeah.
Kati Hyer (13:53):
I'm a, I'm a big, I wish I knew it. Of the King James paraphrase version of all the things. <laugh>
Matt Honkonen (13:59):
Cliff, the king James Cliff notes <laugh>. Yeah. That's,
Kati Hyer (14:03):
That's it. So anyway, Google Serenity prayer and think about that. Like, we can't, we can't change the law. Like I cannot change the fact that I borrowed student loans, but I can change how quickly I pay them off if I do some things like budget every month with my husband, if I control my spending, if I don't borrow more, if I work more or earn more. Right. These are things in our control. Focus on the things that are in your control. That's what I would say to somebody who Yeah. Is drowning.
Christina Honkonen (14:34):
Yeah. And I think you mentioned that you purposely did not consolidate, or you may have said you, I, I don't wanna you, you use your words. How did, but you didn't use suggest something, so you didn't end up consolidating. Why did you make that decision? And do you looking back, think it was a good one?
Kati Hyer (14:50):
Oh yeah, I am. So we didn't consolidate. Um, because what I learned about money is that it's not just math, it's emotional. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And if I had a mortgage of student loans, if I just had, you know, $1,300 of student loans for the next 25 years, that would've been awful. And that would have been a reality. But instead we could focus on individual loans and we could prove our power over them one at a time. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I mean, it's been a, a, a tactic of war for millennia. Yeah. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> to, to divide and conquer. Yeah. And that's what we did. That's what we had to do.
Matt Honkonen (15:34):
I love your mentality on that. Like the small, we can do this, we can do this. We just did this. We just did it again. Like you're Yeah. It's, it's in my world of work, it's the exact same feeling. Yeah. You're, you're attacking these giant goliaths. Yeah. And you have to go, Hey, I got an ankle like that. I'm gonna put that ankle right here, <laugh>, and then I'm gonna go for the knee <laugh>.
Christina Honkonen (15:58):
It doesn't really change no matter what you're doing, even if it is a savings goals and investing goals, it's like we have times where we're able to invest something big and then there's times when it's like, it may be something small, you know? And, uh, just keep going. Just keep going. Just stay consistent. It's amazing how much consistency, no matter what money goal it is, and probably life goal for that matter is so powerful.
Kati Hyer (16:22):
It's so powerful. I think it's really important to know yourself at this point, because I am a victim of shiny object syndrome. I love to do the next new thing. I love new ideas, I love come up with new solutions. But guess what? Results only get done if you focus on that old not shiny anymore thing. Yeah. And you finish that first. Yeah. There's that project management, um, technique that says if you've, if you've got thing A, thing B and thing C to do, you need to focus on a, a, a mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And only when you're done do you move on to B. Yeah. And for us, that was the same thing with our money.
Christina Honkonen (17:02):
Yeah.
Matt Honkonen (17:03):
That's awesome. How quickly, or how slowly did you get through the pity party phase when you, when you, when the news hits you? Are we talking weeks, days, and afternoon? How, how quickly did you get into stand up and I'm gonna do this?
Kati Hyer (17:20):
Yeah. I think it went from shock in a weak weekend to shame in action at the same time. Right. Like my, uh, self-loathing came out in a fury. Wow. And when I say shame, I'm, I'm serious. Like I was, yeah. Um, embarrassed, mortified, just totally, um, consumed by what I had done to my family. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Like I said earlier, they were unnecessary student loans and they really were, they were not necessary. And so that shame that I felt at having made those terrible financial decisions that didn't just affect me. Right. That's my husband who has to work extra. That's my children who don't get to do childhood things, that propelled me to take action. And so those were administrative boring things like writing all of my debts down our debts down on an Excel sheet. And then I printed out just three letter size pages where I had, um, made a visual aid so I could scratch off, um, scratch off the loans as we paid 'em off. And it was super awesome. It was super simple. I just took like each loan and then made a box in Excel and each box was a hundred bucks. And then I just visually had these like rows of boxes through the, um, in the papers. And then whenever I'd go into our master bathroom and we could pay another one off, I scratched it out. And I lived. It's amazing. I lived to scratch out
Christina Honkonen (19:02):
Another box. So scratch it out. Make progress.
Kati Hyer (19:04):
Yeah.
Matt Honkonen (19:04):
Yeah. That's awesome. That's awesome. I have so many questions, but go. Right. But it'll, we'll be right here for three hours. I know, right? If I keep talking. So <laugh>. Yeah.
Christina Honkonen (19:12):
Um, I wanna talk a little bit about your, what you did and the sacrifices that you did end up making to, uh, pay off all of this debt. Like what, from a tactical perspective and a work perspective, and a literally going out and generating the money to make this happen, what did that look like for you all?
Kati Hyer (19:31):
You got it. So in the, uh, in just like you said, there were two things we could do. We could limit out, go and we could increase income. And those were the only two levers we had to function. And when it came to trying to increase our income, we really focused on what side hustles we could do while we had a bunch of little kids in the house. Right. And so my husband worked Starbucks in the morning, apple in the daytime and melting pot at night.
Matt Honkonen (20:03):
Can we, can we pause there just for a second? Like, people, you, I've never in my life worked three jobs simultaneously. Like, it's, it, it's an insane amount of dedication. Like, I just wanna commend that on the front end. Like that is, that is true. Dedication across the board on
Christina Honkonen (20:19):
Elsewhere with and with babies. I can't even imagine.
Matt Honkonen (20:24):
Sorry, I didn't mean to stop you <laugh>.
Kati Hyer (20:26):
No, I was just thinking about it and my response is, yep. It sucked.
Christina Honkonen (20:31):
<laugh>. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
(20:34)
I mean, that's important to tell people. Like, it isn't gonna be fun. And a lot of this isn't fun. Starting your own business, growing your own thing, trying to get to any goal is like the, the majority of it, or at least at the beginning, is it's ugly. It's hard. It's feels, uh, sticky and it feels like you're doing it wrong most of the time too. I don't know if that was true for you all, but like anything that I've ever done that's been really, really hard, it feels like in the midst of it being hard, you also have the double whammy of feeling like you aren't actually doing it. Right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Mm.
Kati Hyer (21:02):
I, I feel that. And, and we had plenty of people who said, who cares? You're always gonna have debt. You know, just whatever. Wow. Why bother doing this? And, you know, I wanted to be debt free so my children could be free. But what I didn't know 10 years ago when I was in college, whatever, was that today I would need to take care of my parents. And if I was Wow. And here, here comes, I'm gonna cry <laugh>. Yeah. And if I was trapped by all those loans, could I fly down to help my mom? Could I pay for a nursing home? No. Right. I, I couldn't. And was I imagining that now? No. I was imagining going on canoe trips with my dad, but instead we're arranging care for him. Could I do that if we hadn't have gone on the rampage and paid off all our loans? Nope. No. I would be like, okay mom, when you're done taking care of dad, can you take care of me?
Christina Honkonen (21:57):
Yeah. But
Kati Hyer (21:58):
She needs our help. And you know what, it's, it's hard to help your aging parents if you're broke.
Christina Honkonen (22:04):
Yeah. That gives me chills. Yeah. I mean, you really did give yourself a gift to, you gave a, a gift to your future self. And I know people talk about that a lot, but you very literally did it. And this is what that actually looks like when people talk about that. Like, you're giving yourself your future self a gift. Like, nobody ever, or very rarely do we look back and go like, yeah, it already happened. And that's what this actually looks like in, in reality.
Matt Honkonen (22:29):
Um, where you're sitting right now, when you look at the experience as a whole, what are your feelings about it? Do you feel it was a test? You said your, your family is, is entrenched in faith, and is that, is that job for you, is that, is that something that was thrown on you or is that something that you look at with, I'm sure a lot of different emotions, but how do you view it now?
Kati Hyer (22:53):
Yeah. How do I view it now? More like a desert season. Like, uh, we thought the Promised Land, uh, even if you didn't grow up in church, you know, the Promised Land is like this amazing place when you've arrived. Right. Um, and I think we thought the promised land was gonna be, we're married and we've got our own life, and now we can do anything. And instead we, we walked to the desert of hard work and lots of jobs and budgeting our eyeballs out till we wanted to scream for, you know, it took us like six and a half years to pay it all off. Um, and by the way, I kept, uh, brainwashing myself along the way. I was like, it's only gonna take two years. It's only gonna take three. It's
Christina Honkonen (23:34):
The only way to do it yourself through it. Yeah. <laugh>, I was
Kati Hyer (23:38):
Like, my employer's gonna double my salary. Yes. Like, of course they're, they're Yeah. <laugh>. Um, so it was a desert time, but, uh, there were moments where I can look back and I know, wow, that was not me. That was something bigger than me. Like that was God. Yeah. We paid, we wrote a check for an example. We wrote a check, um, out of our giving budget. 'cause we, we still gave during the whole ti during the whole thing.
Christina Honkonen (24:09):
Wow.
Kati Hyer (24:10):
And, uh, I have, excuse me, I have multiple times said how much we budgeted, but that didn't mean we were budgeting experts. That didn't mean we didn't make mistakes or forget things. Right. Um, so we had written a check and then the check didn't get cashed. We had donated to, um, some, um, we had donated to somebody at our church and it was months before they cashed that check mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And that'll do it. God about it. <laugh>. Yeah. Yeah. And so we had written this $600 check, and then when it came out of our account, we were gonna go negative and we were in a panic and we were ticked. Yeah. Like, God, like how could you let our giving like, screw us? That's, yeah. That's not the point. <laugh>. And then we checked the mailbox and somebody had written us a check for $605. Whoa. And they said, I don't know why I'm writing this to you, but
Christina Honkonen (25:09):
That's
Kati Hyer (25:10):
Amazing. Uh, it was on my heart to write this to you. I not kidding you.
Christina Honkonen (25:14):
That's just like brought tears to my eyes. There we go again.
Kati Hyer (25:16):
That's, it's true. 600, 6 0 5. That's phenomenal. It's like, uh, in the, um, in the Hebrew Bible, God goes by many names and they tell us his characteristics. And one of them is Adonai Elroy. And that's my God who sees me. Yeah. And I was like, okay. He sees us. Wow. He sees us in the trenches and, uh, he's not gonna let us go hungry or be evicted. <laugh>.
Christina Honkonen (25:44):
Yeah. Not today. Not today. Yeah. Yeah.
Matt Honkonen (25:48):
It's amazing the
Christina Honkonen (25:48):
Triumph. Yeah.
Matt Honkonen (25:50):
Having the, um, an experience like that that's so quickly takes all of that anxiety and just kind of goes, it's all right here. This whole thing is solved. Like that reminder, the, it's all, it's all chaos. Right. And it's not, it's not your job to fix the chaos. It's your job to stay true to your belief and stay true to who you are and let that be what it is. Like you, you gave, because you give mm-hmm. <affirmative> and that's
Kati Hyer (26:18):
Awesome. Right. Right. We give, not because we're expecting something back, but in our house, we say hires or givers. Right. My last name's hire to any of our listeners who are like, that's weird. Hires givers, <laugh>. Um, even if it doesn't make sense, like that's just who, that's just who we are.
Matt Honkonen (26:35):
That's awesome. That's part of,
Christina Honkonen (26:36):
That's really cool. Yeah.
Kati Hyer (26:37):
That's awesome. And it was very tempting 'cause everybody listening to me like, yeah, but seriously, like, while you, while you had these goals, I'm like, yeah, okay. It was very tempting to think like, okay, God, you can like go without this tithe for a month. Right. Like, it would be great if I could throw that on this last loan. And that in itself was a exercise and diligence and in believing, like, life is not just us. It's about something bigger than us. And we gotta remember that. And for people of faith, like my husband and I, we're remembering that what we have is from God. And this little 10% is just our way of recognizing that. Like it came from some, anybody else, it came from God and we're gonna manage the other 90. And we're so thankful for the 90% mm-hmm. <affirmative> instead of, oh ma'am, 10% mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Right. We're gonna focus on the 90.
Christina Honkonen (27:27):
Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. I like that. So I know you've discussed like what your, your husband had was carrying this load of three jobs. I think, if I remember correctly, you were also working quite hard. Do you wanna share any of what you went through too?
Kati Hyer (27:42):
Absolutely. My challenge with working the extra jobs was, um, I had children who are at home and for a lot of the last seven years have been needing their mom. Like as I breastfed children, sorry to get graphic, but it, it was just something that they had to be with me. So the challenge was, yeah, how do I make extra money? I don't <laugh>. Yes. How do I do this with them? So that looked like waking up early in the morning, uh, three o'clock so that I could teach online to kids in different countries, English from three 30 to six 30 in the morning. Oh my gosh. Then I'd get the kids ready, go to their daycare or their school. Then I would do my nine to five. But over my lunch break, I would go walk a dog or let a dog out that I was, um, dog sitting on Rover that you can still look that app up. Wow. Dog sit or get babysitting for your dog on Rover. And then on weekends I would Uber, we, the kids would go next door to a, it's unbelievable good friend's house. And she had kids. We had kids and our kids would just watch popcorn in a movie together. And I would go Uber driving, wash, rinse, repeat.
Christina Honkonen (28:53):
Wow.
Kati Hyer (28:54):
Yeah. We had to have some kind of dynamite to break up the log jam. Yeah. We had to add extra income. There was no way around it.
Christina Honkonen (29:03):
There was no other way
Kati Hyer (29:03):
To do it. There was no way around it. I worked for a, i I see now that I should not have taken the job. I took, I worked for the Sure. I worked for the state. And your, your earning is capped. Like I could work as hard as I wanted. I could bring as many results as I wanted and my salary wasn't gonna change. It
Christina Honkonen (29:19):
Just doesn't. Yeah. Can't.
Kati Hyer (29:20):
I did not really get that then. And then my husband's a police officer. Same deal. Like, you can work as hard or as lazy as you want, and the result is gonna be the same. So for us, we should have taken better job careers. We know that now. So the only thing we knew to do was to just work more hours. More hours. Right. We time for money instead of like, expertise for money. Um, I would do that differently if I had to do it again. <laugh>.
Christina Honkonen (29:48):
Yeah. Yeah.
Kati Hyer (29:49):
Yeah.
Christina Honkonen (29:50):
Well, do you wanna tell us a little bit about your perspective on that? 'cause I think it is really important, and it's not something that you, you really understand when you're younger. I know I didn't either. Like if you, I think you come outta college, especially if you're like even slightly type A or slightly like ambitious. And your assumption is like, the harder I work, the more money I'll make. Which can be true in certain situations. Like corporate is really good about rewarding that. It also is a really great way to drain you really quickly if you're not also working smart. But either way, I feel like there's that perspective that you're, you're talking about is, is important. But can you explain to us like what does that look like for you? And when, like, I don't know, when did that, you know, realization take place or, or what does it look like for you now?
Kati Hyer (30:33):
Yeah. I actually did leave that job at the state, which I worked with wonderful people. Um, I, I really enjoyed the work I was doing, but I just woke up one day and I thought, this is dumb. Uh, I want to bring value. I want to bring results. And there are places who will result me or reward me for those results. I should align my career with the people who are doing those things, making those things happen. Um, so yeah, if I, if I had to go back, I would, I would change that. Um, but how did that, how did I wake up? I just, I think I was just talking to, um, an HR person or my supervisor. I, I really trusted my boss, my leader. And I said like, what does this look like? And she goes, well, um, you can have my job when I retire in 15 years. And I realized that's the only path for me here. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. I have to do this same thing for more than a decade. And hopefully she retires then maybe she decides ah, nineties the new 70 and stays on. Right, right. <laugh>,
Christina Honkonen (31:40):
Which definitely could happen these days. I know.
Kati Hyer (31:42):
Yeah. So yeah, when we were talking about career paths. So that's one thing I would, um, definitely encourage younger listeners to do is like, dive into it. What does your career path look like? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, yeah. When I realized, oh, there's nothing here for me. Uhhuh <affirmative>. It's a lot easier to leave.
Christina Honkonen (32:00):
Yeah. Yeah. So what do you do? I know you, you mentioned earlier that you do counsel, people, families who are getting out of debt. Is that still part of your life? And what does that look like now?
Kati Hyer (32:10):
Yeah. You know, I, it, I can't help it people, it's like a moth to a flame. They'll be like, oh, a zillion children and you don't have any credit cards. I'll say, yeah. And they go, how did that happen? How do you possibly live without a car note? And I go, well, just look at my 2004 Honda Pilot. That's how,
Matt Honkonen (32:27):
Yeah. Us two. US two. Yeah. Proud, proud old car. Yes.
Christina Honkonen (32:31):
Yeah. Yes. Just
Kati Hyer (32:32):
Hit 200,000 miles, baby.
Christina Honkonen (32:35):
We are close. Did we hit it yet? We're like super close. One 90 something. Yes. So
Kati Hyer (32:40):
When, at what point are you guys going to change your car? I
Christina Honkonen (32:43):
Don't, I don't know. There's so many other things. I want more,
Matt Honkonen (32:47):
We have hobbies. Yeah. We're not car cars are not a hobby
Christina Honkonen (32:50):
Of ours. Yeah. There's like things in the house that I think I would do. There's vacations I'm not willing to not take while my kids are young and it's just not, I actually asked, okay. Sorry. No, sorry. Listeners, <laugh>, I was listening. I wasn't visiting to get my, uh, car fixed. And I, while I was in there talking to the technician, uh, or the mechanic, I was like, so by the way, like how, how like it's 200,000 or whatever it is now. I was like, how, what's the biggest mileage you've ever seen on a car? And he is like, Volvo, 700,000
Kati Hyer (33:19):
Wow. Safe car. And I was
Christina Honkonen (33:21):
Like, I was like, what? And he was like, oh yeah, they bring 'em in like it's bar it, it's more often than you think is what he told me. And he said that Volvo actually d delivers you these little like, emblem like stickers when you hit milestones with your miles milestones. <laugh>, no pun intended, uh, milestones with your miles. Uh, they give you, so like if you ever see the round stickers, I I think they're round Yeah. On the Volvos and they have like a number or whatever they have. I'm like, y'all need to go check this out. So I'm sure I'm describing it wrong, but I thought that was awesome. They actually like, sort of reward you for keeping your car longer. And so maybe I'll be one of those, like one of those owners one day. We can
Kati Hyer (33:57):
Some I don't
Christina Honkonen (33:58):
Have stickers, but Caners. Yes. Yes. Mine's a Honda by the way. Yes. So we can Yes.
Kati Hyer (34:03):
Make a little 200 K sticker. It'll be for me, it'll be like number miles on my car and how much debt we paid off.
Matt Honkonen (34:09):
Yes,
Christina Honkonen (34:10):
Absolutely. So you actually reminded me of a question I wanted to ask you because we're living in it right now where we have big savings goals. But I also have this, this balance. It's a constant reminder when you have children, especially when you're not in the baby stage anymore, you've kind of like graduated out of that. And my, I have an eight year old and it's, I'm like, oh my god, 10 more years with them, 10 more years. That's all I get. And it's like, I literally think it must be back here because I literally will wake up thinking about it and I'm like, like, I'm like, it's giving me, so that's to say I'm like, I'm not willing to not go somewhere for, um, a vacation or like a, a spring break or a fall break or like to do something with them. Now I'm like, but I only get 10 more.
(34:49)
I only get 10 more. I only get 10 more Christmases. I'm not gonna, I'm gonna have a good Christmas. Like, it doesn't have to be a ton of stuff, but like, I want, you know, um, so my question for you is like, how do you balance now? I mean, I, and by the way, like I don't think you, I wouldn't have felt that way if I had like was in your situation with like debt, you know, and especially a couple years ago when I was like trying to get to some savings goals. Like I was like, that made more sense to me, you know, to like deal with that first. But now I'm like, I'm not willing to give those up completely. So I guess my question for you is like, how do you balance that now that like, I I I want, I have these kids, I can't just like keep putting everything off. Um, yeah.
Kati Hyer (35:25):
Yeah. It's a great question. How do we balance the goals and the needs we have for finances with the goals and needs we have with our children and our spouses? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I think the first thing that I realized, and I'm learning people, people will say, oh, give me your mom tips. And I'll go, I have five kids. That doesn't make me a good mom. That just makes me, you know, a fertile mom. Come on. Like <laugh> people just assume I'm good at it. Yeah. So, uh, I'll be the first to say, I
Christina Honkonen (35:54):
Assume you're at it. I bet
Kati Hyer (35:55):
You're thanks. I'll be the first to say, I learn every day and I get corrected and I realize that my thinking was wrong all the time. Um, so that's just my little disclaimer about parenting and, and money. Like I'm sure I've done it wrong, but when we were in debt, we had to be satisfied with, um, the fact that okay, our children are having the best time of their lives in this creek behind a house.
Christina Honkonen (36:23):
Yeah.
Kati Hyer (36:23):
Like, is is a man in a Mickey Mouse suit gonna make this better? No. That's gonna be creepy. Right. Like, <laugh>
Christina Honkonen (36:30):
Might make it worse.
Kati Hyer (36:31):
I make it worse. <laugh>. So there, there were a lot of like pulling ourselves outta the situation, stopping comparing myself to my neighbors or my friends or whatever, who are at different stages of life. Um mm-hmm. <affirmative> and like being satisfied with what we could do. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Now, the thing that I really got, um, convicted about and like had to correct myself on was getting used to telling my kids no. And now I'm used to telling my kids no, but guess what I can tell 'em. Yes. Yeah. So I am having to train myself to use the Yes muscle after so many years of no. Right. Right. So like, that's exciting. We're going on a trip next weekend. We Yeah. We rented a cabin, we're going to the mountains. Aw, it's gonna be great. And the kids have started saying, we're gonna have a yes day mom. And I'm like, oh, okay.
Christina Honkonen (37:28):
Maybe <laugh> <laugh>. Did they watch that movie?
Kati Hyer (37:32):
I guess they started talking about it from friends at school. And so
Christina Honkonen (37:36):
Yeah, there's a movie called Yes Day. Have you seen, heard, have you
Kati Hyer (37:39):
Heard of it? Okay.
Christina Honkonen (37:40):
No, not, yes. Has Jennifer Garner in it? Yeah. Yeah. Well it's funny because we watched the movie and then my kids started doing it and I did try to do the Yes. Day. It's definitely impossible. <laugh>, but <laugh> just gonna throw that out there. It it's more of a maybe day.
Kati Hyer (37:53):
Yeah. It's more of a maybe day. Yeah. They that show Grace and Frankie on, on Netflix.
Christina Honkonen (37:57):
Yes. Yes.
Kati Hyer (37:58):
One of the characters, Frankie describes how she and her husband saw, had a, um, had a Yes. Year or something and they ended up owning a burger joint. And I'm like, okay. Yes,
Christina Honkonen (38:07):
Exactly. I'm not
Kati Hyer (38:08):
Going that far. But, uh, exactly. I think your original question was like, how do you balance, like, okay, are we gonna put more on our 4 0 1 k or are we gonna take the kids to Disney? Yeah. Um, like, ugh, let me pause and think. Hmm. I don't make decisions on our, on my family's money without my husband. Yeah. Like we talk about stuff together and we today just bought a piano like, yay, many hundreds. That's so exciting. Many hundreds. Congratulations of dollars. And I'm like, don't you know, you can get a piano for free on Craigslist bar <laugh>.
Christina Honkonen (38:42):
You won't regret it. That's great.
Kati Hyer (38:44):
Yeah. Yeah. And he said, look, like it is time to have some quality stuff in our life. Yeah.
Christina Honkonen (38:49):
We
Kati Hyer (38:50):
Paid in time and effort and money. Like we don't have to take the cheap route anymore. Yep. So I appreciate his, um, stubbornness <laugh> mm-hmm. <affirmative> because like if it were just me by myself, I'd cheaps skate my way out the whole time. And he's Yes. Making sure we invest in quality things and quality time and quality experiences. So anyway, um, yeah. All that's my long roundabout way of saying I'm trying to figure it out. How do you balance it? Yeah. Yeah. I, I need the input of my spouse. I need my children to say Yes day mom. And I just try to listen. It just, I don't know. I hope that's helpful in some way.
Christina Honkonen (39:27):
I love it. I mean, we do the same, we're pretty much the same thing. Matt's more like, let's just do it. And I'm like, I don't know. I'm like, I literally am like, sit there and I'm gonna do it like <laugh>, but you need to sit there 'cause I I'm not gonna do it by myself. Yeah. <laugh> and just keep telling me it's a good idea while I do it while I make the purchase. Um, so I actually do wanna ask about your parenting tips because you have five babies. So do, what are your, what's your top, um, parenting tip that comes to mind? Or one or two?
Kati Hyer (39:58):
Oh my gosh. In what realm? In like, and by the
Christina Honkonen (40:01):
Way, it can, that's a great question. I don't have any specific like, sector of life in, in mind, but I do think it'd be interesting to hear how you're teaching your kids about money. Um, but it doesn't have to be money related.
Kati Hyer (40:12):
Okay. Uh, my favorite parenting hack of all is if you're in a discussion with a kid and they want to do something or anything, which by the way, is every single discussion Uhhuh <affirmative>. Yes. Uh, my favorite parenting hack is just give them options and whatever option they pick you're good with. Right. Like, so it's not, do you wanna go to bed buddy? It's, do you wanna go to bed in your blue PJs or in your red PJs?
Christina Honkonen (40:36):
<laugh> Uhhuh <affirmative>. Love
Kati Hyer (40:37):
That. That's my favorite parenting. Heck. And I use it with my dogs. I use it, you know, <laugh>?
Christina Honkonen (40:42):
Yes. Yeah.
Kati Hyer (40:44):
That's great. Yeah.
(40:45)
I love it. Money stuff. My daughter has a lemonade stand and that has been an amazing tool for learning about money, but money, like from a broader sense. 'cause she's learning about customer service. She's learning about hard work. 'cause I mean, when you're a 10 year old and you go jump in the pool or you could sit on the hot corner of a street and schlep lemonade. Yeah. Like you wanna jump in the pool, but she's learning, wow. I just bought a whatever she, whatever she bought with her money, um, like, and I earned all that money. So it's
Christina Honkonen (41:19):
So sweet.
Kati Hyer (41:20):
That's one of the things.
Christina Honkonen (41:21):
It's good for her. It's like a consistent little business that she's got going on.
Kati Hyer (41:25):
Oh yeah. And people are amazing. They'll drive by. They're like, I don't want that. I'm keto, but here's 10 bucks.
Christina Honkonen (41:31):
That's awesome. Even <laugh>. Even better.
Kati Hyer (41:34):
Great. Keep your supplies, keep your inventory up better <laugh>.
Christina Honkonen (41:37):
Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's really cute. That's really cute. Yeah. So is there anything, like, as you look back, um, is there anything else that you'd want to say about that experience of both paying back money and then also where you find yourself today, like looking forward with where you're gonna know now go to build wealth or build the future that you want, uh, the financial foundation of the future that you want, so to speak? Um, what, what is what, where are you focused now?
Kati Hyer (42:07):
The thing that comes to mind is this phrase my husband Dave and I told each other all the time when we were getting out and we said, debt is not forever. And now, I think now is not forever. Right? Like, we're not gonna be in this horrendous real estate market forever. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, right? Like, we're not gonna have to pay for five children's college forever, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, we will, this too shall pass. And we had to encourage ourselves about debts not forever. Because when we were first paying off those 28 different loans when we were going at it really hard, the very first few months, and this goes back to something you were asking about Matt, we didn't make a dent. Like our interest was growing faster than we could pay the stuff off. Like so month after month for the first like 11 months, our debt was still growing.
(43:02)
It sucked. Well, like, 'cause I would, I would log into Great Lakes and Navient and Sally May and all of the different lenders and I could see the balance was getting bigger. Ah, wow. So it wasn't until we paid off our first two loans that the stone started rolling downhill. Right. And so we just had to keep telling ourselves, debt is not forever. We're not gonna get outta this right away. We have to do this like just one foot in front of the other. And so today this crazy real estate market, Katie hire is not forever. 'cause that's the thing that's mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, that's our big goal right now is how do we buy a house in this, in this market? Um, or do we, do we keep wrenching? Like what's the Yeah. What's the wise thing, right? Um, yeah. And
Christina Honkonen (43:49):
Well, and it is always, I think in this world of money and, and so much discussion around it right now, there's also the what, what is the wise, smart, you know, money numbers right. Thing to do. Um, and then there's the what's the right thing to do for you? Um, then it's hard when you're so in the numbers and looking at, at it every day to make a different decision. Like, people oftentimes ask me like, should I pay my house off or should I keep investing? And the the answer is almost always like, you should definitely have your money in the market because it's gonna be working harder for you. It's gonna be making you more money instead of, you know, um, so that's technically what you should be doing, but is it the right thing for you to do? That's only, only you can make that decision.
(44:36)
Like maybe there's reasons why you don't want that debt. It's easier for you to sleep at night. You had money issues as a kid and it's stressful and you dream of not having, not owing a bit of money. Is it worth paying off your home and not ever having a payment? Maybe, you know, maybe, maybe it is. Like nobody else can make that answer that question for you. That's all to say. I feel like sometimes, um, we can so clearly see like what the right thing to do is money-wise, but it doesn't necessarily mean it's the right thing for each individual.
Kati Hyer (45:05):
Have you ever heard of Maslow's hierarchy of needs? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>? Yeah. So that was the first thing that came to mind when you were describing that. So anybody googling or if you're on the road and you're not supposed to Google, that's illegal. <laugh>, Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Like do that. If you imagine a pyramid at the bottom of the pyramid are the basic things for life, right? Like food, shelter, food, shelter, <laugh> mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And then as you go up the pyramid of the hierarchy of needs, you finally end at the tip of self-actualization. And so if we had this in a money lens, looking at it through a money, a financial lens, I would think, okay. Like where are they on the hierarchy of needs? Are they, do they have $30,000 and they should invest or they should pay in that off their house? Or do they not even have a car yet? Right. Right. Where
Christina Honkonen (45:53):
Are they? Exactly. So
Kati Hyer (45:54):
You have to back out 'cause like it is investing right for you right now. Oh, you're 17 years old and you need your first like wardrobe to go to school or to go to your first career job. Right. You need or
Christina Honkonen (46:07):
Laptop so you can get a job. Yes,
Kati Hyer (46:10):
Exactly. So it's not like this vehicle is always right all the time. Just like you're saying, you have to consider like, zoom out, what are my other needs? What's, you know, what's the big grand scheme of things? So
Christina Honkonen (46:24):
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So tell us a little bit about your podcast and how faith, and I know you've already spoken a little bit about this, but where faith comes into it and how it continues to play a role in where you're headed financially.
Kati Hyer (46:37):
Absolutely. Um, I don't think there's anything better than being a part of something bigger than yourself. Like the self stinks <laugh>, like we're mm-hmm. <affirmative>, we're just these broken Yeah. Things all by ourselves, but a part of something bigger. It's pretty awesome. So I have a podcast called the Katie Hire Show and my first season looks into some ancient scripture called, uh, the 31st chapter of Proverbs, which is a book in the Old Testament. And that chapter looks at what is wisdom and the writer of this book of the Bible personifies wisdom And, and as the Proverbs 31 woman. So I look at these texts and I do hot takes with them about current money issues. So like I talk about negotiating at work and I have my old bosses on to talk about, um,
Christina Honkonen (47:33):
Oh, that's so
Kati Hyer (47:34):
Cool. Can you get ahead during a recession? Um, yeah. You know, we talk about all sorts of fun stuff. Talk about, uh, sex and money. Talk about, yeah. Budgeting hacks. We talk about all the fun money things there are to do with just like a little bit of church thrown in there, but not judgy, more like Yeah. Uplifting <laugh>.
Christina Honkonen (47:55):
Yeah. I think that's awesome. Is there any part of scripture that was eye-opening for you when it came to money? Like, something surprising or I cannot believe that x y Z was said or insinuated within scripture about money and
Kati Hyer (48:14):
Yeah, there's, yeah, there's this passage in a book called, um, second Kings. And essentially this widow has teenage sons and she is in debt. I kind of imagine there's lots of holes in the Bible that I'm like, oh, okay, how did that happen? Or whatever. So I imagine her husband dies and leaves her with a bunch of debt because she is a widow, has two teenage sons and she's in a bunch of debt and she's in so much debt that the debtors are gonna come and take her sons. And that is how they're gonna, she, you know, write all of her accounts. So she runs in desperation to a holy man named Elijah. And she's like, please help me. I'm in dead up to my eyeballs. And, and you know, we might say, and I'm gonna go bankrupt, or they're gonna evict me or they're gonna take my car. But she was saying, and they're gonna steal my son's, which by the way, were her only way of an income later. Like they, that old, um, society structure was you took care of your mama. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Right. She was part of your responsibility. There was
Christina Honkonen (49:21):
No social security. Yes. <laugh>. Yeah, exactly.
Kati Hyer (49:23):
Exactly. Yeah. Um, so she's like, help, help, help. What am I gonna do? And he goes, what do you have woman? And she says, I have nothing. Everything is gone. And I have felt that way. And he goes, you don't have nothing. Go home, ask all your, and he says, you don't have nothing. What do you really have? And she says, I've got one jar of olive oil. That's it. One jar of olive oil. And he is like, all right, listen, you and your sons go back home, ask all your neighbors for some jars, go into your house and pour some olive oil into the jars and then sell the oil and pay off your debts. And she's like, it'll never work. But she does what he says and she goes in to her house, she has her boys go and get neighbor's jars. They come and they fill 'em up jar after jar after jar and the miracle of the oil spreads and fills all the jars. And she's like, gimme another one sudden. And he's like, I can't mom. Wow. There's no more jars. We filled them all up and she takes the jars, she sells and she's free. And I'm like, a miracle, how did this money miracle really happen? Like the, she, she went to church and he said, hold on tight to your family. Yeah. Hold on tight to your community and work.
(50:45)
Bam. That is how we look outside of ourselves, get hope around these crushing money failures that are gonna eat us up and, and get our miracle and get forward. Like, how do two kids who don't have a clue about anything pay off 200 grand focused on our family, focused on our community and we worked and it, it, it paid it off. And when I read that scripture, I was like, wow. Yeah. It's all there. That's what you need. This is what we need. You know, when we feel isolated and alone and like nobody gets it. Yeah. We get
Christina Honkonen (51:22):
It. And it's what you all did.
Kati Hyer (51:24):
Yep.
Christina Honkonen (51:25):
Yeah. So how long did y'all end up having to work? How long did it take you while you were working like that?
Kati Hyer (51:30):
We were always trading out jobs. We're like, okay, taking in somebody else's dogs to ruin our furniture stinks. What can we do? Yeah. You know,
Christina Honkonen (51:38):
What, what else is out there?
Kati Hyer (51:40):
What else is out there? Um, yeah, so let's see. Um, when did I quit my last side hustle? I'm trying to remember. Um, 'cause we were always doing different things, right? I did photography. Yeah, I did babysitting. Um, wow. We, we did lot for people
Christina Honkonen (51:58):
Considering all like, what do I go do to make more money with, of all of that? Or even new, like just seeing other people get out of debt now and like seeing all these new jobs available. Of all of that. What would you say like, Hey, dog, dog setting was really smart because it's flexible or, um, what would you recommend?
Kati Hyer (52:15):
Yeah. Well the end of the last question is I think we kept doing side hustles until our salaries finally turned into like things where my husband could do overtime. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And the snowball was running the snowball, the, the giant amount of money that we were putting on our debt at the end. And our best year by the way was $42,000 paying debt off. Amazing. Wow. Um, until it, until we did the cost benefit analysis and realized, okay, like it's better for me to stay home than to pay a babysitter 'cause I'm not gonna make enough with five kids in babysitter costs for this side hustle to work. Um, but I think we did two and three jobs for like five years. Between, yeah. Between all of it. Um, okay. And then what did you just ask me? I laughed it.
Christina Honkonen (53:02):
So of all I know, sorry. Um, of all those jobs, what, like, for people listening in who are like having, I think it's a hard decision. Like if you don't have some passion and you're like, I need money. Like I need to, this is not for my passion. 'cause a lot of side hustles are, but for people who are trying to get outta debt and who are looking for quick cash, what do you recommend? Man,
Kati Hyer (53:22):
The options are endless today. Yeah. When we started out, there was no remote work. Like that was weird, you know?
Christina Honkonen (53:29):
Yeah. Uh,
Kati Hyer (53:30):
You, you delivered pizzas, which, do people even do that anymore? Or is that all drones today? You know, like,
Christina Honkonen (53:36):
I know, right? Or it soon will be. Yeah. Yeah.
Kati Hyer (53:38):
Like today the options are end less. Like back when we were trying to get outta debt, it was not as easy to find a side hustle. But today you can learn how to sell your stuff on Etsy. You can. Yeah. You know, you can, uh, you can sell stuff online. You can build websites that make money. You can do all sorts of stuff today. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. But, um, yeah, my favorite side hustles were my favorite side hustles. Um, my skills made me the best money. So don't get paid.
Christina Honkonen (54:10):
That's really wise. Don't
Kati Hyer (54:12):
Get paid for what? That's really important. You do get paid for what you know.
Christina Honkonen (54:16):
Yeah.
Kati Hyer (54:17):
And when I, when the light bulb finally went off, I was like, geez, why didn't I learn this in college 1 0 1? Uh, I didn't, I didn't pay a lot of attention in college. <laugh>, I think <laugh>, I think, I don't think they're that established, that <laugh>,
Christina Honkonen (54:29):
That's, I don't think they taught that. That's very
Kati Hyer (54:31):
Gracious of you. I appreciate that. <laugh>. Uh, when I finally figured that out that I'm gonna make more money with my skills, then I'm gonna make scooping poop. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and made more money. So I focused on doing, uh, PR side hustles. I had some clients who needed marketing stuff. I need people who, uh, with, who needed help building websites, that kind of thing. And I do that today. So if you go to katie higher.com, I can help you out.
Christina Honkonen (54:57):
That's awesome. Katie hire.com.
Kati Hyer (54:59):
There you go. Um, but if you need those mindless things that you can do with kids, dog sitting and dog walking is great. Uh, so just think about your situation, dear listeners. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> go for
Christina Honkonen (55:13):
And childcare. Yeah. Yeah. What do you recommend with childcare when es especially when you're strap for cash?
Kati Hyer (55:20):
I recommend to have a friend. You gotta be a friend.
Christina Honkonen (55:24):
Yeah.
Kati Hyer (55:25):
You know, when my friend said, can you please watch the kids? I always said yes. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I always said, yes, bring 'em over. I'll feed 'em. Because A, I loved my friend and I left her kids. And b yeah. I was really hopeful that she would tell me the same.
Christina Honkonen (55:38):
Yeah.
Kati Hyer (55:39):
I didn't, I did not have babysitting in the budget, so instead I opened up my house. Uh, so that's what I recommend. <laugh>.
Christina Honkonen (55:47):
Yeah. Yeah. I love that. That's awesome. Well, your story is incredibly inspiring and just so thankful. Thank you for talking with us twice now. I thought this was, um, it was just as like heartwarming and inspiring as it was the first time. So thank you. You are welcome. Um, is there any, I think you mentioned your website, um, the podcast, if people want to get in touch with you to ask about any of the topics we've discussed, what's the best way to do that?
Kati Hyer (56:15):
Yeah, just hit me up on Instagram at Katie hire, find me there. Easy
Christina Honkonen (56:20):
Peasy. Love it. Love it. Anything else that we didn't on that you wanna share?
Kati Hyer (56:25):
You can do it. Listeners, if you wanna invest and retire early, you can do it. It's just gonna be a lot of hard work and when y'all do retire early, you gotta let me know. <laugh>.
Christina Honkonen (56:34):
Yeah. I love that. Awesome. Thank you so much, Katie.
Kati Hyer (56:38):
You're welcome. My pleasure.
Christina Honkonen (56:40):
Maybe we'll have a third conversation one day.
Kati Hyer (56:42):
Hopefully not. <laugh> not because of technical difficulties,
Christina Honkonen (56:44):
Not because that's exactly right. Not because of that. Knock on wood. Okay. Thank you so much.
Kati Hyer (56:50):
Bye.
