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What do you get when you mix a
business investment gone wrong, lawsuits and $300k+ of fraudulent debt? You get Beth and Ben’s jaw dropping story. Tune in as they detail the moments that turned their newlywed bliss upside down and how they overcame the most shocking and disappointing time in their life. Through the turmoil, they came out stronger than ever. Listen in as they offer valuable insights on handling financial relationships, the importance of documentation and share their learnings on managing money with someone you trust. Their story is a powerful reminder of the importance of financial literacy. Get ready to pick your jaw up off the floor as you listen in to this heart-wrenching yet enlightening tale of trust, brotherly betrayal, and redemption.
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and the doorbell rang and I opened the door and there was this tiny little man there with this very weird looking envelope and he handed it to me and I mean I was 24. I had just turned 20, I turned 24 right after we got married, so I was 24. I did learn a lot about money, but I did not learn about lawsuits or what to do when somebody hands you something, or you know what he was like oh, you need to sign that you got this. And I was like, okay, well, I am receiving it, so I guess I'll sign that I received it. So I signed and took the envelope and went back inside and I opened it up and he did say you have been served. And I didn't know what that meant. My family is very conservative with money, so this is a. I've never heard of this happening in my personal life. This was like something that happened on TV. So I was kind of like, oh, okay, and then I opened it up and started reading and I was like, oh, this is like a, this is a real thing.
Speaker 2:Hey everyone, welcome to the Sugar Daddy podcast. I'm Jessica and I'm Brandon, and we're the Norwoods, a husband and wife team here to demystify the realm of dollars so it all makes sense while giving you a glimpse into our relationship with money and each other. We are so glad you're here. Let's get started.
Speaker 3:Our content is intended to be used, and must be used, for informational purposes only. It is very important to do your own analysis before making any investment, based upon your own personal circumstances. You should take independent financial advice from a licensed professional in connection with or independently research and verify any information you find in our podcast and we should rely upon, whether for the purpose of making an investment decision or otherwise.
Speaker 4:Hey babe, what are we talking about today?
Speaker 2:Okay, so a few weeks ago I put on Instagram that we are interested in talking to people who have a unique story about money and finance, and Beth reached out to me and my jaw is still on the floor. So today we are talking to Beth and Ben, who have a really crazy story about what happens when you make a financial decision and investment in something and you don't know the details.
Speaker 4:I would also say it involves a certain level of you trusting someone that you think you could trust and it turns out that you shouldn't have trusted them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's definitely a level of betrayal here, so we're going to get into this. But, beth and Ben, thank you so much for reaching out and for being with us today to share your really, really insane story with us. Thanks for having us.
Speaker 5:Thank you.
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely. So. Let's give everybody some background again. My jaw is still on the floor, beth. You sent me a whole slew of voice messages on Instagram with this story, with this background, and I just was stunned. So let's fill everybody in and then we're going to dive into these details, because it's kind of wild. So in 2005, right after Beth and Ben met, ben invested in a business his brother was starting. At the time, he did not know what the business was or that it wasn't real, and Beth did not know how much money Ben gave his brother. Nothing ever came of the business and both forgot all about it. Then they got married and in 2010 and six months later, they received their first lawsuit and everything came crashing down. They learned that none of the loans had been paid and the interest had compounded to an enormous amount, of $310,000 to be exact. This experience tested their grit, determination, faith, marriage, sanity and willpower, and 10 and a half years later, the debt is paid off. Beth and Ben are still happily married and living every day with a new perspective on it all. Oh my gosh, what in the world? Okay, ben, I'm gonna start with you, because this is your brother, right? Your brother came to you and said what Tell us about that initial conversation that started this all?
Speaker 5:Absolutely so. In 2005, I was a junior in college and I had just finished what was a very heavy academic debate career. I had reached the pinnacle and I was at a turning point. You know my brother, who at the time so this is my little brother was my superhero and he was someone who I trusted and loved and never questioned and grew up around, and so he knew I was at a point in time that I was looking for something to do. I was looking for an activity or a project, and he came to me and said hey, I've got these, these businesses that I'm running. You know I'm successful. I tell you all the time how successful I am and I want to bring you in on that. I want to bring you in as a part of that. We're gonna be millionaires. You know it's gonna be overnight success. Of course we're talking about the time, just as, like Facebook is rising, so I'm reading stories about you know, people are making millions and millions of dollars overnight. And so he said I want you to give me money. And I said, okay, great, I am a junior in college, I have no money. How do I do that? And so he said look, I will show you how to get you know OPM, I'll show you how to get other people's money and you'll give it to me and I'll invest it and we'll create these successful businesses and we'll be millionaires overnight. This is great. And so at the time of 2005, private student loans were like a dime a dozen. You signed up for one. You said you were a college kid. They pretty much handed you a check. There was like no background check. There was no. I mean, it was all and we're talking the large sums of money $40,000, $50,000 that they were handing college kids overnight. The commercials on TV were you can use this to buy a car, because that's a expense for you to help you get to campus, and so stuff like that. And so I got $175,000 in student loans and private student loans that never actually went to college. Now I can say that now, because we had to be careful about that legally, but we're past the statute of limitations. Plus, we paid everything off and so I did. I never saw the money. The check came to me, it went into a bank account and then that got transferred to my brother and that was that. And he said look, I'm going to take care of this. He had me forward him any paperwork that had to do with the loans, and then he changed all of the addresses and everything from my address to his. So that way I never saw you know statement and never saw a bill. I never saw any of those types of things, and so, as far as I knew everything was getting paid, changed the phone number to his so that when the collectors no doubt collectors were calling, they just weren't calling me, and so I had no idea what was going on. So I guess that's the. That's the long and short of it.
Speaker 2:Wow. Did he at any point tell you exactly what these businesses were, how quickly you're going to make money or how you were going to become millionaires overnight? Were there any details around that?
Speaker 5:Yes and no. So he was a successful chef, and so he didn't know how to do that. He ran several restaurants. He had other claimed. He had other businesses in which were restaurant related, and so these were going to be a set of restaurants, a combination of barbecue houses, steak houses that we were going to be investing in.
Speaker 2:Wow okay, and you and Beth were like newly together, so you what mentioned it like in passing. Oh, I gave my brother some money, not $175,000 worth and. Beth, you were like it's his brother, it's fine, no big deal, and like life went on. Is that right?
Speaker 1:Um sort of um. Ben absolutely mentioned it in passing um, and really made it sound like it wasn't a big deal. He absolutely did not tell me how much and I also did not ask. You know it's tricky, we hadn't. We've been together a few months, so I wasn't like ready to pry into his finances.
Speaker 4:I was 18 years old, so I also, you were up to say they're disaparing.
Speaker 1:You're young yeah, I think I was too young to even really know, like, what questions to ask, but I absolutely did tell him I don't think this is a great idea. In my opinion, I don't think mixing family and business together is a great idea. But you know, from Ben's perspective, we're talking about this 18 year old girl he just met and his brother. Who is he going to listen to? You know? So he listened to me in the sense that, like, we had a short conversation about it, but at the end of the conversation he was sort of like, yeah, I'm going to do it anyways, because it's my brother, and I was sort of like, okay, it's your brother, there's not a lot I can do about this. Because I was thinking it was like $2,000, $3,000. I had no concept of the vastness of the investment.
Speaker 4:And I think also, you know, people need to put in perspective that obviously with the internet, as it is now social media, there's a lot more information that's being, you know, put out there to people. As compared to 2005, the internet still was in its infancy. It's not like it was anywhere near how it is now and obviously Facebook had just came out for college kids and nothing else existed, so you didn't even have access to the information as a young person to begin with.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, we're going to take a slight detour. We do want to ask about your first money memories, because I'm curious to see if they have anything to do with how you guys navigated this. So, ben, what is your first money memory?
Speaker 5:I'd say it was probably, I want to say third or fourth grade. You know, at the time that I was in school it was you went to a little like fair for be it Halloween or Christmas or whatever it was, and you got like a fake checkbook and you were given a certain amount of fake dollars that you could buy little figurines or erasers or whatever it was. And I remember navigating that with my, I'll say with my parents, sort of with my mom, and actually navigating it was how to write a check. And so I learned to write a check and bought whatever little you know Chosky figurines they had. And yeah, that's my first memory.
Speaker 2:Okay, so that's a happy memory. I like that, beth. What was yours?
Speaker 1:So my memory is from first grade which I do not think is an accident because I taught first grade for a long time but I remember our teacher gave us these pencil boxes that were like actual boxes, not like what you get for kids now that are plastic. It was like a cardboard box and it had a really cool design on it and it just opened and closed and didn't like latch or anything. And I loved that pencil box and at the end of the year I took it home and put all my money in there and it was like $2.00. But I was really proud and I kept it literally until I graduated high school and I just kept adding my money to it and I loved seeing the stack of I'm pretty sure it was all ones, but the stack of money just grow and I just remember that being like my special box and my special like first banking home banking system.
Speaker 2:Did anybody encourage you to like put your money in there to save it, or was that something that you just did on your own?
Speaker 1:It's just something I did on my own, I think, just the way I grew up. I grew up in a single parent household, so there was more conversations about money and just like, well, we can do this, but we can't necessarily do that, and so I think I've just always, sort of naturally, been a saver.
Speaker 2:Thanks, ben. Going back to the story with your brother did, at any point did you say to your parents hey, he's. He asked me for money and we're going to do these businesses together, or was it like a secret?
Speaker 5:It was a secret and he specifically asked he goes, don't tell you, and he might say that you're going to say that he played into family dynamic. So it's not just. He said don't tell mom and dad. It was very much a. You know, dad is a very like my dad worked in the corporate world. My dad has retired army major and so he spent 30 years in the US army and then on top of that also put 30 years with corporate America and so he's like dad doesn't understand small business and investment. My eldest brother is a pilot and has a pilot's mind and understands emergencies and is very money conscious and very good with money. And again, my middle brother knew that. So he very much said and Jason doesn't understand how to do startups and business and stuff, and so you don't want to talk to them about this. And so it was never a like it was. It was keep it a secret, but it wasn't a. It didn't feel nefarious. It felt very like oh yeah, well, they don't understand what we're doing and why would I then talk to them about it? So he absolutely said no, I didn't. I didn't tell anybody other than this one because of our relationship. And again, that was even not all the details. I didn't tell anyone.
Speaker 4:So in your household, like growing up outside of like the money memory that you had expressed, did you have conversations with your parents about money?
Speaker 5:No.
Speaker 4:Okay, no, was it considered?
Speaker 2:rude, or was it just more taboo and it's like we don't talk about this.
Speaker 5:Half and half it was. We definitely grew up with a. We don't talk about our money, we don't talk about what dad makes, we don't talk about like that type of thing. And both and I had both my parents worked when I was growing up. So we had two income family, you know, except my. My dad had his, his army pay, until he got into the corporate world, and even then you're talking eighties, and so it's not like my dad started out at the top. He worked as well, but wasn't until his retirement was he making the kind of money that we all hoped to someday you know make. And that was well, after all of us had gone off to college and he they were. My parents didn't talk about how they saved, like I don't. I mean they they helped pay for college, but not a hundred percent, you know, of that $310,000, you know that. That's what we're talking about with the debt with my brother. We had some other minor debts student loan, a student loan that I actually used to go to school for it, you know. So stuff like that. So I actually helped pay for my education and worked when I was in college. After that 2005 incident not with my brother, but just after finding myself without a project. And so you know, yeah, we it was. My family dynamics is very much a keep to yourself attitude, and so we yeah, we didn't talk about money. So I know how to use, other than how to use a credit card, but no idea like what does that mean? Or pay, how you pay that back and that's.
Speaker 4:I can see how now that leads into your brother being able to in a sense, you know, obviously manipulate you and convince you to not talk about it with them. Because it was already the standard that was kind of set in your family that we don't talk about our money, we just keep it to ourselves, so like, so like for me, like from the outside, looking in, like, like it sounded crazy, like not to like talk to your parents about it. But obviously, knowing your family dynamic, it's not so crazy it's not crazy at all. It seems like that's what would happen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, wow, well, and you know there has to be something said too, because you know, Beth, when you reached out, I of course told Brandon about it that night and I was like 2005 was a different time. Right To your point, you know, these banks and lenders were like, oh, buy a car so you can get to campus. Like what? I mean that's predatory behavior, right, like that's. I mean, let's call a spade a spade.
Speaker 4:That is wrong. Well, also, I could tell you now, like since I work in finance, that a lot of the rules and regulations that are in place now are due to their late nineties, early 2000s.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah it's. I mean, they were literally just sucking you in and being like, yeah, I need a new car and I need this and I need the fanciest department, and I can just take out a loan. And, to your point, ben, it's like I don't know when I'm going to have to pay this off, or the terms or the compound, or that. Nobody understands any of it, right, we were just oblivious, especially, again, if you don't talk about it and you're not learning about it. We all know we didn't learn about it in school, which is a whole another conversation. I mean, so your brother, it was perfect timing, right. He knew exactly what to do and say to suck you into this idea.
Speaker 4:So I have a question as far as your relationship with your brother up to that point, had he ever done anything to make you think, alternatively, that this could be a possibility, or maybe shown his colors in some form or fashion? Because to me it just seems like all right. So like I had an uncle on my dad's side that has had issues in regards to the trust that he's able to have with other family members, but he had always kind of had that there and so therefore it was not very farfetched when certain things happened because he had kind of shown his colors early on. So I wasn't sure if that was the case or like I guess I just find it hard to believe that someone didn't maybe sprinkle a little something there so you could see, like I find it hard to believe that someone was just a great person and then completely changed Absolutely.
Speaker 5:So I'd say it's kind of half of one thing and half of another. So, was there? Was there signs in red flags? 100% there were. And there's also a very large age difference. It's almost a nine year age difference between myself and my middle brother and there's almost a 12 year age difference between myself and my eldest brother. And so you're talking things that happened when I was a kid that now, if I look back upon as an adult, I'll say, wow, like that was shady, like that was he. You know he did XYZ, he absolutely well, I was not the first family member he took money from he actually with my talking about, like my eldest brother, which he was very adamant of him, about me not discussing it with with our brother, my eldest brother, because Mike and so we, his name is, mike is my little brother, so Mike and my eldest brother had, they had exchanged money a very small amount. We're talking a couple of grand right In comparison Mike never paid.
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely, mike never considered that a small amount, but in comparison.
Speaker 5:No, no, no, Absolutely. I had to add to that my middle brother never paid my eldest brother back and my eldest brother vowed I mean literally vowed to his death that he would never give money to Mike again. And he again, given the age difference between myself and my eldest brother, he was growing a fee, he was married, he was growing a family, he was doing, and so it's not like he and I ever sat down and talked about, you know, money and that type of thing. I was a college kid and he was a. He was a dad.
Speaker 1:And so he was old and Ben's mind yeah.
Speaker 5:No, that makes total sense. And he and Mike had taken money from my grandfather, from my parents, from aunts and uncles and get all these. Like I was not the first for him to take money from.
Speaker 4:It's very interesting and that, since he had done all that, that literally no one of your family said hey, be careful.
Speaker 2:If you ever come to see masks for X, y and Z maybe they didn't know about it.
Speaker 4:I'm assuming. Maybe they didn't know about each other.
Speaker 1:Oh well, I'm before we get into that. I do want to say one thing sort of in Ben's defense. But Mike is a very charismatic person.
Speaker 4:We have to be? Yeah, I assume that yeah.
Speaker 1:And so, like he's the type of person that can talk you into, like I was, I always tell people like you're going to be handing over your shoes in a snowstorm and you think it's this great idea because he's talked you into it. And then you're like, okay, wait, maybe that wasn't the best decision because now I'm really cool, but he's surprising at all, he's really charismatic and he's really he was somebody we really enjoyed and so he's good at kind of getting people to do what he wants and sort of manipulating things. So I think everybody sort of had this sense and Ben's family of like yeah, that one instance didn't work out, but you know the next one, mike, because it's Mike and he's so good at things, and you know it's just easy to kind of believe him because he's so charismatic.
Speaker 5:There's a true crime podcast somewhere about the stuff that he's done, because on a slight, slight sidebar so we talk about, like the internet, right. So even after Mike got caught which I know we'll all get to in a little bit you know, after Mike got caught for this first time, even while he was in prison for the first time, he committed it again and he did it during a time period where there was internet. People did look him up. They asked him about his prison time and he still convinced them to give him more money.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's. I mean that's a skill in itself, right, I mean that's a. It's like if you used all of that talent and charisma for good, think of what you could do. But some people are always going to look for the quick win.
Speaker 4:They made a movie about it. Kiss me, if you can. Right, you're going to be in the Lardo.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, beth, take us to the day that you got served.
Speaker 1:So we were living in Arizona it was, I think it was a weekend, because I was home in the middle of the day and that never happens and Ben was working and the doorbell rang and I opened the door and there was this tiny little man there with this very weird looking envelope and he handed it to me. And I mean, I was, I had just turned 20, I turned 24 right after we got married. So I was 24, I did learn a lot about money, but I did not learn about lawsuits or what to do when somebody hands you something or you know. He was like, oh, you need to sign that you got this. And I was like, okay, well, I am receiving it, so I guess I'll sign that I received it. So I signed and took the envelope and went back inside and I opened it up and he did say you have been served. And I didn't know what that meant. My family is very conservative with money, so this is a. I've never heard of this happening in my personal life. This was like something that happened on TV. So I was kind of like, oh, okay, and then I opened it up and started reading and I was like, oh, this is like a, this is a real thing. And I tried to call Ben and he couldn't answer because he was working. And so I called his parents, who did not live very far from us in Arizona, and I got ahold of his dad and his dad was like, he answered the phone and he was very frazzled and he said I have to call you back, I have to call you back. And I was like no, I need to talk to you right now because something really weird just happened. And before I could even finish my sentence, he was like I have to call you back. The oldest brother just got served with a lawsuit and I was like oh, okay, and I just had to wait until somebody came home and was able to process with me what happened. And it was a really terrible few hours. But I think I was also naive enough that I was kind of like it'll be okay, this probably isn't that big of a deal. Oh, I wish I was that naive. Sometimes Now it's still a bit of a day, but I just had to wait and that was the day we got served.
Speaker 2:So, for clarity, what did it say? That you had defaulted on loans, or that Ben had defaulted on loans and you owe X amount of dollars, or was there any detail there?
Speaker 5:or did you have to call? a number so it was legal paperwork from an attorney's office with court dates and stuff on it. It was from one loan, and when it comes especially with you being in finance, is that we were being sued by one company for one loan. Now we then figured out and had to go back and started getting phone calls and threats of lawsuits from all the other companies that I had taken loans from. But it was from one financial institution that I had taken money from as a loan and had defaulted on for several years at that point, and they were suing me in court to get their money back.
Speaker 2:Okay, Now the older brother lawsuit. Did that also have to do with the middle brother? And it just was like everybody was getting served at the same time.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I mean everybody got served at the same time. Now his was different so at the time. So there's some interesting law stuff here. So my middle brother, so Mike had put the eldest brother in his address down as an acting agent in the state of Colorado so that way he could open. So the middle brother could open his businesses.
Speaker 1:Brandon knows what that is.
Speaker 2:He understood a big high role.
Speaker 5:So he also had no idea that your brother did that, so everybody was getting served and like blinded at the same time. You know, on top of that my eldest brother is married to a former attorney, and so she understood everything, was able to then go over it obviously, then start in its time her law license was active and she was an active attorney, and so she got onto Lexis Nexus and did her see? I mean, she started really pouring into research on what was happening and found every lawsuit, every criminal intent, every everything, and so that's when the family really started to understand the full picture. Wow.
Speaker 4:Good old Lexis Nexus. I did it at a law school. I was free. I definitely remember that.
Speaker 2:At what point did you realize the $175,000 from however many years ago had accumulated and grown to over $300,000?
Speaker 1:It took us some time. Yeah, I think it was when we pulled your credit report. Yeah, the sister, sister-in-law of the oldest brother, the attorney, as the started coming down, she was like you should probably check your credit report because feels like maybe there's some stuff going on and I don't think we had ever checked our credit reports at that point. And Ben's was like 15 pages because there were so many loans and then the loans had been like resold to other companies or companies were absorbed by other companies or whatever. So I remember I have a very vivid memory of opening it up and just being like we did mine first and mine was like half a page, that's like very petite little credit report. And then we opened Ben's and I was like this is page one, so there's more than one page, and it was just like line after line after line and we just totaled it up and that's how we knew.
Speaker 4:At this time, like you normally would. During this time period, you wouldn't have checked your credit score unless you had to and you were like purchasing a home or something of that nature. So it wasn't uncommon to be a young person. If you weren't buying a home or whatever, you really didn't know what your credit score was because you didn't check.
Speaker 5:And you're talking before. I mean, this was before free credit checks we actually had to use. So, talking to my eldest brother, he had a close friend of his who was in the mortgage industry and they essentially pulled our credit using his means. So we couldn't even get them for free. It couldn't get online anywhere. We had to ask for help.
Speaker 4:The younger people nowadays forget about those at that time period.
Speaker 2:Well, and now you have, you can get a rough idea. I know it's not super accurate, but most of our credit cards have a score that you can look at and it's probably somewhere in the ballpark. Give or take 20 points or so. But okay, I have to ask, beth, because you guys are newlyweds. You just got served, you're going down the rabbit hole. You realize the number is $310,000. You're a teacher. What's going through your mind, cause that's a lot of money, right? What are you? Where's your head in all of this?
Speaker 1:I think I had two kind of overarching thoughts that were occupying my brain and they were equal parts, so it was kind of I would vacillate between the two. One I was livid. I mean, livid is not a strong enough word, I don't know a strong enough word. I felt completely betrayed. I had so many questions and at the same time the questions didn't really matter because it was done right. So I was just really really livid. I had a really hard time even looking at Ben, because I just felt like this is my life too, you know, and I just it almost felt like a like getting served a life sentence, you know like, oh, you're gonna marry this guy and then you're also gonna get this enormous amount of money that you have to pay back, that you will never be able to pay back. And then the thought that went with that, the secondary thought, was I felt like my life was over. You know, I felt like in marrying Ben, like I was never gonna be able to have kids, I was never gonna buy a house, I was never gonna retire. I was having all these images of me being like 85 and being like okay, kids, listen up, we're gonna start men, because I wasn't gonna have to teach till the day I died. You know, like I just I really thought everything that I had wanted to do in my life you know, travel, save, buy nice things when I, you know, was more established in my career I felt like all of those things were over. And that was also feeding into my anger, because I wasn't just angry that I didn't know, I was angry that everything that I had wanted to do with my life wasn't going to happen. Those that's where my head was.
Speaker 4:Were you named in the lawsuit also, or was it just Ben?
Speaker 1:So there were a few lawsuits over a span of a few months, and most of them were just Ben, but there was one that I was listed in and we had an attorney and our attorney argued it in court and I won in getting my name off of it because since the loans were taken so many years prior to us getting married there wasn't, they couldn't prove that I benefited from these loans in any way. So I was mostly left off of things from that point forward, which was nice, but I was on one and that made me even more mad.
Speaker 4:I'm just gonna move on, so I was wondering about that cause, like I don't necessarily know about the procedures for serving someone for a lawsuit, but under my impression was that you had to serve the person the lawsuit was for, so them serving you seemed kind of weird because I thought they would have to give it to you, ben.
Speaker 5:Like I said it's not the case, your spouse can be served and that's an obviously marriage records are popular. Learn something new, yeah, and the other aspect of that is that can be again and more than probably any other married couple learned about community property law, learned about finance law, learned about consumer protection law? We did. We were very fortunate to have so used again, used family connections as much as families excuse my language much as family screwed us, Family also helped us in some ways not as much as many as I'd wanted, but when it came to like, hey, you need an attorney, my brother and my sister-in-law stepped up and said talk to this person. And they actually had a friend who was an attorney, who was in, specifically, consumer protection law, and so it was like made to be a little bit and he was. I mean to say he was fantastic. His law firm normally would have charged a retainer and he waived that for us and we were paid on contingency. And then he had two lawsuits of ours that he won and had had the other side pay our legal fees, and so you know, yeah, he was, and since he doesn't know we're doing this, I don't want to use his name or he's moved out of that practice now, but I want to give a shout out to our attorney, who was amazing at protecting and really protecting that, but then in turn, protecting us as well, in me and court.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's so good, ben, obviously I mean I don't know what this feels like, but I'm assuming anger, hurt, betrayal, I mean all the emotions, right. What you got home from work that day, what happened, what? Where was your head?
Speaker 1:There was a spicy wife waiting for him.
Speaker 2:And not in the fun and sexy way y'all oh. Yeah, so tell us all the emotions you went through.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I got off work that day, my phone I mean my phone had already been exploding and, of course, talking a time period where, you know again, there was no internet. The way you'd go to work these days is very different, of course. There was no, like Facebook. So it was very much a I didn't know what was going on until I turned on my phone and was like holy cow, there's something going on. You know, voicemails from my parents, voicemails from from my middle brother, voicemails from my older brother, voicemail. I mean it was like everybody got home, had started to sum up pieces together and, I will admit, first phone call I made was actually to my middle brother, who then tried to then explain everything away until you could hear his phone, you know, going off in the background and stuff, and his at the time wife, who was obviously very angry with him as well. It all really just kind of like came together. And so, yes, when I got home, beth, beth was angry. It was like I knew the moment I stepped in and saw, you know, the smoke coming out of her ears that I was, I was, there was nothing for me to do, I mean, and there was no way for me to, as much as I sat and apologized and apologized. I mean, what was I gonna? I mean there was nothing for me to say and I was trying to process all the numbers and everything as well and I was trying to. Then, you know, in the middle of getting yelled at trying to determine in my own mind of like, okay, how many numbers did I take? What were the numbers? Did I put that somewhere? You know? Do I still have that laptop? The laptop was from college, like, do I stick where's? You know, I was just trying to piece together everything while getting certainly dealing with the emotions of our marriage. That was.
Speaker 1:And I. I don't get angry that often, but when I do get angry I am like rapid fire. So I was like well, how much, and where's the loans and where'd you put the paperwork? And poor Ben is like I don't know, I don't know, like I haven't even taken your shoes off, like, oh, that helped me to help his feeling of like being really overwhelmed because he's trying to process this too, and then he's also it has me like in his face being like, what about this and what about this? And I want answers. And he's like, oh okay, hold on.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 4:I was gonna say you don't never ask just one question.
Speaker 2:No, I'm like a 20 questions Right now.
Speaker 4:I've never had this experience but pretty much, like you know, first thing in the morning it'll be like five questions back to back, like just who I am.
Speaker 2:Just who I am. Was there at any point? Again, you guys are newlyweds $310,000. Beth, you clearly put this together like if I stay, this is gonna take a chunk of our time and our plans and our livelihood and it's gonna take sacrifice. Did you guys go through a period of like I'm not doing this, I'm leaving, or was it always all right? I'm angry, but we're gonna figure it out. Let's get to work.
Speaker 1:For me. I definitely went through a time of thinking I was gonna leave. I don't think it would have behoove Ben to leave, because it would have all gone with him. Yeah, so I don't. Is that accurate to say Ben never thought about leaving because there was no gain for him? There would have been a lot of gain for me to leave. So yeah, I thought about it a lot, I talked about it a lot. I will say in those conversations Ben gave a lot of grace because he knew, you know, he knew he had messed up, he knew I was angry, he knew I had every reason to be angry. He knew he had let me down. He did not try and defend himself. He just kind of let me have my feelings and when I would talk about leaving he would tell me like I don't want you to leave. You know I love you. We just got married but I understand and I never felt pressured or obligated from him to stay. He really he owned everything that he did and made up for the fact that he didn't own it before and didn't tell me before he just he was like, yep, I messed up big time and if this is what you need to do, I will be really sad and I will owe a lot of money. But you do what you feel like you need to do.
Speaker 2:At what point did you say, okay, I'm not leaving, and let's move forward and let's pay the stead off? How long was that?
Speaker 1:Probably close to a year. I am not a quick decision maker in any aspect of life, like even at a restaurant. I will really study the menu and like really think about. I think Jessica and I are like soul sisters.
Speaker 4:She'll ask the waiter like what do you like? I'm like, what does it matter? What he likes, what do you like?
Speaker 2:I like options, I want your opinion, I get it.
Speaker 1:I get it, you know yeah so I mean and this is not breakfast, right, this is my life and my marriage. And so I gave myself permission to take as much time as I felt like I needed to have clarity in this situation. I was not going to run out and make a close or a quick decision about this. And I also I felt very torn because I don't just love Ben, I like him and I I mean, we started dating very quickly, but we have a very good friendship as well, and so there was a lot at stake with, like okay, he's made a really bad, bad decision, and this is I'm very hurt and I feel very betrayed and you know lots of emotions. But this is still my friend and this is still somebody that I care a lot about and somebody that I still believe in. And so I also wanted to kind of see it was almost like a test, like very teacher-y. You know, what has Ben gonna do with this? Like, how is he gonna react? How is he gonna handle this? Is he gonna convince me away? And you know, try and rationalize all of this Is he gonna own up to it? Is he going to change his behaviors with money, like? I really kind of wanted to see what path he was going down and then decide from there like, okay, so is that my path or is that not my path? The oldest brother gave me a book when I think everybody knew I was thinking about leaving. I don't remember telling anyone, but I think everybody was like we're gonna wait and see what happens. And he gave us the Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey and was like In your spare time, just read this book and just let me know what you think. I read it and I remember going to Ben and saying I don't know if I'm staying, but as I'm making this decision, you need to read this book and this is what we are going to do until I make up my mind. That was also a little test to see if he would be open to that or if he was going to be really stubborn and had his own way and, to Ben's credit, he read the book in like a week and when he was done he came to me and he was like you know more about money than I do, which is the first time Ben ever admitted that out loud to me and he said you are better with money and you are going to guide this whole process. As long as you stay and if you don't want to do that, that's fine, but I clearly am not the best equipped to handle this and you are better with money than I am, so you're going to guide me and tell me what to do and teach me, and I was kind of like that sounds great, let's see if that actually happened. And over the course of that year it did happen, okay.
Speaker 2:So at the end of that year he did.
Speaker 1:At the end of that year I felt like you know, this is still a really awful thing, but it was very clear to me that Ben was taking responsibility, was stepping up in every single way, was being really supportive of my feelings and my process and it felt like it was not the right thing to do to leave.
Speaker 2:How do you pay off $310,000 of debt? Because that's a house first off, right your newlyweds, your early to mid-20s, and how many years did it take to pay it off? Ten and a half, ten and a half, ten and a half.
Speaker 4:The reason I was thinking. That is because I'm thinking in reference to most people. Any of my clients that had that amount of student loan debt are either attorneys or doctors, so obviously that also comes with a significant amount of money that's being made. So to pay off that amount of money in 10 years is amazing, because a lot of people who have less, significantly less, don't necessarily pay that off in a 10-year period.
Speaker 2:I mean that turns a sacrifice, I'm sure.
Speaker 1:A lot of sacrifice. So, because I'm a teacher, ben made more money than I did. Everyone makes more money than I do. So we talked about cost-benefit analysis, of how we were going to bring in some extra funds to move things along, and we both decided that it would be smart for me to pick up a little side hustle of tutoring, which a lot of teachers do after school for a couple of hours. And then I worked every single summer for four years and I worked three jobs over the summer and the flip side of that was Ben only had one job, which a lot of people are like that is backwards. Ben should have been working three jobs and you should have had your feet up and been relaxing. But it worked. It was easier for me to pick up side hustles because I have summers off and I have set hours where I can do things in the afternoon. So I picked up a lot of extra jobs and the flip side of that was Ben took care of everything at home. When I came home, the expectation was dinner was made and on the table, laundry was done and folded, he was taking care of the dog, he was cleaning, so when I got home I didn't have to deal with any of that stuff. We've gotten a lot of opinions over the years about if that was the right way to handle it, but that was what we did, and every extra penny that I brought in we sent off to debt. And the other thing that we did was we stayed home a lot all the time. We found things to do at home that we enjoyed. We did a lot of games and cards and we took a lot of walks. We found ways to do things that were free, like we got library cards and we rented movies from the library and watched a lot of movies. We did a lot of reading. We did a lot of walking our dog. We became coupon masters and found ways to eat inexpensive meals and we did that. I think we did that really, really hardcore for like four years in Arizona and then we got then got transferred to Texas and we both got significant raises, and so I did not have to work any other jobs after that, but we still stayed home all the time clipped coupons. So we kept up that piece of it, but we didn't do the side hustles as much.
Speaker 4:I always say, like you know, people always have opinions about you, know from the outside of people situations, and I always say it doesn't matter what their opinions are. As long as you and the person that you're with on the same page is how you're going to do it and move forward, nobody else's opinion really matters.
Speaker 5:And it's interesting to us because when we go, we were doing that in Arizona. You know, again, we were in our twenties and we were trying to make adult friends and we had our friends from college. Of course they had were either in Colorado or scattered out across the nation, and so we didn't necessarily have them in Arizona, and so we were trying to make friends that are, in this case, in our synagogue, and we found ourselves in a position where people had the expectation that we would go out and would go to a show, we would go to the theater, we'd go out to the theater, we'd go to the theater, we'd go to the theater, and so it stopped. I mean just stopped, and so those people didn't know us and so they stopped calling. We literally lost people who would not associate with us because we wouldn't keep up the lifestyle. Now, our friends from college, who knew us, who knew what was going on and we had shared everything with them, they became our rocks. They were the people who call and asked how we were. They were the people that if they got a bonus, you know, every once in a while they'd send us a $50 gift card to go have dinner. Those are the people who now were paying them back by taking their kids out because of the fact that they spent time taking care of us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so do you feel like? I mean? So obviously it sounds like it was pretty isolating for a period of time because, yeah, you're young, you want to go out, you want to do all the things and you guys are like really changing your lifestyle to make sure that you can live the life you want in 10 years, right? Do you feel like that transparency of here's what's going on and here's why we have to live life like this? Do you feel like that was something that you were easily able to talk about and just share with people? Or did you only share it with people who you've known for a long time or people who've been around? What was that experience like? We told everybody Okay. So then people just weren't accepting and they were like no, we're not going to come do game night with you because we want to go out.
Speaker 1:I think it's really hard for people, especially in that age bracket, to understand like, wait, you're going to stay home and do a puzzle and we don't want to do that. That's not what most people are doing in their 20s. So I think it was hard for people to understand. But we had no shame. We would tell people at the grocery store. We were like hey, do you? Want to hear a story we were just open to sharing.
Speaker 5:I mean so when we went through the lawsuit specifically, of course you have to go through some some made it to. The three of them made it to the courtroom. There were three that actually made it to like a judge and a jury and we had to go through that process. And so you know you're talking about discovery, you're talking about deposition, you're talking about having to talk about it over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. And so that became a form of therapy and so, yeah, we got so comfortable with it and we're like we'll tell anybody, we'll tell you, and so I I admittingly, a little bit of fun with it is that you know stuff, like when, the when y'all connected, you know, you get to a point where you're like I know this is funny, like I know when saying this is just so shocking, and so we kind of watch people's faces because it's funny?
Speaker 2:I wouldn't. I wouldn't put it in the funny category, but it is shocking. I don't want anybody to go through this which is why I was like this is great, because there's definitely lessons to be learned here, right and like how can you avoid this? Where is your brother, your middle brother, in all of this at this time? Like is he living his life or where is he?
Speaker 5:So as going back to since that 11, 2011, 2012 time period where everything was truly falling apart and we were going through our stuff. He was dealing with essentially some legal concerns. He had taken some money and again, I can't actually go into complete details he had taken some money from his father in law. His father in law had gone through a medical issue and actually was incapacitated, and my middle brother had been named on some paperwork and he used that paperwork to then get money out of my father his father in law's business, his father in law's attorneys eventually found that we're like hey, there's a discrepancy, let's figure that out. And then, of course, when they figured out where it went, you know they sued him. They sued him. They actually called the FBI and he was chased. And you talk about like, catch me if you can. He was actually chased across state lines by the FBI to, you know, bring him to justice. And so he did. He went through a court. He spent one, five and a half year prison sentence, prison in federal penitentiary and then again, as I know it, earlier he had also then repeated what he had done with another person and then a set of people, and he's actually now serving his second penitentiary service with the Federal Prison Bureau, along with several charges that are pending in primarily the state of Florida, the state of Texas, for local and other jurisdiction issues, and he has served several instances of county county lock up in jail, also for other other financial crimes.
Speaker 2:Wow. And then you mentioned he had a wife and kids as well.
Speaker 5:No, no kids, I want to quit. No kids that we knew about, but no kids. What does? He had life. Now he and his wife did get divorced while he was in prison. That's actually and that was his second life to begin with, which first wife and first divorce had nothing to do with this, but he was the second wife and then they got divorced while he was in prison. Now we could all sit here and say, you know, yeah, she served him in prison and he deserved it. There's still some lingering questions and doubt about why they got divorced. They got divorced for legal reasons that they actually didn't want to get divorced, and so, yeah, but they did get divorced and he remarried, got a while while he was between person sentences. And again going back to my sister in law, being a former attorney and still keeps some of her lost stuff active enough to be able to access the research and so we actually do, every once in a while, check the court dates and check the see if he. So he is married for what I would say a third time, fourth time, at this point, a third time. Technically, he and his third wife are not divorced Now we don't know where she is or what's going on, but on paper they are still married.
Speaker 2:Wow Married in between prison sentences.
Speaker 4:Probably makes some people feel bad that like they're just regular, everyday good people and they couldn't find somebody, the person. The person I'm prison came, oh my.
Speaker 2:God, that's that character.
Speaker 4:It's weird like prison pen pal stuff.
Speaker 2:That's the charismatic part. Yeah, oh my gosh.
Speaker 4:So what type? Like, what is your relationship, if any, with your middle brother? Now, like, how did all that go down when you, I guess, really I guess in a sense confronted him about everything going on?
Speaker 5:It means not existent now it was not really as of right, even as of 2011, 12 and so when he went to prison. To be honest, my mental health state got a lot better when he went to prison because I didn't have to, didn't have to deal with him. He was, he was literally physically unable to deal with me Before that. Yeah, there were issues. There were issues around family. There were family events that we had to go to. There were family events that we had to go to where he still tried to keep up the lifestyle. He showed up to a family event and a rented and we didn't know it was rented, but it was a rented luxury car with a Rolex on his hand and we're sitting here going what am I missing? Like, you got caught in all this and we're the ones paying the price for it. And it caused a rift. I mean it truly just. I mean I don't want to say completely destroyed, but it separated our families into camps. There were those who supported him. There were those who said it was he made wayward decisions. There were those who said, even amongst closer family members that I'd like to say, who said that I was at fault, that I made that a choice to make that investment, and that I should have known better. And then in turn, you know it's actually took his side on that. Now I will say, and that's what we talk about, my eldest brother and his wife, the attorney a lot, because they were solidly in our camp.
Speaker 1:And still are yes.
Speaker 5:They made it abundantly clear to anybody in the family, out of the family that we were not, though, that Mike was the one at fault he took advantage of the situation and stole money from us and a lot of people and that we had done the right thing by making your mistake. We didn't pass that buck. We paid every dime and sent back to the banks for what I took.
Speaker 4:Where does, if you don't mind me asking you know where do your parents lie in this whole thing? Because I guess from their standpoint, it's hard because as a parent I can want to percent say that like I will always love my children, but there could be times like they did something that I can't support.
Speaker 5:that yeah, they supported him and they. There were arguments between my dad and I and into my parents and I. That got ugly, they got loud, they got probably borderline verbally abusive with each other because of this, because they took his side, they took my brother's side. There were points in time where my father and victim blamed and victim blamed myself for what had happened. There were times, you know right, we made the joke yesterday. Actually, we're talking about getting ready for today. My parents still support my brother by putting money on his commissary account for the prison and so yeah, they have also paid.
Speaker 1:they have paid all of his legal fees and they never paid anything for us ever.
Speaker 5:once we paid every one of our own legal fees.
Speaker 2:Wow, so is there a relationship with your parents?
Speaker 5:There is, there is now, and it took it opened up right. So anybody listening make sure you contact your therapist. Mental health is really important. Please don't, especially for male. It's not a bad thing, but yeah, I saw therapy. I sat down with a therapist for a couple of years and really unpacked all of this. Not just this, but just my relationship with my parents and what I went through, as you know, as a kid and a teenager, and that brought me clarity and I was able to separate. Now you know, have I quote unquote forgiven my parents for what they've done or how they've communicated with about this? I mean, it's hard for me to say yes, but I've come to a place where I can accept it.
Speaker 1:I think our son has been a very healing force in all of this, because Ben's parents are phenomenal grandparents and so I think we sort of compartmentalize things. You know, they are great grandparents. Our son adores them and their dogs and they adore him and anything that we need ever for him. They are there in a heartbeat and so we sort of, you know, kind of live in that, in that bucket and there's a separate bucket over here of things that have gone wrong, things that have happened that you know have been hurtful to both of us, and we just kind of leave that bucket over here. I think for us, becoming parents, we have a better understanding of really what a difficult position they were in and I'm not defending them, not helping them, because I think that they should have, but I understand why they help their other son. I understand how hard that would be to see your child as a criminal. You know, to see your child as predatory, that that would be so heart-wrenching as a parent, and so I think we both have a new level of understanding, not necessarily agreement, but just understanding of that's really hard, you know, no matter, at the end of the day this is still their child, ben is still their child.
Speaker 2:It's a very, very hard position for them to be in and I think, also since we've paid it off and are living the life that we wanted to live, I think it's easier to let some of that slide off now, because we sort of are like well, we won, so it's okay, yeah Well, I can't even imagine to how much I mean you guys obviously seem like an awesome couple, but how much that sacrifice and those years together doing puzzles and games and clipping coupons I mean that is talk about bonding and strengthening your relationship right and like if you can make it through that, with that trauma and that betrayal and all the sacrifices you've had to make to get to where you are now, you guys can do anything right.
Speaker 4:I also think that sometimes I feel that way. I also think sometimes and I am in an important agreement with you that is not necessarily right, but sometimes parents choose to support the child that they feel needs the most help. It's not the one that's most right. They might have viewed you, ben, as you're going to be okay, because we know who you are as a person. You're going to get through this. Your brother Not so much. I've only seen that. I'm saying that because I've seen that with mom, how my mom was with her parents and her siblings.
Speaker 5:So that that's the running theory starting between myself and my eldest brother. My eldest brother got treated like the eldest and, of course, was born in a time period where my dad was solely in the military, my mom was a teacher, and so finances were different for him and what he went through growing up. My middle brother was born with some health complications, and so there was the running theory as part of that is the reason why he's the golden child, because they had that instance where they thought they were going to lose him and then medical science saved him and so now he's still here. And then, of course, on the baby, and so we talked about the age difference. I was actually planned, it was not an accident, and so, you know, I got treated like a little bit with the baby and of course, I came along at a time period where my parents were in a much different financial situation than they had previously been with my brothers, and so I, you know, consider and say I got more or whatever. But yeah, there was, there was a lot of complications around that I will also say, you know, I'm getting very honest, especially after going through therapy, part of our decision to for me on my side of only having one child is watching that family dynamic. So right now I don't have to choose. I don't have to choose between one son over the other, one son over a daughter I have. I have one child who I can support, you know, for the rest of his life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I do. I want to be mindful of time. So obviously we're a financial literacy podcast, so I we do have some notes that Brandon is going to share for anybody who's listening who maybe has been approached about a business venture or, you know, letting family and friends have money to grow money, loan money. Whatever that situation is, what do people need to know and understand when it comes to making an investment or giving people money towards a business?
Speaker 4:Well, I'm actually going to switch it up a little bit. Oh, okay, I'm going to ask you know, beth and Ben, you know, obviously I've never been through the experience, so I'm if I'm talking about, I'm strictly speaking from you know theory, you know what? If, what type of advice would you get to someone having gone through all this, to you know better situation, to make sure that the same thing doesn't happen to them that happened to you guys?
Speaker 5:Ask the questions and even if it's family in, even me really like, even if it's somebody you're like this person would never steamer on ask him anyway. Like, just ask the questions and if it seems too good to be true, it is. You know, again I talk about. If this had been somebody off the street who had come to me and said the things that my brother had said to me, I would have been like you're crazy, go away Like I'm not giving you anything. But it wasn't, it was my brother. And so again, if it's somebody you trust, ask the questions, ask for documentation. That's the other thing. That really in court is the reason why we had to pay it back. There was zero documentation between me and my brother saying that this was a business agreement, that there was an investment, there was any that type of thing. So have documentation. If there's no pay port, don't do it. Seek out experts. We were fortunate enough to be able to have again somebody in the legal field who could help us out at a discounted rate and not expect money up front. But there are other avenues that you can go get expert advice. Many law schools will hold programming. That way you can speak to an actual attorney and someone who actually knows the law with either for no cost or low cost. So I seek out the experts, financial advisors again. There's lots of programs where you can talk to somebody a little bit of cost and I would say do it.
Speaker 2:I only have one piece of advice.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, my piece of advice is from the financial standpoint. It's it's awkward and it's not super like romantic and sexy. But if you are planning to spend your life with somebody there, those are conversations you need to have prior to getting married. You know how. How do you manage money? What are your views on money? How did you grow up with money? It's really uncomfortable and we see with a lot of people that we have met over the years. People just don't talk about it and I know it's still a big reason why people you know, argue and marriages don't work out. But have the conversation ahead of time because you just never know what somebody grew up with or you know what somebody's views are or what somebody's product score is. You know you. Just those are things you need to talk about and be aware of if you know you're going to tie your life to somebody.
Speaker 2:We just came up with a document. If you subscribe on the website, it'll get emailed to you 44 conversation starters to talk about money with your partner. Right and it's not all. What's your credit score? And what about this? And some of it's what's your first money memory? Or if we won the lottery tomorrow, what's the first thing you would do? Right, it's all kinds. Some of it is what's your credit score, what's your you know? How many credit cards do you have with a balance? And others are who you know. If you want a million dollars and you had to give it to charity, what charity would you give it to? Right? I mean, just have the conversations, but best to your point, so many people don't, right, you talk about everything else except for, except for money. So I think that's, that's great advice, and if it sounds too good to be true, it's because it is right. Like that's bottom line You're not going to wake up a millionaire tomorrow. It's just not going to happen, otherwise we would all be doing it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you guys, definitely you touch on some real key ones, like some of the other ones that I would maybe add is that I always tell people that you need to. When you're working with family members, you do need to treat it as if they're not a family member in a business exchange. So, even though you have a trust level with that person, treat them as if there's someone off the street and have them convince you the same way. And, like you said, document, document, document. Always make sure that there is some type of formal legal protection when you're, you know, having these interactions, even with family members. The bare basics that I would sell someone in any type of investment do you understand the investment? Do you understand how you make money, what needs to happen in order for you to get a return, what does the expected time frame for you to potentially have this return? And then also, what are the risks associated with this investment that could cause you to lose your money? I mean, so many people invest in things on a daily basis that they have no idea about and I'm going to throw out the easiest one is people with cryptocurrency, no idea what it is, no idea how it functions, and continue to invest in it. So I always say make sure you understand the investment, and all the different things that you know coincide with that.
Speaker 2:What about if you lost the money that you're investing? Are you still OK?
Speaker 4:Do you have to invest to begin with? Yeah, does it affect your?
Speaker 2:portfolio. Does it affect your goals? Does it affect you know what you have in the bank? Yeah, I always say you lose it.
Speaker 4:I always say, if you were to invest money, you need to have the assumption that if I was to lose all this money that I just invested, is it going to affect my day to day life, because if the answer is yes, you do not need to invest.
Speaker 2:Or will I be angry?
Speaker 4:I mean, I'm always going to be angry when I lose money, so I don't like losing money.
Speaker 2:With people who don't mind, you know, gambling away their money and losing it.
Speaker 4:I lost fifty dollars. I'm not happy.
Speaker 1:Something that came out of this for us that's another kind of ties into that is we talk all the time and we're going to make some type of purchase about what is it? Is it going to bring us joy? Because I don't like to spend money. I am a saver at heart, I have always been a saver, I am still a saver, and so if we're going to spend money, is it going to bring us enough joy that I'm OK losing that money? Or is it sort of like I don't know that I'm really going to enjoy that? And if we're not both 100 percent, yes, we don't spend the money because it's not going to bring us the joy. And then I'm going to be mad that I spent that money. And even if it was just a dollar, it wasn't worth that dollar lost to me. So beyond the same page to about you know what are you spending that money on and what is it? What is it bringing to your life?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I just had a friend yesterday actually say it was more about like where you spend your time and your energy and who are you spending your time with, and you know where are you going and what are you doing. But she basically was like, if it's not a hell, yeah, it's a no, right, like if you're not super enthusiastic, if you're not like yes, oh my gosh, I don't want to miss out on that, or I, you know, I've got to have that, or this trip, or whatever it is. If it's not like I'm fully in, then it's a no, and I think that's. You know, I thought that was a great, great approach. Well, beth and Ben, I mean I just want to say thank you for reaching out, for sharing your story, for being open and vulnerable. I'm so thrilled that you guys made it through such a turmoil of a time. I mean that is just really really wild that that happened and that you guys, you know, decided to stay together and really just pay off every single last penny and made your relationship stronger. And, you know, you have a beautiful son and you can teach him all the lessons that you guys didn't learn as as children or as adolescents, right, so that he doesn't get roped into that, and I'm glad that you know, ben, that you got the help that you needed. I'm a strong believer in therapy. I've been in therapy, I think everybody you know there's always something to talk about. So therapy, you know we believe in it and I'm glad you guys made it out on the other side and are now living the life that that you always dreamed of. So congratulations on the hard work and the sacrifice that you put in, and it sounds like you eliminated some people in the process that don't need to be around and don't deserve you guys in their lives. So congrats on eliminating those people to and that you have the people in your life that supported you through a really tough time I couldn't imagine. So congratulations on all of that.
Speaker 1:I want to give a really quick shout out to my dad. The last seven months of us paying off our debt, we lived with my dad here in Colorado and he paid 90% of our bills while we were looking for a house and we were able to make our last few payments while we were living with him and then celebrate that with him while we were there. So shout out to my dad.
Speaker 2:Yes, well, that's awesome. I mean, I can't imagine having no support through that. So you have to hold on to the people that supported you to make it through. So shout out to dad and congratulations for making it through probably the toughest time you're ever going to have, right. So thank you for sharing your story with us today. We appreciate you being here.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for having us. This was great yeah.
Speaker 2:Don't forget. Benjamin Franklin said an investment in knowledge pays the best interest. You just got paid until next time. Thanks for listening to today's episode. We are so glad to have you as part of our sugar daddy community. If you learned something today, please remember to subscribe, rate, review and share this episode with your friends, family and extended network. Don't forget to connect with us on social media at the sugar daddy podcast. You can also email us your questions you want us to answer for our past the sugar segments at the sugar daddy podcast at gmailcom, or leave us a voicemail through our Instagram.
