Jay

Because we're going to flip this and be like, welcome to dumb brown hair. We're going

I tried to warn you that I am just a ramblin' man. Lord, I was wondering.

That's so real.

Yeah.

All right. All right. All right. They had two hits.

Okay.

You've never heard of Mbop? You're young. You're young. I can already tell.

I already know how old you are.

I also take that role. I like that role better than the hot older guy.

100 fucking percent. Literally, I had a conversation with someone the other night. He's like, you don't know Hanson? All right.

Oh, no.

I like that. I like that. Am I wrong, people in the room?

Are we wrong here? Okay, cool. Cool. We're on the same page.

Thank you.

Yeah, it has.

Yeah.

100%.

call me afterwards i'm like i gotta get past some of this previous manifesting that i've been doing yeah clear the slate told me that like uh 20 years ago clear the slate so if you're jerking off to celebrities you're manifesting celebrities you see that you know so i'm thinking i'm thinking maybe the therapist was wrong about the whole like start of the trauma i think we just actually found the reason

Uh, yeah. Wasn't the like mom thing. It's like what you've been.

I love you. Look at, she is good. You have my glasses.

Come on. Come on. Come on.

I didn't want to give you a shit. Yeah. Um,

100%.

What?

Yeah.

My last one's called the Anne Frank sandwich story. Hello, I love you all. Let's fucking go. For the past 10 years, I have been the proud stepmom to Ella, 20, and Sam, 23. And I myself have a pretty rad stepmom. This story took place when Ella was around seven. My husband and I had been struggling to get Ella to eat the lunches we packed her for school. The excuses were rampant.

And they can be about anything at this point in life. Yeah. I mean, fuck it, you know? Truly. Would you like to go first? Sure. This one's called Creating New Fears for My Child. Oh. Hello from Virginia. In a recent hometown, y'all asked for our own trash parenting stories, and I am finally in there. Yeah. I was 21 when I had my first child, so basically a baby raising a baby.

Ran out of time, didn't have a fork, an alien invaded the lunchroom, etc. It was a temporarily frustrating time in our lives, to be sure, and many grapes were sacrificed. One day after school, Ella was telling me about her day and what she learned. As she did so, her excitement grew. She wrote a book. She's famous. As if the subject were a pop culture celebrity.

As I listened, it did not seem as if said historical figure's whole story had been told. And I started to wonder what the fuck to say to help her understand the horror and atrocity Anne Frank endured without crushing my sweet child's innocence. Yeah.

I asked her a few follow-ups as she unpacked her things, and we delicately made our way around the topic until it seemed she started to grasp the tiny bits of reality being sprinkled in, and her fangirl tone became a little more balanced. How do you?

I'm sure she was like, could I do that? Totally. Yeah. Deciding not to totally ruin her afternoon, I suggested she go outside and play. As I unpacked her lunchbox, I was once again greeted by an uneaten sandwich. Taking a breath, I went out back and simply asked why she hadn't eaten that day. The usual response ensued, but this time it broke me and exasperation won.

Skipping the reminder about her health and being able to focus in class, not bothering to mention food waste for the millionth time, I simply held up the rejected sandwich and said, all caps, Do you know who would have eaten this? Anne Frank. Her little face crumbled, and thus one of my worst slash best parenting stories was born.

She's in college now, and we both laugh whenever I humbly tell this story. I'm fortunate to have built great relationships with both kids, thus continuing to dismantle the wicked stepmother trope. But I do still hate wasting food. Winky emoji. Thanks for everything, R. Ugh.

We want to hear your fucked up stories because we've told you all of ours.

We've done it. We've given it to you. It's your turn at My Favorite Murder at Gmail. If you want to watch this video. Is that it? No. Oh. I thought that was it.

You're mean.

And somewhere along the way, I started joking with her about, quote, dropping her off at the fire station. My mom did a similar thing. Because they have the baby drop boxes, and I always thought it was a joke. We even joked about how she would have to tuck her knees because she was probably getting too big for the box. Oh.

That like sinus clearing feeling. That's insane. Yeah.

Okay, now, please. My favorite murder in Gmail. This is all on video that we're going to put up in the fan cult if you want to watch it. Oh, yeah.

And don't get murdered. Goodbye. Elvis, do you want a cookie?

Our senior producer is Alejandra Keck. Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo. This episode was mixed by Liana Squalacci.

And follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at My Favorite Murder and on Twitter at My Fave Murder. Goodbye.

One day when she was about five years old, when I dropped her off at her on-base daycare, they informed me that the fire department would be doing an annual walkthrough later in the day. Okay, cool. No big deal. Until her daycare provider called me a few hours later because when my daughter saw the fire truck out front, she ran into a closet screaming, no, don't take me. I'll be good.

That's right. My daughter thought the fire department had come to pick her up and take her away. She was hysterical. Turns out I had successfully made her terrified of all firefighters. Good news, she's now 15 and no longer scared, but it was super fun explaining to her daycare provider that I was actually a terrible parent and to please not report us.

Thank you guys for all that you do and keeping me company on long drives into work, Cecily. And then it says, good luck on the pronunciation. I just go with whatever these days. Looks like Cecily. Cecily or Sicily?

I'm mad.

Okay, just found out my uncle's death was a murder. All the requisite pleasantries and compliments. I'm from a large East Coast Puerto Rican family of murderinos. My abuelo's grandparents were married for almost 70 years before abuelo became an ancestor. Isn't that a beautiful way of saying he passed on? Yeah. And I am the oldest of 16 grandchildren.

Several of us kids grew up on a heavy dose of diagnosis murder, 2020, CSI, and the list goes on. Diagnosis murder. Recently, I think I uncovered our family's murderino origin story. When I was growing up, our relative Rosa, and it says all names changed, would occasionally come visit from Puerto Rico with her two kids, Letty and Roberto.

Rosa's relation to us was unclear, but I assumed that she was a distant aunt. During their visits, they would go to the local cemetery where Rosa's husband, my assumed uncle, was buried. I always wondered why he would be here instead of in Puerto Rico." Cut to a few weeks ago. A handful of the family was at Abuela's house pouring through old albums and bins of pictures.

My sister pulls out an 8x10 portrait of a handsome young man that looked like it was from the 60s. Who's this? She asked. Oh, that's Javier, Rosa's husband, my Abuela said solemnly. You know, she said, turning to me, they killed him. I instantly had about a million questions and went to work trying to get them all answered.

So here's the story I was able to get from my abuela, my mom, and a free trial to a newspaper website. In the mid-80s, Rosa unfortunately had a miscarriage. Javier, who was my abuelo's cousin, that's how they're related, dropped off a young Letty and Roberto at my abuelo's house so he could go be with Rosa in the hospital. It was the last time any of our family would see him alive.

His body was found in a field the next day. He was 38 years old. Oh, my God. Nearly two years later, three suspects were arrested and one was eventually convicted. He was also convicted of killing a cab driver a few weeks after Javier's murder and is suspected to be involved in a few other murders. After the trial, Rosa took the kids and moved back to Puerto Rico. So this happened in the U.S. ?

Yeah. By all accounts, she was never the same. Apparently, the murderer was up for parole in 2019 and my uncle spoke at the hearing on behalf of our family. Everyone kept it quiet because they didn't want Rosa to find out. We're unsure of what the outcome was, but COVID hit shortly thereafter and the murderer died in prison.

I found his obituary and it's clear his family loved him very much, just as our family loved Javier. That's like a really beautiful sentiment. Yeah, it is. Yeah. I've been musing about what could make a 23-year-old man who was full of potential go on a robbery and murder spree, but this email is long enough.

The whole ordeal was traumatizing for my family, and my theory is that it created a generational anxiety that fuels our interest in true crime. Or maybe it's just a horrible story that I feel the need to wrap up nicely. Either way, stay sexy and don't carjack people, Jay, she, her.

That's a classic hometown.

This email makes it clear that Jay has a really big heart. You know what I mean? I totally got that just from the story being told. Right.

Ha!

No. Yeah.

No, we did not.

Oh, well, he's like really sensitive and kind of like, he's like delicate today. He's like very delicate. I am. You're picking up on a vibe. You're super delicate. We know who you are. Backwards hat kind of vibe. Like, it's great. Took it off. Hair getting a little long. He's an artist. Little. He's an artist and he didn't get much sleep last night. It's like Crystal Gale over there.

Bellissima. Okay.

Not too much. Just living life, I guess. What's going on, brother? Yeah, so I went through a divorce. That was final last July. My ex-wife, she originally left the marriage coming upon two years now. We have two daughters. Right now, they're both to be four and eight this year. The thing I'm

Still struggling a lot with is the fact that we have 50-50 custody, and I'm having a hard time with the fact still of just being separated from my daughters. I still hold a lot of anger towards that part of it. I mean, their mom, she stepped out. She had an affair and all that. And that, okay, I got over it. It is what it is. It happened.

But it's just the fact of being separated from my daughters, knowing that they're still so young. And the rest of their childhood, I can only be a part of their lives 50% of the time. Yeah. So I don't want to live with this kind of feeling that's been in my stomach the rest of my life. I want to get to a place where I can be okay.

But it's been a couple years now, and I still hold that anger and just that feeling that's been in my stomach that I just can't seem to get over. Man.

She, she's with the guy that she had an affair with. Um, Basically, as soon as she left, she moved right in with him. My girls didn't know this guy. And I guess to kind of throw another layer onto that is, you know, how do I even get okay with another guy being kind of another fighter figure in their lives? Yeah. I struggle with that too. Go ahead. Yeah.

I'm just going to say, you know, going over the last two years, people say it's just a new normal. You get used to it, but it is nothing no more about it. So it's like how you get used to something like that.

No, I think you're hitting it on the head pretty well there. I mean, I know, I guess I can kind of... I agree with that because even just dealing with her mom, I still get anxious. That's it. I tense up. I hate having to have any kind of communication with her.

I think it comes from, so during the time, um, probably the first year, um, of us being separated, she was back and forth with this guy quite a bit. And when she wasn't with them, we were able to be, to be cordial and, you know, talk through things when she was with them. I was the enemy. Uh, they, they did a lot to just disrespect me as our girl's father.

She alluded to me as her father, more him. Give me an example. So there was one instance where one of my daughters had pneumonia. She had to stay overnight at the hospital. And so I let the staff there know, hey, the mom's coming with this guy, just so you know, he and I, we don't get along. Um, it's best to keep us separate or whatever.

Because he always has to make comments towards me. Um, um, like for instance, like when this happened, um, and then when I spoke with him, um, he, he, I, he could still see me and, uh, He was like, thanks for that. Not allowing me to come in the room right now. I was like, you're not their dad. Of course. He goes, I am their dad. It was what his response was. Wow. Okay.

So things like that, just to try to dig at it even further. So let me ask you, this is a hard question.

I guess of the anxiety that I get when I was around them during that time. Okay. There was other stuff that's happened up until then. Um, so it, like, before all this happened, I was, I was never anxious for nothing. I was carefree.

Yeah, and that's where I'm stuck. Okay. I don't know how to... I got you there.

Yeah, yeah. I've actually had thoughts about just saying, hey, let's throw the hatchet, what happened happened, and kind of move on from there.

Right. Yeah. I mean, I do feel like if she was trying to come back, I wouldn't. You think about it. Yeah, I only say that because within the first nine months of her being back with this guy, I took her back twice out of about six or seven times. And told her to take off again. And so I told myself, you know, I would never do that.

And just seeing how heartbroken my older daughter was when she did it again, I was like, I'd never put him back. That's right.

Yeah.

congress member i mean i think jay just puts it accurately there what do you make of all of this and especially with the news now that mike wall's national security advisors i guess what he's got promoting yeah he got moved to a different position he's now the united states he has to be confirmed but he's the united nations ambassador now

after 100 days of this dumpster fire of a presidency even trump voters right now are speaking out publicly and saying what an absolute mess they're talking about the disaster trump's inflicted on the economy the disaster donald trump's inflicted on our alliances and also just the lack of leadership in the white house is stunning to a lot of these trump voters let me introduce you to a guy named jay lives in uh pennsylvania

You know, as the ranking Democratic member of the intelligence community, you're able to see a lot of sensitive documents. I know there's things that you can't talk about. But while we have you on the podcast, I just want to hear from you just generally, like, how bad is it right now?

And what should the American people know in terms of what keeps you up at night that you can share based on the way this Trump regime has handled things?

Like we know the Houthis have already shot down six, seven Reaper drones. I, you know, do we know one way or another with the lack of good data coming to us now and with all of the manipulation how to accurately assess something like that well how is that happening or if we're looking towards you know getting accurate data in ukraine or elsewhere you know is there a mechanism now where

The sharing of this data is still in a way that you feel good about the data on the intelligence community? Or do even you have concerns now based on the fact that there are Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, and all of these people that you're not even getting the right data to assess this stuff?

And here's what he has to say about the whole Signalgate scandal. I mean, he's just coming at it from a very common sense angle. And he's like, wait, what are you doing? You're having classified conversations on your cell phone. This is a Trump voter right here. Let's play it.

Let's take a look at, you mentioned the, even Mike Walsh, while he was in the cabinet meeting, was either on a signal or some app. And when you zoom in, you can see the conversations that he's having. I mean, you see a conversation with J.D. Vance. I have confirmation from my counterpart it's turned off. He's going to be here.

Even Rubio, you can see something about there is time, fully there is time. Now look, We don't know what that reference is, but there, I mean, you may, I don't, but people may know what that reference is. And for all we know, there is time has major implications in a negotiation that's taking place somewhere, right? Where, you know, I have confirmation from my counterpart.

Could be, these could be life and death things. I know that, I know that as a podcaster, I'm not showing my phone around like other than to show that image. Why do they not?

Let's just shift gears, talk about the economy. Let me show you another clip of Jay. By the way, Jay is a laid off federal government worker as well who voted for Trump. He worked in the IRS tax advocacy division. He was fired. And there's another part of the clip that I'm not going to show where He every day he wakes up to see if he's going back to work or not.

And he misses the team that he worked for. And he's not sure even what his status. It's like the least efficient thing ever. And people should go to NBC News 10. Watch that in Pennsylvania. But let me show you this clip, because on the economy, he's like it shows you the difference between Main Street and Wall Street. He's like he's like, what's even going on here?

Like, I didn't think it was going to be this way. Let's watch this clip.

for President Trump. What were you hoping that he would do?

Congressman, when you hear that, to me, that's just the reality. Donald Trump can say egg prices are down 87%, which they're not. He can claim gas is $1.98, which is not. But that's what's happening out there, huh?

So it... Were you bothered by the first signal chat issue that came out with the information with the reporter in that chat?

Congressman, let's just talk also, when I have someone like you on here, oftentimes an interviewer comes in with a series of questions, but you're seeing things that I'm not seeing.

So I often ask now at the end of these interviews, is there something that you think is just not being discussed out there that you think deserves to get more attention right now that you're focused on and you want the American people to focus on?

First member, Jim Himes. We'll leave it at that. We'll get you back on in a week or two. Keep us updated on what's going on.

Everybody hit subscribe. Let's get to 5 million subscribers.

I wanted to play that clip of Jay because he says it so simply. As I've always said, this shouldn't be about Democrats, Republicans. This shouldn't be pundits overcomplicating this. It's like, what the hell are you doing? What are you doing? Let's bring in Democratic Congress member Jim Himes, ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee.

So my wife and I are debt-free other than our home. And recently my grandmother passed and left us a small inheritance. It was about, after taxes, roughly $70,000. Her wishes were that she wanted to leave her legacy with going towards our children's education. I have a sixth grader and a third grader. We've been funding their college funds since the beginning.

My sixth grader has roughly $75,000 in his. My third grader, she has roughly $60,000 in hers. Wow, good job. And the question is, though, would we be better off... I mean, I want to honor my grandmother's wishes, but will we be better off paying down our house? That's the last debt we have. That's kind of where we're at in the baby steps, trying to get the house paid off.

Well, I don't know if I have college covered. I guess that's the secondary question. When is it enough? When do you have enough in their college funds? We're continuing to contribute to their college fund every month as part of our budget.

Yeah, I can't remember exactly what it was, but just, I mean, on the rough numbers right now, right? If it doubles every seven years, it's 150 and, you know, probably 150 for each of them, maybe potentially more, I think, but we'll continue to contribute. But I, so if that's enough, then if we're already, if we're already in the, and then again, I know education costs could change.

I get all the other.

We're splitting it $500 a month is what we're doing, $500 a month split between the two of them in our budget.

It makes sense. It makes sense for my question, and you're afraid you're going to leave yourself short. Is it enough still, I guess? I guess that goes back to the calculator question.

Well, the hope is if they went to grad school, then there would be enough to carry on to a graduate degree afterwards or something if you could continue to fund it more.

Hello. Merry Christmas. Thank you for taking my call.

Yeah. So I just received a promotion at work and the new compensation package makes me ineligible to contribute to the company 401k plan. So they've offered a different plan Pre-tax dollars, a small match, but it's unqualified. I'm curious what your thoughts are on unqualified plans and if this is the right.

No, they have told me that if the compensation exceeds a certain amount, the plan is not able to be contributed to.

um evidently so so i can't yeah so i can't contribute to the 401k anymore so explain to us what your options are again sure so they've offered a different retirement plan pre-tax dollars a small company match but it's unqualified so it's unfunded uh that gives me pause and i'm curious what your thoughts are on those types of plans and should i contribute what are they invested in do you know

The rate of return is based on a specific bond fund. I don't have that in front of me. Recently in the last year, it was about 5%.

It is pre-tax.

So the new compensation package base is $165,000 with a potential up to $250,000.

It is 50% of the first 6%. 50% of the first 6%. Okay. Okay.

That was my thought, but I was just looking for a second opinion. Thanks for all your info.

Oh, gosh.

Well, your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. I mean, let's not forget that. I think Christianity is unique in that of all the religions in the world, it actually has the highest view of the human body in the physical world. and particularly that God incarnated and came into a human body, and that the Holy Spirit now lives in the bodies of believers, Romans 8, 1 Corinthians 6.

There's a lot of verses in the Bible about that. Your body's a temple of the Holy Spirit. That's a big deal.

And how long ago was that? You kept it off for years. How long ago was that, Jay? Oh, good night.

It's that old song that goes, it's summertime and the living's easy. Have you guys ever heard that, by the way? Nope. Well, I'm here to tell you that it's summertime and the living is not easy because Jill's got me out in the yard and we are redoing our pool area. But thank goodness for FastGrowingTrees.com. These guys are making it a lot easier for me to re-landscape my yard.

I think so. He's Cajun. I mean, his boy is hardcore.

Fast Growing Trees is the biggest online nursery in the U.S. with thousands of different plants and over 2 million happy customers. Al, you've bought palm trees, and what else did you get? A fruit tree?

Oh, I love that. Well, I got the shade trees, but I'm obviously going to order a lot more plants this week from FastGrenTrees.com, and they offer actually a wide variety of plants. As we mentioned, they have fruit trees, privacy trees, they have flowering trees, shrubs.

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Yeah, then he drains the beer. He wears like a holster with like two beers in it, and he's very aggressive in his cooking. He does a jambalaya, and he's got his paddle. He's like hitting the pan, and he's screaming. I mean, it's intense.

What does he say? Hit it with that two-step.

Cajun two-step.

Don't slander celestial beings. Even the archangel Michael did not bring a slanderous accusation against the devil when he was speaking over the body of Moses. This is Jude.

But he does all the – he does the cracklings. I mean, he does anything that's like Louisiana cooking. I mean, he's got the recipe for it, and he – turtle soup. He does the – I mean, I've watched him quite a bit, and at the end of each – Of his recipes, he says, put it on a crocodile, and he puts it on a saltine cracker, and he takes a bite of it.

But to be fair though, I do think that like, that's a good point. But like I preached on this this week, last week, we're going through Exodus and there's a, Exodus 3, there's a scene where Moses, he's at the burning bush, right? And Pharaoh in the book of Exodus represents the evil one. He represents everything that's evil. And God's instruction to Moses is not go run from the devil.

Go run from Pharaoh. He says, I want you to go confront Pharaoh. And it reminds me of that what Jesus told Peter when he said in Matthew 16, I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I'll build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Now, why do you have a gate? You have a gate to protect your fortress. It's to keep people out. The kingdom of heaven is storming.

the gates of hell, and the gates of hell will not prevail against the onslaught of the kingdom of God. And to me, the power is in Jesus. The power, we say the Lord rebuke you, but when we're coming on behalf of the Lord, we're not running from evil. The kingdom drives through evil and conquers it. It's a different way to look at it.

I've called the hotline a few times.

He got called up to the bigs from duck call room.

I've called. I couldn't figure out the brisket situation because I'd made a couple on my Traeger, and I just couldn't quite figure it out. So I called Jay on the last one.

Well, that's why the word respect, I think, is a good term to use because I've actually, I know what you're hitting on, Chad, and I've had this conversation this week about a certain topic where somebody was concerned about that someone had brought a demonic spirit into a small group and that

had imparted almost like this demon on somebody else just by their very presence and the other person was a spiritual believer and i'm like no like we're not like it's not a virus that we're like you're living in fear like we're not walking around someone's going to throw a demon on you like if you have the holy spirit living in you like you are a child of god you are like you are in his hand and you may you want to invite a demon in that's a different discussion

but no one's going to throw a demon on top of you. Are demons real? Yes. Is the demonic world real? Yes. But we shouldn't over-realize this. There is a tension here, and I was reminded of this quote. I just looked it up from one of my favorite books called The Screwtape Letters by C.S.

Lewis, where he kind of paints this really incredible picture of what kind of spiritual warfare looks like, because the book is about a head demon, with his protege demon, and he's coaching him on how he's going to go after the soul of this individual guy.

And one of the things that Lewis writes in the book, he says, there are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.

The idea is that, like you mentioned, some people make a living off this, conjuring up these fears. We have to rest in the fact that we do serve a God who has a kingdom that cannot be shaken anywhere. and will not be destroyed. Daniel chapter seven, right? And it goes through the entire New Testament. We belong to the kingdom of God. The Holy Spirit lives in the bodies of humans.

So we don't have to fear, but we do need to respect. So I think that's the tension we're trying to hold. So our friends over at Tomorrow Clubs are reminding us that more than a billion children in the world have never heard about Jesus Christ. And that feels overwhelming, but God's got a plan. Jesus told his followers to go and make disciples of all nations.

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I can't see. I'm assuming you're talking about a cell phone, Chad.

Well, not only that, Chad, you run that out a little bit further. And then you have an encounter and you meet the woman in real life that you're that you're checking out. And then you run a little bit further and maybe you meet up for coffee. You run it a little bit further. You're having an affair. You run it a little bit further.

Now you're looking at your your four or your eight year old son who's devastated that mommy and dad are getting a divorce. And all of a sudden, if you can fast forward that in your mind, I think that's what the same.

All right, well, go get him. Go get him. We'll continue with this. We're breaking the fourth wall again.

Chad, what did I tell you when I came down to Rome, Georgia? I told you the same exact thing, didn't I?

Yeah, I've seen Chad Robichaux, who was – what was he, a Marine recon?

So he's an MMA fighter, and he's a tough dude.

He was a member of Navy SEAL Team 2, I believe.

That's where Chad right went.

That is a bad sign.

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Chad Wright, I'm sorry, brother. You were such a gracious host when I came down to Rome, Georgia. You took me out to lunch. I was on your podcast. I got two loaves of your mama's bread and we sent you to the wrong place. You wound up at the wrong studio. Please forgive me, brother.

Who were the last men standing? I want to hear that.

And then, you know, the funny thing is, I guess I do the reverse where I nickel and dime the shit out of things. So my wife and I had a long conversation tonight about a trip we're planning to go on next week. We're flying to Florida to visit her parents. So we're going to drive to the airport and take our kids and go to Florida. Now the question is, where do we park?

So the main parking garages are 15 bucks a day, but there's sort of a surface lot that you need to take a shuttle to that's 10 bucks a day. And we're going to be there for like 13 days or two weeks or something like that. And so the additional cost of the garage is like $65.

And the discussion we were having is whether it's worth the effort to drop her and the newborn and our luggage off at the airport while the toddler and I drive to the service lot. And then catch the shuttle to go back to the airport. Because then we have to leave the house earlier than we normally would. Which is already going to be pushing it with two kids.

And then also it's just going to be a huge pain in the ass to do all that. But is it a $65 pain in the ass? Like am I willing to do this on the way there and on the way back for $65? And I'm thinking it's not going to. I'm thinking we're not going to do it. Which physically pains me.

The amount of trouble that I have gone through in the past in my life to save a fraction of $65, like, you wouldn't believe. But the kids factor just defeats me. And so I think I'm going to have to lose a little bit of my willingness to put up with inconvenience in order to save money.

Day three, I just pulled into my driveway after running some errands. I had to get some medication for my wife. That was $10. Then I went downtown to get a haircut, but it was full, so no expense there. But I woke up with a sore throat last night, so I stopped at the drugstore to get some... cough drops because we're out.

And then when the haircut was a bust, my favorite store is across the street. It's a cooking store with fantastic cooking equipment and also little snacks and wines and stuff. And so I grabbed a bottle of wine on sale to drink tonight just as like a little treat for me and my wife because

Sometimes when you have a newborn and you're trapped inside all the time and you're going slowly crazy because your toddler is driving you mad, you just need a bottle of wine. You just need to treat yourself.

And, um, you know, they're like, do you want to keep the ashes? And do you want to get a paw print? And I was like, yeah, mom, get the ashes, get the paw print. I'll pay for that. Just do it. You know? And she's like, okay. So she did it. And then, um, so I, I called the vet today and I was like, so how much, how much are the ashes and the paw print?

And she's like, well, you know, we don't charge for the paw print, but the ashes are like, you know, 230 bucks. I was like, what? Let's see what? Like, the ashes, right. For like a cat, he was like, put the cat in fire and ashes come out and that's $230. She's like, yeah, you know, you know, the other option is to bury it. And I was like, well, it's too late now, but how much was the burial?

And I said, it was $70. And I was like, okay, hold on. Um, so I had this little dilemma where I was like, oh fuck, do I pay for this? Or like, do I, she, she offered to split it. I'm like, that seems kind of, it's kind of lame of me. And so I don't know. Oh God, as I say this out loud, I'm like almost mortified. I really feel like George Costanza.

So what I, I Venmo, I Venmoed her 160 because I was thinking at the very least she would have had to pay 70 bucks to dispose of the cat's body, right? Like you have to, you have to pay something for the vet to properly dispose of the animal. And so she would have had to pay 70. So I, so I decided to pay the remainder of it. God, this is awful. I guess maybe this is an insight into how cheap I am.

But it's really like the sticker shock of seeing the 230. And I was like, hold on. I don't remember. I don't really remember agreeing to this. Jesus Christ.

My wife's dad actually Venmoed us half of our flight to visit them in Florida. So it was like 420 bucks because he's just super generous and he always likes to do things like that. It's quite humbling actually to have him be that generous in, in certain ways because, um, there's, there's, there's no aspect of my life now that I don't owe to my father-in-law, which is pretty crazy to think about.

Um, because I've worked pretty hard in a lot of ways. Like I've had a lot of side jobs and I've been like very dedicated to the academy and it was like working towards this professorship and, um, doing anything I can on the side to like make money and save money and pay off student loans and whatever. Um, it's amounted to nothing, like literally like fucking zero.

Um, you know, I think the biggest, like the largest that my checking account ever was, um, Um, before I married my wife was after, um, after I got hit by a drunk driver and I got an insurance settlement for like 12 grand. I don't even remember how much it was now. And so like at some point in my checking account, I had like $15,000 and I was like, damn Bruce Wayne.

Like I'm just really killing it right now. Maybe I'll be a venture capitalist now. And then when my wife and I went to get married, her father cut us. He gave us an option, actually. He said, look, I'll pay for your wedding outright. Pay for whatever you want. Or I'll cut you a check for $30,000. And we were like, we'll take option B, Bob. Like, shit.

It's not upsetting. It's not upsetting to think that, like, the amount of effort I put into, like, being fiscally responsible and independent and stuff, um... has amounted to basically nothing in comparison with like two checks this family has written. I mean, I guess it is upsetting. It is upsetting in a way. You know, this was completely out of reach for me five years ago. 10 years ago.

Oh, 10 years ago would be a joke. What was I, 28? Oh, yeah. This never would have happened. But just this family generosity made it happen. I just got to think about this more. I'm not really sure how I feel about this. It's certainly not bad, but it's not a negative feeling. It's just complicated.

Yeah.

The receiving of the money does not bother me. So I can say what doesn't bother me. Being gifted substantial amounts of money does not bother me by her family. I think what's kind of alarming, maybe... is that me as this working class kid trying to make good, it would have taken me another 15, 20 years to get to a position that I am now because of that generosity, right?

So like with just a few strokes of the pen, they were able to effectively quadruple the amount of savings I had.

Extremely unhealthy, borderline abusive.

Yeah, you know, It's difficult, too, because... This is bringing things up that I don't think about often, and I try not to, but... I start to wonder how I look in the family's eyes. Because on the one hand, just sheer appearances. Professor at a good college. Cool. Great. The more they know me, and the more they know my background...

And like my financial background, it's like, Oh, it's this, this kid who sort of clawed his way up into the stable thing. And he's always trying to overcome. And I think that might bother me. Being viewed maybe as the scrappy kid who pulled his way up and like his accomplishments are only accomplishments by contrast with what he was or where he came from.

I have so much anxiety about it. It's just awful. Like every decision I make is cost benefit analysis. It's not even benefit. It's just cost analysis. Like, is this, do I want to spend this money? It's not, do I have the money to spend? It's do I want to part with this money? Do I want to go through this expense?

I think that might be, that feels belittling.

It lessens it. Because you get that perspective, right? Once you get that gift, you're like, oh, wow, that was a long time for me to get nowhere.

Um, so this morning my wife and I did a breakfast date. There's a nice cheap little diner down the way. Um, and today I thought it would be a good idea to get out of the house with the newborn, just kind of like break the routine. And it was not a total disaster, but it wasn't, it wasn't necessarily a fun experience because, um, my wife didn't really like, she didn't really want to come.

The baby hadn't been sleeping this morning. So she was, my wife was kind of anxious about the baby not getting enough sleep. Um, and so I think I pushed a little hard to like go out to this breakfast. Um, and so of course the baby didn't sleep at breakfast and, and I, I had to sort of rock her in her little car seat.

and keep the binky in with one hand and eat a breakfast sandwich with the other hand and my wife was like shoveling her food she's just like eating as quick as possible and at some point like as soon as the food came she was basically like should we get this to go it's like no this is completely contrary to the whole aim so that ended up being a 25 breakfast which by the way really good deal really good deal um but 25 breakfast that probably was just a

didn't need to necessarily happen. That led to another expense because two doors down from the breakfast place is this fantastic Italian bakery. And, um, I always scope out the day olds there.

Like literally, I feel like they must know me as a day old guy because I'll go in two times a week and get day old bread because their day old bread is half off, which makes it cheaper than like grocery store bread, like good grocery store bread. We ended up stopping in there. And then of course there was a little treat that my wife saw and she said, we got to get this little treat.

So long story short, $15 for the bakery. So that brings the morning's total up to $40 before 10 AM. And then I had to go to the grocery store because we were flying to Florida next week and needed to get some snacks for the flight because a four-hour flight with a two-year-old is a... At the grocery store, Jay bought some oyster crackers, pretzels, and various toddler snacks.

$20 worth of fucking snacks for this kid. And then, you know, some dinner stuff. Then, of course, I had to stop for gas at some point, so it was $42 in gas. Then... That was it. Total of $120 in expenses today so far. Like, there's still four and a half hours left in this day. Who knows? Day five of diary. You're catching me. Not in a good space. Pretty mad right now.

And so that means for me, like in my experience, physical pain when I have to buy something, when I have to like spend money on something, I'm like, ah. shit, is this... I'll just do it later. And then I'll just try not to do it.

Didn't sleep much last night because of baby stuff. Probably run on four hours, maybe five hours of sleep. I don't do well on no sleep. Some people power through. My wife is great. She's amazing at power through with little sleep. I do not. I become a big fat baby and I get very fussy.

So when I went to get my haircut today, which I'm just returning from, I had anticipated the cost would be 20, 30 bucks. We took my toddler there. His haircut was 20 bucks. Generally, the price is pretty similar for an adult. So I was like, okay, maybe $30, whatever. And so we finished the haircut and it's like a fine haircut. Like it's a hole in the wall place.

It's not like a, you know, fancy haircut establishment. And it was 40 bucks, $40, 40 American dollars for a quick haircut. Now, the reason that I'm furious about this is because I had stopped going to my like bougie haircut place, which was, it was kind of a drive. It was like a 10, 15 minute drive and kind of difficult to get an appointment. But I liked it there.

I liked the person who cut my hair. It was fun there. And they give you like, you know, a sparkling water or a beard. And like, it's just a, it's a much nicer establishment. And yeah. You feel like you get a lot more bang for your buck for 40 bucks. So I'm just very annoyed that I had a subpar haircutting experience for the same price.

That being said, the person who cut my hair was lovely and it is nice to spend to keep my money.

Day six. This is my end of the day diary. Just tidied up the house and got everything locked down for the night. poured myself a little whiskey before bed. It is 8 p.m., and that means I'm actually a little late for bedtime, such is life with a newborn and a toddler.

And I think it was maybe the way in which I was thinking about having some whiskey tonight, which was a result of just having the toddler home all day, which is just endless amounts of work. There was a funny... This relates to money, I swear to God. I was at Rennie's, which is a store here in Maine that's sort of like a very small department store. It has a bunch of everything.

It has literally everything you need in the store. It's super weird. So anyhow, I was at Rennie's with my son and... I do that. It's one of the things that we do to entertain him when it's really cold outside and there's just like not much to do. I'll take him to Rennie's and he runs around, he looks at the toys.

And so anyway, I was playing with him and we were walking around the store and he was like asking, he was in this mode where he's like asking what everything is. And this woman said, oh, you know, he's really cute. And I said, ah, thanks. Yeah, he's pretty cute. When he's not being a terror, it's sort of a standard response, right? And this woman said, I know, I got a nine-year-old. And she says...

Little boys are cash up front. I was like, whoa. First of all, I don't really know what that means. What does that mean, cash up front? Little boys are cash up front? And then as I've thought about it, I think what she means is that the energy and the effort you put into having a little boy versus a little girl is dealing with their insane amount of energy, right?

dealing with them bouncing off the fucking walls, creating a mess. And so all of the work that you do and all of the effort that you put in is right there, right on the front end. And you've got to do it immediately. But I thought, how funny. You start to think about the ways in which

Daycare. Because I knew from in-laws having kids that this is going to be $25,000, $30,000. This is a substantial percentage of our total income. How are we going to get by...

Ways of conceiving of money, the metaphors around those things have started to infiltrate the way that you understand the world around you. It sort of shakes you up a little because you realize the way that you come to understand the world is through your relationship with money.

Now, I think in America, it's generally capitalism, right? Like money, really, just money. And I know personally that my biggest battle here is my religion as my orientation point and money as my orientation point. These are both centers of orbit. And if you're orbiting one, you're not orbiting the other, period. They're mutually exclusive. So that was the struggle before Kitsch.

That's like the thinking. Kids come and they are there. Everything is oriented around them. It is a shocking reorientation. Now, when I say orientation, what I mean is not only like how you spend your time, it's how you think. It's how you classify your world from the way that you use language. I don't refer to my stomach anymore. It's my tummy. When I'm in a bad mood, I'm feeling fussy.

Where I go and what I do, is it kid-friendly? So what I'm saying is it just changes everything about how you think and feel. Now, what that means is I have a third... A third center that I'm trying to negotiate now. I'm trying to pull myself away from worrying about money without sacrificing the financial security of my family.

I'm trying to maintain religion as my center without sacrificing caring for and doing everything I need to do to provide the best life for my kids. Yeah. which is an insane place to be. I think it gets better as the kid gets older, right? Because it's not so all-consuming. But I will say it has been, in some ways, the diaries made me realize this.

In some ways, it sort of helped pull me away from money a little bit more by devaluing it. Where I just like, you know, I can't care anymore. You'll spend in ways that you wouldn't have before because the money is less valuable than not... being in a position where you want to bash your head against the wall.

It's been so defiled by children now that it no longer has the power to cause the kind of anxiety that it did in terms of child-related expenses.

It's resignation. Yeah, it's total resignation. It's like surrendering to the abyss.

It's not, it's not bigger in the good way. It's, it's, it's not bigger like God, the creator of the universe. It's bigger like a dragon's running at you and you're just like, well, nice knowing you guys. What am I going to do? Right? Like it's that kind of resignation. Right.

But it is it is there is a beauty to it insofar as it's it loses some of the mystique and it loses the power to make me suffer the way that it did. And that's really that's quite nice. Day seven. End of day. End of week. Diary. Today, there was no money spent. Usual evening calculus of whether to use the heat pump or the oil. It's fucking so exhausting.

What I'm realizing as I talk through this is that... As I go through these negotiations with my wife and like trying to deal with all these things, it is my own anxiety about money that comes to the fore, right? Like I literally agonize about a lot when it comes to this. I'll negotiate with my wife about five degrees. I mean, I'll negotiate with her about one degree of temperature change.

System is a strong word. So effectively we have all of our money in a joint account in terms of budgeting. It's a very vibe based situation. Like when back before kids, it was like, oh shit, we got a good amount of money. Let's put some in Vanguard. Maybe I'll add more to my IRA. Now it's more along the lines of, okay, we got to get something. What do we get? Can we afford it?

in the house on a cold night, right? Because I know that it's just going to cost a lot of extra money. And now that I have kids and I'm talking through this, like, I don't want that for my kids, right? I don't want them to have that burden. Like, this is the stuff that I'll deal with, obviously, because it's really hardwired into me. It's very difficult for me not to worry about money.

It's hard to convey how hard this is for me not to worry about it. It's always on my mind. And I don't want that for them.

My ideal, I think, would be as he gets, as he and she, I keep forgetting there's another one, as they get older, I do want them to learn just a little bit of financial responsibility. Chores, I think is fine, right? Like chores, you earn money, you can spend this money on what you want. As they get much older, teenage years, stuff like that, I think in addition to financial literacy, right?

I also want to let them know in an appropriate way where I'm coming from with all this. I want them to know sort of why, if they had maybe noticed that dad has some anxiety about money or dad has a weird, you know, he gets a little feisty when we want to spend money. I want them to know why. I want them to know I've got stuff with money and it's not easy for me to handle it in a logical way.

And it caused me an amount of suffering that I don't want for them. That's the ideal. Who knows what will actually happen?

New parents are the best market for businesses because new parents are fucking idiots. New parents will pay any amount of money to figure out how to get their kid to sleep more or how to get their kid to eat better. And we fell prey to the exact same thing. I remember we paid – actually our family bought it for us because they felt bad. Yeah.

What are we going to do? Should we do this? Should we not do this? So I do have a budget of like what things should cost per month. And the thing that I took away from that budget was it doesn't fucking matter because of childcare and just the cost of children. So you could have this perfect plan of like, okay, every month we're going to have like $1,000 left over. No, you're not. No, you're not.

Because you have kids and like they always need something. So I just don't bother budgeting per month. And every time I sit down and actually think about it, I'm like, what am I going to cut? Reasonably, what can I do to save money on a practical level? We're eating a lot of chickpeas. How else can I change my lifestyle that will make me not want to just die?

And my wife is like, look, I'm not compromising quality of life to save a few bucks. Because it would be really like, at this point, we'd be eating Wonder Bread and jam. That would be a meal. That's why I don't really keep a budget anymore.

Housing is about $3,200 a month. That is mortgage. So that includes taxes, city taxes, which are insane for where I live. It also includes mortgage insurance because we couldn't afford 20% down on a $450,000 house.

So that $3,200 is all of that stuff?

phone bill is 30 bucks a month because I'm on a family plan. And even though I'm 38, my mom still is like, I want to pay this. So I have to like, I'd like fight her to let me pay her something. And so $30 is what it is.

She is also on her family plan. I think she might be like several years in arrears on that one.

Wi-Fi, sons of bitches. It was $40 a month and it just went up to $43.

Child care, $1,325 a month. And then when the second kid goes to care, it will be $2,025 or so.

That's a good question, Corey. I'll tell you what I'm not paying for. I'm not paying for help with potty training.

I get New York Times for free through my college, but they don't include the games and I'm a crossword guy. And so I had to pay for the games.

for the social media influencer, Kara taking care of babies. And she did courses on how to get your baby to sleep. So it was like an online course that we paid like 300 bucks for someone paid 300 bucks for. And, you know, looking back, I'm like, if we weren't tired and vulnerable, like clueless, you know, and afraid we never would have bought that.

I don't know. I never really had a job in high school, but I also I never had money. I just never had money to spend. Like I just got whatever my parents gave me.

And I knew at that point that I had no safety net. I had no backup. So I think once I got to that stage and then realized that I'm on my own 100%, it probably developed over time.

As a young adult child of divorce, you get a window into your parents' lives that you didn't have before. And one of the things I saw was their finances. Neither of them knew how credit card interest worked. They were paying minimum payments on like $10,000, $20,000 of credit card debt. And I realized at that point that my parents were fucked.

Like my mom, her retirement plan was my stepdad who was in the Navy and would have a pension. She had no retirement savings whatsoever. She'd been a waitress. So she had nothing, no retirement plans whatsoever. So that I think contributed significantly to the way that I view money. And like my mother spends very frivolously, like unbelievable money. It's addictive almost, right?

Like she's buying things to sate some kind of desire.

I remember, for example, for Christmases, my mother would buy my stepdad and I, it would be no exaggeration to say between 10 and 15 presents each. And they're like, it's not like a deck of cards. It's sometimes expensive things. And then she'd buy a joint gift. Okay, we're a family of three. Joint gifts included. Trampoline. Full-sized. A basketball court. To reiterate, I am an academic.

Even as a young boy, I think I leaned that direction, not towards basketball. I didn't know this, but I put it together now. They were spending all of their disposable income basically as it came.

Basically as it came. I tell my wife a lot, like whenever my mom comes to visit and she does this, go to the bakery, buy like $80 worth of shit. Like no joke, like $80 worth of stuff. Yeah. And a lot of it gets thrown away because like, you know. And I'll just tell my wife, now you see why I am the way I am. I cannot abide this thoughtless, wasteful spending.

End of day one. Today, I didn't do terribly much. I dropped my kid off at daycare. I did a lot of baby holding and care of a newborn. You know, my wife and I just kind of switched. We're on man-on defense at this point. And we're both off for winter break. I guess that leaves a lot more time to like spend money because today was a brutal one. I just paid for a copy of a birth certificate.

I got two copies just in case because the second copy is like cheaper once you order the first one. There's like a discount on the second copy for some reason. So it's 21 bucks for two birth certificates. But that's going to pay for itself, man, because we're taking a trip in a week or two and the newborn girl gets to fly for free because we can prove that she's six weeks old. So whatever.

21 bucks is going to be money well spent. Spend number two, had to order some stuff at Costco. Even though we're a pretty small family, even when we're only a family of two, we were ordering stuff at Costco because certain things are just easy in bulk. But now that we've got a toddler and newborn, like Costco's godsend, today we got animal crackers, two boxes of applesauce.

And then of course, diapers, just so many diapers. Having a kid in general is just death by a thousand cuts in terms of expenses. There's this first one really big stab, really huge just gash. That's the hospital bill, right? Five grand right there, boom. And then lots of little things that just are constantly accruing.

And for the first few months, the major one is just diapers, just diaper, diapers, diapers all the time. She's like incredible. She's a pooping machine. You know, we're changing her diaper like 10 times a day. And, you know, each diaper is like 45 cents or something. So that kind of adds up over the course of a month, you know. So in total, that Costco was like 200 bucks. So then the…

Third expense was grocery shopping. So after like a weirdly short but long day of just like trying to plan for classes while wearing a newborn in a carrier and like bouncing up and down to try to keep her asleep but also do my work, I took the toddler to go grocery shopping, which is always kind of a fun experience because –

There's like this little calculus that I have to do, which is like, what do I need to buy him at the store to keep him entertained? Because he has a very short attention span and he does love the market and like he's pretty good there. But, you know, he's come to expect a certain quality. quality of shopping experience that involves lots of treats.

One time, my son ate an entire pint of blueberries in the grocery store. So he slammed like $6 worth of blueberries in five minutes. It was unbelievable. And that was, that was like a snack, you know, like, and he could have kept going. He could have eaten another one if I had let him. So that's partially, I think, why groceries are so expensive for, at least for, for me.

The oldest is two and a half. The youngest is seven weeks and one day.

So I only had a very small grocery list today. Normally I can't get out of there for less than 180. So 105, I guess I should count my blessings.

Day two. I have to whisper because I have a sleeping baby on me. I just checked the weather for the next couple days and tonight and tomorrow night it's gonna get down to about 10 degrees outside. God knows what with the windshield. And so now I have a dilemma. Our house has an oil-burning furnace. Because we live in Maine, we still actually use heating oil. But we also have heat pumps.

And the heat pumps are efficient, I think, up to below zero. But efficient does not necessarily mean cost-effective. So running the heat pumps when it's that cold is really expensive. So what I have to figure out is, is it cheaper to use the, the oil heating downstairs and the heat pump upstairs? Because the oil heating upstairs is a nightmare with two kids.

Oh, today is a good day. Today is a really good day because the in-laws got the toddler. So I've got like nine hours of sleep almost.

Like the rooms are completely different temperature. One will be like 75 degrees and the other will be 65. It's crazy. And like, we don't really want the newborn in 65 degrees. And the other calculus here is not simply how much this costs, which has so many variables that we don't know, but it's what will my wife tolerate? Because I am willing to keep this house like three degrees above freezing.

And perhaps unsurprisingly, she is not willing to do that. And so every night there's this negotiation with her getting increasingly frustrated with me as the winter goes on. And I know I'm already, I'm prepared to do battle over this, but I'm also prepared to lose because of the fact that there's a newborn in the house. I just know I'm not going to win this.

And so maybe I'll go quietly into the dark night these two nights as I say this out loud. Not a lot of expenses today. $65 for childcare. Got my internet bill, and I noticed that it went up by $3 a month from $40 to $43, and that's just because the company decided to raise their prices. It's like this nickel and diming stuff that really gets to me.