Greg Johnson and his wife Holly, are the creators of Club Thrifty, a website focused on living within your means while traveling and discovering the world.
They are happily married parents, with two gorgeous daughters, they are in their late thirties and they are living the dream.
Highlights of the interview with Greg Johnson
- Greg and Holly worked for about 10 years in the funeral industry making a decent living, but they were spending all their money. They didn’t know where was the money going.
- One day, they decided to start tracking all their expenses to figure out where was their money going.
- They discovered that one of their biggest expenses was eating out.
- Out of frustration, they created the zero-sum budget.
- We spoke about saving money to pay the future “you”. Imagine that 20 year’s from now you have to pay a debt to the future you. A big debt. You start putting money away as you do to pay any other expense and then when you meet the future you at retirement, you pay that debt.
- Started the blog to keep themselves accountable.
- When they started budgeting, they had $15K-$16K worth of debt which was paid in about 18 months. They used the Debt Avalanche Method.
- Club Thrifty tries to teach people how to use the money they already have to build a life they will really love. It tries to teach people how to get out of debt by budgeting, and it talks about frugal traveling.
- To make the transition from working as a mortician to have more of an independent lifestyle, Holly started working as a freelance writer and after six months she was making as much money freelancing as she was making at her regular job. A year after the creation of the blog Holly was making a full-time income as a writer.
- One of the most amazing posts is the 100 Cheapest Places to Travel in the World for 2018.
- They wrote a book, Zero Down Your Debt. One of the biggest obstacles to building wealth is debt.
- We spoke about how to make money on the side.
- They got into real estate investing inspired by the book The Automatic Millionaire, by David Bach
- The most recommended article on the site: Working to Live: How Being a Mortician Reshaped My Money Mindset.
- Book recommendation: Your Money or Your Life.
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