Episode 60 - Making U-Turns

Wether we are driving down the road, figuring out a financial situation, or dealing with anything else in life, how do we know when we need to turn around and change course? Let's talk about it. 

Transcript

0:00

Paul, Welcome to Catholic money talk, where we talk about all things money and finance, and we try to do it through a lens of being Catholic, where our ultimate goal is to one day be in Heaven with the Lord. I am your host. Paul Scarfone, thank you for being here today. So welcome back to Catholic money talk. I took a little bit of a break as we had some family vacation at the end of the summer, but here we are starting a new school year with kids in school, my oldest son starting college, and a lot of new change. Today I want to talk about making U turns, and we'll get into what I mean by that after a prayer. So let's start with a prayer in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen, Heavenly Father, I thank you for this day, thank you for all the ways that you love and bless us. Lord, you have an awesome plan for each of us, and even if we are in troubled times, or we feel like we're in the midst of a storm. Lord, you have a way out. You have an awesome plan that will result in good. Just give us great confidence in that allow us to trust you fill us with hope and joy no matter what situation we might find ourselves in, and allow Your Holy Spirit to fill us with grace and with strength and perseverance. Come Holy Spirit, we ask the salt in Jesus name amen, in the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit Amen So making U turns. What am I talking about? So probably about six weeks ago or so, I was driving down the road, and I had been following directions, but I turned them off and thought I knew the rest of the way, and I was driving and I I thought maybe I passed the turn that I was looking for, and I kept driving and driving and driving and and then in my mind, I started to try to calculate or process how far am I willing to go before I stop for directions, before I look at a map, before I make a U turn right, before I how far am I willing to go before I realize I'm probably not going in the right direction and I should, I should change something. And I think many of us can feel that way, and not just on road trips or driving, you know, particularly depending on where you live. I live in New Jersey, which is, you know, it could be fairly congested in certain areas. We live in a suburb of New York City, but just west of me is the country and rolling hills all the way to Pennsylvania, but, but sometimes when we're driving or we're going somewhere, we might need to decide, how long am I willing to go down this road until I realize it's the wrong road and I should turn around. And when we expand that, we just think of other areas in our life, like when we're heading headed in a certain direction, we may go farther than we should have before we decide to make u turn. So if we're driving down the road right, like I was a couple weeks ago driving down the road New Jersey. We've got something called jug handles. And if you, you know, you'll kind of exit on the right to then come around to make a left, or you turn right, you got to kind of exit from the right, and then wait, and if you go around, you hit the road that you were just on. You know, it's perpendicular to you. You wait till light turns green, then you can go straight, or you can make a left, which then, in essence, would be u turn from the direction you had been traveling. So that's a jug handle, and sometimes we might have a narrow road. So to make a U turn, it's not a jug handle. Maybe it's, what do we call those? A K turn right, and you have to kind of pull over the side, wait till there's no traffic coming either way, and then kind of do that two point turn, to turn around to head back in the direction. Or maybe, maybe we look for a vacant parking lot or a side street that we can kind of duck down and cul de sac go at the end and make a big circular turn to make a U turn. But I think this is a very good question to ask ourselves. And you know, when we're looking at financial items or financial situations or maybe transactions, what can we look for, or when do we know that we should make a U turn right. How and how can we make a U turn right? So that's probably there's two parts that. How do we know when we should make a U turn? That's probably part one and part two. How do we make a U turn? And in some situations, a U turn might be able to be very quick. And. I think of going to purchase something in the store and realizing, you know what, there's a bit of an impulse buy. Let me just go put it back on the shelf, right? It's kind of a U turn, you know what? I'm not, I'm not going to do that. And other times, think of a home purchase, well, you, you can't really undo that after you've, you've done it, right? You can't, like, return the house and be like, You know what? Let's let's say we didn't do that. There's a old comedian bit I remember, and he was talking about playing chess with friends, and you put your finger on top of a chess piece, right? You move your chest piece, you put your finger on the top. And his friend told them you can change it as long as you don't take your finger off of it. But after you take your finger off it, you can't, you can't change it, right? And he went into a whole routine of crazy things that you could just walk in and put your finger on the top of your head. And once you realize that this is a bad move, you know you can undo it as long as that finger is still on the top of your head. Like didn't take my finger off, still haven't done it yet, but in real life, right? In financial transactions and other things in life, there might not be a quick U turn. Sometimes it can be a little bit more elaborate, like one of those jug handles right to slowly turn the ship around. And so how do we know when we should and then, how can we do it? How can we make the U turn? Well, the first thing is, how do we know we should? And we've talked about this before on the podcast. You know when there's when there's a disruption in our spirit, right? When we've been praying about a particular thing and we lack peace about what we're doing, that should be our first kind of warning sign, wait. Should I be doing this? And we can take it to more prayer. I regularly talk about, you know, husbands and wives, if you're married, you need to be making decisions and talking about things together, right? None of you should be headed in direction without the other person. So in that sense, if you're going in the wrong direction together, you can talk about, how do we swing this around and head in a different direction? And if you're not married, having someone that you can share these things with and have that sounding board, that mentor, that other perspective, that accountability, maybe even an extra dose of wisdom and knowledge for a particular situation, it's crucial, right? And you they can help you make a prayerful discernment of, should we make a U turn? So that's that's very important, that check in the Spirit, that dialog, that communication with whoever we have in our life, that we trust to love us and love us well enough to tell us when we need to change something, right? So, so that checking your spirit a conversation with either your spouse or some type of accountability partner or someone that you share your life with, that you can make you know, have a conversation to make a change. To give you a quick example years ago, and my wife Taryn just recently brought this back to my mind. So we were married in 2003 and when we got married, you know, we had an apartment. We're living in an apartment. And if you look at the real estate market, particularly on the east coast, the northeast, here in New Jersey, and the rest of the country, I think, was pretty similar to this. Home prices were going up a lot. I worked for a countertop manufacturing company, and I remember driving on to these my customers were production builders. So guys that were building, you know, big companies, public companies, right? They were, they were building 500 1000 homes in one development, right? And I remember driving on to them, and you would see the signs like townhomes starting in the low two hundreds, and then a sticker over that, or, you know, the line through it, like starting the in the the the high two hundreds, the low three hundreds, the high three hundreds, right? And the prices just kept going up and up and up over the next several years. And my wife Taryn and I, we were starting to get worried, like, are we ever going to be able to buy a house? And so we started looking at Zillow wasn't around then, but there was some other foxtons might have been a website where I liked it because it had floor plans of homes and stuff, and you could look at it, but that might have been the name of it. But we started looking online for houses, and we found this condo. And two bedroom condo looked really kind of nice. It was just off of like a golf course, so it was that kind of fun type of environment, and went looked at it. And I'm going to try to remember these details. I want to say maybe it was listed for like 199 and we had done some math, and we're like, oh, we could probably spend like 190 and it was for sale by owner, and we call the guy and the guy's game, come look. The house. I do have someone else coming to look later, but they have a Realtor with them, and I'd prefer to sell it to someone that doesn't have a realtor, right, so that he gets, he gets more than money, right? He has to pay a realtor commission, and he didn't even want to, he didn't want to list with a realtor, right? So anyway, we go visit him. We like the house. We're like, look, we could probably give you 190 for it. He's like, Well, if these other people give me my asking price of like, 195 or 199 I'll probably end up with closer to 195 or 190 after. So if you guys want to come up to 195 it's your and we're like, okay, so not knowing anything about what we're doing, we make an offer for 195 and he said, you just got to get a pre approval letter. And so we come back and find, you know, I asked a friend who's bought houses before, like, what do I need to get a pre approval letter from a bank? You should also get a real estate attorney. And so we get a pre approval from a bank. I find this older real estate attorney, and we give them the real estate attorney, I think we had, like,$10,000 saved. So we give them$10,000 as our down payment, and the next day, as they're telling me, we have to submit a written offer and come up with a real estate contract. So we're trying to work on that. The next day, the seller calls me and says, Paul, those people that came with the realtor, they're offering me 210 so if you want to come up to like, 205, get yours. I thought we had an agreement. And he's like, Yeah, but I can't be crazy, like, I got to make money. So I want to, I want to sell, and I I want to sell for more money. And I remember just starting to get really upset and out of peace. Think my biggest fear was coming to life, a home is getting so expensive I'll never be able to afford it. Like, What Do I Do? Do? I just do it right now. And I remember talking to Tara and being like, what do we do? And she was like, I don't understand. Like, this guy gave us His Word. I'm like, I know, but technically we don't have a written contract and all this stuff. I call up the attorney. The attorneys look, if he's not going to sell it to you, like we, I haven't heard back from his attorney, so we technically don't have a contract yet. What do you want to do? And I talked to a friend of mine who had had bought, you know, a home before. I was like, What do I do? Paul? Just don't do it then. Like, if it's not comfortable, if you think this guy's giving you a run around, how are you going to know that this runaround is going to end when you have a signed contract? Just if you're out of peace with this, just don't do it. You know, it's hard to undo a home purchase. You know what? You're right? And so I called the attorney, I said, Look, we're not even interested in I called this guy back. I said, we're not going to do it. And I called the attorney. I said, so we're not going to do this. I'll get my money back, right? He goes, Yeah, you can come by my office. Well, well, you know, we had put in the trust account, but we'll have a check here for you. But that's just an example, and I thought it was very relevant to this when I mentioned to Taryn, like, making U turns, and she's like, oh, like, when we when we didn't buy that condo. And I was like, Oh, thank goodness we didn't buy that condo. I'll tell you a little bit of story about it. So in that time after we bought didn't buy the condo, prices continued to go up. And I remember looking at that condo and seeing it was listed for one or 240, couple, maybe a year after we didn't buy it, whoever had bought it, was selling it again, and that was probably, let's say, 2005 or so. And then all of a sudden, everything started to collapse. As I was probably 2005 everything started to collapse. And the end of 2005 and home prices started dropping right, and by 2008 everything was at the bottom, maybe even a little bit before, oh wait, right, maybe end of oh seven, everything just came down. Home prices came crashing. And I remember looking up that condo again, and it was back to like the 170s and I thought of, Oh, my goodness, if we had bought it for even the first offer of 190 you know, 190 we'd be down 20 grand, and how that would have kind of hurt, you know, having felt that and there was no yard. There were so many things about the condo that wouldn't have been ideal, but it was, you know, we would have owned it, and I would have felt like we didn't get left out right? That was some of the urges for buying something like the real estate market was just going to pass us up. But as I look back, like, Thank goodness we didn't, so thank goodness we made that U turn right, and we didn't buy that condo and get stuck in that purchase. So instead, what we were able to do was in 2008 we bought our home in Somerville, New Jersey, which we bought for 210 and home prices went kind of up and down and up and down over the years. We lived there for 10 years, and in a. 2018 we sold it for, I think it was 285 right? So we ended up doing really well. And when we bought that, when we sold that home, we bought the home we're currently in for 395 and now, I mean, Zillow says our home is worth, like, I don't know, it bounces around a lot now, but it's going up. It's been going up ridiculous, like 630 or something like that, which is crazy, and we're trying to pay it off, which is exciting. We're getting close. But the point is, we want to know when we should make a U turn. And for me, not not being financially wise like I know so much more now than I did back then. But that one word from my friend when he was like, Paul, it like, you cannot do it. Like, if it's making you worried or nervous or out of pieces, don't do it like, such good wisdom. Such good wisdom. So, so hopefully that example serves to illustrate the point I'm making is knowing when to make a U turn, right? I've shared other stories of U turns. We, you know, a Disney Vacation Club when we were down at Disney, and we kind of signed up for it, and we had three days to let them know if we were gonna, you know, if you wanted to cancel or not. And thank goodness we did, because that would have been another catastrophe, right? These are all things I did before we were really trying to have good order and prudence in our finances. And there's so many areas in life that we want to be aware of and have a plan for. Most recently, my son, Josh, he just started college, and we've been talking about college, and one of the goals right that we've said, and this is something about U turns like, knowing where you're headed is important, right? So if it's for home ownership, or is it to eventually own a home that we have no debt on, that we own free and clear. For Josh, his his destination is he wants to graduate from college with any without any student loans? Well, he wants to graduate from college, right? And we want to do it. He wants to do it without any student loans. And there's a couple ways you can graduate from college, right? Like you could pay for it, he could pay for it. We could pay for it. Maybe we help him. He pays for it himself. Maybe, or maybe we've saved up some people, maybe they've saved up their entire life to be able to pay for their kids college, and that's great, but we're not going into student loans. And so when we've looked at different schools and figured out different options, when we see a gap, right, the community, the college finance office might point to, oh, a student loan can close that gap, and we have to say we're not going to go down that road, right? There's other people that might go down that road, and then all of a sudden feel like, well, how do I reverse this? Right? And you can't, you can't reverse a student loan as many so many people want to try to do student loan forgiveness is hard, and it's not a plan that you want to set yourself up for. So just avoiding them is key, but knowing the destination is to graduate is key, right? That's what we're trying to do. That's where we're going. And so we're going to pick the paths, the roads, that get us to that goal. And so graduating debt free means we're not going to borrow money. And so we have to have a plan. So Josh has to save up. It's about $500 every month from now until he graduates College in four years. So we're covering he's going to community college college for the first two years. So fortunately, we do have some savings for him, so we're able to cover those first two years of community college, and then in year three and four, when he goes to a state university, we'll be able to give that same amount that we've been paying for community college to years threes and fours, and then he'll have to pay that gap. And when we've done the math, we figured it out, if he's able to save up$500 a month, then when he gets to years three and fours, he will have that money available to pay the difference from what we're able to support them with and the total tuition bill. So that's the plan, and we're able to stick to it. And if there's a disruption or something comes up that needs us to change course, we can talk about it to make sure we don't go down any side roads that we shouldn't right. But making that U turns important. So what are some of the challenges for us in making U turns? Well, the biggest one is pride. When we make a U turn, we're admitting that we either don't know where we're going or we're going the wrong way. And we're admitting that we we don't know right, I don't know the way as well as I thought I did. And, you know, just to give you that example of driving in a car, right? It's like, probably a bit of a stereotype, but husband's driving a car, the wife's sitting there being like, Honey, ask someone for directions. Do I look at a map? No, no. I know where I'm going. I know where I'm going, right? And it delays. The trip even longer because of the husband's maybe pride or stubbornness of wanting to ask someone else for directions or admitting they're wrong and they don't know where they're going. The same is true for financial transactions, right? We? None of us, enjoy admitting when we're wrong, and making a U turn requires us to have humility, to say to our spouse or a friend, or maybe it's just to the Lord, I was wrong. I didn't know what I was doing. Where do you want me to go? Which direction do you want me to head in? So if we're struggling with certain areas of our life, you know we might need to just pray and ask Lord for greater humility so that we can speak up when we feel lost or we don't know the way, right? So that's, that's the first thing right, admitting that we're wrong and we don't know where we're going. And then once we we accept and embrace that right, and we have humility to do that, then we can get our bearings right and start to head in the right direction. So, so that's the first thing. The second thing is knowing where to go to get the directions. And this is where, you know, I talk about, you know, communication among spouses, but also having good people in your life, and maybe trusted experts and advisors that you can go to when you need direction. So I am humbled and honored to be able to serve people in that way. Most recently, some clients I was working with. They're asking me about the we're talking about life insurance, and they had just this really weird looking policy, and it smelled a little off to me, right? It just there was something about it that just didn't seem quite right. And so I told them, hey, I think there's something wrong here, right? And they brought it to me like, yeah, that seemed a little odd, but we weren't sure. I'm like, No, bring it up, right? Bring it up. We will figure it out. So I was able to reach out to a friend who I trust and works in the insurance world, and he was able to explain some of it to me, so I could help my client, right? So I'm happy to serve people in that way. I've, you know, just recently, working with another couple, they're looking at buying another home, moving, upgrading their house, buying a larger home. And they called me up to say, hey, is this? Is this what we should be looking at? Are these the questions we should be asking? What are we missing here? It's like, wow. So great of you guys to identify that there's some things that you don't know and you need help with. And I'm honored that you're asking me to support you guys and kind of be your navigator through some of this transaction. So I love serving in that way and for my own self, there's moments where I have questions about things I'm working on right just like the insurance example, but other financial transactions as well that I'll reach trusted friends and experts in what they do to get their opinion. We just sold my grandmother's I had mentioned this. My grandmother passed away, and we had to sell her condo in Florida, and I do not know Florida real estate law, nor did I feel like trying to spend a lot of time to learn it and become an expert in it. So I trusted a realtor and a attorney in Florida who I interviewed to make sure they seemed like credible individuals. I got some references from them, and they served us extremely, extremely well, right? And I've learned, like, I don't want to get lost in that transaction, not when I'm supporting my mom and her sister on navigating the whole situation, right? So making sure I've got humility and knowing where to go to ask for directions is key. So that's what I would encourage all of us to do. You know, there's also a very big spiritual component to all of this, and I've experienced it at times myself, and sometimes when we're struggling with a particular maybe it's a sin or an area of weakness, and we spend too much time going down the road, trying to deal with it ourselves, because we're embarrassed to bring it to somebody else. We're afraid of judgment. Maybe we're a little ashamed of ourselves, and the evil one loves us to travel on a lost road all alone, but the Lord is constantly there asking us to come back to him and. Asking us to bring whatever we're dealing with into the light. And so when we have someone that we can share our life to to share any situation with, whether it be spiritual, mental, physical, emotional, financial, whatever it might be when we live in the light, that's when the Lord becomes the Lord of our life, when every aspect of our life, when we bring it into the light, and we do that by sharing it with other people, might be a confessor, a spiritual director, it might be our spouse. Might be just a mentor, right? Someone who's for me, I've got so many great Catholic men in my life that I can bring so many different situations to I do bring so many different situations to. And I ask them, hey, what do you think? Where do I go to answer this question? Where do I go to get support for this Where do I go to know what I do in this situation, what ought I do? What is the right thing? And so I want to encourage all of us to pay attention where we're going to be ready to make u turns if we need to, and to look for those signs right those senses for maybe we're not headed in the direction we should be going in. And have the humility, have the the strength. Be encouraged to stop and turn around to ask for directions so that we can arrive where we're trying to go to heaven, right? God made us to know Him, love Him, and serve Him in this world, and so we can be happy with him forever in the next that's the goal. Our ultimate goal is to get to heaven, so don't be afraid to make a U turn that'll get you back on track, headed to your destination. So I hope this has been helpful. Thank you for joining me today. God bless you. Thank you for listening to Catholic money talk. I hope you join us again next time, please click Subscribe on your podcast app to get notified of new episodes. God bless you and have a great day. Foreign