 Well hello and welcome to Blue Lie 21. Let's go upstairs. I just got home. I actually left my camera at home today. I haven't even taken Doyle out of his cage yet. So let's do that first and then there is a bed in the guest room. So let's take a look. Okay hold on let's let's get the Doyle dog out first. Hi buddy. What are you doing there? What are you doing? Doyle is out of the cage. Let's go check out the bed. I like it. Okay hold on let me show you. All of this stuff will obviously be moved but I kind of like it right there. I'm gonna move it a little bit more this way because there is a situation right here. So I have to move it a little bit that way but then I could still fit like two side tables. Oh I like this. Oh I think this is gonna be perfect. And the headboard. Oh it looks so nice. New bed. Wow. Oh wow that's that's crazy. This bed is actually pretty comfortable even though it wasn't like the top of the line one. I was like you know what if it gets uncomfortable after a while I can just put like like mattress pads and stuff on it. Uh oh the dog's coming up. Ah the puppy. Have fun. He's checking it out now. Oh well we better go on our walk. I'm gonna do my laundry Q&A after that. So here we go. So I'm back. It's been a few hours. I've done a few loads of laundry. Behind me is my little drying rack. That's all Lula row by the way. I have a problem actually. I haven't bought anything from Lula row in like a really long time but welcome to the laundry day Q&A. I am gonna go on to my YouTube channel and look and see all the questions from a couple of days ago and start answering them. I have clean laundry. I need a fold so I'm gonna fold laundry and answer questions. Okay okay by the way I'm in my new um guest room and I did attach the headboard. I do need to get like new bolts. It's a whole long thing but it's attached for now but I need to get some new stuff. So first one that I see is now that you have had your place for a little while what have you discovered that you love and or hate about it? Would you have done anything different? Example paid more down look longer etc. Okay great question. I just noticed this the other day that I absolutely hate about this place and um I live in a townhouse. There is like certain restrictions with exterior stuff and there is a direct tv dish on the top of my freaking roof. The likelihood of me ever getting direct tv is like zero. I have this like really ugly dish thing on the top of my home and I don't like it. I wish I would have paid more attention and had the original owner remove that as part of the sale of the home. I do need to put up eventually antenna for television. There's other people that have them too so it's definitely like okay in the association. Yeah I don't like that and every time I walk by my place and I'm like and I walk the dog like every day so I'm like oh this really sucks like really sucks but I guess I'll have to hire somebody to remove it. I mean I don't know I've got these big like pointy roofs so it's not something that like I can just go and do you know what I mean. Anyway um would I have looked longer? No because I found the place I wanted. I really did. I'm pretty decisive when it comes to what I like. If you guys watched my house hunting series you know I looked at only a couple of homes but I don't know I mean I don't think I would have done anything differently and I would have put the same amount of money down to answer your question about that because um it needed this place needed some work. I mean if you guys watched my I think like my day one vlog or my like moving in or whatever you would have seen how bad this place was at least in my opinion it was bad it wasn't my style at all and I had the time to wait because I had a place to stay in the meantime so it wasn't like I was at an apartment it was like you need to get out now or anything so um luckily I was at my parents place and I was able to you know stay while the renovations were being done to it. Oh and what do I love about my place? I love that it's mine like I like that it's mine it's my style it's it's pretty much everything I wanted so there's a couple of little things that kind of irk me it's nothing that can't be fixed you know what I mean so and it's like overtime kind of stuff so I want to like renovate the bathroom and the bathroom downstairs too in time in time nothing needs to be done all today you know what I mean so Carly Middleton asks without giving too much information of course what exactly do you do for your day job you have mentioned that you work in the construction world but what is it exactly that you do well Carly that's a good question nine times out of ten I don't know what the hell I'm doing I work for a small remodeling company and I am essentially like the business slash office manager but I also do like customer relations I talk to homeowners every day I order materials I coordinate deliveries I do like the payroll I do the taxes I do the bookkeeping I do all the banking I do like accounts payable accounts receivable I keep homeowners on track of like you know items that they need to select so like say if we're gonna do a bathroom people need to go to like a bath showroom and actually select like what kind of toilet they want what kind of bathtub they want and like you know faucets and countertops and things like that so like I do that as well so I kind of do everything besides actually tearing down things or putting things together if that makes sense got a lot of job responsibility and I know I complain about work a lot I feel like um but it is very very stressful because a lot of times I'm hiring subs to do things things get so messed up when like there's a rain day or a rain delay or I don't know it's just it screws up my entire schedule on my like I have this like really huge whiteboard high-doyle I have like this really huge whiteboard and it has everything on it so like when stuff gets delayed then I have to like push other contractors back and they don't like that and then they get upset it's like this whole long thing so that's why it's kind of stressful and then I tell the homeowners the bad news and then they get they get kind of upset but I don't know it's like this whole long thing um can you can you move I'm trying to do a Q&A buddy do you want to answer a question can you not sit on my laundry like sitting on my laundry I just folded here's a good question laundry Q&A from Livona or Livana Baki since Doyle is right here can't really see him very well but he's here how do you budget and prepare for Doyle I know sometimes vet bills can be expensive and you mentioned he is on meds so what if he got sick do you have a sinking fund for him not right now I will next year so what I've been doing pertaining to Doyle is I've just been cash flowing it because I've had enough you know money essentially in my budget you got to move but you got to move you you got to move I know oh my gosh whoop there you go um essentially I've had enough money in my budget to cover any of his expenses like his medications if he were to get sick I have enough overflow in my emergency fund right now which isn't really an emergency fund actually somebody asked me a really good question today on one of my videos um and I just answered them because it was just easier to answer them because they wanted me to do a whole video dedicated to the topic but it just was easier to answer um and they asked me how many bank accounts I had because they were like watching some other youtubers that had like 12 bank accounts or something like places to put money you know essentially to like break up things for like a sinking fund or other funds or things like that she just wanted some advice as to how to kind of organize her life and her budget and I said you know my biggest advice is do what works for you and your family but here is what I personally have I have three different personal accounts I have my checking which is associated with my debit card I have my emergency fund which is a savings account so that has six months of expenses in it and then I also have a second savings account which has more like a house fund or whatever in it right now and it's just a savings account but I can transfer that money into my checking if I needed a pace for something for the house um or whatever so I'm just treating that as like a slush savings right now and that's essentially where all my sinking funds are gonna go for 2018 um this is a good question how long did it take you to save up your six plus months of expenses uh she says I'm currently on step two and this is from Laura Gilroy all right so Laura I can't remember exactly I think it took me exactly six months I thought it was gonna take me like a year but we're talking about not my six months of salary it was six months of expenses and I did this without buying clothing like you can pretty much sustain on whatever you know but this was like basic things like keeping the lights on all the utilities my rent at the time which is actually lower than my mortgage payment by the way not eating out and then just like regular grocery store trips so I calculated all of it out and it took me about six months and in the meantime mind you I started this at the very beginning of the year and I had a really big tax refund so that was part of that and then also um I did get a financial gift from my parents so that went into um that emergency fund as well so um every once in a while my parents will gift like my brother and I money they are at a stage in their life where they can do that or and want to do that they're retired and my dad is turning 70 and a half before the end of the year so he's having to start to pull on retirement accounts so he doesn't necessarily want to pull on or doesn't necessarily need to pull on they're starting to do some gifting and it's completely up to them what they want to do with their money I have no control over what they do with their money I will not answer any questions about their money by the way so just don't in the comments but it's up to them if they want to decide to share that with my brother and I they keep everything super even Stevens and if they gift my brother some money they will give me some money and like vice versa so um so yeah but there was like a little gift in there from my parents and like I think I got like birthday money and Christmas money and so I mean even if it was like 50 bucks or 100 bucks I just threw it right at the baby step three you know like I just I didn't need it I didn't want it there were some bonuses from work too so like every little bit like really helped that was really really nice but it took me about six months like I said I was projecting it was going to take me a year but that was without the financial gift from my parents as well as like a tax refund and bonuses from work um and just saving you know just saving up stuff and like you know living on less than you make like a lot less than you make and not going out to eat like at all um I was pretty restrictive of myself and I also worked a second job at the time all right so this is from Katie Rhines laundry Q&A what are your top five youtube channels to watch oh that's a good one Doyle you were like on the laundry I haven't even like it's like all crumply now um so my top five youtube channels to watch okay I will link these below for you guys so you don't have to like go clamoring to find them I've got a lot of youtubers I watch you guys like a lot one of my favorites that doesn't have like a ton of youtube subscribers that you guys should all go subscribe if you haven't already is I believe her name is Christy and her channel is called the former mrs jones and it's amazing and she talks a lot about Dave Ramsey and budgeting and I know I've mentioned her on my channel like a million times but I love like her food halls and her cash envelopes and just like talking about just life you know like her and her family find a way to make it work she's currently pregnant with twin boys right now she also has another son that um I think is school age now I think he's in like grade school I think I don't know um I'm like a really bad judge of like children's sizes for ages because probably because I don't have any so I'm like I don't know but I really really like her channel also I'm a huge fan of do it on a dime I will leave that channel below um if you don't know who do it on a dime is just check her out um as for like makeup fashion I really love makeup by Tiffany D um she lives down in Georgia and I just love her stuff I love her style I love how like easy and effortless she makes things look and makes it feel like I've talked about her on my channel before like her design style is like really similar to my design style I kind of adopted a few things from her so thanks Tiffany um but I really like her um let me think here I really like Pretty Neat Living Jennifer Ross that's probably the first person I started watching was either makeup by Tiffany D or Pretty Neat Living back when she was organized Jen so I really enjoy her channel I don't know who like I'm trying to think of the people that I like pretty much every time they upload a video I watch it because honestly I don't watch every single video that anyone uploads I mean I know maybe that's bad to say but it's true and I don't expect you guys to watch every single video that I upload like if if I'm uploading financial videos and you don't like that just don't watch it like that's totally fine by me I watch a lot of the um the Bravo channel not the Bravo channel what is it uh since I don't have cable like I rewatch stuff that oh it's the channel I think it's called watch what happens live with Andy Cohen um I love that YouTube channel because I just think it's hilarious and he's so funny and I just love how he like just makes his guests relaxed and ask them questions and stuff um I don't know I have a lot of stuff that I could talk about but I don't I don't know I mean I don't really know whoa there's another sock like a rogue sock over here um I don't I don't know if there's any I mean there's a lot of people I watch so it's that's a really difficult question but I will go with those five for now I'm sure if you ask me in 10 minutes it will change but I will link all of their YouTube channels below if you want to check them out Janice Albert asks does Doyle ever bark well let me get him to bark for you hey Doherty come here okay can you sit down what's the puppy say you sound like a really angry cat what's the puppy say what's that puppy say no what's the puppy say what's the puppy say he's over it he doesn't want to do it anymore bye Doyle don't stick your butt hole in the camera I'm like you gotta sit on all my stuff whoop there he goes so no uh Doyle doesn't bark too often let me get me back over here hi see my face now um he he doesn't bark too often um really only if like the doorbell rings or someone knocks on the door then he'll kind of bark a little bit but I don't know he's not big into it Linda Irel or Irel I think it's Irel um asked laundry Q&A are there any youtubers you would love to meet and why any plans to expand your fur family okay so any youtubers I'd love to meet and why I would love to meet makeup by Tiffany D and actually I've already met her but I would like to like sit down and have like a lunch with her like one-on-one just basically to pick her brain about her channel and about how she started and like that kind of stuff I find that completely fascinating because people do talk about it on YouTube but they don't like talk authentically about it by the time their channel is big enough for them to sustain a living off of people don't necessarily want to see that from them they want to see like the makeup videos or the funny sketches or like the day in the life or whatever they're kind of known for people don't really want to learn about that stuff and some of it you have to kind of keep private anyways if there's like companies or brands that you're working with I would love to kind of pick her brain also I don't know I don't know I mean I would love to meet lots of different youtubers I don't know I mean that's the first one that comes to my mind because I just answered that question about my top five so yeah that's what I would go with um any plans to expand your fur family no um Doyle does not get along with other dogs he does kind of like cats but I'm sorry to the cat people out there I don't I don't like cats no not anytime soon I'm pretty sure Doyle is gonna have to be gone before I ever get another animal because I think it would be way too stressful for him like he gets stressed out if we go a different like route walking outside so I just don't think that would be good all right got another good question laundry day Q&A from Emily V I like your name Emily V what is some advice you would give to someone coming out of high school what are some of your inspirations in life love from massachusetts well thank you um I actually just went to massachusetts last summer so it was really fun those impeccable lab if I could talk to my high school self this is what I would say the friends that you have in high school you have probably a lot of friends like a lot of acquaintances you're gonna have like a handful when you get out of high school and that's okay the little stuff in high school you know if you were ever made fun of or bullied or any of that stuff once you're out of high school it doesn't matter because you don't have to see those people anymore and I mean I hope you don't invite that kind of drama into your life so you don't interact with them any longer but really that kind of status and clicks and like the popular kids or the nerds or like whatever it is that doesn't matter once you're out of high school so don't sweat the small stuff is kind of what I would say also if you're planning on doing secondary education like a college or a trade school make sure to make good financial decisions go debt-free because that debt will follow you around for a long time and it's no fun um so if you have a choice between like a private college or an inst or like a state school go to this state school it's going to have the same education as the private college but it's going to cost so much less um if you can tell I've been listening to Dave Ramsey today but um that's probably the advice I would give you um what was the rest of that question let's see here what are some of your inspirations in life like I don't I kind of don't understand the question but I'm going to answer it in the way I perceive it my inspiration life is just I just want to be happy I just want happiness and light around me I don't want negative stuff I spent a lot of time kind of right after high school and into my 20s like mid 20s kind of with my head in the sand and just not addressing issues with myself and others around me and once I took ownership of my problems and other people around me and got rid of them in my life it made my life much lighter and it made me freer I was accepting a lot of drama into my life and it actually really stressed me out and I didn't like it I didn't like the way I felt I didn't like the way I I just didn't like me you know so that was really a weird time in my life I mean I went and I like had fun with friends every weekend and I just felt like that time in my life was just kind of a big facade I really had to take like a good long look in the mirror and just figure out me without all of the other stuff once I stopped doing certain things or started doing certain things just depending on what the behavior was I mean I just felt so much better about everything so I would encourage you to just try to be as authentic as you can be oh wow this person has a lot of questions all right I think I'm gonna stop it after this and I'm gonna put this laundry away wait for the new laundry to be done and then I'll start this over again because it's gonna be a long vlog y'all um okay so this person asks what kind of detergent slash fabric softener etc do you use I will grab that in a second um do you like the location of your laundry area in your new place yeah I actually like having the laundry upstairs I think that's kind of nice you said that your parents winter in Florida and you lived in Fargo for a while but where did you grow up I grew up um in friendly Minnesota that's where I grew up it's just north of Minneapolis um I live like way north now but uh it was just north of Minneapolis so that's where I grew up um okay so let me grab the detergent fabric softener etc that I use I'll be right back oh hi I'm back all right so here's the fabric softener I use downy I usually only use this when I'm doing like sheets and stuff I don't like to use it on my normal clothes this is what I use for my actual laundry right now and these are the tied pods tada I don't know what kind of tight I know there's like a bajillion tied pods I really don't care what I use um I just thought it would be cool to use something that I could put in this container have it contained very nicely and not have like liquid because I always feel like I'm using either too much liquid or not enough I don't know I just figured the pods will work good these are tied I'm not opposed to using like any other kind of pod type laundry detergent so whatever all right so I think that's all the questions for right now but I'll be back in a second for you guys but I'll be back in like an hour or two for me so I just realized it's only been like five minutes you guys I put all my laundry away but I just realized I'm gonna start to lose the light really soon so I'll just kind of breeze through some more questions because it's about to be like pitch black here probably in the next hour so I need to fill more with my light because I'm sitting in front of a window right now another question from let's see I am Tasha two like the number two uh she says laundry topic question do you ever hear your neighbors that you share walls with if so is it bothersome just wondering because I'm looking to getting a townhouse okay so um my bedrooms are not touching any of the shared walls the only shared walls that I have are in the dining room and in the living room and in the dining room I do hear a little bit of my neighbor over there they're retired in their home all day so they always have the tv on so it's very faintly if I don't have any noise going on in the entire like in my entire house I hear that the tv is on but I can't like hear them so it's not bothersome and honestly the other people on this on this side um they are full-time you know working people but they're kind of at the end of their careers so they're like gonna be retiring in the near future I guess is what they told me they are gone like every weekend I feel like so I don't ever really hear anything over there and honestly if I'm in the living room I'm probably watching tv anyways so I don't I don't ever hear them laundry questions okay this is from Monserrat Muñoz I think I don't know how to say the first name I'm sorry uh laundry question does social media ever tempt you to stray away from your budget absolutely I mean I'm human so yeah there are definitely some things that I see online or see people haul and I'm like oh I really like that I really want it but you know want a meter two separate things actually today I placed an order with Nordstrom uh Nordstrom is having their anniversary sale right now and if you guys follow me on instagram I gave a little sneak peek as to some of the items I was looking at I will end up doing a haul for you guys so you can see I don't really buy a lot of clothing you know items and shoes and things like that I got a couple of pairs of shoes and um a couple of tops I actually got some some bottoms too which is rare because I normally don't buy those I don't know if I'm gonna like everything either so I will do a haul for you guys when it all comes in but um there's some staples that I've been having my eye on since the last sale that I was mad that I didn't buy last year so they were on sale again this year but things are like like 30 40 percent off it's amazing it's like not you know clearance stuff it's like stuff for the fall you know so um but yeah I just I buy a couple of good staple items and honestly I don't think I'll end up buying any more clothing for the rest of the year so I kind of go a little hog while during this sale but honestly it's great quality stuff and I want to share it with you guys anyways because you're gonna end up seeing it in videos anyway because I'll probably be wearing it or walking around and wearing it in a vlog or something and I get questions like where'd you get that shirt or whatever so um but yes I do get tempted um I just need to ask myself is this like really a functional thing in my life um I get more tempted by like home stuff nowadays because like obviously I have a home you know if I can find a way to make it work I'll find a way to make it work and you know if I keep thinking about it then I'll just buy it because I really like it especially if it's in the budget and it's like I know I need it but I don't know but I also don't like follow a lot of accounts like on Instagram or even online like YouTube and stuff that uh makes me want to go buy stuff I guess so I don't know yet I mean the answer is yes I do get tempted but I don't really cave in too often I used to a long time ago don't get me wrong well this is a good question this is from Sarah Mitchell what is your next financial goal now that you have purchased a home so if we're talking like big picture not just stuff it's to start investing I haven't I've pushed pause on investing for a little while to get through baby stuff 3b and now obviously that's done because I put the down payment on the house but my current employer does not offer like a retirement program at my current job so I need to do that all on my own I do have a pretty good 401k from my previous employer that I haven't rolled over yet and I need to do that actually my statement just came in the mail the other day but I need to get with like a local like ELP or something start doing that but I want to get I just want to do that before the end of the year I'm not going to push myself to do it I've got a lot of bills coming in and I just want to get used to the rhythm of my billing cycles and when things are happening here so I think that's going to take me a couple of months to just get in the habit of all the different things that are coming in but yeah I to answer your question starting up the investing again doing my 15% of my income and having that go straight to investments is my next big financial goal this is a good one Veronica LaRusso asks what would be your top five tips for someone trying to budget slash save for a home I'm sick of renting and want to own a home okay so Veronica here's what I would say rent for as cheaply as you possibly can save as much as you can get a second job maybe even a third job um don't eat out that was a big deal breaker for me eating out or going and grabbing you know mcdonald's or Taco Bell or whatever was easy and convenient or run through the drive through bring your lunch to work with you that's always a huge budget buster and even like going out with friends and stuff eat before and just have a water or like just have an appetizer versus like an entree you know those little things can just completely sabotage your budget and just throw everything into your savings account just everything I got a second well my second job was actually YouTube and I got a third job which I worked at a mall only you know making like less than half of what I made per hour at my normal day job but I just wanted something like I just wanted to go and I wanted to work and I wanted to get this emergency fund done and that was my main driving force and my main goal and I did that that's what I would do also um you know if you have anything around your home or anything you can sell sell it if you're not using it sell it on ebay um you can do like the facebook marketplace now uh craigslist yeah do do different things like that was that five tips I don't know those are the things I can think of right now so that's that's what I would do if I were you um in even maybe even exploring uh getting a roommate if that is uh you know in your comfort level Jenny Ray asked now that you have a townhouse what is your next big financial goal just answered that it says do you plan up plan to try to pay off your mortgage early absolutely that is definitely the plan oh this is a good one this is from TL please tell me more about your time in North Carolina I know you love living there and you said you wanted to retire there that is true I do want to retire there um I don't think when I am 65 ish which is only less than 30 years away oh wow that's I can't think of myself as like that old I don't know what future Emily's gonna want but I know future Emily is not gonna want the snow okay I don't plan on ever having children of my own I may end up in a relationship with somebody that does have children of their own and possibly will have grandchildren so that may tip the scales a little bit but if I end up finding somebody that doesn't have children already that would be my ideal place I think the weather is so nice there I love that you still get a fall essentially in the winter and the summer isn't too horrible my time there I was only there for less than a year and I moved there with a friend and we just went on an adventure essentially it was like a little less than a year so we went on an adventure we got jobs we worked we had fun we did lots of different things I don't know I just really enjoyed it and I lived in a town called Wilmington North Carolina and um I had a blast I made some really great friends down there too and I don't know I just I liked the people I liked the vibe it was so chill there and just like any kind of like coastal town it was just I feel like I could relax there and I don't feel like in Minnesota I can relax because I'm so anxious and amped up and I I don't know it's and I do it to myself too it took me a good like six or seven months once I moved to North Carolina to just like chill out and move at the pace that everybody else did and it would like irritate me if I was in the grocery store and people were like counting out their change and I'm like come on like let's go you know I'm just like this impatient northern person I'm like let's move it I got stuff to do and that's just like kind of who I am anyways it took me a while to just like take a step back and be like hey you know what if I don't get somewhere on time it's gonna be okay like no one's gonna die it's gonna be all right like this is not a life-threatening situation of like getting through the grocery line faster it's gonna be fine yeah I mean it took me a while to chill out and that's like the only place I've ever felt like I could just relax I felt that we in Florida too but then like the driving in Florida is like really bad and if you've been to Florida you like know what I'm talking about like I'm legit scared for my life every time we drive somewhere in Florida I mean I know my parents drive in Florida but it is some scary stuff and I've got two of my three cousins that are in Florida are cops so then I hear all the stories of like all the crazy things that go on and I'm like oh my gosh like I can't do it but anyway I would I would love to retire to North Carolina I love that place and even if I lived in like Raleigh or Charlotte like that would be cool too but I would love to live on the east coast I'm definitely an east coast person more than a west coast sorry everybody on the west coast but I like the prices on the east coast a little bit better too