Welcome everyone. This is episode two of a new Wienab podcast series,

debt stories, real people beating debt and winning financially.

Today I want to introduce you to Tom.

Tom lives in Kent and Michigan, a city that's located between Detroit and Ann Arbor.

He's a retired IT business analyst, a career that helped him earn pretty

good money. But, as you'll soon hear from Tom, even a six-figure salary isn't enough to guarantee

stress-free finances,

at a realization that became crystal clear to him

during a conversation with his then wife. I don't remember the exact question but I remember the response. She was running up from

the basement and said, hey, we're going to work until we die.

And I thought, wait, I didn't sign up to this. So that was kind of the first wake-up call, and then...

So, how did Tom get into such a tight situation?

I got into that the same way I think a lot of people do.

I had a pretty good job and my wife was a teacher

and she had a pretty good job.

So it's like, hey, let's go buy a house.

It's like, sure.

And then let's go buy a car.

Let's go buy another car because the other car

was having trouble.

So we just went out and bought two new cars the same day.

That set up a really ugly cycle of cars falling apart at the same time and needing new parts at the same time.

...