Episode 495: DIY & Trade Job Path to Financial Freedom with Tinian Crawford

Intro 0:45

Welcome to the Journey to Launch podcast with your host, Jamila Souffrant, as a money expert who walks her talk. She helps brave journeyers like you get out of debt, save, invest, and build real wealth. Join her on the journey to launch to financial freedom.

Jamila Souffrant 1:12

Hey, hey, hey, journeyers. Thank you for joining me on another episode of The Journey to Launch podcast. This is episode 93 Episode 93 show notes can be found at Journey to launch.com/episode 93 And today I am going to be talking to Tinian Crawford. Tinian, also known as Captain DIY, is the author behind DIY to FI, a blog designed to share the power of DIY knowledge and skills as a pillar of financial independence. He's going to talk to us all about how we can further our mindset around careers, so the trades. How do you get involved in the trades? How this can be very beneficial on the journey to financial freedom. How to use DIY skills to boost your savings rate, and how the multiple benefits of physical labor can create real, tangible results in your life and help you reach your goals. Before we get into the episode with Tinian, I want to just say, if you are enjoying this podcast, please continue to share this out with your family and friends. And, as always, if you listen to this in Apple Podcast, make sure you leave me a review. You know, I read everyone, and I'm going to be reading one at the end of this episode. If you don't listen to Apple Podcast, that's totally fine. Just continue to share it out with your family and friends, and also make sure you're following me on my social media accounts at Journey to Launch. I'm there on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. In this episode with Tinian, we're going to talk about what the trades actually are, going to talk a little bit about his background, and how this is a great alternative to traditional education. And so, a few episodes back, I had on Ryan Craig, who talked about the crazy rising cost of education about a traditional schooling, and how we need to take the power back and education back and make it something that fits our life, and so I believe this is a great companion to that conversation. So, where we can start creating our own paths and directing our children, those of us that have kids, to create what is going to be a life that they can fully be in control of. We have so much to discuss in this episode, but without further ado, I want you to hear it yourself. So, let's hop in to this conversation with Tinian. Hey, hey, hey, journeyers! I'm super excited to have on today the podcast Tinian Crawford. Hi, Tinian.

Tinian Crawford 3:37

Hi, Jamila.

Jamila Souffrant 3:38

How you doing?

Tinian Crawford 3:40

I'm doing great. How are you?

Jamila Souffrant 3:41

Good, and maybe some of you guys don't know Tinian is, unless you listen to a few podcasts, because he's been making his rounds, but he's also known as Captain D I Y, right?

Tinian Crawford 3:52

That's right, that's right, that's the name that I picked for my blog, and it's kind of tongue in cheek, but you know, I'm having fun with it.

Jamila Souffrant 3:58

Okay, so why Captain DIY? I talked a little bit before we started to press record about who you were and your background, but why that name?

Tinian Crawford 4:06

So I came up with the blog name first, the DIY Two Phi, and I just thought it sounded cool. I like to kind of fix things and make things work. It's kind of just what I do for a job, and then I bring it home a little bit, and you know, I kind of like superheroes and stuff. It's kind of a dweeby way of bringing that all into it. Yeah.

Jamila Souffrant 4:26

No, it's cool, because I think one of the things, one of the tools and attributes that a lot of people who are on this journey will have to have is being resourceful and having a DIY sort of attitude. And so I think it's perfect that you, Captain DIY, come on the show and talk about ways in which not only you're doing it, but then how can other people apply this attitude, this lifestyle to help them reach their financial goals, and we're going to get into trade, so that's one of the big things I wanted you to come talk about, because we all know one of the biggest. Barriers to a lot of people reaching their financial goals are student loans, and people who not necessarily want to be like in a traditional career realm, but they get pushed there because that's what is expected of them, and so I think we should be talking more about these alternatives to traditional education, and being a master in a trade or going to the trade field is a perfect way to establish kind of the autonomy and entrepreneurship and make money without going to college. So, anyway, let's talk about that. So, tell me about trades. Like, let's first describe and define what that means.

Tinian Crawford 5:35

Sure. So, I've never actually seen a specific definition for a trades job, so I just kind of came up with one. I consider a trade to be a job that requires physical manipulation by the practitioner to accomplish a task, so something that requires you to be on site and manipulating things around you in your environment to get something done, so that would be in my case, I'm an electrician, so that's a pretty obvious one: electrician, plumber, carpenter, roofer, painter. But then there's also like a nurse. I go back and forth with a guy, Matt, the RN mentor, and he's a nurse, and he kind of considers nursing to be a trade as well, which I think kind of goes hand in hand with what I was talking about with physical manipulation, because as a nurse you need to be physically available to your patients, and you are working with them, you know, they are kind of your material that you're working with. In my case, it's wires, in his case it's people.

Jamila Souffrant 6:35

Now, you said you were an electrician, and that, from what I hear, is a lucrative trade to get into. So, I want to talk a little bit more about your backstory, like who you are, how you got into becoming an electrician and Captain DIY. So, can you tell us just a little bit more about your backstory?

Tinian Crawford 6:54

Yeah, absolutely. So, I was never destined to be in the trades. My family always told me I was artistic as a kid, you know, I like to draw, I like to play music, but my father, he was a real build-it-yourselfer, Yankee hippie type. He lives in a house out in the middle of the woods that he and my mother built, you know. They bought this dilapidated old house that they tore down and rebuilt it. My mother soon decided that life was not for her, and now lives right next to New York City, so pretty close to you, and she went on to become a CFO of a major, major public health company. She's actually a great story and of herself. She kind of picked herself up by her bootstraps and developed this amazing life. And meantime, my father was busy building everything from barns to houses to fixing his cars and stuff, so I was kind of stuck in that. Whenever I said I was bored, I would end up with a hammer in my hand,

Jamila Souffrant 7:48

which,

Tinian Crawford 7:49

you know, you learn pretty quick not to say you're bored,

Jamila Souffrant 7:51

right?

Tinian Crawford 7:52

So I went to a performing arts charter high school, studied music there, went to community college for a few years for graphic design, after that, and just realized that it wasn't really something I was into, and ended up floating around a bunch of different jobs while I was there, and after that, and eventually I made a comment to my wife, I was working in the sign business at the time, and I thought that it might be lucrative to me, I'd be worth more money to the sign business if I became an electrician, because they require electricity for some signs. So, next thing I know, I start getting emails from these vocational schools saying, 'Oh, we hear you want to be an electrician, come check out our schools, because she had put my name out there without me knowing. So, and then I went and checked out one of the schools, and it seemed like a good program, and I like working with my hands, and so I signed up. It was a one year program. It was probably the most expensive way to do it. It was $25,000 for the one year program, and it was 7o'clock in the morning to 12 o'clock in the afternoon, five days a week. And for the first six months I was working for the sign shop, still, and then six months into it, I got a job as an apprentice with an electrical contractor nearby, and he asked me if I wanted to just stay there after I finished the schooling, and I said absolutely, and so I ended up just doing my four years of apprenticeship with him, and I got my license, and have since moved on to a position at a university as an electrician.

Jamila Souffrant 9:24

Wow, okay. So, want to step back. How old were you when you decided to now pursue this?

Tinian Crawford 9:30

So, I was 24 when I started the program.

Jamila Souffrant 9:36

So, you'd already graduated, you did a four year degree,

Tinian Crawford 9:40

I did a two year degree, but it took me six years to do it.

Jamila Souffrant 9:43

Okay, so did you graduate with a lot of student loan debt?

Tinian Crawford 9:48

No. So it was a community college, so it was super cheap, a couple $100 per class, and my mother had set up a 529 for me when I was a kid that had enough money to cover all that and. Then some, and I ended up spending the rest of it on a truck, which was not the best financial decision, but I wasn't thinking about money at all until probably three years ago, so it's I wasn't thinking like that at all, I was thinking, well, I'm not going to college and have this money and I need a vehicle, so I'm going to buy this truck,

Jamila Souffrant 10:18

okay, and so you said also that you went five days a week, so did you stop working at that point?

Tinian Crawford 10:23

No, it was only in the morning, so I was able to work in the afternoons. So, yeah, I stuck with a sign shop in the afternoons for the first half of that year. The way they set up the program was they broke it up into quarters, and at the end of each quarter you get a week in which you have to do an internship somewhere out in the field, and the second internship I did was with a contractor. I basically gave him a week's worth of free work, and at the end of the week, he said, "Do you want to come back on Monday? I said, "Absolutely, I do. And so then I would work from about 1o'clock in the afternoon till 430 with him,

Jamila Souffrant 10:57

right? And you said it was a more expensive way to go, and as you're talking, because I'm immediately just thinking for people who already are in their careers but have a now an interest in this, because we're going to talk more about, like, how lucrative this is, and how much money you can make doing it. So, I'm sure maybe it might pique some interest for some people, but this is possible. So, if you're already, you know, working full time, you can pivot to do something like this.

Tinian Crawford 11:22

Absolutely, yeah, there's lots of ways to do it, and one of the ways that the son of my neighbor, who lives across the street from me, he's doing it by going to community college. Actually, it's an evening program, so he goes two days a week in the evenings, it's like six to 9o'clock at night, and so he's doing that while he's working a full-time job. He happens to be working as an electrical apprentice full time, and then he goes and does his classroom work in the evenings, because you need a certain number of classroom hours to take your licensure test, certain number of classroom hours, and a certain number of field hours, and so he's getting them both on the same time, and that he told me he was paying $1,500 a year, and it was a four-year program, so it was going to cost him $6,000 total,

Jamila Souffrant 12:10

right. And so I wanted to talk about cost now, because you said you went to a program that was 20-5000 and this was a few years ago, and so what are the alternatives? So we're kind of talking now about, like, we're talking more about your field, like being an electrician, so we'll stick there, but then I want to expand it to the bigger picture of like other trades, and I know they'll be different, so you might not know all of them, but what do you think is like the average cost, because when you compare like what college costs, I mean community college, not as expensive, but just in general, like what are the cost comparisons to trade school versus traditional school?

Tinian Crawford 12:44

There's a few different ways of doing this, and one way to do it, if you get in young enough. So, if there's anybody that's listening that has kids that are in middle school and they're not really sure what they want to do, vocational high schools, you get your classroom work for free, because it's high school, it's a public high school, and you get a bunch of your experience hours, and then you, I mean, I have a friend of mine whose younger brother is a plumber, and he went to a vocational high school. He came out of that high school, he did about two years of an apprenticeship with a contractor, and then he got his license, and he started up his own business, and he's absolutely crushing it right now. He's making just money hand over fist,

Jamila Souffrant 13:20

and he's like, what, 18,

Tinian Crawford 13:22

yeah, basically, I mean, he's right, you know, he graduated high school almost there, and it was, it was like two years later, so he was 20 when he got his license, and you know, a plumber, a licensed plumber can expect to make, if you're going to be working for yourself, you can expect to charge between 80 and $100 an hour, if you're working for a contractor, you know it might be more like 30 to $40 an hour, maybe a little bit more than that, but you know it's still very good money, and it's when all your friends are in college spending a lot of money to go to college, and so the comparison for someone who's after high school, I wrote a blog post a little while ago, the cost comparison between education in college versus an education in the trades, and in that I kind of go over a case analysis, if you will, of what it would cost to go to a university for four years, come out of that with a degree, and then go into a job versus going to a program like I went to, a one year program, and then starting your job after that, so you would be three years into your apprenticeship at the time that the other person was graduating college, and you know it's the numbers, the way they add up, you end up making quite a bit more money by the time those four years are up than the person who went to college, and you're coming out of that with no debt, versus the person who's coming out of college with debt, and so it really, it can work out to be really beneficial way of getting into a career without having a big burden on your back when you get there.

Jamila Souffrant 14:58

All right, so this sounds so. Obvious, like, okay, so why then aren't more people doing this? Because I know a vacation, I live, you know, in New York City, so there are vocational high schools, and I know of, like, plumbers and electricians, but I never really grew up with, like, or know of anyone who's kind of staring their kid in that way, or said they want to grow up and do that, and it just seems like, why not? Like, so, why? Why isn't this like a bigger deal? For

Tinian Crawford 15:25

the last 40 years or so, there's been a pretty big stigma on vocational schools. You know, vocational school has always been for the kids who aren't smart enough to go to college. My mother was big into college, you got to go to college, college is what you do after high school, which is why I ended up going to community college, even though it wasn't for me. So, I think the thing that needs to happen is we need to realize that this stigma is a myth, it's not something that is real. There's community college is a great option if you're kind of looking to get into college, you don't really know what to do, the trades are a great option if school just doesn't really feel right for you, and for me, I learn by doing. I learn by hands, I can read a book, and I can see the words, and I can take in a little bit of it, but it just doesn't stick. But when I do something, when I manipulate an object with my hands, that's when I really learn it, and so the trades for me just really felt natural, and I think getting over that stigma of realizing that vocational schools are not for people who can't get into college, vocational schools are for people who learn a different way, or maybe just have a different idea in life, if you have that entrepreneurial spirit, a trade is a great way to exercise that, and a vocational school is really the fabulous stepping stone into that.

Jamila Souffrant 16:50

Can we talk about how much, like, so, as for electrician, like, the range of, like, how much you can make, and then some other trades that you know of?

Tinian Crawford 16:58

Absolutely, so I know the money in the electrician field, obviously, because that's where I am. I don't know it so well in the other trades, but so right now at the university I am making $29 an hour, and I also get full health, vision, dental. I get 15 days off a year, I get three weeks of vacation on top of those holidays, so the benefits are there. The money isn't as much as a lot of other people are making it. For a contractor, you'd probably be making more between 30 to $40 an hour, and then when you work for yourself, so I have a business on the side and I am charging $85 an hour, that's right around the going rate, and yeah, people are just happy to pay that, because right now you cannot get trades people to come to your house. I mean, that's.. I find that all the time people are calling me and saying, well, you're the.. I've called five electricians, you're the first one to call me back.

Jamila Souffrant 17:55

Wait, so why aren't they calling back?

Tinian Crawford 17:58

Because they're.. they're booked, everybody's got too much work,

Jamila Souffrant 18:01

all right. So, there's a couple things going on. There is this seemingly lucrative career where you can actually get a full-time job with benefits and paid time off if you want to go that way, or it's very like supports an entrepreneurial spirit, because you can have your own full-time, you know, entrepreneur or business, or you can have a side hustle, like you're doing, and so supplement your income, so like that's looks like obvious, like okay, the money is there, and then now it seems not only is the money and the position like seem to be coveted, but there's a demand, this is like business school 101 like there's a demand that people need more people doing this, and then it is good money, so again, just seems like a no-brainer. I'm just scratching my head, like, why aren't more people doing this?

Tinian Crawford 18:50

People are starting to realize, and what's happening is that big companies and governments are starting to realize, and it's there's a so there's an NPR article that came out recently: high-paying trade jobs sit empty while high school grads line up for university, and that, so that they're talking about iron workers. They go to an ironworker school in Washington state, and what they're finding is that a lot of companies are realizing that they are expecting a huge shortage of workers that's coming up soon, and so they're, they're kind of panicking, because these are jobs that need to be done if the economy is to grow, and they cannot collect enough workers for these jobs, and so they're starting to incentivize people to learn these skilled trades, and that's, you know, so ironworkers is a great example, that's not, that's not becoming an electrician, it's still kind of the same process, I would think, but it's a totally different job, you know. That's for somebody who likes to be a little bit more physical and likes to climb around on buildings and is not necessarily afraid of heights. There's many other options. I mean, you can be a carpenter, you can be a painter, you can be a landscaper. These are all things that need to be done, people. Just haven't realized yet, and that's kind of where I'm coming into this, is I'm trying to spread the message that you know these are things that need to happen. This is a great opportunity for people to get in,

Jamila Souffrant 20:11

right? And I'm also thinking, too, it's just like a lot of people just don't know what the opportunities are and what the jobs are, right, because I don't know much about trades, you know, I know, like, the main ones, like, you know, being an electrician and plumber, but there are so many others that someone would not even know what to look up, so even if they were interested in getting into trade, like, they'd have to, like, kind of go down a rabbit hole and really see what it was, and so, yes, I'm hoping that you now talking about this, especially, like, to my audience, can open up where, like, a few doors for people to say, okay, I'm gonna look into this a little bit more now. I'm actually curious, is I know you said like trade schools a good alternative for someone who may not learn, you know, in a certain way, or prefers like being more hands on, but is it hard to become like an electrician, like the kind of brain power that it takes to do that, like is it a tough profession? Because I'm also thinking, do you have to have like a natural ability in a certain like sense to be able to succeed at something like that?

Tinian Crawford 21:08

So I don't have a natural ability in this, and it's, it's been, you know, a real learning process for me. The licensed guy that I spend most of my time apprenticing under, he was absolutely natural in this world. I mean, he was telling plumbers how to do their jobs, just because he would look at something and know exactly how it worked. And me, not being a natural, I was still able to do it. It's not, it's not like it's that hard. And the beautiful thing about it, and certainly it's the case in electricians, and it's the case in plumbers and carpenters, and there's lots of different avenues that you can go. I mean, for example, in the case of electricians, you can just do residential work, you can wire houses, that for the most part doesn't take a whole lot of brain power, because if you're starting from scratch, you're building a house, there's not going to be a whole lot of difference. I mean, certainly a $50,000 house is going to be wired a lot different than a $500,000 house, but the basics are pretty much the same. If you can get a basic understanding of how to wire a house, you can wire pretty much any house, and then if you want to go deeper into it, you can do more controls work. I mean, I've been involved with wiring a car wash, which has just massive amounts of controls and really intricate work that requires extreme brain power. So, if you really want to get into it, you can get into it. If you want to really rack your brain and be really cerebral about it, there's absolutely avenues for that. That's not for me. I'm not that cerebral. I like to do the grunt work, get into a house, drill a bunch of holes, pull a bunch of wires, and it's physical and it's fun, and I like doing that kind of stuff. There's still a little bit of room for some, some mental games, and so I like that aspect as well. So I think there's a lot of great opportunities for a lot of different types of people you know, if you really like challenging yourself with your mind, there's a lot of great ways you can go into a trade and do that, you know, you can find an avenue of any particular trade that's going to be more mentally challenging than others,

Jamila Souffrant 23:17

and speaking of like, anyone can do this, now I'm wondering why more women aren't doing this, like, so, where are the women in these trades?

Tinian Crawford 23:25

Yeah, and traditionally it has been good ol' boy kind of thing, and I've definitely experienced it when I was out there. There was a lot of, well, there would be a woman on a crew, and some of the guys are kind of snickering, like, oh, she's having a hard time lifting this thing, or whatever, and I see that dying, I see that fading away. I've been seeing more and more women in the trades, I've been seeing more women in electrical fields. I, you know, I run into electricians at the supply houses and stuff when I'm buying materials, and I'm seeing more and more women there, which is really, really cool. This is such a good opportunity for women. The trades are desperate for more people, and they're desperate for diversification, because traditionally this has been a white man's world, and they need to change that. And they're, they know this, and they're working on changing it, and so they're trying to make it more accessible for women, and a lot of these trades people, especially the smaller shops, I think, are having a hard time finding people, and so they're, they're kind of opening up and saying, well, you know, maybe, maybe women really can do this, and then they find some women that can do this, and they, they're just like, wow, yeah, this is totally, this is perfect, and there's lots of women that want to do this, that want to prove themselves, and so this is, I think, this is just a great opening for women to get into this. I think it's more women need to know about the trades as an option,

Jamila Souffrant 24:50

right? And as you're talking, I'm thinking about, you know, like there's a lot of nonprofits and work around like getting women into coding and engineering and things and. I'm wondering, and I'm sure maybe between now and the episode releases, like, we could find some resources, but that there probably should be, if not already, like some organizations that support women through this career, because I'm sure it wouldn't need a lot of support, especially it can be intimidating if you have to go into a job or into a field where it's all men, and if they're not the most welcoming, or you don't feel supported, and it could be hard.

Tinian Crawford 25:22

Yeah, absolutely. And, unfortunately, I don't know of any of those resources offhand, but yeah, if you're a woman and you're willing to put yourself in a situation that might seem a little bit uncomfortable at first, I don't think that would last very long, and I think that if you do find yourself in a position where nothing seems to be changing, and you're in a good old boy area, and everybody's snickering behind your back. You can find another position that won't be like that, because they're out there. I mean, there's just so many jobs there. We're looking at 5 million worker shortage by 2020 in the trades, so there's plenty of openings. If you don't like where you are, you can find another one that's going to work better for you, and you know what, you do your apprenticeship now, it's like a five year apprenticeship, if you're an electrician or a plumber, and you start your own business. I mean, I've been reading about these women that they're, they're running multi million dollar businesses in the trades, I mean, there's.. I was just reading an article earlier today about this woman who started a business as a plumber, she's a licensed plumber. She started up this business. It grossed $5 million this year. So, if you don't like your situation, you can find another one, because there's so many opportunities, and you can make your own, because there's so many opportunities,

Jamila Souffrant 26:39

right? Right now, and I imagine, too, as parents, or you know, now people who can, like, you know, more encourage the younger generation, like, to do different things. It's the same kind of messaging, where you know, like, we don't really tell, like, girls that they can do that. Usually, you tell, like, a boy, like, "Oh, okay, like, maybe that's something you can get into, but, like, we should start telling our girls more often, like, if you know, you like the way things work, like, or you know, you're very, you like working with your hands, you very well, you don't have to necessarily be a nurse, that's a great thing, too, very noble thing, but you can also maybe be an electrician or a plumber.

Tinian Crawford 27:11

Absolutely, yeah, and that's so I have two kids, I have a son and a daughter, and yeah, it's I love bringing my daughter along, and I'll bring my son along every once in a while, and you know they see me stacking up my tools in the garage, and they see me working on the house, and I do some electrical work around the house, and I do, I try to involve them as much as possible, equally the two of them is, and if they show any interest in it, as they get older, they're still pretty young, they're four and eight right now, but as they get older, if they show any interest in it, I'm, I'm really going to be supportive of them going into the trades versus going to college, because I just think it's, it would be a great thing for either one of them to do, and certainly for my daughter, if she decides that she wants to go into the trades, become an electrician, I'd be very, very happy with that,

Jamila Souffrant 27:58

she could take over the business, the family business, right,

Tinian Crawford 28:00

definitely.

Jamila Souffrant 28:02

So, I think what I'm hearing too. So, if someone has a child or is just younger that wants to get into the trades, they can start out like by looking at a vocational school, like high school, to help them get a jumpstart. If they're a little bit older, so maybe they're already in a career and they're realizing, you know, what, this is not a career I like or what I want to do, they can pivot by there's some part-time programs you can attend. It might take a little bit longer, but you can still do something different with your life, even if you didn't start out thinking you wanted to do this.

Tinian Crawford 28:33

Absolutely, and if you're willing to take a little bit of a pay cut for a little while, if you're going into a licensed trade, then you are going to take a pay cut when you are doing your apprenticeship, because apprentices are just not paid as much as licensed trades people, obviously. But there's, there's other options. I mean, there's other trades out there that you know don't require a licensure, and like anything else, there's going to be a pay curve that you start off lower and you go up as it goes along. But I, you know, I have a friend of mine, who is a professional rigger, so he goes and sets up ropes on bridges, so that bridge inspectors can come and check them out. He cleaned the outside of the Space Needle, and this is not something that he had to go get licensed for. This is something that he learned by getting a job in this business that was doing it, and they just taught him as they went along, and so now he gets paid to travel the country and do awesome things, climb around on things. It's really fun, and so that you know you can do something like that mid-career. You can make a career shift. It is going to be tough, like any other career shift, of course, but it's absolutely viable, and you can be making real money in a few

Jamila Souffrant 29:43

years, as long as you have to put that time up front. It's an investment, just like anything else, like you're doing. So, all right, I have a question about let's just say someone's not necessarily looking to do a big career change, but they want to employ or do more things in their own house. House right, and become more hands on to save money, or at least be aware of when they hire people, not to get ripped off, because I'm imagining, like you said, you probably do a lot around your house, and so that's probably helpful with cutting cost. So, how can, like, the average person now in their own life become more DIY?

Tinian Crawford 30:19

There's a lot of great resources out there. I mean, YouTube. If my father-in-law, he likes to tell the story that his TV was dying on him, it wasn't working right. And he went on YouTube and saw who looked up that model of TV, and they said, 'You got a lot of results, saying, 'Yeah, this has been happening to me. They put a capacitor in this TV that isn't sized right. It's really easy to swap out. This is what you do. These are the tools you need. And he'd never done anything like this before. He went and got a soldering gun and bought this capacitor online for $3 and he fixed his $2,000 TV, and it lasted another six years after that. And that's just with a YouTube video. And so that's a huge resource. Also, I find that the talent stack is a great method of kind of developing your skills and getting a little bit more confident with tools. So, finding projects that are real simple to start, if you've never touched a tool before, don't feel like you're going to lay a new floor, because you're going to get overwhelmed, and it's going to be miserable, and you're going to have to end up hiring somebody to fix it in the middle of the project. Start with something simple, just like anything else. You know, you're not going to start a multi million dollar business just by renting a shop and opening the door. You got to start small, and I think that starts with DIY stuff. It starts with just picking out a few simple tools, picking out a simple project, and just bang it out, you know. So, Aardvark Advisor has a great article on building a compost bin. He built a compost bin out of two by fours, and it's such a simple project, it's really hard to screw up. You just cut some boards, you nail them together, and you get this compost bin, and it's a fun little thing you can do, and you can stand back at the end of the, you know, two or three hours, or whatever it took you, and you can look at it and say, yeah, I built that, and now all of a sudden you're feeling a little bit better about tackling that, you know, replace a window or something a little bit more complicated,

Jamila Souffrant 32:15

right? Right, like I can personally say, I have, as you were talking, I'm just like, that even just sounds like too complicated for me to attempt, but I know that someone listening might be like maybe I should try that, but yeah, no, I think, like you said, it's like better to start small, and what I also like too is just like equipping yourself with at least some basic knowledge, so that way when you do hire people, if you choose to hire people because you just don't, you know, want to do that, you have a level of knowledge that will help you

Tinian Crawford 32:42

absolutely, and I hire people. I mean, I, I had to get my boiler replaced recently, and that's.. I tried to fix my boiler last year and almost blew up my house, and so now you know, I hire somebody to fix my boiler, and I need a new roof, and I'm not willing to climb up onto my roof and screw a new one down, so I'm hiring somebody for that. It's, you know, there's there's no shame in hiring somebody and knowing where your limits are. I think that's really important, is to know where your limits are and to accept that. And, but, yes, like you said, getting a baseline of knowledge, if you know just a little bit about how your car works, you're going to be that much less likely to get ripped off of the mechanic. I know everybody likes to rip on mechanics, but that's the classic example. You know, you go to the mechanic to get your oil changed, they say, oh, you know, it looks like your brakes need to be replaced, and we can't let you drive off the lot because it's not safe. And you know, if you know just a little bit about cars, you can say, well, you know, I just looked at my brakes the other day and they look fine, so I'm not going to worry about

Jamila Souffrant 33:38

it. Right? Right now, I want to dig a little bit deeper into, like, your journey and progression into FI, because you mentioned before that you weren't really into any of this. It's only been a few years that you got into it. So, what, what caused this leap, or this interest in financial independence?

Tinian Crawford 33:55

So, it was a bit of a fortuitous event disguised as a tragedy. It was my wife went out for a walk a couple of years ago. It was February. We live in New England, and she slipped and fell on some ice and hit her head really, really hard, and got a pretty severe concussion. And she was told that she had to just lay in bed for a few weeks, and she couldn't look at any screens without getting a splitting headache, she couldn't read, so she turned to podcasts. She's always been really frugal and good at saving, and so she found Mad Finest. She introduced me to the Mad Finest, because she's always been trying to get me to save more and be more of a saver, and you know, I just was not. I had money, I wanted something that was cool, so I was going to buy it, and so she introduced me to the Mad Finist, and then I kind of got sucked into it, and went down the rabbit hole from there, and found a bunch of others, and and that's when we really started getting into the Phi idea.

Jamila Souffrant 34:55

Right, I find that the Mad Finest is a.. and by the way, everyone, maybe people listening don't know. That's a podcast that's one of the first ones I listen, I think that was the first one I listened to that like led me down the rabbit hole of then like I found in Radical Personal Finance, and then because there was like a lot of interviews with people who were really hardcore FI, you can like go to their blogs and it's just, yeah, it really takes you down that rabbit hole, so where are you now like in your financial freedom journey, like, how far are you away from your goal? Like, what changes did you make once you realize, like, wow, I could be doing a lot more with my money.

Tinian Crawford 35:29

Yeah, at first we really hit the expenses hard. We looked at all every leak that our money might be seeping out of, and we really tried to close them up as much as we could. You know, we canceled our cable, did a bunch of things like that, and we weren't really spending a ton of money anyway, so there wasn't really a whole lot to do there. As it's gone along, our mindset has slowly shifted. We're less about the money at this point. We're certainly not anywhere near our fi number, not that we really have a defined number, but at this point it's more about just being more intentional with our money, living our life the way we feel like is the best way for us. There was a year where I was, I put my nose down right when I found that podcast. It was a solid year of just putting my nose down, try not to spend any money anywhere, if possible, work as much as I possibly could, and you know, just recently I found myself, I just came off a stint of over two months without a day off. I was working at work all day, and then I would come home, my wife would go, she's a therapist, so she would go see clients. When I got home, and then on the weekends, I'd be running off to do side jobs, and I realized my kids are growing up without me, so I kind of backed off on that a little bit. So, right now, I mean, we're definitely still saving aggressively. I have a 457 that I max out every year. We max out our IRAs. We are.. we just hit the $200,000 net worth.

Jamila Souffrant 36:59

Nice.

Tinian Crawford 37:00

Yeah, it's really exciting. Yeah, so we're just saving up as much as we can at this point, while still living our lives. I mean, so another blog post I have is, why I have a big stupid hot tub, and yeah, it's, it's, you know, the dumbest thing you can do in New England is keep 200 gallons of water 104 degrees all winter long, but it is so important for us to have that little mini vacation in our backyard, you know. We take the kids out there, we do family hot tub nights, and when it's snowing and you're sitting in the hot tub, and it's just the most beautiful thing in the world. And if that makes our five goal three more years down the road, so be it. Those are going to be three good years, because we're sitting in a hot tub,

Jamila Souffrant 37:40

right, and I love that perspective. I love, you know, it doesn't all have to be like frugal all the way, and you're sacrificing everything that you want or that brings you joy, because I feel the same way. It's funny because, you know, one of the things that we want to get one day, it's probably not going to happen anytime soon, but, like, it's a hot tub also, right? But I find that even for me, when I started the journey, I mean, we saved a lot of money, but you know, we still have cable, we still have certain things that, if we cut out, like we could reach our goals faster, like if we never went out to eat, and it's just like, for us, it's just, we don't want to go that route, and so I find it encouraging and just refreshing when I hear other people just like admit that, you know, for them it's not just about the money, it's, you know, it's about enjoying, like, the journey, and then understanding what that costs you. So, like, if you, in the same regard, were like, "Oh, you know, I'm, I have this hot tub, but I really want to quit my job, and, you know, I hate, like, I'm not making enough money, or I have too many expenses, that's that's another story. But, like, you are willingly making this decision, you know what you're doing, you know you're in a position of power, and so I think in that case, I mean, if you, whether that's buying a hot tub or a luxury car, like it's not my life, it's your journey, and so I always encourage people that, you know, they might come upon blogs and hear stories and think, well, I guess this is not for me, because I don't want to live that life, and it's just like you can create your own life and your own path, and financial independence for you might look different than from the next person, and that's okay.

Tinian Crawford 39:09

Absolutely, yeah. And frugality can be fun, you know, if that's your mindset, and as, as long as it's fun and a game when you're saving money, then that's great. That's that's the way to do it, and that's kind of what we do too, is we kind of see how we can game the system as much as possible to save as much as we can, and then at the same time, you know, we'll go out for a nice dinner every once in a while, we're not doing it every week, we might do it once a month, maybe, but when we do it, you know, we're going out to have fun, we're not going to look at the menu and pick the cheapest thing, we're going to look at the menu and pick the thing that looks best to us at that moment, and it's, I think, it's easy for somebody who's first getting into the financial independence movement to get swallowed up by the numbers and get swallowed up by the math, because I think it's part of the evolution, it's important that you get swallowed up by the numbers in the beginning. And then you slowly come to realize that, yes, that is important, but it is not everything, and the end of the journey shouldn't be the final goal. It's not about the end, like you say, it's a journey, it's about the experience, it's not about finishing first,

Jamila Souffrant 40:17

right? It's so true. I mean, they're going to be opportunity costs from for each decision that you make, and you know, as long as you are aware of that, and like it's okay. So, I love that, and I want you to let everyone know. So, first of all, thank you for coming on the show. I mean, think this was a great conversation, and I really hope journeyers get a lot from what you had to bring to the table, especially about the trade part of the discussion. I think that would be helpful for people and open up some doors and some realms in their minds about what's possible, so thank you for that. But where can people find more about you?

Tinian Crawford 40:50

So I post a new blog post every Monday and Thursday at DIY two five, that's the number two.com and I'm also pretty active on Twitter at DIY Captain. I am slowly learning how to use Instagram also at DIY Captain, but I'm not super active on there. So I invite anybody who has any questions to contact me via the blog, DIY to fight calm, or you know, direct message me on Twitter. You can also find me on Facebook, Tinian Crawford. I'm probably the most active blog in Twitter, so I think that's probably the best bet,

Jamila Souffrant 41:28

right? And I will link all your contact information, so people can reach out in the show notes, and then some of the blog posts that you mentioned, I'll be linking also. So, thanks so much again, Tinian, for joining

Tinian Crawford 41:39

us. Oh, thanks so much for having me, Jamila. This is great.

Jamila Souffrant 41:45

I really hope you enjoyed the conversation with Tinian, and you got some ideas from him, even if you're not in trades yourself, or if something - this is something you're considering. I hope we gave you some tips on how to proceed, and also just the DIY part of things. So, even if you don't pursue a career and trade yourself. How can you incorporate more of a DIY lifestyle? How does this overall impact your not only finances but well-being? So, I'm excited that we had this conversation, and I hope you enjoyed it too. If you want the episode show notes, you can go to Journey to launch.com/episode 93 to get any of the things that we talked about. As always, let me know what you thought of it by adding me on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. I'm Journey to Launch. Love to see your screenshots or your feedback on what you got from the episode. Now let's read a review of the week from Apple Podcast. This is from mrs. Predo. She says, 'Well deserved five stars. She says, 'I previously had been unsuccessful in discovering any type of content that makes finances engaging or understandable. Then came Journey to Launch. My mindset was already ready to shift into this space, and Jamila's podcast came right on time. I have listened to every episode at least four times, and through her content have discovered the financial independence community as a whole. I can't say enough good things about this podcast. Last year I was able to eliminate $22,000 of debt. Nothing feels more freeing than that. We'll see where this year takes us. Jamila, ah, love, love, love it. I love when I actually see and hear that you guys are taking action. Paying off $22,000 of debt is amazing. If you're just starting this journey, and you're even just paying off $100 a debt, that's excellent. I want you to be proud of yourself. This is just the beginning. So, thank you for leaving that review, mrs. Prito. And if you want to hear your review read on the podcast, you can by leaving it on Apple Podcast. But really, like I always say, if you don't listen to this Apple podcast. I just want you to listen. I want you to share it out with as many people as you can to get them on this journey, so we can get more journeys on board. So, until next week, keep on journeying, journeyers, you. It

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