For all the negativity, social media may get, I'm so thankful for how it brings people together. I have followed Tidy Dad for a year now and always look forward to the beautifully predictable rhythms he brings to his stories. Tyler, his wife, Emily, and three daughters live in New York City. As you can imagine, big city living with a family of five comes with its challenges. Tyler uses his account Tidy Dad to share the habits, systems, and routines he has developed on a journey to tidy up his life and make more time for what matters most.
Carly Hill: Today on the Debt Free Mom podcast, I have Tyler Moore, who is also known as Tidy Dad and Tyler. I am thrilled to have you come on. First of all, I just have to say you are the first guy that I've had come on the podcast. And that's probably not the first time you've been given that award for things you do, but I am so excited to just share your story with other people, and hear more of what you're doing over at Tidy Dad. So welcome.
Tyler Moore: Yeah, thanks for having me. And it's always fun. I mean, it's got to be fun for you to know too, that Debt Free Mom also resonates, your content also resonates with me as a Tidy Dad, as like a dad of three daughters also. So it's really cool to hear your perspective and then also relate it back to the life that my wife and I are trying to carve out for ourselves.
Carly Hill: So tell me a little bit for those who may not be familiar with Tidy Dad, where you live, what your professions are, what's just a little bit of your story and how did Tidy Dad come to be?
Tyler Moore: Yeah, so my wife and I and our three daughters, we live in New York City. So we live in a really small apartment at 750 square feet. It's a rent stabilized apartment, which is really interesting. And it is a gem in New York City, because what that means is, is that your landlord can only raise your rent each year based on the percentage that is set by the city. And so it changes every year in favor of tenant or landlord. So what's really nice is that the, the cost of living sort of stays with that relative number based on sort of like trends with the market too.
But we've been here for, for 10 years. And so as Tidy Dad. You know, Tidy Dad really exists on two different levels. So I like to say that I'm a dad who likes to tidy because on Instagram, and through my blog, I'm teaching people how to tidy and organize and also clean. But I've also been on a journey for the past six years to tidy up my life. And so I was you know, sort of that typical person who I had checked off all of the boxes you know, graduated from college, got my first teaching job I got my master's degree at Columbia University. That's what brought us to New York City. We decided to you know, stay in New York city and have kids. But at the same time that I had my first born daughter a position opened up at my school. I decided to take a promotion because when you're a teacher, the way to advance in your career and to make more money is to take on more positional power and you move out of the classroom and into an administrative position.
I was in that position for three years, and I mean, as you know, teaching is difficult, but being a principal or a school leader is an incredibly difficult job too. And I found that it was in a lot of ways, just mentally and emotionally and physically just crushing for me. And I felt like my life was sort of a huge mess, that we had these little girls at home because we had our first daughter and then two years later, we welcomed our second daughter. I was working 12 plus hours at school, trying to pour everything that I could into being good at my job. And that idea of being good at your job is something that people resonate with, because sometimes you think if I just work harder and sacrifice more on the family side, I'll do better. And my work that didn't happen. And I had what I would say is really like a mental health sort of breakdown. And it caused this huge mess in life that I then had to figure out what am I going to do. And so I entered therapy. I decided to return to teaching at the same school where I had been an administrator. So there's nothing like returning back to teaching alongside the colleagues that you once had been supervising. That's a very humbling thing to do. But then we also had a big decision to make and it was, how are we going to make life in our small apartment sustainable?
And we had always been somewhat tidy and organized people, but there's nothing like early parenthood to just throw everything that you want to use every sort of semblance of like system or routine sort of out the door and the classic is is like once that second kid comes you're like oh yeah my oldest kid now has all of the hand me downs plus the current size of clothes that they're in plus the season that they're growing into but what do we do about this newborn and so it was this moment where we really had to figure out and assess: What are we going to do with life?
But I learned that by tidying up my professional life, I was then able to tidy up some of the physical spaces in our home, which then allowed me to really blossom in other ways. And part of that was then being able to transform as like Tidy Dad, it's sort of like a superhero moniker. It's sort of like a nickname that I never had, but I feel like I'm trying to give a real picture to people of what life looks like in a small space, and what does it look like as a busy parent to also try to tidy up the other aspects of your life between hobbies or interests or your profession, your career. What you do with money, all of that is so interrelated. And as I like to say, oftentimes our mental mess just manifests itself into the physical mess that can sometimes surround us.
Carly Hill: Yes, for sure. I think it is, like you said, it's almost impossible to have one life of one area of your life be messy and say, well, all the other areas of my life are perfectly tidy. They're so interconnected that a lot of times, you know, when I'm working with someone on their finances within minutes, it comes out that some other totally separate area of their life is also entangled. And, you know, they're stressed in their career and that's causing overspending or, you know, vice versa. And so it is so helpful to watch your content and to, you know, it's maybe somebody comes on and they expect you to talk about a new cleaning product and instead the reel of that day is actually about some mental stress or, you know, and so having those things be like, Oh, now I see how that simple little task of cleaning the kitchen is actually allowing him to sort through. I like how you talk about sorting through those things as you clean. And it is so helpful to realize that those things, there's such a powerful change that can happen in so many other areas. When we just start focusing on one area. Some of the things I love about what you do are one, the predictability. I love the morning and the nighttime, just knowing what you're going to come on and share. And then also the honesty and simplicity. So not having right before we recorded, we talked a little bit about the honesty of, we're not going to talk about things or be a certain way that isn't true to who we are, what we do. And so I love that you share when things are going well and you're excited about something and when things are hard and you're, you know, you have a big question mark in your life or something. And the last one that really sticks to me too, especially as you have a large account, a large, wonderful following and a blog is how hardworking you are. Because you. still have this career that so many other people can identify with instead of oftentimes people who get to a point that you are at in the influencer kind of world that becomes their job. And so it's easy to be like, well, you know, why, how does my life look like yours? If making Instagram reels is what you do 40 hours a week or something.
So I love seeing that you have this. You have your family, you have your home, you have your career, and it very much can be something that someone relates to even as you grow and have so much success in Tidy Dad itself.
Tyler Moore: Yeah. And so I like to tell people, like, I'm, we're very much still in the thick of it and even like recording today, I mean, we're only in the second week of school. And as I like to tell people that even this like back to school season or seasons of transition, like it takes like a month to six weeks for things to settle. And so I feel like. You know, as you were mentioning, sharing the struggles of like, what's not going well, and also what sort of nugget of something that we have figured out, it just resonates with people. But I do feel like teaching, I don't know, it's when teaching and Tidy Dad, I feel like go hand in hand.
And that's the one thing that I sort of left out of my story. So I've been a teacher for 16 years. I had that three year stint as a school administrator. I teach seventh grade math. I've taught all grades from third up through seventh. But there is just something about teaching that still just grounds me in the reality because I am living and breathing routines and procedures and trying to seek out simplicity every day professionally.
Because if you're a teacher, you know, that you are orchestrating 30 very individual minds who have their own interests, their own sort of relationship to self, their own wants and needs, and your success as a teacher is dependent upon the ability for you to motivate them to do what you're asking them to do. But you're also dependent upon them to help you execute certain tasks. And so even things like all students knowing where their notebooks are. Like that is a sign of success as a teacher, if you can say, boys and girls, everybody go get your notebook and everybody knows where it is. And they come back like that inherently saves you time. So I do feel like as Tidy Dad, I try to implement a lot of parallels to what it looks like to be a dad of three kids. And also what does it look like, is this like teacher experience? Because I'm in the thick of it just like everybody else.
Carly Hill: Yeah. And I think it's like, it's like this Socratic circle method of being an Instagram content creator where I, you know, I say regularly, I'm not really interested in telling people what to think.
I'm more interested in sharing how I'm thinking about something if it can then spark away a line of thinking for someone else that that's a big win for me. And I think that's a commonality that a lot of teachers have of everybody's gonna think different things when they walk in and even when they walk out and I'm not trying to get everybody to think the same thing, but as we can then, like you said, turn our real life experiences into just like in the same way that I would have in my classroom of some random, crazy thing happens on the weekend and you bring it into your classroom to say, kids, this is what happened to me. Like, let's turn it into a teachable moment. Right? Yeah. And so I think that approach to both of our, you know, two different topics lends itself towards people being like, Oh, this can be a safe space to think something different than Tyler does or than Carly does and still learn something.
Tyler Moore: Yeah. And, nobody has it all together. And I do believe that at the end of the day, everyone is doing the best that they can with the time and the resources that they have available. And so, like you said, it's like by sharing from my perspective, like I'm trying to be really honest and vulnerable because I don't have it all together, but for years, you know, as I was following that very straight line trajectory and trying to do what I thought everyone else wanted me to do, I put on the brave face for a really long time.
But like I mentioned, the process of being an administrator and then returning to teaching alongside the same colleagues that you had once supervised and signed off on their evaluations is a very humbling process. And like, if you can humble yourself in that way, it really does change your outlook on things. So I, you know, I don't have it all together. None of us do. And admitting that also gives freedom to other people to not admit that they have it together too.
Carly Hill: Yeah, definitely. What do you think about? So between on paper, our two focus topics would seem to be quite different. If I focus on budgeting and personal finance and you focus on tidying. Why does it actually tend to be the opposite where people find so much connection between tidying up their physical space and maybe even their finances or even just starting to question some of the consumer culture or upgrade culture. Where have you seen some of those parallels between what you do and the topics that I might be bringing to my audience?
Tyler Moore: Yeah, the first thing that comes to mind is even what you do with people's budgets. So looking at your budget and your spending and trying to sort through the mess that is your closet. It's actually a very similar sort of like process. Like the first thing that you have to do when you are like going through your closet or even looking at your finances is you have to completely clear the space and you have to bring everything out into the open.
So like from a financial standpoint, you need to know what is everything that had been hidden away? Is there credit card debt? Are there bills that haven't been paid? What is the actual income that we're bringing in? Like you have to lay it all bare. And then, once you have cleared the space, you can start to sort. And so you want to sort all of the items into all of those different individual categories. Then, It's the process of choosing what to keep. And I do think that's a very important step when you're going through any sort of like physical decluttering, because there is the orientation and even with your budget, there's the orientation of going into it with what do I need to get rid of? But when you go into it with that orientation, and it can actually feel very defeating. And so when you have the orientation of what do I actually want to keep? What do I actually want to like take into my future? That's a very liberating sort of step that then invites you to name what am I okay with getting rid of right now?
And so whether you're going through your finances or whether you're going through your closet is actually a very similar process, and that process can be applied to so many aspects of your life. But it's why I like telling people when they say, well, where do I get started with decluttering? Or I wish that I was a tidier person. I always say, "start with your closet" because you personally know what you actually like to wear and what you don't like to wear. And regardless of what some other person tells you, like, even if someone says, Well, I really love that blue shirt on you, if you actually don't feel confident or good in that blue shirt, it doesn't matter if it's sitting there in the closet, you're not going to do it.
And I know that there are so many, even if we think about our budgets, even thinking about the recurring spending and the habits that we get into between subscription services, or streaming, or the cable bill, or internet, like there are so many things that we sign up for that then we forget about and it's those like hidden recurring bills. Or we have people who say i really think that you need to sign up for that like you know get that coffee subscription and we'll just go and get coffee all the and it's like when you actually stop to think about it, do you really need that? Is it really worth it to you? And it's funny, like an example, you know, in New York City, I'm able to walk to and from school, which is an absolute luxury. And people say to me all the time, you mean you walk to school every day? And I'm like, yes, because there's no bad weather when you have the right gear.
So they're like, but you never take the bus. And I'm like, I have convinced myself that nothing is worth, there is no weather that is worth the $2.90 that I have to pay each way to school. Because $2.90 times two, that's nearly $6 a day. Times, five days of the week, that's $30 and $30 over the course of a month. That's over $120 over the course of a year. Plus when I walk to and from school, it's actually good for my health, my physical health and my mental health. And I have conversations with my children because they're walking with me. So it's so interesting when you really stop and assess by clearing, then sorting, then categorizing, then choosing what to keep and then editing like that can be such a powerful place and there are so many parallels between your and money all of the physical stuff that's in your home.
Carly Hill: Yeah. I mean, every, everything that you just said lines so much up with what I do with people where, especially like once people have that crisis moment, whether it's in their money or in their stuff, where they just, they kind of look at their house with new eyes and they say, this is not the way that I want it to be.
Or they look at their bank account and they say, I've had enough. This is too much of a mess and I'm ready to pivot. What they often jump into is making all of those really fast changes without first assessing what had already been happening. What, you know, taking that inventory first and slowing down and doing that first, then lays the foundation for those changes actually being able to stick because they can actually be sorted through in a way that like you said does match your priorities. There's there are certain types of expenses that tend to take all the blame, you know, coffee out, or subscriptions, or things like that. And so when people feel like their finances are a mess, they just jump into getting rid of those because someone else told them to. And what I love to do is say, you know, you could keep anything that you want in your budget, you just can't keep everything that's there. And so, for one person, that might be stopping going to Starbucks so regularly because it doesn't actually add a lot of value to their life. But for somebody else, they might say, I will get rid of all of these other things if I can keep that. And that's great. That lines up with their priorities and it will actually be a budget that they probably stick to. Just like in their home, it's probably going to be changes that stay long term if it actually lines up with what their priorities are as opposed to what somebody else tells them that their home should look like.
Tyler Moore: Yeah. And what's so cool about that is it's the philosophy that I talk about a lot, which is this idea of what is just enough, because that just enough concept relates to exactly what you're saying. Like just enough for some people is being able to order out once a week of saying, you know what, we cook six nights a week, Friday nights, we do pizza night. And just knowing that we order pizza one, it is just enough in terms of ordering out, but it helps to lift a mental load or burden that some or physical burden that someone may be caring. But that's very different from someone else saying, you know what? I actually, the 30 or 40 bucks to order out pizza isn't worth it to me. I would rather stop and get a coffee every single morning on my way to work. And that is the exact same amount as that, you know, $30 on pizza. And so I think when, when you can establish, what is that like just definition for you, I feel like that's where there's personal power. And when you see, you know, there's always the case of keeping up with the Joneses. It's good for those Joneses. I never know who the other person is. We've never given them a name. Like those, those other, those other people, I don't know who they are, but it's like. You know, we drive a 2000 Chevy Malibu. I bought it from my grandma years ago for $500. Now that car sat in my grandma's garage for several years. And you never want to have a car just sit in your garage. You really need to drive it. So she sold it to us. And then we had to put about $5,000 into that car to replace every single belt that had like gone bad. It also had never been on the interstate. So we joke because I grew up in Kentucky that car was in Kentucky in a garage and now it's always on the streets of New York City where it's street parked. So that little car is like where is my home? What have they done with it? Why am I in this big city? But I see so many fancy cars and people are like well, you have to get a minivan, and I'm like, okay, let's break down the minivan thing.
First of all, I have three children. Right now, they all fit in the backseat of the car. Second, minivans are really large. If you know anything about New York City, it's that you've got to have a small compact car in order to be able to get in and out of the spot. And another point is, everybody dings your car in New York City. So I see all of these people driving around with these really fancy cars and they get scratched and they get dented and they get dinged. And so I'm like, you know what? I would much rather have that 2000 Chevy Malibu. That 2000 Chevy Malibu is just enough for me right now. I do not need a fancy car. But instead, what if we thought about the money that wasn't going to a car payment, or wasn't going to purchase the car with cash? What if we could do something else with that? And like one of the things we love to do is we always have a February break. It's a really it's been an inexpensive time to go abroad. We love vacations with our girls from New York City.
It's sort of ridiculous, but you can fly for a family of five, you can fly to Orlando, Florida or London for the exact same price. And I'm like, okay, nothing against Orlando. I love Orlando, but I'm like, let's go to Paris. And so it's, it's all about decisions, but it is naming, it comes back to that "what is just enough?" Because I can't, you know, I'm a New York City teacher. We have a teacher salary. Yes. I also do bring in income as Tidy Dad, but that all has been savings because that is our like future fund. It is, we don't budget any living expenses on it. But yet I can't have that really expensive car. And also take my daughters to get croissants in Paris, something has to give. And so it does come back to what are those priorities? What are those things that you really value? What do you want? What is just enough? But it's so different for each family. And so, I think that that point is just, it's really important.
Carly Hill: So how, how do you feel like you came around to exiting- I don't want to call it the rat race- but exiting the idea, the lane of making these decisions based on what societal pressures or even just peer pressures. Because I, I feel like our family has kind of arrived in a similar place and there's so much peace of mind and freedom in knowing what people expect or think you should do and not doing it because it doesn't align with what. So I'm interested if you have any insights on, you know, maybe there was a pivot point or how did you arrive at saying it's okay if they think I should do something else. I'm still going to do what works best for us instead.
Tyler Moore: Yeah. I mean, one pivotal moment was the decision to step down from my teaching job or excuse me, step down from the school administration job. Because I had this season you know, our young, our middle daughter was six months old. I was crying and sobbing every day going, I just felt this immense pressure. And I thought back to the initial call, I had had my job interview to move into the dean position. And when I looked back in that moment of sort of crying. I could go back to that moment where I accepted the job and I knew that it wasn't the right thing for me. Deep down I knew. Then they like offered me the job. Then our director of HR. called me with the offer of the salary. And it was maybe three or four thousand more than what I was making as a teacher. And I was like, Oh, that doesn't feel like it's comparable to the, but, but I did it anyway. And why did I do it? Because when I told my friends, when I told my colleagues, when I told my family that I now had this title of dean of academics, they were like, look at you, like you are, you are doing it. You are moving up. That is a great title. It's going to be a great position. It's going to open up all of these doors. And so that, that moment of like crying with the six month old at home, realizing the cost that that job was to my family, I was like, so you're telling me, talking to myself, I'm like, so you made this decision based off of what you, but based off of the thoughts and opinions of everyone else in your life, but you didn't even check in with yourself. Like you knew from the start, this wasn't a really good move, but you did it anyway. And so having that moment of reflection, I was like, wow, like this job is not impacting my like family, my friends, my people that I went to college with, they just see me, you know, living the dream. Like they don't understand sort of that reality.
And so I was like, no, I'm done. And. You know, I had sort of seen the thing about achieving more, gaining more, any sort of money that you are given. There's always this twinge of, but what if it had been like just a little bit more? And when you start to pay attention to that, like inner sort of voice, that's like, but it could have been, but that's when you realize the pursuit of more is not this, it is not worthwhile to me. Because there's always more. Like I don't care if you're making $50,000 a year. There's always the thought of, but what if I could make $75,000. And then when you make $75,000, you're like, but what if it were $100,000? And you continually play that game.
And so I just decided I can't do this because life is, if I'm valuing the pursuit of more, where does that actually, it's a losing game. It is. And so I feel like, you know, after stepping down, I remember, you know, I was in therapy for three years. I had a wonderful therapist and, you know, I, I would just talk to her about the pain that I had gone through.
And she was like, the one thing that I can say is like, you figured this out somewhat early in life. There still is time. Like, she's like, you know, you're in your early thirties, like you, you've realized this. You can change the course. You can change the relationship. You have your wife, the relationship you have with your kids, your relationships to money, like it's going to be okay. You have time. And that was very comforting and reassuring. And so now we weigh every decision with "what is actually the cost going to be?" first, not "what is the gain?" Because if you, if you operate from that, well, what do I have to gain mentality? I just feel like that can be a very slippery orientation.
Carly Hill: And I think a lot of times if we focus way too much on the gain, we almost convince ourselves that there isn't a cost, you know, like a promotion. Like you, if you don't think that there's a cost to a promotion, it's like, well, obviously what's the downside. You're always going to take every promotion, but when you realize that there is a cost of time, mental health, relationships, all of those things, suddenly, like what you realize, you can start to see that money is just one aspect of it, but I don't want, I don't want a larger paycheck and to now go from peace with my husband to fighting with my husband or, you know, those kinds of things. It just stops mattering as much when you weigh all of the costs, not just the dollar signs.
And I think what you're describing to is, really similar to a key principle in the book, _The Psychology of Money_. One of the things he talks about is that one of the things that everyone who discovers financial freedom or wealth or stability that one thing they have to accomplish is what he calls to get the goalposts to stop moving. And so that is exactly what you were describing of he hit these milestones in his life, and he said "for some reason the goalpost was still in front of me, I hadn't actually crossed the line." And so once we can step out of that game and say, okay, everything, you know, we see, I see those memes a lot of times that say, sometimes I need to realize that I have everything I prayed for five years ago or something, we have to have a little bit of that perspective to recognize there was a goalpost and we did actually cross it like we achieved it and we can settle into this being enough instead of so quickly having our eyes on the next goalpost that we don't even recognize the fact of what we have already accomplished or what we have. And it is, it is so hard. I mean, I think we both would say that just because we're saying like, Oh, once you do that, then every, you know, now all of these things become, it is still hard. And I think it's one of those daily choices where, you know, it can feel like, Oh yes, I'm settled into what I want to do. And I kind of have blinders on to what people might expect me to do. But then as we hit some of these forks in the road of life, then we're faced with that, that choice again.
I know that's how I felt just recently having sold our first home and moving back into renters, it's a very similar situation to what you were saying of going from the higher position to the lower position. I knew as soon as we privately decided that I was like, there will be people questioning that choice, even willing to say that it's just a bad choice or, you know, at best asking why we're doing it. And at worst telling us we're wrong. And so you have to decide internally to yourself, this is the path for us. And whether people question it or thinking that I'm doing the wrong thing, I have to choose, consciously choose that that's not going to have a strong bearing on what I end up doing.
Does your money feel like something that happens to you? Do you feel stuck where you're at with your money? Wishing you could finally get to a place where you feel confident about your finances, able to budget for your goals even when plans change? Most attempts at budgeting fall apart because they depend on everything going exactly according to plan, but life simply doesn't work that way. This Sunday, September 24th, at 3:00 PM central time, I'm going to be teaching a free budgeting workshop called "Stuck to Stable: How to Budget Even When Plans Change". I'll be sharing the approach I take with my own family budget and the budgets I build for hundreds of families just like yours. If you're not looking for the next investment fad or how to accumulate a bunch of expensive stuff, and you just want your family's finances to feel stable, go to www.debtfreemom.co/stuck to register for this completely free live workshop. ()
Tyler Moore: It's interesting to like judgment or criticism that you think you could receive because on the flip side, there are very few people saying. You know, giving the criticism towards families who have completely maxed out, you know, income because of a home that they're like house poor that they have over committed to this home or the like luxury cars that they may be driving. So I feel like people are really criticizing people who make the opposite choice because our society has sort of ingrained in us that bigger is better. And you should always pursue be pursuing more and more and more, but it's so interesting.
The people who are at a different life stage than we are, you know, we obviously still have school aged children, but there are so many people who are now, you know, they either have kids in college or they are further along in sort of their like empty nester stage. And they, they continue to say to me, they're like, you're doing it right.
They're like, and I'm telling you from my perspective, because what we did for years was we would move into a larger home every three to five years. We wanted our kids to have bigger bedrooms. We needed to acquire more things. They were like, But then the kids left and now we're left with this huge home, all of these things that we have acquired.
And there's this questioning of what is it all for? They're like, because the humor is we sent them off to college and now they're sharing a bedroom with a roommate who is in another adult. So it's just funny when you think about this idea of like more and more and more and more and more so that. You know, if you choose to go to college, you can go live in a dorm.
That's like the size of the small bedroom that I'm in. And that's where you live and you study and you eat meals. Plus you share it with another person. So I feel like those things really like sort of humor me and also sort of calm me down at times when I feel like, you know, cause there are times when we're walking down the street in New York city and I'm like, Should I should my children have a backyard right now?
Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Should all three of my children not be stacked triple high? You know, but then we'll take them to Ballet at the Lincoln center, or we go and see a Broadway show, or we spend the entire day playground hopping in central park. And I'm like, but you know what, this is pretty cool too. And this is working for our family right now.
It doesn't mean that it has to work for everyone. So It really is. It's fascinating to think about where the pressure is coming from, because oftentimes it's not from ourselves. It's from all of these other sort of sources. So you have to quiet some of the noise that surrounds you and really think about What is right for our family right now in this moment?
Not just projecting into the future, like you've got to be grounded in the present while also planning for the future, but you've really got to ground yourself in like, what do we need right now?
Carly Hill: And that I just love that it summarizes it so well, asking what's just enough and, and what's just enough for me or for us, not, not for what other people say should be just enough for me, you know, when we lived in our other house, people would say, Oh, well, now that you have four kids, like, surely you need a bigger home.
But my home was twice as big as what your apartment is. So it's so relative to like, why, you know, when people would ask that I would just be like, why, you know, I was writing today. Please. It is healthy a little bit to, you know, in a, in a kind, respectful way, push back a little bit on why people might be assuming that that's the, the way that things need to be and, and say, like, you know, don't, it's, it's don't fix what's not broken.
And so, like, if this home is working for our family and that apartment is working for your family, this is our just enough that we don't need to upgrade for the sake of upgrading. Yeah.
Tyler Moore: And it's this American term starter home. Like it's such a like, I was doing some writing today and I was sort of writing the counter to this idea of the starter home because my, my sister, they, her and her husband, they like renovated this older home.
It was three times the size of our current apartment. But then when their kids, their kids are about the same age as ours and they just moved. into a home that's now like seven times larger than our current apartment, but I remember talking to my dad and he was like, yeah, you know, your sister, she sold her house.
Like, you know, it was a really great starter home for them. And I was like, dad, I'm like, you do understand that that that starter home is like three times the size of where we're living. But it's so funny how relative things are. And I think that sometimes you have to like, sort of step out of where's this pressure coming from?
Who is telling me that I need to move or I need to make this financial purchase and what is really, what is like just enough for us? It's really powerful.
Carly Hill: Yeah. Okay. So one of the last things before we wrap up, you are a renter who then also owns property. And I don't think we've mentioned that yet.
Can you tell us what you, what do you own while renting in New York city?
Tyler Moore: Yeah. So, We have our apartment in New York City, and then we have a cottage that's about 1100 square feet in Pennsylvania. So it's in the Poconos of Pennsylvania. So it's a really beautiful, mountainous, very green area. But We had looked at owning an apartment in the city, but what comes with owning in the city oftentimes is a mortgage plus your maintenance fee, and you pay that maintenance fee forever.
So even when your apartment, the mortgage is paid off you have a maintenance fee and a, for the about size apartment that we were looking at, a good maintenance fee clocked in at about 2, 500 a month. That's a good maintenance fee. And this is a like non luxury, non doorman apartment building. Our rent right now is 17.
25 a month, which is unheard of in New York City. It goes back to being rent stabilized. So we looked at... purchasing an apartment. But then we thought, what if we take this pot of money and we buy outside of the city and invest? So we bought a small property in Pennsylvania. The realtor, it's funny, this relates to what we were just talking about.
We got out of the car. And he was like, you're not going to want to buy this. It's very small. He was like, it's 1, 100 square feet. It's three bedrooms, two baths. It has a washer and dryer, a new kitchen. It's all recently updated, but it's way too small. I was like, you don't understand. We live in 700 square feet and you're about to show us a castle.
He was like, Oh, and so we went in and we really liked it. And we were explaining more of our story. And he was like. Oh, so he was like, this is actually kind of smart. He's like, you're buying a house in a neighborhood where homes are much more expensive. So we bought this house for 168, 000. It's a lake community.
There are homes upwards of a million dollars around the lake. So our strategy has always been, which was like, you want the like cheapest house in the most expensive area. And that's what we did. And he was like, Oh, so you're, he was like, your mortgage is going to be lower. Your property taxes are going to be lower, but you have access to everything that everyone else does.
And I was like, yes. And so we also rented out on Airbnb. So that helps to offset the actual mortgage costs, which has been great. So in the nearly four years that we owned it, I mean, we also bought in 2019, which was pre pandemic. So that was when you know, prices were still normal. And we're still not yet at that like normal state.
I don't know if we ever will be even the relative cost of like when people used to say, Oh, but New York city is so much more expensive than everything else. The cost of living. Now, when you look at cost of living across the entire U S like there is no more like. super expensive place to like everywhere is expensive.
But it's funny explaining to people because they're like, so you own, you know, you rent, but yet you own. And then they're like, but you're throwing away all of your money. Like, think of what you could have had with all of that money that you were throwing into rent. And it's why when you were sharing and stories sort of debunking that myth.
I it just it made my heart smile because I was like carly gets it because you really have to think about your Individual family situation what makes sense for the area in which you live? What makes sense in terms of how long you're gonna be in that area? Because anymore like it's not like you can purchase a property and then immediately Make the money back like the market We're just not guaranteed that anymore and so I think You know, it's been a really great investment for us, but it's also been really an appreciation to our family and being able to spend summers there, you know, and I'm a teacher now.
I'm not a school administrator, so it's nice that I have the gift of summers off. So that's been really great.
Carly Hill: I'm still here. My videos just kick in. My videos wrapping up. So I love that what you're describing with the, the rental too, is like, So, so many people make the inaccurate assumption that rent is automatically more expensive than owning.
That's, that's something I've run into frequently, especially recently is people assume that you're paying more than when you would be owning. But even if your rent is a little bit higher than what, like a flat mortgage, Payment would be you have all these costs associated with with being the homeowner and all these risks and even the time involved in in maintaining and all of those things, it just can make it so much more advantageous to go ahead and rent and and free your money up for other pursuits, whether it's growing a business or buying a different property or whatever it might be And it's not, I, I said in another post and I would, I would want to say it here too.
It's always a red flag to me when someone describes something as always working for everyone or never working for anyone. So anytime someone says homeowner is how you build wealth and rent is how you waste money is giant red flag to me of two, so broad sweeping and so many assumptions. And so I love what you guys have chosen to do.
By making that, that idea of being a homeowner work in a way that, that also balances your city life as well.
Tyler Moore: Yeah. And, you know, where the, the money came from for the down payment, I mean, a very early financial decision that we made, which we were fortunate to be able to do was the idea of living on one income.
And so when we started out, well, you know, we got married very young. I was 22 and when I was 21, she started grad school right away. And so we just budgeted my buried. Small teacher salary and all of our decisions were made around that. We didn't have a fancy apartment We had cars that our parents, you know had given to us to use.
We did a very healthy amount of going without we used to we used to coupon at all of the pharmacies for toiletries and we used to like stack coupons at all of the different grocery stores, but I feel like There was this healthy level of want, you know, and we went without, but yet that's what then allowed 12 years later for us to have the money to put down to then purchase this property that has then given our family.
so much life. And so sometimes you just have to continue to, you know, sock the money away for some day. But yet we're paying dividends now on that early financial decision. One time we had a at a pharmacy that I don't know how all the coupons stacked, but the man at the cash register was like, I actually owe you 47 cents.
And I was like, Emily, your couponing has gone to an extreme level. If you're now going to the store and they owe you money, you know, but, and the, the pharmacies, they don't do as much of that, like coupon stacking anymore. Those that went back, you know, 15 years ago, but. We went without and like trying to teach our girls the same, like we don't have the fanciest of really anything.
I do have a fancy new robot vacuum, but that's only because I'm Tidy Dad. You know, like, like we don't, we don't live in the lapse of luxury, but you know what? We have just enough. We have everything that we need. We're very blessed in terms of even just our health. That's something that I'm so, you know, just grateful for.
And time is truly one of the most. Precious resources that we have and we're just trying to do our best.
Carly Hill: Yeah, well, I, I appreciate it so much. I am certainly along for the ride for whatever you guys choose to do next. I'm interested to see what your February break trip ends up being. If you, if you are planning to do one.
Tyler Moore: Yeah. I mean, the tip is, so we always use Google flights. You can do this. It's been of the globe and you can see where the cheapest flight destinations are. But Cyber Monday, which I know it feels far away, but Cyber Monday is a great like deal day for flights. But I found that you just have to be sort of flexible.
So yeah, we'll see where we go. Yeah. It might be Orlando. Who knows?
Carly Hill: There you go. There you go. They'd be happy to have you. I'm sure. Well, Tyler, can you tell everybody where to find you, how to keep up with Tidy Dad and everything that you're doing?
Tyler Moore: Yeah. So on Instagram, you can find me at Tidy Dad on TikTok. I'm the Tidy Dad, but don't go there for any dance trends because I just can't keep up. And then I also have a blog and website, which is thetidydad.com.
Carly Hill: Awesome. Thank you so much for coming and taking some time out of your first Wednesday off to share with the Debt Free Mom audience. Thanks. Thanks.
I'm not even sure where to begin boiling down that conversation into a few key takeaways. Here is my best shot at my own top two moments.
Number one, you don't have to wait for all the pieces in your life to fall into place, to start tidying up your life. Whether that's career home parenting, you can start simple like with your closet and make more room for joy exactly where you are.
And number two, define just enough for you and your family. To push back against outside pressures, expectations, or consumer culture, define what just enough looks like and confidently live in that content space. Just like when Tyler decided to leave his administrative job to go back to his teaching job in order to have more time with family and improve his mental health, choosing what just enough looks like for you can give you the tools you need to not overrun your finances or your storage spaces with things you don't actually want or need. Send us a message on Instagram or an email at [email protected] to let us know what your favorite part of the episode was. And please be sure to follow Tyler @tidydad on Instagram or www.thetidydad.com.
Thanks for listening to the Debt Free Mom Podcast. If you want to join me as a guest on the show, go to dfmpodcast.com. The Debt Free Mom Podcast is hosted by me, Carly Hill, and is produced, edited, and mixed by Kyle Hill. Music for this episode was written by Kyle Hill. Hit subscribe wherever you're listening to join in with every new episode as we grow our confidence and contentment in our personal finances.
