Today we’d like to introduce you to Joel and Christy Brister.
Hi Joel and Christy, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
Before 2013, we didn’t do a lot as far as frugal living goes. We were making a decent income and didn’t think that we needed to do that. We were in debt over $200,000 including our mortgage. We believed what we had been taught. Buy things on time and spend years paying them off. In 2013, our lives started to change. We started focusing more on being frugal and saving money. We started using the budgeting app YNAB (You Need a Budget) and started living off of last’s months income. In May of that year, I (Joel) lost my job. That caused us to have to make some hard choices concerning our finances. We quickly decided what was important to us. I was out of work for over 6 months. When I did find a job, I had to start from the lowest level and work my way back up.
We cashed in an annuity, paid off our cars, and traded them in on more fuel-efficient models. We bought them all with cash and didn’t take on new debt. In 2014, I got on with a new company and started to move up. We started slowly and systematically paying off our debt. It would take us another 2 years to get completely out of debt. It was quite a journey. In 2016, we got the opportunity to move to Houston, TX with my job. In December of that year, we sold our home and used the profits to pay off the rest of our debt. We can’t explain adequately what a relief it was to not have any looming debt hanging over our head. We decided then and there to never get ourselves in that situation again.
Christy had an idea to take what we learned in our debt journey and start sharing that with others. We started a blog that we ran for two years. It focused on frugal, healthy living. That blog eventually transitioned into a YouTube channel: The Long Run with Joel and Christy. On our channel, we talk about frugal living, how to get the most out of grocery hauls, healthy living, budgeting, and navigating your way out of debt.
While we still have a small channel, it is such a blessing when someone comments that we have helped them figure out a way to save money on their groceries, especially now with rising grocery prices.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The main obstacle for us was taking the plunge to start our YouTube channel. With deciding to do a channel comes with the added challenge of knowing a lot of your life would be videoed. Did we really want to share that much of our life with people we don’t know? We decided it was worth the risk. Another obstacle was that we were diving into a genre (Grocery Hauls, Frugal living, etc) that was already saturated with good channels. Even with all the challenges, we’ve been blessed to meet a lot of great people, both YouTubers, and our channel subscribers.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
Joel currently works as the Executive Director in a Quick Service Restaurant. We, also, run a YouTube Channel called The Long Run with Joel and Christy. Christy does all the editing, uploading of our videos, and social media promotion. Our Youtube channel focuses mainly on frugal healthy living. We do grocery hauls, meal plans, and the like to help people get the most buying power for their dollar. Joels, also, documents his running goals and fitness routines.
Contact Info:
- Email: joelandchristy1@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thelongrunwithjoelandchristy/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/joelandchristy1/?eid=ARBa5cQ-VVp0n-PzYEucxSQo9a1ZgmKFYU-xaagw05DMZwdIMq-YxTBmFlXb02Cwdg7zskl8nTP1b3tV
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheLongRunwith1
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheLongRunwithJoelandChristy
- Other: https://thelongrun354668817.wordpress.com/
