How to upgrade your lifestyle, without upping the budget with Reese Everson, author of "The B.A.B.E.S.' Guide to Generational Wealth"

Reese Everson Instagram

Reese Everson was able to drive off in a Mercedes on a Nissan budget by making some creative choices and getting real about her priorities. We also preview her latest book and share a money tip that will help you get past procrastination and feeling overwhelmed.

Reese’s Money Story:

Bobbi Rebell:

there's a lot more to the story. There's a lot of dramatic twists and turns. And what I loved about the book is that you use it as a foundation to share a lot of information about things that people don't know about in terms of how finances work, especially in terms of the things that you're talking about. Inheritance, reverse mortgage and so on. So that's a little teaser for the book, so everyone needs to check out The Babes Guide to Generational Wealth. Let's talk about your money story. It's something that you kind of mentioned briefly but I want you to expand on. It's about going shopping for a car and you were originally going to buy a Nissan and then again you're so dramatic Reese, another twist in the story.

Reese Everson:
Yes. I got to the dealership to go pick up my Nissan and they were just giving me all sorts of hoops to jump through. Oh, we don't have that color. Because, here's the thing. They posted an advertisement that said the Nissan Maximas were $199 with no money down. Now when we hear those things, we think, oh, okay, that sounds good, but when you really get there, there's a couple other stipulations. They may limit it to a certain color and then when you get there they don't have that color. Kind of like when you want something from Target but they're sold out and you can't just get a rain check. And so I got to the dealership and they were trying to give me all this runaround because they really wanted me to pay a much higher price and that advertisement was just to get me in the door.

Reese Everson:
So I told them, I said, "Listen, I'm going to go to lunch and I'm going for a walk. When I get back, I'll be ready to sign off on the car and you'd better have the color or whatever you need to have so that I can have the price that you advertised and I'm not paying a penny more." During my walk, I walked across the street to the Mercedes dealership and I saw the car of my dreams. I said, "Oh my gosh, I just want to take a picture inside this car so I can put it on my vision board." I need to see myself in this vehicle. So I walked in and I sat down and I told the guys, I said, "Excuse me, can you take a picture for me? He said, "Of course." So I take this picture, and he said, "Well, what car are you looking at today?" I said, "Oh, a Nissan Maxima." He said, "You don't look like a Nissan girl to me. You look like a Mercedes girl."

Bobbi Rebell:
He's a good salesperson.

Reese Everson:
And so I was so caught off guard by that, I mean, he was really talking to what really gets most people to buy is our emotional validation feeling. And of course we all want to be affiliated with a much higher fancy luxury brand than just a regular Nissan. He said, "Well, what's your budget?" I said, "$199 no money down." Because I wasn't going to spend more just because it was a Mercedes. I literally had a budget and I was going to stick to it. And so when I told the guy that he was just, "Well, you've got to come up with a little more for a Mercedes of course."

Reese Everson:
And you know what? I stuck to my guns and I want to say that I walked in there around 12 noon and I drove out at 7:00 PM in a brand new Mercedes. But here's the trick to it. I wanted a new car. Well, what Mercedes has available sometimes are cars that have been used but they've only been leased for a year. Those cars are substantially less than a car that's the brand new model but it has all of the features and gadgets of the brand new model usually. So I was able to get a car at a much lower price, which was almost the same as what I was going to pay for a Nissan, maybe $10 more. You just really have to be willing to negotiate but also realize that cars depreciate 40% as soon as you drive them off the lot. So having a new car, it sounds good, but is it the best financial fit for most of us? And the answer is usually no

“What really gets people to buy is our emotional validation feeling. ”

Reese’s Money Lesson:

Reese Everson:

The one thing I realized is that you have to be willing to walk away and you have to be willing to say no. A lot of times when we're shopping it can get emotional. It's about, oh, this makes me feel good, this makes me look good. People will look at me a certain way in a Mercedes. But the truth of the matter is when you're really happy none of that stuff matters. Fast forwarding from that experience, I was actually in California maybe two years after I had gotten my Mercedes and I was riding up the coast, the Pacific Highway, past Malibu and all of that stuff. And I was driving a rental car, a Hyundai, and it's just a basic Hyundai, nothing fancy about it.

Reese Everson:
But I was just as happy and just as peaceful in this Hyundai as I was in my Mercedes. So what I realized is when you're really happy it's not about the car that you're in, it's about how you feel about yourself and inside yourself. And so when you really are at a place where you've made sure that you are walking in your happiness and you're not putting up with unnecessary drama or going through stress and harassment at work, you're going to be perfectly fine with whatever vehicle gets you from point A to point B.

“You have to be willing to walk away. And you have to be willing to say no.”

Reese’s Money Tip:

Reese Everson:
Well, one of the first tips I have for people is, open your mail. And it sounds really, really elementary and simple but here's the truth of the matter. When I've done coaching with clients, one of my clients, I remember walking into her kitchen and I opened up her kitchen cabinet and she said, "I'm embarrassed to show you this. Don't ever tell anyone this, but I need to tell you guys it's a big deal." I opened her kitchen cabinet where her pots and pans were supposed to be and the door swung open and piles of mail for maybe two or three years were stuffed in her kitchen cabinet. And it made me realize you can't be in control of your money if you're not even opening your mail.

Bobbi Rebell:
Which we assume but that's amazing. I mean this had to have been some kind of a denial situation where she just couldn't handle it.

Reese Everson:
Absolutely. So what we have is a person who had gone through a divorce and to some extent things kind of started to pile up and when it overwhelmed her, instead of saying, "You know what? I'm going to get a system. I'm going to have a desk where I spread things out where I maybe hole punch things and keep them in a binder." It began to intimidate her and she buried her head in the sand. And so all of that mail instead of reading it and hearing more and more bad news because it started to bother her, she just started to throw it under the cabinet. Well probably in a drawer.

Reese Everson:
Some of us start with a drawer and then I think it just overwhelmed the drawer and somehow just filled up a cabinet and she had years of documents in a cabinet and what I'm learning is that if you don't know how to handle what you're dealing with and what's coming at you, you've got to get some help. We've got to say, "Wait a minute, pause. This is starting to overwhelm me." And when you realize that, keep in mind this is going to affect my credit. It's easier to stop the train early on and get some help than to try to pull the train from the river.


Bobbi’s Financial Grownup Tips:


Financial Grownup Tip #1:

Create reasons to open the mail. Stay with me here. This may sound silly, but because I personally do have a habit of letting the mail go a few days, sometimes even a week. I have recently started creating reasons to open the mail. Specifically the idea that money could be coming in good things. So for example, I have an account on Rakuten. It's a browser extension that pays you a few percent back on things that you buy. It doesn't always add up to that much. Although I've gotten as much as $99 in a month, which is not all that bad. It's still nice to get a check, a paper check. It's kind of retro, but it feels good. I've set it up so that I get those checks in the snail mail rather than say auto deposit or points in their system, whatever.

Financial Grownup Tip #2:

I love when Reese says to just walk away. As a consumer, we need to be reminded, but we should always remember that it is our money. If the purchase doesn't fit your needs and especially if somebody tries to pull what was clearly a bait and switch on you like they tried to do with Reese, she didn't fall for it, hit the road or at least hit pause like she did and figure out what you can do with that situation. And by the way, as long as your expectation is reasonable and they can make a profit, you'll almost always certainly get some version of your way in the end.

What's your take on deciding when to walk away and how have you been able to upgrade the things that you want? DM me on Instagram at Bobbi Rebell one or on Twitter. I'm at Bobbi Rebell. Please help us grow the show by subscribing and telling your friends and if you have a few minutes, please take the time to review the show. I read and truly appreciate every one. Pick up a copy of The Babes Guide to Generational Wealth. It's a great read. I truly enjoyed it and recommend it and big thanks to Reese Everson for helping us all be financial grownups.


Episode Links:

Follow Reese!

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

Advice, Authors, Entrepreneurs, Business, Financial Grownup, Money, Personal Finance, Shopping, Women Role Models, Women EntrepreneursBobbi Rebell KaufmanReese Everson, The B.A.B.E.’s Guide to Generational Wealth, Author, Authors