Sadie Kurzban won $25,000 in a college contest for entrepreneurs by using a strategy that has continued to drive the growth of her boutique dance fitness chain. The millennial entrepreneur shares her secrets to building a business on a low budget, along with her personal tips on how she manages healthy meals on a budget with her relentless schedule.

Sadie’s Money Story:

Bobbi Rebell:
For your money story, you're going to actually talk to us about how you got the funding to start this, because you were just in college.

Sadie Kurzban:
I was, yes. I started teaching aerobics classes really for fun in college because I was passionate about it. I had always loved group fitness and I thought, well let me take my hand at giving this a try. So I was teaching it for fun and when I was thinking about what I wanted to do for my career around graduation, that my senior year my friend turned to me and she was like, "Girl, like this is your passion, you need to do this" and I was like, "What? I'm not going to graduate college and go be a fitness instructor".

Bobbi Rebell:
You were at Brown University by the way.

Sadie Kurzban:
Yes, I graduated top of my class. Everyone around me was getting a job in consulting. They were going to medical school, going to law school and I was like, "I think I should go do something like that". So I was like, "How am I going to go?" I even, I remember I looked up in Brown alumni who's in fitness, even just as a category and there was like one alumni from the 70's like it's just not a very popular thing to do. So, I was like, "God, I'm not going to go. Yeah, I have bigger ambitions than being a trainer". So she said, "Why don't you just start a business?" I was like, "What?" I had never even thought about starting a business, truly. This was right before senior year.

Sadie Kurzban:
We started looking up in the course curriculum, entrepreneurship, accounting, really we were kind of scrambling and I ended up majoring in economics, which was really funny and unexpected. But I took every entrepreneurship related, business related, accounting related. It was my entire senior year I was filled with these courses, studying my tail off and I entered the big annual business plan pitch competition. So it's a 10 minute pitch. It's all students, almost all the teams were all male. A lot of the teams were graduate students who had invented like incredible things like medical devices, like really impressive businesses and here I was, I was like, "I'm going to start this dance cardio workout. It has a DJ. It's really fun. This is why I should win". It was really surprising at the end of the day that I won, but it really was the sign from the universe that I needed to move to New York and make this happen.

Bobbi Rebell:
Why do you think you won? What was the differentiator?

Sadie Kurzban:
Yeah, I'll tell you why I think I won was that it's held in the school auditorium and it's a pretty nerdy competition. A lot of business majors, a lot of masters students that I got hundreds of kids who would come take my class every week. I said, "I'm entering this pitch competition. If you love these fitness classes I've been teaching, please come and cheer me on". So I packed the room. I mean, honestly, with 300, 400 students that were screaming their heads off for me. So I think the judges, while they thought, well maybe, I don't know if they felt this was the most impressive business, but what they definitely saw was I had proven the concept and I had really gotten a handful of ... More than a handful of really passionate evangelists. So they knew I was onto something and getting people super passionate about this early on has been the biggest gift and the biggest way that we've grown so quickly, as you know with limited resources, getting customers to really evangelize us and tell their friends.

Bobbi Rebell:
Right, and then you got the $25,000 to get going.

Sadie Kurzban:
Yeah, it was enough to at least give me the confidence to move to New York and give myself nine months to try and make it happen.

Sadie’s Money Lesson:

Sadie Kurzban:
I think the biggest lesson there is, I didn't worry so much about all of the 'what if's' and the house and even moving to New York and all of these things and renting space. I just thought about how can I get every customer who walks in to really go back to their next dinner, to work the next day and talk about this like it's nobody's business, right? So with pretty limited resources, $25,000 in New York City is not a lot of money at all. I knew I didn't have a lot of room for error, but what I did have was customers in front of me every day and if I could get one person super jazzed about this, telling 10 people, that was free marketing for me. So I had to really deliver on the experience and most importantly stop worrying about all the 'what if's' and what could happen. Really think about that person in front of me and look at them as a real opportunity to keep just running through the doors that have been opened for me and breaking the glass ceiling.

Bobbi Rebell:
Your instructors are really brand ambassadors.

Sadie Kurzban:
They are, yes. We all live in Brea, 305 and we know how important that client in front of us is.

Sadie’s Money Tip:

Sadie Kurzban:
So yeah, I was thinking a little bit about this because they listened to your show and I have to admit I'm not great at saving. I'm a little bit better at just creating things and I tend to kind of close my eyes and drive at the same time when it comes to money. But the one way that I really do, I think successfully saved is again, in a city like New York where it's really tempting to do seamless every night or go to dinner, that can really add up big time, like $30, $40 every night. So instead what I do is, I cook and I eat a lot of homemade meals or I'll pack it to the office. But the best thing that I found is really, instead of, it would just be so daunting to get home late at night and cook for myself every night this [inaudible 00:07:48] meal.

Sadie Kurzban:
So what I do is I cook a whole bunch on Sundays, like a bunch, as much as I can. I refrigerate enough for three days and then everything left over I freeze. So by the time the weekend rolls around, unfolding and I'm cooking again. So it's enough what I make on Sunday to really carry me through the week and within that what I've found is another tip within that is, that if I put all this pressure on myself to make these gourmet meals and I'm chopping onions and all these things, I'm just not going to do it. I'm going to wake up on Sunday and I'm going to think no way, no way. So instead I'll splurge a bit on the pain in the butt stuff like chopping onions, chopping garlic. This stuff that I know is going to come up in every recipe, I'll get those precut so I'll spend the extra dollar at trader Joe's knowing that someone else's has cut or a machine has cut the onions for me and that way I know I can make the meal in five minutes instead of taking me 15 minutes to make everyone.

Bobbi Rebell:
Love it. That's so practical and it's also important because you aren't just sitting in an office, you actually go and teach these classes.

Bobbi’s Financial grownup tips:

Financial grownup tip number one:

Sadie won that first $25,000 in college by doing something no one else did. She literally brought her own cheering section of happy clients. They were there to cheer for her, but they were also there with her. None of us can do everything alone. Sadie doesn't, she brings others along for the ride. If you do that in your life with anything, not just business, but anything that matters to you, include others, make them stakeholders in your success and also you can hear it in her voice, it just made it so much fun.

Financial grownup tip number two:

I love Sadie's hybrid approach to cooking at home. You will not get a prize if you chop every single onion. It is more than okay to splurge and pay a little more to have some ingredients prepped for you so you're more likely to not only eat healthy but also not waste money ordering out and having food delivered. The key thing, and I'm still working on this myself, is the organizational element and the planning.

Episode Links:

• Blinkist - The app I’m loving right now. Please use our link to support the show and get a free trial.

• 305 Fitness career opportunities

• Money with Friends podcast

• Sadie’s website - 305 Fitness

Follow Sadie!

• Instagram - @305fitness

• Twitter - @305fitness

• Facebook - @305fitness

• Pinterest - @305fitness

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.

Performance coach Jen Cohen is a master at ab crunches— and crunching numbers. She shares the story of how she talked her way into a job at Olive Garden before she was even old enough to work- and then reveals her secrets to eating healthier on a tight budget. 

Jennifer’s Money Story:

Thanks, Bobbi. When you asked that question, it makes you think and go back into your brain a little bit to think why someone is the way they are, subconsciously. I think it really goes back to when I was really small, four, five years old when my mom and dad did get divorced, and I guess money was quite tight. I do remember my mom, to make extra money, my mom is a psychiatric nurse, and she had a full-time job, but she had now two kids also, and it wasn't enough, so she would have these odd jobs.

Jen Cohen:
I don't remember all the details, but I do remember her working to sell stuff. She sold Mary Kay cosmetics on the side. She would also cut out pieces of the carpet in our apartment where she was selling them, and I think that vision or that imagery really stuck in my brain in a negative way. It told me right at that moment, "I don't want to be poor, or I always want to make my own money and feel financially stable and secure, not to rely on somebody else for my financial security."

Jen Cohen:
From that moment, I guess even as a small, small child, I went through life thinking of ways of having side hustles or working and doing things. When I was 12 years old, I remember bargaining and hustling with the manager of the Olive Garden down my street about working for him.

Bobbi Rebell:
Wait, you were 12 years old, and you were working at Olive Garden?

Jen Cohen:
I was. I was a greeter. They wouldn't allow me at 12 because you're too young to get ... I wasn't allowed in the actual restaurant because it was illegal, but I negotiated my way with this guy and just begged him and just hawked him enough where he gave me a job as a greeter. I was able to open up the front door for customers when they walk in. When they first get there, the first person you see was me, and I'm like, "Hello, welcome to Olive Garden." That was really my first real legit job when I was in nine, no, seventh, eighth grade, something really ... I was young, where I remember people in my neighborhood be like coming to the restaurant and be like, "What are you doing here?" It was very odd.

Bobbi Rebell:
But it sounds like you were actually really proud to be earning money, even at that young age. You weren't embarrassed about it. You were excited.

Jen Cohen:
Oh, God. No. I loved it. I always loved having my own money. I always loved having that option, never having to ask my mom or whoever. If I wanted something, I would have it, but here's a caveat. I would never spend my money, so all of this was for me to have savings. It wasn't for me to actually buy stuff. I've never been a very materialistic person. It's really about having in my head knowing that I had that backup, having that security blanket. I would literally save everything.

Jen Cohen:
Then through high school, through college, I always had multiple jobs just so I had it where very comfortable later on, but it was never about that. I've been very rich, and I've been poor, or in the middle, but it's never been that story that's driven me. It's really about that I think one experience when I was a little girl that just has always been subconsciously in my brain where I'm driven to make and create financial security just to have it.

Jennifer’s Money Lesson:

The takeaway is, A, number one, always spend below your means, not above, just so you have that ability, and find and figure out ways to save money. There's so many ways now. You can eat cheaply. You can figure out ways. You can work out for free. You can eat for less than $7 a day. There's a lot of ways to be crafty and resourceful if you want to be.

Jennifer’s Money Tip:

People can actually be much healthier on a very restricted budget. First of all, eating canned salmon. Canned salmon is automatically wild.

Bobbi Rebell:
I didn't know that.

Jen Cohen:
Yeah.

Bobbi Rebell:
And wild salmon is better. That's not just a myth to charge you more at the store.

Jen Cohen:
Absolutely not. Farmed salmon has a lot of toxins and maybe a lot of mercury. It could have a lot of different things in it. That's why people say limit your fish intake to maybe once a week, twice at max.

Bobbi Rebell:
Right, and that wild salmon is really expensive near me.

Jen Cohen:
It's expensive everywhere, but if you buy canned salmon, just make sure you look on the can. If it says wild Alaskan, that can of salmon would be maybe $2.50 to $3 at most, and that's higher quality than salmon that you would buy that would normally cost about $14 a pound anywhere else, maybe $17 a pound, depending on where you live. That is the perfect portion. That in itself is a meal.

Bobbi Rebell:
How do you usually eat it? Do you put it on a salad? What do you do with it usually?

Jen Cohen:
You could do anything. You could put it on a salad. You could actually ... When I'm starving and I need something to satiate me, I could just take the can of salmon, mash it a little bit of Vegenaise or mayonnaise whatever you'd like, or just put it in a bowl or whatever, eat out of the can as a snack. When I was on a budget I would eat that all the time, and I still eat that.

Jen Cohen:
The other thing is frozen vegetables. Frozen vegetables are a higher quality-sourced produce than what you find at the store because by the time it's at the store, it's been sitting on trucks, it's already half rotten. When you buy frozen vegetables, they flash-freeze them when it's at its peak, so the quality is better.

Bobbi Rebell:
So frozen vegetables, but not canned vegetables? What's the difference there?

Jen Cohen:
Listen. Canned corn, there's nothing wrong with canned corn. I mean, the reality is this: I don't like canned vegetables as much because I think when you do that in the cans, they have to add sodium. I try to stay away from that, but when it's the frozen vegetables, it's typically just the vegetable in itself flash-freeze in a bag so there's no added anything. It's just the vegetables. Canned vegetables typically have to have a preservative to keep it because it's not frozen, and also added salt. That's why I choose to have the frozen vegetables.

Bobbi Rebell:
I love that all.

Jen Cohen:
And frozen fruit, by the way, too.

Bobbi Rebell:
Yes, and I do that in smoothies a lot, actually. I did that even today in a smoothie.

Bobbi’s Financial grownup tips:

Financial grownup tip number one:

Don't be a food snob. Jen talked about eating frozen veggies and canned fish and how, quote, "fresh" isn't always better even if it's organic. Oh, my goodness. Could you imagine? Organic not being the absolute best? You need to pay attention. You can really get burned paying up for all that so-called fresh food because when you take away all those chemicals, which you should, we don't want the chemicals on our food, of course, but sometimes, the shelf life is just really short.

Recently, I splurged on these organic grapes at Whole Foods, and they went bad so fast. I had paid $8 for a bunch because I really wanted the grapes and I wanted to feel like I was eating healthy, and they barely lasted. That is also, by the way, a reason not to go shopping with your kids because I was with my son, and he also felt we should get the grapes, even though they were really expensive, and it's really hard to say no to a kid with they ask for food that's actually not junk food. Even if it's not the absolute healthiest fruit, it's not junk food, and that hard not to encourage, so try to leave your kids at home when you shop, although that's not always realistic.

Financial grownup tip number two:

The power of persuasion is very real. Good for Jen. Jen really shouldn't have been working at the Olive Garden at age 12 because it was not actually fully legal, but she got her way because she was creative and she found a way to get to yes with a reluctant manager and find a way to work there without technically working there and not technically breaking the law. That was a great lesson for all of us, Jen. Be persuasive and find a way around obstacles.

Episode Links:

• Blinkist - The app I’m loving right now. Please use our link to support the show and get a free trial.

• Jennifer’s website - jennifercohen.com

• How to save money and cut calories on your morning coffee from Starbucks

• Jen's book Badass Body Goals

Follow Jennifer!

• Instagram - @TheRealJenCohen

• Twitter - @TheRealJenCohen

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.

Performance coach Jen Cohen is a master at ab crunches— crunching numbers. She shares the story of how she talked her way into a job at Olive Garden before she was even old enough to work- and then reveals her secrets to eating healthier on a tight budget. 

Jennifer’s Money Story:

Thanks, Bobbi. When you asked that question, it makes you think and go back into your brain a little bit to think why someone is the way they are, subconsciously. I think it really goes back to when I was really small, four, five years old when my mom and dad did get divorced, and I guess money was quite tight. I do remember my mom, to make extra money, my mom is a psychiatric nurse, and she had a full-time job, but she had now two kids also, and it wasn't enough, so she would have these odd jobs.

Jen Cohen:
I don't remember all the details, but I do remember her working to sell stuff. She sold Mary Kay cosmetics on the side. She would also cut out pieces of the carpet in our apartment where she was selling them, and I think that vision or that imagery really stuck in my brain in a negative way. It told me right at that moment, "I don't want to be poor, or I always want to make my own money and feel financially stable and secure, not to rely on somebody else for my financial security."

Jen Cohen:
From that moment, I guess even as a small, small child, I went through life thinking of ways of having side hustles or working and doing things. When I was 12 years old, I remember bargaining and hustling with the manager of the Olive Garden down my street about working for him.

Bobbi Rebell:
Wait, you were 12 years old, and you were working at Olive Garden?

Jen Cohen:
I was. I was a greeter. They wouldn't allow me at 12 because you're too young to get ... I wasn't allowed in the actual restaurant because it was illegal, but I negotiated my way with this guy and just begged him and just hawked him enough where he gave me a job as a greeter. I was able to open up the front door for customers when they walk in. When they first get there, the first person you see was me, and I'm like, "Hello, welcome to Olive Garden." That was really my first real legit job when I was in nine, no, seventh, eighth grade, something really ... I was young, where I remember people in my neighborhood be like coming to the restaurant and be like, "What are you doing here?" It was very odd.

Bobbi Rebell:
But it sounds like you were actually really proud to be earning money, even at that young age. You weren't embarrassed about it. You were excited.

Jen Cohen:
Oh, God. No. I loved it. I always loved having my own money. I always loved having that option, never having to ask my mom or whoever. If I wanted something, I would have it, but here's a caveat. I would never spend my money, so all of this was for me to have savings. It wasn't for me to actually buy stuff. I've never been a very materialistic person. It's really about having in my head knowing that I had that backup, having that security blanket. I would literally save everything.

Jen Cohen:
Then through high school, through college, I always had multiple jobs just so I had it where very comfortable later on, but it was never about that. I've been very rich, and I've been poor, or in the middle, but it's never been that story that's driven me. It's really about that I think one experience when I was a little girl that just has always been subconsciously in my brain where I'm driven to make and create financial security just to have it.

Jennifer’s Money Lesson:

The takeaway is, A, number one, always spend below your means, not above, just so you have that ability, and find and figure out ways to save money. There's so many ways now. You can eat cheaply. You can figure out ways. You can work out for free. You can eat for less than $7 a day. There's a lot of ways to be crafty and resourceful if you want to be.

Jennifer’s Money Tip:

People can actually be much healthier on a very restricted budget. First of all, eating canned salmon. Canned salmon is automatically wild.

Bobbi Rebell:
I didn't know that.

Jen Cohen:
Yeah.

Bobbi Rebell:
And wild salmon is better. That's not just a myth to charge you more at the store.

Jen Cohen:
Absolutely not. Farmed salmon has a lot of toxins and maybe a lot of mercury. It could have a lot of different things in it. That's why people say limit your fish intake to maybe once a week, twice at max.

Bobbi Rebell:
Right, and that wild salmon is really expensive near me.

Jen Cohen:
It's expensive everywhere, but if you buy canned salmon, just make sure you look on the can. If it says wild Alaskan, that can of salmon would be maybe $2.50 to $3 at most, and that's higher quality than salmon that you would buy that would normally cost about $14 a pound anywhere else, maybe $17 a pound, depending on where you live. That is the perfect portion. That in itself is a meal.

Bobbi Rebell:
How do you usually eat it? Do you put it on a salad? What do you do with it usually?

Jen Cohen:
You could do anything. You could put it on a salad. You could actually ... When I'm starving and I need something to satiate me, I could just take the can of salmon, mash it a little bit of Vegenaise or mayonnaise whatever you'd like, or just put it in a bowl or whatever, eat out of the can as a snack. When I was on a budget I would eat that all the time, and I still eat that.

Jen Cohen:
The other thing is frozen vegetables. Frozen vegetables are a higher quality-sourced produce than what you find at the store because by the time it's at the store, it's been sitting on trucks, it's already half rotten. When you buy frozen vegetables, they flash-freeze them when it's at its peak, so the quality is better.

Bobbi Rebell:
So frozen vegetables, but not canned vegetables? What's the difference there?

Jen Cohen:
Listen. Canned corn, there's nothing wrong with canned corn. I mean, the reality is this: I don't like canned vegetables as much because I think when you do that in the cans, they have to add sodium. I try to stay away from that, but when it's the frozen vegetables, it's typically just the vegetable in itself flash-freeze in a bag so there's no added anything. It's just the vegetables. Canned vegetables typically have to have a preservative to keep it because it's not frozen, and also added salt. That's why I choose to have the frozen vegetables.

Bobbi Rebell:
I love that all.

Jen Cohen:
And frozen fruit, by the way, too.

Bobbi Rebell:
Yes, and I do that in smoothies a lot, actually. I did that even today in a smoothie.

Bobbi’s Financial grownup tips:

Financial grownup tip number one:

Don't be a food snob. Jen talked about eating frozen veggies and canned fish and how, quote, "fresh" isn't always better even if it's organic. Oh, my goodness. Could you imagine? Organic not being the absolute best? You need to pay attention. You can really get burned paying up for all that so-called fresh food because when you take away all those chemicals, which you should, we don't want the chemicals on our food, of course, but sometimes, the shelf life is just really short.

Recently, I splurged on these organic grapes at Whole Foods, and they went bad so fast. I had paid $8 for a bunch because I really wanted the grapes and I wanted to feel like I was eating healthy, and they barely lasted. That is also, by the way, a reason not to go shopping with your kids because I was with my son, and he also felt we should get the grapes, even though they were really expensive, and it's really hard to say no to a kid with they ask for food that's actually not junk food. Even if it's not the absolute healthiest fruit, it's not junk food, and that hard not to encourage, so try to leave your kids at home when you shop, although that's not always realistic.

Financial grownup tip number two:

The power of persuasion is very real. Good for Jen. Jen really shouldn't have been working at the Olive Garden at age 12 because it was not actually fully legal, but she got her way because she was creative and she found a way to get to yes with a reluctant manager and find a way to work there without technically working there and not technically breaking the law. That was a great lesson for all of us, Jen. Be persuasive and find a way around obstacles.

Episode Links:

• Blinkist - The app I’m loving right now. Please use our link to support the show and get a free trial.

• Jennifer’s website - jennifercohen.com

• How to save money and cut calories on your morning coffee from Starbucks

• Jen's book Badass Body Goals

Follow Jennifer!

• Instagram - @TheRealJenCohen

• Twitter - @TheRealJenCohen

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.

Performance coach Jen Cohen is a master at ab crunches— crunching numbers. She shares the story of how she talked her way into a job at Olive Garden before she was even old enough to work- and then reveals her secrets to eating healthier on a tight budget. #EatHealthy #EatHealthyOnABudget #Author