Transcription
Sarah Li Cain:
I don't think they really thought it through if someone were to get pregnant because I chose to go with someone who was able to speak English because I don't speak Chinese and so they were pretty expensive. I think I racked up a total about $25,000.
Bobbi Rebell:
You're listening to Financial Grownup with me, certified financial planner, Bobbi Rebell, author of How to Be a Financial Grownup. And you know what? Being a grownup is really hard, especially when it comes to money. But it's okay. We're going to get there together. I'm going to bring you one money story from a financial grownup, one lesson, and then my take on how you can make it your own. We got this.
Bobbi Rebell:
Hey friends. That was holistic money coach Sarah Li Cain of the blog High Fiving Dollars and the podcast Beyond the Dollar, taking a stroll down memory lane to a financial experience she'd probably rather forget. But she got through it.
Bobbi Rebell:
Welcome everyone and thanks for taking the time to join us here at Financial Grownup. We keep the shows on the short side so you can squeeze it into your busy day. But if you have more time, or are commuting, they are also meant to be listened to a few at a time. So when you subscribe, make sure the settings are at auto download and you will get three episodes each week.
Bobbi Rebell:
Back to Sarah. Her story is truly a financial grownup one because it begins with the birth of her first child which is a big life transition in and of itself, without all the financial responsibilities that comes with it, and she had to deal with a lot of money headaches. Here is Sarah Li Cain.
Bobbi Rebell:
Sarah Li Cain, you're a financial grownup. Welcome to the podcast.
Sarah Li Cain:
Thank you so much for having me Bobbi. I'm a big fan.
Bobbi Rebell:
Oh thank you, and I am a huge fan of yours ever since we met a couple of years ago actually at FinCon, which is a conference for content creators, because you were behind High Fiving Dollar and now the new Beyond the Dollar podcast. So congratulations on all of your success.
Sarah Li Cain:
Thank you so much.
Bobbi Rebell:
You are a holistic money coach. You also as I mentioned are a financial writer, and you are also someone who has worked all over the world, which brings us to the money story that you brought with you to share because it has to do with the time that you spent in China and something momentous that happened while you were there. Tell us.
Sarah Li Cain:
Yes, so actually spent a total about eight years in China. So before I was a writer and a money coach I was a elementary school teacher at a bunch of different international schools. My very last job, my husband and I found out that were pregnant. The interesting thing was in my contract the employer actually didn't pay for healthcare. So it's the employer legally has to provide you with healthcare, and so instead of actually giving us health insurance he had a little clause at the bottom of the contract that basically said we will reimburse 100% of any healthcare cost that you incur.
Bobbi Rebell:
That sounds really good.
Sarah Li Cain:
Yeah, it does, except if you don't have the money upfront and pay for that, then it makes it very difficult. And so for some of my coworkers-
Bobbi Rebell:
So you had to front the money?
Sarah Li Cain:
Yes. For some of my coworkers it was very difficult for them, number one, the ones who have children, they had to cover all their healthcare cost, and number two, I remember one of my coworkers had ... It wasn't major surgery but it was fairly big. She actually [inaudible 00:03:28] having to borrow money to cover that, until the employer was willing to basically reimburse it.
Bobbi Rebell:
So wait. Was it a situation where you would have to pay out of pocket and then basically fight to get reimbursed?
Sarah Li Cain:
Yes, exactly. So as long you had the receipt in theory they were going to pay you back. I don't think they really thought it through if someone were to get pregnant because healthcare is fairly cheap in China, but I chose to go with someone who was able to speak English because I don't speak Chinese and so they were pretty expensive. So I think I racked up a total about $25,000 American, including the birth, including the prenatal and postnatal care.
Bobbi Rebell:
So you had to forward that money, you had to pay that, and then try to get reimbursed?
Sarah Li Cain:
Yeah. One thing I did try to do was as the receipts payments, so every month when I'd have my prenatal appointments I would just sent, forward the receipt to my ... the owner of the school. Then the principal and I sat down and I said, "Listen, you know this is going to get really expensive. I'm going forward the boss or the owner a big, big bill, probably at least 10 grand after all of my prenatal appointments. He's going to have to be very careful because he's going to make sure, like, he's going to have that money and give it me." The principal and I actually worked together and figured out a way to approach the owner and how we were ... She was going to help me get that. The principal was going to help me get that money back.
Bobbi Rebell:
Was the school which is almost an independent school that did not have big financial resources, was that part of the issue why you were worried they wouldn't have the money?
Sarah Li Cain:
Part of it was the owner was new. I think he had taken over that school maybe for about a year, and number two, he's been, and this like anecdotal evidence, I haven't directly heard him say this but he's always mentioned about try to pay as little as possible for the foreign staff as he called us, and so I kind of knew that if I slapped him with this $25,000 bill that he'd probably pretty shocked and would try to find a way out of it.
Bobbi Rebell:
So what happened?
Sarah Li Cain:
I actually added up, I predicted all the cost for the birth and everything like that and I forwarded it to my principal. Then again the principal and I sat down and we basically said, "Okay, what's the best case scenario, what's the worst case, where can we meet in the middle with him." So we kind of came up with different ways to negotiate with him. The best case was he gives all that money back to me in one go. The second the best was if he paid in installments. And the worst case he refused.
Sarah Li Cain:
But I also said, "Hey, listen, I'm a great employee," and I actually calculated how many students that I brought into the school, so it kind of proved to him that like, hey, I'm helping you make money so therefore this little $25,000 expense wasn't that expensive in the grand scheme of things. What happened then was my principal then forwarded all of this information to the owner of the school and he actually agreed and was like, "Okay, I will pay all this back, I'll reimburse you as soon as you provide all the bills."
Bobbi Rebell:
And did they?
Sarah Li Cain:
Yes. So they did try to fight us a little bit. After my son was born my husband was the one to submit all the bills and so. Then they negotiated with him and said, "Well, we can't pay all this all at once. Is there some way we can just pay you back in increments?" So they did I think pay us the money back in about five installments but we did end up getting all the money back.
Bobbi Rebell:
Okay, that's great. But you used this to actually make broader changes.
Sarah Li Cain:
Yeah. The funny thing was I had no idea that my principal was trying to fight for everyone to get free health insurance. Again, the owner of the school had to legally provide this. She actually ended up using the large medical bill to say to the owner, was like, "Hey, listen, what if another one of your employees gets pregnant. That's like a huge cost," and then she actually presented him with different health insurance options in China and how it ended up being cheaper. And so because of what happened with me, the entire staff actually got free health insurance afterwards.
Bobbi Rebell:
Wow. So how did you feel during this time? I mean you're pregnant, you're having to fight for all this stuff. What were your coworkers saying?
Sarah Li Cain:
It was really interesting. My coworkers didn't necessarily directly ask me about the money side of things because I think in their mind they're like, "Oh man, Sarah's really going to have to fight for this money because the owner is such a cheapskate," as they called him. I was really thankful because ... So my husband and I worked together, and so he really advocated for me when I couldn't, like when I was out on maternity leave and when I was just too tired to really say anything. So he would push me like, "No, listen, Sarah, you have to fight this," or he would go in himself and then talk to the principal which I found out later that he did, and say like, "Here, how can we negotiate all of this?" If it wasn't for his support, I probably wouldn't be able to keep pursuing the money.
Bobbi Rebell:
So what is the lesson for our listeners?
Sarah Li Cain:
The lesson is number one, read your contract, and number two, stand your ground. If it says in your contract that you're supposed to get something, then fight for it because it's written down, it's not a verbal contract, it's a written contract, so definitely pursue it, and get as much support as you need in order to pursue it.
Bobbi Rebell:
Looking back is there anything you would've done different yourself?
Sarah Li Cain:
No, not at all.
Bobbi Rebell:
And Sarah, that brings us to your everyday money tip which also kind of has to do with your health and wellness.
Sarah Li Cain:
Yeah. One of the things I really strive to do is that whenever my husband and I are renting a new place, or when we're looking for a new apartment, we always make sure the kind of amenities there are. We're always looking for somewhere with a gym, how easy it is to walk from let's say the supermarket or my son's preschool, if there's a swimming pool, and just anything else where we don't have to spend extra money. For example, an apartment that we just rented is actually a five minute walk to my son's preschool, it's a few minutes walk to a couple of supermarkets, it's actually closer to my husband's work, it's got a gym, it's got a swimming pool, it's got a playground for my son. So we're effectively saving thousands of dollars a year because now that I can walk with my son to preschool, I don't need a second car. I can just walk again to the supermarket when I need to. I'm saving money on membership fees, things like that.
Bobbi Rebell:
Awesome. All right, Sarah, tell us more about what you're up to. I know you have started season two of your podcast.
Sarah Li Cain:
Yeah. So Beyond the Dollar I co-host it with another money coach, Garrett Philbin. We're just having a lot of fun. We discuss a lot of issues that go literally beyond the dollar, just not practical finance tips, but more of the deeper how money really affects your well being. You can also find me in High Fiving Dollars. I talk a lot about my personal life there. If you have any questions, I love answering reader questions there as well.
Bobbi Rebell:
Awesome. Thank you Sarah.
Sarah Li Cain:
Thank you for having me.
Bobbi Rebell:
I love that Sarah and her husband paid it forward fighting for everyone else to have real health insurance even after they had won their own battle. Financial Grownup tip number one, whenever you know you're going to need to be reimbursed, as was the case with Sarah and her husband, document everything and make sure you have backups including electronic backups. I happen to use Evernote and Dropbox for storage, and I use an app called JotNot as a mobile scanner, and from that app I can upload to the Evernote and/or Dropbox accounts.
Bobbi Rebell:
Make sure you follow up on getting reimbursed, and on bills sometimes the way that the healthcare system is set up may not be as well-run as you would necessarily expect. If you want to learn more about the dangers of what can happen if you're not on top of these things, check out my interview with Chris Browning of the Popcorn Finance podcast. Just go to bobbirebell.com/podcast/chrisbrowning.
Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup tip number two, let's talk about lifestyle amenities because I know Sarah's a big fan of them. She makes this a priority. There's an upside and there's a downside. If you have amenities built into your rent or your home cost, you don't have to worry that if money gets tight or you just have a lot of expenses coming up or you're feeling uneasy about your financial situation, you're not going to feel pressured to say take a break from the gym. On the other hand, they do add to your overhead in most cases and if you're not going to use certain amenities, you need to factor that in and be honest with yourself.
Bobbi Rebell:
For example, just about all of us can at least make the argument that we can make good use of a gym. We might blow it off in reality, but we can at least make the case. That might be worth paying for when you're looking for a new residence, especially if it's in a community or an apartment building that has a really nice one. But if you don't have young kids, something like a playground does not add value to your life.
Bobbi Rebell:
Those are pretty mainstream amenities, but some buildings can even have quirky amenities that sound so cool like wine cellars, relaxation lounges, climbing walls, hydrotherapy circuits, bowling allies, pet spas, and of course dog training studio, something we all look for. They are designed to wow buyers and renters, but just because something looks super cool when you're checking out the residence, doesn't mean it's something that you're going to actually use. If they deliver value for you, that's great. But some are just gimmicky and can up the prices. By the way, if you want to read about some of the crazy things happening in the amenities business, I'm going to leave a few fun articles about hot new amenities in the show notes for you guys.
Bobbi Rebell:
If you have not already hit that Subscribe button so you don't miss any upcoming episodes, remember, the episodes are short, about 15 minutes, so if you want to listen for longer, there are three new episodes every week so you can easily binge on a bunch if you have a long commute or you're just running errands and you want a little more content.
Bobbi Rebell:
Be in touch. I am on Twitter @bobbirebell, on Instagram @bobbirebell1, and on Facebook @bobbirebell, and of course DM me your feedback on the podcast. Thanks to Sarah Li Cain and her growing family for helping us get one step closer to being financial grownups.
Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup with Bobbi Rebell is edited and produced by Steve Stewart and is a BRK Media production.
