Entrepreneur and Investor Barbara Corcoran explains why she believes spending money in a deliberate way even before you earn it is a smart business strategy, and shares the story of her first really big investment. And yes, she committed to it before she had the money.

 In Barbara’s money story you will learn:

• How she bought her first house at age 29 (which had 8 bedrooms!)

• The importance of discussing big purchases with a significant other

• How Barbara saved $7,500 in three months

In Barbara’s money lesson you will learn:

• How she motivates herself to save money

• Why she chooses to ignore rational and take risks

• Her advice on committing to a goal

In Barbara’s everyday money tip you will learn:

• Why she spends money before she has it

• How she puts herself under pressure in order to produce financial results
  

In My Take you will learn:

• Why it's always good to listen to different opinions and take advice from successful people

• Two negotiation tips that will save you money and help your career

Bobbi and Barbara also talk about:

• Chef Boyardee and Ramen noodles, the quick dinner that helped save Barbara money and reminded Bobbi of her childhood

EPISODE LINKS:

• Listen to Barbara Corcoran's podcast Business Unusual here, and on iTunes

• Watch Barbara give more business advice on the multi-Emmy award winning show Shark Tank on ABC
  
  

Follow Barbara!

• Twitter: @BarbaraCorcoran

• Instagram: @BarbaraCorcoran

• Facebook: @TheBarbaraCorcoran

Entrepreneur and Investor Barbara Corcoran explains why she believes spending money in a deliberate way even before you earn it is a smart business strategy, and shares the story of her first really big investment. And yes, she committed to it before she had the money. In this Financial Grownup podcast episode you’ll learn how to commit to your goals. #Goals #GoalSetting

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.

TRANSCRIPTION

Barbara Corcoran:
I always spend money I don't have. If I see money coming in new receivable, three months out, I committed that day, what I'm going to spend it on, and I start spending it even before it arrives.

Bobbi Rebell:
You are 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:
Hello, my Financial Grownup friends, brace yourself Barbara Corcoran is here and she is going to give it to us straight up, no beating around the bush and she said some things that frankly I was pretty surprised with. They go against almost everything that I've been taught about building a solid financial foundation for your life, for your business, but she made it work. I'm still not sure I could make it work for me, but I'm thinking about it because she makes a good case and I'm interested to hear what you guys think after you hear her interview.

Bobbi Rebell:
So glad you are here. As I said, this episode is a really big one, so if you're new, you're joining it a really good time. We do something by the way called flex time for podcast, the episodes are kept pretty short, around 15 minutes. The idea is no excuses you can always fit it in, make it easy for you while you're running a quick errand, what have you, but if you have a longer commute, you can also stack them. We have a library now of more than a hundred episodes so you can listen to a few on your commute if that's what worked for you. Make sure that when you subscribe and hopefully you are subscribing, we really need the support that you set the downloads, go into the manual settings and set it so that you automatically get the downloads so that you don't miss any and you're good to go.

Bobbi Rebell:
And we love automation because that way things just happen and it's one less thing to remember. Alright, let's get to Barbara Corcoran and you know her from Shark Tank and now she has a new podcast called Business Unusual, also really short, so that's a good thing. She gives a lot of advice that seems shocking until you listen to it and listen to her reasons and then think that is part of how Barbara Corcoran is successful. It's the unusual. She approaches things in a different way from the way that we're always used to approaching it and it works for her. It may not work for you. The big takeaway from this episode, which you'll see I'm going to talk about after her interview. I don't know if I could do it, but I can see how it worked for her. So with that, here is Shark Tank's Barbara Corcoran.

Bobbi Rebell:
Hey, Barbara Corcoran you're at Financial Grownup welcome to the podcast.

Barbara Corcoran:
Thank you. Pleasure to be here.

Bobbi Rebell:
I am such a fan of your new podcast. For many reasons, of course also because it's a short podcast, but you have the best wisdom and you share so many lessons from your life, so thank you for that.

Barbara Corcora:
My pleasure. I enjoy doing it, but it's a scary proposition as I'm sure you will know, you have to earn people's ears while you're talking to them.

Bobbi Rebell:
You do, well you've been earning it for many years and you're going to share a money story from early in your life, your very first real estate purchase or I should say your first house and it sounds like it's going to be a story, but there's something that happened that I think people want to hear. Go for it.

Barbara Corcoran:
Yeah, and it has a valuable lesson. When I committed to purchasing my first home with my first husband. I was about 29 years old. I didn't have a pot to pee in as they say, but we sat across the dinner table for a man who said he was selling a certain house that was like a magical house from what I heard, and my mouth said, I'll take it. And why it was magical. It was a house that anybody would think you could only dream about, which was a house with eight bedrooms two guest cottages, a wet and a dry boat house facing a brand new lake.

Bobbi Rebell:
Did you have kids at this point, Barbara?

Barbara Corcoran:
No, of course not.

Bobbi Rebell:
Who was moving into this mansion?

Barbara Corcoran:
Listen, I figured I'd have fun with friends, but I had no rights saying we'll take it to which my husband was more startled than I was over my own mouth. Because we didn't have a dime to our name, we were struggling to just meet our bills. We're still kind of kids coming up the ranks, but-

Bobbi Rebell:
Wait, so tell me what happened. How did you buy the house?

Barbara Corcoran:
Once I said we'd buy the house, we had the problem of coming up with the down payment, 7,500. And so my husband and I started eating tomato noodles every night that I think they're chef Boyardee or something in a can and bring them lunch every day and we saved every penny of what we were earning in our lives, short of the rent we had to pay for our studio apartment. Well, three months hence we had most of the down payment but not quite and we're out for dinner with the same big boss of his and he mentioned that his father, he wanted to close, which was putting ... Was scaring me to death because I still didn't have enough money.

Barbara Corcoran:
But he said his father was reluctant to leave the house and I volunteered. Well, why don't you let your father stay there, but in trade for that, I got four months extra time. So we were able to save the down payment of $7,500. No problem. But when we got to the closing, the closing costs too, which I didn't have, but he was so in dear to us for keeping his elderly dad in the house that he paid for the closing costs for us. And we moved into that beautiful house and we had it for seven years until I decided to leave my husband and he got the house.

Bobbi Rebell:
Why did that happen? How did you let that happen?

Barbara Corcoran:
You know why? Because I got the apartment in the city by then we had bought a one bedroom apartment in the city and I sold that one bedroom that I paid $80,000 for two years later for 250. And he sold that house that we had paid $75,000 for two years after our divorce for $75,000.

Bobbi Rebell:
So what is the takeaway for our listeners?

Barbara Corcoran:
I'm a believer in always committing throwing it out there and say I'm going to do it. Because when you have that kind of pressure and you've publicly committed, you find a way to get there. If you can commit to something, you'll find a way of getting there. If I had said, give me a couple of months, let me see if I could save for the house, believe me, my rational side would have kicked in and said, what are you doing? But because I said I would, I found a way that could do it and that's the truth, and most people are better than they think. If they're willing to be courageous enough to state it as low as fact and then make it happen versus the other way around.

Bobbi Rebell:
And eat a lot of canned noodles.

Barbara Corcoran:
Oh yeah,[inaudible 00:06:40] Yeah, you can do anything if you know it's temporary.

Bobbi Rebell:
Tell us your everyday money tip because this is also a real Barber tip because this is something that works for you may not work for other people, but it is a strategy that people might want to consider. Again, for you it works it may not be for everyone. Go for it.

Barbara Corcoran:
It's a particularly good strategy if you're out to those your own business, and I'll tell you why. My strategy is this. I always spend money I don't have. If I see money coming in new receivable, three months out, I committed that day, what I'm going to spend it on, and I started spending it even before it arrives. The reason for that is I have no choice but to actually make it happen whatever I'm doing. Because I know I've already committed the money. It's like putting a gun to your own head where you have to produce. If instead you wait for the money to come in and then say, okay, I've got this little extra cash. We've had a profit this month. Let's see the best use of it. That sounds rational, but I'm telling you the fever with which you attacked the best use of it is nothing compared to knowing that the bank is going to come in and chop your head off if you don't produce.

Barbara Corcoran:
So. I've always consistently put myself under pressure by spending money long before I have it and I've never let myself down. There's something magical that happens in the universe when you really under fire when you have no choice that you find a way to get there, and so I'm a big spender and on top of that I can also say, although I was born a poor kid and have my thousand dollar loan from my boyfriend, thank God, or we have been able to quit my waitress job and starting a business nowhere. Okay.

Barbara Corcoran:
But once I had that thousand dollars, I just thought, you know what? This is found money. It's a gift from God and I'm just gonna run this thing up the flag pole until somebody stops me and my most assured policy of making sure no one stopped me was to spend money in advance of having it because I had no choice but to make good on it. I had no choice and ran like a devil with a limited timeframe and I was able to accomplish 10 times more than all my competitors simply because of the pressure I had put on my own back. All right, so it's not what you read in accounting book, but I can tell you when you're building a business, it's a smarter way to go than to be calculated and do it a step at a time.

Bobbi Rebell:
It's the real world. One other quick question though, did you ever have trouble and how did you handle it collecting those receivables?

Barbara Corcoran:
No, I wrote off about 10% of my receivables because you have to appreciate. My business was selling co-ops in New York City and we had about 10% of our deals that didn't approve the Co-op association. They were turned down by the board, so I knew what that average was the first year, by the typical may be the second year in business, I realized I lost 10% of my deals, so I just wrote off that 10%. So that was realistic in suddenly a good accountant would do, but that's where my relationship or any resemblance to an accountant definitely ended in my attitude to it and everything else.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right. I want to talk quickly about your, still relatively new podcast even though who would know it because it's always at the top of the charts where to I'm trying to climb, but you're there and that's a lot because your podcast is so good. It is a short one, so dear to my heart, but you also really deliver personal and as you have here very honest and straightforward advice about your life and the lessons that you have learned and your bold with it. Your most recent episode talked about quitting jobs. You quit 22 jobs Barbara, you also talk about negotiation skills. Tell me more about this podcast and why it is so different and people are really responding to it?

Barbara Corcoran:
I think people are responding well simply because I tell it like it is. And it doesn't mean if it's the person listening, but I think they leave trusting that they heard the truth and I also think I'm impatient by nature. So if you're gonna ask me what about negotiation? Most people can write a book on that. I can't. I can tell you in eight minutes flat, what the key to negotiation, what are the key moves and what doesn't work. And really I don't have more to say after the eight minutes. So I think because I have such a short attention span and because I'm so impatient by nature myself and listening, I want to know what you want out of me and what do I gotta do. And that's pretty much how I am with everybody. Get to the point and then tell me how you get there.

Barbara Corcoran:
So I do get to the point and then tell you how I get there and then the eight minutes are up and I'm signing off. I wish I was more verbose and had more great delicious detail, but I just say the main things that worked for me and I leave it at that and my sign off until the following week. So I hope it works. We'll see. It's very scary as I'm sure you know, to merit someone's eight minutes. I feel it's such an abuse or a trust that I feel like every word has to really, really count or I have no business doing its own. I'm Mostly scared, I'm scared to six days. Then I do the podcast, then I get scared all over again.

Bobbi Rebell:
Well you're doing a great job. I don't find you scary at all. I love it. I think you're worth investing every one of those eight minutes, so thank you for all that you do. Everyone knows where to find you, but just in case because I ask everyone, tell us where you can be found, where people can follow you on social and what else is important that's going on in your life that we should know about.

Barbara Corcoran:
Well, of course it's a Business Unusual, which is the podcast, my newest baby, but as usual, any social platform @BarbaraCorcoran is very easy.

Bobbi Rebell:
Love it. Thank you Barbara.

Barbara Corcoran:
I love you back. Bobbi. Thank you so much. And Go back to your real name, Barbara, it's such a pretty name.

Bobbi Rebell:
So if you're like me, you want to hit rewind and listen again. She's that good. And before I get to the financial bonus tips, just want to make a little comment about the food because we spend so much time agonizing over all of this organic fancy food and when we're saving money, everyone talks about the ramen noodles. I want to talk to you about the chef Boyardee that she and her husband were eating to save up money because you know what, that's fun childhood memories for me. My mom was a working mom and you know what? Sometimes we have something called spaghettios. Do you guys even know what that is? It's basically this like circle pasta in a can and tomato sauce and it's delicious. It may not have any nutrition, but if you see spaghettios in the store, I have no affiliation with them. Pick them up and try them instead of ramen noodles if you're trying to save money.

Bobbi Rebell:
Just for variety, be a little bit bad. Like I said, they're probably not nutritious at all. All right, let's talk about my tips. Finance grownup tip number one. Sometimes financial advice like Barbra's goes against common stereotypical things that we hear. Here's the thing though, always listen to different opinions especially when they're from someone like Barbara Corcoran who has been so successful in so many different fields, to not only real estate where she started out, but also now with Shark Tank. She's an entrepreneur investing in so many different companies, so listen to her and give it some thought. Now I'm not telling you to go out and spend money that you don't have or even to spend on receivables, which is really what she was doing. It was money that she had contracts for but had not yet received so she believed that money was coming, but I see her point and I also see how that can create a really strong motivation so before totally rejecting it or even accepting it, play out how that would work for you.

Bobbi Rebell:
How are you going to cover things for example, if someone does not pay or if they pay, but they are on a delayed schedule so they're not paying in 30 days like your bill says they're paying 60, 90, 100, 20 days out. How are you going to finance that? You have a line of credit with your business. Are you throwing that on a credit card where you might be paying interest, late fees? What have you, factor that in. Are you going to charge a late fee to them? Barbara factored in that 10% of her expected commissions receivables were not going to happen so even she was doing that.

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup tip number two, be creative and flexible. When you're negotiating. Barbara, let the sellers elderly dad stay in the house longer than originally planned. Again, you have to give Barbara props for being open minded and in return by the way, she got precious time and the goodwill was so strong and her gesture was still appreciated that the closing costs were paid by the seller.

Bobbi Rebell:
That is huge. Thank you all for being part of the Financial Grownup community. We bring this to you for free. The only payment we ask is that you share it with someone that you care about and that you believe would enjoy and benefit from the podcast. Your reviews and your feedback. I'm just going to tell you guys straight up there is really important. I read everyone, we don't get as many as I would like. There aren't that many there and I know a lot of you are out there. A lot of you are DMing me, which is actually really great. Still DM me, gave me the feedback, but if you can also leave reviews on Apple podcasts, that is also really helpful to get the show notice because that's how people discover the show.

Bobbi Rebell:
If you do want to also be in touch on social media, it's not either or guys. Follow me and DM me on Instagram @BobbiRebell1 that's the number one on twitter I'm @BobbyRebel and on Facebook, Bobbi Rebell as well. And big things of course to the amazing Barbara Corcoran, the ultimate Financial Grownup. Everyone check out her podcast Business Unusual and watch her on Shark Tank and thank you Barbara Corcoran for getting us all 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.

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.

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. In this Financial Grownup podcast episode you’ll learn how Sadie built her business on a budget and how you can too. #Budget #Entrepreneur #Fitness

Tanja Hester explains why she had to call it quits on the side hustle she loved in order to create new opportunities at her primary job. Plus her big money tip on how to save big on medical expenses while traveling the world. 

In Tanja's money story you will learn:

• The flip side of the side hustle

• When to call it quits

• Why she decides to leave her side hustle as a yoga instructor

In Tanja’s money lesson you will learn:

• Being aware of your options

• If you're side hustle is going to hold you back

• Realizing that a side hustle may not be forever and that's okay

In Tanja's everyday money tip you will learn:

• The surprising places you can schedule your dental and eye exams to save you money

In My Take you will learn:

• Why it’s important to be clear about your purpose if you have a side hustle

• The importance of knowing if your healthcare is valid overseas
  

Episode Links:

• Tanja's book Work Optional

• The Fairer Cents podcast

Check out Tanja's website -

• Our Next Life

Follow Tanja!

• Instagram - @our_nextlife

• Pinterest - @our_nextlife

• Twitter - @our_nextlife

• Facebook - @ournextlife

Tanja Hester explains why she had to call it quits on the side hustle she loved in order to create new opportunities at her primary job. Plus her big money tip on how to save big on medical expenses while traveling the world. In this Financial Grownup podcast episode you’ll learn how you can retire early without having to pinch pennies doing so. #Author #RetireEarly #FIRE

Tanja Hester explains why she had to call it quits on the side hustle she loved in order to create new opportunities at her primary job. Plus her big money tip on how to save big on medical expenses while traveling the world. In this Financial Grownup podcast episode you’ll learn how you can retire early without having to pinch pennies doing so. #Author #RetireEarly #FIRE

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.

Transcription

Tanja Hester:
Within that year of quitting, I got promoted. I was able to take on a lot more interesting assignments at work. I was able to start traveling more, which I did really enjoy. Ultimately for me, it's crazy, but yeah. As much as the side hustle served me earlier, it was giving it up that really let me get ahead.

Bobbi Rebell:
You're listening to Financial Grownup with me, certified financial planner Bobbi Rebell, author of How to be a Financial Grownup. 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:
Do you guys have side hustles, multiple income streams? It's kind of becoming the normal thing to do these days, but they are also, if we're being honest, second jobs, and sometimes it just becomes too much. Welcome everyone. The show is growing and we have a lot of new listeners. Thank you for checking us out. I would love to learn how you heard about the show, so special ask here. Let me know how you heard of the podcast. DM me on Instagram at BobbiRebell1, or on Twitter at BobbiRebell, and you can always email at hello@financialgrownup.com and feel free to give other feedback as well.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right. Let's get to our guest. She is Tanja Hester. First of all, she has one of my favorite podcasts, The Fairer Cents, with Kara Perez. She also is an award winning blogger. Her blog is called Our Next Life, and we were able to get her on the show because of her new book. It is called Work Optional, and based on the story she shared, it also could be called "And Side Hustles Optional," because it seems like everyone expects you to have a side hustle these days and sometimes you just don't or you just can't anymore. And learning when it is okay to say no is definitely a very Financial Grownup thing. Here is Tanja Hester. Hey, Tanja Hester. You're a financial grownup. Welcome to the podcast.

Tanja Hester:
Hey Bobbi. I'm so happy to be here.

Bobbi Rebell:
And I am happy to be talking to you about your new book: Work Optional, Retire Early. A lot of people already know you though because you're an overachiever, Tanja. You have, first of all, your blog. Beyond the fact that you're a part of the FIRE movement and you are financially independent, you are retired. This is some busy retirement by the way, just saying. Your blog, Our Next Life, was Blog of the Year for the Plutus Awards, which is huge. I am not a Plutus Awards winner. I was nominated though. This podcast was nominated, I should say. You're also the cohost of really one of, if not my very favorite podcast, Fairer Cents, so love all of them. So happy to have you.

Tanja Hester:
Thank you. Wow, that was the best intro ever, I think.

Bobbi Rebell:
But it is all sincere and all true. I really loved your book. I actually have asked you to talk about a money story from your book that really hit home with me and I think is really relevant to so many listeners, and something we're going to be talking more about, and that is the flip side to the side hustle and when to know when to call it quits basically, because in the book you talk about leaving your side hustle as a yoga instructor, and I really wanted to hear more. So tell us your money story, Tanya.

Tanja Hester:
Yeah. I started my career in DC and then LA, and at the time I was making not no money, but close to no money, especially considering how expensive those places are to live. And so I started teaching yoga when I think I was 23 or so. I loved yoga. I needed a side hustle. It was relatively low startup cost. I really do recommend actually teaching fitness for folks who want a side hustle, because you get paid to work out, and the overhead, you don't have to invest a whole lot to get certified, and it also makes you really comfortable on your feet and makes you a better public speaker, which are all my side effects. I did that for a long time. I also then started teaching spinning to supplement that, so I was doing both yoga and spinning. Yeah. About eight or nine years in I started realizing, for my main job, which was as a political consultant, I was having to travel a lot and I was starting to sub out more classes, or I was occasionally having to say no to things at my main job because of my class schedule, or I felt like I was subbing out too much stuff.

Bobbi Rebell:
Because you had to have a commitment to that people. You were on the schedule.

Tanja Hester:
Yeah. Yeah, and I had students who were my regulars who expected me to be there. It just got to a point where my main career and my side hustle were really in direct conflict with each other and I realized that continuing to teach yoga on the side was actually holding me back in my career, and was preventing me from being able to be a full team player, being able to say yes to things, so I made the really hard choice to give it up, which was hard because I love teaching yoga. I loved that community that I built, but within that year of quitting I got promoted. I was able to take on a lot more interesting assignments at work. I was able to start traveling more, which I did really enjoy. Ultimately for me, it's crazy, but yeah. As much as the side hustle served me earlier, it was giving it up that really let me get ahead.

Bobbi Rebell:
How did you prepare to lose that income stream? Because that is something a lot of people worry about.

Tanja Hester:
The truth is, I want to be clear that I'm in a financial unit, so my husband Mark was also working really hard through all of this and he had earned more. I think that this, I'm not remembering exactly, but I think he may have gotten a little bit of a promotion that year that I quit, so that kind of smoothed it out a little bit. But the truth is, by that point, we were both earning significantly above what we were spending, and so it was just a question of maybe taking a tiny temporary hit in what we were saving, but we were living so far below our means that it wasn't a question of constraining any spending because of it.

Bobbi Rebell:
What is your lesson for our listeners who are getting such a very strong message, many of us, about having those multiple income streams, having those side hustles? There's downsides to it.

Tanja Hester:
Yeah. There potentially are, and I think it's just being aware and intentional about what all of your options are. So if you're in a low level job right now and you want to stick that out, I think it's just paying attention to, is there a point at which having a side hustle is going to be too big a distraction? Is there a point at which it's going to start to hold you back? You know, I really am very pro side hustle, but I think it's just noticing that this may not be forever, or there might be stages in my life when I need to focus on one thing. So that's really I think what I'd advise, is just be smart about it. Just keep your eyes open.

Bobbi Rebell:
And side hustles don't have to be forever.

Tanja Hester:
Absolutely not. They can be a great chapter of your life. I think of the decade when I taught yoga as a really special thing, but that doesn't mean I still have to be teaching it now.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right. Let's move on to your everyday money tip. This has to do with health care, actually.

Tanja Hester:
It's a better time to be early retired with healthcare than it used to be. Before the Affordable Care Act, people who didn't have a traditional job, and that could be freelancers and side hustlers and gig economy folks too, but we didn't necessarily have good ways to get it. Now with the Affordable Care Act, you can buy insurance, but for most of us that is not going to include dental or vision, and so a great way to save some money if you especially love international travel anyway, is when you're traveling, to schedule a dental cleaning, or schedule an eye exam, or do some of the predictable medical stuff that you know you can schedule when you're abroad.

Tanja Hester:
I think as Americans we tend to think of the rest of the world as not having high quality care, but that's just really not true. You can do a lot of the stuff for pennies on the dollar compared to what we pay here when you're already taking a trip, and if you're older and you need something like a hip replacement, it's worth pricing out what it would cost in a place like Thailand or India versus at home. Often, even if you have insurance, the total cost out of pocket in another country will be less than what you'd pay after copays and everything here.

Bobbi Rebell:
What's been your experience? Have you done it?

Tanja Hester:
You know what? I have not yet. We just haven't had the opportunity because we're only a year into early retirement, but for the book I interviewed a bunch of people who had and really heard nothing but positive experiences.

Bobbi Rebell:
We'll have to look into that. Alright. I want to talk more about your book Work Optional: Retire Early the Non-Penny Pinching Way, because it really draws from your experience. You mentioned FIRE, which stands for "financial independence, retire early." Is that correct?

Tanja Hester:
That is correct.

Bobbi Rebell:
By the way, your blog also won best FIRE blog I think the previous year, so you're an all star on all levels, but there's a lot of things that I like about the book, and one of them was, as a parent myself, that you also address the challenges that parents face when they have this goal of FIRE.

Tanja Hester:
Yeah. I did not want the book to be, "Here is the story of how Mark and I did this." I think that's pretty boring. We also recognize that a lot of our circumstances are not applicable to everyone or easy to replicate. We got really lucky in some key ways. We didn't have huge student debt. As you just said, we don't have kids, so I wanted to make this a book that was accessible to just about anybody, so I included a lot of case studies with parents. In fact, most of the people featured in the book have children, because I just felt that was so important to cover. Some people are couples who are earning under six figures combined, some single folks, so it's really trying to cover the bases.

Tanja Hester:
But yeah, I'm a huge believer that you can build a plan that works for you and you can, even if full retirement isn't an option, you can at least create a life where work is more optional, whether that's being able to cut back or take a year off or just work in a job that's fun for you as a part-time thing. I really do believe that it's accessible and so that's really what I set out to do with the book.

Bobbi Rebell:
Another thing that really stood out to me in the book is a data point that you bring up, and that is that most people, we talk about the idea of choosing to retire early, but the truth is, data shows that most people don't actually even retire when they plan, so we think this is a choice, but really a lot of us just have to be ready whether we like it or not.

Tanja Hester:
Oh, it's so true. I feel really strongly about this because I get frustrated when there are new stories about early retirement that sort of go like, "Hey, look at these young weirdos." Because I think the discussion about early retirement should be inclusive of everyone, because as you said, that's just reality. We know that most Americans intend to work to 66 or 67, but end up having to retire at 62 or 63 on average. Although for many workers it's a lot younger, because companies are generally pretty cruel to those over 50. They lay people off without really much regard for how it's going to affect them, and so a ton of us, two-thirds are not retiring when we plan, and we also know that more than half of Americans are wholly reliant on Social Security as their only retirement income, which the very highest social security checks only give people about $30,000 a year.

Tanja Hester:
So we're talking about a real crisis and a real problem that just being able to put yourself in a position where you can retire securely is already enormous, and if you can put yourself in a position to be able to retire even sooner, all the better, because we just don't know what the future holds for all of us.

Bobbi Rebell:
Wow. All right. Everyone needs to check out Work Optional. Tanja, before I let you go, please tell us more about where people can follow you, your blogs, your podcasts, your books, all of you. There's so much happening in your retirement, Tanja.

Tanja Hester:
I know, I know and I know there are those who will say I'm not retired, but this is all stuff that I'm choosing to do that feels like play, and I feel lucky every day. My main site is ournextlife.com. From there you can find everything else. The podcast is The Fairer Cents, C-E-N-T-S on iTunes and all the podcast places. On social, I'm @Our_NextLife, mostly Twitter and Instagram, but from Our Next Life, you can kind of find all the different tentacles I have out there, get info on the book. The book is in all the normal book places, so yeah. It's a fun, fun thing to do.

Bobbi Rebell:
Amazing. Thank you so much Tanja.

Tanja Hester:
Thanks Bobbi.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right, my friends. Let's do this. Financial Grownup tip number one. If you have a side hustle, be clear about its purpose. For Tanja, it no longer was a needed income source. It was fun. She liked it, but it was holding her back. If the point of your side hustle is to build a business so you could leave your job and things are on track, of course you should stick with it, but as we move up in our primary jobs, side hustles can be a distraction, and you could be missing opportunities even just by not being as focused on the main job as you could be.

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup Tip number two. Tanja talked about medical procedures overseas that are planned. Even if you don't plan to have something done, it's a good idea to note if your health care insurance is valid overseas, especially in the case of an emergency. In many cases, insurance will cover an emergency but will only reimburse you once you get home, so you have to pay out of pocket while there, keep the receipts and file afterwards. This actually happened to my family. We were vacationing in Jamaica and my son cut his head after falling getting out of the shower. We had to go to an emergency clinic and pay 100% out of pocket. The insurance company would not promise whether or not they would pay, and in the end they did pay as an out of network expense, but there you have it. By the way, Harry was completely fine. If you are traveling internationally, know what your health care coverage is and make a plan just in case you have to see a doctor while you are traveling.

Bobbi Rebell:
And thanks to all of you, my Financial Grownup friends, for joining us. If you like the podcast, please help us grow, please, by sharing with your friends, and take a moment to leave a review as well. We read every one and they really mean the world to us, and they help us get discovered. Big thanks to Work Optional author Tanja Hester for helping us all get one step closer to being Financial Grownups.

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownups with Bobbi Rebell is edited and produced by Steve Stewart and is a BRK Media production.

Scholarships are anything but free money. They actually take a lot of work. Jocelyn Paonita Pearson shares the story of how she graduated not just debt free, but also with cash to spare, all by knowing where to focus her efforts, and how to avoid the scholarship scams. 

In Jocelyn's money story you will learn:

• How her business, The Scholarship System, came about from her own experience

• How Dave Ramsey had influenced her decision to seek out scholarships

• How she won enough scholarships to pay for not only college but also living expenses

• What a scholarship scam is and how to know what to look for to avoid them

In Jocelyn’s money lesson you will learn:

• Why she feels like applying to more and more scholarships actually becomes easier

• How you can still continue to get scholarships even when you are out of high school and in college

In Jocelyn's everyday money tip you will learn:

• Not all scholarship opportunities are online and some are still on paper. Jocelyn shares where you can find these scholarships

In My Take you will learn:

• Other places you can find scholarships besides just educational institutions

• One benefit to look for in your job search that can help with student debt

Episode Links:

Jocelyn's book The Scholarship System

Jocelyn’s free webinar

Melanie Lockert's Financial Grownup Episode

Check out Jocelyn's website -

https://thescholarshipsystem.com/

Follow Jocelyn!

• LinkedIn - @TheScholarshipSystem

• Twitter - @ScholarshipSYS

• Facebook - @TheScholarshipSystem

Scholarships are anything but free money. They actually take a lot of work. Jocelyn Paonita Pearson shares the story of how she graduated not just debt free, but also with cash to spare, all by knowing where to focus her efforts, and how to avoid the scholarship scams. In this Financial Grownup podcast episode you’ll learn how to find and recognize good scholarships and how to apply for them. #MoneyTips #Scholarships

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.

Transcription

Jocelyn Pearson:
Scams is a pretty harsh term, but I think it's fair, so these are the sweepstakes scholarships, the ones that are based on drawings. If it's based on luck, it is not worth your time.

Bobbi Rebell:
You're listening to Financial Grownup, with me, certified financial planner, Bobbi Rebell, author of "How to Be a Financial Grownup." You know what? Being a grownup is really hard, especially when it comes to money. But it's okay, we're gonna get there together. I'm gonna 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:
Hello Financial Grownup friends. College, totally affordable, said no one ever. It's crazy expensive and every dollar that you can save is a really good thing. That much debt student debt on the other end. So glad I was able to get Jocelyn Paonita Pearson on the program. She is the master at finding money to pay for school and save precious time while doing it with a fantastic program called, The Scholarship System. Welcome, to everyone. If you're a new, we're so glad you discovered the show. We interview high achievers and get their money stories, and their lessons and even some every day money tips, all in about 15 minutes. If you have a little more time though, feel free to stack a few episodes together to make it work for you. With that, here is Jocelyn Paonita Pearson.

Bobbi Rebell:
Hey, Jocelyn Paonita Pearson. You're on Financial Grownup. Welcome to the podcast.

Jocelyn Pearson:
Thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Bobbi Rebell:
I'm excited to learn more about The Scholarship System because who doesn't need more money for education for themselves, for their children, for the future and so on. Tell us, just briefly, what it is before we get to your money story.

Jocelyn Pearson:
Sure, so The Scholarship System is a six step process that I accidentally stumbled upon to pay for college without taking out student loans. Now, it started off as a simple book, but then we learned that our families wanted true live interaction and get some videos, worksheets, templates, you name it, and so now it is a full on course, blog and tons of resources for families to learn how to pay for college with scholarships.

Bobbi Rebell:
And we're going to circle back to that, but first, I want to get to your money story, which is actually very appropriate because that's actually how you came up with this. It all started with you and your own scholarship needs. Do tell.

Jocelyn Pearson:
I would love to. So, it really was an accident. When I was in high school, my parents sat us down. I'm one of five kids, and they said, "We love you guys, but there is no way we could pay for college." Because at this rate it's half a million to a million dollars for this many kids, right? So, I was a pretty bullheaded teenager who just ... I did not want to take out student loan debt. Actually, I had watched Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University in one of my high school classes and made me terrified of any kind of debt, nevermind just student debt. So, I started off on a path to get scholarships for college and I just, for some reason, assumed my university would give me a ton of money.

Bobbi Rebell:
They did not though. They give you very little, I got to say. $2,000, right?

Jocelyn Pearson:
Yes.

Bobbi Rebell:
Oh my gosh. And what was tuition? What did that represent versus tuition?

Jocelyn Pearson:
Tuition was I think around 10 grand a year, so I needed way more just for tuition, but the thing was my freshman year in college tuition was just half of my expenses. So, in the end, it cost me over 20 grand a year. So, yeah, they gave me, what? 10%?

Bobbi Rebell:
Yeah, and a lot of people don't understand that tuition is not everything. There's so much more that comes out of pocket. Not to mention the fact that ... sometimes your earnings are more limited than they might have been otherwise because you're studying, so you can't work as many hours as you might be able to if you weren't in school. There's that opportunity cost as well.

Jocelyn Pearson:
Absolutely. And that's the beautiful thing about what I figured out is that I could use this money that I ended up getting without stealing too much from the end to pay for these other expenses as well, not just tuition. So, that was beautiful, but it was not a beautiful process at the beginning. It was so painful. I think a lot of your listeners could probably relate. I think most people either have the intentions of applying for scholarships or have given it a shot, but-

Bobbi Rebell:
And this was first happening in high school, I should say. You're in [crosstalk 00:04:24] figuring this out.

Jocelyn Pearson:
Yeah.

Bobbi Rebell:
What number are you among the five children? Did you have older siblings that had done this already?

Jocelyn Pearson:
No, so I was the guinea pig.

Bobbi Rebell:
Okay.

Jocelyn Pearson:
Yeah. So, I started looking for scholarships and spent my junior year, this was before I knew that I was not getting much money, but I spent my junior years nonchalantly applying. But what I was doing was I was applying to these, what I later found out, were pretty much scams. So, I wasted an entire year applying to scholarships that weren't legitimate.

Bobbi Rebell:
What do you mean by scams? What would they be? They would say there was a scholarship and then they would just get your data? What was going on?

Jocelyn Pearson:
That's pretty much what it was. Scams is a pretty harsh term, but I think it's fair. So, these are the sweepstakes scholarships, the ones that are based on drawings. If it's based on luck, it is not worth your time, period.

Bobbi Rebell:
Are they legit? Like, if you win, it is at least legit. If you want to enter a lottery, it's not ... They're not taking from you. Your worst case scenario is you've wasted your time. I mean what is the danger of these scams? Because I don't know about this.

Jocelyn Pearson:
Yeah, that's a great question. So, my inbox that I used for that, now has over 20,000 unread emails, and I'm not exaggerating, literally over 20,000. I'm sure it's way more now. Because what they did was they were taking my information and selling it to affiliate marketers. So, your inbox will pretty much be destroyed and whatever information you've given could possibly be given out. So, it's not that they're necessarily really hurting you, but in this day and age, our data is really valuable. So, it was a way for them to target teenagers especially.

Bobbi Rebell:
Who don't know better. Who are just looking to pay for their college education.

Jocelyn Pearson:
Exactly. Which is the easiest, most vulnerable set of people to go after because everything is so scary and overwhelming with this process in itself. So, I got sucked into that. I did not know until finally the end of my junior year, I found a small little local scholarship that was 500 bucks, and I applied and wrote this essay. It was terrible. I had so many different drafts that I had to go back and forth and fix, but in the end, I won 500 bucks. Some people might be thinking, $500, you needed pretty much six figures to get a free ride. Why would you waste your time on $500? But that $500 scholarship meant so much more for me because what it did was it validated scholarships in general. It showed me, "Hey Jocelyn, there is money out there. There are scholarships out there. You just need to know what you're looking for, and apply to the right ones."

Bobbi Rebell:
What was different about that $500 one versus what you call the scams?

Jocelyn Pearson:
You asked the best questions. This is one of the golden nuggets that we really harp on in our course, and it's to know if a scholarship is legitimate or not. There's really a spectrum. So I mentioned the ones that are based on luck, you throw your name in a drawing, and you're entered to win $10,000. Those are not worth your time. Even though people are like, "Well, someone has to win them." I have been doing this for now nearly a decade, and I've never met anyone to win one, so it's not worth your time. But on the other end of the spectrum, we have scholarships that asked for criteria that we compete, that shows our qualifications for money.

Jocelyn Pearson:
Those are the ones that are worth our time. For example, I mentioned the one that I finally won $500 with required essays. That was something where, if I improve my essay, if I write a high quality essay, that increases my chances of winning. It's something within my control beyond just luck. So, in that way, it has a higher chance of being legitimate. The more it's based on my true credentials, and my competitiveness versus luck.

Bobbi Rebell:
And you eventually raised I think $126,000 to fund your education and the ancillary costs of that education, correct?

Jocelyn Pearson:
Absolutely. So, in the end I got to six figures, and I was, not only able to graduate completely debt free, but I actually got an overage check every school year, every semester to pay for any external expenses that I had that were beyond my bill.

Bobbi Rebell:
So, What is the lesson for our listeners here that people don't know that's not obvious? Because there's a lot to this. It's not just write an essay. There's a strategy here.

Jocelyn Pearson:
When I got my six figures in scholarships, it was not all in my senior year. It was gradual. Every single year I was able to apply for more and more money and it got easier and easier, I promise. That might sound like a lot of work, but once you get some winning ups, you just reuse them. So, that's actually a golden nugget as well. But every single year can get more money. A lot of people think, oh, once I finished high school, I'm out of luck. There aren't any more opportunities for me to change my status when it comes to loans or scholarships. That's not true.

Jocelyn Pearson:
And the second one that I want to share is to find these scholarships, and we will share a free webinar, where I go in more depth and have more time about this, but we teach how to use Google the right way to find scholarships. I think one of the biggest challenges with the scholarship process is it's so overwhelming for students, where they go to Google, they look up scholarships, and they find a bunch of junk that doesn't even pertain to them. One of the smallest low hanging fruit tactics that we can teach that someone can implement in two seconds is to go to Google and Google their community or their zip code or their city name plus the word "community foundation." And oftentimes, community foundations have half a million, a million plus dollars to give out in scholarships.

Bobbi Rebell:
Wow.

Jocelyn Pearson:
Right there, that one search can open the doors to, not just dozens of scholarships, but dozens have scholarships specifically for students in their area, which means it's less competitive.

Bobbi Rebell:
I want to get to your everyday money tip, which is very retro. It has to do with paper. Give it up Jocelyn.

Jocelyn Pearson:
Yeah. This is so funny. Back in the day, if I will, when I was doing this, paper applications were more common, but believe it or not, they still are around. I know that's hard to believe, but there are organizations like the Elks Club or the Rotary Club, where some of them just aren't tech savvy just yet. And so, what they're doing is they're still sending letters to our guidance counselors saying, "Hey, we have this money, can you please share it with students?" A lot of schools are now doing great where they put that inside a student portal or put it on some sort of page for students, but there are still some that just stash that away inside a filing cabinet. I highly recommend students, go into the Guidance Office at their high school and also at their colleges. Again, remember this is not over in high school.

Bobbi Rebell:
A lot of scholarships don't even start or not available to freshmen. Sometimes they start at older grades.

Jocelyn Pearson:
Right. And there's a reason for that. One of the reasons is because once you get to college, you have such a higher chance of graduating, so people want to make sure they're giving the money to the highest chance of someone that would do something with it.

Bobbi Rebell:
Wow, I never knew that.

Jocelyn Pearson:
Yeah, that's [crosstalk 00:11:23].

Bobbi Rebell:
I never thought of it that way. That is so interesting. But a lot of this that you talk about in the scholarship system is that it's about effort, but it's also about knowing which scholarships are less competitive because some scholarships don't have that many people applying. We're talking about these paper applications where you have to physically go into the office IRL and asked for them. That gives you a big leg up.

Jocelyn Pearson:
Absolutely, Bobbi. That's the one thing is ... a lot of students, they go after the Dr Pepper Scholarship or the Coca Cola scholarship, where it's a free ride in one shot, but the problem is everyone is going after that one. And even I, I applied for the KFC one, I didn't get it, but that was a really competitive one. And then when I realized, you know what? That $500 one, $1,000 one, $1,200 one, they still add up pretty quickly and yet, I'm competing against ... actually, just a quick story. Once, ISM had an application and they had two awards that they were going to give out. And this was a local based one. In the end, they only received four scholarship applications, so they doubled the award and gave all four of us an award. So, it was 100% success rate because it was one of the lucky ones.

Bobbi Rebell:
Amazing.

Jocelyn Pearson:
Yeah, isn't it incredible?

Bobbi Rebell:
You have to just try. Okay, before we wrap up, I want to hear what is going on with the scholarship system. You have a webinar, first of all, so tell us about that and how else people can learn more about you and all your social channels.

Jocelyn Pearson:
Absolutely. I appreciate that. So, we have a free webinar that we hold. It's around an hour to an hour and 15 minutes. I go in-depth about some very large myths, which we did burst a few here, but I go in more depth on those in the Webinar, as well as a very specific places you can look, including more detail on how to use our Google method. So, if you're interested in joining our webinar and registering, it's completely free. You can go to, we created a unique link just for Bobbi's audience. So, you go to the scholarshipsystem.com/grownup. This is for parents and students. Actually, if you can attend together, that's even better.

Jocelyn Pearson:
So, that's the best place to get ... just hit the ground running when it comes to finding these scholarships we're talking about. The low hanging fruit, the ones that have a greater chance of winning and get started. Then, if you want any additional information, I love our Facebook page. We share scholarships on there as well as tons of helpful articles, our own and others. So, you can just go to Facebook and search "The Scholarship System." And then our website, we have a weekly blog that we give and these are massive, actionable in-depth blog posts and you can just go to the scholarshipsystem.com for those.

Bobbi Rebell:
Thank you so much. This is all so important. And you're really creating the shortcuts because we're all so busy, so this is kind of a central place for everyone to go. So, thank you, Jocelyn.

Jocelyn Pearson:
Thanks for having me.

Bobbi Rebell:
Hey friends. Here is my take. Financial Grownup tip number one, scholarships are not limited to educational institutions. Many professional conferences have them. In fact, usually the information on how to apply is right on the website, but you can also just write to the people running the conference and find out. For example, one of my favorite events, The Lola Retreat, run by Melanie Lockert, who has been on this podcast, we'll link to her episode, offer scholarships, including one financed by this podcast. Another conference that I attend that offer scholarships is Finncon. It is run by Philip Taylor, Aka PT Money, also has been on this conference, and they offer scholarships for content creators that are looking into the industry or growing their business and aren't really financially able to attend. Totally worth applying to all these kind of conferences and seeing if there are scholarship money available.

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup tip number two, if you do graduate with debt, student debt I should say, consider looking for jobs that have programs to help pay down those loans or that will pay for graduate school so you don't take on more debt. It is becoming more common in this tight job market. Thank you, to everyone, for being here with us. Please share with friends and be in touch with your tips on paying for education, both school and professional developments. On Instagram, I am @bobbirebell1 and Twitter, @bobbirebell and you can always email us at hello@financialgrownup.com. And by the way, I have a new podcast, in addition to this one. Financial Grownup is not going anywhere.

Bobbi Rebell:
It is with my friend Joe Saul-Sehy of Stacking Benjamins' fame. It is called, Money in the Morning. We talk about headlines and break down what matters to you, and we tape it live on Facebook. We will leave links to where you can join us in the show notes. Big thanks to Jocelyn Paonita Pearson for helping us all 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.

Sharon Epperson survived a brain aneurism. But despite being one of the country's top personal finance experts, and having all the right plans in place, some of the experiences with the finances of her medical emergency still caught her off guard.

In Sharon's money story you will learn:

• The plans she put into place early on that helped her when she ended up in the ER from a brain aneurysm

• The importance of having an emergency fund

• The financial set back she experienced once she was out of the hospital

In Sharon’s money lesson you will learn:

• The importance of money saved

• Why it's so important to have an estate plan

• Having adequate medical insurance even when you feel like it's so expensive

• Why she's so grateful to have disability insurance

In Sharon's everyday money tip you will learn:

• Know financially where you stand financially. Check your alerts every day on your phone

In My Take you will learn:

• Do the paperwork in case of a medical emergency, specifically a living will

• If you aren't in a mental state to fully understand what you are signing, wait until a loved one gets there

Episode Links:

• Sharon's book The Big Payoff

• Host of Retire Well

• Sharon’s episode on Farnoosh Torabi’s podcast So Money

• Sharon’s episode on Jean Chatzky’s podcast Her Money

• The article I mention in this episode

• Brain Aneurysm Foundation

Follow Sharon!

• Instagram - @sharoneppersoncnbc

• LinkedIn - @sharoneppersoncnbc

• Twitter - @sharon_epperson

• Facebook - @CNBCSharonEpperson

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.

Transcription

Sharon Epperson:
I remember lying on the stretcher at the Rehab Hospital having just been brought in, and handed a clipboard with paperwork. No one who has suffered a brain injury, should be handed a clipboard of paperwork and a pen for anything.

Bobbi Rebell:
You're listening to you Financial Grownup with me, certified financial planner, Bobby 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:
Hello financial grownup friends. This episode is an uncomfortable one. I had a really tough time approaching the topic because it's really sensitive. It's really hard to ask the stuff that I ask our guest about. First, a quick welcome note to everyone, our new listeners. Thank you for coming and checking us out. If you enjoy the show, please tell friends. That is the best way for us to grow the podcast, and keep bringing it to you. To today's guest, CNBC's senior personal finance corresponded, Sharon Epperson was really gracious and open in this interview. She has already talked extensively about the brain aneurysm that she suffered a couple of years ago, and about her recovery. But she agreed to venture into an area that is really taboo, and that is asking what do things cost in an emergency? And what can you do to control the cost in an emergency? Because you can't exactly shop around and you may just get the biggest bill of your entire life. So the stakes are really high. Here is Sharon Epperson. Hey, Sharon Epperson, you're a financial grownup. Welcome to the podcast.

Sharon Epperson:
Thanks so much for having me.

Bobbi Rebell:
We met recently at the taping of Secrets of Wealthy Women. I can't believe we didn't know each other before. I don't think we overlapped at all, but I'm a CNBC alum and you are the personal finance correspondent for CNBC.

Sharon Epperson:
I am.

Bobbi Rebell:
You are named 2018, one of the 12 to watch in TV news. You also have a bestselling book, The Big Payoff; Eight steps couples Can take to make the most of their money, and live richly ever after. Congratulations on all of that. And you are also deeply affected by a horrible medical tragedy. You had a brain aneurysm in 2016, and you've been very candid talking about it. I want to encourage everyone, I'm going to leave links to hear the full story because it's important that people hear everything that happened to you. How it happened, how you've dealt with it and everything. But there's one area that for this short show I was actually afraid to ask you to even talk about, and you were so gracious when I sent you this email because it's an important part of what happens after the fact.

Bobbi Rebell:
Can you us, in your money story, about the brain aneurysm? How it happened, but then as I said, and this is hard to talk about, the money aspects of it, and what happened on the financial side while your life is ... We don't even know what's going to happen. You're fighting for your life, and after the fact the money is discussed. Tell us your money story. Sharon.

Sharon Epperson:
I one day went to exercise class and then did not come home again for a month. I'm the person that handles the bills, the daily expenses in my family. All of that pretty much came to a full stop when I was in the hospital. The things that saved us are one, we are both, my husband and I, employed by companies that have medical insurance, and comprehensive coverage. And I was under his employer's insurance actually, and had really great medical care, and was not really conscious of how expensive the bills were for what I had done in a 24-hour period. I do know that I saw more than 50 or 60 medical professionals, and I was in three different hospitals. I remember going to the doctor's office. I remember my husband taking me to the ER. I do not remember much after that, other than the ER doc saying I had bleeding in my brain and calling my sister who lives out of town to tell her that.

Sharon Epperson:
And then I was pretty much unconscious. I remember being in [inaudible 00:04:25], before the anesthesiologist put me under. So anything that happened, all of the decisions that had to be made, financial, medical, everything, in the period of time, but pretty much from the time I left the doctor's office till they decided I had to have this type of emergency and surgery and the particulars of that. I had no involvement. So, I wasn't doing what I usually do [crosstalk 00:04:45]. Before I have a procedure or I take my kids somewhere, I call the insurance company. I say, "Is this covered? Do I ... Have I met my family deductible? What do I have to?" So I know ... I'm a budgeter, so I'd know how much I'm going to be spending for the orthodontia, and the and the other things that I've ... medicines and all that, that I have had over the years with my children.

Bobbi Rebell:
So what happens in this situation? Because this is by far the biggest medical spence you hopefully, God help us, will ever have in your life.

Sharon Epperson:
Exactly. It played out in real time in real life, in my medical emergency. My sister was the first call that I made. She was on the next train from Washington, D.C. to New York, and she was present before I went into surgery. So, all of those decisions, my husband and my sister conferred together and made for me, for my care. Ultimately the paperwork that I assumed was signed, that I wasn't able to sign that says, you got to pay for this if your insurance doesn't cover it, my husband has signed for that too. So, all of those financial medical decisions were made by them for the first month, I would say, after I had my aneurysm.

Sharon Epperson:
I will say that I was actually the one, when I went from by ambulance from the first hospital to the Rehab Hospital two weeks after my surgery, I remember lying on the stretcher at the Rehab Hospital having just been brought in, and handed a clipboard with paperwork. No one who has suffered a brain injury should be handed a clipboard of paperwork and a pen for anything. I mean, I'm still floored that that happened, and I think I had more faculties than probably a lot of people at that may have. But I went through a period, and I actually still do, where I have someone, I kind of run by most of my financial decisions and things by somebody just for a gut check sometimes. and also just for a double check if I've missed anything in the fine print. And I think he later was consulted and everything worked out insurance wise, thankfully, with that hospital as well. But I definitely signed paperwork on a stretcher. That was not cool.

Bobbi Rebell:
No, it's not cool. And I have read recently of some hospitals, one in particular that I'm thinking of and I will put the article in the show notes, in California where it is presumed most hospitals are "in network." But this hospital is not and it is a major trauma center, and people get brought to hospitals and then they believe, because most hospitals are "in network" that they will be covered under whatever their insurance plan, but that's not always true. You really at this point, this is life or death. You're not in control of these decisions and the financial decisions that do come afterwards.

Sharon Epperson:
You are asked to be in control of them. The other memory that I have is when I was in the first hospital, the social worker came and asked me what type of facility I wanted to be in next. I didn't at the time, didn't have enough information really to even know exactly what had happened to me, or what the difference between the sub acute and acute facility was. They just both sounded really scary, and I just started crying. Because it just sounded like, I was slowly figuring out that what had happened to me was extremely serious. But in that discussion, I think the ones that she suggested, as I recall, she did mention were covered under my insurance, but it wasn't necessarily ... I don't remember if I asked it or if she just told it to me.

Sharon Epperson:
But again, to your point, you're suggesting places based on medical care, or proximity to my home, but not necessarily based on what's covered or what's covered more fully. And these are questions that need to be asked, but I was by myself when I was approached.

Bobbi Rebell:
Right? And that's a very financially vulnerable position to be in because your life is at stake, and your life is what matters, but yet you are ... Other people very often are making decisions for you or asking you to make decisions that you are not in a position to make at that point, that will have huge financial consequences when you get better. For example, I wonder how it worked with all the various tests that they did, and other specialists that they're bringing in. Did somebody look and say, "Do you want someone in plan?"

Sharon Epperson:
That absolutely happened. I remember having to have a call with the insurance company about a specialist who was in the ER. I don't remember what exactly the test was that I had, and specialist was not in the same network exactly. And I had to appeal, and say that I was unconscious, had no ability to say yes or no to this test. It was a test that had to be done because I was literally at a near death situation. And once I explained it, it was taken care of. But again, you are critically ill, you've slowly recovered and you're not near yourself again, and you're confronted with having to deal with insurance companies who are second guessing what you had no control over. The main focus of my family was making sure I stayed alive, and get the best medical care possible.

Sharon Epperson:
And they were not thinking about the financial situation at that particular time. And certainly were not trying to make sure that every specialist that I saw was in the network. And I'll probably also just assume that if the hospital is in the network that the specialists would be in the network in the same way, and that's not always the case.

Bobbi Rebell:
So, what is your advice now in hindsight to our listeners, should they ever be in an emergency situation and face financial decisions, or then not face them until the emergency is over?

Sharon Epperson:
The thing that is so very important is to make sure that you have a plan, an estate plan ideally. And some people say, "I don't have an estate. I have no money. Why do I need to have an estate plan?"

Bobbi Rebell:
It's kind of mislabeled the word estate.

Sharon Epperson:
Exactly. You need this to have people in place who can help you with decisions that you're unable to make. And you can do that verbally with family members and just say, "If anything ever happens to me, I want you to be the one." But that's not what's going to hold up necessarily at a hospital or definitely not in a court. So you want to make sure that you have it in writing, and that you have the legal documents necessary for power of attorney, for health care proxy, for financial and for medical decisions to be made. And the other thing I guess I would say is to make sure that you have medical insurance, and when you're an independent contractor, self employed, have your own business. I know it's expensive, it's really difficult to figure out, but it's so very important to make sure that you have adequate comprehensive medical insurance.

Sharon Epperson:
And I'll add one more. There's four things I'll say and that's disability insurance. Again, extremely expensive if you're self employed, but you are protecting your income. You are protecting the greatest financial asset that you likely have, which is your ability to work and make money.

Bobbi Rebell:
And what about dealing with the finances in a medical emergency? What's your takeaway there?

Sharon Epperson:
If you can, I would say, "I'm waiting for my ..." whomever that power of attorney or that person you've designated, "to come. Can we have this conversation when my husband, loved one friend, caregiver, someone is there with me?" And I know for many people that might be hard. Also, I had a friend who's really good and really technical, and really organized and is really good at harassing people to make sure that she gets her money, and she helped me with a lot of my bill paying and the discussions I had to have with insurance companies. So, it's hard to do by yourself. It's very, very difficult and I had people, thankfully in my network.

Sharon Epperson:
There are also agencies out there that will help. That help caregivers are that help people in terms of being your advocate for healthcare issues, but it's just hard to know. And Bobbi, you may know better, who can you trust? You do your [palase 00:12:21] and core [Barre 00:12:22] class, and you ran the marathon, and you did this and you eat ... you drink this spinach smoothie. I had a spinach smoothie and an hour later I had a brain aneurism. So, you never ever ... in an exercise class. So, you never ever, ever know what can happen and when it can happen, and so having that conversation, it's not a downer. It's I'm going to be in the strongest possible position for the rest of my life.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right, let's switch gears to a more uplifting topic, and that is your everyday money tip, which no one has ever said I believe on Financial Grownup and yet it is something we can all do that will really help us on a day to day basis.

Sharon Epperson:
You have to know where you stand financially before you can plan on where you want to go. And so, I set up alerts through my bank, text alerts or email alerts on how much money I have in my account on a daily basis. Whenever I go over spending $250, when I have a bill that's paid that's over $250 from my account. All of these alerts come into my phone, so my money tip is to everyday check in. If it makes you crazy to do it every day, do it every week. But I check in every day, because I get an email on my phone that let's me know how much money I have to spend.

Bobbi Rebell:
Great Advice. Before I let you go, I just want to talk briefly about your efforts to raise awareness, and to advocate for more research about brain aneurysms. You established the Sharon Epperson share of research through the Brain Aneurysm Foundation. It provides grants for research on early detection. Tell us a little bit more about that and how people can support that effort.

Sharon Epperson:
I am the fourth generation of my family members to suffer a brain hemorrhage. And so while I don't know for sure if the brain hemorrhages of my great grandfather, grandfather, and my mother's eldest sister was caused by a brain aneurysm, I know it's very likely that that is the reason why I suffered one. And brain aneurysms are more likely to impact women than men, and twice as likely to rupture in African Americans than in whites. And so, as the mother of two children, who I'm not sure yet whether they are going to be completely healthy or may have a brain aneurysm, I want to make sure that the best technology, the best strategies for treatment, and for dealing with this are available to them. And so I'm supporting the Brain Aneurysm Foundation, which is at the forefront of raising money for research for brain aneurysms. And of lobbying in Washington to increased federal funding for this type of research also.

Sharon Epperson:
So, I would urge people to go to beafound.org to learn more about what happened to me, and what research is being done. And also to support the Sharon Epperson share of research so that more research dollars can be given to very, very, very smart researchers and medical professionals who are coming up with cutting edge, innovative treatments and strategies to deal with this.

Bobbi Rebell:
Well. Thank you for all of your efforts. And finally just share with us your social channels and where people can learn more about you and follow all of your endeavors.

Sharon Epperson:
You can follow me on Twitter @Sharon_Epperson S-H-A-R-O-N_Epperson, E-P-P-E-R-S-O-N. I'm on Instagram at Sharon Epperson, CNBC. You can also reach out to me on Linkedin or Facebook, on my Facebook page. And I love to connect with viewers, and readers, and listeners and know what your money stories are. I love your show. I love what you're doing because the more that we talk about this, none of this is taboo. We all have something. We all have something that we're dealing with there were going through, or that we have gone through. And by sharing with one another the ways we've coped, things we've done well and things we have not done well, I think it helps everyone. So, I urge people to reach out to me, and I thank you so much for inviting me to be on your show.

Bobbi Rebell:
Thank you so much for joining us, Sharon.

Sharon Epperson:
Take care.

Bobbi Rebell:
Okay, my friends, Financial Grownup tip number one, do the paperwork in case of a medical emergency, specifically a living will. That is, a written statement saying what you want in terms of medical treatment if you cannot give consent, like Sharon. Financial Grownup tip number two, if you're in a medical emergency and someone is thrusting forums at you, as was the case with Sharon, and you are not in a mental state to fully understand what you are signing, tell them that. Tell them that you need to wait until a loved one gets there. Tell them the reason. That you are not fully able to understand what you are signing. And if you do sign under duress and it comes back to haunt you, consult a lawyer. What happened to Sharon as she says is not okay.

Bobbi Rebell:
Thank you as always for joining us. I am blown away by the incredible gift that Sharon has given to all of us, and I want to hear from you what you think, and what kind of experiences you have had with medical bills and emergencies. DM Me on Instagram at Bobbi Rebell1, and on Twitter @BobbyRebell. You can always email me at hello@financialgrownup.com and please do share the podcast with friends. That along with ratings and reviews possibly on Apple iTunes are the best. And by the way, I have a new additional podcast I'd love for you guys to check out, it is called Money in the Morning with my cohost Joe [Saulcihi 00:17:35]. We talk about news headlines and why they matter to you.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right, big things to Sharon Epperson for helping us all get one step closer to being financial grownups. Financial grownup with Bobbi Rebell is edited and produced by Steve Stewart and is a BRK Media production.

Journalist Veronica Dagher lost her dad as a young child and grew up watching her mom learn how to manage the family’s business and money. That experience inspired her to not only focus on her own finances, but to build a career around teaching women financial independence.

In Veronica's money story you will learn:

• How the loss of her dad shaped her view of finances and forced her to learn about money management at an early age.

• The financial grownup lesson that Veronica learned from her mother at a young age that has stuck with her

• Learning how to handle your finances now is essential so you are ready and prepared if something tragic happens in your life

In Veronica’s money lesson you will learn:

• How becoming financially literate can really help out your future self

• The reasons Veronica is so passionate about women being financially savvy

In Veronica's everyday money tip you will learn:

• Why she feels that having a positive money mantra that you tell yourself daily is so important

In My Take you will learn:

• The benefits of askng your parents about their money experiences

• How to leverage tough money experiences to make an impact that helps others.

Episode Links:

• Secrets of Wealthy Women podcast

• I Stack Benjamins

Check out Veronica’s stories in The Wall Street Journal

Follow Veronica!

• Instagram - @veronicadagher

• LinkedIn - @veronicadagher

• Twitter - @veronicadagher
  

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.

Transcription

Veronica Dagher:
I would see her crying or upset or frustrated, and just wondering what was going on. I did hear rumblings of "So-and-so tried to, you know, con me into something." Or I would hear little bits and pieces of that once in a while, or some relative would tell me and, not really fully understanding, just knowing that things at times got nasty.

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 gonna get there together.

Bobbi Rebell:
I'm gonna bring you one money story from a financial grownup, one lesson, and then my take on how you can make it your own. We've got this.

Bobbi Rebell:
Hello, financial grownups. The voice you just heard was that of a friend of mine getting a lot of attention recently, because she co-created and hosts one of the hottest podcasts, not just in the business space, but among podcasts overall. It is called "Secrets of Wealthy Women," and, as she will share with us, it really all began with her mom. Welcome to all and, to our newest listeners, thank you for checking out the show.

Bobbi Rebell:
We try to keep the episodes short, but if you have more time, maybe you're commuting, at about 15 minutes each, the episodes are perfect to listen to a few of them, back-to-back, to fit your schedule.

Bobbi Rebell:
Let's get to Veronica. She is an award-winning senior wealth management reporter for the Wall Street Journal. She is also, as I mentioned, the co-creator, host, and co-producer of the top-rated Wall Street Journal's "Secrets of Wealthy Women" podcast. She interviews some of the most well-known women in the world. People like like Gloria Steinem, Bobbi Brown, and Rebecca Minkoff. She also co-produces and hosts videos for wsj.com and is a regular guest on the Fox Business Network and other national media, where she speaks about women, personal finance, markets, the economy, just about anything in the news.

Bobbi Rebell:
As you can tell, I am a huge fan of Veronica's, and I know, if you aren't already, you soon will be, too. Here is Veronica Dagher.

Bobbi Rebell:
Hey, Veronica Dagher. You're a financial grownup. Welcome to the podcast.

Veronica Dagher:
Thanks for having me, Bobbi. Great to be here.

Bobbi Rebell:
I have to first of all thank you because I had the honor of being a guest on your super-popular podcast, "Secrets of Wealthy Women," which you do through your job at the Wall Street Journal. And, just to give everyone a sense of how big this is, this is almost in the top 100 of all podcasts in the entire podcasting universe at this point. It's definitely in the top, I don't know, five or six business podcasts. Your guests include people like Bobbi Brown, Gloria Steinem, Bethany Frankel, a favorite of mine. And, of course, you had a special podcast around New Year's with myself, Jean Chatzky from The Today Show, Farnoush Cherobi from Oprah Magazine and her podcast, "So Money." I should say, Jean Chatzky also has a podcast called "Her Money."

Bobbi Rebell:
And we had Sharon Epperson from CNBC. We had Deirdre Bolton. And you, leading the pack, so congratulations on all of it.

Veronica Dagher:
Thank you so much. It was so great to have you on the show. I loved your episode.

Bobbi Rebell:
Thank you. And you were the co-creator of it. How did you come up with it?

Veronica Dagher:
Well, we came up with it, because we knows there's enormous wealth transfer going on in the United States, with an estimated 33 trillion dollar wealth transfer happening, and women stand to control a lion's share of that money. And I looked around the marketplace, and I didn't see a whole lot of products or content, so to speak, that spoke to women in an inspirational, relatable way. So we figured, "Hey, let's do a podcast that we can connect with women by shining the light on some very famous women and what they've done to advance their own careers and make smart decisions about their money."

Veronica Dagher:
And so that's why we said, "Let's really feature women who can serve as aspirational role models for women, and, at the same time, teach them a little bit more about advancing their careers and improving their financial health."

Bobbi Rebell:
You are such a role model. A lot of your success comes from early experiences in life, and the strength that you acquired from them, and some tough times. And you're gonna share a very special money story that has to do with a loss early in your life and how that shaped your view of the world and the way that you live your life.

Veronica Dagher:
That's right. When I was 11 years old, my dad died suddenly and left my mom a widow. She was in her 40s at the time, which is younger than the average widowhood in the United States, which I think is about 59, so she was in her 40s at the time, left with an 11-year-old and a 13-year-old, my brother being the 13-year-old. And she did not understand where our accounts were. She didn't understand how to write a check. She didn't know anything about the finances of the family at all.

Veronica Dagher:
And, when my dad died, she was left scrambling. He had businesses. He had different investments. And she didn't understand any of that, and so that meant, at the worst possible time in her life, she had to learn about money and investing, learn about personal finance. And so I have these memories of her sitting at the kitchen table with some of her friends and some of my aunts, them trying to teach her, "Okay, this is how you write a check. Let's open these account statements. Let's see where these different accounts are. Let's try to understand what's happening here. Here's what you have to do in terms of deal with the business now that he's gone. Here's what you have to do with some of the accounts and the money that he was owed as a business person."

Bobbi Rebell:
Wow. So you were in it together. What was his business?

Veronica Dagher:
He was a lawyer, but he had his own law firm, and then he had several real estate holdings and some real estate interests and, also, just some other consulting type work. And so he had a lot of different tentacles to what he, day in and day out. And he had a staff and all these sorts of things as well. And so it was a lot to manage and a lot to understand, not to mention the family's personal finances and understanding the different accounts and other assets he had acquired through those years.

Veronica Dagher:
And my mom really didn't know that much about any of it, and so she had to learn, like I said, at the worst possible time, and it was a really steep, difficult learning curve for her. And there were times when financial advisors who, some of them meant well, but then some of 'em were pretty shady, try to approach her and try to get her to invest in things that were completely inappropriate.

Bobbi Rebell:
Like what? Were you aware of it at this time? Did she share with you guys what was going on, or were you kept out of it?

Veronica Dagher:
Yeah, slightly. I think a lot of it's stuff I heard, after the fact, when I was a little bit older. But I would see her crying or upset or frustrated, and just wondering what was going on. I did hear rumblings of "So-and-so tried to, you know, con me into something." Or I would hear little bits and pieces of that once in a while, or some relative would tell me and, not really fully understanding, just knowing that things at times got nasty.

Veronica Dagher:
And understanding that, sometimes, money brings out the best in people, but also the absolute worst in people as well, and that you need to be careful with who you trust and who you give your money to. Luckily, my mom had enough sense to listen to her gut instinct, even though she wasn't exactly an investing pro at the time. She had enough sense to understand who was trustworthy, who's not trustworthy. She got that part of it. And so, luckily, she didn't make any bad investments and, you know, it's not exactly always how you wanna be spending your time, but, to her credit, she learned and she would ... Even when I was a teenager, she started telling me, 'cause she was getting more savvy as each year went on. And she said, "You need to be financially savvy. You need to learn this stuff, 'cause I never want you to be in the position that I'm in."

Veronica Dagher:
And she would almost lecture me, like, "You have to be a financially independent woman. You must. You can't rely on anyone. You have to understand all this stuff." And I was like, "Oh, why is she so adamant about this?" Even though I knew the history, I felt like, "Oh, things will work out." And she was like, "No, you always need to know where everything is. You need to understand how to write that check." And I think I ... I forget how old I was when I got my first checks. I wanna say, maybe when I went to college. But she sat down with me and showed me how to write a check. She sat down with me and emphasized, "You always pay your credit card bills on time. If you don't, and if you go over a certain amount, I'm not gonna bail you out. You need to be able to pay your bill on your own. I'm not a bank. This is your responsibility."

Veronica Dagher:
She was very much focused on making me a financial grownup, as you would appreciate. And she said, when I got my first job out of college, too, she said, "You max out your 401(k). You open up that 401(k), and you contribute as much as you possibly can. You just start doing that at 21 or 22, however old you are when you get your first job."

Veronica Dagher:
And I remember thinking, "Oh, no, it's so young." And she's like, "No, you have to do it." And I listened. I said, "Okay, I'll do it." And I didn't really ... I thought everybody was doing it. And it's only after the fact that I realized not everybody got that message, unfortunately, but, luckily, she gave that message to me, and that helped me.

Bobbi Rebell:
She was a great role model.

Veronica Dagher:
Really.

Bobbi Rebell:
What is the takeaway for our listeners here?

Veronica Dagher:
I think women should really try to become financially independent. Women themselves. And take ownership of their finances, and it doesn't have to be so overwhelming. But the point is not to have to learn at the worst possible time whether that's your divorce or whether you become a widow or some other situation. Maybe you don't even get married. You can't wait around for someone else to do it for you. So start learning. Take it, piece by piece. So maybe it's 10 minutes every week you spend learning about finance. You read an article. You read a chapter of a book. You join a group that talks about money and investing.

Veronica Dagher:
You take one small step towards becoming more financially savvy, so that way you are in control of what you own and what you owe and what you're invested in, and you can become more independent as time goes on. Now, even if you don't like it, that's okay. You don't have to love everything you do. You have to brush your teeth. You may not love brushing your teeth, but it helps you feel more secure, and I think, ultimately, many women, just from some of the studies that are out there, say their biggest fear is becoming a bag lady.

Veronica Dagher:
I understand, but one way to alleviate the possibility of that happening is to take a more active role in your finances. So think about your future self. Do this for her.

Bobbi Rebell:
Such great advice. Also great advice is your everyday money tip, which we talked about before we started taping. And I'm still thinking about mine. But share with us your everyday money tip, Veronica.

Veronica Dagher:
I like the idea of having a positive money mantra, however you say it. But having a positive message you say to yourself day in, day out. So, for example, a message might be, "I am good with my money." And the reason you wanna say a positive message to yourself regularly is, there's a good chance that maybe something from your childhood has told you a negative message about yourself, and that may or may not be true.

Veronica Dagher:
And so, if you wanna create a positive, more abundant future reality, I think it's very important to have a positive mantra that you can reframe your view of yourself and your view of money. Because if you keep saying the negative, it almost becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. But if you say the positive, I think you have a much better chance of achieving the financial abundance and success that you really want.

Bobbi Rebell:
So what is yours?

Veronica Dagher:
Mine is actually, "I am good with money, and I respect cash."

Bobbi Rebell:
I love that. Alright, I'm gonna give mine some thought. Before we wrap up, you have an e-book coming out. Tell us.

Veronica Dagher:
Yes. I'm super excited. We are doing an e-book based on the "Secrets of Wealthy Women" podcast here at the Wall Street Journal. And so we're profiling 20 women we've had on the podcast, talking about some of the inspirational stories that they have shared with us and giving some money and career tips, and that is slated to come out this March in e-book form on wsj.com.

Veronica Dagher:
So we're super excited about that and, hopefully, we'll have a lot more to share about that in the coming weeks, but I'm busy writing it, and I'm super excited that it's happening.

Bobbi Rebell:
I love it. I can't wait. Give us all your social channels and where people can find you besides wsj.com, which is where the e-book will be.

Veronica Dagher:
Yes. Thank you. So, on Instagram and Twitter, @veronicadagher, and on LinkedIn. I'm there as well, if you wanna contact me there. But Instagram and Twitter are the best places to get me.

Bobbi Rebell:
Thank you, Veronica.

Veronica Dagher:
Thank you for having me.

Bobbi Rebell:
Love all those stories. I'm still thinking about what my money mantra is going to be. Maybe everyone can share with me on social what you're thinking might be yours, at least maybe for 2019. Maybe we can all change them each year to kinda keep it fresh, but I'm thinking hard. I'll get back to you guys.

Bobbi Rebell:
Let's get to our tips.

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup Tip Number One: Talk to your parents about their money experiences. I was really touched by how Veronica's mom protected her from knowing everything going on when she was just too young to know everything. She obviously knew some things.

Bobbi Rebell:
But I was always so impressed that the mother-daughter relationship evolved, and her mom clearly communicated more as Veronica grew up about their experiences coping with the financial struggles connected to losing Veronica's dad at such a young age.

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup Tip Number Two: If you are looking to make a meaningful impact in some aspect of your life, look to the things that shaped who you are as a financial grownup, as Veronica has done with "Secrets of Wealthy Women." Veronica not only gained strength from her experiences, after losing her father, who was the breadwinner, she has now taken that to create something that will have a much broader impact.

Bobbi Rebell:
Thanks to everyone for joining us. If you have not, please do subscribe, and, of course, tell a friend. I wanna hear what has inspired your interest in learning about money. Follow me, and please DM me your thoughts on Instagram, @bobbirebell1. On Twitter, @bobbirebell, and you can always email at hello@financialgrownup.com. And check out my new show with Stacking Benjamin's Joe Saul-Sehy. It is called "Money in the Morning." It's in all the usual podcast places, and we tape live on Facebook Live. Go to "I Stack Benjamins" on Facebook, and you can set up notifications for when we tape. We take live comments, so you can be part of the show.

Bobbi Rebell:
And we will leave a link to that in the show notes, as well.

Bobbi Rebell:
Everyone, check out "Secrets of Wealthy Women," if you have not already. Big thanks to the fabulous Veronica Dagher for helping us all get one step closer to being financial grownups.

Bobbi Rebell:
"Financial Grownup" with Bobbie Rebell is edited and produced by Steve Stewart and is a BRK Media Production.

Steph Paternot make a virtual fortune when the internet startup he co-founded in college, TheGlobe.com set records on its first trading day. But he and his company paid the price when his personal brand image as a brash young hard- partying entrepreneur pulled attention away from the business fundamentals. 

In Stephan's money story you will learn:

• Why it may not be a good idea to dance on tables during an interview

• Sometimes a lot of publicity isn't always the best publicity

• The documentary that CNN did on him that he and his company ended up paying the price for

In Stephan’s money lesson you will learn:

• Why you want to be careful not to overdramatize your story

• The importance of staying focused on your business

In Stephan's everyday money tip you will learn:

• Why you don't want to fall into the FOMO mentally when it comes to investing

In My Take you will learn:

• The reason that the expression "Dance like no one is watching" doesn't really work in this day and age

• Why it's so important to get back up after you fail

Check out Stephan's website -

• Slated

Follow Stephan!

• Instagram @stephanpaternot

• LinkedIn @stephanpaternot

• Twitter @stephanpaternot

• Facebook

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.

Transcription

Steph Paternot:
The cost to me, my personal brand. The cost to the Globe brand was, "Oh I see, we got a couple crazy dotcom CEOs. We maybe shouldn't trust them. You know, maybe they're too crazy."

Bobbi Rebell:
You're listening to Financial Grownup, with me, certified financial planner, Bobbi Rebell, author of How to Be a Financial Grownup. You know what, being a grown up is really hard, especially when it comes to money. But it's okay, we're gonna get there together. I'm gonna 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 Financial Grownup friends, how much thought do you give to your personal brand? To the images that you post on social media, or that are posted about you, with you in them, that you are tagged in? Do you think it impacts your career, or your future career, your business if you're an entrepreneur, your life? What would it have been like if social media weren't even around yet, and yet you were the one creating social media? It's very meta, but so is this whole interview, because I actually interviewed our guest who was the CEO of a company called theGlobe.com, the co-founder Steph Paternot back in the dotcom boom and bust.

Bobbi Rebell:
And I remember all the buzz that he got, it wasn't always focused on his company, a lot of it was on his personal life, on his clubbing, and even what he wore when he was out of the clubs. Kind of like many young adults who are in their 20s, that was a thing that people were doing at the time, he was quite normal, except most of those other 20 somethings, I'd say pretty much all of those other 20 somethings, were not worth close to $100 million on paper.

Bobbi Rebell:
Welcome everyone. If you are new, so glad you are joining us. We talk to high achievers here on the Financial Grownup podcast, they share unique money stories, and how we can learn from them, and also some every day money tips. Let's get to Steph Paternot, and the time that he and his co-founder, Todd Krizelman, were literally in college, and it should be noted that they did not drop out by the way, while they were building their company, theGlobe.com. Now they stayed in college specifically because it wasn't so clear that this internet was gonna be a thing, Steph actually said that. He really wasn't sure that the internet would be a thing that would actually be a thing.

Bobbi Rebell:
Alright, stay to the end to hear more about what Steph is up to now, he is disrupting a new industry, and I think you're gonna be very interested. Here is Steph Paternot. Hey Steph Paternot, you're a financial grownup, welcome to the podcast.

Steph Paternot:
Good to be here.

Bobbi Rebell:
I just finished reading the re-released, new and improved, version of your book, A Very Public Offering: The Story of Theglobe.com and the First Internet Revolution, it was a total page turner, and I'm glad it got re-released, in large part because of a new series that features you, and someone playing the part of you which we'll talk about, it's a little bit weird, National Geographic series, Valley of the Boom, which I am truly enjoying. So welcome.

Steph Paternot:
Thank you.

Bobbi Rebell:
By the way, what was it like when you found out that they were casting someone to play you? Is that weird?

Steph Paternot:
Oh it was weird. I was shocked, because they had already engaged with me to come and participate in their documentary interview, and I'd already put in hours of being interviewed. In my mind it was nothing more than an expanded sort of news segment, or a documentary about the past. Since my current company, Slated, is in the film industry, I have a lot of film industry contacts, and the last thing I expected was to hear from film industry friends who were like, "Hey Steph, I just got this casting notice," I have friends who are casting directors and actors. Both parties were getting in touch with me saying, "Oh yeah so they're looking for a young, charismatic, actor to play a Steph Paternot, and another to play Mark Andreason, and a Todd Krizelman." And that's when I realized, "Oh my god I had just been pulled into something that I had no idea about."

Bobbi Rebell:
I gotta tell you Steph, your story doesn't need a whole lot of embellishment. And I'm excited about the money story that you're gonna share, because it has to do with personal branding, and the impact that can have on your financial success, or failure, of your company. And this all happened before social media was a thing. I mean you guys were inventing social media, and yet, this is kinda meta stuff I think. Tell us your money story.

Steph Paternot:
CNN decided to do a documentary on us, where they wanted to follow us, and see what the life was of a public company, dotcom CEO who's 24. And they followed Todd out to the Hamptons, where he had organized an impromptu badminton game, and a barbecue, and it was all very quaint. And then I decided, well I'll go show them what I've been doing when I need to let off steam," and that is to go clubbing, and why don't I kick it up a notch, and for once I'll wear these crazy vinyl black pants I bought, that'll make the story sexier.

Steph Paternot:
They also recorded me at my home, and one of the producers when I was off camera had asked me like, "Oh my gosh, so are you ready to live it up Steph now? I mean now that you're a billionaire are you ready to live it up?" And being that I'd grown up in England and I have a very sarcastic sense of humor, I just played along and said, "Oh yeah, absolutely, I'm ready to live a disgusting and frivolous lifestyle. That's the idea right?" And the filmed me going out to a nightclub and dancing on the tables. And I made sure really sort of to give them exactly the visual story I knew that would play well, and would be what their audience wants to believe about these dotcom days, and their juxtaposition of me dancing on the tables with this audio clip of me talking about a disgusting and frivolous lifestyle, they played that on CNN.

Steph Paternot:
Then they put that all summer long, it kept playing over and over as the hot dotcom-

Bobbi Rebell:
Oh my.

Steph Paternot:
I got so much [inaudible 00:00:00] from so many people, including my partner saying, "Why would you say that? Why would you do that." I was like, "Look this is all part of building the brand of the company, and living the life that they want to imagine we live." And by the way, not for nothing, but since this has been airing we've had tens of thousands more users sign up to our site. But the cost to me, my personal brand. The cost to the Globe brand was, "Oh I see, we've got a couple crazy dotcom CEOs, we maybe shouldn't trust them." People love to look for reasons when something isn't going well, of why it's not going well. And if you give the media, or if you give an audience one reason to dislike you, or to paint you with to say why everything's going badly, then you're doing yourself a huge disservice.

Bobbi Rebell:
So Steph what is the takeaway for our listeners?

Steph Paternot:
Be careful of taking your story, or over selling, or over dramatizing, or doing something like what I did, where you gave them a cool visual and a ridiculous piece of audio. And you're giving them something they can hit you on the head with later.

Bobbi Rebell:
And do you feel it hurt your finances? Did it hurt your ability to go back for more money, and other things? Did it hurt the image? It seems like it helped to drive users to your website, but there's two sides of the business that were going on.

Steph Paternot:
Yeah, so the truth is, is that if your business fails it's not because you once wore plastic pants on a T.V. show. If your business fails, that's what people will say, because it's just easy to paint people with ... the simplest character assassination is what people like to use. But the truth is, is if your business is failing, it's usually because either your customers aren't satisfied by the product, or your advertisers are fleeing, or there's not enough revenue in the market to cover the costs of your business and your infrastructure. So the reasons theGlobe failed, ultimately, have very little to do with one particular interview segment. That just simply gave people ammunition to become haters, and troll us.

Steph Paternot:
There's so many other factors that can bring down your business. I think the takeaway her is, stay focused on your business.

Bobbi Rebell:
For your everyday money tip, you wanted to talk about an acronym that I don't know even existed back in the day, FOMO, fear of missing out.

Steph Paternot:
FOMO, I think the term got coined in the late 90s, the fear of missing out, meant that you're operating often from a place of fear. If you're seeing everyone get rich quick because they're investing in dotcoms, well then you're gonna be apt to wanna quickly invest in anything with a dotcom as well, and you're gonna throw your money at a bunch of dotcom stuff. And for a while it's probably gonna grow, and you're gonna feel okay, until you realize that you had no clue what you were investing in. And when the market craps out, you go down with it. So you don't wanna invest ever because you're seeing everyone else getting rich from a particular area.

Steph Paternot:
By the way, that just happened in 2017 with the crypto space, right. Everyone was getting into ICOs, everyone was operating from a place of fear, if you don't invest you're gonna be poor, you gotta invest.

Bobbi Rebell:
Your latest venture, Slated, tell us more about that and the other projects that you have on deck.

Steph Paternot:
I decided every movie getting made shouldn't be a miracle. There should be much more a method to the madness of filmmaking. And there's probably a much more intelligent way that people in this industry should be able to find great projects, assemble teams, find financing, and execute on their vision. And I saw this occurring in the tech space, with marketplaces like AngelList, which were making it way easier for anyone to set up a startup, find talent, find financing, discover what the growth metrics were that were important, and really grow a successful business.

Steph Paternot:
And so we took the model of AngelList, we reinvented it for the film industry, and now Slated is the leading on-line film finance marketplace. Half of all the movies that have been nominated for Academy awards the last few years are made by Slated producers, directors, writers. And we're just increasingly getting those successful filmmakers to put their next films on Slated, and getting those financed. So it took me a long time to put my CEO hat back on, and to find my passions that married film, technology, the reinvention of money on-line, and marry those all together, and really take a shot again at building a company.

Bobbi Rebell:
Well congratulations on your success throughout the decades, because you really have had such an incredible run, and you're still just beginning with new projects. Where can people find out more?

Steph Paternot:
They can find me on Twitter, @stephanpaternot, or in Instagram @stephanpaternot, or on Facebook as Stephan Paternot.

Bobbi Rebell:
If only it was at theGlobe.com, oh what could have been Steph.

Steph Paternot:
What could've been, yep.

Bobbi Rebell:
But thank you so much, this was great.

Steph Paternot:
Thanks Bobbi.

Bobbi Rebell:
What an amazing story. Financial Grownup tip number one, you know that expression, "Dance like no one is watching." So freeing, so empowering, so not realistic in this day and age, because you know everyone's watching. Unfortunately you have to live like someone is watching. Like it or not, the lines are blurring between our work and personal, and something you think you do only amongst friends could be public faster than you can click post. Act appropriate. If you have a finsta, that's a fake Instagram, I get it. Just remember, it's still out there, and you just never know.

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup tip number two, if you fail, get up. Steph was down, ooh $100 million, yes it was all on paper, but it sure felt real to him. He has done so much since those days, and because he kept strong relationships with the investors that believed in him, he was able to start new businesses, new investments, and have new success. Keep an eye on Steph, and his film finance business Slated, I expect to continue to see big things, lots of disruption happening in that industry.

Bobbi Rebell:
Thank you for all of your support, of not just Financial Grownup, but my new podcast, Money in the Morning with Joe Saul-Sehy of Stacking Benjamins fame. Truly appreciate if you tell your friends, and subscribe to both. And big thanks to Steph Paternot for helping us all get one step close to being financial grownups.

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup with Bobbie Rebell is edited and produced by Steve Stewart and is a BRK Media production.

There are lots of money challenges with living abroad starting with just how do you even manage your money? Do you need to open a foreign bank account? Tess Wicks joins Bobbi from Italy to co-host this Financial Grownup Guide

3 Money Tips for Living Abroad

• Depending on your plans and the country you are traveling to, make sure you are legally allowed to be there

• Why it's so important to know what the financial requirements are to move to another country

• Why it's not only important to understand the currency conversion, but also to also find a credit card that has zero transaction fees

Episode Links:

• Wander Wealthy

• Day in the life with Tess on Instagram

In this Financial Grownup podcast episode we talk about the 3 money tips for living abroad. #LivingAbroadForAYear #LivingAbroadTips

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.

Wander Wealthy’s Tess Wicks shares her early interest in investing in the stock market, how Warren Buffett inspired her, the advice her family gave her and what got her to actually make her first investment. Her every day money tip will resonate with fans of Marie Kondo who are tired of feeling overwhelmed by their belongings. 

In Tess' money story you will learn:

• The reason she felt like she was starting to invest late at the age of 22

• What Dollar Cost Averaging is and why you might want to invest this way

• Why investing may feel overcomplicated, but it can actually be really easy

In Tess’ money lesson you will learn:

• You may never feel ready but it's important to just jump in anyway

• Why the younger you start investing, the better it is for you in the long run

In Tess' everyday money tip you will learn:

• How creating a capsule wardrobe can not only help you save money, but may bring more joy to your life in the spirit of Marie Kondo

In My Take you will learn:

• Why it's important to realize that you must actually start the clock in order to have time on your side

• Just because you have a lot of space for more stuff, that doesn't mean you need to fill that space with stuff

Episode Links:

Learn more about Value Investing!

Financial Grownup Guest Danielle Town is one of my favorite resources.

This is a great piece on value investing from one of my favorite websites Investopedia!

Check out Tess' Invested program and website -

• The Invested Program

• Wander Wealthy

Follow Tess!

• Instagram

• LinkedIn

• Twitter

• Facebook

• YouTube

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.

Transcription

Tess Wicks:
After doing that it opened up the whole world of money to me; it really helped me see the possibility of money and what's really important here is that you don't need to be ready, you don't need to know all of the facts, you just have to dive in.

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 gonna get there together. I'm gonna bring you one money story from a financial grown-up, one lesson and then my take on how you can make it your own. We got this.

Bobbi Rebell:
Hey Financial Grownup friends, we are going global here at Financial Grownup to Italy for this episode, virtually of course. It is a podcast, come on guys, you know we weren't really going.

Bobbi Rebell:
Tess Wicks, you may know her from her blog, her podcast and her super fun, and honestly, extremely informative and educational, YouTube channel, all under the brand, Wonder Wealthy. She moved to Italy for love, but she's also building her own entrepreneurial venture which we talk about in our interview. Tess is someone that I've been impressed with for quite some time from afar, and I was really excited to get to talk to her about her proactive approach to investing and creating systems so that we can all stay on track to meet our financial goals. Very appropriate for the beginning of the year, even if you do something you never plan to do like move to Europe. No excuses, just different opportunities. Here is Tess Wicks.

Bobbi Rebell:
Hey Tess Wicks, you're a financial grown-up, welcome to the podcast.

Tess Wicks:
Thank you so much Bobbi. I'm so excited to be here.

Bobbi Rebell:
Well I'm excited that you're here because I am such a fan of Wander Wealthy, which is your brand, it is on YouTube, where you're ... I'm sorry to use this term, but you're so adorable. You have buddy tips that even I don't know which is truly brilliant, and of course you have your podcast, so congratulations on it all.

Tess Wicks:
Thank you so much, it's really wonderful to hear coming from you, someone who's been on TV, now doing radio podcast stuff.

Bobbi Rebell:
Well you're a natural of all of it, and you have so many great things in the works and I'm gonna give a little teaser after your money story and everyday money tip. We're gonna give everyone a sneak peek to something new that they can be a part of. But first let's get to your money story which is really appropriate because here we are, we're taping this in January, this has been a very stressful and a bit of a rollercoaster ride for anyone that is interested in investing and the stock market, and it's something that even I find a bit overwhelming, whether or not to put new money in, what to do with the money that you have. Your money story has to do with a big decision you made to just get started, go for it.

Tess Wicks:
Yes, absolutely so I started investing right out of college and that to me felt late because I was majoring in Actuarial Science and Finance in college, so I was supposed to be the money expert here, I supposed to know my stuff and I remember going through my portfolio, investing class in college, I think it was my senior year, it was full of just guys and they all seemed like they knew what they were doing, and I was so confused but I knew that investing was something that people did, especially wealthy people, and someone I really looked up to, well first when I was younger, was my brother who is seven years older than me and he started investing when he was 12, so I was very behind compared to him. And I would ask my dad all the time about investing and he would try and explain it to me while we were driving in his truck and I just never could get it. And then of course college happened and then I started looking up to Warren Buffet cos one of my professors made us read us every single one of his letters to shareholders for Berkshire Hathaway. So if you know anything about Warren Buffet, then you're probably a fan too.

Bobbi Rebell:
Right, he is all about value investing. We'll leave some links to help you look and learn about value investing and Warren Buffett.

Tess Wicks:
Yes, so I actually remember so I was sitting, we had this little TV room that all the kids would pile into, I'm one of four, when I was little. And I'm sitting there after college and I'm about to leave on a big, not around the world, but I was going to go on a trip to New Zealand to [inaudible 00:04:35] myself solo, traveling the world, and I was but I know there's something I need to do first, and that was to make my first investment.

Tess Wicks:
And I had no idea where to start. All I knew was wealthy people invested. I asked my brother how to open up an investment account, and he was "Just choose one, Saber, Vanguard, whatever." I basically knew that I needed to invest in, or I thought what would be good and smart for me at the time, was to invest in some sort of index mimicking, exchange traded fund or a mutual fund. So those were all that I knew.

Tess Wicks:
And the thing and the reason that I wanted to tell this story is that I just did it. I didn't even know what the stock market looked like at the time; I didn't know a lot about investing, but I just did it. I was 22 years old and I just did it. After doing that, it opened up the whole world of money to me; it really helped me see the possibilities of money and what's really important here is that you don't need to be ready, you don't need to know all of the facts, you just have dive in, and especially when you are young, you have that time.

Bobbi Rebell:
What is the one thing that happened that finally pulled the trigger on it for you?

Tess Wicks:
There wasn't one thing except this build up of pressure of saying, I'm supposed to know this stuff, so I'm just gonna do it so I can get that experience, and maybe once I get the experience, I'll figure it out after that.

Bobbi Rebell:
And did you put systems in place? Did you put in any kind of automatic investing? Dollar cost averaging? What's been your general system since then?

Tess Wicks:
Okay, well at that time no. I had saved up a chunk of money during my internship during school, and was like, I know this is enough to open an account so I'm gonna go, and at that time, nothing, I literally let that investment stay put and I never really touched it until two or three years later. But in that two or three year timeframe, after I got back from my summer trip and I started my work full-time, my brother, the investing guru had told me about [Roble 00:06:40] advisors and I actually opened a Roble advisor account and then I started regularly investing in that, along with of course my 401 cape through my employers. So I was taking advantage of dollar cost averaging which is just investing on a regular basis, once a month I think, was my timeline and I had set a couple of goals cos with Roble advisors you can do that as well. I knew I wanted to invest for the long term because I want to be really rich in 20, 30, 40 years, and I think I wanted to buy an investment property. I was very future oriented when I was 22, so that's what I did.

Bobbi Rebell:
And what is your takeaway for our listeners, especially those who are sitting here, knowing like you did that they should be investing but they're watching the market and they're thinking, well I don't want to put money into a market that keeps going down. As we're taping here, I have a screen to the side of me and the market is down today again.

Tess Wicks:
Yes, okay so first of all, anything you wanna do, when it comes to money or anything else, you never are going to feel ready, you just have to jump in. So that's my one, number one of that, is just, you just have to suck it up. But if you're looking at the market specifically, something that I realized, and there's a lot of historical data and different reports that you can look up about this, is if you miss 10 or 20 of the best trading days in the market, in a 15 year increment, your returns get cut significantly. The thing is, we don't know when those best trading days are going to be. It could be literally tomorrow so if you get in today you can capture a really great trading day tomorrow. But we don't know when that's going to happen, so the best time to get invested is when you just have money and you are financially capable to be investing, meaning you have an emergency savings fund, your high interest debt is being taken care of, hopefully paid off, and now you feel financially able to put some money into the market.

Tess Wicks:
And the younger you are, the better, because the longer timeframe you have to maybe have those investments lose a little bit of money, and then maybe make some money and of course at the end of the day the trend has historically been upwards so if you can do that, you should be okay.

Bobbi Rebell:
Your everyday money tip is genius because you, for those folks who don't know that much about you, you moved across the world to Italy for love, and when you move you can't bring everything but that's a good thing when it comes to your everyday money tip, go for it.

Tess Wicks:
Yeah my everyday money tip is to create a capsule wardrobe or if you want to be more general, you can just downsize, whether it's your wardrobe or the things in your house. Even if you have a lot of space for stuff, I find that when we downsize and we make it a high priority to find things that we love to keep in our home, we're then able to save more money by setting some really high requirements for what we bring into our lives. And it just makes you way more aware about the things you already have, how you can make good use of them, and when you feel like you're tempted to spend, you'll probably second guess a lot of the time and then you won't necessarily spend as much money.

Bobbi Rebell:
Which is a good thing, especially when so many pieces are in motion.

Bobbi Rebell:
You have a new program starting this winter that I think is a really innovative approach to what we just talked about, to investing and to making sure to put yourself and your future and the money you'll have in the future, as a priority. Tell us more about the Invested Program.

Tess Wicks:
Yeah so the Invested Program is a six module program where I give you the information that you need but also the steps that you can take and implement in your life to create a personalized prudent investment strategy for yourself. Now I'm a big index investor kind of girl. I like to base my investment strategy off of research, especially Nobel Prize winning research and theories that have worked in the past.

Bobbi Rebell:
You're so intense Tess! Oh my God!

Bobbi Rebell:
Sorry, keep going. Oh my gosh.

Tess Wicks:
That's what I like to teach cos I want people to feel confident that they know what they're doing. Cos I think what holds you back lots of times especially when it comes to investing, is it is just way over complicated by the media, by a lot of people on Wall Street, even by your Great Uncle Gary. You think, oh my gosh I can never figure out what's gonna be good or what's gonna be bad, and it's scary when things are unclear and when you don't have that confidence. So in the program I really try and fill people with confidence and give them the things they need to know and how investing can actually be really easy. And then on top of that, I have a live bonus module where you get to watch me invest twice a week, from here til in the future, so you can see me putting the strategies I teach into action and I think that really helps people gain confidence and see that it really does work.

Bobbi Rebell:
Well it also gives you the confidence that even though the market can be such a rollercoaster, that doesn't mean you can't control your investments and still make it work for you.

Tess Wicks:
Exactly and there is obviously very important criteria that you'll put in place for yourself to meet your needs.

Bobbi Rebell:
Love that. And I love the fact that you do so much of the research behind the scenes and then filter it down and then deliver exactly what people need to know, and not everything. Because as you said, sometimes things are made so complicated that we just can't get it done; it's just not happening because there's too much.

Tess Wicks:
Yes absolutely.

Bobbi Rebell:
Okay Tess, tell us where we can learn more about the Investor program and you and Wander Wealthy and all the things.

Tess Wicks:
Yes, so you can find all of my content at Wonderwealthy.com. There's links to my YouTube channel, to the podcast and if you wanna learn more about the Invested program, it's actually gonna officially launching early February, but you can get into, I have a free investing bootcamp; it's ten days, you get e-emails and we start getting you into the investing world, and you can go to Wonderwealthy.com/invest to sign up.

Bobbi Rebell:
I love that, and I love that you feel like you are part of a team and a group and that gets you motivated, because sometimes in the new year, we have all of those goals, we need that. We need to feel that accountability.

Tess Wicks:
Yes.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right. Tess Wicks, thank you so much. Love it all. I'll keep watching Wander Wealthy and I love your podcast and I'm excited to see the Invested Program. Thank you.

Tess Wicks:
Thanks so much Bobbi.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right friends, lets get right to it. Here is my take. Financial Grownup tip, number one: time is only on your side if you actually start the clock. Now this is one clock we all want to be ticking. Saving money is not enough as Tess points out. There is never gonna be an obvious time to start investing, so you have to start. Make sure to invest the money that you have allocated to investing; no sitting on the sidelines for every. You can wait a little. I would say if you're cautious, dollar cost invest, averaging everything out to smooth the ups and downs, that means putting a set amount of money into the market at set intervals so that you don't get the highs and lows. You also don't get all the highs when you're avoiding the lows, but so be it. The point is, start the clock, start the timer, get going, just like Tess says.

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup tip number two: I love that Tess talked about downsizing our stuff and most of us have too much, that's the truth of it, which is so appropriate given that many of us are watching the [inaudible 00:14:23] Show on Tidying up on Netflix. Just because you have enough space for more stuff and you're not going abroad like Tess is, doesn't mean that you need to buy and keep things to fill all the space. Make sure you know where things are. That's something I have a hard time with myself even though I live in an apartment, I put things away in a safe place and then I don't know where they are. And then you know what happens? You can't find it and you buy another one. And then what happens? You find the original item. So lets all work towards getting past that and only having the things we want, need or see a need for realistically in the future, getting more organized so we don't buy things we already have.

Bobbi Rebell:
I would love to hear from you about your experience, your first experience investing or if it hasn't happened yet, what is keeping you from it? And how can we all get started, finding our starting line and getting things going? Be in touch on all the socials, at Instagram at bobbirebell1, on Twitter at Bobbi Rebell, my Facebook page is Bobbi Rebbell and you can email me at Hello@FinancialGrownup.com. And by the way, I mention my Facebook page because something interesting is happening on Facebook, specifically Facebook Live with a new project that I have been alluding to a little bit here. I've talked about it a couple of times, but if you have not already, please check out my new podcast, a second podcast, Financial Grownup's not going anywhere, it is called Money in the Morning, it is with my dear friend Joe Saul-Sehy, you may know him from Stacking Benjamin's fame. We tape live on the Stacking Benjamin's Facebook page at IstackBenjamins and there is audience participation.

Bobbi Rebell:
So I hope you guys will join us, we read your comments live and it's a really really fun thing to do if you have some time. We're gonna start posting a specific schedule in advance there and I'll also be sure to share it on my socials as well. And big thanks to the inspiring Tess Wicks of Wanderwealthy for helping us all get one step closer to being financial grown-ups.

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grown-up with Bobbi Rebell is edited and produced by Steve Stewart and is a BRK Media production.

Bobbi reveals her new partnership with the podcasting legend,  shares the behind the scenes intel on how it all happened, plus Joe gets honest about how his plastic shoe habit almost derailed his financial career. 

 

In Joe’s money story you will learn:

-Joe’s penny pinching philosophy- and how it backfired

-The impact of getting a gig on local tv

-Joe’s off-base take on how to develop trust in clients

 

In Joe’s lesson you will learn:

-The true cost of plastic shoes

-Why your co-workers may not tell you the truth

-How to avoid some of Joe’s mistakes

-How Joe invested in fixing his image problem, and increased his wealth

-Ways to get feedback on not just your career but also other aspects of your life

 

In Joe’s money tip you will learn:

-How to delegate one person to be the lead family financial manager

-What Joe refers to as ‘fantasyland'

-The one thing Joe does that avoids fighting about money in his family

-How to spot mistakes in your bills

 

In my take you will learn:

-The value of investing in your personal appearance

-What Kevin O’Leary had to say about investing in quality clothing and accessories

-How I have been burned by low quality purchases as fast fashion stores

-Why renting clothing can be a viable option that may work for your budget

-The importance of constantly upgrading your skills through education including online courses. 

 

Episode links:

Mint

Clarity Money

Moneylion

Udemy

Rent the Runway

 

Follow Joe Saul-Sehy!

 

Joe’s course How to legally cheat on your taxes

Joe’s money in the mornings show on facebook

Joe’s Facebook group

 

Money in the Morning podcast

Stacking Benjamins podcast

 

Twitter: @averagejoemoney

Facebook: Facebook.com/stackingbenjamins

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.

Transcription

Joe Saul-Sehy:
That changed my entire career. My career went from growing at an okay rate, to all the sudden growing by leaps and bounds because I looked the part.

Bobbi Rebell:
You're listening to Financial Grownup with me, certified financial planner, Bobbi Rebell author of How To Be A Financial Grownup. 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've got this.

Bobbi Rebell:
Hey friends. This episode is all about investing in yourself. Whether it comes to your wardrobe or your education as you hear and will hear more from our guest Joe Saul-Sehy is the host of the crazy popular award winning Stacking Benjamins podcast. I don't have time to list all of the awards it has won but they include Best Business Podcast from the Academy of Podcasters, and Best Finance Podcast by Kiplinger. They also win a lot of these Plutus Awards among others.

Bobbi Rebell:
You're going to really like Joe's story. If you're a good dresser you're going to feel validated for spending all that time, effort and money. If you're not such a good dresser, I hope you're going to get motivated. Here is Joe Saul-Sehy. Joe Saul-Sehy, you are a financial grownup. Welcome to the podcast.

Joe Saul-Sehy:
I can't believe I made it here. I must be a grownup if I made it here.

Bobbi Rebell:
You must, and you're up early these days. We're going to talk more about it later, but congratulations on the launch of Money In The Morning. It's awesome, and I love the music.

Joe Saul-Sehy:
Thank you. We picked it out just for you Bobbi. That's our whole thing, if we can win with Bobbi we win with everybody, so there we go.

Bobbi Rebell:
It's happy music.

Joe Saul-Sehy:
It is happy music, and I need happy music with coffee in the morning.

Bobbi Rebell:
You've evolved a lot in your grownup life, but there was a time, and we're leading into your money story here Joe, when you were a bit of a cheapskate. It wasn't just affecting you, it was really affecting your whole universe. Do tell.

Joe Saul-Sehy:
I was a financial planner for 16 years. During that time I was teaching people how to pinch pennies and cut corners where they could. I thought, "You know, I really should take my own advice." I learned a valuable lesson here because people come to see you and they expect a certain type of person, but at the time I didn't think about that. I thought, "You know what? I'm in my office all day. I'm never out of my office." When I am, I started doing a television gig in Detroit at WXYZ Channel Seven, go Detroit. Even when I did that, people didn't see my shoes. So I went from really nice shoes-

Bobbi Rebell:
Well people that were watching you on camera did not see your shoes.

Joe Saul-Sehy:
Right, right.

Bobbi Rebell:
To be clear.

Joe Saul-Sehy:
People watching me on television didn't see my shoes. People that I interfaced with on a daily basis, they did, and my clients did. So I went from these really nice shoes that I had to these plastic shoes. You know, the shoes that buy at-

Bobbi Rebell:
I don't know about plastic shoes Joe.

Joe Saul-Sehy:
Of course you don't. Like a Payless shoes. I would go there and I'd find these shoes that looked nice, but they looked like they were polished but they really were just plastic-y. For about a year, I for those. I dumbed down my suits, I wore cheaper ties. I thought, "People trust me, they like me. I don't need to spend a lot of money on this stuff." And then I realized that everything that I was doing was wrong one day, when I finally bought some new shoes and I went to my mentor's office, and the very first thing he said Bobbi, I walk in he said, "It's about time you got rid of those cheap shoes."

Joe Saul-Sehy:
I said, "What are you talking about? I've had those for a year. How come you didn't tell me?" He goes, "Well, I just thought you'd find out sooner or later by yourself." So I realized then that everyone notices. Then when I hired a firm to help me look better on TV, because I also-

Bobbi Rebell:
You hired someone.

Joe Saul-Sehy:
I had to.

Bobbi Rebell:
So now you're really investing.

Joe Saul-Sehy:
Yes. Yes, because I realized from the shoes, I realized I kind of have to invest in my career, and then I realized how bad everything was. The very first thing that the firm said that I hired, they said, "Well, we need to give you a big boy haircut." Because I was still wearing this haircut that I had from college, this is back when I had hair. They changed my look to be a more sophisticated haircut, to be shorter, to be more conservative, to look the part.

Joe Saul-Sehy:
They went with me shopping for clothes to show me how I could still spend less money on clothes, but I had to dress much more smart. I had to be trust ... and it's funny how that changed my entire career. My career went from growing at an okay rate, to all the sudden growing by leaps and bounds because I looked the part. I don't know about you Bobbi, I don't trust people who look too good, people that are dressed to the nines. For whatever reason I don't trust them, but that doesn't give you an excuse to not dress appropriately, and I guess even to widen it, to take responsibility for your career. We have to take responsibility for this thing that we call a career and make it our own?

Bobbi Rebell:
Expending on that, what is the lesson for our listeners from the story?

Joe Saul-Sehy:
I think the big lesson is don't wait for somebody else to give you this feedback about your career. Look in the mirror, and not just in the physical aspects like I was, but look in the mirror when it comes to your relationships with your family, with your relationship with money, with your relationship with your job. It's far easier, everybody wants to pinch pennies, it's far easier to go make a lot more money that it is to pinch pennies. It's funny, we might be able to save 50 cents or a dollar, but we could make $100 this week if we just looked outside ourself and went looking. I mean, there are so many job opportunities online, there are so many things to do. Look in the mirror and take responsibility for yourself was something that I learned that day that I try to teach other people now.

Bobbi Rebell:
And grow the top line.

Joe Saul-Sehy:
Grow the top line, amen.

Bobbi Rebell:
So give us a money tip, something personal that you and your family do that people can maybe make their own and do right away.

Joe Saul-Sehy:
I just said, focus on the top line Bobbi, but I also look at the bottom line. Because if we can stretch the difference between the two of those, then that's where we experience growth. In a lot of families what I noticed is that one person in the family, like you have a budgeting partner, a spouse, a significant other, one person usually knows where every dollar is, every dime is. The other person's in a place I refer to as fantasy land. They think they know, they have this general feeling, but they also know the other person's taking care of it.

Joe Saul-Sehy:
That's when fights begin. That's when bad things happen in a relationship, it's because the person in fantasy land all the sudden realizes the fantasy doesn't look the way they thought that it should have, so there ends up being friction. To avoid friction, something that Cheryl my spouse, and I implemented and that I like to teach people how to do, is just have a quick weekly meeting. Maybe 15 minutes over breakfast, or I prefer over wine.

Bobbi Rebell:
In the evening, not wine at breakfast.

Joe Saul-Sehy:
It's wine, iHop, you're probably [crosstalk 00:07:10]

Bobbi Rebell:
I mean, I'm not judging but you know.

Joe Saul-Sehy:
That's right, good for somebody but maybe not me. The thing I like about this weekly meeting though is it's quick, it's actually fun. We look through ... I use an app called Clarity Money but you can Mint, you can use MoneyLion. There's lots of apps out there. You could even just use a spreadsheet or look through, go to your bank website and take a look at what expenses you had. It's very easy, here's the way we do it. We look through all the upcoming expenses. What are we going to spend money on in the next week? We talk through that. Then the second thing we do is we look at the previous week's expenses and we see if there were any mistakes on any of our bills. What's funny is, we find so many mistakes. It's horrifying how many-

Bobbi Rebell:
And they're never in your favor.

Joe Saul-Sehy:
They never ever ... It's amazing that none of them ... Yeah, isn't that shocking. Yeah, business is always taking from me. And then also look for recurring expenses that you don't need anymore. I found just a couple weeks ago that there's been a recurring meeting, because we miss meetings from time to time and I must have missed it the last two years in a row. There's a Norton subscription that I've had for the last two years that I don't have hooked up to anything. That's a $100 a year for this subscription. It was really ... Luckily I caught it. I was able to get back this year, I can't go back and get the year before that, but have that money refunded to me.

Bobbi Rebell:
That's a good thing.

Joe Saul-Sehy:
Yeah, which also is cool. But the best thing is, Cheryl and I now go through the week and we know where the dollars are going to be spent. If things change we've got this open line of communication. I've got to tell you, it's so fun. The weekly meeting is so fun.

Bobbi Rebell:
Good. And you know what's really fun? Is spending less on your taxes. I have a CFP, but I have to tell you, especially because I got the CFP before the new tax law was passed. I find it a little bit overwhelming, but you have out that can help a little bit.

Joe Saul-Sehy:
Yeah. Thanks for mentioning this, because we were going to call this, Bobbi, we were going to call it Understanding The Tax Form, but that sounds so boring. It just sounds so-

Bobbi Rebell:
I would want that. I would do that one, but maybe not other people.

Joe Saul-Sehy:
[crosstalk 00:09:10] Yeah, you and I are money nerds so that's great. But here's what somebody did with me, this is the genesis of the course. I thought taxes were kind of mystical and I would ask people, "Can I write this off? Is this something that maybe I can take advantage of? Is this taxable? Is this not taxable? How does it all work?" Somebody sat down with me and walk through the 1040 and how the 1040 works, and then the itemized deductions page and how that works.

Joe Saul-Sehy:
Once I knew that, and what's cool is it's only three pages, once we walked through that I totally then could see what I could write off, what I couldn't write off, where my opportunities might be, how my retirement plan fit into the big picture, what the downsides might be in the future, what tax problems I might have in the future. We call the course How To Legally Cheat On Your Taxes, and it is a lot of fun. It's a do at your own pace course. It teaches you how taxes work. You can do two things. Number one, put Humpty Dumpty together, like right now during tax season.

Bobbi Rebell:
Yes, it's coming.

Joe Saul-Sehy:
Put things together- Yeah, put things together in a way that helps. But that's not where the magic is. I think the real magic is doing things through the year so that when you're trying to put Humpty Dumpty together next year, you're able to do that much, much better because you knew how taxes worked going in. I think that the powerful thing. That's the reason we created it, was to try to get people that same leg up that I got.

Bobbi Rebell:
I love that. Where can people find that? And where can people find you? I know Facebook in the morning, it's fascinating people. You can him do Money In The Mornings on Facebook and you can see how everything is made.

Joe Saul-Sehy:
It's so-

Bobbi Rebell:
Including the bloopers.

Joe Saul-Sehy:
Yeah. I was going to say, it's so uncomfortable because ... and I did it live on Facebook to try to force myself to do ... We talked earlier about taking responsibility for your career. One thing I do, I'm a natural stutterer, and do try to get around stuttering-

Bobbi Rebell:
What?

Joe Saul-Sehy:
Yes, and to make myself more natural on camera and try to get used to that. I started doing these daily Facebook Lives and say, "You know what, we're going to do this show without a net." So Money In The Morning is without a net, five days a week, wherever you're listening to this show. We just do two quick headlines. It's live, and man sometimes bad stuff happens. Which I think some people listen to it just to hear the car wreck.

Bobbi Rebell:
That's the best part.

Joe Saul-Sehy:
Right, right. Just to hear some of the bad stuff that sometimes happens, because you can't take it back if it's live.

Bobbi Rebell:
I know. All right, so where can people find you and the course and everything?

Joe Saul-Sehy:
Yeah, yeah. That's wherever you listen to this podcast, is where you can find Money In The Morning or Stacking Benjamins, our main show. The course is at learn.stackingbenjamins.com, that course, and we have a couple others, Save 50% Of Your Income and a quick hit course on your benefits package, so when you are going through open enrollment every year. Just a very quick, like, "What do I need to remember while I'm doing my open enrollment?"

Bobbi Rebell:
Cool. Where can people find you social media before we go?

Joe Saul-Sehy:
I am @AverageJoeMoney on Twitter, stop by and say hi. On Facebook it's facebook.com/istackbenjamins.

Bobbi Rebell:
Joe Saul-Sehy, thank you so much.

Joe Saul-Sehy:
Thanks Bobbi. This was so fun. I'm so happy that I'm finally a grownup.

Bobbi Rebell:
You are. Congratulations Joe. Here is my take on what Joe had to say. Financial Grownup tip number one, wear quality clothing. This is something that previous guests Kevin O'Leary touched on as well with respect especially to his mother. Not only is it important to look your best in business, but you often come out financially ahead.

Bobbi Rebell:
I get tempted like everyone by the fast fashion places. I always get burned. I buy a sweater for 20 bucks, it looks identical to the one for 200 in the department store, so I think I'm really smart. But then, after a couple of wearings, it's trash. I'm going to let you guys in on an open secret. Notice that I said wear quality clothing. I did not say buy. If you come see me speak, I am often wearing a very expensive designer dress that I don't own. It's rented. The designer handbag I'm carrying, you got it, probably rented. That way I get the benefits of always showing up in a well made dress without having to constantly invest in buying expensive clothing.

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup tip number two, always keep learning. Joe talked about education, so whatever interests you or will further your career, get better at it. If you work for a big company, always find out what they will pay for. My first employer, CNBC, paid for my CFP classes. There are also incredible online resources from LinkedIn to Udemy, even Investopedia has great online classes. In fact many top universities are putting their classes online and you can often audit them for free. Make yourself smarter, it will probably pay off for you financially, but you'll also probably enjoy it.

Bobbi Rebell:
Thank you all for your support and feedback. I truly appreciate everyone who has subscribed, rated, reviewed and shared the podcast. It's amazing. Please, follow me on social media @BobbiRebell on Twitter, @BobbiRebell1 on Instagram. Go to my website, sign up for my newsletter so I can keep everyone posted on everything going on with the show. I hope you enjoyed Joe's story and that we all got one step closer to being financial grownups.

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup with Bobbi Rebell is edited and produced by [Steve Stuart 00:14:28] and is a BRK Media production.

Attorney Leslie Tayne shares her unique take on why we should view debt as a good thing, along with candid details on why she ended an engagement over money issues

In Leslie's money story you will learn:

• What kinds of things are red flags financially when dating someone

• The different approach she took with debt management

• What a "Bird and Fish issue" is and why it's important to steer clear of this kind of relationship financially
  

In Leslie’s money lesson you will learn:

• Why it's important not to rely on someone else to take care of your money

In Leslie's everyday money tip you will learn:

• How to put a positive spin on your debt

In My Take you will learn:

• Why it's important to ask uncomfortable questions when getting serious with someone

• What the difference is between secrets vs baggage when it comes to money

Episode Links-

Leslie's book Life & Debt: A Fresh Approach to Achieving Financial Wellness

Check out Leslie's website - https://attorney-newyork.com/

Follow Leslie!

• Instagram - @taynelawgroup

• LinkedIn

• Twitter - @lesliehtayneesq / @taynelawgroup

• Facebook

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.

Transcription

Leslie Tayne:
I am a big believer in saying thank you to your debt because you gain something from that. So let's say you had student loan debt. I'm thankful for my student loan debt because it got me my career and my law degree.

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 gonna get there together. I'm gonna 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, Financial Grownup friends. So the clip that you heard at the top was a big moment for me. I had never really thought of debt as something that was actually a symbol of things that that debt had allowed you to achieve. To help you get to your goals. And we don't always think of debt that way. It's a mindset and we're gonna come back to that. First, welcome to everyone. Especially to our new listeners. Let me tell you a little bit about the show. We interview high achievers that share personal stories about money that had an impact on their lives. We also give you every day money tips that you can put to work right away. In this case, as I mentioned, we're gonna be learning how to change our debt mindset. Now, the fantastic guest for this episode is Leslie Tayne. She is the author of Life and Debt. Also an attorney. And before we get to that every day money tip, she gets very real in her money story about a broken engagement. And you're also gonna hear some information about my own break up that was a little bit scary for me to talk about. My own broken marriage. We actually went through with the engagement. Did get married. And things did not work out. And a lot had to do with our different money mindsets. Here we go. With Leslie Tayne.

Bobbi Rebell:
Hey, Leslie Tayne. You're on Financial Grownup. Welcome to the Podcast.

Leslie Tayne:
Thank you so much for having me today.

Bobbi Rebell:
I have you on for a number of reasons. One of which is you know a lot about a lot of financial things. You are the author of Life and Debt. A fresh approach to achieving financial wellness. Congratulations on the book.

Leslie Tayne:
Thank you so much.

Bobbi Rebell:
Tell me a little bit about it.

Leslie Tayne:
I don't think, from my perspective, that it's realistic to really be out of debt. I think that it's a different mindset when it comes to debt resolution, which is learning to love your debt and accept it. So I took this totally different approach about debt management, debt resolution. Whatever concept you want to call it. But I took a totally different approach which is to learn to love your debt, accept it, know that it's part of your life, and find really good strategic ways to manage it so it works for you.

Bobbi Rebell:
Love that. Because it's not always realistic to just say I'm not gonna have it. We have to live in the real world. And part of living in the real world is being realistic about relationships, which is hard to do when we're caught up in things like engagements and all that goes with it. And I know I had a short marriage in my 20s, which broke up for a number of reasons. But money, as is the case in many marriages, our different money values was a factor. And that was also a factor in a big decision that you made.

Leslie Tayne:
Yes, it was. I actually was also engaged to somebody. And I ended the engagement due to what I'm gonna call bird and fish issues related to finances.

Bobbi Rebell:
Alright. That's a good tease. What does that mean?

Leslie Tayne:
So bird and fish issues have to do with my conceptualization of the differences between people's ideas of money. For example, if you're a spender and your significant other is a saver and you really like to spend and don't think about it and your significant other is a saver, you have bird and fish issues. So obviously a bird can't live in the water and a fish doesn't live in a tree. So when you have significant bird and fish issues from a financial perspective, your relationship, unless you can really manage it, is not likely to succeed in that particular area.

Leslie Tayne:
So with my significant other at the time, my fiancé, we just did not see ... And he was a great guy. It wasn't the person. It really had to do with the fact that from a financial perspective, he saw things very differently than I did. And it wasn't something that I felt would make a successful long-term relationship.

Bobbi Rebell:
So what were the red flags?

Leslie Tayne:
I needed to get a new car. And I'm not sure what's on my credit. And then that starts the red flag stuff for me. The I'm not sure what's on-

Bobbi Rebell:
Did you ask his credit score?

Leslie Tayne:
I told him that I thought it was in his best interest to pull his credit and take a look at it and make sure that there was nothing on there that he wasn't aware of.

Bobbi Rebell:
Did you find out what the number was?

Leslie Tayne:
Yeah. I did see his credit later on in the relationship. The ultimate issue was about how he managed his money. Meaning he made money and he told me basically what he was earning, and his job, and his prospect for more money because another big discussion always was around Christmas time or the end of the year bonuses. So the question was, he would always say, "I wonder what I'm gonna get. Is it gonna be like it was last year? And I have to put that money away for taxes. And I need to do this or that with it." So he was volunteering that information to me and then I would follow up with questions based on his volunteering that. And there was a little bit of recklessness there and-

Bobbi Rebell:
What's an example of that?

Leslie Tayne:
Spending without thinking. Like having 100 pairs of jeans. Just continuing to buy without thinking. And then saying, "Oh, I have to pay off my ..." Things that ... These are red flags to me. Excessive spending. Not budgeting. Not being sure how you're gonna make it through the year if you're on salary plus commission. Those are red flags and problems to me. That's a money management issue. It became problematic when I would hear things like, "I don't think I can afford that." Well, you should know what you should be able to afford or not be able to afford. Or, "How could I just say no to my kids?"

Bobbi Rebell:
So what were examples of that happening?

Leslie Tayne:
Vacations. So if I wanted to go on vacation and say I have a different budget than he has or at least I'm aware of my budget than he had. I want to go on vacation and this is what I would like to stay. Then I don't know if I can do that. And I would say, "Well, why would you have a problem doing it based on the things that you told me?"

Bobbi Rebell:
In other words, based on his income, he should be able to afford it, but where was the money going I guess is what you were wondering.

Leslie Tayne:
Correct. Correct. And it wasn't my place. I didn't feel comfortable that it was my place to micromanage it. Again, I don't want to be in a position in relationships and I don't recommend being in a position where you are micromanaging somebody else's inability to manage their own money. Going into a relationship as adults, each one of you should be managing your money effectively and being aware of your finances, being aware of your debt, having some sort of plan. It doesn't have to be a written dissertation of exactly how to pay it off. But an idea, not when I get some money I'm gonna do this. Or I'll have some money soon. There was a dishonesty piece about not telling me what was going on with the finances and with his finances. There came a point when we were engaged when I said, "I'm not just a girlfriend now. We're engaged and we're talking about a long-term future. So I feel like I have a right to understand or have a good understanding of what your finances are." And when there was a hesitation about giving me that information, I knew at that point that I would not be able to proceed.

Bobbi Rebell:
What is your advice to our listeners?

Leslie Tayne:
My best advice is that you may love this person. You may find so many wonderful qualities about them. They may be a great parent. A loving human being. But when you go into a situation where there's any level of dishonesty, that doesn't get better. That gets worse. So those are red flags. Be brave and strong. It's not easy to break off a relationship for a million different reasons. But take your time. Go slow. If you're the one with the money or you're the one with the better credit, always keep it separate and really create a line in the sand-

Bobbi Rebell:
Leslie, tell us your every day money tip. It has to do with debt, but appreciation. And not appreciation in the idea of interest appreciating. A better kind of appreciation.

Leslie Tayne:
I am a big believer in saying thank you to your debt because you gain something from that. So let's say you had student loan debt. I'm thankful for my student loan debt because it got me my career and my law degree. So I know that sounds like a challenging statement to make. But once you change your attitude and you become thankful for the debts that you have, you'd be surprised how that impacts the totality of resolving your own finances.

Bobbi Rebell:
Because many times, they did help you achieve something. Whether it's having a home, having a law degree, whatever it may be.

Leslie Tayne:
Yes. You're correct. All of the debt that you have helps you achieve something. You have a car, it takes you places. You have a home, you have a roof over your head. You have food that you bought maybe on credit. You have student loans from an education that you got. It's not that you didn't get something for nothing. You exchanged the debt for something that may not be tangible. But it's something that is useful in your life.

Bobbi Rebell:
Absolutely. So, Leslie, tell us a little bit more before we wrap up about your practice because it is concentrated on debt. And where people can find you and learn more about you.

Leslie Tayne:
Sure. So I'm an attorney licensed to practice law in the state of New York. And I have a practice called [inaudible 00:09:45] Law Group. We have four offices in New York. But we do help clients outside of New York as well. And we're gonna be opening offices soon in South Florida.

Bobbi Rebell:
Congratulations.

Leslie Tayne:
Thank you. I have a book called Life and Debt. And all of that can be found online. So you can Google me at Leslie Tayne. T-A-Y-N-E. You can find me on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, all under that. Or LifeandDebtBook.com. TayneLaw.com. T-A-Y-N-E-L-A-W.com. And certainly, again, you can always Google my name, Leslie Tayne, and you'll find me all over.

Bobbi Rebell:
Thank you so much, Leslie for sharing such a candid and brave, frankly, brave story. We appreciate it.

Leslie Tayne:
Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

Bobbi Rebell:
Hey, friends. Before we get to my take on what Leslie had to say, I just want everyone to know Leslie is happily remarried, as am I. And in both cases, our husbands are on board when it comes to our money mindsets.

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup tip number one. This one's a little bit hard though, actually. You have to ask really uncomfortable questions if you are going to get serious with someone. I got engaged to my ex-husband. The one that I talked about at the beginning of the interview with Leslie. I didn't know his income. I didn't feel comfortable asking. Seriously. For real. But yet, I was willing to be financial partners with him. Without having that information. That is a don't. We'll leave it at that.

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup tip number two. Secrets versus baggage. They are very different. Here's the deal, guys. Leslie's problem with her ex-fiancé was not only that they had different money values because they definitely did. It was the secrets though. It was the lack of honesty. Withholding information. That is not the same as having baggage. AKA having lived a life. Things happen. You might have a student loan or even credit card debt. We're all human. Life is messy. Good luck finding someone who is perfect financially. Pretty much any money problem though can be solved if you work together and are honest with each other. Emphasis on honest. So don't confuse life's normal messiness with the stuff that matters. And that is communication and working through financial situations together. No one's perfect.

Bobbi Rebell:
On that note, so grateful to Leslie Tayne. She got candid, and real, and raw. And we're so much better for it. So thank you for helping us all 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

Grant Sabatier was ready to retire at age 30 with over a million dollars saved - in large part by being mindful of his big expenses. The the author of "Financial Freedom: A Proven Path to All the Money You Will Ever Need” shocked many followers by moving to New York City, one of the most expensive cities in the world. 

In Grant's money story you will learn:

• The reason behind Grant's controversial to move from Chicago to the more expensive NYC- despite it's impact on his FIRE goals

• How much more expensive NYC really is compared to Chicago if you apply Grant's money strategies

• Why he feels NYC lifestyle justifies the higher cost

• One thing he loves that is actually less expensive in NYC than it was in Chicago

• The surprising differences he found in cost of living between the two cities.

In Grant’s money lesson you will learn:

• Why he feels that "money only matters when you can live a life you love"

• The things you can do to retire in 10-20 years or less

• Why he feels that cutting out the small things that bring us joy isn't necessarily the best way to save

• The best areas in budgeting you can save your money in

In Grant's everyday money tip you will learn:

• The exact questions he asks himself-and you should before making a purchase to determine it's true cost and value

• Where to find resources to make the calculations yourself

In My Take you will learn:

• How using a calculator can help to change your mindset

• Why it's important to not get caught up in the labels and trends

Episode links:

• Grant's book - Financial Freedom: A Proven Path to All the Money You Will Ever Need

• Financial Freedom book trailer

• Financial Freedom podcast

Check out Grant's websites -

• Millennial Money

• Financial Freedom Book

Follow Grant!

• Instagram @MillennialMoneyCom and @FinancialFreedom

• LinkedIn

• Twitter @MillennialMoney

• Facebook

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.

Transcription

Speaker 1:
What kind of life do you want to live is the most important question. And then the second question is, okay, how much money do you need to live that life?

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 grown up 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 Financial Grownup friends. So excited about this episode. Amazing guests we have here, Grant Sabatier. He is the author of the new book Financial Freedom, a Proven Path to All the Money You Will Ever Need. That sounds pretty good. He is also known as the creator of Millennial Money and as you will hear, he went from having just a couple of bucks to his name to being a millionaire. In fact, having more than a million bucks by following the principles of the FIRE movement. By the way that stands for financial independence, retire early.

Bobbi Rebell:
Grant also came up with a lot of new ideas of his own that he put to work to reach his goals. He recently did something very controversial and surprising to many people in the FIRE movement. In fact, I personally was totally caught off guard and thought I heard it wrong because it just didn't make sense that he of all people would do this. More in a sec.

Bobbi Rebell:
First, a quick hello to everyone. We have a lot of new listeners in the new year, so welcome. We interview high achievers here on the Financial Grownup Podcast who share many stories that we can all learn from along with everyday money tips. And we keep it short so you can stack a few episodes together to fit your commute, your workout or whatever you're up to.

Bobbi Rebell:
Let's get to Grant's unbelievable story. So many takeaways from this interview and then from his book. Again, can't believe he actually did this. Here we go.

Bobbi Rebell:
Grant Sabatier, you are a financial grownup. Welcome to the podcast.

Grant Sabatier:
Hey, glad to be here.

Bobbi Rebell:
And congratulations. You book, Financial Freedom, a Proven Path to All the Money You Will Ever Need is about to be a huge best seller. We were just talking offline about all the big plans you have, including your trailer just came out. I just watched it. So cool. Congrats on all.

Grant Sabatier:
Yeah, thanks. I appreciate it. It's been a long time coming. It's like a two year plus project and I'm just super excited to have it released worldwide and hear and get the feedback and help as many people as I can.

Bobbi Rebell:
So this is the latest step on a journey you've been on since going from having I think what $2.26 to your name, something like that, to having $1.25 million. You skyrocketed to fame with your Millennial Money website.

Grant Sabatier:
I feel, even though I'm only 33, I feel like I'm kind of in the bonus years of my life in a lot of ways and it's super cool and I'm grateful for it.

Bobbi Rebell:
Well, I hope every year feels like a bonus year for you. This has been a big year. I want to talk and you agreed to share his story about a controversial decision that you recently made that sounds contradictory to a lot of the things that people in the FIRE movement, which is financial independence, retire early, which you're part of advocate. You moved to New York City. My home. So welcome by the way.

Grant Sabatier:
Thank you.

Bobbi Rebell:
Not the most bargain place to be building up your financial nest egg Grant. What's going on? Tell us your money story.

Grant Sabatier:
Yeah, that's a great question. I've gotten that a lot recently. You're right. Compared to Chicago where I was living, where I became financially independent, New York City has about a 2.35X cost of living multiple, meaning things are about 2.35 times as expensive here than in Chicago. So based on that, you would expect to need at least double the amount of money.

Grant Sabatier:
But those are just statistics and one of the things that, I did quite a bit of preparation before I moved to New York City to get a sense for obviously what apartments cost and what food costs. And one of the things that I pretty quickly realized was you can make whatever life you want in New York City. Even though writ large, it's incredibly expensive. It's incredibly expensive to buy real estate here. It often doesn't make sense to buy real estate if you're going to be here for less than six or seven years.

Grant Sabatier:
But from a rental perspective, there's actually an incredible amount of affordable rentals that I was able to find. Food is actually categorically less expensive than in Chicago.

Bobbi Rebell:
Really?

Grant Sabatier:
Yeah. Good example, I'm a huge raspberry fan. I eat them every morning. I love them. It's just something that I know the price of. And in Chicago it was about $4 for just a little bunch of raspberries. And a block and a half from my apartment in New York City. I'm able to get them for $1.50.

Bobbi Rebell:
So wait, tell me, let me stop you here. So why did you move to, a lot of people might be surprised because to achieve financial freedom, a lot of people, including you, talk about yeah, watch the little things, but really watch the big things. Like housing, like your food bill, the big things. And yet you upsized the biggest thing to some degree. People often move to less expensive locations, at least while they're building up their nest egg, which I understand you already did.

Bobbi Rebell:
Tell us about the decision to move to a more expensive city, or more expensive in most ways. Why and what it's been like.

Grant Sabatier:
So actually, ironically, I've been in New York City six months and I spent, I think it's 17, I keep track of all this stuff about 17 to 20 percent less than the previous six months that I lived in Chicago. So it's actually been less expensive to live in New York City. My rent here is less than the mortgage payment that I was paying on my apartment.

Grant Sabatier:
I moved to New York City because I lived in Chicago for pretty much all of the last 14 years. I went to college in Chicago and was more than ready for a change. I always wanted to live in New York City. I grew up on the east coast. I wanted to come back. I don't know if I'm going to be a New York City lifer, but because the book's coming out, the proximity to media, I'm a huge fan of the Catskills and the Hudson River Valley. I think they're incredibly beautiful. I'd visited them a few times. And in fact I spend quite a bit of time there now.

Grant Sabatier:
And so for me, obviously housing, transportation and food, that's where the average American spends 70% or more of their income. And if you can control those three expense categories, then you can really kind of win the game. And so the most important thing with my move was affordable housing.

Grant Sabatier:
It's important to mention that I'm already financially independent. And so I became financially independent in 2015 and so I've had a pretty solid market since then. My investments have done well. So now I have more than enough money, so I'm able to hedge in that way. I think it certainly would be more difficult if I had started my financial independence journey in New York City. I had a lot of advantages to doing it in Chicago, which is writ large, more affordable. But because I'm already financially independent, I have more advantages.

Grant Sabatier:
But with that being said, the past few years, I never spend with my wife more than $50,000 a year. I'm on pace based on the way I've set up my life to probably spend in the $45,000, $48,000 range in 2019 in New York City.

Bobbi Rebell:
You mentioned that people have questioned this decision, including me. Do you feel that you've had to kind of defend it as part of the FIRE movement?

Grant Sabatier:
Oh, definitely. I think there's a little bit of a judgment inherent in some of the community and to me FIRE, it can really mean whatever you want it to mean and that's the beautiful thing about it. It's what kind of life do you want to live is the most important question. And then the second question is okay, how much money do you need to live that life?

Bobbi Rebell:
So what is the lesson for our listeners?

Grant Sabatier:
I think the lesson is that you have so much more control. I mean, money really only matters if it helps you live a life that you love. I think that that idea is so central to money. And if you're not happy with your life, if you're stressed out and you're paying too much rent, you have the ability to move to a different neighborhood, get a roommate for a while to downsize.

Grant Sabatier:
I mean, when I was becoming financially independent in Chicago, I moved from a $1,500 a month apartment to an $800 a month apartment and yes, it was smaller. Yes it was crappier. But I was able to sleep better at night because I knew I was investing that money.

Bobbi Rebell:
Let's to your everyday money tip and this could apply to small items or to big decisions. And one thing I liked in your book, as you do a lot of math and you have a special way of calculating purchases or things you're considering buying that can really illustrate the impact of different choices. Go for it.

Grant Sabatier:
Yeah. So in the book, in one of the chapters, Is it Worth it, I outline 11 questions that you can ask yourself. If you go to financialfreedom book.com, you can download these 11 questions, keep them on your phone. You can print them out. And the questions are built around helping you figure out is it worth buying. And some of the trade offs that are in the book that you can calculate are how much of your life did you trade for this purchase? And one of those things, we can go to a car example, a $40,000 car if you're making $20 per hour after you factor in taxes and commuting time, it's gonna take you 2000 hours, an entire year of your life to afford that car. And on the flip side, you also lose the potential of that $40,000 to grow, which is even more profound.

Grant Sabatier:
And one of the things that I found, because I was interested in buying a $40,000 car, is that I would actually have to work almost six years longer in the future in order to afford that car because of the lost opportunity of not investing that money.

Grant Sabatier:
The best way to save money is just not to spend it because there's kind of, I call it the net effective spending, where whenever you buy anything, not only are you trading the time that you spent to make that money, but you're also trading the ability for that money to grow and the freedom that it buys you in the future. And that's kind of a mindset shift because I actually figured out that every $100 that I would spend, you know you go out to a nice meal and have a couple of drinks with your partner or with a friend and you know, say you spend $100. I figured out that I'd actually have to work four more days in the future in order to afford $100 purchase.

Grant Sabatier:
And so every time I spent $100, I was sacrificing for days of future freedom. And I literally went around and I have a calculator that I built called the Financial Freedom Calculator at financialfreedombook.com where you can put in all your own numbers and it'll tell you whether it's a $5 cup of coffee or a $40,000 car. It'll tell you in your own life how much freedom, how much time you're actually trading for that purchase.

Bobbi Rebell:
One are the things that I love about your book is all of the tools that it has and the different links. So it's kind of like the book will live on beyond the printed book, although some people will listen to it and read it on electronic books. But I love those tools because it makes it very granular and very specific and user friendly. Tell us a little bit more about the book and where people can find more about you and all your social channels grant. We love to follow you.

Grant Sabatier:
Yeah, so financialfreedombook.com is the best place to learn about the book. On the book website you can learn all about the book. You can also use all the tools and the book for free before you even buy the book. So there are nine calculators on there. They all work on your phone. I already have people who've read the book and they've bookmarked them and they're going into the store and they're using the calculators, which is super cool. So financialfreedombook.com. It's available wherever books are sold. Barnes and Noble, Amazon, your favorite local book seller. So I guess just go check it out. It's a bright blue cover with a bird on the front.

Grant Sabatier:
Social channels, you should check out the book Instagram account that I just launched. You can follow me around the world. I'm going to be visiting 40 different cities this spring and 17 countries in the fall so @financialfreedom on Instagram. And then hit me up, millennialmoney.com is my website. At millennialmoney on Twitter, those are the best ways to reach me.

Bobbi Rebell:
Love it. And I also love your new book trailer. We're going to leave a link to that in the show notes as well. So thank you Grant.

Grant Sabatier:
Thank you Bobbi. This is a lot of fun.

Bobbi Rebell:
Hey everyone, so glad we were able to talk about those calculators. They are a good thing in this case.

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial grownup tip number one. I'm not always a huge fan of big budgets and counting up every dollar that you spend because it can feel so restrictive and you feel deprived. Almost like being on a diet. It is kind of like being on a money diet. And no one's going to feel good about that. And when you feel bad, at a certain point you're going to reach your breaking point and that's going to be the edge. You're going to fall off the bandwagon just like you do with the food diet. And hopefully as we get through January, we won't be falling off the bandwagon with all of our goals. We're all working on it.

Bobbi Rebell:
Anyway, taking the time however, to use a calculator like the ones that grant has put together to figure out the relationship between your purchases and their true cost and your life can totally change your mindset. I remember when Starbucks started putting calorie counts on the food in that counter, all those yummy cookies and goodies and stuff. So I love this yellow icing lemon cake. They have it there still in many of these Starbucks. I'm still obsessed with them as you can tell, but I don't really get them anymore because even though I always knew they were high calorie, I didn't really see the number. It didn't really register with me.

Bobbi Rebell:
And then they put the calories there. It's over 400 calories for this little slice of cake, which is not going to fill you up. And that visual, that number, calculating the percentage of that, of the number of calories that I'm supposed to eat per day and knowing what a high percentage was going to go to something that really didn't give me that much bang for my calorie buck really motivated me to change my behavior. I'm far from perfect when it comes to choosing the snacks, but I am more likely now to go for a protein box where it may not have the absolute lowest calories, but I know at least I'm going to get some nutrition for my choice.

Bobbi Rebell:
I think it's the same way when it comes to money. When you really calculate the true cost as Grant points out, it helps.

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial grownup tip number Twitter, do not get caught up in labels and trends to the point where you don't do what you want to do. Grant is managing New York City on his own terms, but he's honest. There are places that he could live where he would reach his financial goals faster and without having to watch his finances as tightly, but he is putting his life first.

Bobbi Rebell:
Never live your life backwards or for someone else's idea of what they think you should be doing.

Bobbi Rebell:
Big thanks to you Grant. So happy for all he has achieved including his first book, Financial Freedom, a Proven Path to All the Money You Will Ever Need. Go order it now. As an author, guys, I have to stress buying it on preorder really makes a difference at hitting the bestseller lists and all that comes with it. So if you like Grant and you think you're going to like the book, go right now and preorder it so you get it right when it comes out and you also help Grant a little bit in the process as they say.

Bobbi Rebell:
We're going to have a link for it in the show notes as well, and also meaningful you. Be in touch. BobbiRebell1 on Instagram, BobbiRebell on Twitter and our email address is hello@financialgrownup.com.

Bobbi Rebell:
Big thanks to Grant Sabatier for helping us all 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.

Big cities have a lot to offer- but can be expensive. Co-host Grant Sabatier, creator of Millennnial Money and author of the new book “Financial Freedom. A Proven Path to All the Money You Will Ever Need” recently moved to New York City despite the costs. He shares his three biggest tips to making it work for your financial grownup money goals, and still live life to the fullest.

Here are 3 tips for expensive city living

• How you can plan for the big fixed expenses

• Why you should balance the convenience of prepped vs non-prepped items

• The importance of getting out of the city

Episode Links:

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

• Grant's book - Financial Freedom: A Proven Path to All the Money You Will Ever Need

• Check out the book trailer here

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.

Dan Schawbel knew he needed to leave his job, but carefully choosing when and how to do it was the key to success in launching his own social media entrepreneurial venture

In Dan's money story you will learn:

• How he was able to transition from his corporate job to becoming an entrepreneur

• What it was like starting his own company

• How his life was different after making the transition
  

In Dan’s money lesson you will learn:

• Why it's important to be patient when moving from a corporate job to your own job

• Why you should prioritize what's important to you

• Why you should Invest in yourself

In Dan's everyday money tip you will learn:

• How using a goal sheet can help you stay productive

In My Take you will learn:

• Why you shouldn’t rush your exit strategy

• Why it's important to create a goal system
  

Episode Links -

• Dan’s podcast - 5 Questions with Dan Schawbel

• Dan's book - Back to Human: How Great Leaders Create Connection in the Age of Isolation

• Dan's book - Promote Yourself and Me 2.0

Check out Dan's websites -

• Dan Schawbel

• Millennial Branding

• Workplace Trends

Follow Dan!

• Instagram

• LinkedIn

• Twitter

• Facebook

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.

Transcription

Dan Schawbel:
My life at the company was pretty wild back then. I mean, we're talking to the early days of social media, so my breaks, lunch breaks and breaks outside of a work, I was being interviewed by CNN. I was interviewing various celebrities.

Bobbi Rebell:
You're listening to Financial Grownup. With me, certified financial planner of Bobbi Rebell, author of How to be a Financial Grownup, but 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, Financial Grownup friends. There is an expression out there that became very popular a while back. First I believe it was first really mainstreamed on a show called Sex and the City. Then it was a book and then a movie. The expression is he's just not that into you because a lot of the time relationships don't work out, not for some big dramatic, blowup reason, but just because one person isn't that into it. They just hope there's someone else out there that will wow them, that will be their true love, not they're like, good for now, whatever.

Bobbi Rebell:
That can be true for jobs too. Follow me here guys. For all the stereotypes about hating your job and wanting to go into your boss's office and dramatically scream, "I quit." The truth is most jobs are okay. We like them, but sometimes you just know you're just not that into it. So then what? And that was the case with our guest today, Dan Schawbel. He's the author of Back to Human and the host of the podcast, Five Minutes with Dan Schawbel.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right. Welcome everyone. We have a lot of new listeners recently, so a special welcome to all of you. We keep the shows short because life is busy, and we want to fit into your schedule, so feel free to listen to one episode. If you are short on time, we try to keep them the classic episodes of which this is one to about 15 minutes. We do Financial Grownup Guides, often on the weekends. Those are even shorter, but if you have a little more time, feel free to stack the episodes together to make whatever amount of time you want to fill. So, if you're commuting, you have a 45 minute commute. Listen to three episodes. If it works for you, we're happy.

Bobbi Rebell:
Now to our guests, Dan Schawbel, who I learned about through former Financial Grownup guests, Stefanie O'Connell. She's actually been on the show a couple of times. We will link to her episode.

Bobbi Rebell:
Dan Schawbel has a great story for all of us about what I was talking about, about just not being that into a job. He was doing really well. His bosses liked him. He liked his colleagues, but it just wasn't enough for him. He wasn't miserable. He just wasn't that into it. Here is Dan Schawbel.

Bobbi Rebell:
Hey Dan Schawbel, you're a financial grownup. Welcome to the podcast.

Dan Schawbel:
So happy to be here with you.

Bobbi Rebell:
And so happy to have you because your book is amazing, Back to Human, and I'm also enjoying your new podcast, Five Questions with Dan Schawbel, which has the most amazing guest line-up, by the way, everyone from Rachel Ray to Lewis Howes, Chris Anderson, star studded lineup there, so congrats on all.

Dan Schawbel:
Much appreciated.

Bobbi Rebell:
Well, we stick to three main questions here on Financial Grownup, and the first of which is to tell us your money story, and this has to do with a big transition in your life that turned out okay, I think. Go for it.

Dan Schawbel:
Yeah. This was at the early days of social media, so I created the first ever social media positions in a big company back in 2007. I knew I was onto something, and I knew that I had a high value in the marketplace because it was new, and I had the right skills at the right time, and so that gave me a degree of confidence. The other thing that gave me a lot of confidence was outside of work, the reason why I got the position is I was early into blogging, social media. I had my own magazine and a blog that was successful, and to me, that made me realize that, oh my God, not only do I have these skills, but I have the assets, the credibility, the connections that I can leverage, and I was getting a lot of demand from companies to have me speak at those companies to various groups and audiences.

Dan Schawbel:
Between all of that, it proved to me that there was a market that I was the right person at the right time, and that allowed me to transition from corporate life into entrepreneurial life.

Bobbi Rebell:
It's fascinating, though, because why didn't your corporate bosses see this and try to retain you?

Dan Schawbel:
It's actually really interesting. They knew that I was eventually going to leave. When I quit, they weren't surprised, but they didn't know when it was going to happen, so they wanted to maximize me and my time when I was actually there. So, that was really smart, and then they became one of my early clients because when I quit, they want to sign a consulting contract. So, that was the transition between when I was there and when they hired a replacement is we were working on a contingent basis.

Bobbi Rebell:
What kind of discussions were there during this time period? Did they tell you, "We value you? We just literally don't have the budget?" Or was there something else going on?

Dan Schawbel:
My life at the company was pretty wild back then. I mean, we're talking the early days of social media, so my breaks, lunch breaks and breaks outside of work, I was being interviewed by CNN. I was interviewing various celebrities. I was doing a lot of this stuff that I still do, but within the few breaks that I had during the workday and outside of work. So my life was already crazy, and I was being ... Google wanted me to speak on campus. I was getting crazy opportunities, and so it almost wasn't fair to my manager and the company for me to stay.

Bobbi Rebell:
Tell me more about that and the transition time? What was it like the early days, like day one when you started your own company?

Dan Schawbel:
One of the best pieces of advice my parents ever gave me was have the predictable income, be patient, stay at the company longer until you're really ready because I went through at least a year where I wanted to quit every day. I was like, [inaudible 00:06:11] like going home and working on my business nights and weekends was so enjoyable, what am I dealing with here? And they said, "Be patient. Make sure you have enough money." And I thought that was really good advice in hindsight. Right?

Dan Schawbel:
In the moment, I'm like, get me outta here. I think it is patience, right? It's very easy to be impatient because you get so much joy working on something that you own.

Bobbi Rebell:
So, what were the early days like? Day one? No company job. What'd you do? Did you get up and go to the gym, or did you get up and work?

Dan Schawbel:
Honestly, I don't think anything changed really. You know, I think it was the same or maybe a little bit more effort, but I was doing what I wanted to do.

Bobbi Rebell:
What is your lesson for our listeners? What's the takeaway from this?

Dan Schawbel:
The takeaway is be patient if you're going to move from a corporate job into your own business. Don't rush it. Be smart about how, where and when you're spending the money. Prioritize what's important to you, and if you're young, what should it be important to you is reinvesting in yourself and your own education and to save money so that you can make a transition that's smooth and not as stressful. There's always going to be some stress because it's something new, and people fear change. It's built into us being human. Take your time, be patient, save, know where you want to spend money and also know where you shouldn't be spending money.

Dan Schawbel:
I think that's also important that people don't talk about as much is not having lavish vacations in the early days is important. I didn't really even travel up until maybe seven years ago, and so a lot of the things that I had always wanted to do, I held off on and now I do them more regularly because I'm in a different position, but when you're first starting out, save, be smart about your priorities. Say yes to as much as you possibly can because that will give you the privilege to say no to more things later in life, the open opportunities. Do as much as you can. Surround yourself with smart people. I was fortunate to have supportive parents who pushed me to be as patient as possible and to save, but if you don't have that, I think it's finding role models, finding people who believe in you, and that will give you enough confidence to succeed in the early days so that sets you up for longterm happiness and fulfillment.

Bobbi Rebell:
You also brought with you an everyday money tip, which is something we kind of know, but so many of us just don't do.

Dan Schawbel:
I have a goal sheet that lists out the things that I need to get done on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, annual basis. And even though this is basic, it really helps focus my attention, and there's a certain degree of satisfaction when you check something off, like you completed something, you've achieved something.

Bobbi Rebell:
I always feel better with that. What was on the top of your to do list today?

Dan Schawbel:
Top of my to do list today was to take a break.

Bobbi Rebell:
Let's talk about your book, Back to Human. I really enjoyed this. There's a lot of great things here. For example, you talk about the optimal time for a break and the most productive day. Tell me more about those things.

Dan Schawbel:
Yeah. The most productive day is Tuesday because Monday everyone's catching up on work. You have all these emails, so you're going to prioritize those instead of just planning and working on things that are going to have high impact for you on Tuesday. For every about 45 minutes you work, you should take a 15 minute break. Those 45 minutes, you need to really zone in and be focused.

Bobbi Rebell:
I want to talk about your podcast, which is ... I hate to say this. This is a positive, but it's addicting because it's less than 10 minutes. It's five questions with Dan Schawbel, and you have such an incredible guest list. Tell us a little bit more about that and how you come up with these amazing guests.

Dan Schawbel:
Yep. So, I have interviewed over 2,000 people in about 10 or so years, and I've always had the same format. It's five questions in under 10 minutes, and it used to be for various media outlets and now I'm doing the same thing for a podcast because a lot of my friends have hour long podcasts, and for me, the format that makes the most sense because I'm a very intense, anxious type person is a very short podcast. And so I started putting it out, and I've been getting the feedback after thousands of downloads about how it's the podcast people listen to you between meetings. It's quick, it's efficient.

Dan Schawbel:
And I've also found that when I interview people, they give their best advice very quickly because they don't have an hour in order to talk about a subject. They need to boil it down into what's most important. So that pressure I put on them allows them to deliver their best content in just a few minutes, and yeah, it's been very enjoyable. The format feels unique and authentic to me, and it took me a while to come up with that format even though it was right in front of my face because everyone's like, "Start a podcast. Start a podcast. Start a podcast." And I had back in 2013. It wasn't the right format. I was trying to do too many things, and so I was patient. I waited, I put thought into it, and now we have Five Questions with Dan Schawbel.

Bobbi Rebell:
And it's a great thing. Tell us more about where people can find out more about you, be in touch with you, social media, all that stuff.

Dan Schawbel:
You can go to iTunes to listen to the podcast or DanSchawbel.com to see the research, the articles and all of my content as well as the book, Back to Human.

Bobbi Rebell:
And all your social channels, what's your handle?

Dan Schawbel:
It's just my name Dan Schawbel. It's D-A-N-S-C-H-A-W-B-E-L.

Bobbi Rebell:
genius. Thanks Dan.

Dan Schawbel:
Thank you.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right, my friends. Let's get right to it. Financial Grownup tip number one. Do not rush your exit strategy. Dan makes a great point about being patient and planning a gracious exit. You are not in a movie, guys. Screaming, "I quit" is not a very grownup way to move to the next phase of your career. Be Realistic about the challenges that you will face after the big sendoff. As Dan said, nothing really changes your first day, not at your job. It's all on you. Your income will not be certain. Dan couldn't take vacations for a while. When I left my corporate job, I had a multiyear plan that I carried out before I left, and when I did it, it was in the most amicable way possible.

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup tip number two. Create a goal system. Now, Dan talked about how it gives him satisfaction when he checks things off a list. I do that before I go to bed at night, and it calms me down a lot too. To just know what I'm up for it the next day. So, find a system to organize the things that you need to get done in different time increments. I also have begun adopting systems including, for example, [inaudible 00:13:05] in recent months. No affiliation with the company by the way, as my company has grown, and I have to coordinate schedules and deadlines with my growing team.

Bobbi Rebell:
And speaking of that, I'm going to have a very big announcement about a new project very soon, so please follow me on social media for details. It involves a new partner, and it is one of those pinch me. I can't believe I'm actually doing this kind of thing. Translation, I am terrified, but I am excited for all of you to come along for the ride. On Instagram, I am @BobbiRebell1. On Twitter, BobbiRebell, and if you want to be in touch or ask any questions about the show, you can email us at hello@financialgrownup.com. You can even email us a voice memo, and maybe we will share it in the podcast.

Bobbi Rebell:
Everyone go pick up Dan's book, Back to Human and check out is awesome podcast, Five questions with Dan Schawbel. It is everywhere. Follow him on social as well. Big thanks to Dan Schawbel for helping us all 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.

When payroll is coming directly out of your bank account, every penny is precious. For entrepreneur Vic Drabicky that laser focus on costs, held back growth for January Digital, until he started to see the real cost of his fiscal frugality. 

In Vic's money story you will learn:

• Why Vic's conservative approach lead him to losing a big client

• What he did to turn things around

• Why it's so important to invest in the right leadership

In Vic’s money lesson you will learn:

• "Pinching pennies is fine, but you better pinch the right ones"

• Why it's important, when looking at investments, to see which ones yield the highest return

In Vic's everyday money tip you will learn:

• What the "plan your work, work your plan" strategy is

In My Take you will learn:

• Doing one thing at a time can help to prevent from becoming overwhelmed

• Sometimes there is no perfect answer but be prepared to pivot when your views change

Check out Vic's website

January Digital

Follow Vic!

• Instagram

• LinkedIn

• Twitter

• Facebook

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.

Transcription

Vic Drabicky:
... a lot of panic and, holy cow, what are we going to do? I got a whole lot more gray hairs and a whole lot less sleep as we navigated through that.

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:
Happy January, everyone. In this case, January Digital. The marketing agency was named in honor of the month that celebrates new beginnings for so many of us, including its founder, Vic Drabicky. Love his story, and you will too. Such inspiration for the new year.

Bobbi Rebell:
Welcome, everyone. New listeners, so glad you're here. Welcome back to our regulars. Episodes are short so you can stack them back to back for however much time you have to spend with us. And if you like what we're doing, tell a friend and DM us your feedback. I am @bobbirebell1 on Instagram, bobbirebell on Twitter, and you can email us at hello@financialgrownup.com.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right. Get ready to say hello to our guest, Vic Drabicky. He and his company, January Digital, have worked with amazing brands. Think Fenty by Rihanna, Diane von Furstenberg, Oscar de la Renta, Vineyard Vines, and Kendra Scott. But January Digital's first year was rocky because they didn't invest enough in themselves. Big lessons here, and Vic's tip at the end about how companies and people can get attention on social media without hiring a big company like January Digital is pure gold.

Bobbi Rebell:
Listen to this man. Here is January Digital's Vic Drabicky.

Bobbi Rebell:
Hey, Vic Drabicky. You're a financial grownup. Welcome to the podcast.

Vic Drabicky:
Thank you very much. Thanks for having me.

Bobbi Rebell:
Congratulations on the success of your digital marketing company, January Digital. By the way this is airing of course in January, so it's perfect timing. Tell us quickly about the name.

Vic Drabicky:
Yeah. So we are a full frontal digital agency. What that means is brands, primarily luxury brands and beauty brands, come to us and say, "Look I've got this money and I need to advertise my brand digitally. I don't know how to do it. Can you do it for me?" And that's everything from working with folks like Vogue and influencers all the way down to the tactical paid search and SEO and sort of the nerdy parts of digital marketing as well. So kind of top to bottom.

Bobbi Rebell:
Where did the name January Digital come from? I mean, digital makes sense. But why January?

Vic Drabicky:
January 1st, if you're poor you're going to be rich. If you're fat your going to be thin. You can do absolutely anything in January. So that theme of renewal and rebirth was really important for me, and important for us in the way that we approach things for our company. It's different than the traditional way too, so that's how it kind of fits together.

Bobbi Rebell:
And also a perfect transition to your money story that you brought, because it has to do with the birth of the company. Which of course you were ambitious, but you were also very conservative to the point where it came to bite you. Tell us your money story, Vic.

Vic Drabicky:
Yeah, absolutely. Everybody that knows me knows I tend to be fiscally conservative. I mean, some would say cheap. I think very calculated. But what happened is we were very lucky early on and our company grew really fast. We went from something like nine people to 32 or 33 over the course of just a couple months. Which was phenomenal and great, but I still had the mindset of, okay, let me make sure that I conserve the profit that we have. Because I started the company with no venture capital, not even a loan. So it was right out of my bank account, which was relatively small.

Bobbi Rebell:
So you were paying these people, I mean, you had to hit payroll every month on your bank account.

Vic Drabicky:
Exactly right.

Bobbi Rebell:
I'd be pretty careful with that money then.

Vic Drabicky:
Well, right, and that's what you would think, right? This is my money. If I pay these people too much or hire too much, I don't get paid. And then, well, you know, that affects my family and my rent and my kids and all of those sorts of things. And so I took this really conservative approach, even when we were growing really quickly. And what that led me to was hiring folks who tended to be probably a little bit younger and a little bit cheaper. And I was probably a little bit arrogant, thinking, you know what, I've done enough of this; I can figure it out. I can teach them all how to do this and I can be a great leader.

Vic Drabicky:
But when ended up happening in the end is I underinvested in leadership. And because of that, the people that were on my staff all of a sudden, the 30-something people were looking towards me and some of them weren't that happy. And some of them weren't great hires. And that led to our work product being a little meh at times. And then clients felt that. And the year following that extensive growth is where we actually saw the hardest quarter ever, where we had clients and people leave at a rate that we've never seen ever in the history of our company.

Bobbi Rebell:
So you actually lost a big client. What was that discussion like when they pulled the plug?

Vic Drabicky:
Well, a lot of panic and, holy cow, what are we going to do? And by that time I was lucky enough to have added a couple people to my executive team around me who were accepting of my panic. But also did a great job of sitting down and going, okay, listen, we have been conservative for this long so we have a little bit to fall back on. And I have a great board member from the financial field who helped make sure we secured rainy day funding and things like that just in case something happened.

Vic Drabicky:
So by that point we were okay and we could get through. I got a whole lot more gray hairs and a whole lot less sleep as we navigated through that. But with the help of those guys, we were able to get through it. We were able to stop and say, okay, clearly identify what the problem was: not enough leadership, not enough skill. Let's put together a plan and put together a calculated risk on where we're going to invest against those. And we know that if we're right, that this sort of downturn ... we're only going to really feel the hurt from this for the next quarter or quarter and a half. So if we have this right, then this is a short-term thing when you compare it to the life of a company.

Vic Drabicky:
So for us, we were able to make those decisions. We were able to hold on and stick together. And I'll say that since then, our company has grown at a rate much faster than it originally had, and we've invested in right leadership. And so now our retention rates both for employees and clients are at all-time highs. Our profit margin has steadily increased quarter over quarter over quarter for a year and a half straight. So that investment that we ended up making at that time in leadership, which corrected our original mistake, has really paid off for us.

Bobbi Rebell:
So what is your takeaway that you would offer to the listeners so that they could apply this to their businesses, but also to their lives when it comes to investing? Because we do want to be careful with our money.

Vic Drabicky:
Absolutely. So for me it's ... the saying that we've coined is, pinching pennies is fine, but you better pinch the right ones. The idea is is that a lot of people look at finances and expenses on a sheet and say: where can I make sure my costs stay in line? But what people rarely do is look at it and go: what investment yields me the highest return?

Vic Drabicky:
And the reason I think most people do that is the first one is easy. You put it on a spreadsheet and you go, oh, my people cost me $10, my office costs me 2 ... unless you're in New York then it costs 8 ... and people look at this and that's a very easy thing to move around. But understanding what the profit you're going to get from that investment is much harder and much more nebulous.

Vic Drabicky:
So instead, if you're able to take that spreadsheet and still have it ... add an extra column in the end that goes, okay if I spend these $10 on these people, I'm going to make 20. If I spend this $8 on technology, I'm going to make 22. Okay, that might actually be the better one. So as long as you have that end goal next to it, it allows you to ensure you're pinching the right pennies.

Bobbi Rebell:
But if you're being honest with yourself, Vic, looking back, do you think that as a startup entrepreneur, self-funding, which is huge, could you have, even now looking back, really stomached hiring expensive people? It's hard to really do, right?

Vic Drabicky:
Yeah. It's extremely hard to do. You know, I think one of the things that's great about not having funding is you don't owe anybody any growth. And so when you don't owe anybody growth, you don't have to take on a deal that maybe your people don't like or maybe you don't like just to hit your growth goals. You can take on things that are really true to the mission of what you want, or what you want to accomplish. And so if that mission of what you want to accomplish is a really good one, then not having that funding allows you to stay true to that and you'll still eventually succeed.

Vic Drabicky:
So there's that side. But on the other side of it, again, having the risk of my bank account being zero if things went bad is an awfully hefty risk. So I still haven't figured out exactly if I would have changed it or not, but I'm very happy to be where we are now.

Bobbi Rebell:
Fair enough. All right. Let's talk about your everyday money tip. Because this is something that is relatable to so many people but yet we don't do. Go for it.

Vic Drabicky:
Yeah. Plan your work, work your plan. Finances more than almost any other part of your business, I think, is something that you have to have a plan around. You absolutely have to sit down, write out what you want to accomplish, write out what it takes, write out what the costs are, all the cost centers, all of those sorts of things. You have to do that. Once you have that plan down, then you work against that.

Vic Drabicky:
Inevitably, what you'll find out is that your plan on day one is slightly outdated on day two, and is really outdated by day 365. But what happens is if you have that plan and you're constantly working against it and you tweak, versus having no plan and trying to resolve everything as it comes out, you're going to be significantly more successful. This works both at home and in the office.

Vic Drabicky:
In the office we have something that we run. We always have our plan for the entire year, then we have our forecast which shows what our trend is, and we have our actuals. And we always keep the plan steady; we never touch it. January 1st it's set in stone. We don't touch it. The forecast we adjust, and obviously the actuals we put in each month.

Vic Drabicky:
But I actually do the same thing at home. I'm very lucky to have married a very talented woman who owns an interior design firm. The great thing about that is she's extremely talented; the bad thing about that means our house is under construction every day for the entire year. It's sort of running on the fly, but what we do is at the beginning of the year we sit down and go, here are all the projects we want to get done for this year. Let's write them down then we can start prioritizing against them, and then we can start figuring out which ones we actually can accomplish, which ones we can't.

Bobbi Rebell:
Let's talk a little bit more about January Digital and the work that you do there. Explain to me, what is the challenge? Because it's kind of a moving target, digital marketing. And you work with some brands that have ... some are newer brands, some are older brands. Like you work with David's Bridal; that's got to be challenging. You work with Kendra Scott, one of my favorite jewelry lines. Tell me more.

Vic Drabicky:
Yeah, so I mean, it definitely is. Our primary focus is on retail, luxury, and beauty. So most of our clients fit within that. Not all of them. David's Bridal being a good example of one that, you know, from the outside you might look at it and go, okay, that's an interesting brand but it doesn't sound near as sexy as working with Tory Burch or J.Crew or-

Bobbi Rebell:
Exactly. So how do you do that? Right.

Vic Drabicky:
What I think is great about what we've been able to do is that we are very good at making sure what we want to accomplish with our clients aligns very well with what they want us to accomplish for them. That sounds very simplistic, but I think a lot of times clients look at agencies and think of them as this mysterious entity over there that they're going to kick work to, and every year they're just going to [inaudible 00:11:16] to make sure that their fees go down. And we're very clear going in to people saying, no, that's not what we want. And we as an agency are going to invest in you. We're going to put people in your offices to make sure we know you and your brand and everything you want to accomplish.

Vic Drabicky:
And what that does is that really aligns both of us not as two separate entities but as one team trying to accomplish things. And whenever you have that as your base, it doesn't matter if you're selling dresses or jewelry. When you have that at your core, your opportunity to succeed is significantly higher. And that's what we've seen. And that's why our client retention rate is north of 90 percent versus the industry average, which is below 70 percent.

Bobbi Rebell:
So if you were starting out as an entrepreneur in general, not someone that is a digital marketing agency, but if you're just trying to get attention online, get your brand noticed, do you have any tips for people that aren't at the level where they can hire an agency?

Vic Drabicky:
I still think one of the more underused techniques is to use LinkedIn to advertise your business. You can go in and very quickly advertise against prospects that you want to talk to. You can very quickly advertise against audiences, those sorts of things. And if you have truly valuable content that you want to share, it's a really cheap, easy way to go in and start being very ... test the waters to see how your message is resonating.

Vic Drabicky:
For those that are not in a service industry but maybe you're selling a product, maybe you're a jeweler, or whatever it might be. What I always tell people is start small and then iterate really quickly. There are sort of the basics of digital marketing that always start with Google search, then you can move on to Facebook. But just do one piece at a time.

Vic Drabicky:
If you can do one piece at a time and figure out how to do it well, what happens is it becomes very predictable. And so now all of a sudden every morning when you wake up, you know Google's going to make you $10 and Facebook is going to make you 2. Okay so if your goal for the day was only to make $15, you don't have to worry about those 12. You only have to worry about selling the last 3. And that simplifies [inaudible 00:13:07] problems down and allows you to focus on the areas that you need to solve versus the ones that are consistent and will deliver every day.

Bobbi Rebell:
Such valuable advice. Thank you so much. Okay, now that you have a website, tell us where we can go and where we can follow January Digital and you on social.

Vic Drabicky:
Sure. januarydigital.com is the website. Please don't judge us too much; while we think it looks great, we still have a lot of work to do. And then, quite honestly, we do a ton on LinkedIn. I try to post relatively regularly on LinkedIn. Our company does as well. We include content that everyone from our newest employees who are just out of school all the way up to people who have been here six, seven years, we allow them to post content quite a bit that we find valuable. And we share it all pretty openly too, so ... Those are the areas that I think we're probably most active. Obviously we're still on Facebook and things like that too. But that's probably the best area to get to us.

Bobbi Rebell:
Thank you, Vic. This was great.

Vic Drabicky:
Absolutely. I appreciate you having me. And congratulations on all your success as well.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right, my friends. Let's get right to it. Financial grownup tip number one. Focus. I get overwhelmed by all the things I want to learn, and Vic makes a great point about learning about new things but maybe focus on one thing at a time. I'm going to take that advice myself.

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial grownup tip number two. There is no right answer when you're starting a new venture, personal or business. So be prepared to pivot. Vic knows, looking back, that he aimed too low in his hiring. But also admits that his reason for doing so made sense at the time. And he still sees why they made sense, even in retrospect. So in life and in business, part of being a financial grownup is accepting that sometimes there is no perfect answer. Let's say Vic had stretched and had hired more expensive and more experienced people from the get-go; that also had risks. He did what he thought was best at the time and then when it wasn't, he course-corrected.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right. Thanks everyone for joining us. If you like the podcast and enjoy it, don't forget to subscribe. And we really appreciate ratings and reviews on Apple Podcasts or anywhere. All feedback is good. And big thanks to January Digital's Vic Drabicky for helping us all 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.

When Brandless Co-Founder and CEO Tina Sharkey turned 30, she  didn’t want a birthday party- she just wanted the cake. Specifically a photograph of a walking birthday cake with legs that was by artist Laurie Simmons. Little did she know the significant role that work would play in her life. 

In Tina’s money story you will learn: 

-How Tina was able to re-direct her mom's budget for a birthday party to a work of art she had been eyeing

-Why the art meant so much to Tina

-The reason art is both a passion and an investment for Tina

-How she applies her art-buying philosophy to her entrepreneurial ventures

-What inspired Tina to start collecting art as a teenager

-How the art now has multi-generational significance

In Tina’s money lesson you will learn:

-The importance of commemorating milestones in life

-Creative ways to marking important moments including crowdsourcing

-Why she believes investing in significant items will have long term impact

In Tina’s money tip you will learn:

-Her grandmothers strategy for getting discounts, when things are not on sale

-The specific things tina’s grandmother would say

-Tina’s philosophy of never being afraid to ask

-How to get online discounts, even when you are in a store

-The new way Brandless is offering free credits to it’s consumers

In my take you will learn:

-Techniques to re-direct sincere, well intentioned gifts that miss the mark just like Tina did

-What to do if you are giving a gift and don’t know what to get someone

-The value of giving a memorable gift that will hold the test of time

-Why we should re-think the value of the brands we buy

EPISODE LINKS:

Learn more about Brandless on their website: Brandless.com

Follow Tina and Brandless!

Instagram: @tinasharkey @brandlesslife

Twitter @Tinasharkey @brandless

Facebook: Tina Sharkey  Brandlesslife

 

Here is a link to the fabulous birthday cake photo Tina bought!

Learn more about Laurie Simmons http://www.lauriesimmons.net/

As Tina mentioned, her art hangs at museums including Moma 

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.

Transcription

Bobbi Rebell:
Support for Financial Grownup with Bobbi Rebell. The following message come from TransferWise, the cheaper way to send money abroad built by the brands behind Skype, TransferWise takes a machete to the hefty fees that come with sending money abroad, so don't get stung by a bad exchange rate or sneaky fees, join the 2 million people who are already saving with TransferWise. Test it out for free at TransferWise.com/podcast, or download the app, it is the wise way to send money.

Tina Sharkey:
That piece of art has since appreciated tremendously in value, probably 100 times, in fact, I even found out that that photograph is now hanging in MoMA. All the art that I've ever bought have been appreciated tremendously in value, and I've only bought things that I thought were real investment pieces.

Bobbi Rebell:
You're listening to Financial Grownup with me, certified financial planner Bobbi Rebell. Author of How to Be a Financial Grownup. 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:
That was Brandless CEO Tina Sharkey talking about a piece of art that has been very meaningful in her life and not just because its financial value has literally skyrocketed as in it's in museums, people. But first some quick housekeeping notes before we get to Tina's interview. First, welcome if you're joining us for the first time, and welcome back if you are returning. If you enjoy this show, please share with someone in your life that you think would also enjoy the podcast. For those of you who have spotted our video promos, want to win a custom one? Pretty easy. We are having a little experimental competition from now until July 1st, if you see them, share them on social media, share on Facebook, retweet, repost, all that good stuff. The winner of the competition will get a free custom video that could be for your business, for yourself. We're going to look at who is the most active in sharing those videos.

Bobbi Rebell:
By the way, this a very special episode, we are at episode 50, time flies. I'm so excited about this guest for this milestone show. Tina Sharkey, she heads up one of the most buzzed about brands out there, Brandless. So named because they take out what they call the brand tax sale, so sell everything for just $3. $3, you heard me right, they're pulling it off major retail disruption happening. Not such a surprise though, when you hear a little bit about their co-founder and CEO Tine Sharkey. She also co-founded the women's media site, iVillage. She headed up BabyCenter, so much more. Here is Tina Sharkey.

Bobbi Rebell:
Hey, Tina Sharkey, you're a financial grownup. Welcome to the podcast.

Tina Sharkey:
I'm so psyched to be here. Thank you for having me.

Bobbi Rebell:
You are the head of one of my favorite new companies, Brandless named. You have so many accolades. Ad Age startup of the year, Fast Company Most Innovative Company of the Year, I mean, we could basically spend the whole podcast talking about how loved your new company is. Tell us a little bit about what makes Brandless so special.

Tina Sharkey:
I think it probably, just starting with the name. I think the name definitely catches people off guard because they think "Wait, are you anti-brand? Are you not a brand?" I'm like "Wait a second, we are unapologetically a brand." We're just reimagining what it means to be one, one that's built in total collaboration with the community that we serve. One that its core belief system is about scaling kindness. One that's all about truce and trust and transparency, and most importantly, we're hoping people will live more and brand less. At Brandless, everything that we make at Brandless.com is non-GMO food, mostly organic, vegan, gluten free, clean beauty, EPA Safer Choice certified cleaning. Everything that we sell at Brandless is $3, even in our first 10 months of life, we feel like we're really making a dent in democratizing access to better stuff at fair prices, and we live by the belief system that who says better needs to cost more? We want to make better everything for everyone. That's what we do at Brandless.com, and we're having a great time doing it.

Bobbi Rebell:
I can't believe it's only been 10 months, I feel like it's already changed our culture so much. All right. Speaking of culture, art, let's talk about art, because that has to do with your money story.

Tina Sharkey:
It does. I am not an artist, but I definitely see the world in pictures. There's an expression in French called [foreign language 00:04:37], and [foreign language 00:04:39] means struck by lightning, but the French interpretation of that is like love at first sight. When you say to someone in French, like "I had a [foreign language 00:04:47]," it means you feel in love with someone at first sight. That's how I've always admired art, and loved art, and found art, was that, I admire a lot of art, but there's times when it's like a [foreign language 00:04:58], where I feel like "Oh my goodness, that is like needs to be in my life." Because, at the end of the day, we don't ever really own art, you just take care of it while you get to have it, because it should withstand the test of time. I've been collecting art with every saved penny, nickel and dime since I'm a teenager.

Bobbi Rebell:
You wanted to share the story of your first big piece of art, which you got because you were actually, your mom was going to throw a party for you, tell us the story.

Tina Sharkey:
Yeah, yeah. When I was turning 30, my mom wanted to make a special party for me. I said "You know what, mom? That's so kind and generous of you. I love that. But what I really want is I have my eye on this piece of art, and there's no way I can afford it. If you wouldn't mind, maybe we could just do a small like family dinner or something, whatever budget that you were going to spend on the party, if you would help me towards this piece of art, then it would be something that I could have forever." It was actually a photograph of a walking birthday cake, it's like that giant, giant birthday cake on legs, by the artist Laurie Simmons. It's like a birthday present, because I'll have my birthday every day by looking at this photograph.

Bobbi Rebell:
Oh, my gosh. I love it.

Tina Sharkey:
That was many years ago. That piece of art has since probably 100 times in value. In fact, I even found out that that photograph is now hanging in MoMA.

Bobbi Rebell:
Wow. It's something that you love, and it ended up being an investment as well.

Tina Sharkey:
Yes. All the art that I've ever bought, not that I've sold any. Actually, that's not true, I think I've sold two pieces. But all the art that I've ever bought have been appreciated tremendously in value. I've only bought things that I thought were real investment pieces.

Bobbi Rebell:
Do you approach art as an investment first or purely from love? Or do they naturally go hand-in-hand with you?

Tina Sharkey:
I think it's that [foreign language 00:06:51]. It's like first it's about love, and really, really feeling like "Oh my goodness. I can't sleep." Like art you don't buy like shoes or clothes, it's not something you just make an instant decision on, it's something that's considered, because you have to live with it for the rest of your life, or you know, that's the idea. When I first see it, and then I think about it, I think about how I would live with it, how would it be part of my own family legacy, my own family history. That particular one, the story is even deeper in that my son was late in his verbal skills, he was sort of a running toddler before he was really forming sentences. But the only two words that he had were happy birthday.

Tina Sharkey:
Happy birthday meant everything at that time. This photograph has so much meaning to me, because it was a picture of a birthday cake. Charlie was saying happy birthday all the time, and my mom gave me the money that she was going to spend on my birthday party, and I put this photograph in my will to give to my son, because it always reminded me that his first two words were happy birthday.

Bobbi Rebell:
What is the takeaway for the listeners. How can they apply this to their own lives?

Tina Sharkey:
I think the way to apply to your own life, not everybody loves art, not everybody wants to invest in art, not everybody has the home, or the walls, or wants to be in that way, but thinking about when there is a milestone in your life that you want commemorate, how can you use that milestone to really do something that either is an experience, or something that you can both love and express your joy, but also have something that can withstand the test of time. Not just be like if you're going to have that great bottle of champagne or whatever it is. Do you really want that or would you like something that you can have forever, for a longer period of time? Thinking about milestones and passion, but also investments and time, because those things can withstand the test of time.

Tina Sharkey:
Taking that longer term view and commemorating those milestones with savings, or with opportunities, or with crowdsourcing a gift rather than having everybody get you something small, maybe you put it in a pool together to invest in something that's really going to be something that you're going to have for a long, long time to come.

Bobbi Rebell:
What a great idea. You also have a great idea that I totally buy into for your money tip that you're going to share.

Tina Sharkey:
This is great. My grandmother, we called her the goddess of goodness, and she was seriously the nicest person you ever met in your whole life. But, she did not believe in paying retail. Wherever she went, it didn't matter whether it was the finest boutique on Madison Avenue, or TJ Maxx, or Target, she would always say "Is this in line for reduction?" I swear to you, nine out of 10 times, she would always get like a 10% discount, or they said "Oh, we have a sale coming up, why don't we'll give you the sale price now." Or "We'll let you know when this goes on sale." Or "You know what? We're happy to get that, given that you're buying two things, we'll give you the second one at a discount."

Tina Sharkey:
The money tip there is never be afraid to ask. There is no harm in asking. Likely, there is a discount to be had. One of the tips that my grandmother didn't know that I now use, which is very much in line with that, is that many physical retail stores also have catalogs or also have websites. Often, when you sign up at their websites, they'll say "If you sign up and give us your email address, we'll give you 10% off," or something like that. You can say to them in the retail store "Do you offer that discount upon signing up for your email on your website?" If they say yes, then you can often say "Would you mind applying that discount if I do that here, right now?" They often will give you that right there at the retail store.

Bobbi Rebell:
So smart. Another way to save money is something happening at Brandless right now. You have exciting stuff coming up, tell us.

Tina Sharkey:
We do. We do. Just less than a year into our life, we are just recently rolling out our referral program. If you have an account on Brandless, which costs nothing to set up, and you share Brandless with friends and the discrete code that you can get in your account page, you can give a friend a $6-credit towards building their Brandless box. When they use it, you get a $6-credit to building your next Brandless box. That referral, when you think about all the people in your network, and the fact that everyone deserves to have better and everyone deserves to have better fair prices, you can give them a running start, and for every friend that uses it, that gives you more Brandless dollars to use towards your Brandless box.

Bobbi Rebell:
Basically, free money. Thank you, Tina. Tell us more about where people can find out more about you and of course about Brandless.com, but also you.

Tina Sharkey:
If you want to find out about me, you can follow me on Twitter @TinaSharkey, you can follow me on Instagram @tinasharkey, you can follow me on Facebook, but I would say the most important thing, because it's not about me, is really go to Brandless.com and tell us about you, join our communities at Brandless on Facebook, join our community and follow us @Brandlesslife on Instagram, because it's not about us, it's really about you, and we want to highlight and spotlight and share the incredible stories of the awesome people in our community. If you have recipes you want to share, if you have stories you want to share, if there's a favorite Brandless product that you love, or if there's a product you'd like to see that you think should be Brandless, let us know.

Bobbi Rebell:
Great. I cannot recommend the website highly enough, it's very interactive, there's so much great content there. You will end up enjoying yourself spending lots of time there, and time well spent. Thank you so much, Tina Sharkey, this has been wonderful.

Tina Sharkey:
Thanks, Bobbi, have the best day.

Bobbi Rebell:
Okay, friends. That interview let me feeling pretty empowered as a consumer, and excited about the changes happening in the retail landscape. But here's my take on what Tina had to say about her experiences. Financial Grownup tip number one, we all have so many well-intentioned gifts, they're the things we just don't want, the gift-giver was really sincere, and we don't want to return them, or we give them for of course a lot of reasons, mainly you just feel bad about it, if you feel ungrateful, but you don't want it, and then it sits in your house forever. The truth is, when I give a gift, and I think when most people give gifts, they want it to be something that the receiver really wants. We don't want to miss the mark.

Bobbi Rebell:
Sometimes, it pays to be a little bit creative. This is just one idea, it can be tricky, but something to think about. One of my favorite presents ever is a very special Judith Ripka ring that my husband got for me when we were first dating. He was the one that picked it out, he went to the store, he made the choice, it was on him. However, that was after one of my friends discretely let him know the kinds of things that I would really like. He had some guidance. Because of that, he was able to get something that I just absolutely love and it's just perfect.

Bobbi Rebell:
Tina's mom was going to spend a whole lot of money on a party that frankly Tina just wasn't that into, what a waste of money that would've been. Thankfully, Tina spoke up. In the end, she was able to get a piece of art that she loved. It reminds her of her mother, it reminds her of that birthday, it has wonderful associations, it even is multi-generational now because of the way that her son has interacted with it. Even though she doesn't plan to sell it, the reality is she could, and she says it's gone up maybe 100 times in value. It was also a good investment. Of course, had she had the party, the money would've gone poof for something, again, she didn't really want.

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup tip number two. Rethink how much you're paying just to buy brand names. Tina of course does have an interest in pointing this out, it is totally true, and we're talking about that many of us mindlessly buy brand names. Think of things like medication where we have reservations about buying the generic version, which by law, literally has to have the same ingredients, and yet we, myself included, find ourselves often paying up for brand names, especially everyday household goods. We love our brands. But, just like Tina redirected her birthday party money, maybe think about it this way, if you redirect the money that you would save by avoiding paying the brand tax, and add that all up, think about what you could now afford. Just a reminder, I will always tell you if I have any affiliation, any ties to a company. I have no financial affiliation or ties to Brandless, I'm just a fan.

Bobbi Rebell:
Also, sticking to the birthday theme, I feel like we're celebrating a birthday here, the show turning 50 episodes. I can't begin to thank all of you for your support. Time goes so fast. Anyway, to learn more about the show, go to BobbiRebell.com/financialgrownuppodcast. You can also sign up for our newsletter, we don't send it out very often. I believe there's just too much email out there, so I try to be careful with it. But when we do send it, we make it meaningful. Hopefully you believe it's worth your time and enjoy it.

Bobbi Rebell:
Continue to keep in touch. I am on Twitter @bobbirebell, on Instagram @bobbirebell1, you can also DM me there, feedback, suggestions for the show, all that good stuff. On Facebook, my page is Bobbi Rebell. If you like the show, please take a moment to rate and review on Apple Podcast. Tina Sharkey is a total boss. I don't know about you, but I feel like I'm going to see little legs behind birthday cakes for a little while. Imagining it, I can't get the image out of my head. She emailed me a copy of the photo, so I'm going to try to paste that into the show notes. I don't know if it'll work, but I'm going to try ... I think it'll work. I'm going to try. You will get a kick out of the picture, if not, I'll certainly find a way to send a link so that you guys can see the image that she is talking about. Thank you, Tina Sharkey from Brandless for helping us all 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.

Time management expert Laura Vanderkam on how she and her husband decided to pay it forward to free up time to create available time for career and business growth.  Plus behind the scenes info on how she wrote her latest bestseller “Off The Clock” and a sneak peak at her next project. 

In Laura’s money story you will learn:

-Why it has taken Laura so long to figure out the right childcare setup

-How she balances being a frugal person with the reality of her childcare needs

-The problems that emerged as her speaking and writing career began to gain more traction

-How working from home made her childcare issues more complicated

-The specific things she changed when she hired a new nanny

-Why she chose a certain schedule and the specific benefits that provided

-Specific examples of work situations where her new childcare set up allowed her to earn more money

 

In Laura’s money lesson you will learn:

-The reason Laura considers childcare an investment in your earning potential, even if you pay for it when you aren’t technically working

-The importance of going to what she called the “extra stuff’ like networking events and conferences

-Why you should sometimes pay for an extra half an hour of childcare, and what to do with that time

-The relevance of Serena Williams to the conversation and what we can learn from her recent experience missing a major milestone in her child’s life. 

In Laura’s every day money tip you will learn:

-Why handwritten notes are important in business

-How Laura has used them to increase her connection with friends and business associates

-How Laura uses that habit to connect on a personal level with her readers and fans. 

 

In My Take you will learn:

-How to use money to solve productivity challenges

-A specific way Harry Potter author JK Rowling used this strategy

-Apps and other options that can help you execute the same strategy as JK Rowling

-Why some people are late all the time

-How to not be late

We also talk about:

Laura’s new book “Off The Clock” and how she conducted the exclusive research

The importance of time perception

Laura’s Ted Talk and how we can integrate those lessons into time choices

Laura’s podcast with Sarah Hart  Unger “Best of Both Worlds” 

Her next project Juliet’s school of possibility which is a fable about Time Management

Episode Links

Learn more about Laura at her website LauraVanderkam.com

Check out her podcast “Best of Both Worlds” 

Get Laura’s book “Off The Clock!”

 

Follow Laura!

Twitter @lvanderkam

Facebook LauraVanderkamAuthor

Instagram lvanderkam

LinkedIn Laura Vanderkam

 

 

Apps for last minute discount hotels

hoteltonight.com

OneNight.com

Hotelquickly.com

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.

Transcription

Laura Vanderkam:
We had a lot of snow. We could see that this huge snow system was coming into Pennsylvania. My client out in Michigan who they have this big event booked around me said, "Well, could you come out early?" The idea of being a working mom of four kids who could like suddenly go 24 hours earlier to an event overnight even though my husband was also out of town, I could do it. I could just say yes.

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. So that was time management expert and prolific writer, Laura Vanderkam. Her latest book is Off The Clock, which we're going to talk about. A special welcome to our new listeners and, of course, returning ones. As you guys know, we keep it short because I'm a big believer in delivering value for your time. You can always earn more money but time is priceless and we appreciate the time that you spend with us. So we aim for about 15 minutes but you can stack a few episodes together. We do three a week. So make it work for your life. Hit subscribe, put your settings to automatically download, so you're going to have each episode without having to do any work. Go for the easy.

Bobbi Rebell:
Let's talk about time management. So interesting behind the scenes fact ... financial grownup fact here. I came very prepared for this interview with Laura Vanderkam. I was ready to be super efficient and respectful of her time but, in the true spirit of her latest book, Off The Clock, she was not in a hurry at all and, in fact, she said she had all the time in the world. How does she do that? Listen to the interview and then make the time to read her book. The time spent will literally pay for itself. Here is Off The Clock author, Laura Vanderkam.

Bobbi Rebell:
Laura Vanderkam, you're a financial grownup. Welcome to the podcast.

Laura Vanderkam:
Thank you for having me.

Bobbi Rebell:
Congratulations on your latest book. It's called, Off The Clock, Feel Less Busy While Getting More Done. I can't wait to see what your next book's going to be. Maybe I'll get a teaser out of you. What are you working on?

Laura Vanderkam:
Actually, my next book will be out in March 2019, and it's a time management staple, it's called, Juliet's School of Possibility. So, yeah, there you go.

Bobbi Rebell:
I love that.

Laura Vanderkam:
The commercial for the next one.

Bobbi Rebell:
Yes, absolutely. But, in the meantime, once we finish all of your books, we also can listen to your podcast, Best of Both Worlds, which is with Sarah Hart Unger, and that's also one of my new obsessions.

Laura Vanderkam:
Yeah, we really do believe that work and family can work together, that people can succeed at both and love both. And so, that's what the podcast covers.

Bobbi Rebell:
And one thing that you guys discuss a lot beyond just time management, but time management as it pertains to kids and getting work done, and that brings us to your money story.

Laura Vanderkam:
Like many parents, it has taken me a long time to sort of figure out what the right childcare setup truly is. And, being a kind of frugal person, I didn't want to spend all that much. So it was always trying to get by on less than I probably needed for me and my husband, and you know, he travels and works long hours, and I was certainly starting to as my speaking career was starting to grow. And so, you know, it was figuring out, well, what kind of childcare do I need? And I'd always spend, you know, normal work hours, maybe eight to five. I mean, I worked from home, certainly I should be able to do that. But the problem is, we need like overnight coverage and we wouldn't have it because people would have other plans cause, hey, we're leaving at five. They'd have other things they were doing in the evening. You know, it was just difficult to make it work.

Laura Vanderkam:
So, when we were hiring a new nanny about two years ago, we decided that, well, we truly do need more hours. Let's go ahead and make the investment in doing it. And so, we hired somebody who's initial schedule was to work eight to eight, Monday through Thursday. And the upside of doing eight to eight, it's only 48 hours, right? So it's not excessive.

Bobbi Rebell:
So were you cutting out Fridays?

Laura Vanderkam:
Well, we had ... at the time there was another person working on Fridays for part-time. You know, that was the idea. It was like, you're going to have 60 hours of care, split it among two people because you don't burn one person out.

Bobbi Rebell:
Well, then, you also have a backup, right?

Laura Vanderkam:
We do have a backup. Right. Yeah. So you have one full-time, one part-time. So the upside of having the evenings, I could go to networking events, like even if my husband was working late. Or, if I needed to be somewhere, I wasn't racing back and apologizing for being late. We had the evening covered. We had an extra driver for school stuff, for activities.

Bobbi Rebell:
Cause you have four kids by the way.

Laura Vanderkam:
Cause I have four small children. But the real upside has turned out to be that, when you hire someone to work eight to eight, they tend not to book stuff in the evening. So then, arranging for them to stay overnight, and we also hired somebody who was willing to do that. It was basically, pay me overtime I'll do it. Meant that there wasn't always this scrambling thing because it was relatively easy to just get that extra hours in there. And so, yes, it's expensive to have a lot of childcare and to have the availability of overnight coverage, you know, paying overtime for that. But, you know, I really see moments where it paid off.

Laura Vanderkam:
This spring, for instance, I was traveling a lot. I mean, I was giving one or two speeches a week that required travel, we had a lot of snow. One day in early March we could see that this huge snow system was coming into Pennsylvania. My client out in Michigan, who, you know, they have this big event booked around me, said, "Well, could you come out early?" You know, the idea of being a working mom of four kids who could like suddenly go 24 hours earlier to an event overnight even though my husband was also out of town, I could do it. Like I could just say yes. And that's what it has been enabling me to get like bigger ticket speaking jobs, ones that are paying more than I certainly would've imagined I could've gotten five, six years ago. And I think it's because I feel like I know I can say yes.

Laura Vanderkam:
But, you know, it's really an investment in your earning potential. And, if you're always trying to get by on less childcare than you need, then you won't say yes to the extra stuff. You won't go to that networking opportunity. You won't go to that conference. You won't maybe stay late that one night when you know your boss is going to see it and really remember it because you're trying to race out. And, over the longterm, those things really do add up. So I really like to think of childcare more as an investment than an expense. And, if you can get your head around that idea, I think you'll really start feeling like a financial grownup.

Bobbi Rebell:
So what is the lesson for our listeners? How can they apply it to their lives?

Laura Vanderkam:
Well, I think, take an honest assessment of what amount of childcare you have and, if possibly increasing that by a little bit would make your life a lot easier, less stressful, or enable you to pursue professional opportunities that you haven't so far. So it could be maybe an investment in life satisfaction. Maybe pay the person for an extra half hour after you get home, so you don't immediately have to race into serving everyone, making dinner, while you also have kids jumping on you cause they haven't seen you all day. Maybe that person could start dinner while you deal with the kids, right, and have some time with them.

Laura Vanderkam:
Or maybe it's just that, you know, occasionally you'd like to get stuff done a little bit later instead of racing out to make a 5 p.m. daycare pickup. Maybe you can arrange for an evening sitter just like one day a week, right? And that person covers maybe five to eight, and you can get stuff done when the office is quiet, or people see you be there late, or you go to networking events. And, you know, then you've made this investment and it will probably pay off over time.

Bobbi Rebell:
And I love that you point out those intangible things, like going to a networking event because sometimes people view that as social, but it's social, but it's really also an investment in your career to be out there with your peers. I know Serena Williams recently missed a big milestone because she was training and it can happen to any mom, no matter what. So, you can't let those hold you back from doing things that might benefit your career.

Laura Vanderkam:
SO I think this idea like rearranging your whole life to not miss anything, it's never going to happen. And, if you have more than one kid, you'll miss some stuff cause you're at the other kids stuff. And, you know, people adjust, they grow up, they learn the universe does not revolve them. It's all good.

Bobbi Rebell:
Exactly.

Laura Vanderkam:
Yeah, you know. So, it's worth doing a little bit extra sometimes.

Bobbi Rebell:
Yes. And there are other ways to bond with people outside of your family, bond with people regarding work in your professional endeavors, and that brings us to your everyday money tip, which is just genius, and I got to experience myself.

Laura Vanderkam:
Yeah. Well, this doesn't seem like a money tip but it's in line with the idea of networking and building your network, and getting to know people, and establishing these relationships, which is, send handwritten notes. This doesn't seem like a money tip but I can tell you that people are far more inclined to like you when it seems that you have bothered to establish, like put a little effort into establishing a connection with them. It's also memorable because most people don't do it.

Laura Vanderkam:
So, when I sent you my book, I included a handwritten note thanking you for your interest in it, and for being willing to take your valuable time to read it. I had a thing going on my website that I was asking people to pre-order Off The Clock, and what people did, they gave me their mailing address so I could send them a signed bookplate that they could stick in the cover when it showed up from whatever online retailer that they pre-ordered it through. You know, I'm mailing them anyway, why not send them a handwritten note? So I sent a handwritten thank you note to everybody who pre-ordered and gave me their address. And this is, you know, a lot.

Bobbi Rebell:
But you made the time because it was important to you.

Laura Vanderkam:
Because it was important. So I kept reminding myself, as I was doing it ... my hand was cramping up. I'm like, you should be so grateful that these people are willing to spend money on a product of yours sight unseen. Those are your big fans you want to connect with them, and I do want to connect with them.

Bobbi Rebell:
I just want to take another minute to talk a little bit about Off The Clock. As we mentioned, I did read it on vacation. It was great. You talk about people expand time. That was one of my favorite themes in the book. Tell us more about that theory and how people can apply it to their lives, cause that to me was the most important takeaway from this book.

Laura Vanderkam:
So, for Off The Clock, I had 900 people with full-time jobs and families track their time for a day, and then I asked them questions about how they felt about their time. So I could give people scores based on their time perception. Like did they have high time perception scores? They felt time was abundant. Or low time perception scores. They felt time was scarce, stressful, all that stuff. Compare the schedules with people who felt like they had a lot of time, people who felt they had no time.

Laura Vanderkam:
People who felt like they had the most time also spent the most time actively engaged with family and friends. So they spent the leisure time that they did have nurturing their relationships, whereas people who had the lowest time perceptions scores tended to spend their time watching TV or on social media. You know, it's not that one group had more leisure time than the other. Everyone was busy. Everyone had full-time jobs, families, but people choose to spend the time that they do have discretionary choices over in different ways. And, apparently, spending time with family and friends makes us feel very off the clock.

Bobbi Rebell:
Well said. And that's, by the way, we didn't mention your Ted Talk, which is amazing. One of the things that you point out in your Ted Talk is that, instead of just fast forwarding through commercials to save time when watching TV, you could just watch less TV. So it's pretty straight forward.

Laura Vanderkam:
The problem with writing that time management, I've seen all these articles over the years of like how to find an extra hour in the day by shaving bits of time off every day activities, and stuff like Taebo, or forward through the commercials. Save eight minutes every half hour over two hours of watching TV, you find 32 minutes to exercise. Like, come on. You're watching TV for two hours, you already had 32 minutes to exercise. Let's not fool ourselves.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right. You called us all out. Tell us where people can find out more about you and all of your different ventures, podcasts, Ted Talk, books, newsletter, all of it.

Laura Vanderkam:
Yeah, come visit my website, lauravanderekam.com. That's just my name. You can learn more about my books including Off The Clock and the podcast, Best of Both Worlds. We'd love to have some of your listeners take some of the extra commutes that they're not listening to your wonderful podcast on, and come give it a listen.

Bobbi Rebell:
Love it. Thank you so much Laura.

Laura Vanderkam:
Thank you for having me.

Bobbi Rebell:
Hey friends. There were so many great takeaways from that and from the book, Off The Clock. I'm going to give you a couple more here and, of course, you can check out the book and get even more.

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup Tip number one. Money can solve productivity problems. One of my favorite examples in the book is when Laura talks about Harry Potter author, J.K. Rowling. She was writing her seventh book, [inaudible 00:12:41]. So, by this point she had financial resources to say the least. But she couldn't get any work done in her house because the window cleaner was there, and the kids were home, and the dogs were barking. And then J.K. Rowling says in this story, a light bulb went on. I can throw money at this problem. And you know what? She decamped to a hotel to finish the draft and it worked cause she was able to focus. Money solved the problem.

Bobbi Rebell:
Now, not all of us think that we have the budget to do that. I've never done that and to me it does seem extreme on the surface. However, because of the new resources that we have and we're going to give you some ideas and apps that we have access to now, there are very reasonable hotel rooms available at the last minute in our own cities, and that is something we could potentially look into when we just need to get to a place where we can focus on getting our work done, especially when we're coming up against a big deadline. So some app examples are: Hotel Tonight, One Night, and Hotel Quickly. And you can find very cheap deals in your city very often using apps like these. I'll put the links in the show notes.

Bobbi Rebell:
If you don't have a budget, maybe you have a friend with a spare bedroom. Tell them what you're up to so they don't expect you to be social, but maybe you can use that. And, if it's just a few hours that you need, of course, you can go to a coffee shop. That's always available as a resource for many people. But another option, sometimes, is to just go to your local library and just hunker down in a quiet area there and get some work done.

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup Tip number two. Be a pessimist when deciding when to leave for important meetings or trips. Vanderkam discovered that people who are late, even though I think it's often inconsiderate or poor planning, really what it is, is they're optimists. They always remember the best scenario of getting to a place. So, if they're planning a trip that involves going to the airport, they might remember that it only took 15 minutes to get to the airport but, of course, what they don't remember is that was at, you know, 5 a.m. on a Sunday when no one else was going. Maybe this time they're going at 9 a.m. on a Monday morning and they don't factor in that it's going to take a lot longer. So, because they're not planning according to the worse case scenario, things go awry. So plan according to the worst case scenario and, you know what, maybe you'll get there early and you'll have extra time, and you can do something fun with that time.

Bobbi Rebell:
Big thanks to you for gifting this time to yourself to hopefully improve your life just a little thanks to the wonderful advice and wisdom from Laura Vanderkam. Please be in touch. Follow me on Twitter@bobbirebell, on Instagram@bobbirebell1, and on Facebook@bobbirebell, and DM me with your thoughts on the podcast. Laura Vanderkam is living a very financially grownup life. I got so much value from taking the time to read, Off The Clock, and I know you will too. So thank you Laura for helping us all 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.

Taxes are never fun but millions of Americans may pay less for 2018. David Rae CFP® joins Bobbi for a breakdown of what changes matter and specific things Financial Grownups can do to make sure they are on track for when it is time to turn in their returns this spring. 

Here are 5 tips for year end tax planning

• Max out your retirement accounts

• Set up the Right Retirement Plan for your business

• Strategically Bunch your Tax Deductions

• Consider Doner-Advised Funds

• Tax-Loss Harvesting

Wealth coach Adeola Omole got a do-over she didn’t want when she got laid off a second time- but by being financially prepared she was able to land on her feet. The author of “7 Steps to get out of Debt and Build Wealth” shares her story of how she came out stronger the second time around. 

In Adeola's money story you will learn:

• How she prepared herself for a second lay-off

• What the Super-Charged Financial Strategy is and how it helped her to pay off $70,000 in consumer debt in less than 3 years

• Why you should negotiate interest rate reductions

In Adeola’s money lesson you will learn:

• What she did to layoff proof her life

• Why debt is the only thing that holds you back from living the life you want

In Adeola's everyday money tip you will learn:

• What it means to triple-check your way to wealth and why it's important

In My Take you will learn:

• Why no ask is too great when negotiating interest rate reductions

• Why it's so important to pay attention to what's going on in your industry on an economic level

Adeola has generously sent, from Canada no less, two signed copies of her book 7 Steps To Get Out of Debt and Build Wealth to give away- all you have to do it DM me your takeaway from this episode- bobbirebell1 on instagram bobbirebell on twitter or email us at hello@financialgrownup.com

Episode Links:

Check out Adeola's website - https://www.adeolaomole.com/

Adeola's book 7 Steps to Get Out of Debt and Build Wealth

Follow Adeola!

• Instagram

• Twitter

• Facebook

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.

Transcription

Adeola Amole:
Because of my first layoff experience I actually created my entire career to layoff-proof my life. In essence, I built up my asset base so I have these rental properties that are cashflow positive, I have money coming in from my investments from the stock market. I really had already set myself up to take care of that subconsciously.

Bobbi Rebell:
You're listening to Financial Grownup with me, certified financial planner Bobbi Rebell, author of How To Be a Financial Grownup. You know what? Being a grownup is really hard, especially when it comes to money. 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've got this.

Bobbi Rebell:
Hey, financial grownups. No matter how much we talk about being ready for something like a layoff who really is? Right? For today's guest, wealth coach, author, social worker and lawyer, Adeola Amole, getting laid off for the second time still caught her off-guard even though the signs were all there.

Bobbi Rebell:
This time she was a lot better prepared and I think you are going to be very interested in what she did to layoff-proof her life. It was not just having an emergency fund, although that also matters a lot.

Bobbi Rebell:
Happy holidays to everyone and special welcome to our newest listeners. So glad you found us. We keep the episodes on the short side, about 15 minutes, with the idea that you can stack a few together to fill the time that you have to listen. Feel free to listen to a few episodes at a time if that's what works for you.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right. Let's get back to Adeola. She is also the author of a really readable book and I don't take that lightly because it is true to the title 7 Steps To Get Out of Debt and Build Wealth in that she really walks us through exactly what to do. Action steps, not just theories. She comes from experience as you will hear in our interview. Here is Adeola Amole.

Bobbi Rebell:
Hey, Adeola Amole. You are a financial grownup. Welcome to the podcast.

Adeola Amole:
Thank you for having me, Bobbi.

Bobbi Rebell:
We practiced saying your name because I am terrible at pronunciation. I just want to say for people curious about the name Adeola Amole it is of Nigerian origin. I just learned this. It means crown of wealth, which we love, so welcome.

Adeola Amole:
Well, thank you. Yeah. No. I love it.

Bobbi Rebell:
You are the author of 7 Steps To Get Out of Debt and Build Wealth. You are a money coach but by trade your background is as a lawyer and you have a graduate degree in social work. You know a lot about a lot of things.

Adeola Amole:
Well, thank you for that. I like to think that I'm a person who just wants to learn and I love learning about so many different things as my background shows. Now I'm living my passion. This wealth coaching thing is right up my alley. I also am able to still use the legal background as well as the social work background. It marries brilliantly.

Bobbi Rebell:
Let's get to your money story. It has to do with the art of the do-over. Let's call it that. Go for it.

Adeola Amole:
I got laid off and I literally had no backup plan, no clue how to do it. Long story short, I figured out a strategy. I call it the Super-Charged Financial Strategy. I figured out how to pay it all off and luckily for me [crosstalk 00:03:30]

Bobbi Rebell:
We should say you had quite a bit ... You had $70,000 in consumer debt when you suddenly had no income of your own and your husband had a smaller income. You had the larger income.

Adeola Amole:
Exactly. You are absolutely correct. $70,000 was paid off in the first three years of the plan. Just shy of three years.

Bobbi Rebell:
What is the plan? When you say the plan what is the plan?

Adeola Amole:
The Super-Charged Financial Strategy is a two-part plan. The first part of the strategy I call it the Super-Charged Debt Repayment Plan and that literally is the snowball method on super-charged. Hence, the fact that I call it the Super-Charged Plan.

Bobbi Rebell:
Because you would pay but you would also negotiate a lot with the credit card companies.

Adeola Amole:
Exactly. I would negotiate like crazy. This is where the legal background truly did pay off because I literally knew ... I setup the system for myself and I knew exactly what processes I would have to use. If I didn't get what I wanted from the rep I would just ask to speak with a manager and usually got what I wanted. I knew how to negotiate myself to as low a rate as possible.

Bobbi Rebell:
What I love about this is you at times went for the 8% or 9% but you even went for 0% sometimes. You can ask for that. It's a little bit bold, you won't always succeed, but you can ask for 0%.

Adeola Amole:
Exactly. It works. It helps you crush that debt faster.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right. You had the first layoff. You learned from the idea of not being prepared. Then life goes on, you get a new job, the recession, we move past the recession, past that 18 months of being unemployed, things are good, you now have a child, your husband is home now taking care of the child. What happens next?

Adeola Amole:
Yeah. To add onto that story we have a child but now we have two rental properties. We have money in the markets. We built up assets after having paid off the $70,000 consumer debt. Now things are looking fabulous, my husband is a stay-at-home dad. He's been with our son for four years.

Adeola Amole:
Then we get pregnant with a second child but I didn't tell my employer this because most women know this, first trimester you just stay hush hush until you go into the second trimester. Long story short, I get laid off again.

Bobbi Rebell:
Had you had any idea this was coming?

Adeola Amole:
No. Well, I shouldn't say no. What happened is I worked in an industry where it was really contingent on oil prices. Oil prices had just crashed. This was I believe last quarter of 2014. I was in a position where we got rumors as to, "Things aren't looking so good. Oil is going down." People talked about it but no one knew that it was going to happen. We had suspicions but obviously I didn't think I was going to be one of them.

Bobbi Rebell:
Do you feel looking back you had a sense of denial maybe about it?

Adeola Amole:
Absolutely. Absolutely. However, I have to tell you because of my first layoff experience I actually created my entire career to layoff-proof my life. In essence, I built up my asset base so I had these rental properties that were cashflow positive. I had money coming in from my investments from the stock market. I really had already set myself up to take care of that subconsciously.

Bobbi Rebell:
Excellent. What happens?

Adeola Amole:
Yeah. I'm laid off. My employer at the time doesn't know that I'm three months pregnant. I should have been absolutely terrified but I wasn't because, as I said, we set ourselves up. We had cashflow in properties. We had investment properties.

Adeola Amole:
My husband and I were figuring out what to do next and we had five months to think about it. Guess what? There was money to take care of everything. We had a 12 month emergency plan. It was really my financial do-over.

Bobbi Rebell:
Love that. What is your advice for our listeners? What's the takeaway here?

Adeola Amole:
The biggest takeaway is, guys, plan for these what ifs. These what ifs it's not if they're going to happen. It's when they're going to happen. It's best to just put a plan of action in place. Crush that debt. Like get it off your plate, get it off your balance sheet.

Adeola Amole:
At the end of the day, that's what's holding you back from really creating the life that you want to live. If you get that out of the way you can truly start planning where you want to go.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right. You brought with you a great everyday money tip that's something we kind of all should know but we just ... I don't do it. I totally take the short way and I'm sure I've made so many bad decisions, I know I have, because of it. Teach us.

Adeola Amole:
You're awesome. The tip that I have is triple-check your way to wealth. It's a really simple tip and it's something that you can totally use today and it means that when you're looking for any item, like any big ticket item, even a little ticket item, always at least refer to three merchants or three service providers for pricing and also for service. This is boiling down to people as well as prices. I think it matters to work with good people. I always want to work with good people. I always want to get the best prices.

Adeola Amole:
I recently had some auto body work that I had to do. I was referred to one company and when I called them ... They're a reputable company and I've heard about them so I knew that they were good ... I called the service provider and they set a price that sounded wonky to me. It was like $3800 to get this done. I literally almost lost my mind.

Adeola Amole:
I thought, "Okay, let's just call around" so I called a few other folks, got some references. Long story short, after doing the check I found an incredible company, extremely reputable, used by the best dealerships where I live, and they came up with a price that was just $1000 shy of the price so it was $2800. The people were incredible, they were extremely friendly, and because I'm a lawyer I decided I'm going to negotiate an even better rate.

Adeola Amole:
I spoke with the guy and told him, "Okay, what can we do here? I really want to go with you, I really like you guys. What more can you do for me?" Sure enough he gave me $200 less than it was originally quoted. $2600 and change. Long story short, guys, triple-check your way to wealth. That extra money now can go into my investment portfolio.

Bobbi Rebell:
What is your favorite go-to source for even finding vendors or people that you can work with? Sometimes it's really hard just to get referrals.

Adeola Amole:
It's the truth. It depends on what it is. In this instance, because it was auto body I've worked with a few companies in the past so I went to the companies I trusted. My husband and I drive Acuras and Hondas. I went to the dealerships, the Acura dealerships that I like and that we've dealt with in the past and I spoke with the guys and said, "Who would you refer?"

Adeola Amole:
They gave me some auto body shops. Then I went to the Honda dealerships, "Who would you refer?" I had a list of a bunch of them. Go to the source. If you're looking for even if it's just furniture and stuff go to the sources. Go to the people you know who have fabulous furniture or go to the companies themselves and just start talking to the people who are working there. Sometimes they'll tell you, "Don't buy it here. Go here."

Bobbi Rebell:
Is there an advantage to talking to them in real life versus just calling around or looking at an app?

Adeola Amole:
You know, I think there is. Always that human connection will get you the better referrals and then you can connect with them, right? So they're willing to give you that information. Absolutely.

Bobbi Rebell:
I think being in person makes a huge difference. Tell us more about where we can find out more about you and your book.

Adeola Amole:
Oh, absolutely. My book 7 Steps To Get Out of Debt and Build Wealth, guys, it's available everywhere. Go to my website www dot Adeola Amole dot com and there you can choose your retailer of choice because I'm on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Books A Million, Indigo, pretty much anywhere you can buy books it's available.

Bobbi Rebell:
Love it. Thank you so much. Social media, where can we follow you?

Adeola Amole:
Instagram is my stomping ground. I'm everywhere but Instagram is my stomping ground. I'm at Adeola Amole B.

Bobbi Rebell:
Thank you so much. This was great.

Adeola Amole:
Aww. Thanks for having me, Bobbi. I appreciate it.

Bobbi Rebell:
Hey, friends. Let's get right to it. Financial grownup tip number one, when it comes to things like cutting your debt no ask is too aggressive when you negotiate for interest rate reductions like Adeola. She went for the 0% interest rate. Kind of surprised me but I'm impressed. While she didn't always get there she sometimes did so why not ask?

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial grownup tip number two, listen to the whispers at work. Pay attention to the larger macro economic climate and what's going on in your industry. Adeola in her gut knew that there was a good chance she was going to get laid off but she was still surprised. Financially, though, with her multiple and largely passive income streams she was ready.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right, everyone. Adeola has generously sent, from Canada no less, two signed copies of her book 7 Steps To Get Out of Debt and Build Wealth to give away. All you have to do is DM me your takeaway from this episode on any of the social channels. On Instagram at Bobbi Rebell 1, on Twitter at Bobbi Rebell, or if you prefer email you can email me at Hello at Financial Grownup dot com. Big thanks to Adeola Amole for helping us all 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.

Dr. Daniel Crosby is great at helping others come to grips with their often irrational money related behavior. But just 3 years ago when it came time to make a big real estate decision, his own insecurities and money issues drove a decision he now regrets. 

In Daniel's money story you will learn:

• Why he feels like buying a big house was his biggest financial mistake

• The reasons behind his move and why he wanted a big house

• Why moving to a different neighborhood or a slightly smaller house doesn't make financial sense

In Daniel’s money lesson you will learn:

• Why buying a home isn't the way to buy happiness

• Why it's important, when making financial decisions, to look at your emotions and insecurities behind your decisions

In Daniel's everyday money tip you will learn:

• Why it's important to identify a point of weakness in your financial lives

In My Take you will learn:

• If you own it, own it

• Why it's important to realize that because you can "afford it" doesn't mean you have to buy at the top of your budget

Episode Links:

• Daniel's Course

• The Behavioral Investor

• The Laws of Wealth

• Daniel's podcast - Standard Deviations

• Brian Portnoy's Financial Grownup Episode

Follow Daniel!

• LinkedIn

• Twitter

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.

Transcription

Bobbi Rebell:
But the crazy thing here is, that Dr. Crosby has done all this research into why people do dumb things when it comes to money. And then, he goes ahead, and by his own admission, falls prey to a big financial decision, largely because of his ego. Dr. Daniel Crosby and his wife are moving with their kids from Alabama to Georgia, and they bought a really big house in a really fancy neighborhood.

Bobbi Rebell:
Not out of their budget, but out of their comfort zone. His insecurity is endearing, and I believe, totally sincere. I hope you enjoy this chat with Dr. Daniel Crosby.

Bobbi Rebell:
Hey, Dr. Daniel Crosby, you're a Financial Grownup. Welcome to the podcast.

Daniel Crosby:
Thank you. Great to be here.

Bobbi Rebell:
And I'm so excited you're here. We were introduced by a mutual friend and a fellow Financial Grownup, Brian Portnoy, who was on talking about his book, Geometry of Wealth, and everyone can check out that episode. We'll leave a link in the show notes.

Bobbi Rebell:
You are, and I'm going to read your own notes that you sent to me. You are a shrink turned money guy. You have a PhD in Clinical Psychology. You are also The New York Times Bestselling Author of three books. Your latest book is called The Behavioral Investor. We're going to talk a lot more about that soon. And it is about the four most common psychological traps that we fall into. What a great teaser, Daniel.

Daniel Crosby:
Yeah, yeah. On book three, I'm getting better at this. I was crummy the first time, but I'm getting there.

Bobbi Rebell:
And you also have a little firm called Nocturn Capital. Cool name. Who came up with the name?

Daniel Crosby:
Well, my wife is a pianist, and she likes Chopin, so she plays a lot of nocturnes. One nod is to her, who I love very dearly. And the second nod is, to things that are nocturnal are most active when things are darkest. So it's sort of a nod to value investing and my dear wife.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right. Let's get to our money story that you brought. It's about a financial mistake and I guess we'll dissect that from a psychological standpoint. It has to do with buying a big house.

Daniel Crosby:
We had a beautiful home. A more modest home, but a very nice home in Alabama that was very inexpensive, of course, as well. Almost immediately, like almost immediately upon moving back to Alabama, I'd started to experience sort of this lack of respect I felt at conferences, but then, also I was just itchy. Like just itchy to go somewhere new.

Daniel Crosby:
So we started to have this conversation and it was couched in reasonable terms, and I think that that's one of the dangerous things about how we can kind of fool ourselves, behaviorally. I couched it in terms of, "It would be nice to be close to a better airport, it would be nice to have access to deeper pockets in a larger population," all of which is true on the margins.

Daniel Crosby:
But when I'm really, really honest with myself, the thing that was driving the conversation was A, my ego, my desire to sort of show people that I had arrived. And B, was this sort of shame. Those were kind of the big primary drivers, but during the time when my wife and I are having the conversation, it wasn't framed in those terms.

Daniel Crosby:
And I think that's one of the dangerous subtle things about human cognition, is we can operate in ways that are based out of fear, or weakness, or greed, or whatever. And we can lie to ourselves a bit to make them seem more palatable to ourselves, and we can really buy our own BS. We listen to the bankers, right.

Daniel Crosby:
We said, "How much loan can we get?" And we saw the number, and we were rightly shocked by how high it was. And we backed off of that considerably, even by about 50%. But still, we never stopped to ask ourselves, and I think many homeowners do this. Many people who are purchasing a home, they ask themselves, "How much house can I afford and not how much house should I afford?"

Bobbi Rebell:
If you feel comfortable, could you tell us the numbers involved, and what that house was worth, and what the new house was worth?

Daniel Crosby:
Yeah, so the old house in Alabama, we still have as a rental property. We've rented it ever since we moved out. It's been great. And then we paid 750 for the house in Atlanta.

Bobbi Rebell:
This is not a question of affordability.

Daniel Crosby:
No.

Bobbi Rebell:
You could afford that, right.

Daniel Crosby:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not at all a question of affordability. See, that's where I think that the nuance comes in. It's not a question of affordability. We got approved and could have afforded much more than that. It's not even a question of, "Is it a nice place?"

Daniel Crosby:
Because it is, but it's just something that, it's not us. It's in a gated neighborhood. So people come through and they go, "Oh, wow. A gate, and a big house." And my wife and I agree, that it just doesn't suit our personalities.

Bobbi Rebell:
So what are you going to do about it, Dr. Crosby?

Daniel Crosby:
Well, this is a point of weekly conversation, because now we have a child, who's in the local school system, and she's on student council, and she's really thriving. And so, I don't know. I mean, we feel kind of stuck and there's so many transaction costs involved with the sale of a home.

Daniel Crosby:
I think if we were to move, we would just move within the area, which is almost exclusively homes a lot like ours if she were to stay in the same school. So candidly, I don't think we'll do anything.

Bobbi Rebell:
Have you ever talked to the neighbors about the general culture of the area, or the perception of the culture of the area?

Daniel Crosby:
You know, I never have. And I think it's one of those taboos, and you worry that you're going to get looked at sideways, but no. I've never talked with the neighbors about it.

Bobbi Rebell:
So what is the takeaway for our listeners?

Daniel Crosby:
The takeaway is, if you're trying to buy happiness, a home is absolutely not the way to go, I think is takeaway number one. There's just so much involved with it and your hassle grows with the size of your home.

Daniel Crosby:
And I think lesson number two, which is perhaps the more important lesson is, be careful of the ways that you can deceive yourself. When you're thinking about your financial life, be sure to get down to the nitty-gritty, the emotional stuff, the pain, the insecurity. That's where I didn't go.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right. We're going to shift gears and get to your everyday money tip.

Daniel Crosby:
What I encourage folks to do with their financial lives, is to try and identify a point of weakness beforehand. To try and say, "If there's a reason that I'm not going to reach my retirement goals, or whatever it is, what would that reason be?" And so I walked through this with a friend of mine, who was over for Thanksgiving. And we were talking about his upcoming retirement.

Daniel Crosby:
And he disclosed to me what percentage of his wealth was in this single company stock, and it was well over 50% of his significant wealth. And I said, I walked him through this idea of a premortem, and said, "Look. If something were to go wrong with your savings and your retirement nest egg, what do you think it would be?"

Daniel Crosby:
And he said, "Well, probably some sort of risk to the business that would cause this stock to decline a great deal." And it's like, "Yeah." Because you can't always meet that head-on. I was aware of this over-concentrated position of his for a long time now.

Daniel Crosby:
But when you try and say, "Hey, man. You got to sell this, you got to tell this, you got to diversify," there's a very human nature, a very human tendency to tell people to, "Get lost," when they sort of command us to do something.

Bobbi Rebell:
Your book, The Behavioral Investor, is your latest bestseller, following I think your big book was The Laws of Wealth. One of the things that love about The Behavioral Investor, is that you make us take a second look at a lot of the assumptions that we have, especially regarding investing.

Daniel Crosby:
So real space behavioral investing has a couple things in common. First of all, it has a reasonable fee. When Morningstar looked at all of the data points that predict investment performance, they found, came to the decidedly unsexy conclusion that the number one predictor of how a fund does is how much it costs. Because, of course, those costs directly erode from your performance.

Daniel Crosby:
So the first check mark is whether it's active, passive, or whatever in-between, right, it needs to be have an appropriate fee. The second thing you want to look at is that it's rules-based. And this is sort of goes into the first. Rules-based portfolios tend to be cheaper than discretionary portfolios because you got to pay some Ivy League genius to run the discretionary portfolio, whereas the rules-based portfolio can just run on algorithms.

Daniel Crosby:
So rule number one, portfolio needs to be adequately priced, sort of cheapishly priced. Second thing is, it needs to be rules-based. And then the third thing is, it needs to automate good behavior. Most of us have the tendency to do just the wrong thing at the wrong time. I mean, that's sort of the simple lesson of The Behavioral Investor.

Bobbi Rebell:
This was interesting. It was on page 193, you talk about intuition, and which jobs have had the best and the worst intuition. So the worst, I'm sorry to say, included psychologists, I believe. Like you.

Daniel Crosby:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Bobbi Rebell:
Also stockbrokers.

Daniel Crosby:
Like me.

Bobbi Rebell:
Which is discouraging. Also, college admissions officers, which is really upsetting because we really want to think for all the care and the years of preparation that we spend preparing ourselves, preparing our children for college, that they have better gut instincts.

Bobbi Rebell:
And also, of course, judges, another important job. And intelligence analysts and HR professionals. Daniel, you're bursting our bubble here.

Daniel Crosby:
Yeah, but if you look at those things, there's a very common thread that runs through all of them, and it's humanity, right. So people who do have intuition, are mathematicians and physicists, who have seen a problem, they've familiarized themselves with it, and they can start to intuit.

Daniel Crosby:
Like, "Oh, I think this is where it's going," because math and physics and related hard sciences follow hard rules. Human beings, for better and worse, do not follow hard rules. And so the more there is a human element to the work you do, the less intuition counts.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right. Hot button topic today, passive investing. And some big proponents of it have come out, expressing real concern about the fact that passive investing, in the form of especially of index funds, is really getting to a level that is concerning.

Daniel Crosby:
So we know on the one hand, that over the last 30 years, passive investment vehicles have beaten their active counterparts about 85% of the time. I mean, a little bit more or less, depending on what sort of asset class you're looking at. But, I mean, that is like incredible, and to think that they've done it at a fraction of the cost is even more incredible. So that's sort of exhibit A.

Daniel Crosby:
But exhibit B, we have the real truth about financial markets, which is that, as soon as everyone thinks something is a good idea, it sort of ceases to be a good idea. And it's something that's referred to as the tragedy of the commons, right, and it comes back from ancient times, when there was like a common park or a common pasture.

Daniel Crosby:
And so, it's the best thing for all of the farmers to want to graze their cows on someone else's land, until all of the farmers decide to do that, and then there's no grass left. So as long as a minority of people are passive investors, which is the case today, passive investing makes a lot of sense.

Daniel Crosby:
But as everyone begins to latch onto this and as everyone beings to head in that direction, I think theoretically, you have to ask yourself the question, "Does it become sort of unmored by the fact that everyone's grazing their cows in the same place?"

Bobbi Rebell:
So tell us about where people can learn more about you, and your book, and your podcast, which we had not mentioned yet, and all the things.

Daniel Crosby:
I'm very active on LinkedIn, Daniel Crosby, PhD. I'm at Twitter, @DanielCrosby. And you can tune into the podcast, which is called Standard Deviations.

Bobbi Rebell:
Thank you so much.

Daniel Crosby:
My pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right, my friends. Let's break this down. Financial Grownup tip number one, if you own it, own it. Dr. Crosby is sincerely uncomfortable in his house, but it doesn't make financial sense for him to move. I asked him if he had talked to the neighbors because it seemed to me, that he is assuming that all of his neighbors are the kind of people that live in really big, really fancy houses, unlike him and his family who's really more modest, but bought something that's just too fancy for the image he feels comfortable with.

Bobbi Rebell:
He hadn't talked to his neighbors. Maybe if he reaches out to them, make some friends, and sees the area as a family neighborhood, not a collection of just fancy houses with people more fancy than he is, he might be a little more comfortable. Or, maybe not. But in general, I think it's always good to humanize what's going on in a situation that makes you a little uncomfortable. People may not be what you perceive them to be.

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup tip number two, a little blast from the past housing crisis. You don't have to buy a big house or an expensive house just because the banker said, "You can afford it." Even if you cut their budget in half, as the Crosby's did, if you don't want to have that much house, don't. Besides, you can always add on an investment property with the extra cash and create a little passive income, right.

Bobbi Rebell:
Thanks to everyone for your continued support of the show. It really means a lot when you write a review, so please take a moment this holiday season for that. And be in touch on Instagram on bobbirebell1 and on Twitter @BobbiRebell, and you can always email us at hello@financialgrownup.com. And big thanks to Dr. Daniel Crosby for being so candid and for helping us all 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.