Just in time for the holidays, Jen Smith, co-host of the Frugal Friends podcast and the author of the new book "Pay Off Your Debt For Good" joins us with her spending strategies so we can all shop like Financial Grownups.

3 strategies to spend money like a Financial Grownup

1. Focus on your habits

2. Figure out what you value

3. Let go of guilt and shame

Episode Links:

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

• Jen’s Website - www.modernfrugality.com

• Jen’s podcast The Frugal Friends Podcast

• Jen’s new book - Pay Off Your Debt For Good

Follow Jen!

• Instagram - @modernfrugality

• Facebook - @modernfrugality

• Twitter - @modernfrugality

• Pinterest - @modernfrugality

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.

Money coach Whitney Hansen, who hosts the Money Nerds podcast, reveals how the pain of poverty and family instability almost led her to a tragic decision as a teenager. We also discuss how the challenges of true financial struggle can impact a family and inform priorities as an adult. 

Whitney’s Money Story:

Whitney Hansen:
I still get choked up about this too, even to this day. But it was a really tough time in my life because my parents were going through this divorce and they were married for a long time, six kids, so they had a really great life together. But my dad started a business and that business led to unhealthy habits. So he had really, I guess some issues with boundaries. It was a 365, 24/7 business. And so he turned to-

Bobbi Rebell:
What was the business?

Whitney Hansen:
Pallet distributing.

Bobbi Rebell:
What's that?

Whitney Hansen:
Pallets, you always see him on Pinterest when people make like coffee tables and furniture and stuff from them, but it's what carries goods across the country in semi-trucks. So it's the wooden like crates almost. That's what his business was, was fixing those up and selling them.

Bobbi Rebell:
Okay. And so had he had that business before your parents got divorced or was it a new thing, so that was another change?

Whitney Hansen:
So it was before they officially got divorced. He started the business probably about 10 years before they officially divorced. And so it was just a really consuming business. He was terrible at delegating, could not find the right type of help. So instead of trusting people, he put all of that pressure on himself. And that led to having to take pallet calls at like two in the morning sometimes. It was just a nightmare. It really was.

Bobbi Rebell:
So then something happened with a mattress?

Whitney Hansen:
Yeah, so with the mattress, after they divorced, my mom moved up to Boise and truly she left that relationship for her life. The abuse was getting so bad and it was just a terrible situation. And so she moved up to Boise making $7.25 an hour at a hobby and craft store and trying to support six kids in this little two bedroom apartment. And we were so broke, Bobbi, like we were broke. We didn't have any money at all, so we were sleeping on the floor.

Whitney Hansen:
My mom and I, one day we were walking and we found a mattress in the garbage can. So we went home, we grabbed her car, threw this on the top of the car. It's really that ridiculous. We both like had our hands out the window holding the mattress down and we took it home. But we were so freaking excited because for our family, that meant we didn't have to sleep on the floor. And it was such a sad moment, but such a powerful one. I was 16 and I will never forget that. It taught me my first personal finance lesson.

Bobbi Rebell:
Tell us more about that.

Whitney Hansen:
Well, I started to really reflect on that and what I learned is that there's really a difference between a want and a need. A lot of times we say that we need something. Oh I need to get this new shirt, I need to get this new mattress, I need to get whatever it is.

Whitney Hansen:
But there's a huge difference between what we truly want and what we truly need. So I always carried that with me throughout my entire adulthood and my being a grownup. I mean that's something that I've always looked at, is this truly a want, Whitney, or is this a need? Of course it's like giving yourself permission to buy what you want on occasion, but always putting that in that perspective.

Bobbi Rebell:
Tell us more about that time of your life. I mean, how did you survive? How did you get other things? Were you able to get it through people that were helpful to you? You were you working as a 16 year old?

Whitney Hansen:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah, so that's the sad thing. When you come from a really poor, poverty type situation, the families all working together to support everybody. So I had my own job. I had a job when I was actually 14 is when I officially started working. But I bought the family car when I was 16. My mom took out a loan, I made the payment, and I paid for the car insurance. That's just the way we did it.

Whitney Hansen:
We had a ton of help. Our church was super great. They were really helpful from that perspective as well. But I didn't deal with it well. I've actually never shared this publicly, but when I was 16 I was hospitalized for suicide.

Bobbi Rebell:
Oh my goodness.

Whitney Hansen:
Yeah, it was a terrible time. It really was not great. But what I started learning from all of this stuff was that when you have control over your money, you have options, and that's what I decided when I was 16, I was never going to be stuck in a really crappy situation because of money. I knew that was something I always wanted to have control over.

Bobbi Rebell:
What kind of conversations were you having with your mom? Because at 16 you're not that young. You know what's up.

Whitney Hansen:
Yeah, yeah. No, I definitely did know what was up. One of the biggest conversations that she shared with me was the importance of education. That was the one thing she had regretted her entire life. Her family did pretty well. Her parents died when she was really young. They did well enough that they left her some money for college, but she blew through it all with my dad. They just were very financially irresponsible. So that was one of the big conversations was Whitney, you need to get an education. You need to make sure you can take care of yourself no matter what. So that was always the focus of the conversation when I was a kid.

Bobbi Rebell:
Where were you in the sibling order? What were your other siblings doing at this time in your life?

Whitney Hansen:
Second oldest. My oldest sister, she had quite a rough childhood herself, of course. She ended up moving out of the house officially when she was 16. She moved in with her boyfriend at that time. She has four kids now, so she's doing super great. But she was running her own family. She got pregnant when she was 17 in high school.

“When you have control over your money you have options. ”

Whitney’s Money Lesson:

Whitney Hansen:
I think the biggest lesson is how much control you have when you have money. When you have that money instead of just immediately blowing it on stuff that we don't really need, if you start to prioritize your own financial responsibility, and as a woman especially, you have to be able to take care of yourself in some capacity.

Whitney Hansen:
Now that's not saying don't be a stay at home mom if that's your dream, do it. But make sure that you have some skills that you can fall back on. I think that's one of the biggest lessons I can impart for people is just make sure you can take care of yourself, whether it's divorce or death or disease, we don't know what's going to happen in life with our partners, so you have to be able to really financially take care of yourself and be a grownup.

Bobbi Rebell:
That's so impactful what you're saying and really hits home with so many people because we don't know it. It may be something like a divorce, but also sometimes people become injured. Your partner may lose their job. There can be a lot of unintended things that happen and things that you can't possibly plan for, but you have to always be able to have an income stream, even if you take it up and down at different points in your life. Having that ability and the education to do that is really important.

“Make sure you can take care of yourself..we don’t know what is going in life with our partners so you have to really be able to take care of yourself financially and really be a grownup.”

Whitney’s Money Tip:

Whitney Hansen:
Oh, I love this. This is such a nerdy one, but it works wonders. My favorite tip in the world is for any person that's trying to better their financial life and doesn't quite know where their money's going, to print off your past 30 days of your bank statement and or your credit card statement anymore, we have Venmo as well, that all counts. Print those off, have those sitting in front of you and then assign three different categories that you tend to overspend on. So for me it's eating out, it's coffee, and it's Amazon. Amazon's the worst for me. So I will print off those statements, I'll write those at the top, and I will literally go line by line and highlight each of the different transactions as a specific color to make sure that I am looking at every single transaction.

Whitney Hansen:
It works like crazy because you have to highlight those transactions and you have to remember I'm the one that swiped my card this many times. This is on me. I think it's so much more personal than just like a roll up thing. I love apps and software. I think they're amazing, but when it's just a roll up number, it's not the same as when you actually have to physically highlight those things. It really does trigger a lot of changes in your financial life.

Bobbi Rebell:
Give us an example of something, especially when you first started doing this, that you noticed that you were surprised by.

Whitney Hansen:
For me, I've always been pretty frugal because of my background, but what I can tell you is I did this in a group with a bunch of college students, actually. We were doing this exercise and one guy kind of looked up and he had this deer in the headlights look. He was all white, and I'm not a nurse, but I'm like "Dude, are you all right? Do you need to get out of here? What's going on?" And he's like "Well, I just finally realized how much I spent on eating out." I'm like "Okay, cool. Well, how much should you spend?"

Whitney Hansen:
"I spent $400."

Whitney Hansen:
Now I think you and I get that that's not necessarily good or bad, it's all a proportion of your income. But he told me his income was $800 per month.

Bobbi Rebell:
Oh no.

Whitney Hansen:
I was like "Well, homie, I think 50% going directly towards eating out is probably not great." But he had no idea because he was just mindlessly spending and not even paying attention. I think it's really normal.

Bobbi Rebell:
Yeah, a lot of us don't know. What about for you personally, what have you noticed?

Whitney Hansen:
For what I've noticed, this is really interesting, whenever I feel insecure or not so great about myself or I'm like dealing with some self esteem issues or whatever it might be, I'm not feeling as confident, I tend to spend more money on clothes and things that I don't need. I see this in my spending. If I'm having a crap week where I'm just not feeling great about myself, I don't feel like I'm cute enough. I don't feel like I'm skinny enough, whatever the heck it might be, I see that in my spending. So for me, I have to really pay attention to that and just monitor my spending to make sure if I do have a bad week, I'm not actually just blowing money because I'm not feeling super great about myself.

Bobbi Rebell:
Well, and what's good about that is with things like clothing, everybody, you can return it.

Whitney Hansen:
Yes, you can.

Bobbi Rebell:
If you haven't taken the tags off or anything.

Whitney Hansen:
That's right.

Bobbi Rebell:
So don't wear it. So versus like going out and eating, like the gentleman you were talking about, that can be at least corrected, right?

Whitney Hansen:
Absolutely. I think that awareness is key. So when you do this exercise, you're going to get that awareness. Then you can start to say, am I okay with these charges? Or if you want to fix it, you can. I think that's the beautiful thing.

Bobbi Rebell:
I love that. Let's talk more about The Money Nerds Podcast, because this is one of my go to's. I love it that it's three days a week and you do different things. So you do Mondays, you talk about just kind of what you like. Then another day you have your sort of normal format where you do interviews, and then Fridays are always these five tips that are things you can really do in your life right away.

“Whenever I feel insecure.. I tend to spend more money on clothes and things I don’t need.”

Bobbi’s Financial grownup tips:

Financial grownup tip number one:

If your financial problems are weighing on you mentally, you must get help. Please find the right professional. You are not alone. We've all been there and there are many organizations out there that can work with your budget, even if that budget is zero. Many employers also offer mental health counseling that is often a free benefits.

Financial grownup tip number two:

We talk a lot about apps and online resources for your finances on this show, and yes, there are a lot of resources also for mental health online. I'm going to give you links to some articles in the show notes that list options, but here are some that stand out that are pretty popular. One is Talkspace. Another one is BetterHelp, and then 7 Cups of Tea, which is more of a peer to peer resource where someone, maybe like you, can just be someone to listen to you and hear what's going on in your life. I want to caution you guys. I have no affiliation with any of these and I have not vetted them directly myself, but they are places to start and do your own homework.

Episode Links:

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

• Whitney’s website - www.whitneyhansen.com/

• Whitney’s podcast - The Money Nerds

Follow Whitney!

• Instagram - @whitney_hansen_co

• Facebook - @WhitneyHansenCo

• Twitter - @whitneyhansenco

• YouTube - @thewhitneyhansen

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.

The gig economy is not going away anytime soon and that means we have a big challenge because a lot of us dong’ get steady paychecks. Freelance writer and personal finance expert Zina Kumok of ConsciousCoins.com shares her success strategies and more.

5 Ways to Manage Unsteady Income

• Make sure to have an Emergency Fund

• Find the minimum amount you need to earn a month

• Having extra money

• Diversification

• Increase your rates on a regular basis

Episode Links:

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

• Zina’s Website - www.consciouscoins.com

Follow Zina!

• Instagram - @zinakumok

• Facebook - @consciouscoins

• Twitter - @zinakumok

• Pinterest - @zinakumok

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.

Getting a huge salary jump is awesome, but even with a big jump Paychecks & Balances podcast host, Rich Jones had some lessons to learn when his compensation skyrocketed. The entrepreneur behind the Show Starter shares his experiences, and how we can all get not just the best pay but also the best jobs. 

Rich’s Money Story:

Rich Jones:
Yeah, so by day I work at Google. I've been there for over five years. I'm moved to a tech startup called ScrollMotion, and it was the shortest role in my career, I'd only been there for about nine months. I actually got an email from a recruiter at Google and I thought it was spam. Even though my ultimate goal was to move to a big tech company, I kind of had this self-doubt of, "Oh wow, they're reaching out to me. Is this really a real role? Why are they reaching out to me in New York when this position is based in California?"

Rich Jones:
I went through the interview process and it probably took about three to four months, but then ultimately I ended up getting the job. I made the transition from New York City to California. And part of what I realized throughout the process that I think is really important, one is the importance of negotiation. And I learned this more for the role that I had at the tech startup because I won't say how, but I came across how much the person in that role before me made and it was a lot more than I had actually asked for.

Rich Jones:
And part of what I did not consider is that I worked at a nonprofit. Nonprofits typically pay a little bit less and when I saw an increase, I was so focused on one, getting out of that nonprofit because I realized that role wasn't for me, that I had this fear of not wanting to mess up the opportunities. I said, "Hey, this is a pay increase, this is great." Only to get there and find out that I actually could have asked for a lot more.

Rich Jones:
And what I've learned from tech companies like Google and Facebook, they really do try to do right by people, and instead of kind of negotiating people downward, they want to make sure that they bring people in at a fair market rate because they ultimately don't want to lose these people because the cost of hiring and losing someone is so high. Part of what I learned in the process is the importance of negotiation.

Bobbi Rebell:
Tell me more about the actual moment you got the job offer. Did they say the number first or did you?

Rich Jones:
They said the number first and it far exceeded the number that I had in mind.

Bobbi Rebell:
Was this a phone conversation? What, where, how is this happening?

Rich Jones:
It was a phone conversation. I was ready to go back and forth and I had my numbers in mind, didn't realize that I was undercutting myself in the process and they made an offer that honestly had me floored. It was a no brainer.

Bobbi Rebell:
Wait, but did you ask for more?

Rich Jones:
I did not because it far exceeded what I was even looking for and I felt completely comfortable about the offer. The lesson here is having a number in mind and I made sure that I did research when I looked at this role to make sure that I wasn't going to get undercut. When they came back with a number that was far greater than what I had in mind, I could've went back and forth with them. And there are situations where I would say, "Hey, ask for more," but it was so much greater than what I thought it was going to be. Everything else about it made sense that it made sense for me to ultimately accept the role.

Bobbi Rebell:
How did you find out the data about the previous employee that they were making more and about how much more was it, like a percentage-wise? Give me some sort of scale.

Rich Jones:
Oh, it was about 20 to $25,000 more. It was one of those things where I was doing some research in the system for a project and I saw what they were actually making. And I had this Wow! Moment of, "This is not good. I could have asked for a lot more." Part of what I've learned in my current role, especially because I work in staffing or worked in staffing for a number of years, even if I probably had asked for more for the role at Google I probably wouldn't have gotten it. Because I think one of the other mistakes I made is that at the time they would ask you what you were making today, and companies sometime anchor on that. Once we tell them what you're making, they just try to do a percentage increase. One thing I probably would have done differently is not actually share that salary information and just said come back-

Bobbi Rebell:
You shared it before they gave you the offer?

Rich Jones:
I did, I did. I did. And more states now are implementing policies or laws where companies can not ask for salary information specifically for that reason. I actually encourage people, if you're talking to a company and they ask what you're making today, that you not tell them that actual number and see what they come back with. If they come back with a number that's lower or even if it's a number that's right where you want to be, try the approach of, "Hey, I'm super excited about this offer. If we can get to X number, I'll be willing to sign this offer today." And that recruiter is incentivized to go back and see what they can do to ultimately get you that number that they want.

Bobbi Rebell:
Did you to take action after getting this information, did you go ask for a raise?

Rich Jones:
No, I did not ask for a raise because for me, my ultimate goal was to move to a company like Google or Facebook and it happened sooner than I expected and that's why I say it caught me off guard and I'm like, "Wow, they're reaching out to me." Because to me it was, "I'll get a couple of years of experience, I'll go and apply. Not this company will find me on LinkedIn because my profile is optimized and then contact me." I'd say over the course of three years, my total compensation increased by 200 to 250%.

Bobbi Rebell:
Wow.

Rich Jones:
And while at that-

Bobbi Rebell:
Now wait, let me ask you, was that prompted by you becoming a better negotiator because you now have this information or they're just a generous company and that's kind of what they gave you?

Rich Jones:
I think it was more so prompted by things like updating my LinkedIn profile so that they could find me in the first place because there is applying for jobs, but then there's also recruiters who were out there every day looking for talent, scouring LinkedIn. I was that recruiter. Part of the insight knowledge I had was how a recruiter would go about looking for somebody who has a particular set of skills.

Rich Jones:
A big part for me was updating my LinkedIn profile so that if a recruiter was looking for someone who had a combination of HR experience and recruiting experience, and they had this profession in human resource certification, my profile would pop up. While it wasn't as heavy on the negotiation side, there were things that I did to optimize my profile and optimize myself so that if people were looking for someone with my skills, I would pop up in that search and I attribute it a lot more to that.

Rich Jones:
I think part of what's helped me maximize my raises and my increase, it's not so much that I had to negotiate a higher pay, it's that I documented my value and I documented the things that I did to bring more people in, the things that I did to a higher level of impact and then that was ultimately factored into my bonus percentage, which is on a scale. And that was ultimately factored into the salary increase, which is also one scale. It's funny going from being an individual contributor to a manager and then having to go through that same process, where if an employee didn't tell me all the things they did, I had so many things going on so I could not remember everything that they did.

Rich Jones:
But there would be times where they'd say, "Hey, I did this and I did that." And I'd be like, "Oh yeah, you did do this, and you did do that. You should be an exceeds expectation, versus a meets expectations." A lot of it is on the individual to make sure that they're documenting and that they're in a position to be able to show the value that they've added. I had it for that conversation, but also if an opportunity came up outside of the company, I had those things documented, which would then become answers for interview questions or things that I could put in my LinkedIn profile to further show my value and that I'm a high performer.

“I actually encourage people, if you are talking to a company and they ask what you are making today that you not tell that number and see what they come back with.”

Rich’s Money Lesson:

Rich Jones:
There's an article that came out from Glassdoor, a couple of years ago. For someone starting at a salary of $50,000, the difference in not negotiating a $5,000 increase when they're first starting could be the difference of $600,000 over the course of their working career. What people don't think about, we talk about compound interest when it comes to your savings account or when it comes to stocks and investing, but we don't talk about the compound effect of negotiating a higher salary.

Rich Jones:
Because if you start by negotiating up, then every salary that you negotiate going forward or every increase that you get going forward is going to be a lot higher. There are people, they're actually scared to negotiate because they think that the company's going to pull the offer. And I can tell you from being on the employer's side, no recruiter or no company is going to rescind offer because you asked for something. In fact, we expect you to ask for something.

“If you start by negotiating up, then every salary that you negotiate going forward or every increase that you get going forward is going to be higher.”

Rich’s Money Tip:

Rich Jones:
A couple of apps that I really love today. One is Tiller. It allows you to connect your bank accounts and I'm someone that loves spreadsheets. And they have these templates and these customized spreadsheets where if you connect your accounts, it'll automatically pull in the information. You can see what you're spending on by category, if you're over or under or at budget. And there's also a feature where I get an email daily that anytime there's been a transaction, whether money coming in or money going out, I see that first thing in the morning.

Rich Jones:
And there've been times where I've said, "Wow, did I really just spend that much on food?" Or, "Wow, I forgot that I had that subscription." That's one service that I use to kind of see where my spending is going. But the other service that I really like, it's called Truebill, and initially this started out as an app that would monitor all your subscriptions and tell you where you could have a subscription canceled, where they can negotiate on your behalf to bring that subscription costs down.

Rich Jones:
And just even today before we recorded this interview, I've realized that I was getting double-billed for a particular subscription and now I'm in the process of having them resolve it for me so I don't have to deal with the process of calling in and talking to multiple people and going back and forth and sending emails. Pairing up apps, one, I have something that tells me where my money is going on a day to day basis, which keeps me sharp. And then two, I have a service that's monitoring my subscriptions, but it's also giving me a breakdown of how I'm spending for the month. And I can see that category by category and it kind of tells me if I'm doing too much, if I'm going over budget and I found both of those to be super helpful with each other.

“I can tell you from being on the employer side,  no company is going to rescind the offer because you asked for something. In fact we expect you to ask for something. ”

Bobbi’s Financial grownup tips:

Financial grownup tip number one:

Manage up. Remember Rich, said to prepare for performance reviews, that's just part of it. This is all about communication with your supervisors. Those are the people who decide how much you get paid. Don't assume they know and in some cases even understand what you do and how valuable you have become to the company.

Financial grownup tip number two:

I love what Rich said about the very first salary being an anchor to ongoing salary negotiations. He is 100% correct, but at the same time, don't assume you are worth more than they're willing to pay. With the first job, you don't always bring as much to the table as you will in future jobs. Yes, you probably went to school and studied, but let's face it, in most cases the companies are also going to put a lot of resources into training you. Just factor in what you will learn as an employee when you are in that negotiation and be thoughtful about your asks.

Episode Links:

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

• Rich’s website - paychecksandbalances.com/

Follow Rich!

• Instagram - @paybalances

• Facebook - @paychecksandbalances

• Twitter - @PayBalances

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.

David Stein shares a sneak peak of the investing strategies from his new book, including how to differentiate between investing, speculating and gambling. He also discusses why you need to know who is on the other side of a trade, and the key factors that will make an investment profitable. 

3 Best Investing Tips

1. Know if a financial opportunity is investing, speculating or gambling

2. Know who is on the other side of the trade

3. Know what it takes to be successful

Episode Links:

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

• David’s website - moneyfortherestofus.com

• David’s book Money For The Rest Of Us

Follow David!

• Instagram - @moneyfortherestofus

• Facebook - @moneyfortherestofus

• Twitter - @jdstein

• YouTube - @MoneyFortheRestofUs

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.

Chad Parks, founder of Ubiquity Retirement and Savings, and the producer of the Broken Eggs documentary shares a money story of a chance encounter with a waiter who seemed indifferent to his own eventual retirement crisis, and the “aha" moment that followed. 

Chad’s Money Story:

Chad Parks:
So, when we were on the road trip making the documentary, one of our stops was in New Orleans. The way we got the stories was we literally would just stop and talk to anybody, and sometimes it'd be on-camera, sometimes it'd be off-camera. We were at dinner one night with the film crew and he's asking, "What are y'all doing here?" And we told him we're making a documentary about retirement. That got him talking about his own life, and that he's been a career waiter, and that he has not been able to save substantially, and that he thought that he just... Retirement was a foreign object to him and he just thinks that he's never going to be able to retire.

Bobbi Rebell:
About how old was he, would you say?

Chad Parks:
In his late 40s.

Bobbi Rebell:
Late 40s, so this is a time when it's starting to get real. You're no longer a kid who can kind of say, "Well, I maybe am paying down student debt or I just had a baby. At 40-something, you are definitely an adult.

Chad Parks:
Yeah. I think what was really also stood out a lot was that he didn't really seem too concerned about not having savings or a plan. And his attitude was that he just figured that the government or social services would be there to help him and that he'd figure it out. That was a little bit disheartening to hear because if so many people do believe that, then we're really going to be in for some serious problems in the future if everybody has got that attitude.

Bobbi Rebell:
And also, he was a waiter and that is the job that is typically not one that has maybe all of the programs and the retirement plans that some other jobs have. So that could also be a factor as we move towards more of a gig economy, right?

Chad Parks:
Oh, for sure. The statistics are frightening. More than half of the U.S. working population don't have the ability to save at work. The point of the business is, they're small. They don't think they can afford a small business retirement plan and they don't do it. And so, half of us in this population don't have a vehicle to save easily and efficiently for their future.

Bobbi Rebell:
As you had this conversation with the waiter, what were your colleagues and friends at the table, what was their reaction? And was there conversation afterwards about it?

Chad Parks:
Well, it definitely proved the point of why we're on the road, right? To kind of understand what the reality of people's understanding of retirement is, what their attitudes are. And I think what we all walked away from, not only with this talking to this gentleman but for most of the people we talked to, was that there's a big awareness that there's a problem, but not many people are doing much about it nor do they know what to do about it. So we likened it to this whole thing of like, we all know we need to go to the gym and work out, but not many of us do.

Bobbi Rebell:
What else did the waiter say to you?

Chad Parks:
That dependency on social services, it didn't sound like he had much of a plan. And he literally was living paycheck to paycheck. He just kind of shrugged his shoulders and it was like, "I don't know what to do about it."

Bobbi Rebell:
Did he ask you?

Chad Parks:
Well, I mean, I could preach all day about it, but...

Bobbi Rebell:
I mean, I'm saying, did he ask you though?

Chad Parks:
No, he did not.

Bobbi Rebell:
I say that because part of the problem is that many of us don't ask. So of course, we should get more information, but he, like many people maybe in your film, didn't ask.

Chad Parks:
This is a very good observation. Yeah, that's true. I had to stop and think about that and no, he did not ask and had he asked, I might've been able to share some good information with him.

Chad’s Money Lesson:

Chad Parks:
So, this concept of retirement is relatively new in our country. Pretty much if you think about after World War II, when the GIs were coming home and the modern corporation went back to building cars and doing what they did, there was this promise of the three-legged stool of retirement which is, you would get a pension plan from your employer, social security was going to be there for you in your older age. And then in the '70s and '80s, we introduced the additional savings vehicle of a 401k. That sounds great, right? You got a guaranteed income, you've got a safety net with social security, and you can augment your retirement savings with a 401k or IRA. Unfortunately, we know today, especially in 2019, that most businesses don't offer pensions anymore. Good example was General Electric having just frozen the pension for their 20,000 employees.

Chad Parks:
Social security was never meant to be the primary source of income in your retirement, but unfortunately for a lot of people, that is becoming the primary source. And social security itself may actually end up having some reduction in benefits in 2034, 15 years from now, by about 25% if they don't make any changes to it today. Then that puts the onus back on personal savings, and just as I shared before, half of our country doesn't have the ability to even save at work, and that's where we are.

Bobbi Rebell:
That's where we are. And what scares me here is not only, as I mentioned, that people aren't asking and being their own advocates, but our expectations of people realistic in terms of what people earn, what people can realistically save in our world, and our lifestyle expectations. If we're being honest, we have an expectation that everybody has a cellphone and everybody lives a certain lifestyle and it's partially the media, but we also have to own it ourselves. We choose to purchase things or live lifestyles that maybe are not sustainable.

Chad Parks:
No, you're so right. And that, I call it, nicknamed this the microwave society, right? Everybody wants everything instantly and want instant gratification. We are marketed to and sold to, we are rewarded with spending. Unfortunately, our attitudes are not the same about long-term savings. It's not really exciting nor fun to see your paycheck go down and to see money accumulate over a long period of time, in this idea that you're visualizing yourself in the future. And this whole concept of asking the average individual to become a savings expert and investment expert, a budgeting expert, to be able to say, this is your magic number, this is when you retire, this is how much money you're going to have, that's really putting a lot on people.

Chad Parks:
I was formerly a certified financial planner. I went to grad school for finance and it was, I said, it's a shame I had to go to grad school to learn the basics of personal finance. And so it's really, as much as we try to get people to say, listen, this is your responsibility. Don't forget that the way the world has been set up today is that it's not up to the government, it's not up to your employer. Unfortunately, it is up to you to take your future in your own hands. But at the same time, we haven't equipped you with the tools to do so. So, that's where we kind of have this big chasm as a society that we really need to figure out.

Chad’s Money Tip:

Chad Parks:
Yeah. So, as I was saying there, it's hard for people to visualize themselves in the future. None of us want to acknowledge that we're going to get old. It happens to other people. And so, one of the ways that I've found to really help people to drive that point home is to volunteer at a retirement home. These are the people who have lived their careers. These are people who've had the life lessons and the experiences that they're happy to share with you. And when you sit down and you just listen to people tell their stories, you can absolutely relate to them. You can learn, you will be emotionally moved. And hopefully, after some time doing that, you'll go home and you'll start to rethink your priorities and say, "All right, this person seemed to be okay and have it pretty good." Or "this person over here, wow. I really don't want to end up like them. So, what can I do differently today?" And then it's also just being kind and sharing some of your time with people who are in the last stages of their lives and could use a little camaraderie.

Bobbi’s Financial grownup tips:

Financial grownup tip number one:

I am generally against the whole trophy for everything, but when it comes to retirement, making an effort can solve a lot of problems. Just trying. The truth is, you guys are a self-selecting audience. You are interested in money stuff. The waiter probably not listening to this or any podcast related to money that's going to actually help him do something other than quote, figure it out when the time comes. The waiter isn't even asking our guest, Mr. Parks, for solutions. He's not even looking, he's not trying. But you guys are. So pat yourself on the back and definitely an A-plus for effort, because you guys are at least interested and I bet you are in better shape than you realize.

Financial grownup tip number two:

One thing we can all learn from our waiter is that, our waiter friend in the story I should say, is that to some degree, we will all figure it out along the way. Redefine what retirement will mean for you and set your goals, but also live your present life. For example, you could see ads for older couples blissfully traveling the world, on luxury cruises or whatever, but honestly, that may not be for you. You might not suddenly wake up at a certain age and suddenly have this burning desire to go on a riverboat cruise. Maybe you will but maybe not. Your retirement bliss could be totally different and at a different price point, higher or lower.

Episode Links:

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

• Chad’s website - www.myubiquity.com

Follow Chad!

• Instagram - @myubiquity

• Facebook - @ubiquitysavings

• Twitter - @ubiquitysavings

• LinkedIn

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.

Bobbi reveals her favorite new money related books, and how to decide if they are right for you. This month’s picks include The House Hacking Strategy: How to use your Home to Achieve Financial Freedom by Craig Curelop, Your Turn: Careers, Kids and Comebacks by Jennifer Gefsky and Stacey Delo, Retirement Reality Check: How to Spend Your Money and Still Leave an Amazing Legacy by Josh Jalinski and ZenBender: A Decade-Long Enthusiastic Quest to Fix Everything (That was Never Broken) by Stephanie Krikorian.

Book #1: The House Hacking Strategy: How to use your Home to Achieve Financial Freedom by Craig Curelop.

Here’s what I liked about it: 

-The book has a ton of very specific case studies- including that of the author.

-The under the radar red flags for choosing tenants. Things you would not think about.

-How to successfully invest in areas that are NOT distressed.

Who is this book for? 

Everyone interested in actually house hacking but also those of us who are just curious how it all works. I was extremely skeptical, and honestly, some people over leverage in my opinion. But there is a real formula and method to success and Craig does a great job explaining it. This makes GREAT cocktail party chatter as they say.. I thought it was well worth the time I invested, even though I do not plan on investing in real estate using the house hacking strategy.

Book #2: Your Turn: Careers, Kids and Comebacks by Jennifer Gefsky and Stacey Delo. 

Here’s what I liked about the book: 

-If we are being honest- it spoke to me, and to most of my friends. This is a book about how to keep that career going- even if you hit pause.

-While there is a positive tone, it is not the usual rah rah blah blah blah you go girl stuff. This is realistic and because of that both empowers and challenges the reader to take ownership of the fact that making it happen has to come from them

-The book doesn’t just speak to the parents wanting to make a career comeback- it also speaks to the employers who want these great resources back at work. 

Who is this book for? 

The authors have targeted working moms- so that’s clear. This is also a book that men should read- and not just dads who may face similar challenges coming back into full time work. I mean the men who worked with the women earlier in their careers and will get re-introduced to them when they return to their jobs.

Book #3: Josh Jalinksi’s Retirement Reality Check: How to Spend your Money and Still Leave an Amazing Legacy. 

What I like about this:

-Josh talks about tools that aren’t always super mainstream these days- including annuities and whole life. Not for everyone- but they are for some people and we all should have a sense of what they are so we can make the decision that is right for us.

-Josh strikes a nice balance between focusing on living the life we want, and also wanting to leave something for those who come after us. Passing wealth on to family members is something many people also care about that isn’t often addressed in books aimed at one’s own retirement. 

-Josh’s gregarious personality comes through making this tough topic a lot more pleasant to learn about

Who is this book right for:

Anyone who wants to retire comfortably, and wants a roadmap that wants a fresh perspective - including some controversial options. 

Bonus Book: Stephanie Krikorian’s Zenbender: A Decade-Long Enthusiastic Quest to Fix Everything (That was Never Broken).

What I loved about this book:

-So much of the time we think we are the only ones experiencing but in fact many others like Stephanie are having similar life experiences- from insecurity, to weight and career battles, to questions about where you are in life, relationships and of course, adulting. 

-This book may be non fiction but it is a page turner as if it were the fiction book you just need to tell someone about asap so they can be in on it too. 

-Stephanie has amazing money tips and life insights- from just using one pump of shampoo to save money- to the admission that yes, in her words “I’m built to spa”. Stephanie knows who she is, and she will help you figure out- or admit- you you are too! 

Episode Links:

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

Craig Curelop’s Financial Grownup episode + Get your copy of The House Hacking Strategy: How to use your Home to Achieve Financial Freedom

Jennifer Gefsky and Stacey Delo’s Financial Grownup episode + Get your copy of Your Turn: Careers, Kids and Comebacks

Josh Jalinksi’s Financial Grownup episode + Get your copy of Retirement Reality Check: How to Spend your Money and Still Leave an Amazing Legacy

Stephanie Krikorian’s Financial Grownup episode + Get your copy of Zenbender: A Decade-Long Enthusiastic Quest to Fix Everything (That was Never Broken)

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.

Chris Browning, host of the Popcorn Finance podcast got a clean bill of health for his wife after a hospital stay a few years ago. But despite having been patients there before, a billing mixup left his credit score needing intensive care. 

Chris’ Money Story:

Chris Browning:
Yes so you know, unfortunately my wife, she had to go in for surgery and which is never a good thing. So we went to the hospital, everything got taken care of. She's all well now. We figured we'd just get a bill in the mail, that's how most medical bills come, they just send you something in the mail.

Bobbi Rebell:
Did they do any paperwork while you were at the hospital? Did you give them insurance information? What actually transpired at the hospital? Because you do usually fill out some stuff.

Chris Browning:
Yeah, so leading up, you sit in the finance office and they have you sign a couple of waivers and disclosures. And they say. "Alright, let's see your insurance". They took a copy and they said, "Okay we'll bill you". And that's literally all they told me. No further information other than that.

Bobbi Rebell:
And the hospital was in Network? Do you remember?

Chris Browning:
Yeah, it was an in Network hospital.

Bobbi Rebell:
So you were trying to be in Network, okay.

Chris Browning:
Yes, so we did everything we thought we were supposed to do and we visited the hospital before and the billing seemed to work fine, so you know we didn't even think twice about it. It felt normal.

Bobbi Rebell:
This might be important later on. You were in the system having visited the hospital before?

Chris Browning:
Yeah, it was a local hospital.

Bobbi Rebell:
Okay.

Chris Browning:
So we just thought, we'll get a bill in the mail like we have in the past. We waited around, nothing came after a couple of months and to be honest, I kind of just forgot about it, because it had been so long and it just never showed up.

Bobbi Rebell:
I would totally forget about it.

Chris Browning:
Yeah, after two months, you assume you would receive it. After that, life just goes on. You do other things. You live life. And so, I have this habit of checking my credit score, because one of my credit cards on their app, they allow you to check your credit score for free, and they'll update it like every seven days. And so I was just taking a look at it, and I noticed my credit score had dropped like a crazy amount. It had dropped about 150 points. That was very alarming, to say the least. And so I decided to take a look in my credit report. And I went to freecreditreport.com. I saw this like delinquency mark and I was like, that's strange. I remember paying all my bills.

Bobbi Rebell:
Right.

Chris Browning:
And when I looked into it, it just gave me just a random number. It didn't really give me a lot of details.

Bobbi Rebell:
Like a phone number?

Chris Browning:
Yeah, it was a random phone number from a ... it was an area code I'd never seen before. And so I gave the phone number a call, and then they gave me the details. They said this is from the hospital that we had visited, and they say you didn't pay your bill and it's been turned over to a collection agency. And this was the collection agency that I was speaking with.

Bobbi Rebell:
Wow.

Chris Browning:
I was just shocked and I was like, well how did this happen? And they have limited information.

Bobbi Rebell:
Sure.

Chris Browning:
And all they'd allow me to do at the time was they said, "Would you like to set up a payment plan?". And I was like, well yeah I want to get this cleared up. But I said, "Let me call the hospital first".

Bobbi Rebell:
Well right, and how do you even know they're legit. I mean they're saying they have the debt, but what exactly happened? Because you'd never heard from the hospital.

Chris Browning:
Exactly, so I was a little hesitant. I don't want to give you money just yet. So I called the hospital and got hold of billing department and I asked them. I said, "I see this delinquency on my credit report. They're saying that our bill was into collections, but we never received a bill in the mail". They said, "Well yeah, we mailed it out to you". And I said, "Well we haven't got anything for months". So they checked their system and they said, "Well here's the address we have for you", and it was the wrong address. They had transposed the numbers around, and who knows where the bill actually went.

Bobbi Rebell:
Which is crazy because two things. First of all, you had been to this hospital before, so presumably you were in the system correctly at some point because you had paid previous bills. And number two, any company, any person, we should all do it, but certainly a company, a hospital, should have a return address. So if they were going to the wrong address, you would think that they would return the mail, and the hospital would receive it back.

Chris Browning:
Exactly. You think they'd be some type of notification for them to know that whatever they mailed out just came back.

Bobbi Rebell:
And they never called you.

Chris Browning:
They never called.

Bobbi Rebell:
But presumably your phone number is on there.

Chris Browning:
Exactly, you'd think if they hadn't been paid all this time, they'd have at least called to follow up. But no. I think maybe it's just the sheer volume they deal with. They don't even try, they just immediately send it to collections after the time period had passed.

Bobbi Rebell:
So then what did you do?

Chris Browning:
So after I verified with them what collection agency they actually sent the bill to, and it matched the information they I had received from the number I had called, I called the collection agency back, because at that point, the hospital said there's nothing we can do. It's been sold to collections, you know it's out of our hands. I called the number back, I spoke with them. I said, "Yes, we want to take care of this". And I said, "If we pay this off, is there a way that this could be removed from my credit report, because it's a huge mark on my credit?".

Bobbi Rebell:
And it's also not your fault.

Chris Browning:
Exactly. Because I explained to them, I said we just never received the bill. I didn't know what type of pushback I was going to get. If they were going to say no. But surprisingly they said, Yes. If you set up, if you agree to a payment plan now, they gave me the total amount. It matched what the hospital said it should be. They said, if you pay this off, we will contact the credit bureaus and have the delinquency removed, because you've taken care of this.

Bobbi Rebell:
Of course. That's the least they can do. Did the hospital take any ownership of the fact that they had not followed up?

Chris Browning:
Not at all.

Bobbi Rebell:
That's disappointing.

Chris Browning:
They basically just said, sorry, nothing we can do. It's out of our hands and it was on me to take care of it.

Bobbi Rebell:
And it's foolish on their part because generally, and I assume this was the case when you send something to a collection agency, they're only getting a fraction of what the bill was. So they lost out for not bothering and not having the right systems in place to check with you. Presumably the doctor could follow up with you and your wife, so they had contact information that was correct in some part of the system.

Chris Browning:
You'd think that if they knew they're going to lose money, that it'd be in their best interest to do a little more follow-ups, spend a little more time, but no, they just I guess, just dump it off.

Bobbi Rebell:
Right, they lost money too. So that maybe there isn't the right stakeholder at the hospital that took ownership of the fact that that bill was not being paid for that reason.

Chris Browning:
Exactly.

Chris’ Money Lesson:

Chris Browning:
I would say first of all, make sure that you follow up on all your medical bills. Even if you think that the office is going to take care of it the way they should, you just never know. You could end up in the situation like this. So I do acknowledge that I could have called and followed up after a month of not hearing anything back.

Bobbi Rebell:
But maybe the insurance you were in Network, so if I was doing something in Network, I would have assumed that if I didn't get a bill, the insurance covered it.

Chris Browning:
I made that assumption too, but I think after this now, I'm going to be on the safe side.

Bobbi Rebell:
Of course.

Chris Browning:
I'm going to give them a call just to follow up if it's been like an unusually long amount of time since I haven't got any communication from them. Just to eliminate any issues or this ever happening again.

Chris Browning:
And the second thing I would say, check your credit score. I was really fortunate that that was a habit that I had picked up. You know we had been paying off some debts so I was in the habit of looking at my credit score to see how it was changing. That's the only reason I knew that there was any type of issue is because I saw my credit score had dropped drastically, and that triggered me to look at my credit report, and that's where I found the error, and I was able to finally take care of it.

Chris’ Money Tip:

Chris Browning:
So my money tip would be check with your credit card company, if you do have a credit card. Or even some banks. A lot of them offer access to your credit score and some even your credit report directly through their website or their mobile app. And so it's really simple. It's free a lot of the time and it's just a really convenient tool to have with you, and whether you're looking for errors or you just want to kind of track your progress. I think it's a really great incentive that these banks are offering to let you stay on top of your credit and your finances.

Bobbi Rebell:
And specifically, how often do you do that?

Chris Browning:
I've slowed down. I was a little obsessive. I was checking like every day at one point. Now I'm on a once per month basis. I'll log in, just kind of look and see how things are going, just I want to keep the practice up. I don't want to get too comfortable and let too much time pass, because who knows when an error could pop up.

Bobbi Rebell:
So when people check their credit score, what are the things that they should be looking for that are good and that are bad?

Chris Browning:
So I would say for sure, any type of drastic change. So if you've made this a habit and you're checking on a regular frequency, your credit score's not going to swing wildly. You know it's normal for it to swing 10, 20 points here and there. But if you see any type of drastic change, that would for sure be a trigger point to let you know you need to look into this a little bit more. Whether it's going to some place like freecreditreport.com which is run by Experian and you're getting a copy of your credit report just to see what's going on. Wild changes in any area of your finances is normally a sign of something that's not normal and that's maybe something you should look into a little bit more.

Bobbi’s Financial Grownup Tips:

Financial Grownup Tip Number One:

The only thing Chris did wrong here, he did not follow up in finding out what he owed the hospital. So the tip is to try to stay on top of your medical bills, especially the ones that you know are probably coming. Even if you're hoping they're not. That said, the visit was in Network, so Chris in all fairness could have believed there wasn't much to do except for a co-pay that he probably had already paid at the hospital. But at the end of the day, he himself says he should have checked in and been more on top of it. Mixed feelings about that though.

Financial Grownup Tip Number Two:

Don't assume that corporations or institutions such as hospitals are competent in their billing. Question everything. This especially goes sadly for end of life situations where the family is distracted and just wants to move on. Assuming you do get bills, try hard as it may be to go through them. I know of some instances where the bills were so out of control, literally offensive, that people have gone to the financing offices of the hospital and just negotiated them down on the grounds that no one could possibly go through every charge for an overpriced Bandaid or medication or whatever, and prove that it actually happened, was given and was priced correctly. Fairly, and fairly is pretty broad when it comes to our healthcare system. Hold them accountable. Just because they throw a list of a thousand teeny charges on a bill, doesn't mean you can't question it.

Episode Links

• Listen to and learn more about the Popcorn Finance Podcast

• Check your credit score!

Follow Chris Browning and Popcorn Finance!

• Twitter - @popcornfinance

• Instagram - @popcornfinancepodcast

• YouTube - Popcorn Finance 

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.

Investing can be intimidating, but there are some simple basic steps that can put anyone on the path to success. NextGen Wealth founder Clint Haynes CFP® walks us through 8 steps to get started investing, including how to decide how long to own a stock, if and when you should pay fees, which stocks make sense with your goals, and how to understand the role emotions can play in our investment decisions. 

8 Steps to Becoming a Great DIY Investor

• Understand How to Invest for the Timeframe for Each Goal

• Understand the Role Your Emotions Play in Investing

• Your Investments Will Lose Money on Average Every 3-5 Years

• Each Goal Should Have Its Own Specific Portfolio/Bucket

• Rebalance Your Portfolio(s) at Least Annually

• Choose Investments with Low Fees and Expenses

• Don’t Reinvent the Wheel When Creating Your Own Portfolio(s)

• Monitor Your Investments Quarterly to Annually

Episode Links:

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

• Clint’s website - www.nextgen-wealth.com

• Clint’s course - The Financial Freedom Blueprint Course

  • Special discount to Financial Grownup listeners of $300!! Discount will only last for the next 48 hours.

Follow Clint!

• Instagram - @clint_nextgen_wealth

• Facebook - @NextGenWealth

• Twitter - @Clint_NextGen

• Pinterest - @nextgenwealth

• LinkedIn - @nextgen-wealth

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.

After buying 39 properties in one year, real estate investor, blogger and podcaster Chad “Coach” Carson had second thoughts about his fast paced business, and totally reworked his business, to reflect his values. 

Chad’s Money Story:

Chad Carson:
Yeah, so you can imagine sprinting up a mountain is probably not a good idea for anybody. Sprinting up's a little dangerous. But my story is I graduated from college about 18 years ago almost now. Amazing. But I graduated from college, I thought I would go into one career as a, I was biology major, pre-med. I thought that's what I would do. I took a break just to be an entrepreneur, and I started flipping houses, like finding properties to buy and got into the real estate investing thing, and I-

Bobbi Rebell:
Wait. Back it up a little. How does that just happen?

Chad Carson:
Yeah, so I just read some books on a shelf. My father was in rental properties, had rental properties, and so he happened to have some real estate books on his shelf. I'm at home post-college saying, "What am I going to do with my life?" I said, "I think I'm going to do this instead for a couple of years instead of going to medical school," which was a little crazy at the time because that was the normal path I probably should take in society. But I decided to be an entrepreneur. I lived at home for a year. My second year in business, I lived in my business partner's spare bedroom for free, so I was just basically bootstrapping it as long as-

Bobbi Rebell:
Wait.

Chad Carson:
... I could.

Bobbi Rebell:
So wait, was your father helping you? Who was your business partner? How did you get to that point?

Chad Carson:
Yeah, so my parents definitely helped me the first year because I lived at home.

Bobbi Rebell:
Were they wanting you to go to medical school, or were they happy for you to kind of-

Chad Carson:
They were happy for me to do this as well, so I had support from them. My father was an entrepreneur. My mother was a dentist, so she's in the medical field, but they, they were happy with it. They were encouraging me, so I was very fortunate in that respect. But after a year, I was on my own, and so this has saved up some money, moved to a different state. That's when I met a, it was a friend of mine from college and we just went into business together. Neither one of us have business experience with real estate. Neither one of us had a lot of money, so it wasn't the smartest type of start as a real estate venture, but we were scrappy. We liked the hustle, and we were ready to sprint, which I guess is kind of part of the part of the story.

Chad Carson:
We went to a class, and we watched a... the person who's teaching that class had some really exciting, kind of inspiring goals where they were buying and selling a lot of properties. We just sort of gravitated to that and said, "Hey, that sounds good. That's a good goal to have. Why don't we go buy and sell a lot of properties?" They were buying and selling like 50 properties per year.

Bobbi Rebell:
Okay, wait. Let me just stop you there because there's a fine line between the people that are the real deal that will legitimately teach you, and then there's a lot of people out there that make a lot of promises to people. These real estate conferences or presentations and they say, "We're going to help you do that," are notorious for not always being on the-

Chad Carson:
Exactly.

Bobbi Rebell:
... up and up. How did you-

Chad Carson:
Exactly.

Bobbi Rebell:
... know that yours was a good one, and what can people watch for if they go to these seminars to know if they're at a good one or not?

Chad Carson:
You hit the nail on the head that a lot of those are a little bit more rah-rah than they are the practical nuts and bolts of "here's how you do it." We took the rah-rah. I was 23 years old and just said, "Oh, we can do this. Let's go do it." As naive as that sounds, that's what I did. I would say, to go back to your question though, yeah, I always found that I got good information from a lot of things, but I would avoid paying, like there's, there's some where you, they're almost like pyramid schemes where you get in for free for one day. Then you have to pay 300 bucks to go for the weekend, and then you have to pay 10,000 bucks for our consulting and our course that lasts for six months. When they started getting in the pyramid scheme thing, you've lost me there. When you're brand new and you don't have much money and they're asking you to put money on credit cards and get a lot of credit card debt in order to learn about real estate investing, that's a problem. That-

Bobbi Rebell:
So look for red flags. What are the green flags?

Chad Carson:
The green flags are people who are doing it, who are still investing, and who are out there buying properties, who own rental properties. For me, the green flag is that they're not pushing you to do financially stupid things in order to buy their thing. If you're having to go into a lot of debt with credit cards to buy some person's program, yeah, that's a problem. You could spend that same amount of money going and buying an investment, and so that's an issue. We did spend some money on education. We did go to some classes obviously, but to our, I guess to our benefit, we went out and applied a lot of it. We started buying and selling a lot of houses and-

Bobbi Rebell:
How did get the capital to start? This is from saving from living at home for the one year?

Chad Carson:
No. We partnered with other people. I'm just getting out of college, and so I met a professor from Clemson University where I went to school, go Tigers, and this professor just mentioned that he invested in real estate. I just sort of stuck to him like glue after class and said, "Hey, could I follow you around or jump in your car and go look at your houses, just sort of... " probably annoying a little bit. But he recognized some sincerity there, and so I just started asking questions and learning from him and eventually said, "I'm out looking for properties. If I found a really good deal, is there some way you could put up the money, and we could both make a profit on this?"

Chad Carson:
He said yes. He started putting up some of the money. He's actually, to this day, 18 years later, the form of getting the money has changed, but that he's still been a private lender for our business almost 18 years later. We help fund his retirement. We pay him interest every month that allows him to do whatever he wants to do and travel with his family, and we have rental properties that allow us to pay him interest, and we make money as well.

Bobbi Rebell:
Okay, so you started out with a very ambitious plan with a partner, with an investor. What happens next?

Chad Carson:
Yeah, we got overheated. We bought... We got too big too fast. I guess the big issue was, or the sprint up the real estate mountain was that we went to classes, and other people were saying that bigger was better and buying a lot of properties is good, but we never really thought about like, why would we do that? What's the result of this in our lives that makes it good to get bigger and do it faster?

Chad Carson:
In 2007, so kind of history lesson that, recent history that people probably remember, 2007, 2008 a great recession, economy collapses, lots of real estate is kind of the core problem with that. We bought 30, we had 39 closings where we bought properties in 2007.

Bobbi Rebell:
Wow. I can't even imagine keeping track of all that.

Chad Carson:
Yeah, we got systematized. We were very organized. I'm organized. I've built business systems, and most of those are really good deals actually. We flipped some properties that made 50, 60,000 bucks on flipping a house, fixing it up and flipping it, so we did well. We had money in the bank. But we also bought some properties that were rental properties that we would keep for a longer period of times, and we made mistakes on a handful of them. Not all of them. We've made mistakes where we bought in wrong locations. We underestimated some of the remodel costs. What should have been a $15,000 budget was really a $30,000 budget for our remodel.

Chad Carson:
The long and short of it is, is that we got to the end of 2007, and I'll give credit to my business partner more than me, we were like, "We gotta slow this train down. We're going sprinting up this real estate mountain, but we're not really sure why we're going so fast and doing all this," and so we stepped back and thought about it and sort of reoriented our business and our goals. We each made a list of saying, "What are the things that are important to you in your life that this business and that the money this business is generating can support?" like what is it? It was really eye-opening because, on my list, I wrote down things like play pick-up basketball for two hours in the middle of the day.

Bobbi Rebell:
Wow.

Chad Carson:
You know how much money does that cost?

Bobbi Rebell:
Zero.

Chad Carson:
Zero. I had a pick-up basketball game-

Bobbi Rebell:
But it cost your time, Chad.

Chad Carson:
It cost-

Bobbi Rebell:
It cost your time.

Chad Carson:
Exactly, and so that was the big aha moment was that money is important. Money is one currency. It's not the only currency. I got that idea from the exact same time I read The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss, which, so that idea itself of that you have multiple currencies in your life, money's a really important one, but a lot of the time, we sell all of our other currencies like our time and our flexibility, and we sell those for the highest bidder. We get to make the most money, and that's not the way it always needs to work, that you... especially as an entrepreneur and for all of us, if we're investing our own money on the side, we can decide how we orient and prioritize our life to some extent. That's what we tried to do.

Bobbi Rebell:
What happened with the business? You took it down a notch. What happened with these properties? 2007 was not a good year. 2008 I should say.

Chad Carson:
2008 was worse than 2007. We didn't buy that many properties after that. That's the long and short. We had some money saved in the bank, thankfully. We were very frugal. We didn't spend much of the money that we made, so that was a smart move. But we had to use a lot of that money because we had a lot of negative cashflow on certain properties where the tenant moved out and we had an extra 10 or 15,000 repairs that we didn't think we had, and so it was sort of a game of just pivoting, changing, learning how to be really good rental landlords, learning how to handle your cash flow and financing.

Chad Carson:
We did okay though. We didn't make any money for a year or two, but we didn't lose a bunch of money either. We got through that and sold some properties. We refinanced some properties, and we bought some new properties because it was one of the best times, and probably all of our lifetimes is 2009, 2010, 2011 to buy real estate because we had good relationships with people like my professor and other people we borrowed money from. We were actually able to buy some of the best deals we ever had in the years following that once we recovered and kind of got out of there.

“A lot of the time we sell our time and our flexibility for the highest bidder. We get to make the most money. And that is not the way it always needs to work”

Chad’s Money Lesson:

Chad Carson:
I think the lesson, no matter whether you're in business or not, whether you invest in real estate or not, is to be more deliberate with your money goals. For us, that was a really big aha that, money's important, but it's not the only thing in the equation. We probably all know this intuitive, that money's not everything, there's other things more important in life, but I don't know how often, at least I didn't, actually put that into effect and prioritize that with your money, with your investing, with your business, actually like put those other things in your life.

Chad Carson:
We really did that. Actually, my wife and I took a four-month mini retirement kind of trip in 2009 where we said, "I'm not going to make any money for the next four months. In fact, we're going to save money for a while and just take off and travel." Travel was important to us, and we had to prioritize that and balance that in into our lives. I think just everybody's got different flexibility and abilities to be able to do that, but we can start prioritizing and balancing those.

“Be more deliberate with your money goals. Money is important but it is not the only thing in the equation. ”

Chad’s Money Tip:

Chad Carson:
Yeah. My tip is that you and I, like we are, the people who are listening to this, we are our number one asset. We think about sometimes investing our money and our time into investments and money, in businesses, but what about improving ourselves? My tip is, one thing I like to do is I actually prioritize and budget a little bit of time every day, usually in the morning for me when I actually read a book or listen to a podcast like this or watch a YouTube video specifically trying to improve a skill or something that I really want to learn, so you can have pleasure reading and enjoying reading, which is great too, but actually trying to get better at something.

Chad Carson:
For me for the last six months, I've been trying to get better at YouTube and creating YouTube videos. I'm like a broken record. My wife's like, "Are you watching another how to do YouTube video chat?" I'm like, "Yep, that's what I'm doing right now." For 20 minutes a day, I'm budgeting that time, I'm getting better at it. You'd be amazed how good you can get at anything if you budget some time, budget some money, maybe to go to a class, go to a conference. If you want to get good at being on YouTube and making YouTube videos, within six months, you can get really good at it if you prioritize and focus your time on it. That's my tip is to budget your money and time to improve yourself, to improve your own skills, and that actually leads to not only money, but also other skills, other happiness skills, other things that you want to do in your life.

“We are our #1 asset. Prioritize and budget a little bit of time every day.. specifically trying to improve a skill or something that I really want to learn. Try to get better at something. ”

Bobbi’s Financial grownup tips:

Financial grownup tip number one:

Chad talks about taking time to educate yourself maybe 20 minutes a day. I couldn't agree more, but I want to add that one way to accomplish this is to add an accountability element by telling someone and maybe making it mutual. Check in on each other. I know that when I was studying for the CFP, Certified Financial Planner, exam, I was being checked on by some friends who had recently passed the exam, and that really helped. If you were taking an online class, maybe get a friend to take it as well so you guys can keep up with each other and stay on track.

Financial grownup tip number two:

One of the best things that Chad was able to do was to buy property when prices were cheap but at time when a lot of other people just didn't have the resources because he did. He had cash on the side ready to go when there were opportunities. He wasn't over leveraged, and that can be applied to all parts of our lives. Having available resources for when others aren't so flush can be a huge advantage.

Episode Links:

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

• Chad’s website - www.coachcarson.com

• Chad’s podcast - Coach Carson Podcast

• Your Money or Your Life

• The 4-hour Workweek

Follow Chad!

• Instagram - @coachcarson1

• Facebook - @coachchadcarson

• Twitter - @CoachChadCarson

• LinkedIn - @coachcarson

• Pinterest - @chadcarson1

• 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.

So many of us dream of having our own business and what could be better than doing it with our bestie. But like all relationships- it can get complicated. But when it works, it can be the “it” factor that sets a business apart and on the road to success. Bowery Valuation co-founder Noah Isaacs shares his four key strategies to making a business with your BFF work.

 

4 key things you need to have to nail down to make working with your BFF work:

• Trust

• Complementary skills and expertise

• Shared vision and shared values

• Being in the foxhole

Episode Links:

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

Noah’s website - www.boweryvaluation.com

Follow Bowery Valuation!

• LinkedIn

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.

YouTube superstar Sarah Wilson documented and inspired others with her journey to being debt free. But after she got to do the debt free scream with Dave Ramsey, she had a whole new set of challenges. Plus Sarah saves Bobbi from buying things she can get for free at the Fincon conference. 

Sarah's money story:

sarah wilson:
five years ago I was working in a newspaper for about $26,000 a year. I had deferred my student loans from college, and there were $33,000 of them. I lost my job. Suddenly I was extremely scared and I swore to myself that whenever I got a new job, I would figure this money thing out. Because being unemployed would've been so much less stressful had I not had $33,000 worth of student debt looming.

sarah wilson:
So, I got a new job making $26,000 a year at a newspaper, in a new state, and I started budgeting. I did everything possible to lower my expenses, increase my income, side hustling. And over the next three years, I actually documented it on YouTube. Every single week, I'd go on and tell people how much debt I had left and what I was doing that week to help fix it. It took me three years and a couple of different jobs where I raised my income a little each time, but I paid off all my debt.

bobbi rebell:
We're so proud of you for that. And also, what you're leaving out with your modesty is that while you were doing this, there was something about you. You have a relatability and an it factor that you also developed a huge following of fans and supporters while doing this. How many YouTube subscribers do you have right now?

sarah wilson:
A little over 56,000.

bobbi rebell:
Wow. And you also have monetized that. So, you actually have this side business of this YouTube channel, which is really inspiring and helping so many people. Then you hit a big milestone a year ago and that changed everything. We're going to start your story, your money story that you're going to share, with a big scream.

sarah wilson:
Yeah, I actually went on the Dave Ramsey show because I was a huge fan of his and I was following his steps to get out of debt. I was able to do my debt free scream live in studio. That was just incredible. It felt like closing and opening a chapter in my life.

bobbi rebell:
It's a big milestone and it brings us to what we want to talk about, which is what happens when you reach your money goal. Because your money goal was to be debt free. That scream was so symbolic. Then what?

sarah wilson:
The first thing I decided was to save up a giant chunk of money. Once again, ala Dave Ramsey. I saved six months worth of living expenses in case I ever lost my job again. I would be okay for a while. Or if I suddenly got into a car accident, or a medical thing, it just gives so much peace to know that I have 10 grand sitting in a interest earning bank that I can use if something terrible happens.

sarah wilson:
And then I also started investing, which is super fun and kind of intimidating for someone who was never taught about money.

bobbi rebell:
How did you start investing?

sarah wilson:
I did a lot of research, and procrastinated way too long. And then I just kind of jumped in. I bought a few index funds. I did a little robo-investing. Just kind of got my feet wet and figured out what was right for me. I'm still exploring that. I'm starting to purchase, actually, some single stocks and do some more exploratory stuff.

sarah wilson:
I funded my... I did more retirement funding for her, so I opened a couple of Roth IRAs. It's a really fun time now because I'm learning about all of that, which was not within my capacity when I was getting out of debt. I couldn't think about future dreams then.

bobbi rebell:
How specifically are you learning? What are your tools and how did you set up these things? I mean, if we get really basic, did you choose a robo-advisor? Did you just walk into a branch of a brokerage firm? I mean, what specifically did you do at that point?

sarah wilson:
Well, I tried working with a planner first and then I didn't like that. They wanted 5% of whatever I invested and I was like, "You know what? No. I can figure this out. I figured out how to get out of debt. I can figure this out on my own."

sarah wilson:
So, I've read every single thing that Bigger Pockets has ever wrote. I've watched so many YouTube channels that my friends are on. As they've learned, they've shared that information as well, which is incredible. And read a couple of books. Erin's Broke Millennial's Guide To Investing, TFD, all of it.

bobbi rebell:
The Financial Diet.

sarah wilson:
Yes.

bobbi rebell:
It's The Financial Diet.

sarah wilson:
Oh, I'm sorry, the Financial Diet. And of course, How To Be a Financial Grownup by someone you might know.

bobbi rebell:
Thank you. I think education is such an important message. As you go through the different phases of being a grownup, your phase one was paying off the debt. Your phase two is educating yourself to grow your money. So, you didn't go with a financial advisor that wanted to take 5%. What did you go with? Are you with a discount brokerage. Are you with a robo-advisor? How did you come to those decisions?

sarah wilson:
Right. I don't advise people who watch my channel to do this, because I think you should do things more simply. But I have, probably, 15 different investment accounts. I have accounts at Vanguard. I have accounts at different robo-advisors. Because I wanted to try everything, and I wanted to see the pros and cons.

bobbi rebell:
So, you're sampling?

sarah wilson:
Yeah, I'm sampling. I will continue to kind of narrow things as I figure out what is right for me. The different fee structures, pros and cons, that kind of thing.

bobbi rebell:
That's interesting. And so-

sarah wilson:
I'm not advising that. People ask me like, "Well, what do you think of Robinhood?" And I'm like, "I don't know. Let me go try it."

bobbi rebell:
Right. Well, one thing that people should... I just want to note. Very often, if you do consolidate your money and you get to a certain level, you can get benefits at these things.

sarah wilson:
Yes.

bobbi rebell:
So, I do advise you even though I don't... But I advise you to consider consolidating into fewer accounts than 15 at some point.

sarah wilson:
Yes.

bobbi rebell:
Because there are often benefits. People do want to reward their better customers. And also, from a question of just tracking your money and having those efficiencies. That might be something to consider.

sarah wilson:
I have a lot of spreadsheets right now.

bobbi rebell:
You mentioned in terms of your bigger picture life planning, what have you been able to do since paying off your debt?

sarah wilson:
The next big thing is going to be buying a multifamily property, and house hacking that into another stream of income. This is something I never dreamed of before. I never thought I'd be able to buy a house on a currently around $50,000 a year. But I have no debt. I live off of about 50 to 60% of my income, invest and save the rest.

bobbi rebell:
And explain what house hacking is. And that's a topic we're going to cover, actually, on a new Financial Grownup episode coming up.

sarah wilson:
Wonderful. House hacking is say I purchased a duplex for $200,000. Because I live in Texas and I'm very lucky. So, I move into one unit and then the other unit I rent out for say a little bit above what my mortgage payment and taxes are for the entire property. Suddenly, I've got essentially someone else, a renter, paying my mortgage for me. I've opened up another line of income and I'm also building equity in this home. In a couple of years, I can be saving the money that I'm saving on rent and do that again. Rent out both sides and maybe move into a different property, or maybe a fourplex.

“I was able to do my debt free scream live in studio. That was just incredible. It felt like closing and opening a chapter in my life.”

Sarah’s money lesson:

sarah wilson:
I think that money mastery is a muscle and that none of us are born with it. And if we had been having this conversation three years ago, it would've been like, "I can't talk about house hacking. I can't talk about investing right now. I can't. I don't have the capacity."

sarah wilson:
But by doing small things in the direction of your goals, whether it's cutting your grocery budget a little bit, or ballsing up and opening your first investing account, even though you're a little intimidated, making those steps is going to get you to the place where you are financially free. You just have to keep moving forward one step at a time. You can't just suddenly wake up and be you.

bobbi rebell:
You make a great point to not be afraid. And even though I do hope that you eventually consolidate your 15 accounts, I do think there's something to be said for just starting. If you open an account at a brokerage firm and you decide, for whatever reason, it's not the right fit, you can move that money to someplace that is a better fit. It doesn't have to be forever, but it should be starting.

“It just gives so much peace to know that I have $10,000 sitting in an interest earning bank that I can use if something terrible happens.”

Sarah's everyday money tip:

bobbi rebell:
I want to transition to talking about your money tip because this is something that I totally did not know. I am significantly older than you, but apparently other people do. My husband made fun of me now for not knowing this. However, I feel that I have to be honest that I did not know to do this all these years, and maybe there are other people out there that haven't.

bobbi rebell:
We were chatting earlier at FinCon and I mentioned that I'd forgotten toothpaste. I had a toothbrush, I forgot the toothpaste. You gave me this amazing advice because I was about to go buy one. Go for it. What's your money tip?

sarah wilson:
I told you to go down to the front desk and ask the concierge, or hospitality, or the front desk clerk, just tell them that you forgot your toothpaste and toothbrush and they will give you one.

bobbi rebell:
For free.

sarah wilson:
Yeah, completely free. Like 50 feet away from the gift shop where they sell a miniature size toothpaste for $4 and a toothbrush for 3. He'll just hand you one.

bobbi rebell:
Not only did they give me toothpaste, they gave me a toothbrush. A full size toothbrush, by the way, Sarah.

sarah wilson:
Yeah. Like an Oral B toothbrush and then like Crest mini toothpaste.

bobbi rebell:
Totally.

sarah wilson:
It's the good stuff.

bobbi rebell:
And apparently they give away other stuff. The concierge.

sarah wilson:
What else do they give away?

bobbi rebell:
My husband has informed me they give away combs. They can give you a razor. All kinds of things that you would go to the gift shop right next door and purchase.

“By doing small things in the direction of your goals, whether it’s cutting your grocery budget a little bit, or opening your first investing account, even though you’re a little intimidated, making those steps is going to get you to the place where you are financially free.”

Bobbi’s Take:

Financial Grownup tip number one:

I never thought about the fact that hotels and tons of other places that we visit, that we see throughout our everyday lives, have lost and founds. They do, guys. It's not just school.

When you're growing up, this can be very important. If you lose something, or misplace it, or maybe if you need a charger, like Sarah did. I know this is very basic, but just like I didn't know that you could just ask for things for free from a hotel front desk, that were for sale right around the corner. Make sure that if you misplace something, or you just maybe need to borrow something, again like a charger, you ask if there is a lost and found. Maybe the thing that you lost is there, or maybe something that you need to borrow is there.

I once left a pair of shoes in a hotel. Don't ask how I lost the shoes. I was wearing other shoes. Just trust me. And I called anyway. They looked in the lost and found. Sure enough, they were there and they mailed the shoes to me. All is not lost. Just ask.

Financial Grownup tip number two:

Financial Grownup tip number two. Sarah is all over the place with her investing. That's her thing right now. We're not going to judge. But I do want to caution that although I said in our interview that you don't want your resources too scattered, and that there are often perks that you get if you have larger balances and you consolidate in one place, it's also okay to have your resources in a few places. Maybe not, and I know it's an expression but, put all your eggs in one basket. Put all your eggs in just a few baskets. Not too many, but a few.

Maybe I'm a bit paranoid, but sometimes things do go wrong. There have been companies that have gone out of business, or sometimes something not so legal happens in some places that seem to be pretty above board until they're not. So, it's okay to have your wealth in a few places. Make sure that they have the appropriate protections in place. Whether it's a bank with FDIC insurance. Or SIPC, for example, for a brokerage. And understand what that protects.

For example, SIPC is not going to protect you from a stock's value going down. That's just the market. What it does protect you from is the custody function of a broker. So, if a brokerage firm fails, that's going to give you some limited protection. Take the time to understand the protections for your investments when you choose what entities to park your money in. Whether it's banks or brokerage firms, what have you, there's a lot of startups, make sure that they've been vetted, make sure you understand the protections that are in place. Made a deliberate decision about how many entities you're going to be parking in your money in. Again, 15 seems like a lot. Whatever works for you, though. I think it's your decision. Just make sure it is deliberate, as I said.

Episode Links:

• Sarah’s Website - www.gobudgetgirl.com

• Sarah’s Dave Ramsey Debt Free Scream - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ofhfT4mx7s

Follow Sarah!

• YouTube - @BudgetGirl

• Facebook - @GoBudgetGirl

• Instagram - @GoBudgetGirl

• Twitter - @GoBudgetGirl

• Pinterest - @GoBudgetGirl

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.

When Park Place Payments founder and CEO Samantha Ettus was just getting started in her career, family vacations were not in the budget. But she found a way to get a luxury vacation for free, with a little creativity, and a sense of adventure.

Samantha's money story:

Samantha Ettus:
Oh my gosh. You're the first person I've shared this with on air, but this is a little bit embarrassing. That's okay. We go way back, so I'll share it with you. But I was pregnant with my third child, and I had two little ones, Ella and Ruby, who were both under age five at the time. And spring break was coming up. We were in a very small New York City apartment. It was 1400 square feet. And I was freezing and just exhausted, and I said to my husband, "Where are we going to go spring break when the kids are off?" And he was like, "What do you mean? You have a book coming up that you have to work on, and I have this business I just started, and there is no budget for a vacation." I kind of had my own version of like an adult temper tantrum where I was crying and emotional and pregnant, very pregnant, and just beside myself that there was no way to get out of Dodge basically.

Samantha Ettus:
So basically we got in this argument and he said, "Well, if you can figure out how to do it for free, I'll take the time off." I said, "Okay, I'm going to do it." The first thing I did was get online, and this is ridiculous, but I looked up-

Bobbi Rebell:
So this is basically, I can tell, this is basically how Samantha Ettus gets a vacation for free. Okay. Go.

Samantha Ettus:
Exactly. Yes. Thank you for titling it. So basically I quickly got online and just said I was going to enter a contest where you could win a vacation for free. That was a total dead end.

Bobbi Rebell:
Or just enter the lottery, Samantha. Why not.

Samantha Ettus:
Right, exactly. If we're going down that path. Good stats there. And then I went on these home-swapping sites and saw so many exciting homes. Then I thought, well I can [inaudible 00:05:52] to this apartment. I went to the flower store. I basically had completely [inaudible 00:05:57] the apartment and photographed it by the time the day was over, and that night we had 15 to 20 offers of home swaps. There's all these websites where you can just house swap. You have to sign up and do all the things, and you barter, and people will immediately start making offers like, "Do you want my flat in Paris if I can have your flat in New York City?" I mean, that's literally what it was like. And it has to be compatible dates, but you type in your dates. I mean, these sites are really sophisticated at this point.

Samantha Ettus:
So we ended up swapping. By the next week we had our spring break plan. We used frequent flyer miles to go to Newport Beach, California. There was a family there of five. They had a brand new home. I looked it up on Google. I even Googled the owners to make sure they were legit people. She was like a VP at some company, and so I knew she was like a real person and I could find her on LinkedIn. She actually left her car, which was an SUV, at the airport for us, so that when we landed we had her car for the week. The only thing I had to do was feed her fish, which my little kids thought was so exciting, and we had a one week vacation in Newport Beach that was completely free.

Bobbi Rebell:
And she let you drive her car?

Samantha Ettus:
Yeah.

Bobbi Rebell:
Oh my goodness.

Samantha Ettus:
And by the way, the one thing we did was we had a housekeeper come right before they came to our apartment and right after they left. So for us, you wouldn't have even noticed that they were there. It did not impact our apartment at all. We left their apartment in good shape and they left ours in great shape.

“I think prioritizing vacations as a family is a really good use of your money, because those experiences are more valuable than things.”

Samantha’s money lesson:

Samantha Ettus:
I think it was homeaway.com. But otherwise it was just the number one house-swapping site, whatever that is. You can just Google it.

Bobbi Rebell:
Have you done more, by the way, since then?

Samantha Ettus:
We haven't done more. And the other lesson I think is-

Bobbi Rebell:
Wait, why not?

Samantha Ettus:
Because we actually fortunately got into a position where we didn't need to do a house swap for a vacation. We found other ways to pay for the vacation. The other thing is we were in a New York city co-op, and like shh, but you're not really supposed to be house swapping in a New York City co-op. So it was a little bit tricky. But it's many years later. So I think I'm safe to share that with your listeners. But at the end of the day, it all worked out beautifully. I think in general we had a great situation. Their house was not as clean as I would have liked it to be. It wasn't as clean as a hotel would be. There were certain things that weren't perfect, but it was as close to good as you could get. I think the lesson is just you can always figure it out.

Samantha Ettus:
But the other lesson is to always keep that vacation money aside. Like figure out either a side hustle or figure out a way to put away money for a vacation. Because at least in my family, we are a two-income family. My husband and I are both working, and our vacations are so important to us because it's a lot of quality time with our kids. And so especially as our kids are getting older, we care so much about that time. And I think prioritizing vacations as a family is a really good use of your money, because those experiences are more valuable than things.

Bobbi Rebell:
And I'm so glad you said that. It reminds me of the question that Warren Buffet got from a child recently asking about how to suppress his desire to, for example, go on vacation. I think they were talking about Disney, or Warren Buffet brought up the idea of Disney that you can say you want to save up for a seven-day trip to Disney, but then by the time you've saved up for seven days, your child is not the right age anymore or the age that you wanted to go. So maybe it's better to go for a two or three-day Disney trip. Or in your case, maybe it's better to go on a home swap and go on the vacation rather than just not, rather than waiting for the perfect time when you're completely financially able to afford your dream vacation. You have to live your life.

Samantha Ettus:
And the other thing about that it's the same thing as people saying, well, it's not the right time to have a baby, it's not the right time to fall in love, it's not... The bottom line is life doesn't work that way. And if you fall in love, go for it. If you want to have a kid, you'll figure it out. There's no perfect time for any of this. But I do think that time passes really fast with people you love. And so the more time you can spend having those experiences now it's really worth it. Don't delay happiness.

Bobbi Rebell:
Don't delay happiness. Excellent point.

“Time is more valuable than any other thing you have so use it wisely.”

Samantha's everyday money tip:

Samantha Ettus:
Yes. I think it is critical to think of your time as money. So for example, I mean this is just a little small example, but part of my team yesterday was ordering in lunch because we had a big conference call, and one of my employees who focuses on the budget was like, "Oh my gosh, it's so expensive." And someone said, "Well I'll just go get it." And I was like, "Hold on. Hold on one second. The amount of money we're saving for you to go get it, for you to be gone from the office to go get it for 45 minutes is actually not worth the $8 we're saving."

Samantha Ettus:
And so sometimes we forget that time is money. And that's just a micro example at work. But then at home it's like I will meet so many people who think it's better to not spend $40 on a housekeeper once a week or $50 on housekeeper once a week, instead of doing it themselves. But what could you be doing in that four hours? Could you be working on a side hustle, or that business idea you've always wanted to start? Like there are so many things you could do with that time. Or is it maybe worth it to spend that time doing something alone with your child?

Samantha Ettus:
I think it's pivotal to think of time as money. And pretty much time is more valuable than any other thing you have. So use it wisely.

Bobbi’s Take:

Financial Grownup tip number one:

Samantha talks about the cost of being out of the workforce, but with so many entrepreneurial ventures these days, how that is defined is changing. So you may work for yourself and not be in a traditional job and think you are good to go. And you are good to go to an extent, but you need to make sure that if you are not working for a corporation that gives you benefits, you are also paying yourself the benefits that you would have had. And specifically I want to focus on retirement savings. Many full-time jobs have some kind of plan, often a 401k with a match. If you do something yourself, for example, for the flexibility, something like Park Place Payments, make sure you calculate more than just your salary when you are figuring out how much you are really making, and make sure you set up a retirement plan for yourself and you fund it consistently.

Financial Grownup tip number two:

Go on short vacations if you are on a budget. My family wanted to go to Iceland. It is crazy expensive. We went for four days. We had an amazing time. And if you can pay for part of it, by the way, with points and so on, do it. Don't save it all up for the most amazing round-the-world trip when you get old. Just use it now. Don't save it for when the time is perfect. Do it. I'm looking at my 12-year-old and wondering how he is 12 years old, and I am so happy that we have gone on the trips that we've gone on, and my only regret really is that we haven't done more adventures as a family traveling.

Episode Links:

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

Samantha’s website - www.samanthaettus.com/

Park Place Payments Website - www.ParkPlacePayments.com

• To access your path to financial freedom, join the family of Account Executives- Receive $100 off of Park Place Academy when you enter code: financialgrownup

Follow Samantha!

• Instagram - @SamanthaEttus

• Facebook - @SamanthaEttus

• Twitter - @SamanthaEttus

• LinkedIn - @SamanthaEttus

Follow Park Place Payments!

• Instagram - @parkplacepayments

• Facebook - @parkplacepayments

• Twitter - @parkplacepower

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.

Former Facebook exec. Paul Ollinger left his job with a pile of money and no plans. But retirement wasn’t all that and he decided to use his financial freedom to pivot to his true love, making people smile as a standup comedian and host of the podcast "Crazy Money". 

“The experience of being retired early was far far less satisfying than I ever anticipated that it would be.”

Paul's money story:

Yeah, I did quit at 42 and I left Facebook without a plan. I just thought, "Hey, I have enough money. I don't want to work and be stressed out all the time. I don't want to be away from my family. I want to be close to my mom who's sick," and I bailed on work and I didn't have a plan, so I thought, "Well, I'll just go be kind of rich for a while." After you take a few trips after you start getting back in shape and work on your golf handicap, one day I came home after dropping my kids at school and I turned on my computer and there was nothing there. It was like, you have no mail. I was like, huh. I was like, I missed work. I missed having a goal. I missed my friends. I missed my colleagues. I missed the challenge of being a part of a team and I was like, well, what now? The experience of being retired early was far, far less satisfying than I ever anticipated that it would be.

Bobbi Rebell:
Yeah, because we talk a lot now, there's this growing enthusiasm for this acronym FIRE, as I mentioned, Financial Independence Retire Early. You have some very strong opinions about that.

Paul Ollinger:
Yeah, I think FI is great, financial independence. I think it's hugely neglected in our country and that we should all work very, very hard to buy ourselves back from the bank and to give ourselves a buffer so that we have the independence to leave a job if it's unhealthy for us, but I think the fascination, the fetishizing of RE, retire early, is hugely misdirected. You don't want to not work. You want to work on your terms and if that's how you interpret RE, then we're on the same page. but you want to be able to do work that's sustainable, that feeds your soul, and that is done in a way that leaves time in your life for things like family and staying healthy. The goal of retiring early and having nothing to do, that's not something any of us should aspire to.

Bobbi Rebell:
Okay, so back to the blank computer screen. You're sitting there, you got no mail, you got nowhere to go. What happens next?

Paul Ollinger:
Well, I had done comedy before I worked at Facebook. I worked at Yahoo. I paid off my student loans and I went and I did comedy for two years before I went to Facebook. Then I got engaged and I just happened to end up getting a job selling advertising in Facebook, but when I left Facebook, I didn't have a plan. I was just walking away from something; I wasn't walking toward anything. After a year and a half, two years, of kind of goofing off and not finding what I wanted to do, I sucked it up and I decided I'm going to write every day, I'm going to get back in the open mics, I'm going to figure out how to reinvent myself as a stand-up comedian at, I guess it was 45 or 46 years old by that time.

Bobbi Rebell:
Wow. What was the first thing you did? What was the conversation like with your family because you are now married and you now have children? If you're comfortable, tell us. You're welcome to tell us all your financial details, but give us some context for what this would involve financially.

Paul Ollinger:
On my very first date with my wife 14 years ago, I told her that I was going to quit my job and be a stand-up comedian and she was in from day one. You might also say she was warned on day one, so we've gone through periods of me doing very, very well in the corporate world and me making very little money as an artist. Four and a half, five years ago, when I really started back after Facebook, I said, "I'm going to commit to doing this, to getting after being a full-time comedian." She was fully onboard. Now, full disclosure, working at Facebook as one of the first 250 employees and getting stock options provided us with a size-able nest egg from which we have enough money to live indefinitely if we don't overspend. That certainly puts salve on the wounds of financial... the questions around finances if you don't have to make a living to feed your kids and pay your mortgage,

Bobbi Rebell:
What is it that you think people misunderstand then about the whole FIRE concept?

Paul Ollinger:
What people don't understand is how much they get from work that they're not computing on the positive side of the ledger. They think about work, they think about, okay, I get a paycheck and then it comes with all these costs of stress and hours and travel, but they're not saying, oh, what I get from work isn't just a paycheck. It's camaraderie, it's an identity, it's respect from colleagues, it's the satisfaction I get from learning and solving problems. All that stuff is really, really important. I mean, look at Maslow's Hierarchy. Belongingness is something that takes us one step above where we would be without work.

“I missed work. I missed having a goal. I missed my friends. I missed my colleagues. I missed the challenge of being part of a team.”

Paul’s money lesson:

Find work that you want to do for as long as you can. Find work that doesn't just pay the most, but that you want to do for as long a period as you can. If you have a dream, by the way, it's a lot easier to chase if you've paid your bills first. Putting a little nest egg away before you chase your dream is a far safer way to do it than just saying screw this when you're 32 and then when you're 55 not having anything to show financially for your efforts of the previous two decades.

Bobbi Rebell:
Do you think there is a danger that some of the young retirees are putting themselves in by, especially, we're recording this at a time when the stock market is extremely volatile, so people may have historic calculations in their savings, but they may not necessarily play out as they expect?

Paul Ollinger:
Well, I think there's two things there absolutely. One is, if you think having a million dollars when you're 32 in the market is going to last you forever, then you haven't lived through too many economic cycles and that million dollars can easily be $600,000 after a couple of bad quarters, so there's that. The second thing is that it's human nature that our wants continue to expand and it's not that we can't manage that as people, and I think we should be very aware of how we spend our money so that we're making sure we're spending it on what we value and provides us with more happiness, but however much you have and think you can live on when you're 32, it's not going to be the same number when you're 42 as perhaps your family expands or your parents get sick. There's all kinds of stuff that's going to happen in life that million bucks that could turn into $600,000 probably won't be able to pay for.

“If you have a dream, it is a lot easier to chase if you have paid your bills first.”

Paul's everyday money tip:

Paul Ollinger:
Be on the same page as your spouse. As difficult as it may be, go sit down and talk about where you're spending your money with your partner because there's nothing more expensive than not being on the same page with the person who shares, not just your life and your household, but the money that you all spend together.

Bobbi Rebell:
Yeah, and I'm just going to add, have that conversation ASAP if you're not already and don't be afraid to actually bring documents and go over what you're actually spending. Right?

Paul Ollinger:
Well, that's the first part is to find out where it's actually going and to say, "Hey, do you know that we're actually spending X on this? Do you feel like, are you getting what you want out of it? Because it doesn't feel like that's bringing us as much happiness as the top line number would indicate it should be."

Bobbi’s Financial Grownup tips:

Financial Grownup tip number one:

My favorite line of Paul's in this entire episode was quote, "If you have a dream, it is easier to chase it if you have your bills paid." The truth is that is not so easy, but it is often the harsh truth. We get so caught up in the romance of going for it that we forget the role of financial stability in getting to our goals. No one wants a comedian who is stressed out about his bills, although actually in Paul's case, that could probably work into his act, but you get what I'm saying here.

Financial Grownup tip number two:

After our interview, I asked Paul how we could score discount or even free comedy tickets. He gave me the inside scoop. He said a lot of the shows don't actually sell out and the clubs make a lot of their money on the drinks and then the other stuff that you buy there, like souvenirs, so they really want to fill those seats and they often do this by sending out last minute email blasts offering free, free, free seats. You need to find out where the comedy shows are in your area or where you're going to visit. Get on those email lists, follow them on social media, so you can be on the list or get the social media tweets or posts and find out when those free tickets are happening.

Episode Links:

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

• Paul’s website - www.PaulOllinger.com/

• Paul’s podcast Crazy Money
  
  
  
  

Follow Paul!

• Instagram - Paul_Ollinger

• Facebook - @PaulOllinger

• Twitter - @Paul_Ollinger

• LinkedIn - @PaulOllinger

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.

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:

• Tess’ website - Wander Wealthy

• Day in the life with Tess on Instagram

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

• Tess' Invested program- The Invested Program

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.

Happy Go Money author Melissa Leong shares the story of how her teen novels were rejected by mainstream publishers, but went on to sell over 70,000 copies after she decided to take control of her own career. Plus everyday social media tips to be happier no matter how much money you have or don’t have.

“You can’t wait around to make the perfect amount of money. You can’t wait around for your boss to give you that raise for you to be happy.”

Melissa’s Money Story:

I tried to shop this around. It's a vampire series, during the time ... Well, it was the tail end of Twilight, so no publisher wanted another vampire book. So I got a lot of no’s, in which case I was faced with this decision of, what is my dream worth? I want to get this done, so what am I willing to invest in myself? So I created a budget of how much I would spend on, pay a designer to create a cover, to publish it myself, to put it out into the world.

I self-published it, and yes, it turned out, in more ways than one, to be a great, great experience, something that I consider a success in my life. Something that I could check off my bucket list. And I still get the occasional check in the mail, even though I don't do all that much work publicizing it. I did make my money back and then some, and it was basically a great gift that I could give to myself, just in terms of learning that I could build a brand, make money for myself outside of a salary, and take those tools and make more money in another career.

Bobbi Rebell:
Tell us more about the journey. Did you write it first, and then you went to different publishers? How did it actually work? And how did the economics change between, if you had gotten a deal with a traditional publisher versus your own situation where you were self-publishing? What did that actually involve from a business and an economic standpoint, and a marketing standpoint?

Melissa Leong:
I think people don't realize that when you go and you create any product, you are entering into a business. You're your own business. You're your own publisher. I learned so much about being my own marketing department, my own publishing, and quality control, and PR, and that all requires resources, time and money. So yeah, I didn't have a publisher to push my books, but because I was doing everything myself, I had full control, and I had a huge percentage of the cut of sales. A traditional publisher might give you 7% off of the book selling price, but say you publish through Amazon, you get 70%, depending on what you price the book at. That was really rewarding.

Bobbi Rebell:
I realize we were talking about PR for the book. We didn't say what the book title was, and where people can get it. We should say that, right?

Melissa Leong:
Yes. It's still on Amazon. The first book is called What Kills Me, and the second is I Am Forever. It's a teen adventure novel. It's based on a vampire story.

“Mute the people on social media who make you feel bad about yourself”

Melissa’s Money Lesson:

The same lesson that I have when it comes to happiness. I think we sit around waiting for external factors to fulfill us, and that's not how life will serve you best. You can't wait around to make the perfect amount of money. You can't wait around for your boss to give you that raise, for you to be happy. Happiness is for you to fulfill for yourself. It's the same thing with any of your goals or your dreams. They all seem lofty, and they all seem huge in the beginning, but you have to take that first step. You turn on the heat, and if you turn off the heat before the water boils, the water will never boil. You just have to keep going. You break everything down into some sort of small, bite-sized goal, like writing a 60,000-word book in six months. That was my goal, and I thought, "That is ridiculous. How am I going to do that?"

Well, I broke it down to the smallest thing. Every single day, five days a week, I have to write 500 words. There you go. If, by the end of the day, I haven't written 500 words of something for this novel, then I didn't feel good. I also had a partner who I could check in with, and say, "I met my goal today. Yay. Somebody keep me accountable." It was something very tangible to do in a very short period of time.

“I was faced with this decision. What is my dream worth? I want to get this done and so what am I willing to invest in myself”

Melissa’s Money Tip:

There is a study that shows that if you live beside somebody who's won the lottery, you are more apt to go bankrupt, because you're also spending on tangible, visible assets, even though you have not won any money. It is something that we beat ourselves up for, but it's something that you can control. You can put a tracker on your phone to see how much time you spend on social media. You can mute the people on social media who make you feel kind of jealous, who make you feel bad about yourself, who don't share your values. You can fill your feed with things that are uplifting, things that inspire you.

If you find yourself comparing yourself to other people, then choose what specific attributes that they have, that you admire. Don't admire somebody because they're rich. Admire them because they have some sort of tenacity, or some sort of perseverance quality that you think that you would like more of in your own life.

Bobbi’s Financial grownup tips:

Financial Grownup tip number one:

Inventory your stuff. We're not saying to do a Kon-Mari, reference to Marie Kondo, who is known for Tidying Up. Just know what you own, so you can make a decision about whether you want to own more. At least know what you have, so you don't make buying mistakes. So, for example, you don't buy something that you already have five of, you just didn't know where they were. And let's be honest, we've all done that. Make sure you know where your stuff is, so it's there for you when you need it.

Financial Grownup tip number two:

Again from Melissa's book, Happy Go Money: Delete your credit card info from the browser on your computer, your phone, iPad, whatever you use to shop, so you have to manually enter it each time you want to buy something. What I love about this advice is that it's not about buying something, whether you need it or just want it. That's okay. It is about creating a speed bump so you have to slow down and think about the decision, and make it a thoughtful one, and it's okay to buy things.

Episode Links:

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

• Melissa's book Happy Go Money

• Melissa’s website - www.MelissaLeong.com

Follow Melissa!

• Instagram - @LisLeong

• LinkedIn - @MelissaWLeong

• Twitter - @LisLeong

• Facebook - @Melissa.W.Leong

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.

Happy Go Money author Melissa Leong shares the story of how her teen novels were rejected by mainstream publishers, but went on to sell over 70,000 copies after she decided to take control of her own career. Plus everyday social media tips to be happier no matter how much money you have or don’t have. In this Financial Grownup podcast episode you’ll learn the things you can do to create your happiness. #Happiness #Author

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.

Cate Luzio had no problem getting her boss to agree to give her a raise, but was caught off guard when asked how much she wanted. Cate shares exactly how she was able to come back with her number in just 24 hours, and how we can all get paid as much as possible. 

Cate's money story:

So I spent many years in corporate investment banking, but a large stint of it at JP Morgan. I was living in London, I was already at a managing director level, I was managing a big business within the corporate bank. I was, as women do, getting ready to prepare for that year end discussion and to ask for a raise. I go into my boss's office who was amazing and as I'm starting to already defend my accomplishments and list them out within 30 seconds of me speaking, he says, "Cate stop talking." I thought, "Oh, God, what did I do wrong?".

Bobbi Rebell:
Yeah, I would be worried.

Cate Luzio:
I thought he was going to say, "You're out.".

Bobbi Rebell:
Oh, no.

Cate Luzio:
And then he said, "What's your number?"

Bobbi Rebell:
Meaning?

Cate Luzio:
Meaning what's the number?

Bobbi Rebell:
How much do you want?

Cate Luzio:
Exactly. Because, one, he didn't have time to waste, and I will tell you that. And two, he was like, "Let's get to the point. You're going to come in here and give me all your accomplishments, but I'm your manager, I know your accomplishments, I know what you've done for the business. So tell me how much more money you want to make." And I had never even thought of the number, which is embarrassing to one extent and then proves a point to the other around that women often are ready to just talk about, list out what they've done and how they've made a value to the company versus going in and asking for that number and then being prepared to defend why they've asked for that. And so, he said, "I give you 24 hours and you come back to me with a number.".

Bobbi Rebell:
Okay, no pressure. So, what do you do with that 24 hours?

Cate Luzio:
I knew that my team, more broadly the leadership team, were all a bunch of men, and that was fine, they were great, but I couldn't ask them. I had come from a different business about a year prior to that within JP Morgan, but I knew I should be making a big jump. So, what did I do? I called a bunch of my guy friends at other banks. I just said, "Here's the situation, I just need to know what you make."

Bobbi Rebell:
Wait, let me just ask you. Did you just randomly pick up the actual, I hate to say this, the actual phone, meaning you didn't text them, you didn't email them.

Cate Luzio:
No.

Bobbi Rebell:
But you were picking up the phone.

Cate Luzio:
Picked up the phone.

Bobbi Rebell:
And putting them on the spot.

Cate Luzio:
Putting them on the spot. And I had done that throughout my career. I think women don't realize this, and I think it's a lot in the banking sector, that when you get your bonus everyone's pounding their chest, like, "This is what I got." And guys do. They tell each other what they make. So they benchmark early on. And I had been doing that early on in my career. And then as I got more senior it was like, "Oh, well I'm getting more jobs and I'm getting these big promotions. This is great." And I had forgotten about I should be getting paid for what I do.

And so that's what I did. I spent that night calling and talking. And I remember I met with one of the guys that I knew at a big bank competitor, and hashing it out. And walked in the next day with the number.

Bobbi Rebell:
Let me just stop you there. What was your take on the numbers they were getting? What did you learn just from those numbers about where you are relative to them?

Cate Luzio:
Oh, much lower. I mean considerable amount lower. And again, remember, I think it didn't have to do with the company not wanting to pay me. It was commensurate with I had been at the firm for a while. You don't normally get huge bumps and raises unless you come from another firm. If you've made a jump that normally happens with your bonus or your variable compensation. So that was not an expectation that someone would walk in and get a very large raise. I knew that from the hundreds of people that I had managed.

Bobbi Rebell:
And you hadn't asked.

Cate Luzio:
And I had never asked. A part of me thinks, "Oh, I should've asked." And then part of me thinks, "I'd only been in that particular role for less than a year. So, was it warranted?" Yes, because not only of my performance, but my potential to continue to perform in that role, and bigger roles. And so, we hear it a lot, men are promoted on potential, women are promoted on performance. This wasn't even about promotion. This was about getting a fair compensation.

And so, when I did that benchmarking and talking to my male peers, I realized I was making a lot less. And so the next day I went in and he said, "Do you have your number?" I said, "Yeah, this is my number." He said, "It's not unreasonable. I don't know what we can do, but it's not unreasonable." To which I walked out thinking that's a huge win itself that I didn't come in and him say that's absolutely never going to happen, which, by the way, that happens quite a bit.

And so, three months later when you actually get your comp information and your bonus, they hand you a paper, and that has everything written. And so, I have no poker face. And so I immediately pull up the paper in front of my face, because I don't want him to see if I'm crying or if I'm smiling. Because if it was going to be a bad number I was going to be really upset. And the number was not the number that I asked for, it was even more.

So, as I'm putting the paper down, I'm smiling. What was even better was my boss was smiling even bigger than I was. And his exact words were, "You perform for us, we perform for you." He said, "This is probably never going to happen again in your career unless you leave and go to another firm, but you've demonstrated not only performance but potential and we value that."

“Don’t just go into any or these discussions with a list of your accomplishments. Be prepared first to demonstrate why you are valuable to the company. And also know your worth. Have that number going in.”

Cate’s money lesson:

So the lesson is don't just go into any of these discussions with a list of your accomplishments. Be prepared first to demonstrate why you are valuable to the company. And also know your worth. Right? So already have that number going in, because the worst thing that can happen is, one, they quiz you on why you should get that money or that promotion. Then you're ready, you've got your accomplishments, you've got what you've done for the business, you've got how you've demonstrated your value.

Cate Luzio:
But also what's the worst that can happen? They say no. And then you decide whether you can live with that no, you continue to fight for that compensation or that role or that promotion, or you go elsewhere.

Bobbi Rebell:
Have you ever gotten a no, and how did you deal with it if you did?

Cate Luzio:
Oh, absolutely gotten a no. Listen, companies are under lots of constraints, they're under huge budgetary issues, so there are a lot of nos. And I've had to give a lot of nos to people too. I think the way I combated that or came back from that was, "Is this still the firm that I want to work for? Is their rationale correct? Do I get that? Do I look at the overall earnings of the company and where I fit into that?".

Cate Luzio:
So, when you work for a large publicly traded company that's in the Fortune 150, they have a lot of mouths to feed. But you still, at the end of the day, have to feel comfortable with the answer that they give. And, for me, I never left a company because they didn't pay me. So I looked at where else there were value they were adding in my life and my career. Was there a career path? Were they providing opportunities? And that was big for me around the delivering of those other opportunities, but also investing in me as an employee, making me a better asset to them.

Bobbi Rebell:
I like that. Because sometimes people might work for, let's say, a startup or something and there just isn't the money.

Cate Luzio:
Absolutely.

Bobbi Rebell:
So you have to look at other things.

Cate Luzio:
You have to look at other things and what drives you. If money is the only thing that drives you, then that's not going to be the place. But there's the role, there's are you managing a team? Are you part of other projects within the organization? Are you moving up quickly, as you mentioned, like in a startup or even in intrepreneurial environment within a big company where it's not just about the compensation? I do firmly believe you have to be fairly compensated, but I think there's a lot of factors that play into that.

Bobbi Rebell:
So true. Now you are well compensated. I should say, when you worked for other people you were well com... Now you work for yourself. When you worked for other people you were certainly well compensated. You could certainly do the shopping that you wanted to do and have the wardrobe that you want to have. But just because you have the money doesn't mean you should spend it all on clothing. And that brings us to a everyday money tip from you. Because this is really interesting. We talk a lot about saving money because you have to or to reach certain goals. Sometimes you're saving money because maybe spending it just doesn't make sense.

“I decided to self fund. I wanted to look at my members of the community of Luminary as my investors, versus maximizing value for an investor.”

Cate's everyday money tip:

As someone who did make quite a bit of money, and I actually reinvested a lot of that money into my company because I self funded, one of the things I knew is that my disposable income I needed to make it very small, because I was investing it into the company. And I was a big shopper. I needed retail therapy. So I actually now rent most of my clothes. I do it mostly with Rent the Runway, but it's exciting to see all of these other new players out there because it gives you so much more variety and diversity of your clothes. And for me it ends up really saving a lot of money for me. Also, I get the thrill of shopping online or even in person because they have stores, but without the guilt of spending all that money and then wasting it because I wear those clothes one time and then never wear them again.

Bobbi Rebell:
I second that. I actually also use Rent the Runway, and I find that to be very true. And I also think you can wear things. Sometimes fashions can be a little bit silly, like we had weird sleeves happening a year ago. And you can try that and you don't have to own that because we know some things are just not going to have staying power. Right?

Cate Luzio:
Absolutely. And some things you may think one day they flatter you and the next they don't. So, why keep it in your closet?

Bobbi’s Financial grownup tips:

Financial Grownup tip number one:

Cate was able to get the intel on her number in just 24 hours, because she had spent years building strong relationships. To do a quick turnaround, you need to have everything in place, and to do that you need to be playing the long game when it comes to those relationships.

Financial Grownup tip number two:

One of my favorite parts of this interview is when Cate got really candid talking about how she deals with nos. First of all, if Cate Luzio is getting no’s, we can all feel a lot better about our setbacks. But she never talks about storming out or being confrontational. Instead, it's about taking a big picture look and being tuned in to why that no happened. It could be you and your performance, and if so, you need to be self-aware enough to own that and to take action.

Sometimes we all have so much ra-ra, go for it in our lives that we're not really that honest when maybe we aren't deserving of that. I'm not saying that's true all that often, but it could sometimes be true. And we need to be realistic about whether the assessment of us might have some good points. But it can also be things that are out of your control, having to do with where the business is financially. That's not really on you, but it's still your reality. Keep your cool, don't make brash emotional decisions.

Episode Links:

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

• Cate’s website - https://www.luminary-nyc.com/

• Cate’s Podcast - Come Sit At Our Table

Follow Cate!

• Instagram - @BeALuminary

• Facebook - @BeALuminary

• Twitter - @BeALuminary

• LinkedIn - @BeALuminary

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.

Jason Wolfe sold several companies for huge profits, including  GiftCards.com for 120 million dollars. The gifting entrepreneur grew up as an orphan at the Milton Hershey School when his mentally ill mother could not care for him. The lessons learned at the school focused on not just a strong work ethic and structure, but also specific lessons on building businesses with a spirit of generosity. 

“As you grow your business.. relationships and networking become so so important to make you successful.”

Jason's money story

I grew up very poor, on welfare. Mother had some mental issues. My dad took off. We thought he was dead. So I grew up in a place I'm not sure how many of your listeners know. There's a person named Milton Hershey, and Milton Hershey was the man who started the Hershey Chocolate Company. He started an orphanage in 1909 and he had it in his heart, him and his wife, to give back to needy children. So in 1915 or somewhere thereabouts, Catherine, his wife passes away. Instead of remarrying, instead of going off and spending a bunch of money, he spent more time with boys in the orphanage and decided to give his fortune to the Milton Hershey School, which is owned by the trust. And in 1945 left $84 million to the trust. Today it's worth $13 billion. I mean I grew up there.

Bobbi Rebell:
So your mother, under these unfortunate circumstances, sent you to live in the orphanage?

Jason Wolfe:
Yes, Yes she did.

Bobbi Rebell:
And what age were you?

Jason Wolfe:
I was 10 years old. And I lived in sort of an agricultural environment with 16 boys. So I lived in a house and we milked cows and baled hay and straw and had that kind of life with two house parents and 16 brothers.

Bobbi Rebell:
Wow. Tell me about the lessons that you learned at the school as a young boy because that became instrumental in all of your success as an entrepreneur.

Jason Wolfe:
Well, I learned hard work obviously. Before going to Milton Hershey School, my mother being, you know, mentally disabled and not being able to take care of us, I was able to stay up until two o'clock in the morning wandering around the streets. It wasn't a hard town I lived in, but it was just one of those things. I didn't have structure or work ethic or anything like that. When I got to Milton Hershey School, I was not able to wander the streets til midnight or two o'clock. I had to get up at five o'clock in the morning, milk cows, get back from school, play sports, all the things that gave me structure in my life and hard work and taught me how to be more responsible.

Jason Wolfe:
What I also learned is I had something that I didn't realize I had until later in life, which is something that people are starting to measure now. It's not IQ and it's not how good looking you are, how good of an athlete you are, it's really that inside grit that you have. If you have grit, fortitude, I learned that that was something that I did have and I learned how to take that grit and form it into what it turned out to be a successful business career.

Bobbi Rebell:
Were they talking to you in the school about how you would support yourself as you grew up? Because that's something universally many parents struggle with. How to teach their children to be earnings-focused and in your case, entrepreneurial-focused. I mean where did that come from in the school environment?

Jason Wolfe:
Yeah.

Bobbi Rebell:
It's incredible.

Jason Wolfe:
Yeah, so they didn't teach us at that time, again, this is in the 1980s, okay. So today the school is different. They have programs to help kids that go through high school to graduate to transition to the real world. Back when I was in that school, they didn't have that kind of thing. So I graduated from that school with a suitcase of clothes and a a hundred dollar check, of which I couldn't cash cause I had no bank account. I learned real quick what a check casher was actually, and I got $67 and 50 cents instead of the $100.

Jason Wolfe:
No I went off and I actually built my own life. I wasn't given tools to figure out how to do it. I did it on my own and I went through some major spinal surgery and was recovering and it was 1995. I taught myself how to write software. I created the first coupon site in 1995, because I bought a book from CompUSA at the time. I'm not even sure how I bought that book to tell you the truth. I didn't have any money. I was living out of my car. I honestly was living out of my car.

Bobbi Rebell:
You were living out of your car?

Jason Wolfe:
Yes.

Bobbi Rebell:
For how long? And how did that happen?

Jason Wolfe:
It happened because I had a couple major surgeries, and I was living with somebody and I couldn't do what I used to be able to do. I was laid up. I was just not the same person. I became depressed after two major spinal surgeries. I just wasn't the same person, so she and I broke up. I had nowhere to go, of course. I grew up in the Hershey School. It's not like I had a family to go to, so I just basically lived in my car, and as I was living in my car, a friend of mine allowed me to use part of his office to put my computer, of which ... that's when I was learning how to build an internet business, and so I went from $4,000 that year in revenue to $35,000 the year after, to 1998 $180,000. '99 a million dollars. I raised a half a million dollars in venture capital in '99, and then I sold it right before the bubble burst in 2000 for $22 million.

Bobbi Rebell:
Wow. What was the tipping point that got you mentally from living in a car to what you just talked about to that progression of incremental progress that then led to where you are today?

Jason Wolfe:
You know, Bobbi, I'm not sure, like I was saying a little earlier, I think some people have what is internally fortitude or grit, and you know it's something that we really haven't measured in our country. You know, when kids are growing up, we don't measure how much grit does this kid have or whatever else. It's something that I had and there was a lot of it, so I was able to pull through things, and then I also have faith in God. And so I believe with my faith and my grit, I was able to pull through some of the things I think a lot of people would not be able to pull through. That's for sure.

Jason’s money lesson

You find a street to go pull your car down that you can sleep in, so nobody will ... you know, the police won't come and get you. You know what I've learned through this is not only about grit and about fortitude, but I also learned the lesson of giving, honestly. I mean, look at Milton Hershey who left his entire fortune to help thousands of children. If it wasn't for Milton Hershey School, not only would I be homeless, I probably would have been in jail or much worse, probably dead. So I look at the lesson to be learned here and probably one of the subconscious reasons why I'm in the gifting business is about giving. It's about giving back and it's about gifting to other people because you can create joy with those people and you can create changes in people's lives. And although I was homeless, and living out of my car, I had a foundation that I learned from Milton Hershey that has proven to be something that was like a cornerstone of my life.

Bobbi Rebell:
So are there specific things that you think you did that made the difference? Clearly mindset, the things that you were talking about, is very important. Are there specific things that you did? It sounds like you had relationships with people that were still strong that you were able to leverage.

Jason Wolfe:
What I learned as I started to grow that business was to find good people that wanted to help with the cause I was doing. I found my first employee. I paid her $50 a month. But she was willing to see in me something that nobody else was seeing. And then I found another person to work for me, and she saw something in me too and she was encouraging me. And so although it wasn't like these grandiose business connections, it was connections with real people that were able to help me pull myself out of that sort of depression and living out of the car and believing in myself. So as I became more successful in business, I started to realize that those networks and those relationships, as you start thinking about them, as you grow your business beyond 50 people or a 100 people or 200 people, that relationships and networking become so, so important to make you successful. Having the right people on the bus in the right seats, but also connecting with people as well.

Bobbi Rebell:
Do you have a way that you find those people?

Jason Wolfe:
Yeah, so in our hiring process, we have a very thorough deep hiring process. We're looking for specific people that are able to join our company with our specific culture that we have. 25 years of success building four companies and selling them profitably. We've been able to do it because the people that joined this company, because we go through a lot of effort to find the right people, but also the networking. I mean, so I'm on the Technology Council board. I try to attend social events. I try to connect with people. I try to connect other people with people and I try to give. And the more that you give, like we give to the tech council, I spend time helping people to grow, back in return comes much to me because of that. And I think as we can think of that, and then the listeners can think about the concept of giving as a financial resource to get back something for yourself. Not that you're doing it intentionally to get something, but it's just the way the universe works.

“When people give it .. makes them feel better, and actually uplifts them more than the person who receives the gift themselves”

Jason's everyday money tip

So I mean, I was looking into this and thinking about giving, and I was thinking about why does it make a difference? And it does. So for every act of giving, you could change the world for good.

I mean it's not like you're changing the world for bad. You're helping helping something. And it's been shown, I guess, and there's some studies, Harvard Business School did a study and found that when people give, it basically makes them feel better and actually uplifts them more than the person that receives the gift themselves.

Bobbi Rebell:
So it's almost ... I hate to say it's almost like the endorphins you get from exercising. I mean, giving to people really will make your life richer, not just theirs.

Jason Wolfe:
Absolutely. And there are studies about it and there's also some studies about ... I was reading about a study in the University of California about how gifting can become contagious, and it inspires observers to feel like they have to be generous, which then it turns them to give more. So it's a contagious thing too. So not only giving makes you happy, it's contagious. And lastly, here's the cooler thing. Here's a real cool thing. Giving actually makes us healthier. So there was a study I was researching also at the University of California Berkeley, found that older people that volunteer, two or more organizations, are 44% less likely to die than their non-volunteers. So it makes us healthier too.

Bobbi’s Financial grownup tips:

Financial Grownup Tip Number One:

Know the commission before any financial transaction and absolutely try to minimize or eliminate it. Jason kind of matter of factly gave the example of getting just $67 back after cashing a $100 check when he was young. I don't know how taking such a big percentage was even legal or the full circumstances behind that, but it is just not right. As an example in my life, my son and I recently went to deposit coins that he had saved. We found out that if you take those coins to one of those coin counting machines that make it, oh so easy, they count it for you, no muss, no fuss, except they take a commission of as much as almost 12% in some cases.


We ended up rolling the coins ourselves and bringing it to our bank's local branch, and we were able to keep all of the money. So it would have been $88. We kept $100 out of every hundred.

Financial Grownup Tip Number Two:

Take a step back and think about Jason's comments about generosity and how he believes that has driven his business goals, his strategy and yes, his success. Let's consider what we can do to support others often at no real cost to ourselves. Jason didn't focus on it, but the fact that his friend supported his early business efforts by offering Jason office space and resources, was a big driver in Jason's ability to start his first business.

Maybe you can make an introduction. Maybe you can offer someone a place to hold a meeting. Maybe you can just give someone your technical equipment when you upgrade. Maybe you can support them by saying something nice on social media. As Jason points out, generosity is a path to success.

Episode Links:

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

• Jason’s website - www.JasonWolfe.com

Follow Jason!

• Facebook - @JasonSterlingWolfe

• Twitter - @JasonWolfe

• LinkedIn - @JasonSterlingWolfe

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.

Bethany Bayless wanted to be a financial grownup when she was an 18-year college student. But when she couldn’t get a traditional college student job near campus, she got creative, earned the money she needed for expenses and found a way to give back to the community. Plus Bethany shares her favorite apps to make extra cash.

“There is a limit to how much you can cut back in your budget. You don’t have to limit your income. ”

Bethany's money story

Bethany Bayless:
When I graduated high school, I went off to college and as a grownup, I just turned 18, and I went to a college that was very small, and it was in a town of six other colleges. We were lots and lots of college students.

Bobbi Rebell:
What town?

Bethany Bayless:
It was Spokane, Washington. In Spokane, there's Gonzaga University, Eastern Washington, all these big universities. There were not a lot of jobs for college students there. It was very very saturated. I was very adamant that I wanted to pay my own rent.

Bobbi Rebell:
You are, by the way, one of five children.

Bethany Bayless:
That's correct. I am the only girl also, I just might add. I didn't want to ask my parents for money because I'm an adult, and that's what adults do is you make your own money. You pay your own rent and utilities, and food, and all of those things. What I did find was that I could go to a plasma bank and donate my blood plasma twice a week. That's exactly what I did. I made $240, and my rent was $240, exactly.

Bobbi Rebell:
Oh my god. Talk a using your god-given resources, Bethany.

Bethany Bayless:
Exactly. I also think, isn't the house rent supposed to be 25% of your income? It was about 100, and so definitely a lesson learned there. I had to do some other little things here and there. This was before side hustle nation. This was before Uber, before Insta Cart, or something else that I could do to earn money. This was the side hustle app of the age, if you will.

Bethany Bayless:
I just learned very very quickly how much money was worth, and even a quarter was the world to me. It was a chunk right there. It was a great experience because I learned to be frugal. I learned to cut back, and I learned to know exactly what I needed. It was a time that I had zero once.

Bobbi Rebell:
By the way, I used to give blood plasma a lot. My mother was sick at a point, and that was something that I was a regular there. One thing that I did learn was that they also feed you there, Bethany.

Bethany Bayless:
Yes. Cool.

Bobbi Rebell:
In addition to the money you could get meals, right?

Bethany Bayless:
Yeah. Basically the way the plasma works for people who are not familiar with this process, we will be talking about blood. Just give that disclaimer very quickly. What they do is they hook you up to a machine. They take out a certain amount.
Bobbi Rebell:
It takes a while.

Bethany Bayless:
Yes.

Bobbi Rebell:
It's a process. This isn't just donating blood. This is a different kind of thing.

Bethany Bayless:
Totally different. Because what they do is they put it in a ... It is a word for it. They put it in a machine where it separates it. They spin it really really fast, and it separates the platelets with the white blood cells, with the red blood cells and your hemoglobin, or whatever. Then they give you back your red blood cells.

Bobbi Rebell:
It takes about an hour sometimes. It depends on your blood pressure, believe it or not. Because I had low blood pressure, and sometimes I would not even qualify because you have to be at a certain level, which makes it a very special thing. People really should donate if you do qualify. It's an important thing to do, I should say. You are there for quite a while.

Bethany Bayless:
It is. I would be there sometimes ... Because you had to go in the waiting room first. Right?

Bobbi Rebell:
Right.

Bethany Bayless:
You have to wait-

Bobbi Rebell:
They set it up for you.

Bethany Bayless:
You have to go through this process. It was a chunk of time, but it was exactly what I needed. I went twice a week. I became friends with Rick, who was the guy who ever single week I would go to him. We became friends. He even had the bedside manner of House, very dry, sarcastic, hated the world, but he called me Sunshine. It was a great experience for me to really do it on my own, to do it myself. I thought, why not. It was the epitome of my desperation pretty much.

Bobbi Rebell:
Also, it is a giving thing to do, and I think it's wonderful that you did that, because even though that wasn't your primary motivation at the time, and I think it's important that people understand that, and that if they are eligible and can do that, it is great to donate plasma.

Bethany Bayless:
Absolutely. Also, I was a universal donor. My blood type is the rarest blood type. I'm AB negative, for anyone who wanted to know. We're finding out so much about each other in this conversation.

Bobbi Rebell:
So much.

Bethany Bayless:
I'm AB negative. It is the universal plasma donor, so anyone could take my plasma.

Bobbi Rebell:
That's wonderful. You didn't mention, what was your favorite snack when you were done? Because they did feed you, so you got food and money.

Bethany Bayless:
Yes, food and money, and I really loved the little cookies. They have little chocolate chip cookies.

Bobbi Rebell:
Yum. Do they have orange juice too?

Bethany Bayless:
Yes, and apple juice, I believe.

Bethany’s money lesson

Bethany Bayless:
The lesson is to do whatever it takes to get by, and to be a financial grownup.

Bobbi Rebell:
Within what is legal and what is reasonable. We need to qualify that, Bethany-

Bethany Bayless:
Absolutely. Do anything that was legal. Should I say that again, Bobbi?

Bobbi Rebell:
Well, I don't know that people should, for example, donate a kidney, that kind of thing. I think that things like plasma, and things like that, are good, but not actual body parts.

Bethany Bayless:
A kidney or another controversial-

Bobbi Rebell:
We want to be clear.

Bethany Bayless:
... another controversial is donating things like eggs.

Bobbi Rebell:
Yes.

Bethany Bayless:
That could have set me up for the entire year, but interesting.

Bobbi Rebell:
It's a personal decision. Just be thoughtful about what body parts and things that you give from yourself.

“I could go to a plasma bank and donate my blood plasma twice a week. So that is exactly what I did. I made $240. And my rent was $240 exactly. ”

Bethany's everyday money tip

Bethany Bayless:
Like I said in my story, there was a time when I gave plasma as my last option, it was a time that these apps did not exist. It was not the age of the side hustle, but now I feel like financial grownups have so many options, because you can cut back. There's a limit to how much you can cut back in your budget. There's a limit to how you can limit your expenses.

Bobbi Rebell:
You can only give plasma twice a week.

Bethany Bayless:
You can only give plasma twice a week, but the other thing is that you don't have to limit your income. That is something that there's no limit to the amount of money that you can make. One of the things that you can do is there are a list of apps, things that we've talked about, like Uber or AirBnb, or things like that. Those are already very well known. Other things like Insta Cart, maybe you want to go grocery shopping for people, and you can do it in your spare time. You can pick up times where you just go grocery shopping. It's a great tool to use. I love getting my groceries delivered. If you want to shop [crosstalk 00:10:29].

Bobbi Rebell:
But you can also be the person delivering the groceries.

Bethany Bayless:
Exactly.

Bobbi Rebell:
We want to be clear. For all of these, you're not the person getting in the Uber. You're the one driving the Uber.

Bethany Bayless:
That's absolutely right.

Bobbi Rebell:
That's where the income comes.

Bethany Bayless:
Exactly. We have Insta Cart. We have Etsy. Maybe it's time to make things online. There's also some other really great ones, like Rover. It's a dog-walking app. If you want to go hang out with dogs for a day, why don't you download Rover, and you're able to go. You can even teach your kids about being responsible, and take them along with you now that you're a financial grownup, if you have children. Those are some of my favorite apps that you can use.

Episode Links:

Bethany’s websites TheMoneyMillhouse.com and BethanyBayless.org

Apps we mentioned in the episode:

• Uber

• Aribnb

• Instacart

• Etsy

• Rover

Follow Bethany!

• Instagram - @BethanyBayless

• Facebook - @BethanyGraceK

• Twitter - @BethanyBayless

• LinkedIn - @BethanyGrace

Follow The Money Millhouse!

• Instagram - @TheMoneyMillhouse

• Facebook - @TheMoneyMillhouse

• Pinterest - @TheMoneyMillhouse
  

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.