Carol Roth’s father left a priceless gift when he passed. Now, she is using that to help others map out their plans for everything from their social media accounts, to their cryptocurrency and bitcoin assets, using her innovative FutureFile system. 

 

In Carol’s money story you will learn:

-How losing close members of her family and loved ones impacted her outlook on life, and on finances

-How she got a credit card at the age of 10!

-Why her dad was so concerned about preparing his children for his eventual death

-How her dad created a filing system and what it included

In Carol’s money lesson you will learn: 

-How Carol and her siblings used the file her dad created

-Exactly how much money it saved her and her family, both in actual money but also in the time they did not have to spend on estate related issues

-The mental relief the family had because of the system their dad had put in place

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

-Why Carol believes no one should own depreciating assets

-How we can enjoy things like private jets without having to own them (JK)

-What kinds of investments we should be making instead of in things like cars and boats and planes

-The best use of our transportation dollars

Carol also talks about her business Futurefile.com

-Why she created it

-What it contains including not just places for wills and basic estate planning but also places to put cryptocurrency keys if you have bitcoin, and how to manage social media

In my take you will learn:

-The importance of making a plan, any plan, for when you are ill or pass away

-My experience knowing my mom’s wishes when she passed

-My take on whether you should own a car, and why I don’t fully agree with Carol

-Alternatives ways to save money if you do choose to have a car

 

EPISODE LINKS

Learn more about Carol Roth at https://www.carolroth.com/

Learn more about FutureFile at FutureFile.com

 

Follow Carol!!

Twitter @Caroljsroth

Facebook CarolJSRoth

 

Carol recommended not buying a private plane and instead using

NETJETS.com

More about Carol!

Carol Roth is the creator of the Future File® legacy planning system, “recovering” investment banker, billion-dollar dealmaker, investor, entrepreneur, business advisor, national media personality and author of the New York Times bestselling book, The Entrepreneur Equation.

Carol “plays herself on TV” weekly, having been a reality TV show judge (Mark Burnett’s America’s Greatest Makers on TBS), media contributor to outlets ranging from CNBC to Fox Business, and host of Microsoft’s Office Small Business Academy. She’s recognized internationally as a business expert and has worked with startups to the biggest companies and brands in the world on everything from strategy to content creation and marketing to billions of dollars in capital raising and transactional work.

Carol is dedicated to helping families prepare for and save time, cost and grief that comes with aging, medical issues and passing life events through her Future File products. She is a also former public company director and is a noted small business advocate. She invests in early and mid-stage companies as well.

Carol counts among her “accomplishments” having an action figure made in her own likeness, getting a standing ovation from Richard Branson and having the NFL follow her on Twitter.

 

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Transcription

Carol Roth:
He was very clear. Do not buy me the Cadillac of caskets, which I can tell you, if he had not told me that, there is no way I would have gypped out on dad in that moment. Knowing that he likes black and gold and things like that. I would have spent the money.

Bobbi Rebell:
You're listening to Financial Grownup with me, certified financial planner, Bobbi Rebell, author of "How to be a Financial Grownup." You know what? Being a grownup is really hard, especially when it comes to money. But, it's okay. We're going to get there together. I'm going to bring you one money story from a financial grownup, one lesson, and then my take on how you can make it your own. We got this.

Bobbi Rebell:
Hey friends, that was business expert, Carol Roth. She is author of the bestseller, "The Entrepreneur Equation." You may have also caught her as a judge on the reality TV show, "America's Greatest Makers" on TBS. She's also seen a lot on TV: CNBC, Fox Business. You probably caught her. Her latest venture is called Future File. It's an idea that grew out of her own personal experiences with losing loved ones.

Bobbi Rebell:
Before we get to Carol's interview, a quick welcome to everyone. As our regulars know, we try to keep the shows short to match your busy life. But if you're traveling, commuting and have more time, feel free to binge. You can learn more about Financial Grownup at bobbirebell.com/financialgrownuppodcast where you can also sign up for our newsletter.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right, let's get to Carol because this interview was a real wake-up call for me on a lot of things that I just don't want to deal with, but Carol is a force to be reckoned with. Here is Carol Roth. Hey, Carol Roth, you're a financial grownup. Welcome to the podcast.

Carol Roth:
Bobbi, it is so great to be here and to be all grown up with you.

Bobbi Rebell:
Oh, thank you. It is a process for all of us, let me tell you. Many people already know you but, for those who don't, you are a big personality on TV. You are an author of the bestselling book "The Entrepreneur Equation," and you also have a business which is really an important business. We're going to talk about it a little bit more in-depth later in the show. But, it also ties into your money story because your money story led to it. Tell us your money story, Carol Roth.

Carol Roth:
This started when I was a senior in college. So I'm mourning the loss of somebody I had been in a relationship for a year and a half. I go off. I start my career, and my mom was diagnosed with leukemia. A year after that she passed, the day after her 51st birthday. So then I'm mourning these two losses. Then my stepmother, a few years later, is diagnosed with lung cancer, and she passes away at age 55. So at this point in time, my father, who despite not having a formal education, was very financially savvy. My dad was a union electrician. It was amazing. He couldn't spell banana. He spelled it bana, but he was the type of guy, he opened up a credit card for me somewhere around age 10 to establish my credit history.

Bobbi Rebell:
Wait. You got a credit card at age 10? First of all, they let you have that?

Carol Roth:
They did. Back in the day with a cosigner, as long as he co-signed on it, they didn't care, right? After we endure all these losses he says, “If something were to happen to me, and you and your sister have been through this now multiple times, if something were to happen to me, you guys wouldn't necessarily be prepared. So I'm gonna help you prepare.” Dad kept giving us pieces of paper, and the pieces of paper were, "I don't want you to spend this much money on a casket, I just want this. I don't want you to have two services. I just want a graveside service. Here's my insurance policy for this, and here's my wishes on this." Every time he'd give us a piece of paper, he'd say, "Stick it in the file."

Carol Roth:
So we had this running joke that we had this death file. We go okay, dad, whatever. We just continually collected information. As I said, my dad wasn't formally educated. So, low and behold, five years ago in May, my sister calls me on the phone and is like, "Carol, you know that file that dad has? Grab it and meet me at the hospital. He has been in a freak accident."

Bobbi Rebell:
Oh, wow. This is just a paper file. This is not in any kind of cloud storage, on the computer, nothing?

Carol Roth:
No, this is literally a hard copy, accordion file folder with backs of envelopes, paper plates, envelopes, policies, wishes, this kind of amalgamation of information. Oh, and also keys, we had keys to his car, keys to security-

Bobbi Rebell:
So he made copies of the keys for everything?

Carol Roth:
Yes, everything.

Bobbi Rebell:
Okay.

Carol Roth:
Copies of everything, hard copies. So I literally, physically grabbed this file, Bobbi, and I run to the hospital. He had been in this horrible accident, and he was completely out of it, bleeding on the brain. They said, "Do you want us to operate?" We went through, said, "Okay, what does Dad say about this? Okay, Dad says that yes, he wants you to operate." So they went ahead and operated. When he came out, he just never recovered. He was just basically brain dead and being kept alive by machines. So we pull out the piece of paper, including the power-of-attorney that said that we have the authorization to make these decisions. Then we pull out the wishes that Dad had. Dad had said if we've gone through a relevant number of tests and we've gotten a few opinions and everybody's come to the same conclusion that the machines are keeping him alive, to pull the plug. We followed Dad's instructions, and obviously he did not make it. Then we had to go through laying the body to rest within a few days, all of the services and wrapping up his personal affairs.

Bobbi Rebell:
So what are the lessons for our listeners from your story?

Carol Roth:
The benefits that we got that you can get if you preplan is that we saved a lifetime of burden, which is priceless. I don't have to walk around shouldering did I make the right decision in this particular scenario? Should I have gotten another opinion? Because my dad had talked through it, he had written it down, I knew what his wishes were, You can't put a financial price on that. That is priceless.

Carol Roth:
The second thing, from a financial standpoint, is we saved more than 10000 tangible dollars, Bobbi. I'm not even joking. End-of-life costs, what people don't realize, are so incredibly expensive. Average just funeral and burial is $8500. Cremation with a funeral service is close to $7000. So just by going through this, we saved more than $10000, and then the five figures that we did end up spending on all of these sort of end-of-life things, he had put end-of-life insurance in place. So it's something that we didn't have to come up with that money or go into his estate and try and figure that out. So there's a tangible dollar savings.

Bobbi Rebell:
What's the money that you did not spend? Did you not have a funeral that he didn't want? What money did you save because of knowing his wishes?

Carol Roth:
So we saved money on the casket. If you go with a Cadillac of caskets, it could be 6500. It could be $9500. You can get one at Costco for $600. So he was very clear. Do not buy me the Cadillac of caskets, which I can tell you, if he had not told me that, there is no way I would have gypped out on dad in that moment. Knowing that he likes black and gold and things like that, I would have spent the money. So he told us not to do that. He told us to only have a graveside service. So instead of going into the funeral home and having the whole spiel there and then moving everybody to graveside and having a second spiel there, he didn't want that. He said just do the graveside. He didn't want flowers. He didn't want accoutrements. He didn't want programs.

Carol Roth:
Then I'm Jewish, so we do something called sitting shiva, which is similar to sort of visitation in the Christian religion. For that, he said, "Go to our clubhouse. Do it just the day of. Just have this and that and the other thing." By the instructions that he put out, we saved money there. So when we added it all up, it was well into the five figures. Then, as I said, we ended up spending five figures on stuff on top of that, but just the five figures of savings was incredible.

Carol Roth:
Then the other cost that is an indirect cost but was so incredibly valuable is he saved me hundreds of hours of time. If you look at how much I make in an hour, that's tangibly multiple six figures. So 200 at least, maybe 300, hours in trying to track down all of his accounts, all of his policies, making sure that we had everything, trying to find things like that safety deposit box key, making sure that he didn't have a treasure hunt for us somewhere where there was money hidden that we didn't know about. That's real money. I know people don't think of it that way. Sometimes people don't think of their time as money, but there is a true, tangible money cost associated with it.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right. You also brought with you a money tip. Awkwardly switching topics, but this has to do with depreciating assets, not investing in things that are going to go down in value.

Carol Roth:
Right. So basically, if it drives, floats or flies, you don't want to own it.

Bobbi Rebell:
Wait. So I shouldn't aspire to get my private jet?

Carol Roth:
No, buy a NetJet card because when you have an asset, something that quote, unquote "invest in," that decreases in value every time you use it, that's not the kind of investment that you want to be making. But if you have a car and you're living in the city or you're living somewhere else and you don't drive that often, or maybe you're a multiple car household and you have an extra car that you really can do without, sell it. Because the amount of money that you have tied up in that car plus ongoing maintenance plus the cost of gas plus the cost of insurance, you have to license it every year, and some places you have to pay for parking, it's a huge amount of wasted money. We have so many options for transportation now. You have these on-demand services like Uber and Lyft. Obviously, taxis are becoming more competitive because of that. If you do need to go somewhere for a couple of days, you have rental car agencies that will actually deliver the car to you.

Carol Roth:
So if you go through and you write down how much it's going to cost you to take those couple of Ubers and maybe to rent the car a couple of times a year and you add all that up versus how much money that you're spending invested in that car and all of these other maintenance items and you compare the two, I guarantee you there will be no comparison.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right. I do want to talk about your latest project because it came from these experiences with loved ones. It's called Future File, and it's genius. So please tell us a little bit about it.

Carol Roth:
When we told people our story, the feedback was so often, "I need to do that for my parents or grandparents." Or "I need to do that for my spouse." Or "I need to do that for myself. I don't know what's going on in the household." Or "We've got kids." So we took this prototype that our dad created for us, and we created a full kit called Future File at futurefile.com. It's basically a roadmap that walks you through everything you need to organize all of your wishes and information for either aging, passing or other family emergencies. So if somebody has a stroke or your house is burning down or whatever it is, it's one location that literally has access to everything you could possibly need. It helps you organize your wills and your powers-of-attorney. Also, your social media wishes, the budgeting that we talked about for long-term care, aging care, end of life. Even a place to put your cryptocurrency keys if you have bitcoin.

Bobbi Rebell:
Oh, wow. I know because you could have that, and then no one can get to it.

Carol Roth:
Well, that's the thing.

Bobbi Rebell:
They have to know.

Carol Roth:
Literally, it's not like a bank account that eventually, after hours and hours and hours and showing death certificates and going through probate, that you can access. If somebody doesn't have those keys, it's lost forever. So we didn't want to create any barriers to people doing this, so there's no subscription model. It's one-time. It's just under a hundred bucks.

Bobbi Rebell:
Oh, wow, that's it? That's amazing.

Carol Roth:
Yeah, if you listen to the story and you understand those burdens, it makes sense. So do it. Prepare yourself, prepare your family, and you'll help us give that gift that our father gave to us to you and your family.

Bobbi Rebell:
Where can people find out more about you and Future File?

Carol Roth:
Yes. So Future File, go to futurefile.com. Tons of information there. The best place to find me, especially if you have a little bit of an odd and off-color sense of humor, is on Twitter at caroljsroth.

Bobbi Rebell:
Love it. Thank you, Carol.

Carol Roth:
Thanks so much, Bobbi.

Bobbi Rebell:
So that was pretty heavy stuff but important to hear. I personally would prefer to just live in denial, but if we're going to be grownups, it's going to catch up to us sooner or later.

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup tip number one. I think Carol did a great job getting her point across. No plan is actually a burden on your survivors. So make a plan. Include traditional assets, but also, if you can, leave instructions for the less tangible things. Try to envision the kind of decisions that will be made if you would pass or if you were very ill. If you don't want to decide for them, empower them to make the decision that they think is best without worrying about what you would think. When my mom passed, she was very specific about a few things for my dad and for me and for my siblings, and that gave us all comfort and the freedom to know she was okay with our choices.

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup tip number two. Carol talked a lot about getting rid of cars. So here's the thing. She may be right financially, but let's face it, for some people, it's just part of their lifestyle. It's like asking someone whose only joy is that latte to give up their latte. They need to cut something different. You can find a workaround. So in this case, maybe cut expenses that are related to the car or the asset that is depreciating. One option, renegotiate your insurance. Shop around. Consolidating your insurance can also be a way to lower the cost. Also, if you park in a garage, maybe you can park on the street. Can you renegotiate the garage fee? Is there a tax break associated with the garage if you are resident? We get that here in New York City. If you park at work, can your company reimburse or subsidize the parking? For those of us who have private jets, for example, we know fuel is getting more expensive. One way to pare back costs ... okay, I was just kidding about the whole private jet thing. Anyway, moving on.

Bobbi Rebell:
Thanks to all of you for supporting the show. Hit subscribe if you can, and we'd love reviews and feedback. So thank you in advance if you can squeeze that into your day. Let's all try to find time soon to make a future file. Thank you, Carol Roth, for helping us all get one step closer to being financial grownups.

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

Tom Corley grew up in financial turmoil but after studying the wealthy was able to copy their habits and make his money dreams into a reality. 

In Tom’s money story you will learn:

-How Tom’s childhood money disappointments created poor money habits in his early adulthood

-The specific things Tom’s parents did that created financial instability for Tom and his siblings

-Why his graduation party was cancelled because of his parents’ financial troubles

-How he was unable buy a car and to rent an apartment as a young adult again, because of his parents financial needs

-The emotional component of his financial challenges early in his life

-How a client inspired him to do the research that became “Rich Habits"

In Tom’s money lesson you will learn:

-The impact of your parents money habits on your own money habits

-The importance of avoiding “want spending" driven by envy

-How you can change those habits

-Why changing only two or three habits can change your life

-Tom’s habit that he does every day on his way to work to re-inforce gratitude

In Tom’s every day money tip

-Why successful people keep track of other people’s birthdays

-How calling them on their birthday makes a meaningful impact

-Why to avoid the birthday wish on social media

-The connection between the Happy Birthday habit and why it will help you prosper through genuine friendships

 

In My Take you will learn:

-How to move past parents who have poor money habits

-The advice Tony Robbins offers to people who get a rough start in life, as he did

-How my new friend Ramit Sethi uses birthdays as a way to connect with friends and get "Birthday Wisdom"

Episode Links:

Tom’s website: www.richhabits.net

Follow Tom!

Twitter: @RichHabits

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/thomas.c.corley.3

Learn more about Rich Neighbor, Poor Neighbor

 

Get Tom’s books including "Rich Habits, Poor Habits" and "Change Your Habits, Change Your Life” and “Rich Kids"

 

Tom is also writing a book called “The Other Side of Cancer”. Learn more about the Ashely Lauren Foundation which helps families struggling with pediatric cancer. 

 

Also mentioned in the episode:

Tony Robbins

David Bach

Ramit Sethi

 

More about Tom Corley: 

CBS Nightly News Interview: http://richhabits.net/cbs-news-rich-habits-interview-with-lisa-hughes/

Dave Ramsey Interview:http://richhabits.net/dave-ramsey-rich-habits-tom-corley/ 

SUCCESS Magazine Interviews: http://shar.es/1HKwDe      http://shar.es/1HK95w

USA Today Article: http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2015/02/22/credit-dotcom-credit-card-habits/23545023/ 

 

Tom Corley is an internationally recognized authority on habits and wealth creation.

Tom has spoken alongside Richard Branson, Robin Sharma, Dr. Daniel Amen and many other notable speakers.

In Tom’s five-year study of the rich and poor he identified over 300 daily habits that separated the “haves” from the “have nots.” Tom is s bestselling author and award winning author. His books include: Rich Habits, Rich Kids and Change Your Habits Change Your Life and Rich Habits Poor Habits.

Tom has appeared on or in CBS Evening News, The Dave Ramsey Show, CNN, MSN Money, USA Today, the Huffington Post, Marketplace Money SUCCESS Magazine, Inc. Magazine, Money Magazine, Kiplinger’s Personal Finance Magazine, Fast Company Magazine, Epoca Magazine (Brazil’s largest weekly) and thousands of other media outlets in the U.S. and 25 other countries. Tom is a frequent contributor to Business Insider, CNBC, SUCCESS Magazine and Credit.com.

Tom is also a CPA, CFP and holds a Master’s Degree in Taxation and heads a top financial firm in New Jersey

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Transcription

Tom Corley:
I told all my friends that I'm having a graduation party, I told them the date, and a couple of weeks before the party date I just let my mother know, and she said, "We can't have a party, we don't have any money." I said, "Yeah, I know, I saved $200." That night my father came into my room and he said, "You know what, I hate to do this to you, but we need the money."

Bobbi Rebell:
You're listening to Financial Grownup, with me, certified financial planner, Bobbi Rebell, author of How To Be a Financial Grownup, and you know what? Being a grownup is really hard, especially when it comes to money. But it's okay, we're going to get there together. I'm going to bring you one money story from a financial grownup, one lesson, and then my faith on how you can make it your own. We got this.

Bobbi Rebell:
Hey, friends, if you feel a big knot in your stomach from that clip you just heard from our guest today, I'm right there with you, this was a tough one. But it's also an important story, so I hope you stick with us. Welcome, everyone. As our regular listeners know, while we try to keep the mood light, we also get real here on the Financial Grownup podcast, and we listen and we learn from others' experiences. So my guests are brave and they reveal very personal financial stories sometimes, in the hopes that it will make your lives better, our lives better.

Bobbi Rebell:
Tom Corley is the author of a number of bestselling books including Rich Habits, and it was inspired by his devastating childhood experiences, but also how you can change your habits and have financial freedom. This really goes to the heart of what we try to do here. Here is Tom Corley.

Bobbi Rebell:
Hey, Tom Corley, you are our financial grownup, welcome to the podcast.

Tom Corley:
Hi, Bobbi, thanks for having me on, I appreciate it.

Bobbi Rebell:
I'm so excited to have you because you are the author of Rich Habits, and we all need to develop rich habits for sure.

Tom Corley:
Yeah, I spent five years doing research on the daily habits of rich people and poor people, gathered three hundred and forty something data points, and decided to incorporate some of them, the most important keystone habits, into my book Rich Habits, which has become very popular around the world.

Bobbi Rebell:
Well, you're being very modest, it's been a huge bestseller, and you've been on everything from Dave Ramsey to the CBS Evening News, literally you've been all over the place, and I know that the book has helped so many people, so thank you for that. Also I'm going to thank you in advance for sharing what's a very sensitive money story having to do with your upbringing and the poor habits that you learned from your father. Tell us more.

Tom Corley:
Yeah, so I actually have two stories that I'll try and be as concise as possible. So you know, we were rich and then we were poor. My father's business went under when I was aged nine, it's a complicated story, but it was really random bad luck. Anyway, from the age of nine until, I guess, I left the house, we were poor.

Bobbi Rebell:
And you had a big household, by the way.

Tom Corley:
We had 11 in our family, so we were constantly worried. Our home was in foreclosure, as least as far as I can remember, four times. So we were worried about being homeless. I remember I used to shovel snow and mow lawns, and I spent the whole year doing that, saved money, saved $200, because in the 8th grade I wanted to have a graduation party. I told all my friends who I wanted to come that I'm having a graduation party. I told them the date. A couple of weeks before the party date, I just my mother know, just to make sure it was okay, and she said, "We can't have a party, we don't have any money." I said, "Yeah, I know. I saved $200." Well, that night my father came into my room and he said, "You know what, I hate to do this to you, but we need the money, because I have bills that I have to pay or they'll shut off my electricity, our phones, or whatever." So I handed him the money.

Tom Corley:
The second story was when I was 23 and I had just been working for about a year. I was still living at home, but I was trying to get ready to leave home. So I saved about $5,000, I wanted to buy a car, and use whatever was left to put down on a rental, an apartment somewhere. Somebody in my family found out about it, and my father approached me a couple of days later and said, "You know, we need that $5,000 to pay our real estate taxes. They're in the process of foreclosing on our house again." So I had to give up that $5,000.

Tom Corley:
So what I learned from those two experiences, which were very emotional experiences to me, was, don't save, if you save, somebody will take it. I was young when I learned those lessons, so they stayed with me in my adult life. And it wasn't until really I did my Rich Habits research that I realized I had this horrific poor habit of not saving, and it was emotion based, which most habits are.

Bobbi Rebell:
What even started the idea of doing Rich Habits research?

Tom Corley:
When I took over my CPA firm here from my predecessor, I had a small business client in the auto body business, he had inherited the business from his father and over the course of 20 years he found himself with cashflow issues. He asked me, "What are your successful clients doing that I'm not doing?" Then he started crying because he couldn't make payroll that week, and basically he was going out of business.

Tom Corley:
So I started doing research, I couldn't find anything other than The Millionaire Next Door, that didn't help me really, it wasn't specific enough. So I said, "You know what? I'm going to do my own research." I interviewed 361 rich people and poor people, find out what the rich do and what the poor do, and I didn't know I was doing a habit study, I just was trying to uncover the truth, why are some people rich and why are some people poor? What I wanted to do, Bobbi, was find out what they did from the minute they put their feet on the floor in the morning to the minute they put their head on the pillow at night. So that's kind of what started me on that research.

Bobbi Rebell:
Did you talk to your dad about this at all?

Tom Corley:
No. My dad passed away in 2013, and he was always one of my biggest cheerleaders, but we never really saw eye to eye on a lot of things. I did everything a good son is supposed to do to help my father, and he loved me, you know, we just didn't have that kind of relationship.

Bobbi Rebell:
You never talked to him about your feelings when the money was taken from you after saving it?

Tom Corley:
No. I couldn't do that to him. I know, he was older, why burden him with that? I just felt, this is something that I don't ever want him to know about.

Bobbi Rebell:
For our listeners, what is the takeaway from your story?

Tom Corley:
Well, the takeaway is this: I was able to turn things around, thanks to my Rich Habits research, I started saving, started putting money into my 401(k), and other things. Whether you are aware of it or not, you have certain good habits and bad habits, I call them rich habits and poor habits, that are the result of your upbringing. They primarily are from your parents. So if you are, like I was, not saving any money, and maybe have debt, credit card debt, there's a very good likelihood that that has something to do with your upbringing, and some habits that you forged in your childhood that stayed with you in your adult life. The good news is that I'm evidence you can change your habits, and not only am I evidence, I have 177 self-made millionaires that are proof that once you change your habits, you change your life.

Tom Corley:
So there's light at the end of the tunnel here for anyone, doesn't matter if you're poor or stuck in the middle class. You can change your habits, and it only takes two or three habits to change your life.

Bobbi Rebell:
So give us some habits.

Tom Corley:
So many people struggle with savings, right? If you really peel that onion, what's the reason why they just can't save? In many cases, especially in America, it's the keeping up with the Jones's mindset, it's, my friend bought a BMW, or leased a BMW, my other friend, or someone I know, or colleague just got a really nice house. So you supersize your life. I call it want spending. What drives want spending is envy. Envy is a negative emotion. What shuts down the want spending is turning the fuel off for your want spending, which is turning off your envy. How do you do that? You shift your mindset from negative to positive by, instead of being envious, be grateful for what you have.

Tom Corley:
What I do every day, every morning on my commute to work, is, I sit in my car as I'm driving and I say, "What are three things that went right yesterday with my life, that I'm grateful for?" I spend about 10 minutes thinking about it and going over it. It's an amazing thing, Bobbi, but it completely makes you positive. Gratitude is the gateway to positivity, it's a domino effect. So it's not just, "Oh, all of a sudden I have this gratitude, positive mental outlook." You have a completely changed mental outlook, everything, you start seeing the glass half full, you start seeing the good in life, the good in people. It's amazing when you start treating people as valuable instead of finding the flaws and the faults in them, they respond, and next thing you know you've got these powerful relationships with people that you didn't have before, all because of a shift in your mindset.

Bobbi Rebell:
Tom, for your everyday money tip, I think you're going to win the most original, and should I just wish you a happy birthday even though I don't even know when your birthday is, but I just want to say happy birthday.

Tom Corley:
Thank you, Bobbi, I appreciate that. It wasn't long ago, June 12th. The happy birthday call was one of the things that I uncovered that the self-made millionaires did. All you do is just call people, you don't tweet them, you don't Facebook them, no social media interaction here, you're calling them on the phone, just to wish them a happy birthday. The amazing thing is, when you call somebody on their birthday, guess what, you're going to probably be one of three or four phone calls that they receive. Here's the really cool thing, Bobbi, I found, because I've been tracking this since I uncovered it in 2007, 25% of the people that you call on your birthday will reciprocate, so it's called the reciprocal happy birthday call, that really takes your relationship off life support, takes it to another level.

Bobbi Rebell:
And especially, you mentioned, not social media and that kind of thing, taking it in a different medium really differentiates you.

Tom Corley:
Yeah, look, you want to stand out. If you're going to just be saying "happy birthday" on Facebook, you don't stand out, because the herd is doing that. You want to step outside the herd. What do people outside the herd do? They make happy birthday calls. It's going to emotionalize your relationship. Why is that important to making money? Because the people that really help you open doors, they might be on board of directors with you on nonprofits, they might be other successful people, well, these are the people you want to be making the happy birthday calls to, they're going to remember you, it's going to improve your relationship, strengthen it, and now you're going to start to develop friendships with these people.

Bobbi Rebell:
Love it. Tell us more about what you're up to this summer and into fall, and where people can learn more about you, Tom.

Tom Corley:
Sure. So I've got a book, Rich Neighbor, Poor Neighbor, that I'm just about wrapping up. I'm going to be traveling to Vietnam for a couple of speaking engagements. I'm also going to start work on a book called The Other Side of Cancer. So I've got a few things in the pipeline this summer.

Bobbi Rebell:
What prompted that, Tom?

Tom Corley:
I'm the president of The Ashley Lauren Foundation. We help families who are struggling with pediatric cancer. So if you found out your child had cancer, we step in to help you financially, emotionally, all different sorts of things. We've bailed people out where they were almost homeless because cancer costs money to fight that fight. We've kept people in their homes just by paying their mortgage and paying their rent. So growing up poor, that means a lot to me, because we didn't really have anybody to help us, so I'm going to write a book and proceeds are going to go to The Ashley Lauren Foundation, and it's going to be an upbeat book about how some of the kids who survived cancer went on to become doctors, lawyers, and other things.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right, well keep us posted on that, and I'll make sure to have you send me some links that we can put in the show notes, and people can learn more about it. Thank you so much, Tom.

Tom Corley:
Thank you, Bobbi, I appreciate it.

Bobbi Rebell:
So, can't thank Tom enough for sharing such a candid and raw story. I truly hope none of you have had to go through that kind of, not just financial devastation, but the toll that it takes on the relationship with your parents and how you view them and how you relate to them.

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup tip number one: as much as our parents set the foundation for our financial perspectives, if you get a bad deal, like Tom, you can move past it. In addition to Tom's books, there are other resources to check out. As our regulars know, I'm a big fan, for example, of Tony Robbins, who was kind enough to support my book, How To Be a Financial Grownup, by contributing the foreword. Tony is a big believer in owning your own situation. Whatever happened in the past with your parents, in your childhood, whatever, look forward, you're an adult, be a financial grownup, and move past anything your parents may have done that you feel hurt you financially. Almost all our parents are well intentioned and really do try their best. Maybe try to teach them what you learn places like here, and from Tom Horley or from Tony Robbins.

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup tip number two: let's talk about those birthday wishes. I recently met Ramit Sethi at a dinner party that he co-hosted with my friend, David [Bock 00:13:50], Episode 1, by the way, guys, if you want to go back. You guys may know Ramit as the author of the book, I Can Teach You To Be Rich. So I follow him now on social media. It was recently Ramit's birthday, and he said that when his friends have birthdays he reaches out, and he asks them to share birthday wisdom with him. So maybe that's something that we can all do when we reach out and call them, as Tom suggested.

Bobbi Rebell:
Thanks to all of you for joining us. This was an emotional one, but that's okay, it was also honest. If you have not, please hit that subscribe button, and follow us on social media, on Twitter @BobbiRebell, and on Instagram @BobbiRebell1. Thanks to Tom Corley for helping us all get one step closer to being financial grownups.

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

 

Newlywed Hilary Hendershott CFP® found herself with a limited cash flow after launching her own financial advisory firm, and started using her husband’s credit cards to make up the difference. What she considered to be a money secret she was keeping from her new husband, she discovered actually wasn’t, but was the catalyst that brought them together to discuss their finances as a married unit.

 

In Hilary’s money story you will learn:

-How as newlyweds, Hilary and her husband set up their finances

-The unseen pitfall that caught them both off guard

-Why Hilary considered spending money on her husband’s credit cards a “secret”

-What happened when she revealed her actions

 

In Hilary’s money lesson you will learn:

-Specifically what Hilary would do now in the same situation

-The exact questions you should be asking if your financial partners- romantic or otherwise

-Ways to motivate yourself to be financially open even in uncomfortable situations

In Hilary’s everyday money tip you will learn:

-Why she is against buying service plans from auto dealerships

-The tactics they use to get you to buy the plans and how to flag them

-How to find alternative options to keeping you car properly maintained

-How Hilary got burned at auto dealerships

In my take you will learn:

-The importance of discussing cashflow, not just revenue

-Why taking ownership of your actions is the key to finding solutions

-The biggest danger of not talking about credit card bills with your partner

-How identity theft can be more of a threat if multiple people use the same credit card account

EPISODE LINKS

Learn more about Hilary Hendershott and the Profit Boss® Radio Podcast

https://www.hilaryhendershott.com

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/hilarythecfp

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/profitbossradio

 

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Transcription

Hilary Hendersh:
I don't know if I'd found one of his credit cards laying around, or it was a credit card that I was using, or using intermittently. Well anyway, I started using this credit card to live off of. And this went on for months, and every time I pulled it out I felt like I was cheating or lying or stealing or something, but I was doing this thing that I didn't have agreement to do.

Bobbi Rebell:
You're listening to Financial Grownup. With me certified financial planner Bobbi Rebell, author of How to be a Financial Grownup. And you know what, being a grownup is really hard especially when it comes to money, but it's okay we're going to get there together. I'm going to bring you one money story from a financial grownup, one lesson, and then my take on how you can make it your own. We got this.

Bobbi Rebell:
Hey friends, so if you spend your significant other's money and you don't actively tell them that you are spending that money is that cheating? I'll let you guys be the judge.

Bobbi Rebell:
Quick welcome to our newest listeners and welcome back to everyone else. Hit that subscribe button while you are there. We do three short episodes a week to fit your schedule. Each episode delivers a money story from a high achiever, a lesson in takeaway so you can apply it to your own life, and an every day money tip to help you save and have more money. If you've got more than about 15 minutes feel free to binge, get a few lessons in a row.

Bobbi Rebell:
Okay, now to our guest, Hilary Hendershott. In addition to being the real deal, a certified financial planner who has been named one of Investopedia's Top 100 Financial Advisors she also hosts the Profit Boss Radio podcast, which I highly recommend. I'm going to be a guest on a future episode likely in the fall. She is also relatively newlywed but regrets keeping a secret from her new husband, or did she? Here is Hilary Hendershott.

Bobbi Rebell:
Hey Hilary Hendershott you're a financial grownup, welcome to the podcast.

Hilary Hendersh:
Thank you so much.

Bobbi Rebell:
And congratulations, you are one of Investopedia's Top 100 Financial Advisors, quiet an honor.

Hilary Hendersh:
Isn't that cool? Yeah, I'm honored to be ranked.

Bobbi Rebell:
And you are a certified financial planner, which we know is serious business, and of course your hit podcast Profit Boss Radio podcast, which I am huge fan of. So, welcome.

Hilary Hendersh:
Thank you so much, I'm really happy to be a financial grownup today.

Bobbi Rebell:
And you brought with you a great story and a very interesting one with a little bit of a plot twist. You were apparently using your husband's credit cards without his knowledge, but there's a lot more of the story, tell us.

Hilary Hendersh:
So for many years I worked for my father's financial planning for about 15 years. I went out on my own in 2014, so I took my clients and I formed a registered investment advisory firm. So here I am, I'm a bootstrapping entrepreneur and my husband was very generous, he said, "Of course, don't pay yourself for a while." And I think any of you who've started a business you understand you just really feel like all that dry kindling needs to go back onto fan the flames of the fire that is your new business. So I was not drawing an income from my business.

Bobbi Rebell:
And you were relatively newlywed, correct?

Hilary Hendersh:
We got married in 2013, yes so we were newlyweds. My husband had his own banking system, I had my own banking system we didn't join accounts, so I had separate checking account from him. So, I didn't think about the fact that we had set this scenario up where there was no money coming into the account that I was spending from. And so, I get to the end like I didn't want to go below $1,000 in this account, but there's no money coming in. I'm like, "What am I going to do now?" Well I happen to ... I don't know if I'd found one of his credit cards laying around or it was a credit card that I was using or using intermittently. Well anyway, I started using this credit card to live off of. And this went on for months, and every time I pulled it out I felt like I was cheating, or lying, or stealing, or something, but I was doing this thing that I didn't have agreement to do. And finally I was like, "I have to come clean honey, I've been spending on your credit card to live."

Hilary Hendersh:
And he said, "I know."

Bobbi Rebell:
So wait, but you didn't tell him and you thought he didn't know. I was about to ask you, wait who's paying these bills? Doesn't he look at the bills? So the people have auto pay.

Hilary Hendersh:
Well he was.

Bobbi Rebell:
People have auto pay.

Hilary Hendersh:
No, he paid the bills and I just thought maybe he wasn't paying attention. I don't know that he combs the transactions at a detailed level. It wasn't like the portal was accounting for this is Hilary's card versus this is your card. I don't know what I thought, I was just in denial. I think I just probably wishing and hoping that my surreptitious little activities were not being found out by him. But of course, we're married it's all joint assets anyway, but it was just the fact that I hadn't asked him or gotten approval, it wasn't what we had planned. It wasn't what we said would happen. And I said to him, "How in the world were we designed? How did you think I was going to get money? How was money ever going to come into my accounts?"

Hilary Hendersh:
And he said something about me taking profit distributions from my business.

Hilary Hendersh:
And I said, "But I wasn't taking money out of the business." He and I just had very different expectations of what was happening from a cashflow management perspective, but it was very cool that he gave me a very soft landing, because when I did say, "I've been using your credit card to live."

Hilary Hendersh:
And he said, "I know."

Bobbi Rebell:
Awe that's so nice. So then how did it evolve? What system did you put in place?

Hilary Hendersh:
Well now I'm on payroll.

Bobbi Rebell:
Right, but I mean did you just say, "Well okay, we'll continue this"? Or did you just merge your accounts then? Or did it just continue where you were just still using his credit card but you guys were open about it?

Hilary Hendersh:
I think a little bit of both. I think he like wrote me a check for $20,000 or something so I had money in my checking account. And then we did create a joint account so I changed my bank over to his bank, and now I'm on payroll from the business. So, our personal finances evolved and grew, but we really should have been spending from the same bank account before that. But, yeah so we just kind of dealt with it step-by-step.

Bobbi Rebell:
So what is the lesson for our listeners from that? What is their takeaway?

Hilary Hendersh:
I think it's really common at the beginning of starting a business for someone's spouse to financially support them. And if you're going to do that you just want to be clear where's the pool of funds that you're actually spending from? And you want to be I think in communication, how much can I spend and have us still be on track for our plan? What is your expectation here? I think the problem was that Robert and I just didn't fully talk through the plan. What saved me was my need to be ... I really am fundamentally an honest person. I'm like, "Uh I need to come clean here." But being open and transparent communication with your partner, your spouse is your financial partner. And so, being able to talk about that really helps.

Bobbi Rebell:
And it sounds like he is really supportive of the business.

Hilary Hendersh:
Oh tremendously. I could not have done it without him. Yeah, absolutely.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right, I want to talk about your money tip because it is something that so many people don't even think twice about, they just assume it's the best thing to do, but maybe not always.

Hilary Hendersh:
Yeah, so when you buy a car from a dealership they give you this schedule of appointments that you're supposed to be on for maintenance and tune-ups, that's a major profit center for those dealerships, those maintenance garages, or fix it places. So, I just went on Yelp and I found a four and a half star local mechanic and we take our cars there. I don't think I've had more than about $100 in maintenance costs over the last seven to eight years. One time I could literally hear the brake discs grinding on each other and I brought the car in thinking I was going to spend ... I had mentally budgeted like $1,000. I was like, "Maybe it'll be like $700 but I don't want to be disappointed, so I'll mentally budget $1,000."

Hilary Hendersh:
The guy said, "I'm going to retool it, it costs $49." It's like I can't spend money at this place if I try to, so that's my tip.

Bobbi Rebell:
So what do you think goes on that people are always feeling like they have to go the dealerships? And full disclosure, when we bought our car we did pre-pay for a maintenance plan. And so, we are locked in because we've paid for it, to our dealer.

Hilary Hendersh:
It's just a problem of information and education. A lot of people in my world, I see come into my office with things inside their investment portfolio that they don't understand, or aren't good for them, or have hidden fees. And under the hood of the car is the same thing. I myself, I know nothing about vehicles. And so, you want to trust dealer just sold you your car. You've been sitting with them all Saturday afternoon and they say, "This is your maintenance schedule."

Hilary Hendersh:
And you don't want to have to think, "Well I'm being taken advantage of or there's a way I can get it for a quarter of the cost." But you know these are huge profit centers for the dealerships and in my experience is I feel that I've been personally taken advantage of because I didn't know what to say or what to ask for.

Bobbi Rebell:
Well what happened at the dealer that you got burned?

Hilary Hendersh:
I think getting really high ticket maintenance bills. Having to do things like, "Well, we removed the rotor," or whatever.

Hilary Hendersh:
And then you go, "Okay can I see the part?" Because somebody tells you that in order to be a critical consumer you need to ask for your old parts.

Hilary Hendersh:
And they go, "Well, it's already at the dump," or whatever. Just signs of lack of credibility. And it's been so long since I've been to a dealership that I definitely am not going to remember the details, but just the fact of my maintenance costs went from several thousand dollars a year to under $100.

Bobbi Rebell:
Great advice. All right, before I let you go, tell me a little more about Profit Boss Radio and your mission, and a little bit about the show, and where people can find you.

Hilary Hendersh:
Yes, so Profit Boss Radio is your wealth mastermind. So, I take all the best of what I've learned over 18 years as a certified financial planner. I do solo shows on technical topics like, how to debunk economic doomsayers. You know those articles that always say, "The stock market's going to fall. The stock market's a huge bubble." I pull those articles apart and talk through every line item of them so that you understand how to think about and what to do about them when you read them. We've had finance experts such as David Bach and Dan Ariely on the show. I interview everyday entrepreneurs and even some really incredible everyday women, so not media experts but women who have done just remarkable things in their own financial life. I interviewed a single mom, she was left with no money and three kids, she had literally no income and now she owns a major clothing studio and online business living in the house of her dreams having paid cash for all of her kid's college. She was just an incredible interview. So lots of different kinds of topics. The show is designed to empower you financially to take control of your money.

Bobbi Rebell:
Well I am a huge fan of the podcast and of you. Where can people find you and follow you?

Hilary Hendersh:
If you have room in your podcast lineup check out Profit Boss Radio wherever you find your podcast online. You can find me HilaryHendershott.com and that is Hilary with one l and Hendershott with two t's.

Bobbi Rebell:
Thank you so much, this was amazing.

Hilary Hendersh:
Thank you so much for having me.

Bobbi Rebell:
Okay everyone here is my take. The first year's of any relationship that merges finances romantic or not is always challenging. Financial Grownup Tip #1, Hilary did talk to her new husband about the fact that she would not have income in the early stages of her business, but then she didn't follow up with exactly how the cashflow would work. So it was an incomplete discussion. Don't assume that your partner is making the leap to the next step. While Hilary takes ownership of her actions and feels she should have told him she was spending on his account, and she should have, why didn't he point out the charges to her? Because here's the really alarming thing about this story, given that he did not ask her or anyone about the charges that were appearing on his bill, how did he know that they were not unauthorized charges from strangers, and that his credit card and/or identity had not been compromised?

Bobbi Rebell:
So Financial Grownup Tip #2, if more than one person in your family is using a credit card or even a debit card you need to really be communicating. So taking it beyond the spouse example, maybe to build credit you put your teenage child on a credit card, or some people may give a caregiver a debit card to pay for expenses for a child. Make sure that person is giving you receipts or at the very least communicating what their buying. You may assume that because for example, they shop at Walmart every charge from Walmart is legit and is theirs, but a smart thief might make charges at places you already shop thus avoiding detection. Just think about it.

Bobbi Rebell:
Thank you all for spending some time with us. Feel free to binge a little and check out some other episodes. Learn more about Financial Grownup at BobbiRebell.com/FinancialGrownupPodcast and do follow us on social media. I am on Twitter @BobbiRebell and on Instagram at Bobbi Rebell 1.

Bobbi Rebell:
Hilary's relationship with her hubby is still going strong as is her growing financial advisory business. Be sure to check out Profit Boss Radio for more great insights from Hilary, and thank you to my friend for bringing us all one step closer to being Financial Grownups.

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

Author Cristina Alger wrote her first book, The Darlings as a side hustle while working 120 hours a week as a lawyer. When she ditched the day job to write full time, Cristina also walked away from the pricey perks.  But the author of The Bankers Wife, quickly found herself with the time to create better benefits for herself and her family. 

 

Cristina Alger is a lifelong New Yorker. A graduate of Harvard College and NYU Law School, she worked as a financial analyst and a corporate attorney before becoming a writer. Her third novel, THE BANKER'S WIFE, will be published on July 3 by Penguin Random House. She lives in New York with her husband and two children.

 

In Cristina’s money story you will learn: 

-How and why she came to work in finance after college even though she had been an English major and says she had no financial skills

-How and why she wrote the Darlings while working 120 hours a week as a corporate lawyer, often on the road

-How she got the book published

-How she had to adjust her budget and spending lifestyle when she left her corporate job to write fulltime

-Specific examples of the changes she made to lower her spending, but make up for it with time

In Cristina’s money lesson you will learn:

-How at her corporate job Cristina had to use money to make up for the lack of time she had

-How as a writer, Cristina now has time to make up for the lack of steady paycheck

-The specific current changes Cristina makes in her every day life to improve the quality of her family time and her overall lifestyle

In Cristina’s everyday money tip you will learn:

-How Cristina and her husband have disrupted the common advice to hire babysitters and go out in order to really have a date night as parents of young children

-Exactly what they do to protect the time, and to focus on each other, not distractions around their home

-Ideas for how you can create time in your life for special moments - without spending more money than you would like. 

-Other benefits from at-home date nights, including avoiding all the stress and to-do list of setting up the going-out date night!

About  how Cristina researched her book “The Bankers Wife”

-She learned about Geneva as a child visiting her uncle

-As an ex-pat she was fascinated by the glamorous and mysterious world of   swiss banking and offshore banking

-She is fascinated by the Panama Papers and used them for ideas. They were leaked while she was writing the book in the summer of 2016, 

-Another case that inspired her was that of whistelblower Bradley Birkenfeld, who exposed how UBS helped ultra-wealthy Americans commit billions in tax fraud.

-Birkenfeld went to prison for 30 months, but when he got out he got $104 million from the IRS as a whistleblowers fee!

In my take you will learn:

-How to find the time to do what you love, even if you feel like you are too busy

-How to determine if in fact you should not try to find the time- because ultimately it’s not that important to you, or not realistic during this phase of your life. 

-Ways to come to terms with your actual priorities not being what you think they SHOULD be. 

-The difference between side hustles for enjoyment, and side hustles for pay. 

-Ways to approach  and re-think the pressure from friends and family to have a formal ‘date night’ when you really do have other financial needs- or the planning of the date night is creating stress. 

 

EPISODE LINKS:

Learn more about Cristina Alger and her other books at her website:

CristinaAlger.com where you can also buy her book. 

Follow Cristina!

Facebook: @AuthorCristinaAlger

Instagram: cristina.alger

Twitter: CristinaAlger

Here are some great articles about the Panama Papers: 

International Consortium of Investigative Journalists

https://www.icij.org/investigations/panama-papers/

NY Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/06/us/panama-papers.html

The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/news/series/panama-papers

Wired: https://www.wired.com/2016/04/reporters-pulled-off-panama-papers-biggest-leak-whistleblower-history/

Here is more about Bradley Birkenfeld.

https://lucifersbanker.com! 

You can read more about him in his book: https://lucifersbanker.com/books/lucifers-banker/overview/

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Transcription

Cristina Alger:
There was a salad place in basement of my loft apartment, we used to go everyday for lunch and you'd spend 30 dollars on a salad and kind of not think anything of it, and a lot of times we'd expense it to the firm and you can't do that anymore.

Bobbi Rebell:
You're listening to Financial Grown Up with my, certified financial planner Bobbi Rebell, author of How to be a Financial Grown Up, but you know what, being a grown up is really hard, especially when it comes to money, but it's okay. We're going to get there together, I'm going to bring you one money story from a financial grown up, a lesson, and then my take on how you can make it your own. We got this.

Bobbi Rebell:
Hey friends, the glam life of an entrepreneur, you can work from the beach, but you also need to watch out for those 30 dollar a day salads because that expense account has sailed away. Welcome everyone, so glad you are here, we have a great guest today in novelist Cristina Alger, whose latest book the financial thriller, The Bankers Wife, kept me up all weekend, I could not put it down until the very last page and it was a good ending. The book is fiction but also very realistic, taking us into the secretive world of Swiss banking and chock full of villains, if you can figure out who exactly are the villains. You can really tell that in Cristina's background in banking and law as well as growing up in a family that worked in finance, gave her insights into this actually really crazy world that we haven't seen before in a novel, at least not that I'm aware of.

Bobbi Rebell:
This book takes you on quite the adventure. Alger wrote her first book, The Darlings, as a side hustle while working 120 hours a week, when she ditched the day job though to write full time Cristina also walked away from those pricey perks and she had to learn to be quite the financial grown up, you're going to love this story. Here is Cristina Alger. Hey Cristina Alger, you're a financial grown up, welcome to the podcast.

Cristina Alger:
Thank you, thank you for having me.

Bobbi Rebell:
Thank you so much for taking over my weekend, I spent the weekend reading your new book, I got a sneak peak at it, The Bankers Wife. We're going to talk more about it after your money story, but just high level, give us a little sneak peak?

Cristina Alger:
Well the bankers wife is a thriller and it's set sort of in Europe and New York and it's about a woman who is an ex pat, an American ex pat living in Geneva, and her husband is a private banker and he goes missing on a private plane, and she goes in search of him. It's really kind of a fun fast paced thriller that kind of takes you through the world of off shore banking.

Bobbi Rebell:
So we love that, a money thriller, and to get to the point where you are giving us this wonderful novel, and by the way it's your third novel, you had to leave your corporate job and become your own boss and that involved some big money decisions of your own. Nothing quite as dramatic as what goes on in The Bankers Wife, trust me, this book goes there, but lets hear about your life and your money story?

Cristina Alger:
Yeah, when I graduated in college, I was an English major, I had no actual marketable skills and I went to work at Goldman Sachs.

Bobbi Rebell:
Okay, let me just correct that, you must have had some skills to get a job at Goldman Sachs, but go on.

Cristina Alger:
Well I had no financial skills and I grew up in a family where both my mom and my father worked in finance, I had never taken economics, I had never taken accounting, my dad passed away when I was a senior in college.

Bobbi Rebell:
I'm sorry.

Cristina Alger:
And I sort of realized that I had to start paying my own bills and so I decided to take the highest paying job I could get, which was a financial analyst at Goldman Sachs and they were one of the few banks that were hiring people out of undergrad who did not have a finance background, so I took that job and I sort of stuck with that through my 20's. I went to law school and when I came out of ... I became a corporate lawyer because I had spent these two years at Goldman Sachs learning how to be a financial analyst. So I spent about 10 years doing finance in sort of various roles and I wrote The Darlings really as a passion project, I wrote it while I was working as a lawyer and ...

Bobbi Rebell:
So let me just ... so it was a side hustle, was it intended to make money or just ... it was just a project?

Cristina Alger:
No, it was just a project, I never thought it would get published ... actually even intended for it to see the light of day. I sent it to a writer friend of mine who asked, so are you still writing, are you still working on sort of creative projects, and so I sent this to her and she sent it to her agent, and her agent called me and said I really like this, do you want to publish it. I thought oh wow, I don't know if I have the time to do that, so I sort of hemmed and hawed about it ...

Bobbi Rebell:
And the economics, I mean I don't know what the advance was but you're in a job that you've said you're in for the money and now I mean it's a first time novel, it might pay well but probably not the same?

Cristina Alger:
No, and it's funny, being a lawyer and being a novelist are complete opposites. I mean being a lawyer is such a consistent steady job, you know you're really paid salary, it's a salary based job, the bonuses are not huge, and it's just a very consistent job. You sort of stay there, you keep your head down, you work hard and you get paid very well and you have great benefits and it's a very conservative kind of risk averse job. Obviously being a writer is the exact opposite, you get paid in kind of these lump sums, you never know when you're going to get paid next, there are no benefits, so ... it's a huge transition.

Bobbi Rebell:
So how did you make that transition?

Cristina Alger:
So we took the book to auction, it actually did really well at auction and we sold it for a fairly large advance, but it was a big leap for me. It was really stressful, it was hard in the beginning to figure out how to be my own boss and how to kind of manage my budget given that I wasn't getting a consistent salary.

Bobbi Rebell:
So what did you do, what was it like?

Cristina Alger:
I set up a budget that would carry me through the next year and I really stuck to it. In fact, every month I was sort of coming under my budget because I was so scared that I would run out of money.

Bobbi Rebell:
So give us an example of something maybe that you would have done in your lawyer life financially and you weren't doing anymore as a novelist, year one?

Cristina Alger:
Okay, yeah. Well the first thing and the most obvious thing that I actually ... and this is the change that I will never go back, I stopped doing take out. I just stopped, I now cook lunch and dinner, I bring my lunch to work if I'm going somewhere. I mean New York is sort of dangerous because there's so many quick lunch options and dinner options around but it's expensive, it adds up. So there was this salad place in the basement of my loft apartment, we used to go every day for lunch and you'd spend 30 dollars on a salad and kind of not think anything of it. A lot of times we'd expense it to the firm and you can't do that anymore, so I had to get much more organized about doing meal planning and grocery shopping and ... but I also had more time, so I actually really enjoy cooking and that's something that my husband and I do a lot together and my kids and I now do it together. So it's been actually a really positive change, but we save a lot of money as a family by not really eating out very much.

Cristina Alger:
We almost never do take out, so that's one thing. Then another is that I don't take cabs anywhere, I was always in a rush when I was at my law firm and I was always traveling around the city. I literally can't remember the last time I took a cab, I walk everywhere, I take the subway, my kids love the bus, that's a huge cost savings. I also realized that I don't have to dry clean my clothes the way I did when I was a lawyer, when I was a lawyer I was wearing a suit every day and I would honestly throw things in the dry cleaning bin because I was just too lazy to think about it and ...

Bobbi Rebell:
And busy, you were working 120 hours a week.

Cristina Alger:
I know. Then you know, I was a lot more conscious about going out with friends at night and the money I was spending on entertainment and that kind of thing.

Bobbi Rebell:
What is the lesson then for our listeners, what's their take away from this?

Cristina Alger:
One of the thing that I realize is when you work these very intense corporate jobs, you're spending money to create time, and that goes away when you cease to have a job that takes over your whole life. So a lot of the things that I was spending money on I realized didn't actually bring me any joy, they were just ... I was spending money to save time. So I was paying for a housekeeper, I was paying for transportation as I said, I was paying for take out, and all these things really what I was buying was time because I was so busy that I couldn't ... I didn't have the time to go grocery shopping and sit out on a Sunday and plan out what I was going to eat for the whole week and when you get back some of that time and you reclaim that time, you can actually save a lot of money because you're not making decisions kind of on the fly based on what's the most convenient thing to do right then.

Bobbi Rebell:
Let's talk about your everyday money tip because it's kind of along the same theme and it's really about date night with your husband.

Cristina Alger:
Yes.

Bobbi Rebell:
Because now you're married, when The Darlings came along you were single, and when The Bankers Wife comes along now you are married.

Cristina Alger:
I am, I am, we have started doing date night at home and we cook a really nice elaborate dinner and we light candles, we set the table, and my husband brings me flowers, a date at home and it's really nice. Sometimes we'll watch a show or a movie on the couch and we'll drink wine and sort of do whatever we would do at a restaurant, but at home. We save money because it's just infinitely cheaper to eat at home but we also save on babysitting and sort of the mental gymnastics of getting a babysitter, so ... we just find it so much easier to be like okay, Thursday night we're doing it. It makes a big difference when you set the table and you use real silver wear and you're not sort of shoving food in your mouth because you have to put your kids down in the next 30 minutes.

Cristina Alger:
So we kind of make a production of it and it's nice, it's really romantic and my husband actually has now started to cook with me, which is fun. It's a fun different kind of date night so I highly recommend it.

Bobbi Rebell:
So lets talk about The Bankers Wife because I told you this beforehand, I chose to read this rather than watch The Handmaids Tale, which is basically huge, if anyone's every watched The Handmaids Tale, I could not put this book down. I read it in a day and a half, there's a lot of things that happen that at least I didn't see coming at all but make total sense in hindsight, you're like of course, but they don't make sense. Tell us about how you even came up with this idea, did you know about this world, did you know about things like this without getting to into the details, were you witness to this?

Cristina Alger:
I did, you know, I did because ... well I sort of have in two ways. One is the book is set in Geneva and my uncle actually lives in Geneva and so as a child we would spent a lot of time visiting him there and I always thought the ex pat world there was just so glamorous and it's sort of mysterious and ... I just thought it would always be a fabulous sort of setting for a novel. I became really fascinated with the Panama Papers Case, which is the data leak that came out of a Panamanian law firm that did a lot of business with these off shore banks. In the summer of 2016 when I was writing this book the Panama papers had just leaked out and they were all over the news and I'm sort of a nerdy financial news junky, and I just couldn't get enough of this case.

Cristina Alger:
I thought it was so fascinating that someone from inside this law firm had leaked all this really confidential information and it occurred to me that there was this whole world of banking that exists completely outside any sort of regulatory body and it's ... for the ultra rich and it's all operated in kind of numbered bank accounts, and no one knows who owns the numbered bank accounts and it's super shady. It amazed me that there's trillions of dollars in this sort of off shore banking system that exists and all the different people that can be involved, there are drug cartels that store their money, there's Presidents, there are all kinds of people. There was another case I did a lot of research on and it's this man named Bradley Burkenfeld who is an American private banker at UBS, United Bank of Switzerland, and he was a whistleblower.

Cristina Alger:
He ended up ... this is such a crazy story. He knew what he was doing, you know, that he was helping a lot of people evade taxes by having Americans bank at UBS and he knew what he was doing was illegal and he sort of saw the writing on the wall and he ended up becoming a whistleblower for the IRS, and he gave over a lot of confidential information from inside the bank to the DOJ and the IRS. They ended up prosecuting him anyway, so he went to jail.

Bobbi Rebell:
Oh my gosh, really?

Cristina Alger:
Yes, for aiding and embedding, tax evasion, and then he walks out of prison and the IRS awards him I think 114 million dollars because ...

Bobbi Rebell:
The finders fee.

Cristina Alger:
Whistleblower, yes. So it's a totally insane story.

Bobbi Rebell:
Well I think you have another best seller on your hands, so congratulations.

Cristina Alger:
Thank you so much, that's so kind.

Bobbi Rebell:
And where can people find out more about you?

Cristina Alger:
Well you can always go to my website, so it's Cristinaalger.com, it's Cristinaalger.com, and also on Penguin Random House they have pages on all the different authors and the books available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble, so ...

Bobbi Rebell:
And to follow you on all your social channels.

Cristina Alger:
Yes, definitely, I'm all over the place.

Bobbi Rebell:
Thank you Cristina.

Cristina Alger:
No, thank you, it was such a pleasure.

Bobbi Rebell:
So I'm still kind of trying to process how Cristina found the time to write while working 120 hours a week, but therein lies the takeaway, financial grown up tip number 1, if you want to do something you love you will find the time because you won't be able to stop yourself. Notice I didn't say it will necessarily pay, separate topics, whether that project will pay, but Cristina wrote her first book as a way to relax and cope with the stress of her job. As it happens, the book was also really good and she was able to turn it into a profitable project, but that has nothing to do with the fact that she was finding the time while working 120 hours a week. So the next time you feel you don't have time for a project, just think about Cristina and finding those pockets of time in that crazy week. If it feels like it's a chore and you're struggling, maybe it's okay to decide not to do it and do other things or maybe you don't time for anything else, that's okay.

Bobbi Rebell:
So rather than beat yourself up and feel bad about it, just say in this phase of my life I'm not going to do it because I don't have the time and it's not giving me enough joy that I'm going to find a way to make the time, it's okay. Financial grown up tip number 2, we get so many messages these days that we need to build in that date night with our significant other and commit money so that it sticks. When my husband and I had our son, we were told pre-schedule a baby sitter every Saturday night so we were forced to have a date night because things come up otherwise, this way we put money on it, we were going. I have to tell you, paying someone money to sit in our house watching TV while our son slept so we could go to a restaurant, maybe spend money on a taxi to get there, to spend more money for the meal then.

Bobbi Rebell:
It doesn't always work for everyone and sometimes the idea that you're spending all this money puts a lot of pressure on you. Also maybe the money just isn't there for that, maybe your priority is saving for something else, maybe it's paying down debt, maybe that's where your priority is right now and you can make ... and it was great that Cristina pointed this out, you can make a date night at home. Yes, it is absolutely easier to blow off if you haven't made this commitment, but Cristina's example really was telling. The little things are important, her husbands bringing her flowers, they really set the table, that makes a difference. I'm going to try it, maybe you guys can too.

Bobbi Rebell:
If you are enjoying the promos and want one for yourself or your business, follow me on social media and share them, I'm going to be choosing a winner soon and it could be you to get a promo made for you or your business. I am on Twitter @BobbiRebell, on Instagram and BobbiRebell1 and on Facebook my author page is @BobbiRebell. Also, love it when you guys DM me and share your thoughts on the show and also suggest guests that you would like to see on Financial Grown Up. Everyone, go out and get Cristina Alger's new book, The Bankers Wife, it is the perfect summer read and thank you Cristina for sharing all your money saving tips and advice and experiences and helping us all get one step closer to being financial grown ups.

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

TV and theater producer Jenna Segal had a dramatic financial shock as a child. Now as a financial grownup, Jenna takes her cue from that experience to make sure the creative ambition of her productions is in line with financial realities. 

In Jenna’s money story you will learn:

-How Jenna had to adjust her life growing up when her parents financial situation experienced a big change

-The impact big changes in the U.S. economy and the fashion industry had on her family

-How Jenna managed multiple income streams and side hustles as a teen

-Why the happy birthday song at Bennigans shares a special place in Jenna’s heart

-The specific strategies Jenna used to balance her schoolwork with her many jobs and internships

-How Jenna leveraged her background watching the numbers to move into her career as a broadway, tv and film producer

-The factors Jenna takes into consideration when putting together a production to balance creativity with financial responsibility

-Why we are talking about my cousin Robin and coding

In Jenna’s money lesson you will learn:

-How to take life experiences and translate them into skills for your career

-How to balance desire for creativity in any project, with the financial realities

-How to actually use creativity on projects as a solution to budget challenges

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

-Why Jenna always has $2,000 available for emergencies

-The strategy she used to manage living paycheck to paycheck in one of her first jobs

In my take you will learn:

-The difference between an emergency fund and a get out of town fund

-What to do if you do not have the resources the fund an emergency fund in the near term

Episode Links

Look for new information coming soon about Jenna’s projects including the plan she is producing fall 2018 at her website SegalNYC.com

Learn about Jenna’s new content projects aimed at women- and get on the newsletter at gatherertv.com

Read more about Jenna Segal!

Wall Street Journal: https://www.wsj.com/articles/gigi-back-on-broadway-thanks-to-jenna-segal-a-rookie-producer-1426785748

Playbill: http://www.playbill.com/person/jenna-segal-vault-0000125916

Follow Jenna!!

Twitter @JennaKatzSegal

Instagram @JennaSegal

Facebook: JKSegal

---

Transcription

Jenna Segal:
She'd throw me the codes for the budgets and I would be able to look at each bill and really get to understand what it was costing for the networks to do what they were doing. That's what gave me the ability to do the job that I wound up getting at MTV, because I understood the cost of production and how to move money around, how to budget, figure out how to make a projection work on the amount of money that we had to work with.

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

Bobbi Rebell:
But it's okay. We're going to get there together. I'm going to bring you one money story from a financial grownup, one lesson and then my take on how you can make it your own. We got this.

Bobbi Rebell:
Hey friends, that was film, TV and theater producer, Jenna Segal talking show business number crunching. Welcome everyone to the show, if you have not already, please hit that subscribe button so you don't miss any upcoming episodes.

Bobbi Rebell:
If you are new to the show, great to have you. As our returning listeners know, we keep the episodes short because we know you're busy. About 15 minutes, just give you a story, little context, something to think about, a take away, and an everyday money tip.

Bobbi Rebell:
Of course, if you have more time, listen to a few episodes. All right, let's get back to today's money story. Jenna Segal's long list of productions include, Gigi on Broadway starring Vanessa Hudgens, the recent revival of Les Liaisons Dangereuses, hope I said that correctly, as well as the off Broadway show, What We're Up Against.

Bobbi Rebell:
She has also had stints at Viacom including MTV and Nickelodeon, as well as in news. Places like CNN and CNBC, whereas you will here, she worked for my cousin Robin. Hey Robin.

Bobbi Rebell:
Also, no matter how fabulous this show is, you're going to learn from Jenna, there is still math and a lot of people that have to get paid. If you can't crunch the numbers, the show does not go on. Jenna Segal got her ambition early on and it amped up, when as a teen her family had some big financial drama.

Bobbi Rebell:
Now her career, still has drama just also comedy, mystery, love stories and all that showbiz stuff. Here is Jenna Segal.

Bobbi Rebell:
Hey Jenna Segal, you're our financial grownup, welcome to the podcast.

Jenna Segal:
Hey Bobbi, how are you? It's so exciting to be on.

Bobbi Rebell:
I am excited to have you because you have so many interesting projects. You are the head of Segal NYC which is Broadway Production company, you're also a TV producer and you've got a number of projects going on right now. I have convinced you to give us a little sneak peak on one project, tell us a little about that very famous person you're working on a project about.

Jenna Segal:
Yes, I'm so excited. I am working with Daryl Roth on a brand new play called Gloria. Which is about the one and only Gloria Steinem. It is going to be at the Daryl Roth theater downtown in New York City in the fall.

Bobbi Rebell:
Very cool. I want to hear more about some other projects you're working on but first let's do your money story. It is something that unfortunately many people can relate to and that is when a parent loses a job. You were just 16, tell us what happened.

Jenna Segal:
When I was 16, I grew up in New Jersey and just kind of a regular existence. My dad had a great job working in the fashion industry and the whole industry, much like today, went through a major transition. The entire industry of the middle man started falling apart because Target and Walmart were doing networking, going directly to factories all around the world to find people to manufacture their goods.

Jenna Segal:
Financially for our family it was just a major, major change.

Bobbi Rebell:
So what did that mean for you? What was the changes for you?

Jenna Segal:
Well it just meant that money wasn't coming easily anymore. And at a certain point, it also meant that my college education wasn't as secure as I had thought. I wasn't getting a car when I turned 17, I was sharing a car with my dad where I would drop him off so he could go into New York City. And I would pick him up at the end of the day.

Jenna Segal:
But it especially meant that I went out and I had always loved working but started, instead of doing you know one job that was babysitting after school, I went out and got three jobs. So I worked on the weekends at the local bagel store where I'd get there at five o'clock in the morning and Saturdays and Sundays I would talk to the first people in at five and make their bagels and go through the soccer lines and everything else.

Jenna Segal:
Making sure everyone got what they needed and then I would hostess at night at Finnegan's which was a-

Bobbi Rebell:
I loved Finnegan's.

Jenna Segal:
Of course. I still know the Happy Birthday song.

Bobbi Rebell:
I also grew up in New Jersey of course though.

Jenna Segal:
Yes totally. And I was able to do obvioulsy similar things there. And I also worked at Little Ceaser's when it first opened until I just couldn't take it anymore because I smelled so much like pizza. And I was a nanny after school for a single mother, not my Freshman year of college but starting my Sophomore year of college, I continued really doing that as well.

Jenna Segal:
Trying to take all of my classes in two days and then I started working at CNN five days a week. At first for an unpaid internship and then hostessing at night. But it really was a wonderful experience because it changed how I viewed being able to support myself.

Bobbi Rebell:
So now you're a Broadway producer. Having this background with the needing to earn money in that kind of situation, do you look at budget items differently, would you spend differently?

Jenna Segal:
Oh totally. When I look at Broadway, every single aspect of what you're doing has to relate to the return. And then it has to relate to the artistic integrity of the piece that you're doing. I would say even at MTV, where I started in the 90s in Los Angeles, it was always about taking whatever the budget was, being able to respect the artistic integrity of the director or the writer. And make sure to get them what they wanted visually but how to do that within the parameters of what financially needed to be achieved.

Jenna Segal:
And that's always a really huge challenge I think for many people who get out of film school and budgeting is generally not significantly taught there. And I have always felt that for creative people, having that ability to understand the parameters around a budget, especially for large corporations who have real risk assessment needs.

Jenna Segal:
And cannot just go out and shoot without permits and know that they're not going to majorly get in trouble or use music that hasn't been cleared. And just take the risk that they're not going to pay for it or have somebody come in and not have insurance for those people to make sure that if they get hurt, they don't take the risk and have that actor or that camera person or the audio person not have backup. So that if they get hurt, you're able to financially take care of them and not wind up getting sued and having it put you into major financial jeopardy as an independent producer.

Jenna Segal:
All of those things are what I'm thinking about all the time.

Bobbi Rebell:
There's a lot of economics behind the scenes, I mean pun intended.

Jenna Segal:
Yes, 100 percent. I started in political talk shows in Washington D.C. with actually, I completely forgot about this, your cousin Robin [inaudible 00:08:06].

Bobbi Rebell:
Yes, hey Robin.

Jenna Segal:
The absolute best producers I have ever worked with, incredibly smart. But Robin loved the creative and she hated the financial piece. And the best thing that Robin ever did for me and my production career and I credit her for this all the time. Is that Robin threw the bills at me. And she said, "You deal with this. You code it."

Jenna Segal:
And coding is, in the networks or really in any company that you work for, it's a way of accounting for each individual expenditure you have so that when they put it through the massively gigantic books in the big picture, they're able to understand what they're spending on everything.

Jenna Segal:
And so she'd throw me the codes for the budgets and I would be able to look at each bill and really get to understand what it was costing for the networks to do what they were doing. That's what gave me to the ability to do the job that I wound up getting at MTV in its heyday.

Jenna Segal:
Because I understood the costs of production and how to move money around, how to budget, how to figure out how to make a production work on the amount of money that we had to work with.

Jenna Segal:
(Music)

Bobbi Rebell:
What is the lesson for our listeners from this?

Jenna Segal:
I think the most important lesson is to make sure to key into where you're real financial acumen is. And that could come from any kind of experience in your life. See why that moment resonated for you and how you can move that moment forward for what you're doing at work or what you're doing in your home.

Jenna Segal:
Look at your finances and figure out how you can make happen what you want to make happen, even if you have a minimal amount of money to do it.

Bobbi Rebell:
And even if you're in a creative field, I mean one thing that I notice is that you know, even the creative people need to understand the economics behind that creation.

Jenna Segal:
Oh 100 percent. And what I like to say is that I, what my real skill set wound being is that I am an excellent translator. Through my experiences, I was able to understand financial people and understand what they were getting at and why they were getting at why you could or couldn't spend money on something.

Jenna Segal:
And I was able to talk to creative people and explain to them why we did or didn't have the money to do what they wanted to do but how we could creatively come up with a solution for how to get what they wanted in a different way within the money that we had. And I think that lacking often creates the best creativity for how to find creative ways out of a situation.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right so Jenna, what is your money tip?

Jenna Segal:
Pick a number and create an emergency fund. When I was leaving Washington or decided I wanted to leave for Washington to move out to LA to begin working outside of political talk shows, I worked in a job where I only got paid once a month. And it really taught me how to budget wisely over the course of the month because of course I was living paycheck to paycheck.

Jenna Segal:
Knowing that I was going to get money at the end of the month, it made me think about how I could save to get to the 2000 dollars that I thought that I needed to get out to LA. And ever since then, I always make sure to have 2000 dollars in the bank at all times as my getaway car so to speak.

Jenna Segal:
Because I always feel that as long as I have that 2000 dollars in the bank, I can just change and-

Bobbi Rebell:
Get somewhere, right. So it's not a traditional emergency fund where if you lost your income source, you would have six months to live on. It's a get out-of-town fund, basically.

Jenna Segal:
It's a get out, yes exactly. Which is why I call it an emergency fund. It's not-

Bobbi Rebell:
Exactly, but it's not, I don't want our regular listeners to be confused with these same kind of emergency fund that's like for if you're in dire straights, this is your get out of town.

Jenna Segal:
Yes.

Bobbi Rebell:
Like yeah. Literally like quick cash fund.

Jenna Segal:
Literally I need to change my life tomorrow, I have this money.

Bobbi Rebell:
Awesome. Well you have a great life right now because you have so many amazing projects going on. Tell us what's going on with Segal NYC and you have another big thing that's happening the fall of 2018, I think.

Jenna Segal:
Yes. With Segal NYC, we're going to be producing the fall, Gloria as I mentioned. And then other projects that are brewing in the background and then I have also started with a partner, Gatherer Entertainment which is going to be a digital network for women. And we have a really fun newsletter at Gatherer TV dot com. If you're interested.

Jenna Segal:
But it's all really exciting and there is not-

Bobbi Rebell:
What kinds of projects are you going to have?

Jenna Segal:
On Gatherer, it's going to be everything from unscripted shows to scripted but all in the original stuff that we're going to be doing is all going to be in shorter form. And we're working with really talented writers, some with names you know and some who don't. Focusing on women, the world that women live in right now.

Jenna Segal:
And really things that are going to be instrumental to them in their lives that aren't necessarily being talked about.

Bobbi Rebell:
That sounds mysterious. All right I can't wait.

Jenna Segal:
I think it's unveiling the mysteries.

Bobbi Rebell:
That was a good tease, Jenna, good job. All right, where can people learn more about you and about Segal NYC and Gatherer and so on?

Jenna Segal:
Sure so Segal NYC, it is Segal NYC dot com, Gatherer is Gatherer TV dot com. And then I am on Twitter at JennaKatzSegal and Facebook and Instagram. Although I don't use Instagram as much. I know I really have to get on it but I just haven't gotten there yet.

Bobbi Rebell:
Well I think you'll get there and you have great things happening and coming so thank you Jenna Segal.

Jenna Segal:
Thank you so much. It was so good talking to you.

Bobbi Rebell:
(Music)

Bobbi Rebell:
Such a fun interview, can't wait to go see Jenna and Daryl Roth's Gloria production in the fall.

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup tip number one, Jenna worked as a teen in multiple jobs because she had to. But it's also often a great learning experience for teens to work just because they get exposed to the universal basics of being an employee. Show up on time, be reliable, follow directions, all that stuff.

Bobbi Rebell:
It can also motivate teens not just to work hard, but also smart. And to have the best career that they can. I know having to memorize the price of every baked good at the Wycoff Bakery in New Jersey as a teen definitely motivated me. And I know my future in food service.

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup tip number two, emergency fund. So Jenna talked about having 2000 dollars as an emergency fund. We then, renamed it the get out-of-town fund. She basically was talking about money to buy a plane ticket and have a little spending money if you got to go. But as we also mentioned, everyone actually also needs what we traditionally call an emergency fund in case your income stops for some reason.

Bobbi Rebell:
So in a perfect world, it would be about six months, more or less depending on if you are a single person, then you might need a little more. If you have double income, you might need less because the odds of losing both incomes at once are lower.

Bobbi Rebell:
Now if that is not a reality right now and it's not for a lot of people, let's be honest about it, if you don't have it, here is a plan B. See if you can at least get a line of credit that could be available to you. The catch is, you need to get the line of the credit ahead of time, as in now when you don't need it. If you're not using it and you don't take money out, you're not paying any interest so it's okay.

Bobbi Rebell:
But then you have it so you can tap into that money if you do have an emergency at much lower rates than say a credit card. And that's really important because right now we are in a rising rate environment.

Bobbi Rebell:
Thanks to everyone for joining us for another great Financial Grownup Podcast episode. To stay up to date on episodes and also catch our fun promo videos, follow me on social media. At bobbierebell on Twitter, at bobbirebell1 on Instagram, my page on Facebook is Bobbi Rebell. And I'm also working on that YouTube page so check it out and please subscribe, I would love your support.

Bobbi Rebell:
Jenna's start continues to rise in large part because she keeps a nice balance between the show and the business, so thank you Jenna for sharing with us and helping us all get one step closer to being financial grownups.

Bobbi Rebell:
(Music)

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

When journalist Vera Gibbons launched nonpoliticalnews.com she had lots of former colleagues and friends telling her she needed to spend money on all kinds of costs, but after making a few missteps, the entrepreneur learned to prioritize and keep her costs in check while she built a strong foundation. 

 

In Vera’s money story you will learn:

-What inspired Vera to start her website and newsletter nonpoliticalnews.com 

-How she was approached about hiring many people to help her, but at a cost, despite the fact that her business was not yet earning money

-Vera’s choices about where to spend her resources in the early days of her venture

-Where she regretted spending money, and where she felt her money was best allocated.

-Vera’s revenue model

 

In Vera’s money lesson you will learn:

-How to evaluate what expenses to take on in the startup phase of a business

-How to prioritize your business needs versus wants

-The legal issues you need to pay attention to when starting a business

 

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

-Why we all need to be paying close attention to interest rates

-How to identify the interest rates in your life that could be going up

-How to negotiate to get your rates lower

 

In my take you will learn:

-How to put your friends “advice’ in context when starting any new venture

-How the upward movement in interest rates can be both a positive and a negative. 

 

Episode Links

Vera’s website: nonpoliticalnews.com

Twitter @nopodaily

Facebook Non political News

Instagram @nonpoliticalnews

Resources to learn more about interest rates and why they are going up: 

 

The Fed: https://www.federalreserve.gov/

Investopedia: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/interestrate.asp

Business Insider: http://www.businessinsider.com/how-the-fed-raises-interest-rates-2017-12

Kiplinger https://www.kiplinger.com/article/business/T019-C000-S010-interest-rate-forecast.html

Marketwatch: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/rising-interest-rates-give-retirees-good-news-and-bad-news-2018-06-20

To win one of the promo video’s you see- be sure to share them on social media when you see them on my feeds!

Twitter @bobbirebell

Instagram @bobbirebell1

Facebook: Bobbi Rebell

Want to share your money story? Write to us and tell us about it at info@financialgrownup.com

---

Transcription

Vera Gibbons:
They said "We'll do 20 videos for $20,000. You should do a podcast, your website needs to be revised, I'll do it for $15,000." I'm a startup, and I have no income, and I have no revenue, how am I going to pay for any of this?

Bobbi Rebell:
You're listening to Financial Grownup with me, certified financial planner Bobbi Rebell, author of How to Be a Financial Grownup, and you know what? Being a grownup is really hard, especially when it comes to money. But it's okay, we're going to get there together. I'm going to bring you one money story from a financial grownup, one lesson, and then my take on how you can make it your own. We got this.

Bobbi Rebell:
Hey, friends. We talk a lot about living within our means, and ideally below our means, when we talk about personal finance. But the truth is, that also applies in business, especially with startup businesses that are as they say pre-revenue. Before we get to our guest, I just want to welcome our new listeners, and of course welcome back our regulars, we keep the show on the shorter side around 15 minutes, so you can fit it into your busy day. But of course, feel free to binge on a few episodes if you've got half an hour, two episodes, and so on. The idea is that we share money stories that are going to give us something to think about that may relay to our personal lives, maybe our careers and business lives, which these days are blending together more and more. We also do everyday money tips, because we want you to have more money.

Bobbi Rebell:
On that note, I guess Vera Gibbons spent years as a Consumer Journalist before starting her website, Non Political News, aka NoPo. When she did, everybody wanted to help her out and have their hand out. Here is Vera Gibbons. Hey, Vera Gibbons, you're a financial grownup, welcome to the podcast.

Vera Gibbons:
Thank you so much for having me. I'm honored to be your guest.

Bobbi Rebell:
Congratulations on your new website, Non Political News, something we all need a little bit of.

Vera Gibbons:
It is a labor of love. I started it a couple of years ago, and it's really been growing like gangbusters. All the news is non political, and then we have some fun stuff and some stuff that is just frivolous and interesting. It's resonating, people really seem to like it.

Bobbi Rebell:
I want to hear more about it, but first I want to get to your money story, because it has to do with being an entrepreneur and starting a business, and the fact that sometimes we take on costs that we should not. Tell us more.

Vera Gibbons:
That is a big problem. All my life, as you know, I've been bouncing around on different TV shows, doing personal financing consumer segments. Then I started NonPoliticalNews.com, so the big money story is it's expensive to be your own boss. This is probably why people don't do it. There are legal costs, there are marketing costs, and they add up, and they add up very, very quickly, as I quickly found.

Bobbi Rebell:
People tell you that you need to do this, you need to do that.

Vera Gibbons:
It never ends. When I first started NonPoliticalNews.com I had people approach me from NBC, where I used to work, and they we're saying "Oh, do you want me to do some videos for you?" They said "We'll do 20 videos for $20,000. You should do a podcast. Your website needs to be revised. I'll do it for $15,000." I mean-

Bobbi Rebell:
Those are big numbers.

Vera Gibbons:
Big.

Bobbi Rebell:
Because your revenue was what at this point?

Vera Gibbons:
Zip.

Bobbi Rebell:
Zero. Zero revenue and these people are hitting you up.

Vera Gibbons:
They wanted to do all sorts of stuff and they weren't taking me and my personal situation under consideration at all. I'm like "Hey, I'm a startup, I have no income. I have no revenue. How am I going to pay for any of this?" People were telling me "You should bring on people to work for you. You should hire someone to do the marketing." I hired one person to help me with email problems, with the delivery of our email. We use MailChimp, as everybody does, because I'm a newsletter business pretty much. The email goes out every single morning at 7:00 into your inbox. Occasionally, some people weren't getting the email, or it was showing up late, or it was bouncing back. So I had to bring in somebody to help me with that. But at the time I was thinking "I just got to make sure this email gets out to my subscribers every single morning, and it's consistent in the delivery." So that was a priority.

Vera Gibbons:
Now we had another priority that literally landed on my desk, which was we had a trademark problem, I had trademarked NonPoliticalNews.com, and somebody was infringing on our trademark. That was a big legal cost that I had to undertake for obvious reasons, we couldn't have this happen. We had to do a cease and desist, and [inaudible 00:04:42] people out, and then we ended up buying their domain. It was a big ordeal. It also held up the marketing side of things too, because I was like "Well, I can't really continue with using the name Non Political News or NoPo News as call it if somebody else has that name." People are confused with where they're going, and they're being miscorrected. That was a big unfortunate legal battle that we had to undertake, and that was an expensive one.

Bobbi Rebell:
How did this all evolve to where you are now in terms of your ongoing expenses, your payroll basically?

Vera Gibbons:
I did make a compromise with videos. They had wanted me to do like 20 videos for $20,000. I worked out a deal with them where I did a couple just to test the waters for a couple thousand dollars. In the end, that was a financial mistake actually, because the videos did not do all that well, they weren't generating the kind of traffic or interest we wanted. I had actually found a couple of typos in one of the videos before it went out. I'm like "What am I paying for all this for?" That was a mistake. Thankfully it wasn't that big of financial a mistake, it was just a couple thousand dollars, the cost of doing business.

Vera Gibbons:
I also had a lot of people who approached me and wanted to help me with the social media. That's still a work in progress, because I'm not very good at social media, and I don't really like it. But at some point, I'm probably going to have to hire somebody to do that, because I know now that in order to get your product out there, and to get the word out there about your product, you need to have someone pretty aggressively promoting it on Instagram, and Twitter, and Facebook. I've been not very good about that quite honestly. The bulk of the money has gone toward my website guy, he redid the website, it looks pretty good now, it's a little flashier, it's a little more user friendly. My marketing, he's just a part-time marketing guy, he's on a retainer. He does help me with Facebook promotions, and a little bit of social media. We occasionally do free giveaways via NonPoliticalNews.com, where we partner up with various entities, and we provide something for our subscribers. He's been helping me with some of those promotions.

Vera Gibbons:
Those can be costly too depending on how you market them on Facebook. Facebook has changed all the algorithms now, so it's a little trickier than it used to be perhaps, but that has been primarily where I've been spending the money.

Bobbi Rebell:
What's the revenue model?

Vera Gibbons:
The revenue model is, at some point we're going to be doing sponsored segments. We do have, the way it's organized now is we have different categories. We have consumer/personal finance, health and wellness, fashion/beauty and fitness and diet. Every day into the night, and early morning, I curate the news within those categories. At some point soon, we're going to partner up with influential people within each of the respective categories, and we're going to tap into their followers and see if it ... to catch on with Non Political News.

Bobbi Rebell:
Vera, what is your money lesson from that story? Taking on all of those expenses, some you didn't take on, some you did and regret.

Vera Gibbons:
I guess the lesson is, do what is absolutely necessary at the time, and hold off on the other things until that becomes a complete necessity. For me, the necessity is we're dealing with email delivery problems, obviously you want to make sure-

Bobbi Rebell:
Right, because if people aren't getting their daily emails, you have no business.

Vera Gibbons:
Exactly. That was a hot fire I had to put up immediately. Then the other issue was this legal issue, we had someone infringing on our trademark, and that was another hot issue that had to be taken care of immediately. The other stuff could wait, and some of it is still waiting. It's just been a work in a progress.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right, let's talk about an everyday money tip, because you're in the news business, you know what's going on, and that gave you an idea for something people need to be paying a lot of attention to, maybe more than they think.

Vera Gibbons:
Check your interest rates, guys. A lot of people do not even know what their interest rate actually is. We are in a rising interest rate environment, you really need to know where you stand on that front, because your costs are going to get more expensive, you probably, maybe, perhaps have noticed things are going up on your credit card.

Bobbi Rebell:
Yeah. What are the different interest rates that people should be checking that could change, that aren't usually fixed?

Vera Gibbons:
That would be your variable rate loans, your credit cards are variable rate loans. If you had an adjustable rate mortgage, that's a variable rate loan. These are the types of things that people really need to check, especially that credit card rate, because when Fed raises their rates, your credit card rate goes up in sync, pretty much immediately. 25 Basis Point hike may not sound like a lot, but we've had a couple, and we're potentially going to get three or four hikes for the total of 2018. That credit card debt you carry months to months, to months over, you revolve your debt, is going to be more expensive.

Bobbi Rebell:
Let's say you have a credit card, and you know it's not being paid off any time soon, what can you do?

Vera Gibbons:
If you have good credit, in the 700 range, you could always call up your credit card company and see if they'll actually lower your rate. That strategy continues to work today. If you have been paying your bills on time, if you've shown them that you're reliable, that you do pay everything off, and you're responsible, they may actually be willing to give you a bit of a break. That has been true for years and years and years, but a lot of people don't bother actually taking that step. If you notice your credit card rate has gone up, and it probably has over the course of the last six months, you could always pick up the phone and ask the credit card company to lower that rate, or to bring it down to the rate it once was a couple of months ago.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right. Tell us a little bit more about Non Political News and where people can find it, where people can learn more about it, and more about you.

Vera Gibbons:
Non Political News, you can find it on NonPoliticalNews.com, once you sign on to subscribe, you will get a link to confirm your subscription, and then every day in your inbox, 7:00 a.m., you get a nice [inaudible 00:10:54] of Non Political News in consumer/personal finance, health and wellness, fashion/beauty, fitness and diet. Then on Friday, we run guest posts. We've had Jean Chatzky, we have had Peter Greenberg, we've had a bunch of CNBC people up from Bill Griffeth to Ron Insana up to Guy Adami do them.

Bobbi Rebell:
I know you're not a huge social media fan, but people would probably really enjoy following you, where can they?

Vera Gibbons:
Thanks, Bobbi. Yeah. We do have an Instagram account nonpoliticalnews. Like you said, I'm not very good about putting updates on there, but I promise to get better. On Facebook, we're Nonpoliticalnews. Twitter, we're NoPoDaily.

Bobbi Rebell:
NoPoDaily, like it.

Vera Gibbons:
Yeah.

Bobbi Rebell:
Vera Gibbons, thank you so much. This was wonderful.

Vera Gibbons:
Thank you, it's been a pleasure.

Bobbi Rebell:
So my friends, Vera learned some very big lessons very quickly. Financial Grownup tip number one, tune out the advice from well-meaning friends, who want you to take on costs before your business mission and priorities are well defined. Frankly, before you can afford them. Vera still has no clear path to revenue, so she's right to limit her expenses to only the most essential, making sure her emails go out without a hitch and paying her legal bills. She knows that if she adds people on, as she does on occasion, she keeps it freelance, and project-based, so flexibility is still there for you.

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup tip number two, if you aren't already, start paying attention to the news regarding the Fed and interest rates. It is going to get personal real fast. If you have any kind of loans, this is important to be paying attention to. But here's the good news, there is an upside, low rates have also meant very low returns for those on fixed incomes or those that just invest in fixed income instruments. Rates for things that you might want to invest in, like CDs, are going to go up. Glass half full my friends. I will leave some links in the show notes of places you can get some great information and stay up to speed on what matters.

Bobbi Rebell:
If you are not already, please hit that subscribe button. If you are listening on Apple podcast, or iTunes, please rate the podcast or leave a review. Also, if you liked the show, just tell a friend. Ask them to check it out as well. If you are enjoying the promos, and want one for yourself or for your business, follow me on social media and share them. I will be choosing a winner soon and it could be you. I am on Twitter, @bobbirebell, Instagram @bobbirebell1, and Facebook @bobbirebell. DM me your thoughts on the show, and what guests you would like to hear from.

Bobbi Rebell:
Loved how candid Vera Gibbons was with us about the challenges of starting and growing a business. Lots of lessons in hindsight already. So thank you, Vera, for bringing us all one step closer to being financial grownups. Financial Grownup with Bobbi Rebell is edited and produced by Steve Stewart and is a BRK Media production.

Shane Snow and his Contently Co-Founders had a booming business- that almost completely crashed after they found themselves strapped for cash and struggling to meet payroll. Plus the nutritional bang-for-the buck of popular diets, including the Keto diet and ramen noodles. 

 

In Shane’s money story you will learn:

-How he and his partners overlooked a key metric as they grew their business, Contently

-The importance of cash flow vs receivables

-The solution the company came up with that saved them, when they only had 2 weeks of cash left on hand

-How the experience impacted Shane’s personal financial plans and habits

In Shane’s money lesson you will learn:

-To pay attention to revenue, but also when it received as well as the net profit

-How to apply his business lessons to your personal financial life

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

-Why Shane made a nutritional change for health and efficiency

-The financial benefits that came along with the experiment

In my take you will learn:

-Why reading at least a book a week is a habit of many successful people

-My advice on how to read a book a week, starting with Shane Snow’s “Dream Teams” 

-How removing every day decisions, like food and clothing choices, can free up your mind to be more focused on other things

Episode Links

Learn more about Shane Snow at shanesnow.com

Buy (and Review!)  Shane’s book “Dream Teams” 

Buy Shane’s book “Smart Cuts

Follow Shane!

Twitter: @shanesnow

LinkedIn ShanedSnow

Instagram: @ManEatingRobot

To win one of the promo video’s you see- be sure to share them on social media when you see them on my feeds!

Twitter @bobbirebell

Instagram @bobbirebell1

Facebook: Bobbi Rebell

Want to share your money story? Write to us and tell us about it at info@financialgrownup.com

---

Transcription

Shane Snow:
We made this enormous mistake that almost killed the company a year or so into the business. We looked at our bank account and realized that we had two weeks of cash left.

Bobbi Rebell:
You're listening to Financial Grown Up, with me, Certified Financial Planner, Bobbi Rebell, author of How To Be a Financial Grownup. And you know what? Being a grown up is really hard, especially when it comes to money. But it's okay, we're going to get there together. I'm going to bring you one money story from a financial grownup, one lesson, and then my take on how you can make it your own. We got this.

Bobbi Rebell:
Close call for our guest but, spoiler alert, they did escape that near-death experience. The company, Contently. The voice you were hearing was co-founder, Shane Snow, who just released his latest book, Dream Teams. Before we get to more about Shane and the book, a quick welcome to our new listeners and welcome back to those who are returning. We try to keep our episodes to just around 15 minutes because we know you guys are so busy, but you can also, of course, binge if you're a commuter or you just have a little bit more time some days. The idea is that you invest the time and get an inspiring money story from a high achiever that gives you value and you also get an everyday money tip that you can put to work in your life or your work, right away.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right, you're going to get that here. Shane Snow is an entrepreneur, a journalist, an author, so much more. I wanted to have him on to talk about his most recent bestseller and that is, Dream Teams: Working Together Without Falling Apart. It's tough to get along, teams are hard. It's sometimes just easier to work alone and he talks a lot about that. Shane jokes that he hates business books, but this book is really more about people and stories and things that we can really integrate into our own lives. I learned a lot of things about history and the world that I thought I knew about, but there were nuances that people have never really shared publicly. And Shane is a master at research and revealing the full story when we didn't even know that we had part of the story. Here is Shane Snow.

Bobbi Rebell:
Hey, Shane Snow. You're a financial grownup, welcome to the podcast.

Shane Snow:
Thank you, I feel like a grownup.

Bobbi Rebell:
You're definitely a grownup, you have so many accomplishments. The latest one, and we're going to get to all of them later but the latest one is your new book, Dream Teams: Working Together Without Falling Apart. And you've had quite a week promoting it, lots of accolades. Congrats.

Shane Snow:
Thank you. Yeah, it's been a lot, a long journey.

Bobbi Rebell:
And it's basically of stories about how different teams work together, and often don't work together.

Shane Snow:
Yes, it's about that paradox. That normally group work is much, much harder than we think it's going to be, to the point that actually working by yourself is often more productive than group work. And yet sometimes we change the world when we work together.

Bobbi Rebell:
And one thing that changed the world is your company that you started eight years ago, part of team, you're a co-founder. Tell us about the company. And your money story has to do with what happened when you weren't really watching all the numbers, just some of the numbers.

Shane Snow:
Yeah. So the company started about eight years ago. The business model changed, it grew into something-

Bobbi Rebell:
And the name of the company is?

Shane Snow:
Contently.

Bobbi Rebell:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Shane Snow:
And it grew into a much bigger business than we thought it would, which is great. And initially the first piece of the business that we build was this marketplace for getting freelance journalists and photographers work and getting them paid. And a lot of the clients were brands, so it was this new branded content marketing thing. So Pepsi wants to hire some reporters to go cover a conference and write about it for their blog, that sort of thing.

Shane Snow:
So what happened, we started getting excited because the business was working. We're getting lots of work for these journalists and lots of clients, and we made this enormous mistake that almost killed the company a year or so into the business. We were looking at all the money that our clients were on the hook for paying us and realized that we had this runway for six months before we would need to raise money from investors again, or maybe figure out how to get profitable by then. So things were going great, but we then looked at our bank account and realized that we had two weeks of cash left. Nobody had been paying attention to cash flow. The fact that we actually pay these creative people who do the work for the clients and the clients take a long time to pay us, basically we were floating all of this money. And nobody had bothered to ... We didn't have a finance person, we were a start up.

Bobbi Rebell:
So basically there was a lag between the receivables and the cash that you were actually paying out.

Shane Snow:
Yes.

Bobbi Rebell:
You were basically acting like a bank.

Shane Snow:
Yeah. And the more successful we were, the worse it got. And so thank god someone checked and we were like, "Oh, no. We have two weeks left before we literally got out of business because of this problem." And so we founders cut our salaries so that we could put that toward payroll for our employees and we just sort of prayed for a miracle. And the miracle did come, but basically we asked our customers if they'd be willing to pay us upfront for what they excepted to be paying these freelancers. And basically everyone said yes and then we actually got a positive cash float, like a cash carry I guess?

Bobbi Rebell:
Yeah.

Shane Snow:
Where our cash flow was so good that we could grow the company even better. But that was just sort of this miracle. Also we-

Bobbi Rebell:
Well, you worked together as a team. You worked together as a team and figured it out, right?

Shane Snow:
Right. Yeah.

Bobbi Rebell:
And investors.

Shane Snow:
Yes, yeah. We asked the clients if they would do that and they all said yes and we got our investors to sort of float us for a few more weeks. But I learned this as sort of a personal lesson, that even through it's sort of obvious, that cash flow can kill you basically. And so I've started paying a lot more attention to my cash flow and my personal finances, as a result of this.

Bobbi Rebell:
So what is the lesson for our listeners, regarding your money story?

Shane Snow:
Pay attention to all of the numbers, not just the fun ones. The profit number and their income, that's the funnest number, but you really need to pay attention to-

Bobbi Rebell:
Well, it's really not profit, it was revenue was coming.

Shane Snow:
Right.

Bobbi Rebell:
The revenue.

Shane Snow:
[inaudible 00:06:20].

Bobbi Rebell:
Yes.

Shane Snow:
Right. The revenue number, exactly. But even in your personal finances I think, paying attention to just the salary number is not actually the one to pay attention to. And when you're getting money in and when you're paying money out is sometimes more important.

Bobbi Rebell:
I want to get to your everyday money tip because this is a really good one. I am personally very curious about this because I keep hearing about this and it's a little bit experimental. But let me let you tell it, go ahead.

Shane Snow:
Okay. So I really like doing personal experiments and gonzo journalism, so one time for GQ I ate only this "healthy", in quotes, ice cream for ten days and lost a bunch of weight. And anyways, so I like doing stuff like that. And there's this stuff called Soylent that came out maybe five, six years ago, that's basically like a meal replacement drink, kind of like the goop on the Matrix. It's not supposed to taste like really anything and it's supposed to have everything your body needs.

Bobbi Rebell:
Pure efficiency.

Shane Snow:
Exactly. And the guy who made it, I actually interviewed him about it years ago. The guy who made it, his reason for doing it was so that he wouldn't have to think about cooking or food. It sounds like the most boring thing ever, he was like, "I don't want to think about food, so I made this replacement food." It's interesting. But there's a version of it, I think a competitive company, called Ketolent, which is that, it's like a drink that instead of eating food you just drink this drink all day. And it's chocolate flavored, which is more delicious, but it also puts you in ketosis, which is like a low-carb basically, where your metabolism changes and it's very good for-

Bobbi Rebell:
Are you hungry?

Shane Snow:
No. So that's the thing is ketosis, it changes your metabolism. So that instead of burning basically sugar, it burns lipids, fat, and that's a much more stable energy source. The upside of this, so I started doing this for working out and it's good for blood sugar levels and all that, but the upside of drinking Ketolent instead of food is it's a lot cheaper than going to lunch every day. And you know, you need to take like-

Bobbi Rebell:
Do you eat it for every meal? Is it like a full on thing?

Shane Snow:
Yeah. I mix up two big bottles of it every day. Like on weekends, I'll go to brunch, you can't do it every day or you'd go out of your mind. But you eat it every day or-

Bobbi Rebell:
And how much does it cost?

Shane Snow:
It ends up being something like eight buck a day. If you want to do the pre-mixed ones, which is even more convenient, then it's a little bit more but it's still ... It actually reminds me, I had this friend, one of my best friends in the world, in college he was trying to micro-optimize calories for percent, or whatever, in his diet. And he figured out this optimum combination of oatmeal and rice and he was miserable but he saved so much money.

Bobbi Rebell:
People stereotype that people that want to save money, they eat only ramen noodles while they're paying down their debt. I wonder what the nutritional value per serving, per cost, is for ramen noodles versus this keto diet and all the other diets. That's just, I don't know, interesnting.

Shane Snow:
Yeah. Well, getting it right, because you don't want your brain to not function.

Bobbi Rebell:
Right.

Shane Snow:
I imagine that eating only ramen noodles is very bad also for your digestion I bet.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right, wait. Let's talk about your book.

Shane Snow:
Okay.

Bobbi Rebell:
Because I'm obsessed, I literally meant to just read enough to kind of get through the interview but I read the whole thing. I spent a little over four hours, you spent four years writing Dream Teams. One of my many favorite things about this is that it's almost like a suspense thriller because it told these stories where there's always these zingers at the end of each story.

Shane Snow:
Yeah. So I wanted to explore that paradox, that we say that two heads are better than one and, yeah, all of these things that you just said. And it turns out that research shows that's usually not true, and anyone that has worked in a group project at school knows that sometimes it's much easier to just do it on your own rather than in the group. And the bigger a team gets in business, the slower things get, the more communication is a pain, but there's all sorts of other psychology that basically says that group dynamics get in the way of productivity and progress. And so I wanted to explore that and kind of what does science and research tell us about our common conceptions about working together, so that we can actually fulfill that promise of becoming better than the sum of our parts.

Shane Snow:
So it's a non-fiction, science, and business book, essentially. But I hate business books and I-

Bobbi Rebell:
Well, I don't feel like this seems like a business book because you have everywhere from Wu-tang Clan ... Did I say that right?

Shane Snow:
Yeah, you did.

Bobbi Rebell:
The Russian hockey team, which, by the way, there's a zinger in there that I did not know. This whole miracle on ice with the US team.

Shane Snow:
Oh, yeah.

Bobbi Rebell:
I don't know if people knew what really happened on the Russian side but let's not spoil it for them, but you gotta read that one.

Shane Snow:
Okay.

Bobbi Rebell:
The Wright Brothers, the importance of play in being successful, and why a lot of mergers fail. And even you've got George Takei in there and how pop culture and people seeing things be normal changed our cultural expectations.

Shane Snow:
Well, thank you. What I wanted to do is talk about these things and the real research and the real science that can change our minds and, in some cases, blow our minds, about this. But I wanted to do it through stories that are fun, even if you don't care about the lessons. That for me, I wanted to write the kind of book that I would like to read, which would be more cinematic with surprises and twists and stories that I was excited enough to learn about that I would actually want to write about them too. So I'm glad that ... It is a nice compliment that you got through it so fast and enjoyed the stories.

Bobbi Rebell:
I think everyone will get through it so fast and then they can read your previous book, Smartcuts, so it's all good. So Shane, tell us where people can find out more about you and where they can follow you on social media, because I know your selective in your social media.

Shane Snow:
I'm pretty selective in my social media. So shanesnow.com has links to everything. And well, anyone that's listening to your podcast, I can give them my Instagram. It's not Shane Snow, it's maneatingrobot.

Bobbi Rebell:
Of course.

Shane Snow:
Yeah, of course. It's self-explanatory, I think.

Bobbi Rebell:
Of course.

Shane Snow:
I actually really like maneatingrobot because depending on the punctuation it's either a man eating a robot or it's a robot eating a man.

Bobbi Rebell:
Okay. I have to about about that.

Shane Snow:
Man, eating robot.

Bobbi Rebell:
Ah, ah. I'm a little slow on the uptake. All right, Shane. Thank you so much, this has been great.

Shane Snow:
Thank you for having me.

Bobbi Rebell:
And congratulations on the book and all your success.

Shane Snow:
I appreciate it.

Bobbi Rebell:
Wow, pretty rare to go from bad cash flow management at start ups to the financial versus nutritional value of keto diets and ramen noodles. Bu there you have it, the wonderful Shane Snow, so much fun.

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup tip number one. In Shane's book, Dream Teams, Shane has a lot of data. One of the data points that he talks about is statistics linking the fact that the most successful people in the world are also what I would call intentional readers, meaning they read at least a book a week and make a point of it. They really carve that time out of their day to make sure that they read because that's where they feel that they learn about the world and become interesting people. You're busy, I'm busy, we're all busy, but they're busy and they find time. I'm right there with you, I know it's hard, but try an experiment, maybe with Shane's book. I read it on my Kindle and it said, for example, that it would be over five hours, but because there were so many notes from Shane's research at the end it was really maybe four and a half, let's say.

Bobbi Rebell:
So this week, this is my challenge to you guys, pick up Dream Teams, you can do it with another book but Dream Teams was good. On your calendar, block 45 minutes either early morning or before bedtime, do it before you turn on the TV, before you reach for the phone and start going through social media, set it an alarm, book it as an appointment in whatever you use to book your appointments. By dedicating 45 minutes-ish, a night, for the week, you'll be done by the end of the week and you'll probably have some interesting takeaways from the book as well and feel like you really got value from that time, versus just mindlessly scrolling through your feeds on your social media. Maybe then go write a nice review for Shane, authors love reviews. I love reviews, you could write a review for the podcast too. But consider making it a habit to go through and read a book a week, once you do it, you might really enjoy it and it'll stick and it'll be a great thing adding to your life.

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup tip number two. Shane talked about how his keto-loving friend liked the idea of not having to think about what to eat, it just removed a decision. So removing decisions that are discretionary is something that a lot of leaders do. Consider that, maybe have the same breakfast every day, or buy all the same socks. Whatever it is that removes a decision, that removes having to do that one more thing each day. My son's school, for example, next year has uniforms, so that's going to be a new thing for us. He's pretty good in the mornings anyway, but it's going to be interesting to see how removing the decision of what to wear in the morning impacts his morning routine and, in turn, impacts my morning routine.

Bobbi Rebell:
On that note, we hope that you are making Financial Grownup part of your routine. If you like the promo videos that you see on social media, share them, you may even win one for your company or yourself. And just tell a friend if you like the show, and let them know so we can grow our community. If you want to be a guest, you have a great money story or money tip you want to share, tell us by emailing at info@gfinancialgrownup.com, that's info@financialgrownup.com, and you may be a guest on the show. Follow us on Twitter @bobbirebell, on Instagram @bobbirebell1, and on Facebook I am @bobbirebell.

Bobbi Rebell:
Shane Snow has come a long way from his cash flow crunch, so thank you Shane for helping us all get one step closer to being financial grownups.

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

Investment advisor Andy Wang, host of the Inspired Money podcast, stepped out of his comfort zone, tried something that scared him, and connected with new clients and friends including celebrities like Christie Brinkley. 

In Andy’s money story you will learn:

-How Andy balances his hobbies with his growing business and podcast

-The strategy Andy uses to overcome his fear of trying new things

-Why he originally stopped guitar lessons after just 4 sessions- and what brought him back to music

-What is Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar?

-The big call he got from Christie Brinkley’s team

In Andy’s money lesson you will learn:

-How having a hobby that opens him up to new experiences grows his social and business circle

-Why he believes the most successful people are those who force themselves out of their comfort zones

-The quote from Tina Fey that inspires Andy

In Andy’s everyday money tip you will learn:

-How to recover from mistakes

-Specifically what to do if you own a stock that is not performing- and most importantly what to do next if you still believe in the stock

-How to keep up with your investments and automate them so you can be free to do other things

In my take you will learn:

-tips for things you can automate in addition to bill paying and investing

-how to get more sleep, to be more productive in business

-the importance of letting clients see you outside of transactional and business settings in order to build longer and stronger relationships

 

If you want to win a promotional video for you or your business- remember to share them when you see them on social media!

 

And if you have a money story and every day money tip you would like to share- write us at info@financialgrownup.com

 and you could be featured on an upcoming episode of the podcast!

Episode Links

Learn about Andy’s company at http://www.runnymede.com/

Listen to his podcast at http://blog.runnymede.com/topic/podcast

On Facebook https://www.facebook.com/runnymedecap/

Follow Andy

Twitter @RunnymedeCap

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/taropatch

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/inspiredmoney.fm/

 

 

 

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Transcription

Andy Wang:
One day, I was driving to work and my phone rang. I answered, and the person said, "This is Christie Brinkley's office calling. Are you available to play a private event?" So long story short, I played a small, intimate event for Christie and about 10 of her friends and family. It was a crazy night.

Bobbi Rebell:
You're listening to Financial Grownup with me, Certified Financial Planner, Bobbi Rebell, author of How to Be a Financial Grownup. But you know what? Being a grownup is really hard, especially when it comes to money. But it's okay, we're going to get there together. I'm going to bring you one money story from a financial grownup, one lesson, and then, my take on how you can make it your own. We got this.

Bobbi Rebell:
Hey, friends. So I don't know about you, but I'm pretty happy just kind of staying in my comfort zone. But let's be real: It gets boring and staying still is also not usually a really good business plan or career advancement strategy. So we're all in for a year with this guest coming up. But first, a quick welcome to anyone new that is joining us for the first time. You're going to notice the episodes are relatively short, especially compared to other money, business, entrepreneur-focused shows out there. It's done very much on purpose. We're going for about 15 minutes, give or take. The idea is that, you can listen between things, when you have a sliver of free time, and walk away feeling like you learned something of value, and hopefully, smiled a bit, too. But we also know, a lot of our listeners like to binge on a few episodes at a time, so if you're commuting or running errands or something that takes a little bit longer, you can listen to two, three, four episodes and get an hour of content. So we just want to be flexible and work with you. And of course, welcome back to our regular listeners. Thank you. If you have not hit Subscribe, please do so, so you don't miss any upcoming episodes, and there are some really amazing ones coming up. So I'm exciting to share them with all of you.

Bobbi Rebell:
Okay, now to Andrew Wang. He's an Investment Advisor at Runnymede Capital. But you may know him as the host of the Inspired Money Podcast, or he may have been the entertainment at a party you went to. Really. Listen. Here is Andy Wang.

Bobbi Rebell:
Andy Wang, you are a Financial Grownup. Welcome to the podcast.

Andy Wang:
Thank you so much, Bobbi. I can't believe that I'm here.

Bobbi Rebell:
Finally. I know, I've been trying to get you on for a while. You're very busy, you're the host of the Inspired Money Podcast. You also have your own company, Runnymede Capital Management, the only, thank you very much. And you are acclaimed as an advisor and an influencer, so much so, that you are on the Investopedia 100 Most Influential Advisors. So this is an honor, Andy.

Andy Wang:
The honor is mine. I'm still trying to convince all of my coworkers that when I'm on Facebook, that I'm working.

Bobbi Rebell:
You're always working, Andy, even when you're having fun, and even when you're doing your hobbies, one of which involves getting over your fears, learning new skills, and even meeting some celebrities. Tell us your money story.

Andy Wang:
Yeah. It goes back through, you and I have talked about this before, "How can we do so many things?" We all have to-do lists that are a mile long. It's important for us to find and make time for family, hobbies, and to decompress. So my Financial Grownup story is about doing something that scares you. It takes me back to when I was in high school. Remember the days when there were music videos on MTV?

Bobbi Rebell:
I do.

Andy Wang:
I always wanted to learn guitar, so the summer after graduation, I mentioned this to my dad. And without hesitation, he replied, "Well, go for it. Don't just think about it." So that was great advice. I took four lessons, and I never aspired to play in front of everybody. I had the worst stage fright. If I had to perform in front of a group, my hands got clammy, they shook. I literally got a stomachache. So years later, because my wife was born and raised in Hawaii, and over many trips back there, I fell in love with Hawaiian music and the Hawaiian culture. So there just aren't that many people in the New York Area who play Hawaiian slack key guitar.

Bobbi Rebell:
What is Hawaiian slack key guitar? Just so we know.

Andy Wang:
Hawaiian slack key guitar is a folk tradition that was born in Hawaii in the late 1800s. The legend is this: The locals didn't know how to tune the guitars, so they slacked or loosened the strings to suit their vocal range and their music. So I slacked my guitar strings, and I would get invited to play at weddings, parties, corporate events. And I had to get over my fear.

Bobbi Rebell:
So you got over your fear, and you started playing. And what's interesting is, this led to a bunch of different things. It led to celebrities, it led to new business. Tell us more.

Andy Wang:
Yeah. One day, I was driving to work and my phone rang. Even though I didn't recognize the number, I answered, and the person said, "This is Christie Brinkley's office calling. Are you available to play a private event?" So long story short, I played a small, intimate event for Christie and about 10 of her friends and family. She invited me to join them for dinner afterwards. She's just a super, super-nice person. It was a crazy night. The financial takeaway, I think is this: Our personal networks and connections that we make to people, that benefits our business, or benefits the work that I do. And when people can see me out of context: not wearing a tie, not being in my office, they see me wearing an aloha shirt, playing guitar with my family, it enables me to make those human connections, and meet all kinds of interesting people. After all, music is a language.

Bobbi Rebell:
And it's not about business that day. It's about starting the relationships that eventually, some of them, or maybe friends of theirs, or acquaintance of theirs, become your clients, in a very holistic way.

Andy Wang:
That's exactly right. It's about making friends. And just meeting people, and making those connections.

Bobbi Rebell:
And tell us, for our listeners, what is the takeaway for them? How can they apply this to their own lives, and to their own finances?

Andy Wang:
Well, my avocation has taught me that we can live richer lives by forcing ourselves past our comfort zones. Whether it's learning an instrument, starting a podcast, investing your 401(k), sometimes it's as simple as just opening up and reviewing your financial statements. I mean, we always hear the stories that, in a bear market, people don't want to even look at their financial statement. So pushing yourself to do things that scares you can really lead to magic happening. Tina Fey has a quote that I love, and it's, "The fun is always on the other side of yes." Surveys of millionaires support this, too, because there's a common characteristic that millionaires share. And that's having an openness to take on new experience and try new things. If your boss asks you to take on a new project or to lead a team, the answer should be, "Yes."

Bobbi Rebell:
Do you think that people that try new things, I'm kind of stating the obvious. But I guess, why is it that people who try new things are, in your mind, more successful?

Andy Wang:
Having a willingness to try new things, it's like, they say, "Fake it until you make it." You have to be open to new opportunities. Sometimes, these are opportunities that you would even imagine yourself doing. But by saying yes and to committing to it, that's how you're going to learn. I mean, that's how we all learn.

Bobbi Rebell:
Okay. But let's go to your everyday money tip, because it's kind of the reverse of commitment, and committing to your ideas. It's also kind of being okay taking a more, I don't know, kind of stepping back a little and being okay with being, maybe wrong sometimes?

Andy Wang:
Yes. My money tip: We all make mistakes, and when you're investing, my money tip is to cut your losses. I took this simple rule from a successful hedge fund manager. Too often, people let losers ride, in hope that they'll come back. We all have those dogs in our portfolio. And the reality is that, losses have a tendency to grow. It's almost like a disease or cancer in our portfolios. So if you really life something and want to be a long-term owner, be willing to enter, exit, and re-enter again if necessary. The fund manager who taught me this, he's willing to buy and sell a position, five, six, seven times. So if you cut losses, let the winners ride, you'll set yourself up for long-term gains, and lessen your term pain.

Bobbi Rebell:
So just to pull something out of there. So what you're saying is, if you still believe in a stock and it's going down, that doesn't mean you have to ride it to the very bottom. You could sell it, take some loss, and then re-buy it at a lower level. It doesn't mean you don't still believe in the company necessarily, you're just not okay with the price, where it's going in the short term. Is that where you're getting at?

Andy Wang:
Correct. The whole idea is that, if you pick a company that you love, you may not know the precise timing that's going to make sense, like, the optimal time to buy it. So you have to be willing to buy it, but then, set a limit, so that, if it goes down and it's not working in your favor, that you have to be willing to cut it. And you may come back and re-purchase that stock, but you just, you want to eliminate the potential for losses to grow into bigger losses. And then, you're stuck, because you're kind of handcuffed, because then you're not sure: Should you wait, or should you not?

Bobbi Rebell:
And specifically, what are some tactics that people can use to actually do this?

Andy Wang:
Well, my advice is that, people should pay like, pick a number. Pick a number that you're willing to stomach. Sometimes, that could be, if it goes down 5 percent, if it goes down 10 percent, and then, in your brokerage account, you could set up a stop loss order to automatically trigger if the stock hits that level.

Bobbi Rebell:
In order words, you're automating it and taking the emotion out of it.

Andy Wang:
That's correct. You can set it up so that this could be happening while you're taking a nap somewhere, or even if you're on the beach: If the stock goes down 5 percent, 10 percent, whatever your limit is, you're controlling the amount of loss that you're willing to let that get to.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right. Thank you so much, Andy. So tell us more about what's going on at Inspired Money. Tell us about, we haven't actually talked much about it, because the title is actually very meaningful to what you talk about.

Andy Wang:
Yeah, someone told me recently that money is not something that they associated with inspiration. So on the Inspired Money Podcast, we really try to explore money conversations with successful people on how to be more purposeful, more intentional, and make your money more meaningful. And I'm having a lot of fun with it, because I'm talking to such a diverse group of people, ranging from entrepreneurs to those in non-profit. I've talked to actors, I've talked to screenwriters, musicians. I mean, we all have to live and deal with money.

Bobbi Rebell:
Well, I'm waiting for the Christie Brinkley episode, so that'll be one to watch. Right?

Andy Wang:
My fingers and toes are crossed, Bobbi.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right. Tell us where everyone can find you.

Andy Wang:
And thanks so much. Listeners can find me at Runnymede.com or @RunnymedeCap on Twitter. That's R-U-N-N-Y-M-E-D-E. We help people to plan for retirement, protect and grow their investments. We also help business owners to set up and manage their company 401(k) plans. And then, for Inspired Money, you can find me at InspiredMoney.fm, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Bobbi Rebell:
Love it. Thank you so much, Andy. I really appreciate you coming on.

Andy Wang:
Thank you, Bobbi.

Bobbi Rebell:
Love that advice from Andy, my friends: Take the emotion out. So let's talk about that. Financial Grownup Tip number 1: We automate lots of things, just like Andy suggested. Stock sales is one example. Paying bills is another thing. But it's just good to automate things that we don't always make rational decisions about. So in addition to stocks and bill paying and those kind of things that we think about automating, I'm going to go to something that is non-financial, but that does have financial consequences if we don't pay attention to it. And that is sleep, and getting a good night's sleep. You know what we can all do, to get a better good night's sleep? Set a sleep timer on your media. It can be the television and yes, you can put your phone or your computer on a timer as well, to go into sleep mode. In fact, there's tons of apps to even measure the quality of your sleep.

Bobbi Rebell:
But I think the most important thing is to not be actively using the actual devices. And sometimes, it's really hard to do that. So set a sleep time. Think about how many nights we intend to watch just one TV show, one half-an-hour TV show, and you know they all go rolling right into the next show. So it's really hard to do that. Or we say we're going to check our social media for a limited time, and then, you look up at the clock, if you even do look up at the clock. And then, "Oh, my gosh, it's past midnight." So let's automate that, so that it goes off. And try to not turn it back on when it goes off, kind of like the snooze alarm in the morning. Just, when it goes off, let it go off. We know that if we get more and better-quality sleep, we're going to function better. We're going to perform better at work, at our jobs, with our businesses. And in the end, that will result in a better chance at hiring profits and more success. So let's do it.

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup Tip number 2: Andy quoted Tina Fey as saying, "The fun, it's always on the other side of yes." And I would add, "The profit is on the other side of yes." Come from a place of "Yes." Don't forget to have fun. Keep an eye, though, on where the profit can be. If you say "No," there is zero chance of fun and zero chance of profit. Andy not only has a great side hustle from this skill playing Hawaiian slack key guitar, go Google it. After this is over, you can learn even more. He meets celebrities like Christie Brinkley, one-on-one. Super fun. And to be sure, he gets new business in an authentic way that bonds him to clients and makes them more likely to stay with him long-term, because they see what a great guy he is. They see him in a different context from just meeting him behind a desk in the office or through phone calls, or through other ways of communication, emails and all that stuff.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right, love hearing from all of you. Keep sharing our promo videos on social media for a chance to win one for your business, or just for you. And please rate and review Financial Grownup on Apple Podcasts, and of course, hit the Subscribe button, to make sure you don't meet any upcoming episodes. And tell your friends if you like it. We really love that the show is growing, and want to keep it that way. So make sure to tell everyone that you think would enjoy Financial Grownup. You can follow me @BobbiRebell on Twitter. Instagram, BobbiRebell1. Facebook, I am at Bobbi Rebell. And of course, you can also go to my website, BobbiRebell.com/financialgrownuppodcast, and sign up for our newsletter.

Bobbi Rebell:
Andy is a true Financial Grownup, blending all that he loves together: family, friends, music, and his business. He is a great role model, so thank you, Andy for bringing us all one step closer to being Financial Grownups.

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

Likeable media’s Carrie Kerpen made a decision to step away from the day-to-day of her growing social media agency to focus almost exclusively on brand building. Today she is the host of the All the Social Ladies podcast,  the author of Work It: Secrets for Success from the Boldest Women in Business, and hosts a Facebook Watch channel under the Work It brand.  

In Carrie’s money story you will learn:

-About Carrie’s company Likable, which is the 6th best place to work in New  York City!

-How Carrie and her husband started their company with just $10,000

-Why they chose to grow organically rather than take outside funding

-The strategy behind not taking outside advertising on Carrie’s popular podcast “All the Social Ladies”

-How and why Carrie became so focused on brand building for Likeable

-The specific steps she planned and executed to achieve targeted milestones

-Why the re-branded the company from its original name (and what that name was!) 

In Carrie’s money lesson you will learn:

-What to have in place in business before you start a brand building campaign

-How to determine the budget

-Metrics to consider when planning both short and long term goals

-Carrie’s strategy to balance content and connections on her podcast and other ventures

-How Carrie builds - and tracks- long term relationships with potential business partners, well ahead of time

-The specific kinds of goals Carrie sets to make sure she is generating value

-The biggest danger of long-term brand building strategies

In Carrie’s money tip you will learn:

-Her big negotiating strategy

-What she means when she says to hit the mute button

-How to use awkwardness to your advantage

-The secret to stalling as a strategy

In My Take you will learn:

-The importance of making sure you have financial stability in your business, and in your life, before you pull yourself into longer term strategies

-Why tracking everything, including touch points with long term leads is essential

-How paying it forward creates a culture of giving and supporting- that nearly always becomes a profit driver for all parties involved. 

 

To get a free promo video- when you see the video-s share on social media!

 

Got a great money story to share? Be a guest! We love to have listeners on. Write to us at info@financialgrownup.com and tell us your money story and an every day money tip and we’ll let you know if you have been selected for an upcoming episode!

 

EPISODE LINKS

Likeable.com

Listen to the All the Social Ladies Podcast!

Check out Carrie’s website CarrieKerpen.com

Get Carrie’s book Work it!

Follow Carrie!

Twitter @CarrieKerpen

Instagram @CarrieKerpen

Facebook Carrie Kerpen

Watch Carrie’s Work It Series on Facebook!

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Transcription

Carrie Kerpen:
I track everything. Every email I send. Every time I get coffee. All of the things that I do with people who are qualified. And I also track what value I'm adding to them. I often send them things whether it's sending an article that I find relevant. Whether it's article to get them a piece in Forbes or something along those lines. I always am looking at how I can help people who can help me too.

Bobbi Rebell:
You're listening to Financial Grownup, with me certified financial planner [Bobbi Rebell 00:00:29], author of How To Be a Financial Grownup. And you know what? Being a grown up is really hard especially when it comes to money. But it's okay. We're going to get there together. I'm going to bring you one money story from a financial grownup, one lesson and then my take on how you can make it your own . We got this.

Bobbi Rebell:
Hey friends. Ever wonder how those cool brands, become so cool. Well there's actually a whole business around it. It doesn't happen by accident. We have one of the best in the business here with us, giving us the scoop on how she builds her own social media marketing and branding business. And personal brand. And it is very intentional and thought out. You'll be surprised how much goes into it. Nothing happens by accident my friends. First a quick welcome to our new listeners and our returning ones. So happy you're with us. If you like the show, tell someone. And of course don't forget to hit subscribe so you don't miss any upcoming episodes. I also want to thank everyone that's been emailing me, DM'ing me, posting compliments, on various social media about the video promos. Thank you. I really appreciate it. I did them by myself, and they were so much fun and I'm also really excited that we are having this contest where I'm going to get to make one for one of you, for your business or for you.

Bobbi Rebell:
All you have to do is share them between now and July first. If it goes well, we'll do it again. But I need you guys to share the videos when you see them, retweet them, on Facebook share them, on Instagram. You can repost them and make sure to tag me so that I see it, but I do have software that tracks as well. And you know what? You got to be in it, to win it. So you guys, you've been emailing me asking if you can pay me to make one. This is a way to get one for free, literally the most tiniest effort, totally free and I can't wait to see who I get to make one for. It's going to be really fun. Let's go to our guest. Likable Media's Carrie Kerpen, is the host of all the social ladies podcast, the author of Work It: Secrets for Success from the Boldest Women in Business. And she also, because she has so much free time, she's also a mom and a wife by the way, she hosts a Facebook watch channel, under the Work It brand as well.

Bobbi Rebell:
She has fun for sure, but as you will hear she is meticulous in tracking her return on brand building investment. Carrie has specific metrics and goals, with all this content creation going on. She is laser focused on making sure that all of the pieces of her Likeable strategy work together. Like I said guys, nothing happens by accident, there's not a lot of luck involved. It's a lot of hard work, here is Carrie Kerpen. Carrie Kerpen you're a financial grownup welcome to the podcast.

Carrie Kerpen:
Thank you so much Bobbi, I'm so happy to be here.

Bobbi Rebell:
And I love watching all of your different developments to your journey, in addition to being the head of Likeable Media, you have your podcast, All the Social Ladies, because you're a social media agency. You have your book, Work It: Secrets for Success from the Boldest Women in Business. And of course you have columns in Ink and Forbes, and now you're in TV videos. You're everywhere Carrie.

Carrie Kerpen:
Thank you. I try. I'm trying.

Bobbi Rebell:
Wait I have one more shout out. Your company, Likable Media, is the sixth best place to work. Is that in the world, or just New York City?

Carrie Kerpen:
That's New York. Sixth in New York City, but if you ask me it's the best place in the world to work. Because everybody's really does have a great time here.

Bobbi Rebell:
And I visited it, and I can attest it's a really great group of people that you have working at Likable, so. That's a very well earned, accolade. Is that what you call it? Award?

Carrie Kerpen:
Yeah.

Bobbi Rebell:
I don't know.

Carrie Kerpen:
An accolade, a distinction. Any of the things.

Bobbi Rebell:
All good things, yeah. So you do a lot for your work. So for your money story, what we're going to talk about is the fact that, while you definitely have to focus on the bottom line and earning, you have a nicely growing staff, you've got to support that payroll. At the same time, your money story has to do with making some business decisions, that aren't immediately obvious how they're going to pay off. Tell us what happened.

Carrie Kerpen:
Absolutely. So I have typically been very bottom-line focused in building my business and growing. You know, we grew when we started, my husband and I started this business with $10,000 in the bank, and we worked our way up, as an agency. You would sell clients, you would get in money, you would hire people. And sort of grow organically. We didn't take in funding or anything like that. And I had always been super conscious of the bottom line. And once we got to a point where I felt like we were really stable and I had a good understanding of our profit margins. I decided to take a certain amount of the profit margins and invest in brand building and investing in myself. I started with a podcast, which most people do a podcast, and look at it and say okay, how am I going to make money from advertising. I wasn't-

Bobbi Rebell:
Well you are the advertiser. Likable is the sponsor.

Carrie Kerpen:
Exactly. I invest-

Bobbi Rebell:
And you've turned people down.

Carrie Kerpen:
Yes-

Bobbi Rebell:
I know that you've been approached by outside sponsors.

Carrie Kerpen:
Outside sponsors, networks, et cetera. I don't take advertising for that podcast. I didn't take you know, a ton of money for Work It. You know just a simple amount to write it. And really didn't focus intensely on making money from book sales. And I really don't focus on incorporating any sponsors into Work It, now the series that I run on Facebook Watch. I really looked at that as a long game investment, in Likable's future, and in my future. How am I going to build a brand and focus on the brand building activities, and keep it out of being sponsored, you know, really just be truly focused on building the brand and adding value. And not worry so much on that about the bottom line. Understanding that investing in that upfront, yields a long-term result.

Bobbi Rebell:
Were there discussions with your team about this? With your husband, who's not fully involved in the business anymore, but he's still obviously an advisor in your life?

Carrie Kerpen:
Yes. So there were discussions around this both with my team and with my husband who serves on the board at Likable. So I would say that the first place I learned this from was my husband when he launched a book, that became a New York Times bestseller, called Likeable Social Media, back in 2010, when we were building the business. And we had just renamed our business Likable, it wasn't originally Likable when we started.

Bobbi Rebell:
What was the original name?

Carrie Kerpen:
The original name was the Cabas Kerpen. We had no idea what we were doing.

Bobbi Rebell:
Oh that's so interesting, I never knew that. The Cabas.

Carrie Kerpen:
It was a very brief period of time we were the Cabas for about two years and then we decided to do Likable when, on the Facebook it was still like become a fan. You didn't even like a brand page. It was so fortuitous that as we did that, that really propelled are growth forward. Yeah so, Dave launched this book, invested a ton of time and energy in it. Essentially had me running the business while he was working on that brand. Didn't focus so much on book sales just focused on really getting his brand out there. And that really did help propel our business forward. So I learned from him, to do that, but I had a little bit of a lack of confidence of doing that, because I was uncomfortable, A, investing in myself, and B, putting myself in the spotlight. And so I had hesitated for a long time to use that strategy.

Carrie Kerpen:
Once I decided to use the strategy, I also met with the management and leadership team here at Likable, and said hey, I want to be where I can best serve the company. And I think the way I can best serve the company is to help drive leads through building a brand. What do you guys think if we take this year, and we really invest in that? And they thought that it was actually a great idea. And so I had the management structure in place, where the day to day handling of clients, was taken care of by my president, and the leadership team here at Likable. And so that I allowed myself, and freed myself up to do this. And once I had buy in from them, and buy in from Dave, I was ready to go.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right. So you were very aware that this was not going to be revenue driving. This was about brand building. What is the lesson then for other people who maybe want to do something that is not direct to the bottom line because there is so much pressure. How do you know when it's worth it? Because there's also the danger that you could say I'm doing this, but they're kind of just going down a road where they're doing something fun and fulfilling but maybe it doesn't necessarily pay off. Not every ... In other words, you were very directed, but how can you tell what is going to be a productive brand building exercise, non-revenue producing thing that you're going to do, that will lead, playing the long game, to building your business, as opposed to something that's just kind of going down the road.

Carrie Kerpen:
I have a few tips on this. So the first is to make sure you have enough in the bottom line to be able to invest in doing this. So I wouldn't recommend starting with this, when you have no bottom line, and no source of income or ability to do this. You need to be at a point where you've built your business enough to be sustainable, and have enough income that you're willing to invest. The second thing, is that you must be able to really articulate the way that this will help your business in the long run. So for me, when I do interviews, I make sure that a certain percentage of interviews are with women who I think can either be future clients or are people who can help me grow Likable. Either as advisors, or something along those lines. And I'm helping them by giving them a platform, and they're helping me, by helping me not only grow my network, but find the right people to work with. And I think the third piece, of what helps you set a strategy like this, is to have a long term goal. So, I wouldn't do this without an ability to have a long term financial goal attached.

Carrie Kerpen:
So in other words, the actual activities may not produce revenue. However, I can pull back and say, because of the women I've met through this, or because of this activity that I've done, I've been able to generate $5 million, over the course of five years. So something that is more long term, helps you thinking in the long term vision. This may not make you money right now, but how will this make you money in the long term?

Bobbi Rebell:
Did you set specific goals?

Carrie Kerpen:
Yes, I set specific goals for everything that I do. First I set specific goals on the bottom line that I need to produce for the, right now. So what are the activities that I'm doing right now that generate revenue? Then on the long term goals, I start with how many people am I going to need who I would describe as qualified? How many women or men am I going to network with who are potential clients of Likable. If that were my strategy. And then, it starts with the number of people I meet. Then the number of touch points, how many times I connect with them. I keep it all really well documented, so that I know that I'm nurturing relationships over time. And I think that's one of the keys to really looking at a long-term strategy. One of the dangers of a long-term strategy is you could say, oh it's so long term, it feels so far away I don't really need to worry about revenue at all. However with that, you can get really lost and invest too much in the current activity that you're doing to build a brand and then not reach the long-term goal. You have to always have that long-term goal in mind and I always have a revenue goal in mind when I do that.

Bobbi Rebell:
And you're being intentional, and you're tracking what you're doing.

Carrie Kerpen:
I track everything. Every email I send. Every time I get coffee. All of the things that I do with people who are qualified. And I also track what value I'm adding to them. Like I often send them things. Whether it's sending an article that I find relevant. Whether it's helping to get them a piece in Forbes or something along those lines, I always am looking at how I can help people who can help me too.

Bobbi Rebell:
Another way you can help people is with your money tip, which has to do with negotiating.

Carrie Kerpen:
Yup, in negotiating use what I call your mental mute button. In other words, sometimes when negotiating, we tend to talk way too much. We will go, well I think this, and I think I'm worth this, or I think I should be getting this. And here's why. And let me give you all of these reasons. Instead use a mental mute. Let's say you're negotiating for a speaking engagement. What is the speaking fee for this engagement? And then pause. Let them own the awkwardness. Let them ... Don't say well I normally charge this and well I normally do this. If you just put yourself on mute, let the awkwardness go to them, let them talk, and then give yourself the power to respond. Take a minute. And take a pause. Use that mental mute button and your negotiating will get a lot better, a lot faster.

Bobbi Rebell:
I love it. Do you ever leave completely and then come back and say I'll think about it, or do you feel you have to give an answer right away?

Carrie Kerpen:
No, I love stalling, I don't mind stalling at all. I think any kind of awkwardness to put on them is good, and owning your own time and your own power in that way is great.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right, Carrie Kerpen, tell us what's going on. The book is already a best-seller. Now you're doing more video.

Carrie Kerpen:
Yup. So you can watch Work It on Facebook Watch, under Carrie Kerpen. You can get Work It, at workitthebook.com. And follow me at Carrie Kerpen on all social handles. It's all the same thing. Carrie Kerpen.

Bobbi Rebell:
Awesome. Thank you Carrie Kerpen.

Carrie Kerpen:
You are welcome Bobbi.

Bobbi Rebell:
Carrie makes it all look so easy, so it was great to hear the behind-the-scenes. There's a lot of thought and intention going on with everything that Carrie does. Not the least of which is that she didn't start doing all this personal branding until the time was right. So financial grownup tip number one, don't forget, you need for your business to have enough financial stability, so you can do things like meet payroll and other financial obligations, before you go out and do this big brand building like Carrie did. It's not that brand building is a luxury, or nice to have. It's needed. Totally. But keep the lights on in the most basic sense, paying your employees, making sure that payroll is happening and your business is running. That's got to come first. Financial grownup tip number two. Track everything. It is great to be social with clients, potential clients, and business related friends. And sometimes the lines get really blurred with who's a friend, who's a business acquaintance, who's a client. Life is messy.

Bobbi Rebell:
But this is still something that's important. It's something I don't do. But Carrie made me think about it. It is something worth starting to track. A connection made years ago and nurtured, can yield results now or in the future. Don't just go to people when you need something from them. Go to them, when you can give them something that may not even be something that they have been asking you for. Proactively offer to do something for them. Something you know they could benefit them. So many of the best opportunities come from the most tangential contacts. Often people that are not even in your closest circles. It's karma. It'll come back to you. So go today to someone that you haven't touch base with in a little bit, and reach out. And see if there's something you could do to help their business. All right I have been totally overwhelmed by emails and DM's, Facebook Messenger, social media comments, texts and in-person requests, for those promo videos. Just a reminder they are not for sale but they are available to win if you are interested. Very easy.

Bobbi Rebell:
All you have to do is when you see the promo videos on social media, retweet them, share them, repost them, tag me if you can. I do have software that tracks it either way, but just to be sure feel free to tag me when you do that. Don't assume by the way that you're not eligible for some reason. The winner of a recent book giveaway contest for Randi Zuckerberg's Pick Three, was someone that I knew, but you know what? She was first to enter, she was enthusiastic, she flowed directions and she was so excited when she won. As long as you're not related to me, and as long as you don't have any financial ties to the podcast, you are in. And guys isn't free better than paying for a video? I'm excited to see who wins. Anyway, on that note, I'll have to come up with a really good video, a really likable video I should say, for miss Carrie Kerpen.

Bobbi Rebell:
I hope you enjoyed her story about investing in brand building. And doing things that sometimes a re a little bit out of our comfort zone. It's hard, even for me. I'm having a tough time getting comfortable sharing more of my life, personal things, but I'm working on it. I confess to not being good at tracking all of my various business coffees and all that stuff. More to come we'll see. But the responses make it worth it, So thanks to all of you. And thanks to Carrie for getting us all one step closer to being financial grownups.

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup with Bobbi Rebell is edited and produced by Steve Stewart and is a beer cave media production.

Award-winning CBS Business News Analyst, and radio and podcast host Jill Schlesinger CFP® talks about how she literally paid off her ex-husband to go away, after just one year of marriage. She also shares her best tip for organizing and tracking spending. 

In Jill’s money story you will learn:

-The negotiation that went on during her divorce

-The advice her father gave  her and the significance of his perspective

-The financial- and other- costs of marrying the wrong person

 

In Jill’s money lesson you will learn:

-The value of using money and financial resources to move on, even when it is not a fair payment

-How Jill’s background as a trader gave her perspective on cutting her losses in bad situations. 

-How to apply Jill’s lessons to different situations in life, from stocks, to high living expenses

 

In Jill’s money tip you will learn:

-Her advice to cut transportation and commuting costs

-Don’t sweat the small stuff but pay attention to the big stuff like life insurance

-Keep your finances simple, for example charge on just one credit card

-About the book Jill is writing “Dumb Things Smart People Do with Their Money” including a sneak peak!

 

In My Take you will learn:

-Ways to apply Jill’s philosophy of cutting your losses, including stocks, business partnerships and consumer goods

-How to know what to insure

-Specifically how I just was able to get a 44% price cut on my annual home insurance

 

Episode Links

Learn more about Jill at https://www.jillonmoney.com/

Check out the Better Off Podcast

Follow Jill!

Twitter: @jillonmoney

Facebook Jill On Money

Instagram: @jillonmoney

Linkedin JillonMoney

YouTube Jill Schlesinger

---

Transcription

Jill Schlesinge:
He asked for a number that I thought was ridiculous. I countered with a number that he thought was ridiculous. We agreed on a number that we both thought was unfair, which probably meant it was a good deal for both of us.

Jill Schlesinge:
I wasn't paying him, I was paying for my freedom.

Bobbi Rebell:
You're listening to Financial Grownup with me, certified financial planner, Bobbi Rebell, author of How To Be a Financial Grownup, and you know what? Being a grownup is really hard, especially when it comes to money. But it's okay, we're gonna get there together. I'm gonna bring you one money story from a financial grownup, one lesson, and then my take on how you can make it your own. We got this.

Bobbi Rebell:
Hey friends, do you ever wish and imagine that there would be a check big enough to make a problem go away? It could happen. We'll talk more about that soon, but first a quick welcome to our new listeners, and welcome back to our Financial Grownup regulars. Please keep telling your friends about the podcast so we can continue to grow, and if you listen on Apple Podcasts, take just a few minutes to rate and review it. That also helps us get discovered and is really important, and needless to say, much appreciated.

Bobbi Rebell:
Now to our guest, Jill Schlesinger, award-winning journalist for her national radio show, she is also the CBS Business news analyst, and she hosts the Better Off podcast. I met Jill when my book came out. A mutual friend introduced us, and then I was thrilled when I got to be on her award-winning radio program. Did I say award-winning enough? She won a big Gracie award recently.

Bobbi Rebell:
As you guys know, I'm a big believer in learning from the best, and while modest, Jill is way up there with the best in the business, and scores extra points in my book for being a certified financial planner and encouraging my efforts to get the designation as well. But what I did not expect was such a candid conversation with Jill. What she says about how she literally, she bribed, let's say what it is, she bribed someone to get out of her life. It really took me by surprise. She goes there. You guys should listen to this. You're gonna enjoy it. Here is Jill Schlesinger.

Bobbi Rebell:
Hey Jill Schlesinger, you're a financial grownup, welcome to the podcast.

Jill Schlesinge:
Thank you for having me.

Bobbi Rebell:
Big congratulations are in order. You just got back from a very special trip to LA for a very big award. Tell us.

Jill Schlesinge:
Oh, well as you know, I got a Tony award. Just kidding. I got a Grammy award. No, just kidding, I got something called a Gracie. A Gracie, I'm so old I knew exactly who that referred to. That refers to Gracie Allen who was a very strong woman in Hollywood many, many years ago. The Alliance of Women in Media gives out an award for TV, radio, podcasts, and my executive producer Mark and I won for the best national radio show, so we're very psyched.

Bobbi Rebell:
I'm very psyched for you. I am honored that I was once a guest on the show when my book came out. And you even got to walk the red carpet.

Jill Schlesinge:
I know, and that is always sort of a frightening thing for a big, tall woman who does not usually wear heels that are that tall, so that was daunting. That was the hardest part of the whole thing. Give me a spreadsheet to go through, but don't make me walk in heels.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right, so you brought with you a money story. Do tell, Jill.

Jill Schlesinge:
Remember when you were on my radio show and at the end you like completely hijacked me and turned the tables, and you're like-

Bobbi Rebell:
Totally.

Jill Schlesinge:
... "Tell me something."

Bobbi Rebell:
Exactly.

Jill Schlesinge:
So I have a money story that is basically about divorce, and it's kind of both a real divorce, a marriage dissolving, a partnership, a business partnership dissolving, and my story is this. I learned something from my now deceased father when I was talking about my divorce and I was very upset about the whole things. I had really such a schmucky ex-husband who literally threatened to sue me for alimony after being married for a year, a month, and a day.

Bobbi Rebell:
Oh my gosh.

Jill Schlesinge:
Yeah. I hope you're listening. You know who you are. And what I realized very quickly after my father kind of laid it out for me, he's like, "You know what, honey? You worked your butt off on Wall Street, you made a few bucks, you got some money. All this guy wants is for you to pay him off. Pick a number, make him feel like a man..." He put that in sort of italics, "and move on. And the quicker you move on, the quicker you move on for your life, and there's actually no price tag for that freedom."

Jill Schlesinge:
That is a money story that I have brought through my life, which I was able to actually help my clients with 'cause I went into the client business where I was managing money as a certified financial planner. And as soon as you realized you had enough money to sort of write a check, and you realized that it really wasn't the amount, it was just the fact that you would do it, that that became a really important lesson for me.

Jill Schlesinge:
And so my wisdom to impart on you and your listenership is that sometimes, don't worry about who's right or wrong. Just pay and move on.

Bobbi Rebell:
So, you did that, I assume, with your now very long time ago ex-husband. Was it an amount of money that was meaningful to you or was it actually just a small amount that made it go away in principle? I mean, did it hurt financially?

Jill Schlesinge:
No, it did not hurt financially. It hurt from a pride perspective because I felt like I was being punished monetarily for marrying the wrong person for a year. And so it hurt me to even think that I had to put a dime in this guy's pocket after one year of marriage. What I really stopped doing in that ... again, after my dad gave me this really good advice is that I wasn't paying him, I was paying for my freedom, and that's how I made the adjustment.

Bobbi Rebell:
And how did the ex respond? Did he just say, "Great, I'll take the check. Thank you very much. Goodbye." Or was he a jerk about it?

Jill Schlesinge:
Oh man. Well, obviously if you're married to someone for a year and that person is suing you for alimony, the jerkiness is sort of well-documented.

Bobbi Rebell:
True true.

Jill Schlesinge:
But what I could say is this. He asked for a number that I thought was ridiculous. I countered with a number that he thought was ridiculous. We agreed on a number that we both thought was unfair, which probably meant it was a good deal for both of us, that we both kind of moved on.

Jill Schlesinge:
And you know what? He got remarried, I moved on, it kind of did work out. But again, for me the lesson being, there is absolutely no reason to get stuck. For me, I'm the kind of person who could get stuck on it is not the right thing, and that was just not worth it for me. Whether it was right or wrong or someone was right or wrong or whether I was wronged or he felt wronged, it didn't matter. We both had to get out of this thing. We both realized it was over.

Bobbi Rebell:
So for our listeners, I like what you said before about this isn't just about ending a marriage. It could be about ending any kind of partnership. How does this apply ... what is the takeaway for our listeners? What's the lesson here?

Jill Schlesinge:
I was born a trader. That was my first job on Wall Street. I was a commodities trader, and the one beautiful thing about being a trader is that you quickly learn you always have a bad trade. There's nobody who gets to go through life as a trader and not experience the recognition very quickly of, "Oh my god, I'm in a bad trade."

Jill Schlesinge:
So, you're gonna do that in your financial life a million times over. You're gonna realize like, "Uh-oh, bad trade. Like uh-oh, I actually moved into an apartment that is too expensive for me. I am going to pay the two month penalty to get out and move to another apartment." Or, "I'm going to do something different." Or, "I bought something, I bought a stock, I bought a mutual fund, I did something," and you immediately realize you've screwed up. "I bought an insurance policy I don't understand. There's a penalty to get out. Maybe I need to get out."

Jill Schlesinge:
When you feel that recognition in your soul that you've done something that's probably not right for you, if you don't know for sure, go get advice, but do not ignore that feeling.

Bobbi Rebell:
Okay, I am on the edge of my seat. What is your everyday money tip for our listeners.

Jill Schlesinge:
Well I have two different things to just impart for everyday money tips, and this is for anyone who lives in a city. Like, I'm a walker. Just walk everywhere. That is actually how I saved more money than anything. People take cabs all the time. I'm a huge mass transit person. Now, you don't live in a place where there is mass transit, this is irrelevant to you.

Jill Schlesinge:
My other everyday tip is don't sweat the small stuff that you ... you're gonna think that I'm a certified financial planner and I count every single penny I spend. I don't. I've done that, but I know generally how much to spend, and I don't quibble over little things. But I'm very thoughtful about big things. So my everyday money tip is that like, you know, you're worried about whether you get a latte at Starbucks versus making your own coffee, that's not the big decision to sweat. Sweat more about the big decisions like, "Gee, I need to buy life insurance but I haven't yet."

Jill Schlesinge:
So, I really am not a big sweat of the small stuff kind of person. My everyday is to live my life, walk around, know exactly how much money's in my pocket, and I loathe to do anything besides charge on one credit card only. That's it.

Bobbi Rebell:
Keeping it simple. Thank you, Jill. So tell me more about what you're up to post-Gracie award.

Jill Schlesinge:
Well, you know, obviously I have to put those shoes away 'cause I'll never walk in them again.

Bobbi Rebell:
So those are not the shoes you use to walk around Manhattan?

Jill Schlesinge:
No. No, I am a big fan of the Allbirds to get all over Manhattan. So, I host a podcast called Better Off. I host a radio show called Jill on Money. I write a column for Tribune. I am working every day at CBS News, both in radio and TV. And here's the big news that I've just submitted my manuscript for my first book.

Bobbi Rebell:
Wow.

Jill Schlesinge:
So that's dropping next February, so I'll come back on in February when the book drops. How's that?

Bobbi Rebell:
Yes. Absolutely. Oh my gosh, congratulations. You didn't tell me that till just now. I'm so excited for you. Can you tell us just a little more about it?

Jill Schlesinge:
Yes. The tentative title is Dumb Things Smart People Do With Their Money, and it is based on the fact that I have been in the business for so long and I've been around incredibly bright people who consistently shoot themselves in the foot. They mostly do it to themselves, and there are a series, you know, maybe a dozen or so very practical things that you can do to avoid making those dumb mistakes.

Jill Schlesinge:
So, that is ... it's not a book for everyone, but it is definitely a book for someone who has a brain and says, "Why do I keep doing dumb financial things? I have a brain. Why is it that I can't do these things?" And I know that's most of your audience, 'cause smart people listen to people like you, Bobbi.

Bobbi Rebell:
Oh, thank you Jill. And smart people listen to people like you, and I love listening to your podcast and your radio show. So thank you, and I'm looking forward to your book.

Jill Schlesinge:
I am too. Thank you so much for having me.

Bobbi Rebell:
Jill totally delivered, so let's get right into it.

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup tip number one: Cut your losses and move on. This applies not just to divorce, as was Jill's main example, it also applies to things like investments, like stocks. If a stock that you liked is no longer in your like category, it doesn't have the same criteria that it had when you picked it, get out. Cut your losses. It's okay to take a loss and move on and use that money to buy a different stock that's maybe a better investment that you'd otherwise be missing out on.

Bobbi Rebell:
Business partnerships, not working, not fixable, find a way out. We all want to come out with the win. You're gonna want to have more, especially if you're in an adversarial position with your business partner, but you know what? Sometimes getting out is more important than getting even. So focus on that and make sure that you can get out and move on to something that's gonna make you happier and maybe more money than that business. Maybe you bought something, maybe an electronic device and the store wants to charge you a re-stocking fee, which is so ridiculous. But you know what? If you don't return it and pay that penalty, you're gonna have something that you don't want taking up space in your home, and you won't have the 90% let's say, of the purchase price that you'd be getting back to then buy what you actually do want. So don't dig in your heels. Just get out, get your money back, move on.

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup tip number two: Jill talked about insurance, which is a really important thing to talk about, a very grownup thing. At least once a year, take a look, assess what you've got, and figure out, are the things that would be really hard to replace if something unexpected happened covered. Things like home insurance, renter's insurance, they usually have under them, personal liability. Those are good things to make sure that you have. You can usually tie them together.

Bobbi Rebell:
And guys, this is a big one. I kind of blew it. I have not been negotiating well with my insurance companies, but I did recently, I went to my homeowner's insurance company, pointed out that I'm a really good customer. I've been with them for years. I don't file claims, which is very fortunate on my part, hopefully that won't change, and I asked them to lower my rate and just said, "I'm gonna start shopping around for a better rate somewhere else." And you know what? Within 24 hours, they came back with a new policy, all the same coverage, but 44% lower in terms of annual premium. So, that was a nice chunk of change on annual homeowner's insurance just for asking. And if that's my hourly rate for spending not even an hour doing that, I'll take it.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right. We just had our first listener episode. To be considered for a future one, email us at info@financialgrownup.com. That's info@financialgrownup.com. Share with us what money story you would like to tell, and the lesson and the everyday money tip that you think our listeners would get value from.

Bobbi Rebell:
And a reminder, you can't win it if you're not in it. If you want a custom video like the promos that we do for the show, join the competition. All you have to do, it's totally free, when you see one of the promo videos for the episodes, just share it. Retweet it on Twitter or share it on Facebook. Everyone keeps DMing me and telling me they'll never win and can they just buy one. You have to try. Guys, you gotta be in it to win it. Just share it and retweet it and repost, and you may surprise yourself and be the winner.

Bobbi Rebell:
Thank you all for being part of our Financial Grownup community. If you enjoy the show, consider leaving a rating or review, and of course, hit the subscribe button and just tell a friend if you're enjoying the show. It means a lot to us.

Bobbi Rebell:
I am on Twitter @BobbiRebell, on Instagram at BobbiRebell1, and on Facebook at Bobbi Rebell.

Bobbi Rebell:
Jill's advice definitely resonated with me. I hope it worked for you as well. We all tend to cling to our previous convictions. We need to move past that. So thank you, Jill, for helping us all get one step closer to being financial grownups.

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

 

Indiana-based radiologist Dr. Scott Steenburg joins the Financial Grownup podcast as our first listener to share a money story. Scott shares the story of how a push to have students take out more money than needed to pay for tuition, created devastating debt situations for classmates.

 

In Scott’s money story you will learn:

-Why Scott was offered more money than needed when taking out student loans

-What Scott used his extra student loan cash to buy, and whether it was a smart financial decision

-The things his fellow students spent their extra student loan money on, and how  that impacted their financial wellbeing.

-How the tech stock bubble impacted many of his peers who were leveraging student loan debt

-How much student loan debt Dr. Streenburg had, and how it compared to his peers

-The strategy he and his peers used when they could not pay the debt, along with the consequences

-Whether or not he believes taking on all the debt was worth it

In Scott’s money lesson you will learn:

-His big regret regarding the debt he incurred while in medical school

-The long-term consequences and impact to his peers that spent student loans for things other than tuition. 

-The risks that medical students take on when assuming large student debt, that is unique to the medical profession.

In Scott’s money tip you will learn:

-How you can get medical school debt forgiven

In My Take you will learn:

-how to find programs that allow you have loans reduced or forgiven

-The requirements needed for student loan forgiveness

-Resources to manage, lower, and get rid of student debt

 

EPISODE LINKS

• Government website links:

  • www.studentloans.gov

  • https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/repay-loans/forgiveness-cancellation

  • https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/repay-loans/forgiveness-cancellation/public-service/questions

• Here is the article from Robert Farrington’s The College Investor: 

  • https://thecollegeinvestor.com/578/ways-to-get-student-loan-forgiveness/

• This is the article by Melanie Lockert. 

  • https://studentloanhero.com/featured/the-complete-list-of-student-loan-forgiveness-programs/

• You can also check out Melanie’s episode of Financial Grownup here!

• You can consolidate your student debt, and get  more information by visiting websites, including two that I mention, SoFi.com and StudentLoanHero.com

 

Follow Scott!

Twitter @radiology911

---

Transcription

Scott Steenburg:
Some of my classmates used their excess money to invest in tech stocks. It did not turn out well for them. Some of my classmates lost all of their student loan money in the dot-com bubble.

Bobbi Rebell:
You're listening to Financial Grownup with me, certified financial planner Bobbi Rebell, author of How to Be a Financial Grownup, but you know what? Being a grownup is really hard, especially when it comes to money, but it's okay. We're going to get there together. I'm going to bring you one money story from a financial grownup, one lesson, and then my take on how you can make it your own. We got this.

Bobbi Rebell:
Hey, friends. This is a big episode here at Financial Grownup. We tried an experiment. We asked you guys to send in your money stories and your everyday money saving tips to potentially be a guest here on the show, and you know what? It worked out really well. We have our first listener episode. I am so excited for how it turned out. Our guest is fantastic. He is a radiologist in Indiana, Dr. Scott Steenburg, so let's get to Dr. Scott's story. It is about the loans that he and his medical school classmates racked up years ago.

Bobbi Rebell:
Student debt to pay tuition is one thing, but taking up more than you need to actually pay the tuition, your real school costs, is a whole other thing, and the reality is that in some cases people are talked into taking out more than they need, just in case. But remember, that money is there and sometimes it doesn't get paid back right away. Sometimes it gets invested in, oh, technology stocks that can crash and burn in the dot-com bubble. It could also go to a new car. You'll hear all about it. Here is Dr. Scott Steenburg.

Bobbi Rebell:
Hey, Scott Steenburg. You're a Financial Grownup. Welcome to the podcast.

Scott Steenburg:
Thanks a lot, Bobbi.

Bobbi Rebell:
And congratulations, you are our very first listener that we are having as a guest. You're the winner, so I'm so excited to have you.

Scott Steenburg:
I'm glad to be here.

Bobbi Rebell:
Just quickly, tell us about you, what you do.

Scott Steenburg:
Sure. My name is Scott Steinberg. I am a radiologist in Indiana. A radiologist is a physician who specializes in interpretation of medical images such as X-ray, CAT scan, and MRI, and my subspecialty is in the emergency and trauma radiology world.

Bobbi Rebell:
Wow. What made you decide to write in?

Scott Steenburg:
Well, I've been listening to your podcast since the very beginning. A lot of your stories that you have on your podcast are very compelling, and when I heard that you wanted to have a listener on with a compelling story, I thought, "You know, there are some really weird things about the student loan industry," particularly with respect to medical school that I thought maybe this might be something that you haven't heard of before, so I reached out to you and told you some interesting nuggets about that.

Bobbi Rebell:
Which brings us to your story, which is very interesting, especially because it has to do with your student loans, but also money that you didn't necessarily use for tuition, so tell us exactly what happened.

Scott Steenburg:
Sure. As you probably know, medical school is not cheap, so most medical students need to finance their education with student loans. At that time when I started medical in 1999, it was really easy to get a lot of loans for all four years of medical school.

Bobbi Rebell:
And how much did four years of medical school cost at the time?

Scott Steenburg:
At the time tuition, I went to an instate school, it was maybe 9,000 per semester, so 18 to 20,000 per year, which is not a whole lot by today's standards.

Bobbi Rebell:
Okay, so go on. You were able to get financing, though, to go to school?

Scott Steenburg:
Yes, so during the interview process, you interview for getting into the medical school, and then in the afternoon you meet with a financial aid counselor to figure out how you're going to pay for medical school. At that time, I'm not sure if it's commonplace now, but at that time we were kind of nudged towards taking out the maximum allowable student loans because in future years, if you lower the amount that you requested, there was no guarantee that you'd be able to increase that number in the future, so we were kind of nudged towards just take up the maximum, and if you have access leftover you can do whatever you want with it.

Bobbi Rebell:
Okay, so how much did you take out relative to what the tuition was? You took out more than the tuition.

Scott Steenburg:
Yeah, so as a medical student it's hard to have a job to help pay for living expenses, so a lot of medical students will finance not only their tuition, but also living expenses such as food and rent and whatnot.

Bobbi Rebell:
What did you use the money for, besides living expenses? You bought a car.

Scott Steenburg:
Yeah, yeah. That's one thing that I told you about. If you have excess student loans, you can do whatever you want with it. You can either pay back immediately, which is the financially responsible thing to do. What I did one semester is I knew I had enough living expenses saved up, I already looked at my budget, I knew I wasn't going to need the student loan check, so I literally, it arrived in the mail and I walked across the street to the bank and put it in a one-year CD. At that time, the interest rate was somewhere just higher than the interest rate for the loan, so I did make a little bit on that, but it would have been smarter just to pay back right away to lower the overall balance. One thing I did in the subsequent years, I needed a new car, my car was falling apart, I needed to be able to commute from my apartment to school, so I used my excess student loan money to buy a new car.

Bobbi Rebell:
Did you need a car? I mean, was that a legit expense, or did you buy a lot more than you really needed?

Scott Steenburg:
We bought what we needed. The good thing about this, if there is a silver lining, is I put 50% down, so there's a small balance, but then I financed the rest at 7%, which was not a great idea, so I'm using the student loan money that has an interest rate at that time of 3.5% to pay off another loan that has 7%, so that was a terrible, terrible choice.

Bobbi Rebell:
Well, but you told me some people did even other things like buying tech stocks.

Scott Steenburg:
Yeah, so this was in 1999 to 2003 when I was in medical school, and some of my classmates used their excess money to invest in tech stocks, and it did not turn out well for them. Some of my classmates lost all of their student loan money in the dot-com bubble.

Bobbi Rebell:
Wow. That's really scary. Let's talk more about you. So, we get to the end of school. Describe to me how much you had in debt and then what was happening at that point.

Scott Steenburg:
Sure, so I graduated in 2003 and immediately started residency, entered a five-year residency in radiology. At that time, the student loan balance was about 130,000 which by today's standards is a fraction of what students are graduating with. I threw out an informal poll to a closed physician Facebook group that I'm a part of, and the numbers I was getting back for current graduates was between 200 and 400,000. So by today's standards my balance was not all that big, and even the minimum payments at that time were somewhat draconian. I was making a resident salary which at that time was about $35,000 per year, and out of that, of course, I needed living expenses, had to pay for a car, had to commute every day, so even the minimum payment was tight.

Scott Steenburg:
So what a lot of students do in this instance is they first defer, and at that point you could defer up to 36 months. I think it might still be that. Then after that, if you still can't make your payments, then you can go into forbearance, which is even worse, so then throughout the entire time the interest is accruing. From the time I started medical school to the time I started paying down my loan, it was nine years, so that was a long time of compounding.

Bobbi Rebell:
So then where did it stand? How did this end up?

Scott Steenburg:
Sure. The balance tipped the scales at about 165,000. I started making very aggressive payments in 2009, and this story turns out okay. I was able to finish paying off those loans last year. Everything turned out okay, and I really don't have any complaints. Taking all these loans helped enable me to realize my dream of becoming a physician and being a radiologist and doing what I love to do, but I live in a world of chaos in the emergency and trauma world, and I see people's lives destroyed every day.

Scott Steenburg:
Nine years of deferral of putting off student loan payments is a long time. That's a long time, and anything could have happened. If I developed an illness, or if I were in a car accident like a lot of the patients I see every day, or if I developed a disability or for some reason couldn't finish residency, that would have been really, really bad. And fortunately everything turned out okay for me, but for a lot of people it doesn't.

Bobbi Rebell:
How did you feel when you would see $165,000 as your balance?

Scott Steenburg:
Honestly, I buried my head in the sand. I didn't want to think about it. When I saw the number going up every month, and each month the amount that it would increase would increase because of compounding, I put it out of sight, out of mind. I kept my eye on the prize of finishing residency, and when I got an attending job, an attending salary, I had to be able to quickly pay it off, but in retrospect, I was entering the danger zone. You know, if something bad happened that negatively impacted my ability to earn income, it may not have turned out so well, and as you know and many of your listeners know, dismissing student loans and bankruptcy is very challenging.

Bobbi Rebell:
Is that something you ever thought about?

Scott Steenburg:
No, no.

Bobbi Rebell:
Okay.

Scott Steenburg:
I knew that once I finished residency and got a job I was going to be able to pay it down. I mean, the number is big and it was moderately terrifying, but once I started seeing that number come down, I started to feel better about it. I regretted having that balanced because I knew I could be taking that money and putting it to good use elsewhere. I did some math. You know, if I didn't have student loans and I used all that money to invest, it was a much bigger return than just taking out the student loans.

Bobbi Rebell:
So what is the takeaway then, for our listeners? When you look back at who you were when you were first entering medical school and having these meetings with the financial aid advisors, what would you have done differently, if anything?

Scott Steenburg:
I probably would have taken the excess money that I didn't need. I would have just paid back the balance and be able to give it back. You can use debt as a tool to accomplish your goals. However, if you're going to use debt to finance an education, you have to be very mindful of that. You need to be conservative, only take out what you need and then pay back as quickly as possible. If you use debt, especially for education, incorrectly and something bad happens that negatively impacts your ability to pay back the loan, that could be financially devastating.

Bobbi Rebell:
What about these people that were ... I mean, was it a popular thing at the time to take your student loan money, and instead of using it for tuition, use it to buy stocks?

Scott Steenburg:
That was one popular thing that students did. Other students would, if they had time off, they would go on a nice vacation. Like, me, I helped buy a car. That's what a lot of the students did, and like me, a lot of them were putting it out of sight, out of mind. All we need to do is finish medical school, go to residency, get an attending job with a higher salary, and pay back the loans quickly. But as I said before, it's a long time from the time you start to the time you end and start making a physician salary to be able to pay that down aggressively, and anything could happen in that time.

Bobbi Rebell:
So what is your money tip now? You have something really innovative that maybe some people don't know about, but could really be helpful.

Scott Steenburg:
One thing that exists in the medical world is a student loan forgiveness program where if you start paying off your loans even during training and you go to work for a non-profit, over a shorter period of time you'll have those loans forgiven. I'm sure there are other programs for non-medical professionals where there's a similar type track where if you go to, for example, an underserved area in your field, that you may be able to have some of your student loans forgiven or paid off.

Bobbi Rebell:
Great. Well, thank you so much, Scott. Is there anything else that you want to add? Anything you want people to know about you? How to reach you?

Scott Steenburg:
Sure. If you'd like to follow me on Twitter, I'm @Radiology911.

Bobbi Rebell:
I love that.

Scott Steenburg:
So that's a nod to my ... that's a nod to my-

Bobbi Rebell:
How did you get that? That's pretty cool that you got that handle.

Scott Steenburg:
I don't know. It just came to me, so I picked it. So that's a nod to what I do. I don't do a whole lot of personal finance there. Most of what I do is medical education, physician wellness, and policy, but if you like to see interesting images, that's where to go.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right. Thank you, Scott. You were wonderful, and really thank you so much for supporting the program.

Scott Steenburg:
Thanks for having me, Bobbi.

Bobbi Rebell:
Hey, friends. So first, student loan debt, as Scott mentioned, is pretty hard to get rid of unless you actually pay it. It stays with you even in bankruptcy, but there are some programs that you can at least look into and some options that are emerging, some new things in just the past few years. I'm going to send you guys to government website called studentloans.gov, and from there you can look for how to repay your loans and go to repayment forms. I'm going to now walk you through some of what you'll see there just to give you a high level sense of your options.

Bobbi Rebell:
So financial grownup tip number one, some loans, like Federal Family Education Loans and Perkins Loans can be eligible for something called Public Service Loan Forgiveness. The key thing for eligibility is that you have made 120 qualifying payments under a qualifying repayment plan while working full-time for a qualifying employer. That's a lot, I know.

Bobbi Rebell:
The key thing, though, qualifying employment is generally things like government organizations, federal, state, local. They even say tribal on that government site. You guys are going to follow up and look for yourselves. Also non-profits, like those with the 501(c)(3) designation. Also some other non-profit organizations, if they provide certain public services, things like AmeriCorps or Peace Corps volunteer. So if you are interested in those things anyway, it could be something to look into that could pay off in more ways than one.

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial grownup tip number second. Now, this is more for the for-profit schools, some of which were not living up to what they promised students, so you can also apply for something called borrower defense to repayment if you took out loans to attend a school that misled you about the educational services that you paid for with the loans. There's a lot of fine print to all of this. You have to follow up by really combing through the website. It even covers the extremely rare times that student debt can be forgiven in bankruptcy, but again, that's very rare. And also, of course, what happens to student debt if the student or the parents, who in some cases are the borrowers, pass away.

Bobbi Rebell:
A few other resources regarding student debt. Check out one of my favorite websites on this topic, The College Investor. It is run by Robert Farrington. He knows a lot about student debt. He even has a great article I'm going to leave. Well, there's many great articles, but I'm going to leave a link to an article that's one of my favorite in the show notes for more ideas to get your debt forgiven, and also answering questions about things you might have heard of that were options in the past but have now merged into other forms, so it's important to keep up with it. It's kind of a moving target, the way that the laws change. Also, SoFi and Student Loan Hero both run blogs that have a lot of useful information. I'm going to leave a link to a great article by my friend and former financial grownup podcast guest, Melanie Lockert, in the show notes as well that has some great resources.

Bobbi Rebell:
Thank you to radiologist Scott Steenburg for being our very first listener to share their money story and advice. It was great. If you want to be considered for an upcoming episode, email us at info@financialgrownup.com. Tell us what money story and what everyday money tip you would share if you were chosen.

Bobbi Rebell:
Thanks to everyone for your support. If you listen on Apple Podcasts, please take a moment to rate and review the podcast. If you are enjoying the podcast, please tell someone that you think would also like it. Spread the word. Post it in one of your Facebook groups and tell people to check it out. If you spot one of our video promos on Twitter or Instagram, share that, and you could win a custom one just for yourself. We're running a little competition.

Bobbi Rebell:
I'm on Twitter, @bobbirebell, on Instagram, at bobbirebell1, on Facebook, at Bobbi Rebell. I can't thank Scott enough for reaching out and being our first listener to share a story. It was a good one, and something unfortunately way too many people can relate to, but I do think his story and his great advice got us all one step closer to being financial grownups.

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

Writer Paulette Perhach, known for her F*** Off Fund articles and website, has been featured in Cosmo and Glamour, but collecting cash from her writing clients was killing her ability to be a financial grownup. Paulette also shares her secret to free stuff- and previews her upcoming book “Welcome to the Writer’s Life, our August 15.. 

In Paulette’s money story you will learn:

-Why Paulette struggles with accepting whether or not she is a financial grownup

-How Paulette became famous, but without the financial rewards following that fame

-The job Paulette had that taught the her most about sales and marketing

-What Paulette did on the day she realized she needed to make some cash- fast

-How Paulette keeps her expenses in check to allow her to pursue her writing career

-Why collecting pay, in a timely manner, is just as important as getting hired

-How Paulette adjusted her pitch to focus less on her needs, and more on her customer needs

-The strategy Paulette used to leverage the contacts she made on one day, into future long term and consistent clients

-The psychological technique Paulette uses when she feels discouraged

In Paulette’s money lesson you will learn:

-The importance of keeping expenses low when income is unpredictable- and specific strategies to do that.

-How and why pay does not line up with work, and how you can manage cash flow challenges

In Paulette’s money tip you will learn

-How she gets things for free!

-The specific items and services she has received that were given to her and why, along with how she contributes to her community

-Where you can find Buy Nothing groups

-About Paulette’s new book “Welcome to the Writers Life”

-Paulette’s advice: If you are in the arts, you are also in sales

In My Take you will learn:

-The importance of keeping overhead low when starting a business, and maintaining cost controls

-How to integrate money making ideas into things you already do and enjoy

Episode Links

Paulette' website: Fuckofffund.com

Follow Paulette- and her bank balances!

Twitter: @PaulettePerhach

Instagram: @PaulettePerhach

Hire Paulette as a writing consultant and much more!! https://hugohouse.org/store/consultant/paulette-perhach/

Pre-order Paulette’s book “Welcome to the Writers Life” !

If you want to be considered for an upcoming listener episode- email us your money story, money lesson and money tip to info@financialgrownup.com

If you want to win a free custom video promo- share and retweet the promos when you see them - and make sure to tag @bobbirebell

---

Transcription

Paulette Perhac:
It's never been too good to hustle. Some days, you got to hustle and yeah, I have a Cosmo magazine right over there with my name in it. Guess what? I have 15 bucks in my bank account like I need to hustle today.

Bobbi Rebell:
You're listening to Financial Grownup with me, certified financial planner, Bobbi Rebell. Author of, How to be a Financial Grownup, but you know what, being a grownup is really hard, especially when it comes to money. But it's okay. We're going to get there together. I'm going to bring you one money story from a Financial Grownup, one lesson and then my take on how you can make it your own. We got this. Hey friends, before we get to our awesome guest, Paulette Perhac known for what she calls in our friendly universe, the Foe fund.

Bobbi Rebell:
It'll make sense, trust me. I just want to welcome all of our new listeners to the podcast and also welcome back our regular listeners. We keep your episodes short to fit your schedule, but also to be flexible. So you can binge and hear a few great stories when you have a little more time in your day. If you are enjoying the show, please take a moment to tell a friend about it. Share it on social media, we want to get your help growing the community and we really appreciate it by the way.

Bobbi Rebell:
Now to our guest, Paulette, as you will hear, I joke with Paulette Perhac that she's not quite a financial grownup, but really are we ever? It's a process and for Paulette, the process has been painful at times. She has received a ton of acclaim for her writing and even has been able to raise her rates a bit, but collecting the cash, that has kept her on the financial edge and forced her to get creative. You're going to like this one. Here is Paulette Perhac. Hey Paulette Perhac you're a financial grownup or at least getting there. Welcome to the podcast.

Paulette Perhac:
Thanks for having me, Bobbi.

Bobbi Rebell:
And we're getting it a little bit giggly, which will make a lot of sense in just a minute when Paulette tells her story. But you are an emerging major writer. You've had pieces all over the place including the piece that got you really famous called the F off Fund and we're going to keep it clean here so no worry. If you are in the car listening with your kids, but Paulette, before we get to your money story, tell us a little bit about this article that sort of blasted you into the universe.

Paulette Perhac:
So we call it in my family around my nephew the fore fund, so-

Bobbi Rebell:
The Fore fund, I like that.

Paulette Perhac:
As I was coming into my 30s and got a great job at a tech company and had for the first time a few thousand in the bank that didn't have a name on it. I was thinking back to some memories that I had of times that I was desperate for a job or couldn't move out because I just couldn't afford to. I realized, "Oh, it would've been so nice if I had, had this money in that bank account." And you don't really think about because humans have this optimism bias.

Paulette Perhac:
If you don't think bad situations you're going to get in. So, I really described a situation in which you do the normal thing. Where you're living paycheck to paycheck and then getting bad situations or if you decide to be someone who can have a fore fund in case you need it and what that would look like. So I described those two scenarios in the fore fund article. I thought it was just another essay and then it blew up and it went all around the world and just this month, both Cosmo and Glamour mentioned it. Two years later, which is crazy.

Bobbi Rebell:
Great, and now that's becoming a whole business, which we're going to circle back to. But I want to hear the money story that you're ready to share with us, and it's so apropos because just moments ago what crosses on my Instagram, but a snapshot of your bank account, which despite all of the success with your fore fund writing and the business that is emerging from that article, which is unbelievable, that this is all happening to you.

Bobbi Rebell:
Sometimes massive career success and prominence does not always connect to money. So, you found yourself one day with how much money in your bank account would you say?

Paulette Perhac:
So I had about $900 and my rent on my tiny place in Seattle was about to come through at 795.

Bobbi Rebell:
And by the way, because we were just joking about this, your apartment is how big.

Paulette Perhac:
It's 150 square feet.

Bobbi Rebell:
Okay. Just saying not like you're living so large.

Paulette Perhac:
Not living so large. So I was like, "What do I do?" And I had just been feeling like I'm living large because you and I were in the Catskills in New York. I'm going to these parties with like Aaron Lowery and meeting with my editor at the New York Times and having breakfast with another reporter at the New York Times.

Bobbi Rebell:
Just like big media people, big stuff that's happening.

Paulette Perhac:
Yeah, big stuff is happening. Having meetings with people who are on the Forbes Top 100 most powerful women list. Awesome, right? And we're in talks about future projects, et cetera. So, it's like everything's coming together. Then I landed home and I'm like, I have $100. I don't have any work lined up. I just posted yesterday on Instagram a timeline of something I'm about to get paid for. I pitched that story on February 12th. So that shows you how long it takes to get from pitch to payment?

Bobbi Rebell:
Right.

Paulette Perhac:
And so I'm like, "Oh my gosh, I'm in trouble. What am I going to do?"

Bobbi Rebell:
You need cash immediately.

Paulette Perhac:
I need cash. Yeah. So the panic starts to rise up, right? And I've really realized this year that the panic is not helping you and so you just have to calm down whenever you feel those feelings. I'm like, what will help you feel more powerful? I'm like, you need like an adult lemonade stand, and I just decided a lemonade stand-

Bobbi Rebell:
And by lemonade stand, what do you mean?

Paulette Perhac:
I mean like a personal mini business from which you feel fairly confident you could make some money in the next 24 hours and that's marketing, execution and billing. So, I took the last of my business cards and I printed up a label for the back. Mother's Day was that Sunday, so I'm like, Mother's Day, I'm hustling. So I printed up labels that said mother's Day photos, like quick and easy or quick and fun. Mother's Day photos, 15 minutes, 20 bucks.

Paulette Perhac:
And I took my camera. I looked at like, what are my assets, right? I have a car, I could drive around, I can't do uber, it's from 1996. So I could deliver food.

Bobbi Rebell:
Uber has standards.

Paulette Perhac:
Uber has standards, I do not. A to B, that's my standard. So I looked at my other asset, which is this really nice camera that I bought as an investment in my writing, in travel writing business. So I just went around and hustled all day, Mother's Day. I think I walked six miles. I ran out of business cards, but I-

Bobbi Rebell:
What was your pitch? Tell us your pitch.

Paulette Perhac:
My pitch. I started by being like, "Hi, I'm a local writer and a photographer," and people were just like, "ugh." So, I realize I'm talking about myself. Nope, so it evolves over the day to focus on the customer and I just said, "Hi, happy mother's Day," because no one's like, "Go away if you say Happy Mother's Day." I said, "Happy Mother's day, if you guys want a nice photo, I'm doing $20 portraits today." So it was a really fun day overall.

Paulette Perhac:
I felt empowered. I felt like I was taking control and then I got some follow up clients actually, I'm rewriting one of the groups of women. One of them was from San Francisco. She's a realtor from San Francisco. We got to talking. They were great, I gave them a little bit of extra time just because it was fun, and she is hiring me to rewrite her bio for 300 bucks.

Bobbi Rebell:
That's so awesome. That's so awesome. Wait, so how much did you make that day and how much did you make from that day going forward?

Paulette Perhac:
So my supplies were 12, and then I had to get more cards printed, which was like 33. So I was like, "Oh my gosh." So after taking those out, I only made $85 that day, which is not a ton, it's not nothing. What I realized was that I now have given my card out to a bunch of people who know I'm a photographer.

Bobbi Rebell:
Right.

Paulette Perhac:
One woman was pregnant, she asked me if I do maternity photos, and then next time what I'll do is just have an A frame sign and stay in one place. Because I think that, that will be more successful, less hustling work for me. I laid down at the end of that day in the park after giving out all my cards, and I was just pooped. I felt really good. I felt like the best kind of exhausted.

Bobbi Rebell:
But you did something.

Paulette Perhac:
Yeah, I did something.

Bobbi Rebell:
You did something, like you had a problem, and you did something proactive to solve it instead of just kind of living in your panic about money.

Paulette Perhac:
Yeah, and I think self-pity is really dangerous, especially if you work in the arts, because you have to remember like I chose this life, what am I going to do about it? Sitting there and just being like, "Wheh, I don't get paid on time. Wheh, it's hard to be a writer." Not saying I never sit there, but when I'm in that space I realize that it's dangerous.

Bobbi Rebell:
Talk about the lessons that you would share with our listeners. What's the takeaway here?

Paulette Perhac:
So I think the takeaway is knowing that you don't owe a whole lot. So for me low overhead is really important. You know, it's just nice to know that my rent including utilities, is 795, I almost never feel like, "Oh I can't pay that." I also have a book coming out in August, so that's a lot of unpaid marketing work for the book.

Paulette Perhac:
So I think having that plan, like knowing like what would I do today if I needed money and just knowing, so like for example, I'm going to go to a music festival over Memorial Day and I'm going to do it again, taking music festival portraits there. I'm really excited about that, and I think it's going to get better and better, and I'm going to make more and more every time I need to do that.

Paulette Perhac:
And I think eventually I won't need to do it anymore, but it's never been too good to hustle too. Some days you got to hustle, and yeah I have a Cosmo magazine right over there with my name in it. Guess what? I have 15 bucks in my bank account like I need to hustle today.

Bobbi Rebell:
So Paulette, tell us about your money tip.

Paulette Perhac:
So my favorite secret money tip is to join a buy nothing group, which are these groups that are popping up that kind of celebrate trading, and giving and, just offering if you have anything. And so I just got a Le Creuset casserole dish on it yesterday. I got a vacuum last week, and then when I moved into my tiny place, and I had a ton of stuff to give away, I gave away a bunch of stuff. I just got a haircut this morning on the buy nothing group at a place that usually probably costs 100 bucks for a haircut.

Bobbi Rebell:
Wait, how do they make sure that people don't come on and just take, take, take.

Paulette Perhac:
You could just take, take, take. I haven't seen that problem yet. You know, I think people are willing to give. It's things that they would be giving away anyway, but I have found that the more that I get from it, the more I want to give. And people have offered financial advice, people have offered instruments, and it's just kind of this nice community, especially if you live in a big city, it's a very small area. So now I kind of know my neighbors more.

Bobbi Rebell:
So how do you find these groups?

Paulette Perhac:
So I would google buy nothing, mine is the Facebook group.

Bobbi Rebell:
Is there criteria to get in, or they just let anyone in? How is it? It sounds too good to be true.

Paulette Perhac:
I know, right? Well, I think the thing is I've been in both situations where the things that people have given me have helped me so much to get new furniture or whatever. And so then once I got from the group giving was a pleasure.

Bobbi Rebell:
Well, you're also so much part of the writer's community. You spend so much of your time and energy giving back to other writers and supporting writers. Tell us about your book that's coming out soon. It's happening.

Paulette Perhac:
So on August 15th, my book, Welcome to the Writer's life is coming out, which is everything I've learned about the writing business, the writing craft and the writing life from being in a writing community. So it's a very crowd sourced book and very much wanting to give back what I've gained from living in a creative community. And it's like freshman orientation for new writers, and a lot of people have benefited from it even if they do business writing or side writing. You don't have to be a full time writer, you just have to want to get joy out of the act of writing.

Bobbi Rebell:
And what have you learned in your years about the business of writing? In other words, you talk about how hard it is to get paid.

Paulette Perhac:
I think if you're in the arts, you are also in sales, which we don't want to say out loud, but you have your leads, you have to bring your value prop, like you have to sell your stuff, and consider yourself a business. I wish that I had said I'm starting a freelance business, rather than I'm going freelance because that's what it is. So you're not ready for operations and marketing and sales and you just get sledge hammered by the reality of like, "Oh I got to go sell today," which is like what you have to do.

Paulette Perhac:
So I've been in it like two years full-time, and I'm just now like, I have a whole share point for my writing business. I'm getting serious because I don't want to fail.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right. Miss Paulette, how can people find you and follow you and hire you most importantly?

Paulette Perhac:
Yes so send money to ... No. I'm on Twitter @Pauletteperhac. My website is fuckofffund spelled out, .com, so fuckofffund.com, and I'm on Instagram @PauletteJperhac where you can see my bank balances. Just google me and you'll find me, and I have a lot of different projects. Mostly I want to bring people who want to live creative lives. I want to help them make the creative life happen while I figure it out. That's really the thing is like I'm someone who's traditionally bad with money.

Paulette Perhac:
I'm getting better with money and want to live that creative life. I love my life. I love my day to day that this is my life and I want to make it work. So I want to help other people do it too.

Bobbi Rebell:
Well, we love watching your star rise, so thank you so much.

Paulette Perhac:
Thank you so much, Bobbi.

Bobbi Rebell:
There is so much we can all learn from Paulette. I hope you enjoyed that interview. Financial Grownup tip number one. When you are running a business or just the business of your life, keep your overhead low. Paulette lives in a very expensive city, but she makes it work by keeping those costs down and living anything but large. Her apartment, as she mentioned, is a 150 square feet. That's a closet to some people, some very fortunate people, but still some people.

Bobbi Rebell:
She also literally does not pay for things. She's in a buy nothing group. So maybe find a buy nothing group near you. What a great tip. Financial Grownup tip number two, integrate your hustle into things you're already doing. Paulette loves to go to concerts and festivals, so she brings her camera and her business cards and you know what? She makes money even while living her life. Thanks Paulette. We have our first listener episode coming up very soon in the month of June.

Bobbi Rebell:
If you want to be on the show and have a great money story to share, email us at info@financialgrownup and tell us what the story is and what your everyday money tip would be if you were to be chosen. Thank you for being part of our Financial Grownup community. If you're enjoying the show, consider leaving a rating or review. And of course hit that subscribe button to make sure you don't miss any episodes.

Bobbi Rebell:
Follow me on Twitter @Bobbirebell, on Instagram @Bobbirebell1, and by the way, thanks for the great feedback on our promo videos. If you would like one for you or for your business, share the video when you see them. We'll be making one for whoever shares the most between now and July, 1st. You could even see them by the way, on our new YouTube channel. Just search for Financial Grownup with Bobbi Rebell, and you will find it.

Bobbi Rebell:
And by the way, soon after we taped Paulette's interview, she did finally get paid by her client, so a happy ending there. A quick reminder, Paulette's book, Welcome to the Writer's Life is available for pre order, so go get it. I think it's safe to say her story successfully brought us all one step closer to being Financial Grownups. Financial Grownup with Bobbi Rebell is edited and produced by Steve Stewart and is a BRK Media production.

The Opposite of Spoiled author Ron Lieber dishes on the underground network he tapped into as a teen to ace the financial aid game- and gives a sneak peak into his next book “What to Pay for College".Plus Ron’s secret to getting hot tickets at below market prices- Including the Cubs.

In Ron’s money story you will learn:

-How Ron got the inside track on how to maximize financial aid for college

-How much Ron took out in loans for school and how long it took to pay it back

-Ron’s theory on how grownup’s can help cut through the information overload and  get to the important information

-Insight into how Ron researches his columns for the NYTimes

-The significance of Ron’s mom taking him to meet with "the guy”

In Ron’s money lesson you will learn:

-Ron’s advice on how to learn about the options to pay for college now

-The one thing you should not do that could hurt your ability to get the maximum financial aid

-Why financial aid applications have become so complicated over time

-Specific resources from Ron to learn more about how to pay for college, before his book comes out

In Ron’s money tip you will learn:

-About his love of experiences like concerts and baseball games

-How he is able to get discount tickets to events

-The specific strategy, including the timeline, that Ron uses to get the best prices on tickets

-The best ticket score Ron ever got, and why he was so excited about the show!

In My Take you will learn:

-How I went on a “Mentor Tour” a few years ago, before launching the Financial Grownup brand

-Why I agree with Ron, that consulting people who know more about something that you do, can be the best way to get an edge on a new venture, whether it is college, or launching a business. 

-The value add of an in-person conversation compared to doing internet research

-The importance of making children aware of the costs of higher education, whether or not they pay for part or all of it. 

EPISODE LINKS

Ron Lieber’s website: http://ronlieber.com

Ron’s NY Times Columns: NYTimes.com/Lieber

Get Ron’s book The Opposite of Spoiled

Learn more about Ron’s upcoming book “What to pay for college”

Resources recommended by Ron Lieber

Paying for College without going Broke by Kal Cheney

SavingforCollege.com

Follow Ron!!

Twitter @RonLieber

Instagram @ronlieber

Facebook.com/RonLieberAuthor

 

 StubHub is where Ron goes to get last minute discount tickets!

---

Transcription

Ron Lieber:
Somebody slipped us a phone number for a guy, the guy to see in the Chicago land area if you did not have enough money for college. Turns out he was the assistant director of financial aid at Northwestern University and he had this side hustle going on where every day at 5:00 p.m. after his colleagues had gone home for the night he would sort of usher you in at the side door of the financial aid office at Northwestern. You'd give him 50 bucks in cash and he would tell you all of the secrets of the financial aid system.

Bobbi Rebell:
You're listening to financial grown up with me, certified financial planner Bobbi Rebell, author of How to be a Financial Grownup and you know what being a grownup is really hard especially when it comes to money but it's OK. We're going to get there together. I'm going to bring you one money story from a financial grownup, one lesson and then my take on how you can make it your own. We've got this.

Bobbi Rebell:
Hey friends. So Ron Lieber, famous, very famous New York Time's money columnist, super nice guy, also the author of the upcoming book What to Pay for College, the best seller The Opposite of Spoiled. He knew a guy. As he describes it it was basically an underground financial aid information network. This really happened. Before we get to Ron's unbelievable story, can't believe this really happened, I do want to welcome new listeners. And of course welcome back those who are returning. The show's been growing and I'm so happy you guys are spreading the word. So thank you in advance for any more spreading the word that you do. Please tell friends about Financial Grownup if you're enjoying it. I'm also happy that you guys are enjoying the video promos that we do for each episode. A reminder if you want one for you or your business we are having a little competition. Whenever you see the video in social media, share it. Whoever shares it the most between now and July 1st I will make a customized video just for you. So a little experimental competition we're having here.

Bobbi Rebell:
And if you have a great money story, you want to be on the show, we want to hear from you. E-mail us at info at financialgrownup.com, tell us what your money story would be and what your everyday money tip would be and maybe you'll be selected to be featured on the program. We have our first listener episode coming up soon. Now to Ron Lieber. My first exposure to his writing came when I read his bestselling book The Opposite of Spoiled, Raising Kids Who Are Grounded, Generous and Smart About Money. And yes I have used his strategies in my own home. I am also now an avid fan of his New York Times column, Your Money. In it Ron sheds light on issues that touch so many of us and with real solid reporting behind it. So that's something as a journalist I really value and appreciate. He's really good at what he does and as a parent I can't wait to read his upcoming book What to Pay for College. An entirely new guide to the biggest financial decision your family will ever make. But first you get to hear this story about a guy. Here is Ron lever.

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

Ron Lieber:
Thank you for having me.

Bobbi Rebell:
We're so excited to have you. You are the author of one of my favorite books, The Opposite of Spoiled which has set the standard for so many families including my own. We have our three save/spend/give jars in our house for my 10 year old. So thank you for that. And I know you have a new project.

Ron Lieber:
Yes I'm working on a book right now called What To Pay For College which is all about when if ever it is worth paying more than whatever your flagship state university costs for a private college or an out of state public university or something else entirely.

Bobbi Rebell:
Something we all need to be thinking about. What I want to hear for your money story though is about your experience when you were younger visiting the financial aid consultant with your mom when you were a senior in high school. Tell us what happened.

Ron Lieber:
So there I was. 1988. Chicago, Illinois. Already a scholarship kid at the K to 12 private school I attended back then. We didn't know very much about financial aid, somebody slipped us a phone number for a guy, the guy to see it in the Chicago land area if you did not have enough money for college. Turns out he was the assistant director of financial aid at Northwestern University and he had this side hustle going on where every day at 5:00 p.m. after his colleagues had gone home for the night he would sort of usher you in at the side door of the financial aid office at Northwestern. You'd give him 50 bucks in cash and he would tell you all of the secrets of the financial aid system.

Bobbi Rebell:
No.

Ron Lieber:
[crosstalk 00:04:26] God forsaken FAFSA form. Yeah, he knew exactly what he was talking about. I got into college at Amherst early decision, got a fantastic financial aid package and graduated with under $10,000 in student loan debt which wasn't all that much at the time and got it paid off in 10 years.

Bobbi Rebell:
Wait, but we got to go back Ron. So what are some of the secrets that he told you?

Ron Lieber:
It was a reminder that there is always some financial grownup out there in the world who has the information that you seek and quite often if you just had the guts to pick up the phone or show up in their office maybe with a little bit of cash on the barrel that person will tell you the secrets of whatever code you're trying to crack, whatever system you're trying to beat. There is a grownup out there somewhere who can help you. And you know every time I go out and write a column for The Times I'm looking for that one financial grownup who has the answer and they're always out there somewhere.

Ron Lieber:
But the second thing and maybe the most important thing here came from the fact that my mother took me there in the first place. She could have left me at home. She might have felt anxiety about the situation we were in or ashamed that we were going to have to go hat in hand to all these schools you know asking for money. But she felt like I at the age of 17 ought to have a front row seat for that process because it was going to be my education and my debt. And I tried to remember that when I'm tempted to shield my older daughter who's now 12 from whatever financial dilemma that my family is facing. She's old enough to hear a fair bit of this and I want her to understand.

Bobbi Rebell:
Have you ever circled back to your mom and asked her why she took you in and what was going on in her mind at that time?

Ron Lieber:
You know I did a couple of years ago as I started thinking about this guy again. I actually tracked him down on the plains of Colorado where he's gone to retire from financial aid. And he remembered me and we chatted about it and he said the thing that always surprised him was when the parents came without the kid. So you know he gave my mom great credit. And you know my mom to her credit to this day you know doesn't shield me from you know any financial dilemma she's facing.

Bobbi Rebell:
How did she find this guy?

Ron Lieber:
The people at my private high school in Chicago just did not know a ton about financial aid and how it worked. But they said there's this guy. And you know it was literally a slip of paper with the guy's phone number on it, I'm not even sure there was a name and you know I just dialed the suburban Chicago area code and he picks up and he said yeah you know come to this address next Tuesday and bring me my money and we'll talk. And it was like a financial aid underground.

Bobbi Rebell:
For our listeners now in 2018, what is the lesson from that? What's the takeaway?

Ron Lieber:
I think you always have to turn over every rock and talk to every person who might have information that can help you. Don't be ashamed of the fact that you don't understand. Every single last one of these financial systems that we encounter in our daily life is complex. Often they are complex by design. Sometimes they're complex by accident right. In the case of the financial aid industry loan systems, you know layers of people over the decades have layered you know different levels of complexity onto this. All in the hope that they can help some or another student who might be disadvantaged by the last layer that was laid on right. What we end up with is you know eight student loan programs and nine different income driven repayment plans and you know two different ways the financial aid is calculated at most colleges and it's really confusing so ask for help, you know express your ignorance and demand information. Right. I mean if you're approaching a system that has a sticker price of over $300,000 now at the most expensive selective colleges. You have a right to demand more information and to get some answers so don't be sheepish about it.

Bobbi Rebell:
Are there specific resources that you would recommend?

Ron Lieber:
Well here's the problem right and the reason I'm working on What to Pay for College is that I don't actually believe that the perfect resource exists. But if you're looking for like nuts and bolts of financial aid I really like Cal Cheney's book Paying for College Without Going Broke. It's about the best book that I've seen about the financial aid system. And if you're thinking about saving for college and how to do that the book that the folks at savingforcollege.com published is quite good if you want to know about the ins and outs of 529 plans and all of the various complexities there and there are a fair number.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right well this is why we need your book. I'm going to hear more about your book in a second but I want to just get to your money tip because we talked before we started recording and you apparently have a concert ticket problem. And I think a lot of people can relate to this, especially coming into the summer, it's time we all like to go see our favorite artist. Tell us Ron.

Ron Lieber:
I'm constantly wrestling with you know how much should I spend for the possibility of you know close up literally experience that's going to make me happy. I do often snipe my way through StubHub. So instead of buying tickets you know weeks or even months ahead of time if it's something where I'm pretty sure there's still going to be a lot of tickets at the end I will wait and I will wait and I will wait until sometimes less than an hour before showtime or before play ball. You know and buy my tickets as I watch the prices fall in ten minute increments, you know every five minutes. You know that was how I saw Phish on New Year's Eve a couple of years ago for not very much at all. Of course there's always some risk involved that all the tickets will disappear. But you can watch and see. You know are there dozens left, hundreds or thousands. Right. Are the tickets disappearing quickly or not. You know you can keep track, make a little spreadsheet for yourself as you watch as the date or the hour approaches. You know but what I often see with concerts is that you know the price will start falling relatively quickly you know within a couple hours of showtime. You know then you just grab the point at which you feel comfortable paying the price. And at that point you can generally download the tickets instantly.

Bobbi Rebell:
So what's been your best score?

Ron Lieber:
I think the best score was probably those Phish tickets on New Year's Eve. Although whenever the Cubs come to town to play the Mets as they are doing in a week or so here in New York City I'll often use this method as well.

Bobbi Rebell:
Alright. So you are actually on a break from your full time job at the New York Times because you're working on your new project. Tell us more about that.

Ron Lieber:
Sure. So the book is called What To Pay For College, it will be out sometime in 2020. No pre-orders yet. You know for anybody who's interested in kind of where I'm heading with it you know you can find hints of it in the columns that I've written for The Times about higher education. You know I read a handful each year and my archive is at nytimes.com/lieber and the book questions I'm asking are born of really a half decade of observation where without anyone really noticing the rack rate at the most expensive private schools top $300,000 for four years, flagship state universities now regularly cost $100,000 dollars or more for four years. You've got a $200,000 difference between those two things. That's per child after taxes. Almost nobody can save that much money. This is insane.

Bobbi Rebell:
Wow. It is insane.

Ron Lieber:
Yeah so the question then becomes what if anything are you actually getting for that $200? And if you go asking those questions at the more expensive colleges they will look at you cross-eyed and if you ask for data to prove that the extra $200,000 is worth it and there are a lot of different ways to potentially define worth, which I'm exploring in my reporting, if you just ask that right, well why do you think it's worth it and show me some numbers right. Here we are in the era of big data where you can get a ton of information about your social plan or about your car or about the house you want to buy, you can just round in data on all that stuff. There is almost no data about what happens to you when you're at college and what happens to you afterwards. And it is my suspicion that the colleges actually like it that way because in the absence of data we make decisions on the basis of snobbery. Private is better than public.

Bobbi Rebell:
So true.

Ron Lieber:
Right, you know ivy covered walls are better than you know concrete 1970s Britos architecture. Right. So I'm going down all these rows and asking all of the impertinent questions and I'm going to have a lot to say about it very soon.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right well I'm hoping you can hook me up with a preview sometime soon because I will need to read that. I've got kids in college so I am very excited about this new project. Where can people find you and learn more about what you're writing in the meantime?

Ron Lieber:
Sure. Www.ronlieber.com, there's a big fat contact button for anybody who has a story to share about how they and their family decided what they should pay for college.

Bobbi Rebell:
And on social media?

Ron Lieber:
@RonLieber all over the place, you know on Twitter, on Instagram and the Facebook community that I run on parenting and money is at Facebook.com, Ron Lieber author.

Bobbi Rebell:
Awesome, thank you so much Ron. This has been amazing.

Ron Lieber:
It was a pleasure.

Bobbi Rebell:
So Ron's sincerity is contagious and his book is definitely needed. As he mentioned he wants to hear from all of you about your experiences. So share yours with him, as he said all the info is at his Web site, ronlieber.com. Here's my take on what Ron shared with us. Financial grownup tip number one. As Ron said, there is a grownup there who can help you. Don't be afraid to reach out to older and/or more experienced people for help. Yes, the internet does have a lot of information but not always context. Sometimes just getting the scoop from a person, someone, who's got the dirt on whatever you need to know can be really meaningful, they can cut through a lot of the junk out there. Ask someone, call someone you know, ask someone who they would recommend that you talk to, set a meeting.

Bobbi Rebell:
When I was figuring out what I wanted to do after years of being a television anchor I went on what I jokingly called a mentor tour, setting up face to face meetings with anyone I admired who would generously give me their time and asking them who else I should talk to. And trust me mo internet research can take the place of the kind of information download that you can get from sitting face to face with somebody and asking them what they think, what their experience has been and what they think you should do. People are generous so take advantage of that. That will be good.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right. Financial grownup tip number two. Ron points out the significance of the fact that his mom took him with her to meet the guy. Ron learned that financial aid wasn't going to just appear. He knew that he was a stakeholder in the process and he appreciated the money that much more. We all want to shield our kids from the reality of our financial fragility but if we can get past our egos we do them a service by keeping them in the loop and making them aware of what it really takes to pay for college.

Bobbi Rebell:
Thanks to all of you for spending part of your day with us. We make these podcasts relatively short to fit into your busy schedule but also so you can listen to a few in a row when it makes sense like during your commute, if you're watching your kids do an activity or just chilling out and you want to listen to a little bit more. You can listen to three or four at a time, make 45 minutes, listen to four, it could be an hour. Whatever works for you. The goal is to make it fit in with what you're doing and fit your life. If you enjoy the show please help us grow. We need you. Tell a friend, write a review on Apple Podcasts and follow us on social media. I am @BobbiRebell on Twitter, BobbiRebell1 on Instagram and Bobbi Rebell on Facebook. Ron's new book can't come soon enough but I'm glad he gave us a sneak peek. And by the way also a great strategy for discount tickets so thanks Ron for getting us all one step closer to being financial grownups.

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

After an early divorce set Kayla Sloan on an emotional spending binge and into debt, she discovered she could help herself, by working behind the scenes helping a growing market of entrepreneurs- and then becoming one herself.  

In Kayla’s money story you will learn:

-How her marriage, at age 19, had on her financial behavior

-The way Kayla’s desire to spend, contrasted with her husband’s push to save money, and the conflicts that resulted from those differences. 

-Kayla’s emotional spending after the marriage ended after less than a year

-How Kayla managed the cash flow challenges once she was divorced

-The moment she realized she had hit rock bottom, with $10,000 in credit card debt and just $3 in her banking account

-How her total debt moved into six figures by age 21

-The solution she found, that has morphed into a successful entrepreneurial venture

-What virtual assistants do, and how entrepreneurs can tap into that resource

In Kayla’s lesson you will learn:

-How simply filling up her time with an exciting new venture was enough of a distraction to stop the emotional spending

-How Kayla came up with specific ideas for slashing her debt, and what were the most effective techniques

-Why Kayla also prioritized increasing her income, so she would still be able to enjoy responsible spending

In Kayla’s money tip you will learn:

-Why you should not save your fancy stuff (if you have it) for special occasions

-How she made the most of all the fancy wedding presents she did not use during her marriage, including appliances

-How to avoid buying new things, when you already have things in your home that can get the job done, even if they are not what is conventionally expected

-How to tell if you need a virtual assistant, and how to get yourself ready to onboard a VA. 

In My Take you will learn:

-How to learn the value of your time, and decide if you should outsource aspects of your business

-Where to get fancy stuff to use if you did not get it as a gift for a wedding or special occassion like Kayla. 

Episode links:

kaylasloan.com

Twitter @kaylarsloan

Instagram @kaylarsloan

Facebook @krsloan

Kayla's course on How to be a Virtual Assistant and Make $10k a Month

You can buy vintage dinnerware, crystal, silver and other collectables at places like Replacements.com, Chairish.com and even TheRealReal.com

  

After an early divorce set Kayla Sloan on an emotional spending binge and into debt, she discovered she could help herself, by working behind the scenes helping a growing market of entrepreneurs- and then becoming one herself. In this Financial Grownup podcast episode you'll learn how you can tell when you need a virtual assistant. #Entrepreneur #VirtualAssistant #Debt

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Transcription

Announcer:
Support for Financial Grownup with Bobbi Rebell and the following message come from TransferWise, the cheaper way to send money internationally. TransferWise takes a machete to the hefty fees that come with sending money abroad. Test it out for free at transferwise.com/podcast or download the app.

Kayla Sloan:
I went into total rebellion mode. I adopted a pet kitten. I went to the mall during every spare moment I had when I wasn't working or in class, and racked up about $10,000 in credit card debt and had only about $3 in my bank account.

Bobbi Rebell:
You're listening to Financial Grownup with me, certified financial planner Bobbi Rebell, author of How to Be a Financial Grownup. And you know what? Being a grownup is really hard, especially when it comes to money. But it's okay. We're going to get there together. I'm going to bring you one money story from a financial grownup, one lesson, and then my take on how you can make it your own. We got this.

Bobbi Rebell:
What to know more about how those super successful entrepreneurs pull off their busy schedules? Well, there's usually someone called a virtual assistant behind the scenes keeping everything going. Stay tuned to learn more about how our guest tapped into that need to pull herself out of an emotional spending cycle.

Bobbi Rebell:
First, a couple of announcements. We are having a little competition here. It is about the video promos that you see on social media letting everyone know about the episodes. We've gotten amazing feedback about them and people asking how can they get one. So if you want one for your business or just for yourself, share them, retweet them, repost them between now and July 1st. Whoever does it the most, we will declare you the winner and we will make you a promo for your business or just for you.

Bobbi Rebell:
Also, we want to welcome the new listeners here and thank returning listeners. So glad you are joining us. We keep the podcast short, usually around 15 minutes. The idea is that we're all really busy and sometimes we only have little bursts where we can listen to a podcast, maybe we're running a quick errand, so we want to make it easy for you. And then, of course, if you have more time -- if you commute or you're running around town and want to listen to podcasts while you're doing other things throughout the day -- you can binge listen to three, four, five episodes for an hour or so and enjoy it that way. So whatever works for you, we're all about being flexible and fitting into your lifestyle.

Bobbi Rebell:
Now to our fantastic guest. She is tapping into a growing market need, entrepreneurs who need just the right amount of help but without the commitment of hiring someone -- usually in-person, full-time, where they have to get office space for and so on -- because the growing class of often solo entrepreneurs just need a little help sometimes for a project, sometimes a little longer. Kayla Sloan discovered she had a unique talent for tapping into this demand when she found herself with just $3 in her bank account and growing pile of debt, and needed to find a way out. Here is Kayla Sloan. Hey, Kayla Sloan. You're a Financial Grownup. Welcome to the podcast.

Kayla Sloan:
Thanks for having me.

Bobbi Rebell:
I am excited to have you on because you have tapped into a niche that is so cool in this ever-emerging gig economy because you help entrepreneurs.

Kayla Sloan:
Yes, I am a consultant in the virtual assistant space, and not only do I train people who want to become virtual assistants, but I also work with business owners who are in need of a virtual assistant. So I help them identify what they can outsource so they can up-level their businesses and find a great virtual assistant that can help them get there.

Bobbi Rebell:
Genius. All right, so let's talk about your money story. Sadly, it is something so many of us can relate to, and that is going through things like a divorce, broken relationships, and the financial impact that they can have. In your case, you had $3 in the bank. You basically started emotionally shopping, but that was in reaction to what was going on in the marriage. Tell us more.

Kayla Sloan:
So this story really started when I was about 19-years old. I got married very young and went off to college. I was attending school and he was working, so I wasn't really earning very much money at that time. I had a student internship that paid about $10 an hour is all. And so since he was earning the majority of the money, it really felt like I needed to ask permission whenever I wanted to spend money on anything. Since he was a saver and I was a spender, there was always a lot of conflict around money in our relationship. At the time, I really felt as if I couldn't purchase anything without asking permission, which is never a fun feeling, especially if you are a spender. So fast forward a few months and we actually ended up getting divorced.

Bobbi Rebell:
The marriage was less than a year, right?

Kayla Sloan:
Yes, just under a year. And we had no kids or property to split up, thank goodness, because that would have made it much more difficult I'm sure. I've talked to a lot of friends who've been in that situation. Anyway, we split up and luckily I was able to take the assets with me that I had brought into the marriage; it's just my vehicle, household belongings, things like that. And even my retirement account was intact.

Bobbi Rebell:
So this is interesting. So you were actually in okay financial shape when the marriage actually split up.

Kayla Sloan:
Yes. I really didn't end up that bad off. I was kind of struggling to pay the bills with an immediate cashflow because of only working part-time and suddenly having to pay the rent by myself.

Bobbi Rebell:
But then the trouble came with this emotional shopping, which was really ... This is interesting. It was reactive to the fact that he was so controlling with your finances during the marriage, so then you went the other way.

Kayla Sloan:
Yes, I went the absolute other way. I went into total rebellion mode. I adopted a pet kitten. I went to the mall during every spare moment I had when I wasn't working or in class, and racked up about $10,000 in credit card debt and had only about $3 in my bank account.

Bobbi Rebell:
Oh, my goodness. And of course, then comes graduation time and there's even more debt, correct?

Kayla Sloan:
Yes. Graduation brings on more debt for most people. As you and I both know, student loans are a huge problem. I was lucky in only having about $8,000 of student loans when I graduated, making a total of $18,000. But then I turned right around at age 21, right after graduating, and bought a house for $120,000, so I really was feeling that financial pinch after I graduated.

Bobbi Rebell:
So total debt ... I'm trying to do the math here. $140,000?

Kayla Sloan:
Yeah, pretty close. Pretty close.

Bobbi Rebell:
At age 21, with income of about 10 bucks an hour still?

Kayla Sloan:
At that time, I did land a full-time job after graduation, so my take home salary was probably about $25,000 plus benefits.

Bobbi Rebell:
What I like about this story is that you turned things around basically by starting to think like an entrepreneur. So tell us, fill us in on the rest of what happened.

Kayla Sloan:
Yeah. So I started looking for ways to earn extra income and stumbled upon the world of freelance writing and virtual assistant work. And virtual assistants are basically people who work behind the scenes and help entrepreneurs grow and maintain their businesses. And so I started doing this because I love organizing things and helping people create systems, and really working through some of those problems that entrepreneurs typically struggle with. And after doing it on the side for about 12 months, I was earning the same amount from my part-time business as I was making at my full-time job. So I actually quit my job.

Bobbi Rebell:
Love that. And now you are growing that into a full-blown consulting firm, which is amazing and something that so many entrepreneurs really need these days.

Kayla Sloan:
Yes. I am so excited about this. So I started training people who wanted to be virtual assistants, but then I realized there was a need on the other side for connecting entrepreneurs with those virtual assistants. I find that a lot of business owners struggle with finding someone they can trust, someone who's already trained and knows how to step in and get to work, and so that's where I try to fill that void.

Bobbi Rebell:
Let's talk about what the lesson is for our listeners from this story because you basically were able to stop the emotional spending and then turn that into your motivation to start your own business and basically control your income flow. So what is the lesson for our listeners? And especially, how do you stop that emotional shopping?

Kayla Sloan:
Oh my gosh, stopping the emotional shopping can be so, so hard. But for me it was really about finding something else to fill up my free time, which ended up being my business.

Bobbi Rebell:
So it all came together. So for listeners, what can they do? After shopping, shopping, shopping, how do you come up with something? Do you have a technique? Is it just surfing the internet? What was it that got you this idea?

Kayla Sloan:
Yeah. My first ideas did come from surfing the internet. I did some of those classic things like cutting up the credit cards and putting the rest on ice and all of those kinds of things. And they sound crazy, but they work.

Bobbi Rebell:
So you did those things, and then you just decided that you had to up your income?

Kayla Sloan:
You know, you can only be so frugal. There's only so many things you can cut from your budget, especially if you start to feel deprived. And as a spender, I liked to spend money. I liked my lifestyle, so I decided that I also had to find a way to increase my income because I didn't want to cut anything else from my budget.

Bobbi Rebell:
So your money tip has to do actually with kind of a splurge with things that you already have, which actually is very relatable for many people who get divorced and have a lot of wedding presents that maybe are still unopened, not that I would know anything about that kind of thing. But a lot of times, we get fancy stuff for our weddings or graduations or all kinds of special occasions, and then it just sits there because there's never an occasion that's good enough for this stuff.

Kayla Sloan:
Exactly. That's exactly what I found was, I was going through my divorce, I had all these beautiful that I had received for my wedding, and since I was super broke I didn't have any money to spend. So my tip and the way I that I decided to treat myself, rather than spending is that I started using things I already had. So instead of saving my nice dishes that I got for my wedding and using cheap ones every day, I decided I was going to just use the pretty ones. They make me feel happy.

Bobbi Rebell:
And why not? We're all so busy saving for these magical events that are going to happen, and then we don't ever use all this stuff that we have.

Kayla Sloan:
Exactly. And it just sits there and collects dust, and there's no point in that.

Bobbi Rebell:
So what are some other examples of things that you used that people can relate to?

Kayla Sloan:
I said my nice dishes, and then I also used all of those kitchen appliances that never get brought out. And I decided I was going to make some of my favorite meals instead of saving them for a special occasion or saving them when I had guests over and things like that. I'm a big foodie, so those are probably two of the biggest things for me.

Bobbi Rebell:
Let me ask you just quickly, how do people know if they need a virtual assistant? Because I think that's something that confuses people, is where is the tipping point where you're at the point where you need somebody, and are there certain things to look for?

Kayla Sloan:
Yes. So the first sign that you need a virtual assistant is that things start slipping through the cracks. If you find yourself as an entrepreneur or business owner with more things to do than time to do them, then you definitely need to bring someone on. For entrepreneurs, it can be difficult because you don't want to bring someone on and get stuck paying them if you have busy seasons and slow seasons, so a virtual assistant can really help fill that void because you can kind of pay as you go; pay for a certain number of hours per month, and then if you have extra work, you can buy some more. So it's a lot easier than hiring an employee for a set number of hours no matter what.

Bobbi Rebell:
And what are some specific things that people can outsource to a VA?

Kayla Sloan:
A lot of people start with social media because they find that social media is something that takes up a lot of their time and can easily be outsourced to a virtual assistant. I know a lot of other things are blog post research; sometimes they'll bring on someone to do outlines and things like that. And then also a lot of people who have podcasts use virtual assistants, hint hint.

Bobbi Rebell:
For what kinds of things?

Kayla Sloan:
They will help with show note creation, transcription. They can help with, again, social media when it comes to your podcast as well, so a lot of different things.

Bobbi Rebell:
And what do VAs typically run? What's the range that people would expect to pay?

Kayla Sloan:
For a U.S.-based virtual assistant -- which I think is important to make that clarification -- you're probably going to be looking at as little as $15, but probably as much as $40 or more if you have someone who's very experienced.

Bobbi Rebell:
Tell us more about where people can find you and the kind of things that you are doing, and how people can use your services.

Kayla Sloan:
Sure. My main website is at kaylasloan.com, and that is where you can find out more information about how to work with me to get connected with a virtual assistant. Or if you're wanting to be a virtual assistant, we can connect there as well. And I'm also all over social media.

Bobbi Rebell:
And your handles?

Kayla Sloan:
Are all the same: @kayla-r-sloan.

Bobbi Rebell:
Kayla R. Sloan, very important. Well, thank you so much, Kayla Sloan. This has been absolutely wonderful, and congratulations on your growing business.

Kayla Sloan:
Thank you so much. I hope you have a great day.

Bobbi Rebell:
Hey friends, so here's my take. I love what Kayla is doing for entrepreneurs and for the virtual assistants that are so important to their success. Financial Grownup tip number one: consider outsourcing. Whether or not you are an entrepreneur, think about the value of your time. If you're running a business, maybe you're running a household, consider the best use of your time. Outsourcing may be hiring a babysitter if you're a parent trying to grow a business from home, or if you're an entrepreneur trying to do everything. Sometimes you're better off doubling down on your strength, say sales, or anything that directly has to do with your clients, and it may make sense to have a VA do things that are more administrative in nature, like the billing. Weigh the cost. The great thing about a VA is that you can often hire them on a project basis, so you're not locked in the way you would be if you hired a full-time assistant.

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup tip number two: I love Kayla's money tip to use what you have, even if it's super fancy. But here's my tip if you don't have all that fancy stuff but want to have the fancy stuff and maybe don't have the budget or want to spend the money to go and buy it in the store. You see all that fancy wedding gifts like China and crystal, well a lot of people don't really want it, or they inherited it and they want to sell it, they get rid of it, they just don't use it. So you can often get great stuff, fancy stuff, far less than the everyday stuff if you know where to look. Who doesn't like to feel fancy, right?

Bobbi Rebell:
So some sites to check out: Replacements.com -- they sell vintage and current dinnerware, crystal, silver, and other collectables. Also take a look at Chairish, like sitting on a chair, chairish.com. You can find vintage dinnerware at really amazing prices. They sell a ton of other stuff, including chairs, but also other furniture and vintage stuff; really nice stuff. I spotted a vintage Hermes dinner plate set that retailed for $2,000 and it was down to just 950 bucks. The Real Real, which is known for selling designer handbags and clothing, they also -- a lot of people don't realize this -- they also have things like dishes and serving stuff; high-end names like George Jensen, Tiffany, Vernadeau, all at massive discounts. So check those out if you like the higher end stuff instead of going for the everyday stuff that you may see in, whatever, the mall stores. I don't want to name names, but the everyday stores. You guys know what I'm talking about.

Bobbi Rebell:
Thanks to all of you for being part of our growing Financial Grownup community. If you're enjoying the show, consider leaving a rating and even a review on Apple podcasts. I know it seems like it's going to be really difficult, but it only takes a couple of minutes and it is really appreciated, and makes a big difference in helping other people discover the show. And of course, hit that subscribe button to make sure you don't miss any upcoming episodes.

Bobbi Rebell:
Please follow me on Twitter @bobbirebell, on Instagram @bobbirebell1; you can also DM me there. And then don't forget, if you want a custom video like the promos that we do for the show, join the competition. Share the videos when you see them. You can even see them now on the YouTube channel that we have set up, so just search for Financial Grownup with Bobbi Rebell, that channel on YouTube, and you can see the promos there and check them out that way.

Bobbi Rebell:
We have our first listener episode coming up in June. If you want to be on the show and have a great money story to share, email us info@financialgrownup.com. Tell us what money story you would share, and what everyday money tip you would like to share with our audience, and we will be in touch if you are chosen.

Bobbi Rebell:
Thank you to Kayla Sloan for sharing her story. We'll be watching how her business grows along with all the entrepreneurs that she is working with. So thank you, Kayla, for helping us all get one step closer to being Financial Grownup.

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

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

In Tina’s money story you will learn: 

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

-Why the art meant so much to Tina

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

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

-What inspired Tina to start collecting art as a teenager

-How the art now has multi-generational significance

In Tina’s money lesson you will learn:

-The importance of commemorating milestones in life

-Creative ways to marking important moments including crowdsourcing

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

In Tina’s money tip you will learn:

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

-The specific things tina’s grandmother would say

-Tina’s philosophy of never being afraid to ask

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

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

In my take you will learn:

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

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

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

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

EPISODE LINKS:

Learn more about Brandless on their website: Brandless.com

Follow Tina and Brandless!

Instagram: @tinasharkey @brandlesslife

Twitter @Tinasharkey @brandless

Facebook: Tina Sharkey  Brandlesslife

 

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

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

As Tina mentioned, her art hangs at museums including Moma

 

---

Transcription

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

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

Bobbi Rebell:
You're listening to Financial Grownup with me, certified financial planner Bobbi Rebell. Author of How to Be a Financial Grownup. You know what? Being a grownup is really hard, especially when it comes to money, but it's okay, we're going to get there together. I'm going to bring you one money story from a financial grownup, one lesson, and then my take on how you can make it your own. We got this.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Entrepreneur and influencer Amanda Abella found out she was underpaid and often overlooked. But when she started playing hardball in negotiations with a really big potential client, she and her agent did not get the response they expected. 

 

In Amanda’s money story you will learn:

-All the things Amanda does to have multiple income streams tied to her own personal brand

-The challenges Amanda faced after graduating from college during the recession

-How her first job laid the groundwork for her current career as an entrepreneur

-How she and her agent planned for their negotiation with a potential client

-The pivotal decision that grew her brand ambassador asking rate almost 7 times over by focusing on her unique skillset

-What is a rate sheet, and what brand ambassadors do for clients

-How Amanda researched what was a new market/line of work for her business

-If Amanda has any regrets or things she would do differently in hindsight

In Amanda’s lesson you will learn:

-How she battles her nerves in high stakes negotiations

-Why the number of social media followers are less important than many people believe

-How to get brand partnerships by knowing what matters most to them

In Amanda’s money tip you will learn:

-How to find out about unpromoted discounts at restaurants and fitness clubs like SoulCycle

-How much you can save by using them, even if they are not advertised

-Amanda’s favorite places to get discounts and freebies

-What Amanda got for free recently at SoulCycle

-Why Amanda keeps getting water bottles

In My Take you will learn:

-How to asses what you bring to the market, to better negotiate higher rates

-What to do if you don’t currently have skills that add value to, and command a premium from, the clients you want to attract

-Tips to be more confident in a negotiation

-How the power poses, recommended by Amy Cuddy can give you an instant confidence boost when you really need it

EPISODE LINKS

Amanda’s website: amandaabella.com

Amanda’s podcast

Amanda’s course on becoming an influencer

Follow Amanda!

Twitter @amandaabella

Instagram- make sure to check out her feed AND stories: @amandaabella

Facebook Amanda Abella

Soulcycle.com where Amanda loves to get free stuff!

Check out Amy Cuddy’s Ted Talk!

 

---

Transcription

Speaker 1:
Support for Financial Grownup with Bobbi Rebell and the following message come from TransferWise, the cheaper way to send money internationally. TransferWise takes a machete to the hefty fees that come with sending money abroad. Test it out for free at transferwise.com/podcast or download the app.

Speaker 2:
We went to the table with this very high number expecting them to push back on it and they didn't. Not even one peep. Not one question, not one push back. They were just like OK sign on the dotted line.

Bobbi Rebell:
Your listening to Financial Grownup with me, certified financial planner Bobbi Rebell, author of How to be a Financial Grownup and you know what being a grown up is really hard especially when it comes to money. But it's OK. We're going to get there together. I'm going to bring you one money story from a financial grownup, one lesson and then my take on how you can make it your own. We've got this.

Bobbi Rebell:
If you like making money and want to know how to make more and ideally from different sources you are in the right place with our guests. Before we get to her though we've been getting a lot of new listeners so I want to just welcome all of you to the show and of course thank you so much to our returning listeners. So glad you are here. And if you have friends or family that you think would enjoy the show please tell them about it. Also the video promos everyone is asking about. So glad you guys like them. If you want one for your business or just for you we're having a little competition. I'm going to make one for a listener. All you have to do is share the promo videos on social media, starting now until July 1st whoever shares the most wins. I will announce the winner the first week in July.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right. Now to my friend and guest Amanda Abella. Besides the fact that for some reason her Instagram stories seem to be more entertaining than most TV shows she's hard to label because she does as she says all the things. Amanda is all about multiple income streams. She has a book Make Money or Honey, an award winning blog. She has been a brand ambassador for big names like Capitol One and [Into It 00:02:05]. She teaches millennials how to be entrepreneurs and influencers just like her and she will soon be bringing back her popular podcast. Here is Amanda Abella.

Bobbi Rebell:
Amanda Abella, you are a financial grownup, welcome to the podcast.

Amanda Abella:
Hi. Thanks for having me. I'm so psyched to be here.

Bobbi Rebell:
And we've got to hang out and get to know each other recently at the Statement event in upstate New York. That was awesome.

Amanda Abella:
It was so much fun. I needed that so bad. You have no idea.

Bobbi Rebell:
I think we all did. I learned a lot about you. I mean you do all the things Amanda. All the things.

Amanda Abella:
Yeah all the things, literally all the things. I like my money coming from different places.

Bobbi Rebell:
Yes, multiple revenue streams, you're an entrepreneur, you're an author, your bestselling book is Make Money or Honey. And you also have an amazing social media feed that we were all gushing over at the retreat, especially your Insta Stories. You also are an influencer, you even have a course on how to be an influencer and you're a brand ambassador.

Amanda Abella:
Yup I literally do all the things.

Bobbi Rebell:
All the things.

Amanda Abella:
Yeah. What happened with me was you know I graduated during the recession and I just kind of learned really early on to always have your money coming from different places and then I was a recruiter for two years and I interviewed people who lost their jobs all the time. So I was like you always need to have multiple sources of income because if one thing doesn't work out like you get fired, well you still have money coming in from this other place so it started as a survival mechanism and now it's just a wealth building strategy.

Bobbi Rebell:
Wise words my friend. And one of your multiple income streams that is growing is your brand ambassador business. And that brings us to your money story that has to do with a big new client that almost wasn't as big as you wanted it to be. Tell us.

Amanda Abella:
Yeah so what happened there was I started getting approached a lot more for brand ambassador work. And first of all I had no idea how much money you could make doing this stuff because I was just having so much fun. I didn't know what the market rates were. I didn't know how to negotiate these situations. I didn't know anything about the contracts. But I started getting approached for this kind of work. So I went to go find myself an agent because I was like I need help. And the agent trained me a little bit on what to do in the meetings and all those kinds of things. And we were negotiating with this really big client. It was the first time I was going to do something of that magnitude and we were trying to figure out my rate sheet.

Bobbi Rebell:
What kind of business was the client in? Can you tell us anything about it?

Amanda Abella:
Financial software.

Bobbi Rebell:
Okay.

Amanda Abella:
So we were trying to figure out my rate sheet for all the different deliverables and things like that because that's how green I was right, like I didn't even have a rate sheet.

Bobbi Rebell:
What kind of deliverables would be on the rate sheet?

Amanda Abella:
You know media appearances, social media posts, blog posts, e-mail blasts, Twitter chats, all that type of stuff, all the different things that they ask you to do. I was so green I didn't even have a rate sheet for these things. And we were trying to figure that out at the same time while negotiating with this particular client.

Bobbi Rebell:
Where do you even start? Is there some kind of a standard place you can go and get that information?

Amanda Abella:
So what really helped me was asking a lot of my friends who were already doing that kind of work. And that's actually how I found out that for many years I have been low balling myself just because I didn't know, like I had no idea. I had no idea I could get paid what they were getting paid and then also one of those friends is the one who connected me with my agent and my agent who has been doing this for a very long time she kind of schooled me on how much money I was leaving on the table. So that was really helpful for me too. So that's how I found out personally.

Amanda Abella:
So what was going on was when we were trying to figure out the rate sheet we were trying to figure out the numbers and I went pretty high on this client to the point where my agent who you know she was doing her job. She's coming from many years of experience was like are you sure you want to do that because you're still pretty green, like do you want to go that high. And I thought to myself well you know what I may be green in terms of working on these big campaigns but I've got plenty of years of blogging experience. I have a pretty big social media following, they're pretty engaged. I'm bilingual. You know I bring things to the table that they need. So let's just go high and see what happens. She agreed. So we went to the table with this very high number expecting them to push back on it and they didn't.

Bobbi Rebell:
Wow.

Amanda Abella:
Not even one peep, not one question, not one push back. They were just like OK sign on the dotted line.

Bobbi Rebell:
So but here is the question Amanda. Knowing what you know now would you have gone higher?

Amanda Abella:
Well I was already pretty high for me. I mean my agent was to the point where she was like congratulations you just gave yourself a bonus of thousands of dollars for this kind of work. Good job negotiating that one. So I thought about that and for this particular client no because that was already super high for me to begin with. But-

Bobbi Rebell:
How much of a percentage higher was it than you kind of thought you were getting or that you were getting before?

Amanda Abella:
It was way more than double. It was like six or seven times more what I was getting previously.

Bobbi Rebell:
Whoa. OK. I'm sorry go on.

Amanda Abella:
So then having learned from that experience which was also my first experience like being in those meetings with an agent and learning those sort of nuances when you're in those situations with PR teams and things like that it was definitely a real lesson and you know confidence sells. Number one. And number two, fake it till you make it if you have to.

Bobbi Rebell:
But you actually came, you weren't really faking it because it sounds like when you went to them you had very specific reasons why you were worth what you were asking.

Amanda Abella:
Yeah but it doesn't mean I wasn't nervous.

Bobbi Rebell:
Of course.

Amanda Abella:
I think people think that you walk into these situations and you're like fearless and you're not, you're just pretending not to be fearless which is where the confidence comes in. But you're right I did have specific experience and specific angles and specific things that I knew they wanted for this specific campaign and I definitely used it to my advantage. And like I said my agent agreed. So you know on the mere fact that I was bilingual I can get more money just because I'm bilingual and living in a city like Miami where everybody is bilingual I forget that that's actually a really valuable asset that I could get paid a lot more money for.

Bobbi Rebell:
So what is the lesson for our listeners who may not all be social media all stars and brand influencers, brand ambassadors, how can they apply this to their own lives?

Amanda Abella:
I think it's realizing that there is a lot of talk about the influence that you have in the social media numbers. They're really not that important. One of the things my students tell me all the time is I had no idea that I could get that kind of work with 3000 followers on my Instagram feed or a thousand people on an email list. They all go into my program assuming that they need you know tens of thousands or 100000 followers to get really good brand partnerships and what they don't realize is that brand partnerships are looking more for unique angles and engagement more than they're looking for the actual numbers. Because I mean you could pay to get followers and brands know it.

Bobbi Rebell:
Alright. I want to move on to your money tip because this one is going to be a huge hit with our listeners. I love it because you're going to spill some secrets for us. What's your money tip Amanda?

Amanda Abella:
So my secret is all about the rewards programs that restaurants are really bad at marketing.

Bobbi Rebell:
Therefore they are secrets, they're sort of open secrets that nobody knows about.

Amanda Abella:
So if you frequent certain places and certain restaurants, I've noticed it's definitely more with the chain restaurants. A lot of times they have apps and on those apps they have rewards programs or loyalty programs or referral programs. So for example I go to a specific juice bar pretty often after I work out. I learned recently that they had an app where I could get like 10 percent off my [inaudible 00:10:13]after spending a certain amount or if I refer friends I get three dollars off my next juice. I had no idea because they hadn't actually like said anything to me, I just happened to see a, I saw a little thing on the napkin holder and then a friend also told me he was like you don't know that they have an app.

Bobbi Rebell:
That's so random.

Amanda Abella:
So my tip is not only to use the apps and find them but ask to see if they're even available because like I said they don't necessarily do a really good job of telling their customers that these things exist. Unless you're Starbucks.

Bobbi Rebell:
Yes, Starbucks is pretty aggressive about promoting their app. But other companies maybe not so. And if you take the time just like with so many of the money tips that we talk about here if you take the time to focus and learn about these programs, ask about them, you will benefit.

Amanda Abella:
Yep, it's all about asking.

Bobbi Rebell:
So what's the best deal you've ever gotten through an app?

Amanda Abella:
Hmm well I'm getting 10 percent off my [inaudible 00:11:07]now. So that's pretty good.

Bobbi Rebell:
Okay. Pretty good.

Amanda Abella:
Yeah I'm kind of addicted to them to be honest so I would say that's the best one although I would say probably my best deals have been through the Soul Cycle app.

Bobbi Rebell:
Oh OK.

Amanda Abella:
Yeah. So I do Soul Cycle. You know if you sign up for like certain challenges, if you're working out already anyway, you sign up for certain challenges or certain themed rides or they'll have certain promotions going on. Like I walked in yesterday and they gave me like a bag of free stuff because I'm partaking in this certain challenge and I've been tracking it you know on the app and then once I get to a certain amount of rides which the app tracks then I get a free ride. So that's probably the one that has saved me the most money because Soul Cycle is not cheap.

Bobbi Rebell:
Wait, can we just back up here because I really want to hear about the free stuff. What was in the free stuff bag from Soul Cycle?

Amanda Abella:
Yeah. So I got a bag. I got like a top to work out in. I got a water bottle. People just keep giving me water bottles lately, I have a whole collection of them.

Bobbi Rebell:
Yeah water bottles are, we got water bottles on the retreat.

Amanda Abella:
Yeah. I was joking with my roommate I was like I lose one water bottle and require another four no matter-

Bobbi Rebell:
I know, I know. I am very excited about the Soul Cycle free stuff though. You have delivered, that alone Amanda, you scored. I want to talk about you because one of the things that happened on the retreat was you made a decision to pick something up that I loved. I loved your podcast and I'm so happy that you're going to bring it back.

Amanda Abella:
Yeah so I'm bringing my podcast back after much deliberation and I really want to thank Statement and all the women who attended it and all the tips you gave me Bobbi because I've been studying your podcast since I got back.

Bobbi Rebell:
Thank you.

Amanda Abella:
I was like Bobbi is on point. Bobbi knows what she's doing. I'm going to take some notes.

Bobbi Rebell:
Thank you.

Amanda Abella:
So I'm bringing my podcast back. It's coming back in July and it's going to alternate between solo episodes where I'm answering a lot of my audience questions about you know business, online marketing, negotiating, making money, all those types of things and then I'm also going to be bringing on a lot of guests so a lot of the women who were at the retreat have actually already signed up to be on the podcast so I'll be interviewing them. It will be a lot of fun and I'm trying to really bring as much diversity as I can to the conversation. So a lot of women, a lot of people of color. I'm Latina so that's something that really matters to me. One of the things I've heard so much from people is how sometimes it's hard for them to really relate to a lot of the mainstream financial advice that's out there because these people just you know either don't look like them or don't have the same experience as them. So I'm trying to bring as much diversity to the conversation as I can.

Bobbi Rebell:
Well thank you for that. I'm working on that here too. So I think we are hopefully on a good path with all that. Where can people find you, especially your Insta Stories which we're all obsessed with.

Amanda Abella:
Yeah my Insta Stories are a lot of fun. You guys can go watch me freak out over seeing snow for the first time on my Insta. Bobby was there for that. So you could go to Amanda Abella. That's my Twitter and my Instagram, I'm all over those all day long. You could also go to my Web site amandaabella.com or you could find my podcast, previous episodes of my podcast. So they're on iTunes, Stitcher, I Heart Radio, Spotify, YouTube, just search make money or honey or my name.

Bobbi Rebell:
Thank you Amanda.

Amanda Abella:
Thanks so much for having me.

Bobbi Rebell:
Hey friends, so here's my take on what Amanda had to say. Financial grownup tip number one. Take a moment and write down the skills that you have that are unique, things you can use as leverage to get more money in a negotiation. So in Amanda's case one thing that she is is Latina, she's also bilingual. If you can't think of something, become something. Learn a skill that will set you apart from others. Invest in yourself in a specific intentional way that will give you a foundation to command higher compensation. Focus on the skills that are most in demand but still hard to find in your field.

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial grownup tip number two. Amanda talked about the fact that confidence sells and that you have to sell yourself. She did OK when she waited for businesses to come to her but her business really took off when she took control and became proactive. Find a way to appear confident even if you're having jitters inside like Amanda admits she sometimes does. If you need to just leave the room to gather your thoughts if you're getting nervous during a negotiation. Maybe do some power poses. Look up a TED talk by a woman named Amy Cuddy. I'll put it in the show notes and you will see what I mean. I've done it myself and it really works.

Bobbi Rebell:
We have our first listener episode coming up in June. If you want to be on the show and have a great money story to share email us at info@financialgrownup.com and tell us what story you want to share and what your everyday money tip would be if you are chosen. Thank you all for being part of our financial grownup community. If you enjoy the show consider leaving a rating and review on Apple podcasts and of course hit that subscribe button to make sure you don't miss any episodes. Follow me on Twitter @BobbiRebell. On Instagram I am @BobbiRebell1. Don't forget to DM me with your feedback about the show. I love hearing from everyone.

Bobbi Rebell:
And also if you want a custom video like the promos that we do for the show join the competition. Share the videos when you see them on social media. Retweet, repost and so on. You can even see them by the way on YouTube now. We will pick a winner by July 1st. So look for us to move forward in early July. Amanda is amazing. I'm excited for her podcast to come back so make sure to watch her social channels for updates on that. Great episode. And thank you Amanda for giving us the confidence to ask for what we deserve and sometimes even more than we think we can get. Helping us all get one step closer to being financial grownups.

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial grown up with Bobbi Rebell is edited and produced by Steve Stewart and is a BRK media production.

Jen Hemphill and her husband believe in supporting family, but when the author of Her Money Matters, and the host of the podcast of the same name, was asked to lend money to a relative, she realized it would come at a cost to her own financial well being. 

In Jen’s money story you will learn:

-How she and her husband have different approaches to helping family financially

-The role emotions play in decisions about lending and/or giving to family

-The impact Jen’s upbringing and her parents attitudes towards money played in her approach to lending and gifting money to family

-How communication issues can impact financial decisions

In Jen’s money lesson you will learn:

-Jen’s advice in how to respond when family needs financial help

-How you can prepare to be able to help family when it is needed

-How to stay on track with your own goals, even if family needs help

-Why Jen feels it is always better to gift than to lend to family

In Jen’s money tip you will learn:

-The specific strategy she uses to separate funds and save for goals

-How she applies her strategy of separate funds when it comes to every day savings at places like the grocery store

-How to use apps to facilitate using her strategy to save money

In my take you will learn:

-What to keep in mind when friends and relatives ask you for help

-Strategies to have money available for that purpose

-How to say no when helping financially is not in your budget

 

EPISODE LINKS

Get Jen’s new book!

Her Money Matters: The missing truth from traditional money advice

Follow Jen!

Twitter: @jenhemphilll

IG: @jenhemphill

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/jennifer.hemphill

 

---

Transcription

Bobbi Rebell:
Support for Financial Grownup with Bobbi Rebell and the following message come from Transferwise, the cheaper way to send money abroad, built by the brand behind Skype. Transferwise takes a machete to the hefty fees that come with sending money abroad. Don't get sting by a bad exchange rate, or sneaky fees, join the two billion people who are already saving with Transferwise. Test it out for free at transferwise.come/podcast, or download the app. It is the wise way to send money.

Jen Hemphill:
We lent him the money, or actually gave him the money, and never saw it back. We had debt. We had things that we needed to pay for, things that we needed to purchase, and it also diminished our abilities to have that extra money to pay the debt that we had. Right? It was a very conflicting time.

Bobbi Rebell:
You're listening to Financial Grownup with me, certified financial planner, Bobbi Rebell, author of How To Be A Financial Grownup. You know what? Being a grownup is really hard, especially when it comes to money, but it's okay, we're going to get there together. I'm going to bring you one money story from a financial grownup one lesson, and then my take on how you can make it your own. We got this.

Bobbi Rebell:
Hey, friends. Thanks for joining us for this addition of the Financial Grownup Podcast. Before we get to our amazing guest, I am getting great feedback from all of you about these video promotions that we have been running to support the show, and you're asking me a bunch of questions, so I'm going to answer a few of them here. The first question everyone is asking me is, who is making them for me, who did I hire? I didn't hire anyone, I'm doing them myself. As you guys know, I love to learn new things, different technology, different programs, so I taught myself how to do them, and I'm having a great time.

Bobbi Rebell:
Second question, I keep being asked is, where can I get them made for myself? Well, I am not going to go into the video promotion business, I'm just going to be doing it for Financial Grownup, at least for now, never say never. But in answer to the request, I am going to run a fun contest. For the next month or so, until early July. The first week in July, let's say, we are going to have a competition, where if you see the video promotions for Financial Grownup on social media share them, and whoever shares the most by the first week in July, I will make a video promotion for you. It can be for your business, it can be for an event that's coming up, it can just be for you, it can be a birthday message for a friend, or for your child. Whatever it is, anything reasonable we will make a fun video, and that will be my gift to you guys.

Bobbi Rebell:
Okay. Onto our guest, Jen Hemphill. She is the host of the podcast, Her Money Matters, and the author of a new book by the same name. She is a big believer in helping family, but as a money expert she's also aware that sometimes those asked to give money may not really be in the best position themselves to be the ones giving. What do you do? Here is Her Money Matters, Jen Hemphill ... Jen Hemphill, you are a financial grownup. Welcome to the podcast.

Jen Hemphill:
Thank you so much for having me, Bobbi. I'm excited to be here.

Bobbi Rebell:
I'm excited to hear more about your new book, Her Money Matters, which of course same title as your amazing podcast. Tell us just briefly about it, and we'll talk more about it after your story.

Jen Hemphill:
Sure. Basically, the whole premise of the book is to give more of a holistic approach to personal finance. It's not a book that's going to tell you how to budget, how to get out of debt, but really it's about the missing pieces that a lot of people don't talk about, because all we hear about save more, spend less, and get out of debt, but there's the emotional component of money that I dig a lot into, as well. It's really more the missing pieces, that is really not talked about, in general.

Bobbi Rebell:
Okay. I want to get to your money story, because it has to do a lot with emotion, and the feelings behind when you gift, or lend money to friends, and family, because they can be sometimes the same things, sometimes lending becomes a gift, and you and your husband have very different approaches to it. Tell us about the first time this came up.

Jen Hemphill:
Well, the first time this came up was when we were first married, so this was almost, we'll be married almost 18 years, so this was-

Bobbi Rebell:
Congratulations.

Jen Hemphill:
Our first, oh, thank you. This was our first year in our marriage. We're a military family, we were stationed in Clovis Air Force Base in New Mexico.

Bobbi Rebell:
Wow.

Jen Hemphill:
First year married, we were really still trying to get to know each other, all the newlywed stuff. He got a call from my brother-in-law, and he, my brother-in-law apparently had hit a financial hiccup, and he reached out to his brother for help. Now, I grew up in a household that was very giving. My parents literally grew up in Columbia, and they always helped people. There was always people that would stay at our home, with their family, or some friends. My parents were always givers, even when they didn't have to give. Right?

Bobbi Rebell:
Right.

Jen Hemphill:
I saw that a lot growing up. I knew the financial struggles that they dealt with.

Bobbi Rebell:
We're they dealing with financial struggles because they gave more than they could afford?

Jen Hemphill:
I don't think it was that-

Bobbi Rebell:
Okay.

Jen Hemphill:
That might have been a component, but not all of the components. Right? But it was partial, because I saw them giving, and giving, but they were still trying to get their money stuff together. Right? I saw a lot of that. When I met my husband, one of the things that I love about him is his big heart. He is definitely a giver. He's also a spender.

Bobbi Rebell:
Are you the saver to a spender, by the way?

Jen Hemphill:
Yeah. I'm also a saver.

Bobbi Rebell:
Okay.

Jen Hemphill:
When my brother-in-law reached out to him, we had the conversation, granted again, we were newlyweds. We were trying to figure this thing out, and I can't remember the exact $1.00 amount, but it was more than $500.00.

Bobbi Rebell:
Do you know what kind of situation it was? Was it like a medical operation? Was it a business situation?

Jen Hemphill:
It was behind on bills, collections. Those type of things.

Bobbi Rebell:
Your husband wanted to give him a loan, not a gift a loan?

Jen Hemphill:
Well, he told me a loan, but I knew him.

Bobbi Rebell:
Okay.

Jen Hemphill:
He's a giver. He's not going to expect it back. Where I was more, in my mind, a lender. If you're asking us to lend you money, I'm like, “Okay. You're going to pay us back.” We had debt. We had things that we needed to pay for. Things that we needed to purchase. Literally, at that time we just had our checking account, and our savings account and literally whatever savings went into our savings account, so it was the emergency account, it was when we overspent, it was for big purchases, so everything that was needed that wasn't in our checking account came from the emergency fund. It literally got depleted fast, and it also diminished our abilities to have that extra money to pay the debt that we had. Right? It was a very conflicting time. We had this conversation-

Bobbi Rebell:
[crosstalk 00:07:19]-

Jen Hemphill:
We lent him the money, or actually gave him the money, and then never saw it back.

Bobbi Rebell:
Right. The communication to him, was it, “We are lending you this money,” and he didn't pay it back, or was it, “We are gifting you this money.”

Jen Hemphill:
That's a good question.

Bobbi Rebell:
Good luck with it.

Jen Hemphill:
Because my husband had that conversation with him.

Bobbi Rebell:
Okay. We can't really blame your brother-in-law, because for all we know he was told it was a gift, to be fair.

Jen Hemphill:
Right.

Bobbi Rebell:
What is the lesson, now, 18 years later, you guys happily still together, what is the lesson for our listeners? How would that go now? Would you put your foot down more? What would happen now? What do you think listeners should do? Should they be in a similar situation?

Jen Hemphill:
What we've done is, we included this in our budget, so we set some money aside in a different account, and whenever a family member needs help, we just look at what's in that account, so that way it doesn't really disrupt what we're trying to do financially, and the goals that we're trying to achieve. There's a designated amount that goes in there every month, and currently has just been to help grand mom with some bills, and that's what we work with.

Bobbi Rebell:
It sounds like you've basically come to terms with you're just going to gift it.

Jen Hemphill:
Yeah.

Bobbi Rebell:
None of this lending to family, it doesn't work for you.

Jen Hemphill:
Yes, because then emotionally that's either get upset, “Oh, my gosh, we said we were going to lend it, we never got it back,” so I've learned and grownup.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right.

Jen Hemphill:
Over the years to really, when it comes to family, and friends, and when it deals with money, it's just a gift.

Bobbi Rebell:
But your money tip, your every day money tip is also about separating out funds, that seems to be a common theme for you-

Jen Hemphill:
Yeah.

Bobbi Rebell:
You want to talk about what you do at the grocery store, and how you can use apps for this.

Jen Hemphill:
Yeah. Basically, my money tip is, what we tend to do, let's say we're at the grocery store, and maybe we have some coupons, always strike up a sale, and we're winning. We celebrate, “Yes. I've saved X amount this trip,” but what's important here is, yes, we can celebrate the $20.00, or $10.00, whatever that amount is that we saved, but what are we going to do with that money? Because we're missing out if we're just celebrating it, that we saved that money, but we're not doing anything with it.

Jen Hemphill:
Literally, we have the bank up on our phone. Right? And with so many people having smart phones, you can download your bank app, and whatever that amount of money that you save, transfer it to your savings, or transfer it to pay off some debt. Whatever you deem is best in your situation. But doing that versus just leaving it in there, you know it disappears. That money doesn't have a job, if you will, it just disappears. We've seen it time and again. I know I've experienced it, I'm sure you Bobbi have experienced it yourself.

Bobbi Rebell:
Absolutely. All right. Let's talk more about your book. I'm so excited for you.

Jen Hemphill:
The book, oh, my goodness. The subtitle of the book is, The Missing Truths From Traditional Money Advice, so when we think of traditional money advice, we think about, we really hear, “Save more, spend less, and get out of debt,” but I know from my own experience, I had the financial books, I've read those financial books, I applied what the experts told me, and I was still finding myself stuck. In the book, I really share the lessons that I learned, and what I found out that really kept me stuck after doing all the things right.

Bobbi Rebell:
Awesome. Where can people find you?

Jen Hemphill:
Thank you. You can find all about me at jenhemphill.com. You can find the book there, or you can just go on Amazon, and just type in, Her Money Matters. It also has a companion workbook, because-

Bobbi Rebell:
I love that.

Jen Hemphill:
My audience wanted worksheets, and so they ask, I provide. Each chapter has some questions, some worksheets for you to work with, because essentially I want that to be your cheat sheet. If you're feeling stuck, go back to that work, and go back to that workbook, if you buy the workbook, and refer to that, because that's going to help you get out of that funk that you're feeling.

Bobbi Rebell:
I love that balance between emotional and then very specific practical tools. It's great. Thank you, Jen.

Jen Hemphill:
Thank you, Bobbi.

Bobbi Rebell:
Jen's story was a reminder that family really can be everything, however you define family. We should bend over backwards to help out the people that we care about in our lives. In Jen's case even though her brother-in-law did not pay back that loan, as time went on the asks for financial help from family did go down.

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup tip, number one, remember it's hard for people to ask you for help, so factor that in when deciding what to do when someone comes to you asking for help. If you are able to help them with their financial troubles, it's usually a better idea to just give them money. If you lend them money, it becomes yet another thing that they need to pay back in a very stressful time. Of course, it can also put stress on your relationship with them. They might avoid you. They might feel like you're judging them, if they buy something. It's better to just keep it clean, give them the money. You know what? Someday you may be in a position where you need their help, and they'll be there for you.

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup tip, number two. Jen talked about compartmentalizing money. Setting funds aside in different accounts for different purposes. This can be a great way to deliberately save for certain things like a slush fund for relatives that need help. Another thing that I have found can make a lot of sense to do is to put a certain amount of money, or allocate a certain amount of money, maybe on an annual basis to support friends, charities, causes that they care about.

Bobbi Rebell:
That way when people ask for you to support whatever they're involved in, it might be a charity run, or some other fundraising effort, a benefit, you can take the money out of that fund, and if at some point in the year, I mean, you got to be real, here, the funds could run out, you can tell them, “Look, I've completed my giving for the year, but I will send a donation in January.” People understand. Your resources are not unlimited even if your heart is.

Bobbi Rebell:
If you have not hit the subscribe button, please do so that way you won't miss any upcoming episodes of Financial Grownup, and of course you score extra bonus points with us if you rate and review the show. That way other people can learn about it, and be part of our community. Our first listener episode is coming up in June, if you want to be considered to be on an upcoming episode of Financial Grownup, email the money story, and the money tip that you would like to share to info@financialgrownup.com. We are going to see how it goes, and hopefully we'll be doing this once a month.

Bobbi Rebell:
A reminder, if you want to see the promo videos, they are sprinkled throughout our social media, and also we are putting them on our new YouTube channel, which is Financial Grownup, so you can easily just check them out there. You can also see our episodes there, you can listen to them I should say on YouTube as well. In social media, I am on Instagram, at Bobbi Rebell one, on Twitter at Bobbi Rebell, and on Facebook, Bobbi Rebell. Definitely DM me, give me feedback, let me know what you think about the show, let me know guests you want to see, and let me know which promo videos you like the best.

Bobbi Rebell:
Of course, speaking of the promo videos, as I said at the top of the show, if you want a promo video for yourself, share them, retweet them, repost them, and whoever does the most social sharing between now and the beginning, the first week of July, I'm going to make a promo video for you. Jen's story was a great one, all about doing our best for our family, and our friends, and the people that we care about in our lives, such an important topic, so thank you, Jen, for helping us get one step closer to being Financial Grownups ... Financial Grownup with Bobbi Rebell is edited, and produced by Steve Stewart, and is a BRK Media production.

 

An unexpected instagram connection helped New York City artist Kristin Simmons pivot from her start in advertising to a full-time, award-winning, and profitable art career. Her provocative work is informed by the excessive, materialistic cultures of Wall Street and New York City. 

 

In Kristin’s money story you will learn:

-How she made her first art sale while working in advertising

-The hashtags she used to attract a buyer to her work

-The price of the first piece of art she sold

-Why so much of Kristin’s work is tied to money and consumerism

-Her take on millennials attitudes about money and materialism

-Kristin’s background and how it led her to her career as an artist

-How the art world works when artists use galleries, versus when they self-promote on social media

-How you can buy art that is affordable

In Kristin’s money lesson you will learn:

-Her advice on how to follow your dreams, and still pay your bills

-Ways to use social media to leverage your skills and the content you create

-Pricing strategies for art

In Kristin’s money tip you will learn:

-How having the right basic ingredients at home will help you make more meals at home, and save money

-Kristin’s favorite 5 foods to have on hand

-Where Kristin goes for her recipes

In My Take you will learn:

-How to buy art as an investment

-When to use a gallery and when to seek out an artist directly

-How to use social media to research and find art to buy

-Why insurance needs should always be considered when you buy art

You will also learn how you can win a promotional video, like the ones for financial grownup for your own business- or just for yourself. 

EPISODE LINKS

Kristin Simmons website: https://www.kristinsimmonsart.com/

The name of the arts gala she is performing at on June 7th is ChaShaMa: https://www.chashama.org/event/gala2018

This summer Kristin’s art can be seen at Galerie Mourlot (https://mourloteditions.com/) as part of the Hamptons art fair (http://artmarkethamptons.com/) in early July. 

Research and buy art on some of Kristin’s favorite sites:

Mourlot editions

Wide Walls

Art Space

Paddle8.com

Also mentioned: RealSimple.com

Follow Kristin!

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/kristinsimmonsart/?hl=en

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/kristinsimmonsart/?ref=bookmarks

Twitter https://twitter.com/Kristins_Art

LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristin-simmons-07596031/

An unexpected instagram connection helped New York City artist Kristin Simmons pivot from her start in advertising to a full-time, award-winning, and profitable art career. Her provocative work is informed by the excessive, materialistic cultures of Wall Street and New York City. In this Financial Grownup podcast episode you'll learn which hashtags to use to attract buyers on instagram and how you can follow your dreams while still paying the bills. #MoneyTips #Hashtags #Instagram #AttractBuyers

An unexpected instagram connection helped New York City artist Kristin Simmons pivot from her start in advertising to a full-time, award-winning, and profitable art career. Her provocative work is informed by the excessive, materialistic cultures of Wall Street and New York City. In this Financial Grownup podcast episode you'll learn which hashtags to use to attract buyers on instagram and how you can follow your dreams while still paying the bills. #MoneyTips #Hashtags #Instagram #AttractBuyers

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Transcription

Bobbi Rebell:
... simpler for financial grownup with Bobbi Rebell and the following message come from TransferWise, the cheaper way to send money internationally. TransferWise takes a machete to the hefty fees that come with sending money abroad. Test it out for free at transferwise.com/podcast or download the app.

Kristin Simmons:
I do these pieces of old stock certificates, which is ironic because it's basically dead money, and I started drawing these Mad Men characters on them with these Lichtensteinesque bubbles and stock quotes coming out of their heads, and I posted one on Instagram, and I hashtagged the name of a company, and someone reached out to me and said, "Hey, my dad used to own that company. Can I buy that piece of art from you?"

Bobbi Rebell:
You're listening to Financial Grownup with me, certified financial planner, Bobbi Rebell, author of How to Be a Financial Grownup, but you know what? Being a grownup is really hard, especially when it comes to money, but it's okay. We're going to get there together. I'm going to bring you one money story from a financial grownup, one lesson, and then my take on how you can make it your own. We got this.

Bobbi Rebell:
Hey, everyone, before I tell you about this week's guest, I want to let you know I have a big announcement coming up after the interview, and it has to do with something that you're all asking me about, the video promos that we put out with each episode, and how you can get them for you or your business, so stay tuned for that.

Bobbi Rebell:
Now to our guest. You heard her talking about her first sale. Want to know how much that first piece of art sold for? Well, stay with us here. The number surprised me. Artist Kristin Simmons incorporates themes of money and consumerism into her work in thought provoking and frankly sometimes polarizing ways, but she doesn't moralize. She's won a number of awards, including the National Endowment of the Arts award. Kristin grew up in New York, and her work has been informed by the city's culture, which can be a bit over the top when it comes to money here in New York City. She actually started her postcard career working in advertising doing art as her side hustle. She was able to have a studio area in her apartment, in part because of her early decision to buy an apartment at the age of 23. Being realistic, she did not see it as something that she could do for a living, especially in New York, that is, being a full-time artist. That is, until her Instagram feed prompted her very first sale. Here is artist Kristin Simmons.

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

Kristin Simmons:
Thanks very much, Bobbi. I'm so happy to be here today and talk with you.

Bobbi Rebell:
I recruited you because you are a rising star artist, and you focus so much on money and finance related iconography and themes, a little bit polarizing sometimes. Tell us briefly about your art.

Kristin Simmons:
Definitely. So, my art is very much focused on consumerism and the idea of what money can do for us, both its privileges and its dangers that it has.

Bobbi Rebell:
What inspired you? Can you tell us a little bit more about it?

Kristin Simmons:
My art is really inspired by the time I grew up in the late 80s, early 90s, when Reaganomics was really in full swing, and the market was booming, and I think a lot of millennials have certain mindsets or proclivities about spending and money because of how we were raised from a subconscious age.

Bobbi Rebell:
And you were raised to be very aware of money. Tell us your money story.

Kristin Simmons:
Sure. I do these pieces of old stock certificates, which is ironic because it's basically dead money. These are stocks that people were issued pre-Quotron machine in the 60s and 70s, and I started drawing these Mad Men characters on them with these Lichtensteinesque bubbles and stock quotes coming out of their heads, and I posted one on Instagram, and I hashtagged the name of a company, and someone reached out to me and said, "Hey, my dad used to own that company. Can I buy that piece of art from you?"

Bobbi Rebell:
That's crazy.

Kristin Simmons:
Yeah.

Bobbi Rebell:
Can you tell us how much you sold that first piece for?

Kristin Simmons:
The first piece I sold for $750.

Bobbi Rebell:
That's nice.

Kristin Simmons:
Yeah, it's great, and it was a unique work, so now the work has escalated to a greater price, but my prints still go for around that. I'm a big believer in trying to make original art at a price where people who are saving can afford it and also can compound over time if an artist does well in their career, but it was an amazing moment, and it really spurred me to think, okay, how can I hedge my marketing experience and maybe I'm onto an idea here that other people are interested in.

Bobbi Rebell:
That's so interesting. How much of your art sales are tied to social media, as opposed to people discovering it, because I do know you do have showings in traditional art galleries.

Kristin Simmons:
At the beginning, they were almost all tied to social media. Now I'd probably say about 30 percent.

Bobbi Rebell:
That's so interesting. So, your Instagram and social media basically is disrupting, I mean, not just yours but Instagram in general and social media is disrupting the art world in a way that I don't it is being talked about that much. It's fascinating.

Kristin Simmons:
Yeah. And it has been for a while, and other websites, too, that are more run by artists or artist run galleries, where they don't take as big of a commission. It's still a very okay market, the art world, and I don't even profess to know that much about it. I learn more every day, but I also kind of find it interesting because of that aspect and because of it's so involving and there are no set rules quote-unquote.

Bobbi Rebell:
What would be the lesson for people, you got noticed simply by being proactive on social media, and being compelling. I mean, your Instagram is really good.

Kristin Simmons:
Thank you. I would say everyone has something to share. Everyone has a story to share or something that's unique or special about them, and don't be afraid to have that voice. Yeah, you may get criticized for it. There will always be people who don't like what you're saying or think that your work or your voice is crap, but that's just one of the evils of the web, so again, I would just say be confident, and just start creating content or posting things or looking into things that interest you and be vocal about that.

Bobbi Rebell:
And if you're approached about selling something, how do you even know where to begin with the pricing?

Kristin Simmons:
For sure, sure. So that's a question I get all the time, and there's a simple answer and a not simple answer. The simple answer is what's my time, my hourly rate into making something, what are the material costs, and what is the idea worth. That's kind of a simple formula, and how you figure out what an idea is worth is a little more complicated obviously. Pricing for artists is very much set by themselves. It's a market that they set based on what the value they think their work is. For me, it's slightly gone up over time because I've had option results, I've had museum shows, and yeah, I kind of started at, again, that formula of idea, time, plus materials, and now once you gain additional credentials, you are then advised by galleries to adjust the numbers accordingly.

Bobbi Rebell:
And, of course, the galleries take 50 percent. Have to remember that.

Kristin Simmons:
Exactly.

Bobbi Rebell:
I want to talk about the money tip that you have brought with you because it's something that so many of us can benefit from, and it has to do with saving money by cooking, and you talk about the five ingredients. What do we need? Help us, Kristin. Help us.

Kristin Simmons:
Oh, my God, definitely. I mean, cooking's a great way to save money, and since I work from home, I cook all the time. Five ingredients. There are a bunch of different combinations, but the ones I like are eggs, spinach, rice, avocado and olive oil.

Bobbi Rebell:
Why those, and what do you make with those?

Kristin Simmons:
So, they're full of anti-oxidants and omega threes, most of those ingredients, and what I typically make is, I'll make like a kimchi bowl, Korean style, with rice, and I'll put an egg on top of it, and then you just throw some vegetables in it and some olive oil. It's a really healthy meal. It's very low cost to buy those ingredients, and it keeps you full for most of the day and kind of keeps your brain working and your body feeling good.

Bobbi Rebell:
Where do you get the recipes? Do you have any websites you recommend?

Kristin Simmons:
Yeah, Real Simple has actually a great cookbook. I think theirs is like 30 ingredients or something under 30 dollars that you can buy. I sometimes get recipes, I sign up for the self.com newsletter, even though I don't read their magazine. They often have good recipes, but yeah, Real Simple is probably the first place I would look. I really like their recipes.

Bobbi Rebell:
Excellent. All right, let's talk more about your art, what inspires you, where you're going to be showing this summer, where people can see it, and all that good stuff.

Kristin Simmons:
Thanks so much, Bobbi, again for having me, and in terms of the summer and what I'm doing, I am going to be part of an art gala on June 7th in New York called [Shamacha 00:08:48]. I'm hoping I'm getting the name right, or the Shamana Gallery.

Bobbi Rebell:
We'll put a link in the show notes.

Kristin Simmons:
It's a benefit hosted by the Durst organization, who gives a lot of money to the arts every year, and I'm going to be kind of doing an interactive performance piece in an office [inaudible 00:09:03] space there, and that'll be the first time I'm doing interactive performance work, so I'm looking forward to that, and then I will also be showing at the Hampton's Art Fair, which is on July 5th, because the 4th falls on a Wednesday, so there's that long weekend that comes back. July 5th to the 8th, the summer with Gallery Mourlot. That's kind of one of the biggest galleries I show with. I'm going to be showing new work there, which I'm really excited about.

Bobbi Rebell:
And where can people find you on social? Especially your Insta, but everywhere.

Kristin Simmons:
Sure. So, it's my name. It's KristinSimmonsArt, so K-R-I-S-T-I-N. Not E-N. S-I-M-M-O-N-S-A-R-T. That's my Instagram, and that's my website, too.

Bobbi Rebell:
Wonderful. Thank you so much.

Kristin Simmons:
Thank you so much, Bobbi.

Bobbi Rebell:
Hey, everyone. I love that Kristin advocates cooking at home. It's an easy and usually painless way to save money. It's also usually healthier, and she's right. Have five key ingredients at home. Yours might be different from hers, but that is definitely a way to save money. I want to focus on the idea though of buying art as an investment, or maybe just because you like it and want to own some art. So, Financial Grownup tip number one, Kristin pointed out kind of an open secret in the art world. Galleries take 50 percent. So, if an artist is selling work through a gallery, the gallery has costs and plays an important role, and they should get paid, so you got to take that into consideration if you go that route. However, as a buyer, if you know of an artist and you are interested in work that has not been seen at a gallery, you can go to the artist directly and have a lot more flexibility on the price.

Bobbi Rebell:
Thanks to social media, that is easier than ever, and as Kristin mentioned, well, 750 bucks, which is what she got for her first sale is a lot of money for many people. It's also a realistic price point for many people looking to start an art collection. If you're interested in actual places to go to discover artists, I did reach out to Kristin after we taped, and she sent along a few resources. I'll put them in the show notes as well, but she mentions Morlot Editions, I hope I said that correctly, Wide Walls and Art Space for original art. She also says Paddle8 is a great resource where you can even sign up for a payment plan. Prices there range from as little as 75 dollars to 15,000 dollars for most contemporary work. So, 75 bucks, you could do that.

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup tip number two. When you do buy art, depending on the value, make sure that you insure it. Art can often be insured just within your home owner's policy or your renter's insurance, but read that policy. You may need to add a floater as a supplement to the policy, and get the work appraised. It's also a good idea to make sure there are photographs of the art, so if something does happen, there are documents to support your claim.

Bobbi Rebell:
Okay, onto the big announcement. I'm really excited about this. As I said at the top of the show, I keep being asked video promos for the show. Where do I get them made? How can you get one? All that stuff. The secret is I actually make them myself. Even though I was primarily a television anchor and financial journalist in my previous ventures, previous career, I also learned a lot of skills that I now use for things like that. I love making the videos, and I have a lot of fun being creative, and sometimes a little bit silly. So, I've been asked how much I would charge to make them for people, and where someone can hire me, but the truth is I'm not getting into that business. They're not for sale. I've got a lot on my plate with Financial Grownup, and my speaking engagements, and brands that I work with, so that is not going to be my next side hustle, even though a lot of you guys have asked for it.

Bobbi Rebell:
But, I have decided to try an experiment. I am going to give one away to a listener, so here's all you have to do. Between now and let's say July, every time you see me post a video, a promo video on social media, share it, and I will choose the winner based on whoever shared the most videos between now and when I pick the first winner, which again, will be in July. [inaudible 00:13:09] I will make a custom video just for you, or one that you can use promoting your business. We'll work it out. It'll be a lot of fun. I'm really excited.

Bobbi Rebell:
So, all right, thank you all for supporting Financial Grownup, always. Please share this episode, and then the others that you enjoy with your friends on social media, and also, if you have not already, please subscribe so you don't miss any episodes, and this is the big ask. I know they don't make it easy, but it really helps the show get discovered if you rate and review the podcast.

Bobbi Rebell:
More listener involvement, we have just selected our first listener to be a guest. That episode will be coming up in June. I'm excited to share it with you guys. If you want to be considered for the next one, just email us at info@financialgrownup.com. Include the money story and the money tip that you would share if you were selected.

Bobbi Rebell:
To learn more about Financial Grownup, go to bobbirebell.com/financialgrownuppodcast. Follow me on Twitter at bobbirebell. On Instagram at bobbirebell1. On Facebook at Bobbi Rebell. Thanks to Kristin Simmons for inspiring us and showing us all that art can be a profitable side hustle and even your main job, and helping us get one step closer to being financial grownups.

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

Life Coach and best-selling author Allison Task was a dot-com millionaire by 30, only to lose it all in the dot-com bust. But from there she started on a path that has included working with Martha Stewart, hosting cooking shows, writing cookbooks, building a coaching business and her latest book “Personal (R)evolution. How To Be Happy, Change Your Life, And Do That Thing You’ve Always Wanted To Do. “

 

In Allison’s money story you will learn:

-How Allison found became a millionaire when she was not yet 30 years old

-Why she had, and still has, conflicted feelings about whether she deserved the money

-How she lost the million dollars

-Why she actually came out in the red on the entire transaction, in large part because of the tax implications of the stock options

-What it was like to be part of the dot-com bubble

-What she might do differently were she to have another shot at a million dollars

In Allison’s money lesson you will learn:

-Her advice to listeners who want to earn a lot of money

-Why she does not advocate chasing money

-How she believes listeners can figure out what makes them happy

In Allison’s money tip you will learn

-Why her closet is so much smaller than her husbands

-Allison’s philosophy on how to maximize your clothing budget

-Her advice ,as  mom of four, on clothing for children, and how to make the most of your spending on kids shoes and clothing

-How her husband reacts when she calls his clothing “crap-oh- la”

-Why Allison shy’s away from great deals on clothing and vacations

In My Take you will learn:

-The basics of how stock options work

-Why taxes tied to stock options can complicate the investment

-How to manage an investment loss and offset future investment gains

Episode Links:

Get Allison’s new book Personal Revolution: How to Be Happy, Change Your Life, and Do That Thing You've Always Wanted to Do.

Visit Allison’s website

AllisonTask.com

Follow Allison!

Twitter: allisontask

Facebook: www.facebook.com/allison-task

Linked In: www.linkedin.com/allison-task

Instagram AllisonTaskCoach

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Transcription

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

Allison Task:
I just didn't feel right about it. Ethically, something felt wrong. It was too easy to make. I wasn't even 30. How do I have a million dollars? It wasn't my money. I didn't earn it. I didn't feel connected to it, and I felt a little wrong about taking it. It kind of felt like finding someone's wallet.

Bobbi Rebell:
You're listening to Financial Grownup, with me, Certified Financial Planner, Bobbi Rebell, author of How To Be A Financial Grownup. But you know what? Being a grown up is really hard, especially when it comes to money. But it's okay. We're going to get there to gather. I'm going to bring you one money story from a financial grownup, one lesson, and then my take on how you can make it your own. We got this.

Bobbi Rebell:
Hey friends, we'll get to our guest in just a sec. But I want to take a minute to just talk about some stuff about the show that's been going on. We've been getting a lot of great feedback, compliments and questions about the video promotions that we run on social media to support the podcast. I thought it might make sense to address some of the questions here. First of all, lots of you guys are asking me who makes them for us. I actually make them myself. As you guys know, I love to learn new skills. I have a background in television production. I was a TV anchor for years. Part of working in media these days is learning a lot of technology editing and creative stuff. So, I'm really enjoying making them myself.

Bobbi Rebell:
The other question I'm getting the most is where you can get them made for your projects, for your business, or just for yourself. The answer is, well, I'm not going to go into that business. I have enough side hustles for now. But I did come up with an idea, an experiment that we're going to try here. We're going to have a little competition, hopefully, you guys are game, and the winner will get a custom video from me that I will make for your business, for you, for an event, whatever you want. Anything reasonable, we'll come up with something fun. The way it's going to work is from now until the beginning of July, I'm going to ask that whenever you see a video promotion for Financial Grownup, you share it on social media. Whether it be sharing on Facebook, retreating, reposting on Instagram, also DM me. Let me know that you're out there and that you are spreading the word about Financial Grownup. In the beginning of July, 1 week in July, I will see who is sharing the most and they will get a custom-made video promo just for them.

Bobbi Rebell:
Okay, now to our fantastic guest. She is so cool. As you heard at the top of the show, the money came easy for a young Allison Task, and then it went poof, just as fast. But she has recovered. You'll be glad to know and has made peace with the whole drama. Not sure I would be so chill. But Allison did go on to work with Martha Stewart, and to host your own cooking shows. Also, she wrote some bestselling cookbooks. Alison has also built a life coaching business and she's got a great situation now with her husband and kids, and a fantastic new book that was just released called Personal Revolution: How to Be Happy, Change Your Life, and Do That Thing You've Always Wanted to Do. Basically, it's all the solutions to everything in a book. Yeah. Anyway, she's doing a lot, she's terrific. Here is Allison Task.

Bobbi Rebell:
Allison Task, you are a Financial Grownup. Welcome to the podcast.

Allison Task:
Thank you for having me.

Bobbi Rebell:
Congratulations on your new book, Personal Revolution: How to Be Happy, Change Your Life, and Do That Thing You've Always Wanted to Do. I binge read it this weekend. Even though I know I'm supposed to be doing exercises and stopping and going back and forth and all that good stuff. I promise I will, okay?

Allison Task:
You got it. It's there for you when you're ready.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right. And you brought with you a money story which I have not heard in full yet. But I'm really excited about the beginning and really curious about the end, go for it.

Allison Task:
Okay. Well, the beginning is I need a million dollars and then cut to the end I lost a million dollars all before I was 30. That was actually real dollars. That wasn't like my monopoly, that was real.

Bobbi Rebell:
Okay. Fill in the blanks on that one.

Allison Task:
Okay, the blanks are simple, dot com. I was one of those early dot com kids and was one of the first 50 people in three different companies. One of them went public when I was there, and I had two commas in my bank account that I checked via etrade.com.

Bobbi Rebell:
Tell us the details. What was the company and how did you end up working there? Tell us just a little bit more.

Allison Task:
Sure. The company was called Silicon Valley Internet Partners. I was the marketing director. So, after a year it was then called Viant. You may remember at the time there was Viant, there were Siant, there were lots of internet builders. We were the people who were strategists, designers, and technologists to large companies who wanted websites back in the 90s. We helped create the not.com.

Bobbi Rebell:
I remember that.

Allison Task:
Yeah, we worked with People Magazine. We worked all over new media and old media, literally building their high-performance websites.

Bobbi Rebell:
Okay. So, explain how you made the million dollars. You were paid in stock? What exactly happened? How did the million happen?

Allison Task:
I was employee number 50. I was there for four years. I was paid in stock. Generous stock options. Probably year two when I was there, we went public and those stock options that were pennies went to over three figures. So, I had multi million dollars on paper. And [inaudible 00:05:56] I exercised my shares, which means I got to pay taxes on those multimillion dollars too.

Bobbi Rebell:
Did you sell the stock when exercised those shares? [crosstalk 00:06:03] different. Right. So, explain how this works. You have to pay the taxes when you actually receive the stock, but that doesn't mean you sold the stock and received money.

Allison Task:
Correct. So, I probably purchased the stock when it was around 60. It went up to 120. And then I remember my father telling me, "Honey, it's at 30, you need to sell. You need to sell." I'm like, "It's fine." I didn't sell until it went down to six, and then it became a penny stock and I believe delisted.

Bobbi Rebell:
Wow. So, you went from a million, more than a million-

Allison Task:
More than a million.

Bobbi Rebell:
... to ultimately that whole venture cost you money because of the tax. Is that correct?

Allison Task:
Yeah, that's so painful. I did have five years during which I was not paying tax. I was not paying tax, why? Because I had then got to write off the loss. But, yeah. I think it wasn't, definitely it wasn't a million dollars in the bank account. Let's just say.

Bobbi Rebell:
Right. Well, first of all, looking back, is there anything you could have done differently? I guess you should have sold it at 120 if you are had a crystal ball, which you did not.

Allison Task:
Listen, with four kids, I would not have minded having that money, made a few investments. I think it would have been prudent to have earned it. What it did do for me, though, was set me up with my attitude for life. First of all, I say it's a million-dollar joke, I need to laugh a lot and I learn a lot from that experience, right? There's some value there.

Bobbi Rebell:
And you weren't alone, by the way.

Allison Task:
Oh, God. No.

Bobbi Rebell:
No.

Allison Task:
Definitely. At least I did it to myself, you know what I mean? No one was [inaudible 00:07:25] me. That was my choice, fair and square. I think I always felt uncomfortable because I didn't earn the money, right? I wanted to earn it with my effort. I felt like, well, I was just part of a big thing. Well, that money came from somewhere. Someone had their retirement account and it went into Viant at some time. It wasn't my money. I didn't earn it. I didn't feel connected to it. I felt a little wrong about taking it. It kind of felt like finding someone's wallet.

Bobbi Rebell:
This is a little psychiatrist's thing, but do you feel like you sabotaged yourself the way you're talking?

Allison Task:
I think you're onto something. I just didn't feel right about it. Ethically, something felt wrong. It was too easy to make. I wasn't even 30. How do I have a million dollars? I'm a marketing director for a dot com company. Come on. Come on. I'm not working that hard. How did I create that value? I didn't. In the end, it wasn't a value. It went away. It was part of the big bubble. Something of it felt dirty. Money is money, that was someone's, it wasn't mine. I didn't earn it.

Bobbi Rebell:
Looking back in all your grow up wisdom, what is the lesson, what is the takeaway for our listeners?

Allison Task:
Well, the take away is definitely find a way to earn your money in a way you feel good about. I, after that, literally left and started working for myself, right? When you work for yourself, you're only as good as your last client. You're only as good as your last experience. I developed a lot of personal integrity in terms of the way I work and the way I want to do my work. From that, I have something that's more important than money in my opinion, which is life satisfaction. Making a meaningful contribution. I'm a life coach. Everyone who comes to my office wants to make a meaningful contribution, every single last one. It's more valuable than money.

Allison Task:
I lost the money and learned the lesson, but I still really ... I had my ethics and values and I knew something wasn't right. What's the lesson your listeners?

Bobbi Rebell:
Yeah.

Allison Task:
If you make a lot of money and you keep chasing money, there's something that's not right. There's a lack of fitness. If you have money and you keep chasing money, it's like you can never be too rich or too thin. I don't subscribe to that. I think there's a weird thing when you keep chasing money. So, figure out what that's about if you actually want to be happy.

Bobbi Rebell:
On that note, we're going to pivot and kind of take a different angle. Because your money tip actually has to do with splurging. So, I guess it's okay if you have the right amount of money to splurge. Tell us more about how you approach that.

Allison Task:
Definitely. Splurge and enjoy it. This one, I'm going to take you into my closet for this one. My husband and I share a closet. It's a walk-in closet. But my side is pretty small. And why is my side small? I buy outstanding things. I used to go to the Gap and get six pairs of pants, half of which were on sale, most of which would fall apart in three months. I now by very expensive high quality essential pieces. Like, a pair of black pants, an amazing pair of Frye boots. My husband likes a sale, and he has a lot of crap-hola that doesn't exactly look, good fit.

Bobbi Rebell:
How would he feel if he heard you say that?

Allison Task:
He would not his hand and say, "I know hun, I know."

Bobbi Rebell:
Oh, really?

Allison Task:
I know, but it was such a good deal. But it was such a good deal. No good deal. Certainly not when you're sharing my closet, babe. No. Those vacations, right? You wait all year to go on the vacation. Spend the money. Spend the money.

Bobbi Rebell:
Easier said than done. What about with your kids?

Allison Task:
Ah, my kids. I'm so glad you brought that up because I'm going to put my money where my mouth is. First of all, I have four kids, three of whom are under five. I do not want tons of crap, right? Their shoes, they each get one pair of sneakers, period. Wear it until there are holes in it. I mean that literally. They were their sneakers-

Bobbi Rebell:
But what if they get wet?

Allison Task:
Well, they have really good rubber boots.

Bobbi Rebell:
Let's talk about your book. As I mentioned, I whipped through it in literally one day. I know you're not supposed to do that, because one of the best things about it is it really, if you do go through this book properly, it holds you accountable.

Allison Task:
The book is nine chapters, end and intro. Each chapter is designed to be a guidebook workbook. So, the thing about seeing your coaches, coaches ask you lots of questions to get you deeper into your own thinking. Throughout the book, there's action points and insight points with lots of questions. I say please use it with a workbook, use it with a computer. Before you can go on to the next chapter, there's a prep sheet. You're constantly scaling yourself. How much closer am I to achieving my goal?

Bobbi Rebell:
What is your favorite chapter then?

Allison Task:
I really like chapter five. Chapter four is identify your network. It's for people who want to do more networking. Anytime you have something you want to do, you call upon your people. You call upon your social network to help you. That is everything. Chapter five is expanding your network, right? So many people feel awkward about self-promotion, about asking others for things. So, once I got you to trust me and feel comfortable that like you are loved and people root for you, now let's take the next step and expand upon that existing network.

Allison Task:
My second favorite chapter is the last chapter, which is all about celebrating. You've achieved it. You've done it. Now, let's set that experience in your brain so that you can do it again and you can call upon it in the future. My book launched last week, and last week, it became a best seller on Amazon and actually still is. And so now, this is that time for me. I get to celebrate and do end runs with everyone who helped me along the way, and that's a total joy.

Bobbi Rebell:
Well, we will leave you to celebrate. Where can everyone find you and find out more about the book and everything you're up to?

Allison Task:
Thank you. Please visit allisontask.com. That's A-L-L-I-S-O-N-T-A-S-K.com. Plug it in to Facebook, Twitter, I'm Allison Task all over the place.

Bobbi Rebell:
Wonderful. Thank you so much.

Allison Task:
Thank you, Bobbi.

Bobbi Rebell:
So, Allison was pretty cool about the loss, but I wonder how she really was back in the day. I do want to do a little bit of explaining about how options work and what exactly happened in terms of the tax consequences. Because we sort of alluded to it a little bit. Allison talked about how it worked out, but I think it's important that you guys understand at least a little bit about how options work.

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup tip number one. If you do ever get offered stock options, obviously, do the research thoroughly and understand how they work. Because as Allison explained, you can sometimes be on the hook for taxes, even before you actually have the cash from the stock. So, a little bit about that. Options basically mean that you can buy or exercise shares at a preset price, known as the strike price. If a stock is selling at a price higher than the strike price, you basically get to buy the stock at a discount. If you sell them right away, guaranteed profit. The catch, and this is what Allison mentioned, is that you owe tax on the transaction, whether or not you sell the stock at that time.

Bobbi Rebell:
If you sell the stock, you have the cash to pay the tax from your actual profits that you took, you got the money, you're good. But if you are betting that the stock is going to keep rising even more and you want to hold on to it so you don't sell it, you still have to pay the tax on that paper profit that you had by exercising the option. So, then, if the stock goes down and you sell it for a loss, the thing is, the government does not send you a check refunding the taxes that you paid. It doesn't work that way. It's really important that you understand how that works, and the risk involved.

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup tip number two. Back to the taxes. So, the tax payments are painful, but they can be used in the future to offset other investment profits. So, let's say that you have a capital gain on another stock, another investment the next year. You can carry forward the losses from the first transaction and then you can offset those gains plus, an additional $3,000. So, it's going to help your tax situation going forward, even though no one wants to have paid taxes on money they didn't really make. You do get at least to match it up against profits going forward. That's basically what Allison did, and what she was referring to when she kind of jokingly said that she did not pay taxes for five years.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right everyone, please continue to rate and review the show if you have not on iTunes or Apple Podcast. Every single review matters. I know it's another thing to do. You guys are busy, but it is truly appreciated. And of course, hit the subscribe button so you don't miss any episodes. We are also now on YouTube, just starting out there. So, we're posting the show there and we're also posting those promotional videos. Just search for financial grown up and you'll find it and you can see the promotional videos there. And, if you are following me on Instagram @bobbirebell1, please DM me. I want to hear from you guys and hear what you like about the show, what you want to hear differently on the show, guests that you want all that good stuff. So, be in touch and of course, follow me on Instagram @bobbyrebell1, and twitter @bobbirebell. I'm on Facebook, Bobbi Rebel. Learn more about the show at bobbirebell.com/financialgrownuppodcast.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right, go check out Allison Task's new book, personal revolution, Personal Revolution: How to Be Happy, Change Your Life, and Do That Thing You've Always Wanted to Do. It is already a bestseller, and thank you, Allison, for helping us all get one step closer to being financial grownups.

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

 

Clever Girl Finance’s Bola Sokunbi is famous for saving $100k on a $54k salary in about 3 years. But then she started dropping $3,000 on a massive collection of luxury handbags, most of which she never even used. 

In Bola’s money story you will learn:

-How she saved more than $100,000 on a salary of just $54,000 in three and a half years

-The side hustle that helped her reach that goal

-How after she reached that goal, she made a very unexpected spending splurge

-The fascinating reason, looking back, that she went down that path and kept going!

-The moment she woke up and realized she had to make a change

-Exactly what she did to get back on track and make a profit in the process

-The regret she had despite making money on her debacle

-Why she thinks so much about Amazon stock

In Bola’s money lesson you will learn:

-Why keeping her handbags in top condition was the key in getting a solid return when she went to sell them

-Other ways to maintain the value of resale able luxury goods like handbags

-Her take on investing in goods like handbags compared to the stock market and corporations

In Bola’s money tip you will learn:

-Ways to get luxury goods like handbags for less money without compromising quality

-Bola’s favorite pre-owned goods resources

-How friends can trade or sell handbags to each other

-Bola’s new strategy for buying expensive handbags

In my take you will learn:

-Why I compare Bola’s handbag venture to winning the lottery

-The difference between saving money and building wealth

-How to sell luxury goods like handbags, as well as other things you can sell, like baby strollers

-Why I do not promote buying fake goods as a cheaper option

Episode links

Bola’s website: CleverGirlFinance.com

Bola’s podcast: Clever Girls Know

Follow Bola!

Twitter Clever Girl Finance

Instagram Clever Girl Finance

Facebook Clever Girl Finance

LinkedIn Bola Sokunbi

 

Also mentioned in the show:

Vestiare Collective

Fashionphile

Rent the Runway

---

Transcription

Bobbi Rebell:
Support for Financial Grownup with Bobbi Rebell and the following message come from TransferWise, the cheaper way to send money internationally. TransferWise takes a machete to the hefty fees that come with sending money abroad. Test it out for free at transferwise.com/podcast or download the app.

Bola Sokumbi:
I've always been a handbag junkie. It's just something about leather. Like the smell of fine leather that just ... I don't know.

Bobbi Rebell:
You're listening to Financial Grownup with me, certified financial planner, Bobbi Rebell, author of How To Be A Financial Grownup. You know what, being a grownup is really hard especially when it comes to money, but it's okay. We're going to get there together. I'm going to bring you one money story from a financial grownup, one lesson, and then my take on how you can make it your own. We got this.

Bobbi Rebell:
Hey, friends. This is one of those, "She did not do that," episodes. My guest was a champ at saving money on a very low income, but once she had that money, things took in unexpected turn and then there was yet another unexpected twist to the story. Bola Sokumbi is a certified financial education instructor and the force behind the very popular, Clever Girl Finance, a website and podcast that empowers and educates women to make the best financial decisions for them. Here is Bola Sokumbi.

Bobbi Rebell:
Bola Sokumbi, you're a financial grownup. Welcome to the podcast.

Bola Sokumbi:
Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Bobbi Rebell:
I am such a fan of yours. First of all, in addition to being a money expert, you are the force behind Clever Girl Finance, which is a website and a podcast. It started after you. I don't even know how you did this. You saved $100,000 in three and a half years on a salary of, I want to say, about $50,000?

Bola Sokumbi:
Yeah. I was making $54,000 before taxes.

Bobbi Rebell:
Wow. Give us just the high level. How you did that.

Bola Sokumbi:
I basically got lean and mean with, probably, my finances. I contributed to my retirement fund from my employer because I knew they were offering a match and that was a way for me to get some free money. I kept my expenses super low. I avoided my friends and stayed home. I wasn't going out to eat very much. I wasn't buying alcohol. I was the-

Bobbi Rebell:
Temporarily, right?

Bola Sokumbi:
Temporarily.

Bobbi Rebell:
Right.

Bola Sokumbi:
I was in a steady ramen noodles and coke diet. I focused on saving 40 to 50% of my paycheck and anything extra.

Bobbi Rebell:
Wow.

Bola Sokumbi:
I save my tax returns, my bonuses. I try to save as much as possible. I also started a side hustle. I started a wedding photography business, which really helped to increase the amount of money I was bringing in. That helped contribute to me being able to save that amount of money. Finally, I avoided credit cards as best I could. I, instead, used a charge card that require me to pay my balance in full every month. That kept me really mindful about my spending, but overall, it was really just setting the intention that I wanted to save and I wanted to challenge myself to save six figures. I put my mind to it. I gone to that focus and three and a half years later, I was able to save that $100,000.

Bobbi Rebell:
So smart. In full details, if anyone wants, go to Clever Girl Finance. I want to talk about your money story that you brought because Bola, this is like an incredible story given what you just said.

Bola Sokumbi:
Yeah.

Bobbi Rebell:
Here you are. You got $100,000. You're hustling with a side hustle. You're eating ramen noodles. You're doing everything intentionally, maxing out your retirement account to get the max. What do you do? You start buying $3,000 handbags. Tell us what, what.

Bola Sokumbi:
Holla.

Bobbi Rebell:
What?

Bola Sokumbi:
Let me break it down. Basically, I got to this point where I had saved a ton of money. I had a lot of money in the bank. Actually, at the end of the four years, I had about $150,000 saved. I was making more money. I had my business. I gone raising at my job. I was earning, now, well over six figures at this point. I was like "Wow, I have all this money. I maxed out my retirement savings. I'm still meeting my savings obligations. I just have to treat myself." I've always been a handbag junkie. It's just something about leather, like the smell of fine leather that just ... I don't know.

Bobbi Rebell:
I personally would've bought a pint of Haagen-Dazs if I wanted to treat myself but okay. $3,000 handbags.

Bola Sokumbi:
I went all the way, yes. I got my first designer handbag like "Oh my God, this is amazing. It's beautiful. I bought this in cash. I love it."

Bobbi Rebell:
What was it? Describe it.

Bola Sokumbi:
It was a Channel Jumbo in black caviar leather with gold hardware, classic, beautiful.

Bobbi Rebell:
Okay. I wouldn't know.

Bola Sokumbi:
I got the one. Should've been enough, but then I was like well, few months later, I have all the spare money. I'm still saving. I didn't know what to do. I want to invest, but I don't need to invest that much. I'm going to buy another designer handbag. I got to the point where I was buying several handbags for maybe three or four years. To me, it was fine because I was still saving. I was still meeting my obligation.

Bobbi Rebell:
How much do you think you spent in total, Bola, on the handbags?

Bola Sokumbi:
Oh my goodness. I don't know. If we were to have an Instagram competition on who could grab their handbags steady for the next 30 to 60 days, I would win, every time.

Bobbi Rebell:
Wait. Wait. You're going to have a different handbag every day for 30 to 60 days?

Bola Sokumbi:
Yeah, I could. Yes.

Bobbi Rebell:
Oh my gosh.

Bola Sokumbi:
I could've. I have a lot of handbags. I had them in different colors-

Bobbi Rebell:
Were they just sitting in the closet? Were you taking them to work? What was going on with the handbags?

Bola Sokumbi:
That's the sucky part. I maybe use like two or three. Well, I was exaggerated. I didn't have 60. Exaggerating. About a month. Let's say, a month. I didn't really use them. That was a disappointing factor. I'm one of those people that believe that if there's something that you like and it's something that you're going to use, go for it as long as you plan it out financial, but I wasn't using them. They did not make financial sense for me. I was using like one or two of them, and then maybe the others, I would look at or wear to a baby shower for 25 minutes and it goes right back into the closet. It did not make any financial sense. Fortunately, for me, at the time that I purchase them, for those of you who are into handbags, knew that there have been a flurry of price increases especially with the higher end luxury brands.

Bola Sokumbi:
At the time I bought the handbags, I bought them before the crazy price increases started. I got to a point where I was like "Okay, this doesn't make any sense." I will look in my closet and all I would see would be dollar bills stacked up. My husband is like "You need to let these go. You don't even use them. It doesn't make sense. You feel so guilty about having them because you're not using them." I took it upon myself to sell almost every one of them. I still have a few. The ones I use. It was really hard to sell them because I felt like I was selling my children. It's crazy. When I think about it, it's ridiculous, but I sold them. Luckily, for me, because of the price increases, I was able to sell them for a lot more than I purchase. That very first Channel handbag, the black jumbo I just described with caviar hardware, I paid $2,900 for it and I sold it for $5,500.

Bobbi Rebell:
Oh my goodness. Only you, Bola, would actually turn a cringeworthy shopping habit into a positive investment experience.

Bola Sokumbi:
However, Bobbi, to the point you asked me before we started recording was, I made money but when I think about it, I really didn't make that much money because one of the things that trigger me to start selling those handbags was Amazon stock. I realized that if I had spent all that money I spent on those handbags on Amazon Stock, I would've had times 100 of what I had spent on handbags. Not just doubling my money. I would've like times 100 it, right?

Bobbi Rebell:
If you had actually bought Amazon Stock, but truthfully, how much do you think ... do you think you spent $90,000 on handbags?

Bola Sokumbi:
Oh, I don't know. Over a three to four year period, I spent a lot of money.

Bobbi Rebell:
Okay. You bought 30 handbags at $3,000 each.

Bola Sokumbi:
Yeah. I had about 30. They were not all the same price.

Bobbi Rebell:
Okay.

Bola Sokumbi:
They were not all $3,000 handbags.

Bobbi Rebell:
What was the most expensive one?

Bola Sokumbi:
The Channel handbags I had. They were about in the $3,000, $3,500 range at that time. Now, they're not anymore. They're about 6 to $7,000 now.

Bobbi Rebell:
Wow.

Bola Sokumbi:
I don't own any more handbags by the way.

Bobbi Rebell:
What is the lesson from this beyond the fact that there was a time in life when investing in handbag was actually an appreciable asset? Still, they probably know. I don't know the market, but anyway, beyond the fact that it actually turned on to be a good investment.

Bola Sokumbi:
I wouldn't even describe as an appreciable handbag because for me, it was just purely for the fact that I was not using them. No one is going to pay you top dollar for a handbag that has been worn and beat up. If you're buying something, I believe that you should be using it. Lesson for this is cost per wear. You can have 100 Channel handbags if you want to have them and if you can afford them and you're paying for them in cash and it's not taking off your financial goals, but what is your cost per wear. How often are you using them? Are you getting your money's worth? If you buy a handbag for $3,000 and you wear it once, then that one time you wore it cost you $3,000 and that makes no sense. If you buy this handbag and you wear it 3,000 times over four years, then that handbag cost you $1 or maybe it comes down to cents and pennies and that starts to make more sense because as opposed to buying $25 handbags over that three-year period and use that one handbag over that time and you get your cost per wear.

Bola Sokumbi:
To me, cost per wear is really important. That's how I plan out my wardrobe. I still buy fancy things, but I have to be using them. I have to get my cost per wear down to pennies for it to make sense. I know when I see something if I'm going to use it or not. Understand your cost per wear. People may think, "Oh, buying handbags is crazy," but people spend their money on different things. For me, it was the handbag thing. Some people spend their money on electronics, on cars, on things that they don't necessarily use like having a second car in your garage that you drive on Saturday is not good to drive per wear.

Bobbi Rebell:
The handbags make you feel good.

Bola Sokumbi:
Yeah. I would pick a handbag over a lot of things. That was me. That was a lesson I learned. I put the money right back into my investment accounts. I was better for it.

Bobbi Rebell:
Let's stick with the handbag thing. What is your money tip, your everyday money tip for everyone?

Bola Sokumbi:
I would say that if you are a handbag girl like me, no shay, no judgment, find ways to get the handbags that you like at a cheaper cost or without putting out so much money. For instance, Bobbi, you and I talked about Rent the Runway. You really like that. If you want to actually own them, you can think about getting them preowned from sties like Fashion File or Vestiaire Collective. There's a bunch of different ones that are reputable that sell authentic products or even local consignment stores in New York. There's a ton of them. Or buying them off of friends who are trying to let go of their handbags or trying to recycle their wardrobe. Those are great ways that you can get luxury at a lower cost. You can also wait until some of these handbags go into the sale and purchase them that way.

Bobbi Rebell:
Right. Because a lot of them are really classic.

Bola Sokumbi:
Yes. It's all about buying something that you know you're going to use for a long time. I tend to avoid any trend pieces because I don't want to be out of fashion next year after spending all this money on it. I buy bags that I can carry forever. That's what I do. Every purchase I make right now, I carry that bag to shreds, basically.

Bobbi Rebell:
Definitely. Get that cost per wear down. Where can people find you and learn more about Clever Girl Finance?

Bola Sokumbi:
Yeah. You can find me on my website at clevergirlfinance.com, on Instagram at Clever Girl Finance, on Facebook, Clever Girl Finance. I also have a podcast called, Clever Girls Know. You can search for it on iTunes, Stitcher, Sound Cloud. You'll find it there as well.

Bobbi Rebell:
I think everyone should definitely check all of that out. I am a big fan. Thank you so much, Bola.

Bola Sokumbi:
Thank you for having me, Bobbi.

Bobbi Rebell:
Hey, friends. Except for the fact that she was ironically able to sell the handbags at a profit, this whole thing reminds me of what happens when people inherit a ton of money or they win the lottery and then they just don't know what to do, so they go shopping. Financial Grownup tip number one, Bola was great at accumulating money but she was selling herself short when it came to building wealth. She was meeting her goals in terms of saving and investing and all that, but that doesn't mean she couldn't move the goal post given the resource that she had and make even more ambitious goals. Not a problem to buy a bag that you can afford, but she wasn't even using most of them. Bola is very specific that, well, they ironically went up in value if she had invested the money. In her case, she talks about Amazon Stock, she would've made a lot more money. Of course, you could lose money in the stock market. There's no guarantee of that. It's just something to consider.

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup tip number two, if you do buy luxury goods and you aren't using them, it is easier than ever to sell them, so many resources online. You may not make as big a profit as Bola did, you may lose money but you're still going to get some cash. I have sold some bags on the real wheel. I've been happy to have the cash even though it went for less than I paid. You can also buy slightly used bags there at a discount if you want them. As I've said before, you can rent them at Rent the Runway or other similar websites. I will leave some links in the show notes for you guys. Given these resources, I would also urge you to stay away from the fakes. It undermines the economy and the business of the companies that produce the real thing. Don't buy fake bags. Also, it is illegal.

Bobbi Rebell:
We want you to be a financial grownup. Send us an email to info@financialgrownup.com if you want to be considered for one of our monthly listener episodes. Just tell us what the money story is that you want to share and your everyday money tip. If you have not already, please rate and review the podcast on iTunes, Apple Podcast. That helps others discover us and grow the community. It is truly appreciated. Make sure to subscribe so you don't miss any upcoming episodes and follow me at Bobbi Rebell on Twitter @ bobbirebell1 on Instagram and on Facebook, I am at Bobbi Rebell. Bola is the best. I am so appreciative that she was brave enough to get really candid. She definitely got us all one step closer to being financial grownups.

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