Cameron Huddleston is back on the podcast to share how we can help our older loved ones with daily money matters and other financial support- even if we are not prepared. 

Tips on how to protect your parents and grandparents money

• Learn what you can be doing to prepare right now.

• What you should be trying to get our older relatives to do.

• If you find yourself having to help, but you haven’t done any prep work, what can you do to from there.

• How can you be there for those you love, but also maintain your own life?

• Learn about some financial resources that are out there that you can utilize

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Follow Cameron!

• Instagram - @cameronkhuddleston

• Facebook - @CameronHuddlestonMoneyExpert

• Twitter - @CHLebedinsky

• LinkedIn - @cameron-huddleston

• Website - https://cameronhuddleston.com

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• Instagram - @bobbirebell1

• Twitter- @bobbirebell

• LinkedIn- Bobbi Rebell

• Website- http://www.bobbirebell.com

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Full Transcript:

Bobbi Rebell:
I'm thinking a lot these days about financial anxiety and how much we all just want to feel secure about the future for us, and of course, for the people that we love. There's a saying, you are never happier than your most unhappy child. And I would expand that to your most unhappy person you care about. I want everyone who hears this to be able to give the next generation the gift of financial security and the freedom that comes with it. That's why I wrote Launching Financial Grownups: Live Your Richest Life by Helping Your Almost Adult Kids Become Money Smart. I'm excited to share with all of you and I hope it can help put all generations of your family on the path to reaching all of your financial goals and dreams. Order your copy of Launching Financial Grownups today, and thank you for your support.

Cameron Huddleston:
I spoke with a woman whose father had early onset Alzheimer's disease. This guy was super financially savvy, but because he was starting to experience cognitive decline, he wasn't making the mortgage payment. The mom had no idea. And someone shows up at the door of their house one day saying the house is going to be auctioned the next day for failure to pay the mortgage. And they were shocked. No had any idea.

Bobbi Rebell:
You're listening to Money Tips for Financial Grownups with me, certified financial planner, Bobbi Rebell, author of How To Be a Financial Grownup. And you know what, when it comes to money, being a grownup is hard, but together we've got this

Bobbi Rebell:
Brace yourself, my grownup friends. Most of us are so used to thinking of our parents as our safety net and our support system. There are going to be seasons of our life, maybe for you it has already happened, when we may need to step up, take care of our older loved ones, not just managing their healthcare, but also their money related life stuff. Bills don't just get paid. Someone needs to make sure their lives, their financial lives specifically, are kept running and in order. And I'm going to make sure all of you are prepared if you invest the time to listen to this week's episode, because nothing says grown up like having to take care of your older loved ones, whether it be parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, or just special people in your life.

Bobbi Rebell:
Cameron Huddleston is the author of Mom and Dad, We Need to Talk. She is now the director of education and content for Carefull, that is with two Ls, and she has a lot of great advice and wisdom on this topic to share with us. Here is Cameron Huddleston. Cameron Huddleston. Welcome back to the podcast. You are still very much such a financial grownup. Nice to see you, my friend.

Cameron Huddleston:
Thank you so much for having me back on the show.

Bobbi Rebell:
I asked you to come back on because I want you to talk about something that is really top of mind for so many people. With COVID 19, we've all been more in touch than ever with different special members of our family, often older members of our family, and much more aware of what's going on with them, checking in with them about their health. But also this has opened up an opportunity for new awareness and new discussions and new planning when it comes to money matters for our older loved ones. You, by the way, since we last talked now work with a company that really helped people with that. Tell us what you've been up to give us a little update and a little context on why you're so interested in this topic.

Cameron Huddleston:
Certainly. Well, of course it's personal for me because my mom had Alzheimer's disease and I was her caregiver for 12 years. Even though I was providing hands on care for about four years, for eight years, I was managing her finances while she was in a memory care facility. In addition to that, I am working for a new company called Carefull with two Ls, and Carefull is the first service that's built specifically to help organize and protect aging adults' daily finances. It's desktop service and a mobile app. You can link it to your bank and your credit of card accounts. And it's going to monitor those accounts 24/7 for common money mistakes, sign of fraud. There's also credit monitoring and personal information monitoring. And so you get alerts when it spots something unusual and it's really a great way to protect your finances as you age, protect them against fraud and protect them against those late payments that you might be accidentally making or not realizing that you're making because there's a cognitive decline issue.

Bobbi Rebell:
We can see each other. We're both nodding. I mean, it happens a lot and it happens a lot in a way that we don't always discover until it's too late. My husband had a friend who found out the friend's parents had literally been scammed out of tens of thousands of dollars. And it was not that recent. And it's hard to even tell whether the parents knew it happened and were embarrassed and didn't want to tell anyone or were not even aware. So it's really important that we stay on top of the finances of those that we love and also that we use the tools that are now available, that weren't available until recently to automate that and have these digital check-ins that we can do.

Bobbi Rebell:
But let's talk more about the broad picture. I mean, we think about, for example, I pay for long term healthcare insurance. So if something happens, my husband and I will have some money that will pay for us to be in a long-term care facility. So we are used to thinking about physical care for older people, but we don't think about having this financial safety net. Tell us more about where to even begin with this if you are someone that has older people in your life that you care about, whether they be relatives or just people that you love.

Cameron Huddleston:
Really, it all begins with conversations. Oftentimes we don't want to broach conversations about money because they seem really awkward, and you might have been raised in a household where your parents told you that it was impolite to talk about money. So the idea of going to your parents and saying, "Hey, mom and dad, I want to discuss your finances with you," can sound really intimidating, but this is where it has to start. These conversations are so important and you need to be having them before there's any sort of healthcare emergency, before there's any sort of financial emergency, because if you wait to have these conversations, at that point, it can be too late. There's not going to be a plan to deal with the emergency. Emotions are going to be running high. And who wants to talk about finances when there is some sort of healthcare emergency? And the bigger issue is that there might not be the legal documents in place that give you right to step in and make financial and healthcare decisions for your parents.

Bobbi Rebell:
What specifically should people be doing in advance to be prepared, one, for the big picture things that you're talking about, and two, for just the daily money matters that they might need to step in and help with?

Cameron Huddleston:
An easy way to kind of get this conversation started and to get information that you need is to ask your parents about what if scenarios. We're still in a pandemic, right? And so what if, mom or dad, you end up getting COVID and you're in the hospital and you can't pay your bills for a week or for two weeks while you're in the hospital or longer? What do I need to know about making sure as bills get paid? Asking about these sort of what if scenarios is a very easy and natural way to start the conversation.

Bobbi Rebell:
What if we get the pushback? Because that does happen a lot. I have older relatives in my family that will not talk about their money. It is no one else's business. I don't know why, but it happens. And I'm sure I'm not alone.

Cameron Huddleston:
You are not alone. It does happen. You know, fortunately I've heard that most parents are willing, but of course not all. And when you get pushed back, a couple things that you can try. If your parents or aging loved ones don't want to tell you information, maybe they would be willing to write it down. That allows them to maintain control over the information. So say, "Look, I get it. It's awkward. And you probably don't think it's any of my business right now. And really it isn't right now, but it might be some day. And so when that time comes, it would be nice if I had a list that I could go to of your accounts and how to access those accounts and what bills you pay and how they're paid and where the estate planning documents are and where the insurance policies are. Make this list for me, please. Put it someplace safe and tell me how to access it." If they are not willing to listen to you, they might listen to a third party. Maybe you reach out to their accountant, their financial advisor, their doctor, even.

Bobbi Rebell:
What about if you're in a situation where you do need to step in and you do not have this information? Where can you get it? What resources are out there?

Cameron Huddleston:
So you're going to have to play detective, most likely. And the key thing is, first of all, to find out what sort of estate planning documents do they have? Have they named you or someone else in your family power of attorney to make financial decisions for them? You cannot talk to your parents' bank, their insurance companies, their credit card companies, unless you have been named power of attorney and you have that document. So you go to your parents' house and you check the desk drawers, you check the filing cabinet if there's a filing cabinet, you check the closets and you search for these estate planning documents. Maybe they have a home safe. Maybe you know who their attorney is. And so you call up the attorney and say, "Hey, do you know if mom has named a power of attorney? Do you know who that person is? Do you have any idea where that document might be?"

Cameron Huddleston:
Because typically attorneys are not going to hang on to these documents in their office. And so you start there and maybe you don't know this information from your mom, but maybe your mom has happened to say something to your aunt and your aunt knows, "Oh yeah, I know she did that a long time ago and it's in the home safe. And here's the combination. She happened to give it to me." So you play detective. That's where you start. And then you're going to have to go through the may to figure out what sort of bills are paid. If you have any way to access their computer, for example, and you can check emails to see what sort of statements that they're getting electronically.

Bobbi Rebell:
What are some of the red flags to know that you should get proactively involved, even if they're not in the sort of distress situation that we were alluding to earlier?

Cameron Huddleston:
Well, here's something interesting Bobbi, the researchers at John's Hopkins found that those with Alzheimer's disease and related dementias show a pattern of missed and late payments up to six years before there's ever a diagnosis. So your parent, your aging loved one, could be making all sorts of money mistakes before you even start to see really obvious signs of memory loss. Obviously at that point, the damage could be severe. I spoke with a woman whose father had early onset Alzheimer's disease. This guy was super financially savvy, but because he was starting to experience cognitive decline, he wasn't making the mortgage payment. The mom had no idea, and someone shows up at the door of their house one day saying the house is going to be auctioned the next day for failure to pay the mortgage. And they were shocked. No one had any idea.

Bobbi Rebell:
And they had the money to pay it. He just wasn't paying it.

Cameron Huddleston:
Right. He had just forgotten to send in the payments.

Bobbi Rebell:
Oh my gosh.

Cameron Huddleston:
So here are some of the signs that you can look for that your parent might be experiencing cognitive decline, and if there's cognitive decline, that means their financial decision making ability is already impaired. So obvious ones like notices for late payments, collection notices that you see sitting on the dining room table, parents not paying the bills. And if you know they've got money to pay the bills, there's something going on here. If you go out to dinner with mom and dad and they're offering to pay for dinner, but then they can't figure out how to compute a tip or they can't figure out, let's say the check is $50 and they're pulling out a 20 thinking that's going to cover. So there's obviously signs with math and the inability to handle just simple mathematical tasks.

Cameron Huddleston:
Other mathematical errors that might be obvious. If they're writing a check and they can't remember how to fill out that check or how to put the date on the check, this is a sign that something's going on. But then also if you're going to your parents' house and you notice that it was once always tidy and organized, and now it seems to be disorganized, there's plates in this sink, there's just piles of clothes everywhere and you know that they're still physically capable of handling those tasks, it could be a sign that there is cognitive decline because familiar tasks become more difficult to complete. If there are sticky notes or reminder notes all over the house, and they're telling and your parents how to do things that seem really obvious, like how to turn on the cable TV, this is a sign that something's going on and you shouldn't ignore these signs.

Bobbi Rebell:
I'm just sitting here absorbing all of this. Anything else I should have asked you?

Cameron Huddleston:
Here's one more thing to look out for. If your parents mail is full of charitable donation requests, or a lot of those sweepstakes entry forms, if they're getting a lot of those, that's a good sign that your parents have already been making donations. Their names are on lists and charities and other organizations are reaching out to them. And if you see a lot of those gifts that charities send, like a blanket, the little stickers that you can put on your envelopes with your address, calendars, if there are lots of those gifts that are showing up in your parents' house, that also means that they are making donations. Now, if you know your parents are givers naturally, but they seem to be giving a lot more money, that's a sign that their financial decision making ability is impaired potentially. And again, you've got to get involved.

Bobbi Rebell:
Yeah. You have to just not always assume everything is okay just because they tell you that on your weekly phone call. You need to get involved, ask the right questions and show up in person sometimes, or make sure that if you have siblings or other relatives that can come in and do things, like physically look at the mail, because a lot of older people do still get physical bills. That's a really important thing to be able to check and make sure you guys put together a safety net as grownups to take care of the people that you love in your life. Thank you so much, Cameron.

Cameron Huddleston:
Thank you.

Bobbi Rebell:
So where of people learn more about what you're off to and about Carefull?

Cameron Huddleston:
Certainly. So you can find out more about me at CameronHuddleston.com and you can learn about Carefull at GetCarefull.com.

Bobbi Rebell:
Thank you so much, Cameron.

Cameron Huddleston:
Thank you.

Bobbi Rebell:
I really appreciate Cameron being so candid about her own life. It's tough. It's also stuff that we need to hear and we need to hear real examples of how this impacts our lives. Hopefully we've inspired some of you to take action and have those uncomfortable conversations, and maybe they won't be as cringey as we fear. And by the way, this is something that I struggle with. It's not always successful. So you may have to kind of regroup, give it a little bit of time and just try again. It's not easy. I would love to hear your tips on getting past awkward conversations when it comes to talking to parents. And then also, when it comes to talking to younger generations about money stuff. That is a lot of the focus of my new book, Launching Financial Grownups. I am both excited and really, really nervous, actually really nervous for it finally, coming out. Years in the making.

Bobbi Rebell:
I'm not doing a bunch of free giveaways to get people to pre-order. I'm putting my time, and yes, money instead into this podcast and my newsletter, which remain free for all of you. And I really want to keep my focus on keeping those two things the highest quality that I possibly can and not being distracted. So that's what I'm doing. So what I ask all of you in return is that you help me get the word out by pre-ordering the book and also encouraging others that you think might like it to do so as well. You can learn more about the book on my website, BobbiRebell.com/LaunchingFinancialGrownups. And by the way, you can also sign up for my free newsletter there as well on the website. Big thanks as always to my dear friend, Cameron Huddleston, for helping us all be financial grownups.

Bobbi Rebell:
Money Tips for Financial Grownups is a production of BRK media, LLC. Editing and production by Steve Stewart. Guest coordination, content creation, social media support and show notes by Ashley Well. You can find the podcast show notes, which include links to resources mentioned in the show as well as show transcripts, by going to my website, BobbiRebell.com. You can also find an incredible library of hundreds of previous episodes to help you on your journey as a financial grownup. The podcast, and tons of complimentary resources associated with the podcast, is brought to you for free, but I need to have your support in return. Here's how you can do that. First, connect with me on social media, @bobbirebell1 on Instagram and BobbiRebell on Twitter, where you can join my Money Tips for Grownups Club. Second, share this podcast on social media and tag me so I can thank you.

Bobbi Rebell:
You can also leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Reading each one means the world to me, and you know what? It really motivates others to subscribe. You can also support our merchant shop grownupgear.com by picking up fun gifts for your grownup friends and treating yourself as well. And most of all, help your friends on their journey to being financial grownups by encouraging them to subscribe to the podcast. Together, we got this. Thank you for your time and for the kind word so many of you send my way. See you next time. And thank you for supporting Money Tips for Financial Grownups.

Acorn’s Chief Education Officer Jennifer Barrett shares her own “wake up’ call’ when she learned to think like a breadwinner, and gives us specific strategies to build wealth and create a path to have the rich life we all deserve. 

Jennifer’s Money Lesson-

I think every woman would benefit from thinking like a breadwinner, from really basing our choices, the choices we make with our money and our career on the assumption that we should be able to provide the life that we want for ourselves without having to depend on someone else. If we make our money and career choices on that assumption, we will set ourselves up really nicely. Then if we need someone, whether or not we end up being the main earner is sort of irrelevant, but the most important thing is to think about what do I want in my life and what do I need to do financially, professionally to make that happen? One of the most important pieces of that is building wealth. So that means investing right off the bat as early as you can, as much as you can, because that is really the ticket to freedom. The more money that you have invested, the more freedom you have, because you are decreasing your dependency on each paycheck with the amount of money that you have growing for you. It just gives you so many more options. It means you can buy a house on your own, whether or not you're with somebody else. It means that if you lose a job, you are fine. You have that financial security net. It means if you want to have a baby on your own, you can afford that financially. It just gives you so many more choices with your life.

Jennifer’s Money Tip-

I think it comes down to asking yourself the question, "Are the choices I'm making with my money bringing me closer or further away from the future I want?" That seems like such a basic question, but I still ask myself that a lot of times when I'm thinking about even small choices around my money. "Is this going to bring me closer to the future I want, or is this setting me back?" So it's a good question to ask yourself regularly, a good gut check.

Bobbi’s Tips-

Financial Grownup Tip #1-

Jen talked about how hard it is to negotiate. I've had the toughest time with this too so I want to recommend a book that made a huge difference to me. It's called Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss. He also has a masterclass if you like to watch videos and I can tell you, I watched it all and it is excellent.

Financial Grownup Tip #2-

Thinking like a breadwinner sadly is not optional. I have twice become the family breadwinner totally out of the blue and it was temporary, but let me tell you, it is a shock to the system. Like Jen, I never thought it would happen to me. You don't have to be the breadwinner, but you do have to be ready to step up if life throws you a curve ball. Jen's book will help you do just that, so definitely pick up a copy of Think Like a Breadwinner.

Get your copy of Think Like A Bread Winner by Jennifer Barrett

Follow Jennifer!

• Instagram - @jbarrettnyc

• Twitter- @jbarrettNYC

• LinkedIn- Jennifer Barrett

• Website- www.jenniferbarrett.com

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• Website- http://www.bobbirebell.com/

Did you enjoy the show? We would love your support!

Leave a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. We love reading what our listeners think of the show!

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Full Transcript:

Bobbie Rebell: Question for you guys. Are we ever going to get back to that whole dress up for work thing the way we used to? I don't know. But one thing I do know is it is time to get out of those PJ's and those grungy tshirts, and we need to give ourselves an upgraded, but still super comfy, wardrobe that makes us smile, and ideally makes our coworkers, our friends and our family smile as well. I have so many friends that I've wanted to send a little pick me ups to, to let them know it's all good, and that includes you. So that's why I created Grownup Gear, a fun line of t-shirts, sweats, pillows, mugs, totes, and more thaT I guarantee will give you and everyone that you're Zooming with all day long, a good giggle.

Bobbie Rebell: Grownup Gear is about saying the things out loud that we tell ourselves silently. Like when you wake up and you look in the mirror and you think, "I can't believe I'm a grownup either." Or maybe you just want to be honest that you are still a grownup in progress, or you want to send a gift congratulating a friend for paying off their debt. The most comfy sweatshirts, t-shirts, tote bags, mugs, pillows, and more. Give it to yourself or your favorite grownup, or almost grownup, friend. Go to grownupgear.com to check it out. For discount codes and sales, follow us on Instagram at our new handle, @grownupgear, and DM us with any questions. And thank you because by supporting Grownup Gear, you help support this free podcast.

Jen Barrett: Deep down. I really don't think I believed that I would be taking the lead financially at any point in my life. I really thought my husband would be the main earner. So it probably seemed less important to negotiate that salary, and then for the next seven years, I barely negotiated my raises.

Bobbie 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.

Bobbie Rebell: Hey, Grownups, this episode has been about five years in the making. I'll never forget sitting in a Midtown restaurant with my new friend, Jennifer Barrett. A mutual friend had introduced us thinking, "Well, you guys have a lot in common and maybe you guys will come up with some projects together." So we were brainstorming our two big ideas. For me, it was Financial Grownup and the idea of sharing money stories to inspire people to build the foundation for a wealthy life of choices, getting to live the life that they want. For Jen, it was the concept that we all had to, well, think like breadwinners. Jen had, and still has, I should say, what we call a big job. She really is the breadwinner and her job as the chief education officer at Acorns is intense and sometimes all consuming. But finally, her new book, Think Like a Bread Winner, A Wealth Building Manifesto For Women Who Want To Earn More and Worry Less is coming out.

Bobbie Rebell:I can tell all of you it has been well worth the wait. I was honored that Jen asked me to contribute to this book and to endorse it along with David Bach, Eve Rodsky, the author of Fairplay, Farnoosh Torabi, who by the way wrote When She Makes More, so thinking along the same path, and Erin Lowry, who's been a frequent guest on this podcast, author of the Broke Millennial books series, and many more. In our interview, Jen Barrett shares the story that started it all when she realized what she didn't want to admit. If she wanted to get what she wanted to get, she was going to have to start thinking like a breadwinner. Here is Jennifer Barrett.

Bobbie Rebell: Jen Barrett, you are a financial grownup. Welcome to the podcast.

Jen Barrett: Thanks so much for having me.

Bobbie Rebell: I'm so excited to talk to you about your new book. So many years in the making, we've been talking about this for years. It's finally here. Think Like A Breadwinner, A Wealth Building Manifesto For Women Who Want To Earn More and Worry Less. By the way, Jen, it's already getting reviews that are amazing. This one I'm going to read to people. It's from Ladders, which is a career website. "Jennifer Barrett's manifesto for working women transcends its goal by being more than a finance book, but a testament that anyone anywhere can achieve their goals with the right advice." Not bad, Jen.

Jen Barrett: Yeah, that was a nice review. It was nice to read.

Bobbie Rebell: You're very modest.

Jen Barrett: I know. You're so nervous. You're on pins and needles before the book comes out. You're like, "I hope they like it." So it was really nice to read that.

Bobbie Rebell: Well, I got a sneak peek of the book because I got to endorse it so everyone can read my blurb when they get the book. Before we talk more about it, though, you did bring with you a money story, which really inspired the book so many years ago. Tell us your money story, Jen.

Jen Barrett: Yeah, well, there's a material difference between being able to cover the bills and handle a budgets and building wealth that supports your life and the future you want. That difference became super clear to me just after we'd had our oldest son. At the time, I was in my early 30s and we were sharing a small one bedroom apartment with our toddler who was about 18 months old. One night I was pacing back and forth with him, trying to get him back to sleep, and I think it just hit me so hard in that moment that we were in a situation that was just completely unsustainable.

Jen Barrett: I had this moment of, "Wait a second. I thought I was doing everything right financially." I had a little 401k. I had a little bit of savings. I was paying half the bills. But what I realized was that I hadn't been putting money away for the things that were most important to me, and that was being able to have another child, to afford to buy a place or even to move into a bigger apartments because we lived in Brooklyn, which is not cheap. I did some real soul searching and asked myself, "Why didn't I make those choices with my money to save more and to invest more?" I realized that subconsciously I had been thinking that my husband would take the lead there. In that moment, I think it finally dawned on me how precarious an assumption that is. So I asked myself in the days that followed, "How would the choices I make with my money and my career be different if I had been raised to think like a breadwinner?"

Jen Barrett: That's what sort of set me off on a whole new journey and brought me to where I am today, more than a decade later, which is a much better place financially. We have a larger home. I helped with most of the down payment. We have two lovely sons now. I've had both a career and been able to build the kind of wealth that I couldn't have even imagined 12 years ago when I had that wake up call.

Bobbie Rebell: Tell us more about what you were doing before you had that wake up call, what kind of job you had. Because you had a really good job that a lot of people would be very, very envious of and really admire. I mean, you were high achieving and then the things that you looked for in the next job, besides obviously paying more. I know there was a lot of soul searching about sort of what people would think, because we're both journalist backgrounds, there's a lot of judgment there.

Jen Barrett: Yeah, and I think that's an important point is just because you have a good job doesn't mean that you have your finances together. You can be a professional success and feel like a financial failure. I interviewed more than 100 women for the book and I did find that to be the case with a surprising number of women who were otherwise very successful. So I think I was in sort of the same situation but with one crucial distinction, which is I was an editor at Newsweek at that point a pretty big weekly news magazine. It has since sort of gone under and been reborn and it's not quite the same as it used to be, but it was a great job. I really looked like I had it all together from the outside, but I was really living paycheck to paycheck for the most part.

Jen Barrett: We say paycheck to paycheck, but what I was was broke, right? I only had a few hundred dollars in my savings. I was still paying down some credit card debt. So if you looked at my actual net worth, I was in negative territory and I really wasn't making the kinds of choices or making the kinds of money that would allow me to support the life that I really wanted. One big reason for that, which is almost embarrassing to admit now and I've since changed my approach with this significantly, is that I had never negotiated my salary. So when I got the job at Newsweek, I was just so thrilled to be hired there I literally did not even think to negotiate. I do think part of that was that I was so excited to be hired there, but the other part of it was deep down I really don't think I believed that I would be taking the lead financially at any point in my life.

Jen Barrett: I really thought my husband would be the main earner and so it probably seemed less important to negotiate that salary. Then for the next seven years, I barely negotiated my raises. So one other critical moment for me was I came back from maternity leave and I found out that someone had been hired who had just a few more years experience than me in a very similar role and they were making 50% more than me. That moment was like ... It was so crushing that I vowed I would never ever make that mistake again and I was going to negotiate the hell out of every job offer and raise that I got from that point on, and it made me sort of reassess this idea I had about loyalty and about employers just taking care of you because you're doing a great job. It was a real wake up call in that sense too, where I realized I need to advocate for myself. I need to show my value. I need to ask for it and not assume that I'm going to get it just because I'm doing a good job.

Bobbie Rebell: So you set out to get a job that paid more. Tell us what that job was and how that onboarding went.

Jen Barrett: Yeah. So I was hired in my first job in management. I became the director of a health site. It was part of NBC. It was called iVillage Health. It was a huge site at the time. I think one of the top five largest health sites for women. It was a dramatic increase in the amount of responsibility I had, but also in my salary. So I ended up making almost double what I had ... Actually, no. More than double what I had been making at Newsweek and in between there I freelanced, and when I was freelancing, I really understood that I had undervalued myself and my skills because I was able to make a lot more freelancing than I had in my full-time job at Newsweek. So that was also a realization and a validation of the fact that the skills that I had were valuable. Then with this job, it both provided a lot more income. It allowed me to get the mortgage and it also put me on the management track, which I have been on ever since.

Bobbie Rebell: Jen, what was your husband thinking while this was going on? Did you have talks about this?

Jen Barrett: We did and I think part of it was when he and I first started dating, he was working at a startup at the time and was making a lot more than I was as a reporter. But I think that's where some of the assumptions sort of got set in my head. The startup went under and then he moved back to journalism. So he took a pretty big pay cut and suddenly our salaries were much closer than they have been. But I think in my head, I still kept telling myself that that was a temporary situation. I still expected him to earn considerably more than me, even as the evidence started to mount that that may not be the case, particularly with both of us being in journalism. We did have some discussions around that and in particular, when I got that job in management at that point, he was on contract.

Jen Barrett: So we realized that my income and my income prospects were probably greater at that particular point. Certainly I was the one who had secured the mortgage in part because I had a full-time job and it's very difficult when you are on contract to get approved. So we realized that my income was really critical to the household and so that launched a whole series of discussions about how is this going to work. I'm not going to say it was easy. We had to have a lot of really difficult discussions because I was pregnant with our second son when I moved into the breadwinner role. In my mind, again, I thought, "Oh, this is sort of a temporary situation where I'm going to take on this really demanding role so we can get the mortgage. I'll keep doing this."

Jen Barrett: Then I found I really enjoyed it. I realized I really am quite ambitious and so I wasn't sure I wanted to give up that role, but at the same time, for a while I was also trying to be the primary caregiver and that, as anyone who has tried to do both can tell you, is almost impossible to sustain. So it led to some really emotional and candid conversations with my husband about what role are we each going to take here and how are we going to divide all the responsibilities, household responsibilities, caregiving, breadwinning, in a way that feels fair to each of us?

Bobbie Rebell: Jen, what is the lesson from your story?

Jen Barrett: I think every woman would benefit from thinking like a breadwinner, from really basing our choices, the choices we make with our money and our career on the assumption that we should be able to provide the life that we want for ourselves without having to depend on someone else. If we make our money and career choices on that assumption, we will set ourselves up really nicely. Then if we need someone, whether or not we end up being the main earner is sort of irrelevant, but the most important thing is to think about what do I want in my life and what do I need to do financially, professionally to make that happen? One of the most important pieces of that is building wealth.

Jen Barrett: So that means investing right off the bat as early as you can, as much as you can, because that is really the ticket to freedom. The more money that you have invested, the more freedom you have, because you are decreasing your dependency on each paycheck with the amount of money that you have growing for you. It just gives you so many more options. It means you can buy a house on your own, whether or not you're with somebody else. It means that if you lose a job, you are fine. You have that financial security net. It means if you want to have a baby on your own, you can afford that financially. It just gives you so many more choices with your life.

Bobbie Rebell: You also brought with you in everyday money tip.

Jen Barrett: Yeah, I think it comes down to asking yourself the question, "Are the choices I'm making with my money bringing me closer or further away from the future I want?" That seems like such a basic question, but I still ask myself that a lot of times when I'm thinking about even small choices around my money. "Is this going to bring me closer to the future I want, or is this setting me back?" So it's a good question to ask yourself regularly, a good gut check.

Bobbie Rebell: It's a very good gut check and I think it's something that sounds easy, but we don't really do that a lot. We don't usually just kind of pause and sit down and really think about that and maybe even write down a few things that we want to do. I find when you write things down, sometimes they stick a little bit better. I don't know. All right, we got to shift gears because I don't want to run out of time and we have to talk about Think Like A Breadwinner because this is a book that has been in the making for quite a long time, because it is so well researched, Jen. You spent a lot of time doing the work here and the book is chock-full of statistics that are ... Some of them would just blow my mind. If you could share with us just one statistic that's sort of your elevator pitch to get this book, what is that one stat that stands out?

Jen Barrett: Well, I think one of the most significant stats is that half of moms in this country today are contributing at least 40% of the total household earnings. That's according to the latest Institute for Women's Policy Research report. That just reinforces the fact that women's income is absolutely critical right now. I think we saw that when women started dropping out of the workforce. We could see what the impact was going to be, not just on families, but on the economy.

Bobbie Rebell: A lot of this book was already done before the pandemic, but you were still finishing it up during the pandemic. What is in the book now that would not have been pre-pandemic?

Jen Barrett: The pandemic reminded us of how important it is to take charge of our finances and to build the kind of savings and wealth that provide financial security and help us weather tough times like this. So that message of taking care of yourself and putting money into an investment account and building wealth to support you not just now but in the future is more important than ever.

Bobbie Rebell: So well said. Jen, where can people catch up with you? I know that your book is going to be everywhere.

Jen Barrett: I hope so. You can find me at jenniferbarrett.com and you can read more about the book there, and then I'm on social media all over the place. It's @jbarrettNYC on Instagram, Twitter. I'm on LinkedIn.

Bobbie Rebell: All the places.

Jen Barrett: Oh, the places. Clubhouse. Yes.

Bobbie Rebell: Yes, Clubhouse. Let's not forget that. Thanks, Jen.

Jen Barrett: Thank you.

Bobbie Rebell: Here we go. Financial Grownup tip number one. Jen talked about how hard it is to negotiate. I've had the toughest time with this too so I want to recommend a book that made a huge difference to me. It's called Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss. He also has a masterclass if you like to watch videos and I can tell you, I watched it all and it is excellent. Financial Grownup tip number two, thinking like a breadwinner sadly is not optional. I have twice become the family breadwinner totally out of the blue and it was temporary, but let me tell you, it is a shock to the system. Like Jen, I never thought it would happen to me. You don't have to be the breadwinner, but you do have to be ready to step up if life throws you a curve ball. Jen's book will help you do just that, so definitely pick up a copy of Think Like a Breadwinner.

Bobbie Rebell: One thing I do, I always try to think of new revenue streams. My latest is Grownup Gear. You can see more about it at grownupgear.com. I hope you'll support it by checking out the merchandise. It's perfect for all of your grownup milestones. Gifts for graduation, new parents, mother's day, father's day, a new home, birthdays, or just celebrating being a grownup and kind of owning it. Discount codes available on my Instagram @bobbirebell1. Another reason to follow me on Instagram, we will be giving away copies of Jen's book and of other authors on the show. This spring, so many amazing authors are on tap and they're generously giving gifts to our Grownup community. I also want to invite everyone to join our weekly Friday at 1:00 PM Clubhouse chats in the Money Tips For Grownups club. DM me on Instagram if you need and invite to Clubhouse. Big thanks to Jen Barrett for helping us all be financial grownups.

Bobbie Rebell: The Financial Grownup Podcast is a production of BRK media. The podcast is hosted by me, Bobbi Rebell, but the real magic happens behind the scenes with our team. Steve Stewart is our editor and producer, and Amanda Savan is our talent coordinator and content creator. So yeah, that means she does the show notes you can get for every show right on our website and all the fantastic graphics that you can see on our social media channels. Our mission here at Financial Grownup is to help you be at your financial best in every stage of life. This year we want to help you get there by giving away some of our favorite money books.

Bobbie Rebell: To get yours, make sure you are on the Grownup list. Go to bobbirebell.com to sign up for free. While you're there, please check out our Grownup Gear shop and help support the show by buying something to express your commitment to being a financial grownup. Stay in touch on Instagram @bobbirebell1and on Twitter @bobbirebell. You can email us at hello@financialgrownup.com and if you enjoyed the show, please tell a friend and maybe leave a review on Apple podcasts. It only takes a couple minutes. Join us next time for more stories to help you live your best grownup life.

When Jessica Goodman landed a book deal, and later a TV deal for her debut novel “They Wish They Were us” many people though she would go full time on her side-hustle. But Goodman says that was never the plan, and explains why and how she blends the finances and demands of her two dream jobs.

In Jessica’s Money Story she shares:

-How she started writing her e first book, “They Wish They Were Us.”after having the idea for years.

-How she researched what is involved in selling a book to a publisher, including getting an agent

-How she kept her employer, Cosmopolitan Magazine informed and supportive of her book writing side hustle

-How an advance works for an author, including the tax implications

-What she wishes she knew about being an author and how much they are paid before she wrote and sold the book

-How she was able to adapt her schedule to both her full time job at Cosmopolitan Magazine, and writing books

-What you need to know about how a full time job works compared to being a self-employed author, including quarterly taxes

-When you should think about bringing in an accountant.

In Jessica’s Money Lesson you will learn:

-Why and how you should re-evaluate the way you think about money

-The best strategies to manage money when you are paid inconsistently in chunks

-How she and her partner adapted their spending during the pandemic

-How to resist it when people who care about you give you bad financial advice

Jessica’s Money Tip:

-Even if you live in a small space it can pay to buy in bulk during quarantine (and maybe after!)

-Think of non-traditional items that you would not have used as much at home- like buying wine by the case

-Tips about ordering groceries online including having the heaviest items delivered

Bobbi’s Financial Grownup Tips:

Financial Grownup Tip #1:

Jessica shared that she regretted not taking the time and advanced to understand the financial impact of having both a W2 job, that's a full time job, and self-employment income. Whenever you start a new venture that might bring in revenue, check in with a tax professional. If you are at a full-time job, read through those benefits, go to your HR website because the truth is many companies allow you to enroll in a free or low cost legal plan where you can get that kind of advice in a very affordable way.

Financial Grownup Tip #2:

Get a system going and understand that you might miss out on things if you want to reach your goals. Jessica was pretty candid about her commitment to her writing routine. To get to what you want to accomplish, most of us are going to have to be deliberate and to make room for something like writing a novel, when you aren't at your day job, you probably will have to give some things up.

Episode Links:

• Jessica’s website - https://www.goodmanjessica.com/

• Buy They Wish They Were Us

• Pre-Order They’ll Never Catch Us

Follow Jessica!

• Instagram - @jessicagoodman

• Twitter - @jessgood

Follow Bobbi!

• Instagram - @bobbirebell1

• Twitter - @bobbirebell

  
  Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

Full transcript of show:

Bobbi Rebell:

Part of being a financial grownup is making sure you have a plan for how you spend your money and how you pay your bills. And now we have a new tool for that. It is called Splitit. It will take a lot of the stress away from those big purchases and really allow you to plan ahead. Here's how it works. You shop online and when you're ready to pay, you just choose Splitit at the checkout to split your payment on your credit card and pay over time. There's no interest, no application, no fees. It is fast and easy. So if you buy something for $500, you can split it into five smaller payments of $100 a month without any interest or fees. Much more manageable and you're in control of your costs. By turning your payments into smaller installments over time with no interest, Splitit gives you more spending power.

Bobbi Rebell:

I know I don't like to have to pay interest if I can avoid it. And I also don't want to always be opening new lines of credit. Split your payments and live big with the credit cards you already have go to splitit.com today. That's splitit.com.

Jessica Goodman:

When I was like a little kid, I was like, oh my God. You publish a book and you become a millionaire. That's just like how it works. But in reality, I learned that was not the case.

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, do you have a passion project or a side hustle? One you dream of doing full time one day and maybe getting to ditch that day job? Well, Cosmopolitan's Jessica Goodman had a passion project that she was quietly working on for years. And that was to be an author. Her debut novel, a murder mystery set in an elite private school called They Wish They Were Us ended up being such a hit that it is now being made into a TV series, starring Halsey and Euphoria's Sydney Sweeney. Fast-forward and Jessica has now scored a book for a second novel that is already coming out this summer. So all systems go on the dream career, right? Well, not so fast. To the surprise of quite a few people in her life, rather than ditch, she doubled down, staying on a Cosmopolitan magazine where she is currently the op-ed editor.

Bobbi Rebell:

In our interview, Jessica shares why she is sticking with the day job, goes through exactly how she manages her time and gets candid about what she wishes she knew about before diving into the book business, including, well, a lot of tech stuff. For those of you new to the Financial Grownup Podcast, welcome. I'm so glad that you are here. We talk with financial grownups here about money stories that impacted their lives and the lessons learned from those stories. We also ask them to bring along an everyday money tip that we can put to work right away. Spoiler alert. Jessica's has to do with how she and her partner buy their wine. So stay tuned for her tip on that. And with that, let's get to this week's interview. Here is Cosmo op-ed editor and author of They Wish They Were Us, Jessica Goodman.

Bobbi Rebell:

Jessica Goodman, I'm so excited to finally have you on the show. You are definitely a financial grownup. Welcome.

Jessica Goodman:

Thank you so much for having me. I'm thrilled to be here.

Bobbi Rebell:

And happy 2021, a year when your second, soon to be bestseller is going to be released. Before we get into your money story, tell us a little bit about each of your books just briefly.

Jessica Goodman:

So my first book, They Wish They Were Us came out in August and it is a young adult thriller that follows a high school senior, Jill Newman, who is in a very exclusive society within her Long Island prep school. And at the beginning of the book, she is reflecting on the fact that her best friend died when she was a freshman and she was also part of this society. And soon after the book begins, she starts getting text messages that say that her best friend Shayla didn't die the way that everybody thinks she did. And so what follows is kind of a whodunit, murder mystery set in this very exclusive prep school. And it's really an exploration of privilege and friendship and peer pressure. And I kind of like to say that it's like Gossip Girl meets Pretty Little Liars, meets A Secret History. It's really fun. And it's being adapted into a TV series, starring Sydney Sweeney and Halsey. So if those people are on your brain, I think you might enjoy.

Jessica Goodman:

And then I also have a new book coming out this summer. It's called, They'll Never Catch Us. It's currently available for pre-order wherever books are sold. And it is also a young adult thriller about two super competitive sisters who run cross country. And they're both trying to be the best on their team and in the state. And they threaten to kind of lose the number one and two spots when a new girl comes to town. And then soon after she arrives, she also disappears. And everybody in the town begins to suspect that the sisters had something to do with it. So that's where my brain has been for the past couple of months, which is really exciting.

Bobbi Rebell:

It is really exciting. What's amazing to me, and I think our listeners will really enjoy hearing about this is while you are doing this, this is actually really a side hustle to your primary job. You have been in a number of different positions at Cosmopolitan magazine. You're currently the op-ed editor. Did I get that right?

Jessica Goodman:

You did. And I'm very impressed that you didn't trip up over the ed editor because I always do when I say it out loud and I have to be like, oh wait, no, this is my job.

Bobbi Rebell:

That is your job now, you are still working there with one book out, another one on the way. So for your money story, I've asked you to kind of talk about how that happened, especially the money-related decisions that you had to make along the way to make this happen. Having a very full-time job at Cosmo. And then on the side, writing this book. It was a lot of choices you had to make I would say. Tell us your money story.

Jessica Goodman:

Definitely. Yeah, so many choices along the way. When I started writing the first book, They Wish They Were Us. And I really started writing it in earnest after having kind of dabbled with it for many years. In earnest, I started working on it in like 2015, 2016. I would say. I didn't get to the point where I thought I could actually sell it and be a professional author until maybe like 2018. And that's when I got connected with my agent and we started working towards being able to sell it. But I did a lot of research into how one becomes an author. I was literally Googling like, how do you publish a book? Like, how do you find an agent? Like what is a book advance? Like all of these kinds of really basic questions that I just had no idea what it was all about.

Jessica Goodman:

And I basically found out that it's really, really, really difficult to publish and sell a book. And that be your sole income or your sole career, like one book basically. And so it was never really an option for me to quit my ... Like I never thought about quitting my jobs in journalism while I was trying to sell the book. So it was always just like, how can I make both of these dreams come true at the same time? And so we sold the book, They Wish They Were Us, in the fall of 2018. And we got an advance, which is what they call the income that you make from selling your book. And publishers usually split it up into a few big chunks. For mine, it was like, I got a chunk of money when I signed the contract, a chunk of money when I turned in the book and then a chunk of money when the book came out. And when, at least when I was like a little kid, I was like, oh my God. It's like you publish a book and you become a millionaire. That's just like how it works. But in reality, I learned that was not the case. And it's certainly like a fantastic thing to have of course, but it's not the kind of financial gains that I originally thought it would be. And I think that a lot of people think about when they think of like someone getting a book advance. Like I said, it was always like a no-brainer that I would keep my job, but I really had to learn how to prioritize both jobs to be able to do them well. So my schedule when I'm being my best self is that I write in the morning before work, usually from seven to nine. And then I do my job from ten to whenever. And then I write on the weekends as well. It's certainly hard at some points, especially at my job at Cosmo, I cover the news, especially like elections and special elections and anything relating to, like having to do with politics. So obviously this past year was hard to balance everything.

Bobbi Rebell:

Were you open with your bosses about these efforts, or was it something you kept private?

Jessica Goodman:

When the book deal actually happened, I went in and told my boss, hey, I just want to give you a heads up that like this happened and it's not going to affect the work that I do here. Like, I really wanted to make sure that they knew that I wasn't about to quit basically, that I was just like, this is just something that I'm doing for myself and my personal dreams. But like, it's not going to affect my work or my productivity here. And I just wanted to give you like a courtesy heads up basically. And everybody was really supportive and they have been really supportive of the book. And so it's been lovely honestly, but I definitely have heard some horror stories at other companies. But I think when you work in a field that's somewhat like adjacent to whatever your side hustle is, it does make it a little bit easier for people to understand why you might be doing something or how it won't interfere with your responsibilities.

Bobbi Rebell:

What do you wish you knew in terms of the book business and the financial aspects of it? What do you wish you knew ahead of time? You mentioned that you get the bulk payments and you kind of had this idea as a child that authors become millionaires.

Jessica Goodman:

Yeah, I think something that I definitely wish that I knew was like taxes. Like I think if you're like me and you've really only had a job that you get a salary and benefits from your employer, it's really difficult to self-manage money that comes in chunks, whether you're a freelance writer or you're your own boss and you're not part of like a company. I think it's really difficult to know things like, oh, I have to pay quarterly taxes on this income. Or like, oh, I don't know how much money to put aside from this advanced check that I got, because that advance doesn't reflect the taxes I need to pay on it. So I ended up working with an accountant because I had no idea how to navigate this on my own. And I wanted to make sure that I was doing everything by the book.

Jessica Goodman:

And I wasn't going to get dinged at the end of the fiscal year because I have heard horror stories of people getting, like a $100,000 of their advance, spending it, and then not realizing that they needed to pay however many tens of thousands of dollars of taxes on that. And like, oh my God, what a nightmare. Or even realizing that I had to pay quarterly taxes on like freelance income was the real shock to me. So I got an accountant kind of like late in the game, I would say. And I wish I had got one, like even before the first check came in to like really help me navigate that.

Bobbi Rebell:

What is the lesson for our listeners, from this story? What's your advice to people thinking about whether it's writing a novel or any kind of side hustle where they're going to have to hold on to their job?

Jessica Goodman:

I think for me, it was really reevaluating the way that I thought about money. Like I think after having been in jobs where like I got a salary check every other week. That was like, okay, like I know what my monthly expenses are. I know how much my rent is. I know how much my utilities are. Like, I know how much I spend on groceries. Like all that stuff that they tell you. And I knew how to manage that money. Like I knew how much I might be able to save, how much I would need to pay my credit card bill, like all this stuff. But when you get these like big chunks of money, or even just smaller chunks of money from like freelance gigs or whatever, I think it can feel really tempting to just kind of spend it immediately. Even if you're the type of person who is really invested in saving and planning for your future, I think it's hard to conceptualize like how much money you might need for stuff. And especially this year, when I wasn't interested in spending a lot of money at all, based on the kind of times we're in, I splurged on a few things and those things I was thinking about them before we hopped on the call. Those are the things that I really splurged on this year where I turned 30 and I bought myself $80 worth of oysters that were shipped from Cape Cod and an oyster shucker. And that's how I spent my 30th birthday with my partner. We shucked like 50 oysters and save the additional, however many for the next day. And it was such a treat and it was so much fun and something that I'll remember forever. And I bought myself a $90 tie dyed sweatsuit because I am a millennial and on Instagram and it just looked really cozy. And those were like my two big splurges of the year.

Jessica Goodman:

And I know a lot of people, when they get like a book advancer or kind of achieve these really big milestones, they're like, I'm going to buy myself a really expensive piece of jewelry or a fancy handbag, or even like house or whatever. And I mean, I think all of those things are fantastic, but for me, the lesson for me, the lesson here was like, all right, I don't really have anything that I'm ready to splurge on that big right now. I really want to like, save all of this money as much as I can. And those are the things I'm going to splurge on, like oysters and a tie dyed sweatsuit. And knowing that like my big splurge might come later. Like I am saving up to buy a house with my partner. And I think that like my book advance will of course go towards that.

Jessica Goodman:

But realizing that like, I didn't need to spend it all right away I think was a huge revelation, especially because so many people were like, what are you going to treat yourself to? Like your book just came out, like, what are you going to do to mark the occasion? And I didn't really do that much because it just didn't feel right for me. Those were my splurges.

Bobbi Rebell:

I love it. I love the idea of oysters. So tell us your everyday money tip.

Jessica Goodman:

Oh yes. Okay. So this is one that I really got to be obsessed with during the pandemic. Like I am not the type of person that should or would traditionally buy in bulk. Like I live with one other person. We live in a one bedroom apartment. It's very small. We don't have a lot of storage space, but this year I became the kind of person that buys in bulk. Obviously, so many people are doing this during the pandemic, but I don't think I really realized how much you actually save when you buy in bulk and you know what you're going to use in those bulk quantities. And I think the pandemic has really shown people like what they actually use and what is actually important to them. And so for us, like there were a few things that really changed the way I thought about this. One was I started doing like subscribe and save Amazon paper towels and toilet paper. And actually I had done this pre run out of toilet paper in like March moment. So I pat myself on the back for knowing that would be a thing.

Jessica Goodman:

But I think I did the math recently. And it was like if I were to buy a few rolls every time I went to the grocery store, I would spend nearly twice the amount that I do just doing subscribe and save and having them shipped directly to my house. And even though they just sit in boxes in like a corner of our apartment. Because again, small one bedroom apartment, I think it's like totally worth it for us. And the other way that I found this to be really useful was we started buying our wine in cases, which a year ago I would have said like, are you okay? Like what's going on here?

Jessica Goodman:

But my local wine shop, they started offering a 15% discount if you bought a case of wine. And so we basically did the math and we were like, well, we'd be losing money if we didn't do this. And we don't go through them that quickly. I mean, it's no brainer how much money you save. We started looking for ways that you could buy in bulk and save like that. Like the fancy coffee shop near us. If you buy beans in bulk, it's like the same thing. And all these companies now do like subscribe and save membership things, like there's so many coffee ones where like every week they'll send you a bag of beans or whatever. And I think like looking for those has really been super helpful for us and certainly cut down on how we spend.

Jessica Goodman:

The other thing about like this buying in bulk grocery shopping thing is I heard this tip from Carla Lalli Music who used to work at Bon Appetit and now is she's like a chef home cook person on Instagram and has like a fantastic cookbook. But her big tip was always like, if you're ordering groceries, like order all the heavy stuff that's going to be delivered to your apartment. So you don't have to carry stuff, especially in an apartment. And that has been so helpful to me too, where it's like, every time I do like a big shop online or Instacart or Whole Foods or whatever, I get like 10 cans of beans, because like, I don't want to carry that. Or like four jugs of olive oil or like four twelve packs of seltzer because yes, you're buying in bulk. And sometimes you can get discounts that way, but also like who wants to carry that stuff home?

Bobbi Rebell:

Definitely good to always make your life easier. Especially if you are paying those fees to have it delivered. You want to get the most out of that delivery fee. Jessica, thank you so much for being with us, tell us where people can find out more about you. We know your books are available everywhere. We don't know when is the TV series coming.

Jessica Goodman:

TBD on the TV series, but you can stay up to date with all of that info on my Instagram, which is @JessicaGoodman or Twitter @JessGood. And I also have a website goodmanjessica.com. Thank you so much for having me.

Bobbi Rebell:

Okay. My friends let's do this. Financial Grownup tip number one, Jessica shared that she regretted not taking the time and advanced to understand the financial impact of having both a W2 job, that's a full time job, and self-employment income. Whenever you start a new venture that might bring in revenue, check in with a tax professional. And by the way, if you are at a full-time job, read through those benefits, go to your HR website because the truth is many companies allow you to enroll in a free or low cost legal plan where you can get that kind of advice in a very affordable way.Financial Grownup tip number two, get a system going and understand that you might miss things if you want to reach your goals. Jessica was pretty candid about her commitment to her writing routine. To get to what you want to accomplish, most of us are going to have to be deliberate and to make room for something like writing a novel, when you aren't at your day job, you probably will have to give some things up.

Bobbi Rebell:

I had so much fun talking with Jessica and her book was really, really a page turner. As I mentioned, it is a murder mystery. And for the record, I really was totally fooled. I didn't see the twists and turns coming. One thing that I've really loved during our forced stayed home time during this pandemic has been catching up on reading fiction and really getting lost in books. We're going to be giving away a few signed copies of Jessica's book to that end so please make sure you are on the Grownup list ASAP so you don't miss that. Just go to my website, bobbirebell.com, and you can sign up for free.

Bobbi Rebell:

Now while you are there, please check out my big project that I have been working on. I am so excited to see what you guys think. It is the new Grownup Gear Shop. It's a passion project of mine, and I hope you guys will all support it. Podcasts listeners can get 10% off if you use the code “Jessica” within one week of this episode dropping. So just go to my website, bobbirebell.com, and you'll see the word shop, click on there. Check it out. I hope you guys like it. Big thanks to author Jessica Goodman for helping us all be financial grownups.

Bobbi Rebell:

Financial grownup with Bobbi Rebell is edited and produced by Steve Stewart and is a BRK media production.

Ghost writer Stephanie Krikorian trusted a financial planner with her investments after a big layoff a decade ago. But years later discovered blind trust was costing her, and learned to read the paperwork, and take grownup ownership of her money strategy.  

Stephanie's money story:

Steph Krikorian:
So, basically, I get laid off and I did two quick things. I refinanced while I still had a paycheck coming in, because rates were down and they hadn't been for awhile. I thought that was a smart thing to do. Secondly, I went to this financial planner and merged several 401ks, because I had been at several jobs and never really paid much attention to it. I always put in the max that I could, et cetera. But I thought, "This will help me move it, and then I can focus on finding a job or starting a business, whichever I'm going to do."

Steph Krikorian:
I remember meeting with this financial planner and asking a very specific question, "How are you paid?" My understanding when I left that meeting, and I interview people for a living, so I feel fairly confident I was given a certain answer and didn't make that mistake, but maybe I did, my understanding was the payment for the financial planner was based on money I made, so that if I made 10%, the financial planner was paid a percentage of that. So, I do all these things, and I am on my own little austerity program. I'm doing a single pump of shampoo. You can read about all the crazy things I did to not waste money while I was trying to, you know, make sure I didn't overspend. ,I was trying to stay on my budget. I invested. I knew I had to save. Even when there was no money coming in, even though I cut everything else out, I scraped together a certain amount of money.

Steph Krikorian:
So, in the meantime, I start going on the Zen Bender, because I start reading self-help books. I've reinvented myself. I start reading self-help books. I start getting obsessed-

Bobbi Rebell:
This is all because you're ghostwriting a lot of them too, so you're really immersing yourself in your material.

Steph Krikorian:
That's how it started. I really was immersing myself in the material, because everybody has a book idea, and then they say, "Oh, it's like the Suze Orman of such and such or the Marie Kondo of such and such." So, I was reading for research, but as I read, I also got a little obsessed, because I said, "Oh my God. There's all these fixes out there. I must have all these holes in my life to fill. I'm single. I'm thick around the middle, because everyone wants to lose a few pounds. I'm trying to figure out my career." So, I started grasping at all these things a little more than necessary, as per the research.

Steph Krikorian:
So, I take my eye off the ball of what I think I had set up with the financial planner, and I spend hoards of money on Reiki, and rainbow healers, and dating coaches. You know, I could've basically probably gone to law school instead and done something productive. But all of this time I think, "You know, I've made my budget. I'm following the rules. I'm being careful." But somewhere in all that mishmash, kind of the point of the Zen Bender was I lost a little bit of confidence. I stopped trusting my gut and I kind of took my eye off the ball of the important things and ceded a lot of power to these ... you know, this dating coach who's telling me, "You've got to wear high heels and have shiny hair in order to find a husband, because he'll think you're fertile, and he'll want to marry you."

Bobbi Rebell:
Right. And probably very expensive heels too.

Steph Krikorian:
[inaudible 00:06:24] I got $200 a pop, but if you do five, then of course X,Y,Z is going to happen. The doors will open up. I had started treating my business like a business. Even though it's writing, I formed an LLC. I have a lawyer. I outsource things like copy editing, because I wanted to only do the work that was mission-critical. So, I was making enough money. It wasn't like I was on my credit card doing this stuff. You know? There were lean years the first couple of years. Then I started getting on my feet and I started making enough money.

Steph Krikorian:
Somewhere in there I have a call from my financial planner. Also, in fairness, if I step back and look at it, she gave me a couple of pieces of advice which were, "Sell all your stock from your first job," which was General Electric stock, which at the time was not a good suggestion, and, "Dump this apartment, even at a loss." I disregarded both pieces of advice. I was not going to dump that apartment at a loss. I was going to make my payments, and I was going to save it, that investment. So, I didn't take that warning sign, you know? That should have made me a little nervous, and it didn't, because I knew better. I'd worked in financial news, like you, and I knew that wasn't right. Every year I'm putting together the maximum I can scrape in and put in, but nothing's really moving in the fund. I'm in one of those funds as you age, you know, with the term and the end.

Bobbi Rebell:
The target date fund, which sometimes have double fees. Sometimes those can be very expensive.

Steph Krikorian:
Right. It didn't seem to be doing a lot, and I thought, "Oh, it must just be the time, you know. Whatever." So, we have this call and she suggests, since I've reached a certain milestone, she explains there's this, you know, almost like a fund of funds with these various ETFs in the same thing. It sort of ages as you go and it's really something to consider. I said, "Okay. Great. I guess so. Sure." She said, "And the fee is so much less. It's almost half,| or whatever. I say, "Oh, what's the fee been generally, because it shouldn't ... you know, we haven't made a lot of money, so it couldn't possibly be very high." She tells me the percentage, and I do the math, and I get furious.

Steph Krikorian:
I'm like, "Wait a minute. You're charging more out of my fund than I'm depositing every year. You should have seen that." You know, she said, "Well, I don't keep track of who's putting in more or who's not." I'm like, "That's your single job. That's like your only job, to be ... Maybe you should've stopped and said, 'Hey. I don't think you need to be in here. Just go to Fidelity and buy a fund.'" I was mad at her, but honestly I was more mad at myself, because the one thing I probably should have spent the time on was understanding what was going on there. But I got so lost in the haze of all the chaos and life change that was happening, that I trusted the professional to handle it, and I don't think ... She didn't do anything negligent or anything like that. She did what she told me she would do. It's just I didn't double check. I think you have to stay on top of these things, because the single most important thing is your money, period. It really is.

“Nobody reads the fine print. So you have to do your own annual or semi-annual check in and now I do. I check very rigorously all my financial statements. ”

Stephanie’s money lesson:

Steph Krikorian:
Double check, double check, double check, and then quarterly, when you have those check-ins, check, and maybe you're smarter than the experts. Maybe if you're in a single fund, investigate the other ways to invest in that single fund, so that you don't pay the load that you're paying a financial planner,` who has much wealthier clients to make money off of.

Bobbi Rebell:
Was she a fiduciary? Do you know? Was she a CFP? Was she a fiduciary?

Steph Krikorian:
Yup. Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Bobbi Rebell:
Really?

Steph Krikorian:
Yeah. It was a big firm and all. She wasn't doing anything wrong. She did her job.

Bobbi Rebell:
And she informed you. You just didn't hear I guess is what you're saying.

Steph Krikorian:
I misunderstood at the beginning and I was an early client.

Bobbi Rebell:
You're a financial journalist.

Steph Krikorian:
I know.

Bobbi Rebell:
Oh my goodness, Stephanie. What hope is there for everybody else?

Steph Krikorian:
I know, and I wonder. I was an early client of hers, and she was just starting out. I liked her, because she was woman and she was new, and people were giving me a chance, and I gave her a chance. I still don't regret that, but I think, you know, these things aren't transparent. You can't tell how much you pay. In fairness to anybody, it's hard to tell what percentage you're paying in these things. So, I think you have to ask those questions regularly, because things also change, and nobody reads the fine print. So, you have to do your own annual or semi-annual check-in, and now I do. I check very rigorously all my financial statements. I check my bank account to see ... You know, my bank account got hacked. If I didn't check as frequently as I did, I would never have known. So, you-

Bobbi Rebell:
Oh my goodness.

Steph Krikorian:
It did. Yeah. They had my name. They had my bank account. Must've been off a piece of paper or a bill. They were trying to get in there. They didn't get anything. But, so, you have to always check. Nothing to do with your money should ever be on autopilot, even paying your bills. You know, you can miss a bill, because autopilot is not the way to go, and that's for your financial planning and your daily accounts. You got to keep a tally.

“Walking solves all my problems… It helps creatively, it helps anxiety.. and saves some money. ”

Stephanie's everyday money tip:

Steph Krikorian:
So, you can get really caught up into these things. The average price for any of these sessions is $200. It's very easy to get-

Bobbi Rebell:
For what? I'm sorry. $200 for what?

Steph Krikorian:
Like Reiki, the astrologist, acupuncture. $200 seems to be the going rate of 2019, and buying five packs is very easy to get caught up. I would say this. Try anything, because there's a placebo effect or you find it inspiring. Try anything once. Don't buy the five packs. Just try it and see, and then step away and think of it. Don't get caught up in it. But more importantly, what I found, after all of the sessions, and all of the coaches, and thousands of dollars on a dating coach, I'm still single.

Steph Krikorian:
All the diets I tried and paid for and I think of how much per pound I've spent trying to lose the same 5, 10 pounds. Go for a walk, and then go for another walk, and then walk for more, longer, longer, longer. Walking solves all my problems, and it took me ... I knew that at the beginning, and then I didn't figure it out until the end, but it helps creatively. It helps anxiety. It does the same trick as some of this other stuff does, and it helps you work out, and it's good for your health, and so do that. That's my suggestion. Save some money. Do everything that you want to do, but just once in a while. Don't go on a Zen Bender, like I did, and hit it all hard, all at once, all the time.

Bobbi Rebell:
Amazing advice, and it's so true about walking. I get all my best ideas when I'm walking. It's also a great way to socialize, instead of going somewhere and spending money on food that will cost you money and weight.

Steph Krikorian:
What was the scariest thing to write? Oh, a lot of it was scary. It set out to be a book on humor, you know, a humor book on all these crazy things I tried, and then as I wrote it, I'm like thinking, "Well, why did I do that?" I think a couple of things, quickly, how much weight has held me back in life. You know, we all wish we were a little thinner I think. I don't know. I can't speak for everybody.

Bobbi Rebell:
Me.

Steph Krikorian:
I think-

Bobbi Rebell:
I'm raising my hand.

Steph Krikorian:
Exactly. And we all wish that we could drop a few pounds, and I spent a little bit too much time obsessing about that. That was sort of disappointing, and I was surprised I was able to put that on the page, because I really don't like to talk about it. I think being single, you know, I kind of likened the dating at ... I'm 50 now, but this whole book took place in my 40s. It's like shopping at Marshall's or T.J.Maxx. Everything is picked over. It's like seconds right now. So, that was a lot for me to talk about. You know, I had a hard time with that.

Steph Krikorian:
The realization I came to through writing and through discussing it is that after doing the Marie Kondo, I Marie Kondo'd, the living crap out of my house, including my freezer, did the doors open up? I don't know, but I learned to say no to things that didn't bring me joy. I don't think that was her intent in the book. I think that was, as interesting as ... It wasn't a hard to write about that, but it was an interesting learning experience for me that that takeaway kind of came through the process of trying to be funny about folding my socks, rolling my socks a certain way, that all of a sudden I realized, wow, I have a hard time saying no to things. Now, I'm a little better at it.

Bobbi Rebell:
We're all working on that. I think that's a big theme these days is sometimes it's okay to just decline an invitation, even if you don't have a conflict. Just say, "I'm sorry. I can't make it," and don't elaborate.

Steph Krikorian:
Exactly.

“After doing the Marie Kondo..  I learned to say no to things that didn’t bring me joy.. that takeaway kind of came through the process of rolling my socks a certain way that I realized I have a hard time saying no to things.”

Bobbi’s Financial grownup tips:

Financial grownup tip number one.:

Buy what you want if you want to be trying things. That's always all good. But when Stephanie talks about buying the five packs, that applies to pretty much any upsell that you get in life. Yes. You do get a better price per item, but you also get more items than you want or need.

Financial grownup tip number two:

If you aren't sure that you understand how someone controlling your money gets paid, keep asking until you are beyond 100% sure. Stephanie is educated and smart and was literally writing about money for her job, but she made assumptions that were not correct.

As a financial grownup, I love that she takes ownership that maybe she didn't understand what she thought she did. It can happen to any of us, if it can happen to Stephanie. Read, and reread, and then, as Stephanie recommends, go do regular check-ins, as she now does, and of course be careful with automation. It is a great tool for regular bills and such, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't be checking as well. How are you doing on this front? Do you understand how people or companies that hold your money ore paid? Is free really free if there are maybe commissions or fees in there that you may not know about. Maybe they're disclosed in very tiny print, because if something is truly free, well, then how is the company making money? You need to ask what is going on on the other side.

Episode Links:

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

• Stephanie’s website http://stephaniekrikorian.com/

• Stephanie’s book ZenBender

Follow Stephanie!

• Instagram - @stephiekrik

• Facebook - @skrikorian

• Twitter - @stephiekrik

• LinkedIn - @stephaniekrikorian

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

A story pitch led economist Allison Schrager to conquer her own negotiating fears by learning from the economically savvy workers at a Nevada brothel. The experience led her to investigate the most compelling and successful approaches to negotiation, reducing risk and increasing the chances of success. 

“My new life philosophy is you should hear no at least 60% of the time and if not you haven’t asked for enough”

In Allison's money story you will learn:

Well, this is actually what brought me to the brothel initially. When I had a relationship with them is they called me wanting me to write about them and I was like, "I don't know about this." They were ... I'm like, "But, tell me about the industry" and they're like, "Well, you know. All the women are independent contractors and we have no set prices. They negotiate every transaction." I was like-

Bobbi Rebell:
These are the legal ones in Nevada?

Allison S.:
Yes.

Bobbi Rebell:
To be clear.

Allison S.:
Yes. This is the legal brothels in Nevada. They're all 1099 employees. I was like, "Well, that's interesting. So, you're telling me, you've got women in their early 20s negotiating with men in their 60s over tens of thousands of dollars?" And they're like, "Why, yes. And it's interesting, no one's ever asked us about that before. You know, then a lot of them come here, not knowing their value so we train them so they know how to be better negotiators and ask for more."

Allison S.:
Now, this is something I struggle with. I'm terrible at negotiating. Nothing freaks me out more and fills me with more anxiety, or at least used to, than asking for money. I am just-

Bobbi Rebell:
Oh, I think all of us.

Allison S.:
All of us. I've always probably been underpaid for this reason. Off I went to Nevada and I spent about a week and a half there learning negotiation skills and it changed my life. Particularly, Dennis Hof when he was alive, was there. He told me something about negotiation that just really changed my outlook for money and for everything, which is you have to get comfortable with "No" because you have to hear "No" more than you hear "Yes" because that's how you know you're asking for enough.

Bobbi Rebell:
I think that's really smart. What's interesting that these women that are in the legal part of the industry do get triple, I think what the ones that are outside of the legal. There's a reason for that is because they're paying to lower their risk, which I think is fascinating.

Allison S.:
Yeah. Just like any market, you pay for safety. Brothel customers pay this 300% markup for transaction that affectively their "No's" going to have no consequence. They're not going to get arrested. No one's going to blackmail them. She's not going to be on the news. They know if she's been screened for diseases. If a customer want ... men and women want that kind of service, then there's somewhere they can go and know they can get at risk-free but they have to pay for it.

Bobbi Rebell:
Did you take those lessons and actually use them in your own life?

Allison S.:
Oh, yeah. Especially one. I learned how to asked for more and feel comfortable hearing "No." My new life philosophy is you should hear "No's" at least 60% of the time and if not, you haven't asked for enough. Also, I also learned these techniques of how to feel more comfortable hearing "No" because it's like a risk, like anything. And that, if you go into a negotiation, it's a risk. It could blow up and you'll destroy your relationship. This is a big concern. The two people negotiating in a brothel, they're about to do something very intimate but they have to argue about money before. It's sort of like your job negotiation on steroids, in terms of tension.

Allison S.:
What they do is they do something you do in finance too, which is there's a lot of hedging. There's a lot of maintaining some sort of form of liquidity, which is you don't just say ... Salary negotiation like, "Double my salary or I'm going to quit." You're just like, "Well, hey. I would like this much more money but if that's not realistic, I could take more vacation days." What you do is you offer this menu of options, which promotes flexibility for both sides and that increases the odds you're going to have a more successful transaction.

Bobbi Rebell:
How did you ... When you then ... Are there specific ways that you then implemented these negotiations strategies in your life since then?

Allison S.:
Oh, yeah. I'm now very comfortable hearing "No." Certainly in terms of writing the book and asking for the resources I needed from both the publisher and from friends helping me promote it. I'm now very comfortable with making these ballsy asks I would've never done before.

Bobbi Rebell:
Can you give an example of one that you asked for that was success? And maybe one that wasn't successful.

Allison S.:
I think it's certainly in terms of asking corporations to do bulk sales. That was just something I would've never asked for before. Now I feel comfortable with it. But, sometimes more often than not, I am being told "No." It still stings a little but then I sort of tell myself, "You asked for enough because you heard no."

Bobbi Rebell:
That's a good thing to remember because ultimately, in other words, you want to hear "Yes" but if you hear a "Yes" right away, that in a way makes you feel, "Well, maybe I didn't ask for enough." I think that's something people need to keep in mind

“Nothing freaks me out and fills me with more anxiety,.. than asking for money”

In Allison’s money lesson you will learn:

I basically said it. It's okay to hear "No." The world doesn't end. It doesn't destroy your relationship. If you don't hear "No," you're not getting enough.

Bobbi Rebell:
How do you recover from the "No?"

Allison S.:
Well, now as I said, it still stings. I sit there-

Bobbi Rebell:
But, can you just go back with your tail between your legs and be like, "Okay. I know you said no to that. Can you do this?" Or do you have to just walk? You just have to save face and be like, "Then I'm not going to do it."

Allison S.:
You come back with another alternative because most transactions aren't binary. It's not like you'll do this or it's not happened. There's maybe a third way. I become more of this school if you ask for the sun, maybe you'll get the moon.

Bobbi Rebell:
Right. Maybe when you originally approach a negotiation, you make sure to not make it binary and not create absolutes. So, that starts at the beginning is giving yourself a way to circle back if you don't get the answer that you want.

Allison S.:
Exactly. What they do in the brothel is customer's a little nervous and they'll lay out like, "Hey. What do you think that they'll do?" He'll be like, "I don't know. I've never been here" and they'll be like, "All right. Here's what I think I should do." They'll lay out this elaborate sexual plan. It involves going to the movies, and dinner, and it's 12 hours. The guy will be like, "That's amazing" and then they'll be like, "Great. That'll be $15000." Then he's like, "Whoa, no" and then they're like, "All right. Well, maybe we can take dinner off the table."

Allison S.:
What you do is you have this big hairy ask but then there's components to it and you take it apart so no one's really ever heard "No." But, you have this whole ... It's actually a menu of choices.

Bobbi Rebell:
Interesting. Any specifics that you think people could use when they are applying it to their own life?

Allison S.:
Yeah. I mean, if you're ... Like I said, if you're negotiating for your salary, as I said, it doesn't have to be all monetary compensation. You could talk about flexible hours. You can talk about more vacation days. Or, as I said, even if you're asking a friend for a favor like they're going to promote your book. You can ask them to email everyone in their company and they'll probably say "No" because that's a little ballsy but maybe they'll share it on Facebook and it's something.

“If you ask for the sun, maybe you will get the moon”

In Allison's everyday money tip you will learn:

Risk is the cost of getting what you want. You don't want to take anymore than necessary. Diversification has been proven in finance as it gets rid of unnecessary risks but not all risk. That doesn't just apply to financial markets. It could apply to anything. It could be if you're in a job doing gig or contract work on the side if possible. So, you have that option. It could be keeping your network fresh, so you have other options if that job doesn't work out or you want a new skill. Or, it could even be with dating. I actually re-read the rules when I was doing the book because I keep [inaudible 00:10:47]. I was like-

Bobbi Rebell:
Well, the book you're referring to is a book from years ago when two women wrote about these very harsh ... They sort of sound old fashion rules but they're almost playing hard to get, I guess. But, go on.

Allison S.:
Yeah. It's a much better book than you remember. But, one of their tips is don't be exclusive with someone until that you really know they're serious about you. I mean, they actually marry you but-

Bobbi Rebell:
Diversification then, in dating? Affectively. Yeah.

Allison S.:
It is and it really does bring out your best self. It really is efficient in some ways because it keeps you from getting invested in the wrong person. They could be a jerk and you don't know that yet because you don't really know who they are. It also makes you feel more desirable and attractive so really can be your best selves. Diversification really applies to anything.

Financial Grownup tip number one:

Think about the things you can do to increase your odds of success in a negotiation. Allison talks about creating a menu of options asking for the most first but offering the other party at least something that they can give you to make it a win at some level. Think about a wine list at a restaurant. A lot of people pick the second cheapest one for a reason. The restaurant knows this and in many cases, they can actually build in the biggest profit margin because they know that's where everyone's going to gravitate towards.

Financial Grownup tip number two:

Try to identify things you do that increase your risk. In the book, for example, Allison talks about how poker champions with stacks of money on the line have to factor in their irrational behavior as the stakes get higher. What do you do that is economically irrational? Shopping for food on an empty stomach. Yeah, that's me. Buying things because they're on sale. Me too. You get the idea. And let me know. DM me with your biggest irrational economic decisions. I would to hear and share with the community so we can all be a little bit more aware, and maybe we can come up with some ways to help.

Episode Links:

Allisons book An Economist Walks into a Brothel

Check out Allison's website -

www.AllisonSchrager.com

Follow Allison!

• Instagram - @AllisonSchrager

• Twitter - @AllisonSchrager

• Facebook - @Allison.Schrager

• LinkedIn

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

For all the talk about the dangers of credit cards, Inc’s Maria Aspan sees the benefits of them, especially when compared to debit cards. She shares a couple of personal stories of how credit cards protected her in ways debit cards could not. 

In Maria's money story you will learn:

• The importance of looking at your receipts especially when using a debit card

• Why credit cards are better than debit cards when it comes to fraud

• The reason that fraudulent credit card charges are easier to dispute and have the charge reversed

• Debit cards don't help you build credit

In Maria’s money lesson you will learn:

• Why you want to pay for most things with a credit card

• The importance of getting alerts for certain transactions

• How using a credit card can not only be a great way to track spending, but it can also make doing taxes easier

In Maria's everyday money tip you will learn:

• How having a vacation/wedding fund can save you money in the long run

In My Take you will learn:

• Choose the lesser of 2 evils when it comes to your 401 (k)

• If you set up a separate account to save for events or vacations as Maria does, be sure to automate the deposits

Episode Links:

Maria's book Startup Money Made Easy

Money In The Morning podcast

Check out Maria's website -

www.mariaaspan.com

Follow Maria!

• Instagram - @mhaspan

• LinkedIn - @MariaAspan

• Twitter - @MariaAspan

• Facebook - @Maria.Aspan

For all the talk about the dangers of credit cards, Inc’s Maria Aspan sees the benefits of them, especially when compared to debit cards. She shares a couple of personal stories of how credit cards protected her in ways debit cards could not. In this Financial Grownup podcast episode you’ll learn 3 reasons why you will want to start using credit cards instead of debit cards. #MoneyTips #Author

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

Transcription

Maria Aspan:
I was tired. Didn't really look at the receipt as I was paying and used my debit card to pay, and a few days later, I checked my bank account, and I noticed that the taxi cab had overcharged me. It was like a $15 fare, and there was something like $50 taken out of 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 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've got this.

Bobbi Rebell:
Hello Financial Grownup friends. We have all been there. We're tired. We just want to get home, and we don't want to look at the bill all that closely. Sometimes, we don't even look at the bill at all, and then we sign, and then of course, we don't even keep the receipt, but for our guest, that had consequences one time, and it was a big learning lesson.

Bobbi Rebell:
Welcome everyone. Special thank you to our new listeners. Thanks for checking out the show. I would love to hear how you heard about us, so please DM me, and let me know on Instagram at BobbiRebell1, on Twitter at BobbiRebell, or you can email at hello@financialgrownup.com.

Bobbi Rebell:
Now, to our guest. Maria Aspan is an award winning journalist and the editor at large of Inc magazine. Her new book is called Startup Money Made Easy, Answers to all your Questions about Starting, Running and Growing your business. Great material for business owners, but also a lot of eye-opening info for all of us just to apply to how we access money for anything that we need in our lives. Maria also shared a great money story that may surprise you with how it played out. Here is Maria Aspan.

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

Maria Aspan:
Thank you Bobbi. It's so much fun to be here.

Bobbi Rebell:
Congratulations on your new book. You are editor at large at Inc, and you have a new book, Startup Money Made Easy. Inc answers all your financial questions about starting, running and growing your business, and what I love about this is that it focuses on something a lot of people ignore in books for entrepreneurs. They focus on the building of the actual service or product, but a lot of the times it comes down to money.

Maria Aspan:
Yeah, I mean money is just such a part of every single decision you make throughout your business from startup, to growing, to selling it and retiring. So, we really tried to take just sort of an accessible and fun approach to something that can seem really daunting and somewhat like financial and high tech. We just tried to make it very easy, and if possible, fun.

Bobbi Rebell:
Well, it's definitely exciting and fun when you're successful at raising money, but we're going to talk ... We're going to pivot a little bit and do your money story, which has to do with spending money and how you facilitate that. A lot of people are very wary of credit cards these days and for good reason. There are a lot of dangers of credit cards, but you actually had an experience earlier in your life where you learned the merits of credit cards. Tell us your funny story Maria.

Maria Aspan:
That's right. I am a financial reporter who is very pro credit card. To your point, debit cards, they allow you to control your spending and to budget more, but as I also discovered when I was a 20-something who had actually just started reporting on credit cards and debit cards, you don't have a lot of protections with debit cards when somebody uses your cards for fraud, and this was a kind of everyday story. I was coming home from a work event. I had taken a cab. It was the end of the night. I was tired. Didn't really look at the receipt as I was paying, and I used my debit card to pay. And a few days later, I checked my bank account, and I noticed that the taxi cab had overcharged me. It was like a $15 fair, and there was something like $50 taken out of my bank account from my debit card.

Bobbi Rebell:
They were hoping you wouldn't notice that, of course.

Maria Aspan:
Again, financial reporter. They picked the wrong person.

Bobbi Rebell:
Well, I think they probably picked many people, but they finally picked the wrong person and got caught.

Maria Aspan:
But what was really infuriating was that I complained to my bank. My bank was like, "Well, do you have the receipt? Because otherwise, we can't ... It's your word versus theirs, and we can't give you the money back." Didn't have the receipt. Lost that $50. I realized then that I had to start applying some of the lessons that I'd been learning about the credit card industry, that even though it's really easy to get in over your head with credit cards, they're also basically an interest free 30-day loan if you pay them off at the end of the month, and any money that gets taken out is the bank's money, not yours until you pay that bill.

Maria Aspan:
So, I actually had ... Recently, I had signed up for like a free trial month for a subscription service, one of those fashion subscription services, and I canceled the trial at the end of the month, and they didn't process it. A few days later on my credit card this time, a bill for $175 showed up. It was like, "Wait. No. I didn't. I did not spend $175 on that."

Maria Aspan:
But this time, I was able to complain to my credit card company and actually to the subscription service. They reversed the charge, and it was credited back to my account before I had to pay any bills, so I never had to put out that money even though they overcharged me. The bank had it covered.

Bobbi Rebell:
Right, because credit cards work very differently from debit cards in these kinds of situations.

Maria Aspan:
Yes, and they basically are a loan, and the credit card company is the one who's fronting you the cash, and also the credit card company has more obligations to cover you in the case of fraud. Whereas with debit cards and bank accounts, there are many fewer protections for consumers in the case of fraud.

Bobbi Rebell:
And I think that's something that's got lost in all the backlash about credit cards is that while debit cards do offer a lot of benefits, especially for young people that are first learning to manage their money, there are limitations. There's also a big danger to debit cards.

Maria Aspan:
There is, and there's also the fact that using a debit card doesn't necessarily help you build credit, which can be important when you're working up to getting a mortgage or car loan or in the case of a lot of the entrepreneurs that we talked to, a business loan. If you're using a credit card and paying it off every month and creating a record and a credit history, that can really help you down the road in getting a cheaper loan when you need it.

Bobbi Rebell:
So, what is the lesson from this money story for our listeners?

Maria Aspan:
Apply for a credit card and use one responsibly. I will say that I try to put pretty much all of my spending on my credit cards, but I also set up a lot of alerts. I check my balances. I have alerts set up so that I get a text message if there is an online transaction or a foreign transaction or a transaction above a certain amount. So, I'm just alerted if I'm in New York, but suddenly my credit card is buying $500 worth of material in Russia, it's a sign that something is wrong.

Bobbi Rebell:
I think that's a big sign. Absolutely.

Maria Aspan:
And of course, I pay it off every single month. Then I would say that's probably the biggest lesson about using credit cards is don't use them to get into more debt than you can afford to repay regularly.

Bobbi Rebell:
Absolutely, and also they're a way to track your spending and know what is going on. You can quickly scan and know what you spent versus if you're using cash, then you have to actually write down what you're doing. The credit card takes care of that for you. So, I think that's a good benefit as well.

Maria Aspan:
Actually, since we're coming up on tax time, I should say that it really makes doing my taxes easier because at the end of every year I download my credit card's annual report, and I just have a list of all the different expenses that I made, which is something that paying in cash doesn't give you.

Bobbi Rebell:
And they also categorize them, which is nice, which is something entrepreneurs can really use. Let's talk about your everyday money tip cause it's something that's for happy occasions but can be a challenge for many people.

Maria Aspan:
Yes, so my tip has to do with my friends getting married and all of the fun events that happen around other people's weddings, but also all of the expenses that are incurred. A few years ago my circle of friends started getting married. I started being asked to be in weddings, which of course involves bridesmaid dresses-

Bobbi Rebell:
Which you always wear again.

Maria Aspan:
Which you always wear again.

Bobbi Rebell:
Always, always.

Maria Aspan:
Always so flattering and made out of such great material and totally worth the $300 or so.

Bobbi Rebell:
It's a lot actually. I haven't been a bridesmaid in a while, but 300 bucks is a lot of cash for an often one-time wear.

Maria Aspan:
It really is. And even if they're only one-time wear, they're made out of this cheap, gross fabric that's just not super comfortable even for that one night.

Bobbi Rebell:
[inaudible 00:09:11] your friendship.

Maria Aspan:
Definitely, and not to mention all of the wedding showers and the bachelorettes and the gifts, and these are all wonderful things that I'm happy to help my friends celebrate, but to your point, testing the friendship. They get to be very expensive, and there was one year when I had three or four such weddings sort of staring me down at the end of the summer, and I realized that this was going to be several thousand dollars that I didn't want to have to pay for all at once, so I set up a separate online savings account and just put $50 a week into it towards weddings. I think I started this in January. By the time September came along, that didn't necessarily cover all of the expenses, but it helped cover a lot of them, and I felt absolutely no guilt cleaning out that savings account to cover all of the bills from these different weddings.

Bobbi Rebell:
It cushioned the blow.

Maria Aspan:
It really did, and now, I've kept that savings account up. I've been a bridesmaid less, but now I've renamed it vacation weddings. So, I use it for like plane tickets or fancy meals out every once in a while and it's a lot of fun.

Bobbi Rebell:
And guilt-free. Let's talk about your book, Startup Money Made Easy, which as I said at the beginning, I love because it focuses on the fact that a lot of entrepreneurs really spend the majority of their time dealing with getting cash to fund the business. Even though they may romanticize the idea that they're going to be actively running the day to day business, that often takes a back seat to the need for cash. And what I found interesting that you talk about here is the fact that many entrepreneurs are limited in their options and often end up getting money through means that are really not the best.

Maria Aspan:
Right. One of the things that we find when we talk to entrepreneurs at Inc is that even though venture capital gets all of the headlines and [inaudible 00:11:05] backed startups in Silicon Valley are the most prominent ones. Most of the entrepreneurs we talk to use their savings or ask friends and family members or use credit cards or tap their retirement accounts to get their businesses off the ground,

Bobbi Rebell:
Which we think of as almost, "Oh, you shouldn't do that." The truth is that is the reality and that many people do that. And we hear ... For every story that we hear of people that cashed out their 401k and took out a second mortgage on their home and then they made it big, there are a lot of people that do that and then suffer the consequences.

Maria Aspan:
We absolutely don't recommend cashing out your 401K, but it's very much often what happens. And the other thing is just we talked to many more entrepreneurs that just use regular loans versus [inaudible 00:11:49]. So whether it's credit cards to go back to the beginning of this, or applying a bank loan, which can be ... It can take so much time and be so tedious with paperwork, but it's like the best interest rate you're going to get anywhere versus a credit card or an online loan. Or asking friends and family for money is another way that a lot of people gather the money together to get their business off the ground.

Bobbi Rebell:
So, is that your advice for entrepreneurs? Where is the best way to fund your big idea?

Maria Aspan:
I would say my first piece of advice would be to figure out how much money you need, and it may not be very much. We've talked to a lot of entrepreneurs who start their businesses for less than $5,000. But figure out roughly how much money you need. Maybe write a business plan. It's not fun, but it'll help you get your plans in order, and then figure out how you can gather that money together. You might want to work on your business part time until you figure out cash flow and the business is making enough money to support you because that's the other thing that we find when we talked to a lot of the CEO's of the most successful private companies in America. We pull the Inc 5,000 CEOs every year. Only 28% of them said they started paying themselves a salary immediately upon starting their business. 31% waited for a year before they started paying themselves. So, if you can't afford to go a year or more without paying yourself a salary from your business, maybe don't make it a full time endeavor until you've got it all figured out.

Bobbi Rebell:
Wow, lots of great advice and great advice in the book, Startup Money Made Easy. Tell us where people can find out more about you, the book and all that good stuff.

Maria Aspan:
Thanks so much Bobbi. You can find the book on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Audible. You can go to StartupMoneyMadeEasy.com to find a whole list of sellers, and you can find me on Twitter or at my website, MariaAspan.com, and my Twitter handle is the same.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right, friends, let's do this. Financial Grownup Tip Number One. Choose the lesser of two evils. I agree with Maria, and absolutely I do not recommend cashing out a 401k, but if you are going to go for that cash in that retirement account, and I'm reminding you that is for your retirement, but if you're going forward anyway, look into borrowing from the 401k instead of just taking the money out. You can usually borrow up to $10,000 or 50% of the vested balance up to $50,000. At least with a loan you are paying interest to yourself. Just be aware that if you leave the company, you have to repay it, and the time you are paying back the loan, by the way, even if you're still at the company, many companies don't allow you to also contribute to that 401k. So then, that is a lost opportunity cost because those years when you're focused on paying back the loan, the loan money's not earning interest and growing for your retirement, and you're also not putting new money into the 401k for your retirement. So, try not to do it at all, but if you're going to it, the loan, depending on the terms that your company allows in line with the IRS rules, probably better than just taking the money out. But try to not do it.

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup Tip Number Two. If you set up a separate account to save for events like weddings or for vacations as Maria does, be sure to automate the deposits so it actually keeps happening.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right, before we wrap up, I want to invite all of you to check out my new podcast with my friend, Joe [inaudible 00:15:19] of Stacking Benjamins. It is called Money in the Morning. We take two recent headlines, talk about what we can learn from them to improve our own personal finance situation, to improve our own lives, and to learn from it about investing, about saving, and all that good stuff. And we keep it light by taping it live on Facebook, complete with audience participation.

Bobbi Rebell:
So, I hope some of you will join us. You can see a taping. Get the information by going to facebook.com/Istackbenjamins to check it out. We will leave a link in the show notes, and yes, it is taped live. So, what we do is we do not edit it at all. Whatever happens during the live taping, all my mistakes, are all out there. So, if you listen to the audio on whatever channel you listen to podcasts on, whatever app you listen to podcasts on, please be forgiving, laugh with us, learn from us, and most of all, just join us for the fun. We really would love to have you.

Bobbi Rebell:
And with that, everyone can learn something from Maria Aspan's book, Startup Money Made Easy. So, please check out the book. Big thanks to Maria Aspan for helping us all get one step closer to being financial grownups. Thanks guys.

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

3 dumb things smart people do with their money

• How to avoid taking advice from the wrong people- and how to find the right trusted sources.

• How to protect yourself from identity theft, and avoid doing the dumb things that make you vulnerable.

• How to both avoid spending money on the wrong insurance, and how to know what insurance you do need. Plus how to adjust your insurance as you go through different life stages as a financial grownup.

Episode Links:

• Jill’s book Dumb Things Smart People Do With Their Money

• Website - Jill on Money

• Jill on Money podcast

Follow Jill!

• Twitter - @JillonMoney

• Facebook - @JillonMoney

• Instagram - @JillonMoney

• LinkedIn - @JillonMoney

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

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

In Tanja's money story you will learn:

• The flip side of the side hustle

• When to call it quits

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

In Tanja’s money lesson you will learn:

• Being aware of your options

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

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

In Tanja's everyday money tip you will learn:

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

In My Take you will learn:

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

• The importance of knowing if your healthcare is valid overseas
  

Episode Links:

• Tanja's book Work Optional

• The Fairer Cents podcast

Check out Tanja's website -

• Our Next Life

Follow Tanja!

• Instagram - @our_nextlife

• Pinterest - @our_nextlife

• Twitter - @our_nextlife

• Facebook - @ournextlife

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

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

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

Transcription

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tanja Hester:
That is correct.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bobbi Rebell:
Amazing. Thank you so much Tanja.

Tanja Hester:
Thanks Bobbi.

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

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

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

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

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

In Sharon's money story you will learn:

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

• The importance of having an emergency fund

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

In Sharon’s money lesson you will learn:

• The importance of money saved

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

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

• Why she's so grateful to have disability insurance

In Sharon's everyday money tip you will learn:

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

In My Take you will learn:

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

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

Episode Links:

• Sharon's book The Big Payoff

• Host of Retire Well

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

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

• The article I mention in this episode

• Brain Aneurysm Foundation

Follow Sharon!

• Instagram - @sharoneppersoncnbc

• LinkedIn - @sharoneppersoncnbc

• Twitter - @sharon_epperson

• Facebook - @CNBCSharonEpperson

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

Transcription

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

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

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

Sharon Epperson:
Thanks so much for having me.

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

Sharon Epperson:
I am.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sharon Epperson:
Take care.

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

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

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

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

In Veronica's money story you will learn:

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

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

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

In Veronica’s money lesson you will learn:

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

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

In Veronica's everyday money tip you will learn:

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

In My Take you will learn:

• The benefits of askng your parents about their money experiences

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

Episode Links:

• Secrets of Wealthy Women podcast

• I Stack Benjamins

Check out Veronica’s stories in The Wall Street Journal

Follow Veronica!

• Instagram - @veronicadagher

• LinkedIn - @veronicadagher

• Twitter - @veronicadagher
  

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

Transcription

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

Bobbi Rebell:
You're listening to "Financial Grownup," with me, certified financial planner, Bobbi Rebell, author of "How to Be a Financial Grownup," and, you know what, being a grownup is really hard, especially when it comes to money. But it's okay. We're gonna get there together.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bobbi Rebell:
She was a great role model.

Veronica Dagher:
Really.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bobbi Rebell:
So what is yours?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bobbi Rebell:
Thank you, Veronica.

Veronica Dagher:
Thank you for having me.

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

Bobbi Rebell:
Let's get to our tips.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In Grant's money story you will learn:

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

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

• Why he feels NYC lifestyle justifies the higher cost

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

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

In Grant’s money lesson you will learn:

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

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

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

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

In Grant's everyday money tip you will learn:

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

• Where to find resources to make the calculations yourself

In My Take you will learn:

• How using a calculator can help to change your mindset

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

Episode links:

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

• Financial Freedom book trailer

• Financial Freedom podcast

Check out Grant's websites -

• Millennial Money

• Financial Freedom Book

Follow Grant!

• Instagram @MillennialMoneyCom and @FinancialFreedom

• LinkedIn

• Twitter @MillennialMoney

• Facebook

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

Transcription

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Grant Sabatier:
Hey, glad to be here.

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

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

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

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

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

Grant Sabatier:
Thank you.

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

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

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

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

Bobbi Rebell:
Really?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bobbi Rebell:
Big thanks to Grant Sabatier for helping us all get one step closer to being financial grownups.

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

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

Here are 3 tips for expensive city living

• How you can plan for the big fixed expenses

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

• The importance of getting out of the city

Episode Links:

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

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

• Check out the book trailer here

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

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

In Dan's money story you will learn:

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

• What it was like starting his own company

• How his life was different after making the transition
  

In Dan’s money lesson you will learn:

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

• Why you should prioritize what's important to you

• Why you should Invest in yourself

In Dan's everyday money tip you will learn:

• How using a goal sheet can help you stay productive

In My Take you will learn:

• Why you shouldn’t rush your exit strategy

• Why it's important to create a goal system
  

Episode Links -

• Dan’s podcast - 5 Questions with Dan Schawbel

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

• Dan's book - Promote Yourself and Me 2.0

Check out Dan's websites -

• Dan Schawbel

• Millennial Branding

• Workplace Trends

Follow Dan!

• Instagram

• LinkedIn

• Twitter

• Facebook

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

Transcription

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dan Schawbel:
So happy to be here with you.

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

Dan Schawbel:
Much appreciated.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bobbi Rebell:
genius. Thanks Dan.

Dan Schawbel:
Thank you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

In Laura’s money story you will learn:

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

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

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

-How working from home made her childcare issues more complicated

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

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

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

 

In Laura’s money lesson you will learn:

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

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

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

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

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

-Why handwritten notes are important in business

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

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

 

In My Take you will learn:

-How to use money to solve productivity challenges

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

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

-Why some people are late all the time

-How to not be late

We also talk about:

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

The importance of time perception

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

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

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

Episode Links

Learn more about Laura at her website LauraVanderkam.com

Check out her podcast “Best of Both Worlds” 

Get Laura’s book “Off The Clock!”

 

Follow Laura!

Twitter @lvanderkam

Facebook LauraVanderkamAuthor

Instagram lvanderkam

LinkedIn Laura Vanderkam

 

 

Apps for last minute discount hotels

hoteltonight.com

OneNight.com

Hotelquickly.com

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

Transcription

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

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

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

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

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

Laura Vanderkam:
Thank you for having me.

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

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

Bobbi Rebell:
I love that.

Laura Vanderkam:
The commercial for the next one.

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

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

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

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

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

Bobbi Rebell:
So were you cutting out Fridays?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bobbi Rebell:
Exactly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Laura Vanderkam:
Thank you for having me.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Parenting expert KJ Dell’Antonia takes the money lessons her parents taught her as a child, and adapts them to her rural life raising 4 kids on a farm. The author of the new book “How to be a Happier Parent” discusses her kids income streams, financial responsibilities, and other behind the scenes details to help other families adapt to the realities of our digital culture. 

 

In KJ’s money story you will learn:

-The specific ways her parents taught her to be financially responsible at a young age

-How KJ applies some, but not all of those rules to her own life

-The strategy KJ uses in teaching her 4 kids about money

-How author Ron Lieber inspired how KJ teachers her kids about finances

-When to pay kids for tasks/chores around the house

-How the things kids want today is different from when KJ was growing up

-KJ and Bobbi disagree about spending money on “virtual” purchases like in-app offerings

-The businesses KJ’s kids have and other income streams happening in her household

-How KJ determines how much to pay her son and his friends to do work on their farm

In KJ’s money lesson you will learn:

-The importance of setting kids up with savings accounts that have interest

-The lesson KJ learned from her dad about checking accounts

-How KJ set up a virtual allowance for her kids

In KJ’s everyday money tip you will learn:

-The strategy KJ uses to be a happier parent when traveling

-Her take on budgeting for travel

-How it is different from her parents point of view on traveling as a family

KJ and Bobbi also talk about:

-KJ’s new book “How to be a Happier Parent” 

-How to set the clocks that you can control

-Why she says ‘everyday is a race against the clocks we don’t set’

-Techniques to set up routines that work

-KJ’s four ways to make parents happier

 

In My Take you will learn: 

-My take on ways to help kids learn to be financially responsible

-How to find your own solutions to teaching kids about money- regardless of what your peer group is doing

-How me and my siblings learned about budgeting from our dad

-My take on traveling with a family and whether to splurge on that extra room or nicer hotel- even if it means cutting the trip shorter

EPISODE LINKS

Learn more about KJ and her latest book howtobeahappierparent.com

KJ’s website: KJDellantonia.com

Follow KJ!

Instagram @kjda

Twitter @kjdellantonia

Facebook: KJ Dell’Antonia

Check out the Ron Lieber episode we talks about! 

 

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

Transcription

KJ Dell'Antonia:
I wouldn't let them spend $500 on a virtual thing, but if you want to nickel and dime yourself up to $100 in a month, I'll let you know it's happening, but I'm going to let you do it if you have $100.

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, Financial Grownup friends. That was new friend, KJ Dell-Antonia talking about her kids and letting them splurge on virtual purchases, something, by the way, we disagreed on. I got to meet her recently at Podcast Movement, and we bonded over all things money and parenting. When I heard she had a new book coming out, How to Be a Happier Parent, I was all over it. You knew she was coming on. This is a great interview.

Bobbi Rebell:
Welcome to our new listeners. For those of you just discovering us, we're so glad that you're here. As a regulars know, we keep the shows short, around 15 minutes, so you can fit it into your busy life, but we also know some of you have more time so we do three a week. Feel free to listen to a few at a time. Subscribing will make this easier. Don't forget. Go into the settings, set up auto download. Then you don't have to do anything more. Automate your podcast like you automate your savings.

Bobbi Rebell:
Let's get to KJ. Her book is super practical and -- I love this part -- very specific. It's like a roadmap. Very well researched, but it also has a lot of information about her family life which is fascinating by the way. She talks a lot about it in her interview. Here is KJ Dell'Antonia.

Bobbi Rebell:
Hey, KJ Dell'Antonia. You're a financial grownup. Welcome to the podcast.

KJ Dell'Antonia:
Thanks for having me.

Bobbi Rebell:
You are the author of so many things but most recently How to Be a Happier Parent which no one needs. We all need this. We all need this so badly, and you're the perfect person because you are the former lead editor of the New York Times mother lode. You're still involved in that kind of writing as well. Congratulations on the new book which is coming out.

KJ Dell'Antonia:
Thank you. Thank you. I'm really excited.

Bobbi Rebell:
This is a perfect podcast for you because you were basically born a financial grownup. Tell us your money story.

KJ Dell'Antonia:
I was definitely raised a financial grownup. I'm an only child, and my dad in particular was really determined that I would understand the value of a dollar and understand how the financial system worked. People say there are those who understand compound interest and then there are those who pay it. He was determined that I would be the one who understood it.

Bobbi Rebell:
What was his job? What was his background?

KJ Dell'Antonia:
He's in computers.

Bobbi Rebell:
Okay.

KJ Dell'Antonia:
He was not a financial advisor. It's just money is an important part of life, and it was important to him that it be something that I understood. If I had a lemonade stand, I had to pay for all the ingredients and justify how much we were spending versus how much we were making. As I got older if I needed a loan for something, I he would charge me interest. I would really ... I mean I had to pay him every month certain amounts. He set up a checking account for me really early. He got me a credit card really early that I got the bills for. I mean to have missed a payment and paid interest on that credit card, I mean I can think of nothing more shameful.

Bobbi Rebell:
Oh, no. So now you are officially the financial grownup of the household. You have four children.

KJ Dell'Antonia:
I do.

Bobbi Rebell:
How is this now translating into how you are teaching them to be independent financial adults and then therefore you will be a happier parent?

KJ Dell'Antonia:
That is the hope. We do give them an allowance. It is not an exchange for work. That's a Ron Leiber tip that I have completely embraced. He's the author of The Opposite of Spoiled. I will pay them for jobs that I would pay someone else to do. Now, they are 17, 14, 12, and 12. The 17-year-old and the two 12-year-olds take care of the lawn because I paid someone else to take care of the lawn. In our house, you have to pay for your own electronics. If you want a phone, you have to save up. You have to be able to pay the monthly bills for it.

Bobbi Rebell:
So before we were recording, you joked but I think you were also somewhat serious that you are not as good at teaching your children to become financial grownups as your dad was in your case. What's different?

KJ Dell'Antonia:
When I was growing up, I wanted Gloria Vanderbilt jeans or Doc Martens or whatever. My kids want Fortnite money. I feel like helping them to sort of keep track of digital money is really challenging.

Bobbi Rebell:
Yeah. So what do you do? I've had this happen where your kid wants money to buy something that is virtual. It's an in-app purchase that's not actually a thing. It's like a new avatar or something that, for me at least, I really don't want them to ever spend a penny on ever. You're okay with them buying these virtual things in these games?

KJ Dell'Antonia:
Once it's their money, I'll talk to them. At the end of a month, I might say "Do you realize how much you spent?" Especially when it comes ... I've got one now that wants a phone. Boy, you better bet I'm going "Yeah, look how much you spent on Pokemon Go. You could have had a quarter of a phone for that." Once it's their money, I pretty much let them spend it on whatever they want within some limits. I wouldn't let them spend $500 on a virtual thing, but if you want to nickel and dime yourself up to $100 in a month, I'll let you know it's happening but I'm going to let you do it if you have $100.

Bobbi Rebell:
Can you tell me, for each of them quickly, what are their primary income streams? It is all just for tasks that you would pay other people for? Or are there other things that your kids are doing to earn this money?

KJ Dell'Antonia:
I have a 17-year-old. He has a small business selling maple soda and maple iced tea at our farmer's market. He's struggling to make a profit at it, but he's finally getting there. He's got allowance saved, and we also have a small farm so I will pay him for farm work. He's hauling hay bales and driving the tractor. When we're in really the throes of farm work, I hire his friends as well. He makes $15 an hour from me. My 14-year-old daughter is a huge babysitter so she gets paid to babysit. In fact, she doesn't do any lawn work. She doesn't want to do lawn work, and she's got her income stream. She babysits. The other ones do mostly lawn work for me and allowance and saving up birthday gifts still, but they're both only 12.

Bobbi Rebell:
What is the lesson from this? What advice do you have for parents in this situation teaching kids about money?

KJ Dell'Antonia:
If you can set them up with some kind of savings where they can see the interest coming in ... My dad actually had something where they would mail me a little tiny check for the interest. I'm not sure how he came up with that, but he kept these minuscule checks. It was neat and it was educational. If you have to have sort of virtual money as we do, I mean all this allowance that I'm talking about, it tends to be virtual. We use an app. Make sure you talk about what's going in and what's going out.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right. Let's talk about your everyday money tip. I've done this so I was really excited to hear this. Go for it.

KJ Dell'Antonia:
If you have kids and you're traveling with kids and this would make you happier, book two hotel rooms. There was a woman in my book who was talking about this and she had a partner, and she was like "No sex on vacation is not a good vacation." That's part of the reason, but part of the reason is just for your own sanity. You have a little ones. You put them to bed. You retire to your own room. You get an adjoining room. Spend a little less time in the location and a little more money on making that a more comfortable experience.

Bobbi Rebell:
One day less you probably won't miss. You'll still really have the experience.

KJ Dell'Antonia:
Right.

Bobbi Rebell:
I love that idea.

KJ Dell'Antonia:
Yeah, I feel like one day less but a more pleasant days that you have there is going to be worth it. My folks would have said "But you're just sleeping there because we're going to get up and go." You got to decide what works for you.

Bobbi Rebell:
Yes. That's a lot of the themes in your book, How to Be a Happier Parent, which is coming out right as the kids are heading back to school. It's a perfect time for parents to really be proactively thinking about parenting and-

KJ Dell'Antonia:
Yes.

Bobbi Rebell:
... the decisions that they make and the systems that we put in place when we get back into our routines in the fall. I love this quote. "It's hard to find happiness when every day is a race against a clock we don't set."

KJ Dell'Antonia:
Yeah. Part of what I'm trying to do in the book is help you to set the clocks you do control. We talk about mornings, homework, screen time, all the stuff that as we, like you said, get back into our normal routines, we're really looking and going "Okay. How are we going to handle that this year?"

Bobbi Rebell:
One other part of the book I love is there's four things that can make parents happier.

KJ Dell'Antonia:
Parents who say that they're happier in their parenting, that they feel sort of better about it, they tend, when their kids are younger, to be one the more involved side. When they are parents of older kids, they tend to describe themselves as doing things that encourage independence in their kids. That's one thing, sort of that evolution from helping to letting go and letting your kids do what they're capable of. Happier parents have a real mindset of recognizing when things are pretty good even if some things are bad. Looking around at a moment when the kids are bickering and maybe there's a lot of homework and dinner's not on the table and recognizing to yourself that "Hey, it's a rough evening, but really overall this is what I wanted. We're all healthy. We're all happy. We're here together" and just soaking in that good feeling.

KJ Dell'Antonia:
Happier parents also, they know what's really big. I call it's what's a tiger and what's not a tiger. Most of the things in life that stress us on behalf of our kids are not a tiger. There will always be another balloon. There will always be another lost Thomas train. There will always be another best friend and there's another college. Those things are ... When things go wrong for our kids, it's stressful, but typically, it's not a tiger. The last thing that happier parents tend to say is that they don't put their children's everyday needs above their own. When they're looking at something like what to serve for dinner or where to go on vacation, they don't pick based on what will make the kids happy. They pick based on what's going to make the family happier. Sometimes we should be looking at them and going "I'm sorry. I can't run you to Jessie's house because I've got a tennis game in 10 minutes. You'll have to find another way to get there."

Bobbi Rebell:
Exactly. I do have a pretty regular tennis game on Saturday mornings with my friend. You know what? I get home and my son gets to sleep a little late and it's okay.

KJ Dell'Antonia:
Yeah.

Bobbi Rebell:
It's important for us to stick to activities. You talk about this in the book too. To stick to activities that made us happy before we had kids and just keep doing it. It sets a good example for them. Tell us more about the book, where they can see you, where they can learn more about you, and all that good stuff.

KJ Dell'Antonia:
The best way to find me is kjdellantonia.com. You'll also find me in the New York Times. There's a couple of excerpts from the book that are running or have run, one in the Boston Globe as well. Howtobeahappierparent.com will also work. All the urls, all the things. On Instagram, I'm @kjda, and everywhere else, I'm KJ Dell'Antonia.

Bobbi Rebell:
Excellent. Well thank you for all that you do for all of us parents. We truly appreciate it. A lot of what you say actually goes for just about everyone in people that you deal with in your everyday life. Great perspective. Congratulations on the new book.

KJ Dell'Antonia:
Thank you.

Bobbi Rebell:
I love that KJ isn't afraid to do things differently from her parents even though she admits they did a good job teaching her to be financially responsible. Financial Grownup tip number one. As we raise kids, we may think that our strategy to teach kids to be financially responsible will be the same as other parents, but think again. Some people will insist they want to pay kids for everything. Some don't believe in paying kids for things they should be doing as a member of the family.

Bobbi Rebell:
There are parents who will -- this is true -- give teenagers credit cards or debit cards with zero restrictions saying "I don't want them to think we can't afford something" or they say they'll monitor their spending and, this way, they can see everything going on and have a discussion about it. I can see the logic. Or they just don't want to bother to talk to their kids about it because they're busy so life goes on and there's no plan and no cap on spending. They just kind of give the kids money haphazardly.

Bobbi Rebell:
Whatever you decide, make it deliberate and I do think it is a good idea to get ideas from other parents, but don't feel pressured to do what they do. Just because your kids bestie has an unlimited credit card doesn't mean you have to do that too. My siblings and I, for example, we had to present a budget to our parents at the beginning of, let's say, a semester of school and then if they approved it and funded it, we had to live within that and that was that.

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup tip number two. I love KJ's tip about travel. The truth is, if you prefer to stay at a nicer hotel or have that extra room like KJ says, just make the trip a little shorter. You'll still have the experience and it will cut down on the tension and make the whole thing a lot more enjoyable.

Bobbi Rebell:
Thanks to all of you for joining us. Tell us more about your financial grownup experiences. DM me. I am @bobbirebell on Twitter, @bobbirebell1 on Instagram, and on Facebook at Bobbi Rebell. To learn more about the show, go to bobbirebell.com/financialgrownuppodcast which will also get you to the show notes. Those are always at bobbirebell.com/ and then the guest name. In this case, KJ Dell'Antonia. Thanks to KJ for sharing such great tips and insights, helping us all get one step closer to be financial grownups.

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

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

In Daniel's money story you will learn:

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

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

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

In Daniel’s money lesson you will learn:

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

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

In Daniel's everyday money tip you will learn:

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

In My Take you will learn:

• If you own it, own it

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

Episode Links:

• Daniel's Course

• The Behavioral Investor

• The Laws of Wealth

• Daniel's podcast - Standard Deviations

• Brian Portnoy's Financial Grownup Episode

Follow Daniel!

• LinkedIn

• Twitter

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

Transcription

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

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

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

Daniel Crosby:
Thank you. Great to be here.

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

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

Daniel Crosby:
Yeah, yeah. On book three, I'm getting better at this. I was crummy the first time, but I'm getting there.

Bobbi Rebell:
And you also have a little firm called Nocturn Capital. Cool name. Who came up with the name?

Daniel Crosby:
Well, my wife is a pianist, and she likes Chopin, so she plays a lot of nocturnes. One nod is to her, who I love very dearly. And the second nod is, to things that are nocturnal are most active when things are darkest. So it's sort of a nod to value investing and my dear wife.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right. Let's get to our money story that you brought. It's about a financial mistake and I guess we'll dissect that from a psychological standpoint. It has to do with buying a big house.

Daniel Crosby:
We had a beautiful home. A more modest home, but a very nice home in Alabama that was very inexpensive, of course, as well. Almost immediately, like almost immediately upon moving back to Alabama, I'd started to experience sort of this lack of respect I felt at conferences, but then, also I was just itchy. Like just itchy to go somewhere new.

Daniel Crosby:
So we started to have this conversation and it was couched in reasonable terms, and I think that that's one of the dangerous things about how we can kind of fool ourselves, behaviorally. I couched it in terms of, "It would be nice to be close to a better airport, it would be nice to have access to deeper pockets in a larger population," all of which is true on the margins.

Daniel Crosby:
But when I'm really, really honest with myself, the thing that was driving the conversation was A, my ego, my desire to sort of show people that I had arrived. And B, was this sort of shame. Those were kind of the big primary drivers, but during the time when my wife and I are having the conversation, it wasn't framed in those terms.

Daniel Crosby:
And I think that's one of the dangerous subtle things about human cognition, is we can operate in ways that are based out of fear, or weakness, or greed, or whatever. And we can lie to ourselves a bit to make them seem more palatable to ourselves, and we can really buy our own BS. We listen to the bankers, right.

Daniel Crosby:
We said, "How much loan can we get?" And we saw the number, and we were rightly shocked by how high it was. And we backed off of that considerably, even by about 50%. But still, we never stopped to ask ourselves, and I think many homeowners do this. Many people who are purchasing a home, they ask themselves, "How much house can I afford and not how much house should I afford?"

Bobbi Rebell:
If you feel comfortable, could you tell us the numbers involved, and what that house was worth, and what the new house was worth?

Daniel Crosby:
Yeah, so the old house in Alabama, we still have as a rental property. We've rented it ever since we moved out. It's been great. And then we paid 750 for the house in Atlanta.

Bobbi Rebell:
This is not a question of affordability.

Daniel Crosby:
No.

Bobbi Rebell:
You could afford that, right.

Daniel Crosby:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not at all a question of affordability. See, that's where I think that the nuance comes in. It's not a question of affordability. We got approved and could have afforded much more than that. It's not even a question of, "Is it a nice place?"

Daniel Crosby:
Because it is, but it's just something that, it's not us. It's in a gated neighborhood. So people come through and they go, "Oh, wow. A gate, and a big house." And my wife and I agree, that it just doesn't suit our personalities.

Bobbi Rebell:
So what are you going to do about it, Dr. Crosby?

Daniel Crosby:
Well, this is a point of weekly conversation, because now we have a child, who's in the local school system, and she's on student council, and she's really thriving. And so, I don't know. I mean, we feel kind of stuck and there's so many transaction costs involved with the sale of a home.

Daniel Crosby:
I think if we were to move, we would just move within the area, which is almost exclusively homes a lot like ours if she were to stay in the same school. So candidly, I don't think we'll do anything.

Bobbi Rebell:
Have you ever talked to the neighbors about the general culture of the area, or the perception of the culture of the area?

Daniel Crosby:
You know, I never have. And I think it's one of those taboos, and you worry that you're going to get looked at sideways, but no. I've never talked with the neighbors about it.

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

Daniel Crosby:
The takeaway is, if you're trying to buy happiness, a home is absolutely not the way to go, I think is takeaway number one. There's just so much involved with it and your hassle grows with the size of your home.

Daniel Crosby:
And I think lesson number two, which is perhaps the more important lesson is, be careful of the ways that you can deceive yourself. When you're thinking about your financial life, be sure to get down to the nitty-gritty, the emotional stuff, the pain, the insecurity. That's where I didn't go.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right. We're going to shift gears and get to your everyday money tip.

Daniel Crosby:
What I encourage folks to do with their financial lives, is to try and identify a point of weakness beforehand. To try and say, "If there's a reason that I'm not going to reach my retirement goals, or whatever it is, what would that reason be?" And so I walked through this with a friend of mine, who was over for Thanksgiving. And we were talking about his upcoming retirement.

Daniel Crosby:
And he disclosed to me what percentage of his wealth was in this single company stock, and it was well over 50% of his significant wealth. And I said, I walked him through this idea of a premortem, and said, "Look. If something were to go wrong with your savings and your retirement nest egg, what do you think it would be?"

Daniel Crosby:
And he said, "Well, probably some sort of risk to the business that would cause this stock to decline a great deal." And it's like, "Yeah." Because you can't always meet that head-on. I was aware of this over-concentrated position of his for a long time now.

Daniel Crosby:
But when you try and say, "Hey, man. You got to sell this, you got to tell this, you got to diversify," there's a very human nature, a very human tendency to tell people to, "Get lost," when they sort of command us to do something.

Bobbi Rebell:
Your book, The Behavioral Investor, is your latest bestseller, following I think your big book was The Laws of Wealth. One of the things that love about The Behavioral Investor, is that you make us take a second look at a lot of the assumptions that we have, especially regarding investing.

Daniel Crosby:
So real space behavioral investing has a couple things in common. First of all, it has a reasonable fee. When Morningstar looked at all of the data points that predict investment performance, they found, came to the decidedly unsexy conclusion that the number one predictor of how a fund does is how much it costs. Because, of course, those costs directly erode from your performance.

Daniel Crosby:
So the first check mark is whether it's active, passive, or whatever in-between, right, it needs to be have an appropriate fee. The second thing you want to look at is that it's rules-based. And this is sort of goes into the first. Rules-based portfolios tend to be cheaper than discretionary portfolios because you got to pay some Ivy League genius to run the discretionary portfolio, whereas the rules-based portfolio can just run on algorithms.

Daniel Crosby:
So rule number one, portfolio needs to be adequately priced, sort of cheapishly priced. Second thing is, it needs to be rules-based. And then the third thing is, it needs to automate good behavior. Most of us have the tendency to do just the wrong thing at the wrong time. I mean, that's sort of the simple lesson of The Behavioral Investor.

Bobbi Rebell:
This was interesting. It was on page 193, you talk about intuition, and which jobs have had the best and the worst intuition. So the worst, I'm sorry to say, included psychologists, I believe. Like you.

Daniel Crosby:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Bobbi Rebell:
Also stockbrokers.

Daniel Crosby:
Like me.

Bobbi Rebell:
Which is discouraging. Also, college admissions officers, which is really upsetting because we really want to think for all the care and the years of preparation that we spend preparing ourselves, preparing our children for college, that they have better gut instincts.

Bobbi Rebell:
And also, of course, judges, another important job. And intelligence analysts and HR professionals. Daniel, you're bursting our bubble here.

Daniel Crosby:
Yeah, but if you look at those things, there's a very common thread that runs through all of them, and it's humanity, right. So people who do have intuition, are mathematicians and physicists, who have seen a problem, they've familiarized themselves with it, and they can start to intuit.

Daniel Crosby:
Like, "Oh, I think this is where it's going," because math and physics and related hard sciences follow hard rules. Human beings, for better and worse, do not follow hard rules. And so the more there is a human element to the work you do, the less intuition counts.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right. Hot button topic today, passive investing. And some big proponents of it have come out, expressing real concern about the fact that passive investing, in the form of especially of index funds, is really getting to a level that is concerning.

Daniel Crosby:
So we know on the one hand, that over the last 30 years, passive investment vehicles have beaten their active counterparts about 85% of the time. I mean, a little bit more or less, depending on what sort of asset class you're looking at. But, I mean, that is like incredible, and to think that they've done it at a fraction of the cost is even more incredible. So that's sort of exhibit A.

Daniel Crosby:
But exhibit B, we have the real truth about financial markets, which is that, as soon as everyone thinks something is a good idea, it sort of ceases to be a good idea. And it's something that's referred to as the tragedy of the commons, right, and it comes back from ancient times, when there was like a common park or a common pasture.

Daniel Crosby:
And so, it's the best thing for all of the farmers to want to graze their cows on someone else's land, until all of the farmers decide to do that, and then there's no grass left. So as long as a minority of people are passive investors, which is the case today, passive investing makes a lot of sense.

Daniel Crosby:
But as everyone begins to latch onto this and as everyone beings to head in that direction, I think theoretically, you have to ask yourself the question, "Does it become sort of unmored by the fact that everyone's grazing their cows in the same place?"

Bobbi Rebell:
So tell us about where people can learn more about you, and your book, and your podcast, which we had not mentioned yet, and all the things.

Daniel Crosby:
I'm very active on LinkedIn, Daniel Crosby, PhD. I'm at Twitter, @DanielCrosby. And you can tune into the podcast, which is called Standard Deviations.

Bobbi Rebell:
Thank you so much.

Daniel Crosby:
My pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right, my friends. Let's break this down. Financial Grownup tip number one, if you own it, own it. Dr. Crosby is sincerely uncomfortable in his house, but it doesn't make financial sense for him to move. I asked him if he had talked to the neighbors because it seemed to me, that he is assuming that all of his neighbors are the kind of people that live in really big, really fancy houses, unlike him and his family who's really more modest, but bought something that's just too fancy for the image he feels comfortable with.

Bobbi Rebell:
He hadn't talked to his neighbors. Maybe if he reaches out to them, make some friends, and sees the area as a family neighborhood, not a collection of just fancy houses with people more fancy than he is, he might be a little more comfortable. Or, maybe not. But in general, I think it's always good to humanize what's going on in a situation that makes you a little uncomfortable. People may not be what you perceive them to be.

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup tip number two, a little blast from the past housing crisis. You don't have to buy a big house or an expensive house just because the banker said, "You can afford it." Even if you cut their budget in half, as the Crosby's did, if you don't want to have that much house, don't. Besides, you can always add on an investment property with the extra cash and create a little passive income, right.

Bobbi Rebell:
Thanks to everyone for your continued support of the show. It really means a lot when you write a review, so please take a moment this holiday season for that. And be in touch on Instagram on bobbirebell1 and on Twitter @BobbiRebell, and you can always email us at hello@financialgrownup.com. And big thanks to Dr. Daniel Crosby for being so candid and for helping us all get one step closer to being Financial Grownups.

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

Technology can’t really be unplugged, so the best solution is the make it work for us as Humans. Back to Human author Dan Schawbel joins Bobbi Rebell as co-host on this special Financial Grownup Guide. They discuss 5 specific actionable tips to using technology to enhance and humanize the role of our devices in our daily lives. 

• Specific ways to eliminate tech driven distractions

• How to manage devices and stay focused in meetings

• How to use apps to learn and then control your time online.

• How to most effectively use video conferencing

• The best ways to delegate unwanted tasks to technology so you can focus on being more human

Episode Links:

Dan's book Back to Human

Dan's book Promote Yourself and Me 2.0

Dan’s podcast 5 Questions with Dan Schawbel

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

Transcription

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup Guide, five ways to make technology more human, with special guest cohost, Back to Human author, Dan Schawbel.

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 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:
Hi everyone, welcome to a new Financial Grownup Guide. These are short episodes meant to give us all some actionable life tips to be a little bit more grownup. If you are looking for what we now call classic episodes with money stories and everyday money tips from high achievers, they drop on Mondays and Thursdays. We have a library of over 100 and growing. So do check them out.

Bobbi Rebell:
Let's talk about technology. So many of us are feeling tech overload these days. At first, I had the idea to do a list of tips for unplugging. But you know what? I'm not sure if that's the best thing, or ever realistic. What we really need to do is just make technology work for us. So I recruited Dan Schawbel, he literally wrote a book about this called Back to Human, to get some tips about how we can get our technology to help us be a little more human.

Bobbi Rebell:
Hey Dan Schawbel, thanks for co-hosting this special episode with me.

Dan Schawbel:
So happy to be here with you.

Bobbi Rebell:
This is the thing Dan, we need to learn to make tech more human in the new year because we cannot get rid of technology. We're over that whole concept. But yet we have to make it work for us as humans because of course you are the author of Back to Human. So you're here to guide us. So thanks for joining me.

Dan Schawbel:
Happy to be here as your cohost.

Bobbi Rebell:
Tell us more about why this topic is so important to you, you basically wrote ... that's a lot of what the book Back to Human is.

Dan Schawbel:
Yeah. Technology has created the illusion of connection when in reality, our overuse and misuse of it has created a sense of isolation, loneliness, disengagement and lower team and organizational commitment. The way the workplace has changed now versus years ago is more people working remote, a third of the global workforce does. Yet 2/3 are disengaged. And you can be isolated in a physical space whether it's a corporate office. You can be isolated in the subway in New York City, where we both live, you can be isolated while you're walking down the street because people are looking and spending more time on devices than they are looking at a human being. And so I think this is important because as an introvert, as someone whose built a lot of connections digitally, I realize that it was very isolating and that the best way to use technology is to use it as a bridge to human connection. Let it get you to physical spaces, but be attentive, be respectful, and focus on the human to human communication because those relationships are what are gonna matter for you for the rest of your life.

Bobbi Rebell:
But also, I love that you're also realistic, that we can't completely unplug. It is what it is.

Dan Schawbel:
It is what it is. I think it's how, when, and where you use it. I interviewed 100 top young leaders and they say technology is a double-edged sword. It can be good or bad. And I think texting's someone that there's a meeting in five minutes or 10 minutes is appropriate but if you're in an argument with your coworker that's not gonna be solved through text and it's actually gonna make it worse.

Bobbi Rebell:
Alright. So Dan you brought with you five ways that we can make tech more human. Number one, eliminate distractions in your workplace, technology distractions.

Dan Schawbel:
Yeah. By watching TV, by having your iPad out, by looking at a laptop, if you're always doing that all day you're gonna feel trapped, you're gonna feel isolated from those around you. So be smart about what's in front of you and make sure that you take breaks because otherwise if you don't have a tech detox it's gonna be bad for your health and relationships.

Bobbi Rebell:
And I love that you pointed out take breaks because so many workspaces now have screens all around us, whether it's television, with programming and content going on, or screens that just have corporate messaging. We screens everywhere. Not to mention our own devices, our phone, our iPad, our computer. So you make a great point that we need to walk away a little.

Dan Schawbel:
Everyone needs a break. Especially in today's society, everyone's always on. Not having your phone is the new vacation, the average work week in America is 47 hours a week but people bring their devices home with them and on weekends. So we're just overworked, we're burned out and that's why there's a whole backlash now globally on hours work. Finland, UK they're fighting for four day work week. In France they have the right to disconnect. In Japan, every citizen gets Monday mornings off. So we're-

Bobbi Rebell:
Really?

Dan Schawbel:
The technology's made us always work and now all these countries are saying, hey we need to do something about this. This is bad for the population's health.

Bobbi Rebell:
And your second tip actually goes to that point because not only are the devices encroaching on our personal time, they're encroaching on our meeting time because you'll be in a meeting and people are sometimes sitting there kind of looking at you but also on their screens. Which is like why bother even having this meeting? So what's your second tip?

Dan Schawbel:
Put your devices in the middle of the table when you're in a meeting. People send an average of five texts within a meeting. And so they're not being respectful for the people who are speaking, they're unable to collaborate, and I think it's part of the reason why meetings are dysfunctional and they last too long because people are physically there but not mentally, emotionally there. And so they're unable to contribute, collaborate, and it's not only disrespectful but what's the point in even being in the meeting in the first place if you're texting and emailing people who aren't even at that meeting?

Bobbi Rebell:
Dan, number three, so apropo, because there's so many apps on our phones that are distracting us but we actually have some apps that can do some good.

Dan Schawbel:
Yeah. The best way to take stock of how you're spending your time using technology is to use Moment app or rescuetime.com and they'll help you better understand how you're spending your time on apps and websites. And if you see that you're spending too much time on a certain app or a website, it's an indicator that you might wanna reallocate that time to more personal communication.

Bobbi Rebell:
And one way to be a little more personal in your communication, but also use technology, and this is number four, you wanna talk to us about video conferencing, because you can get a lot more from that. It's not the same as in person but it's a step in the right direction, right?

Dan Schawbel:
That's one of the great inventions of the past few decades is video conferencing because most communication is nonverbal and video conferencing allows you to not just hear someone but actually see them and how they express their emotions. And as a result you feel like you have a stronger relationship with them and you can better understand the message they're trying to get across.

Bobbi Rebell:
I think my favorite of your five tips is this one, the final one, which has to to do with using technology for the things that you can really outsource and technology is better at.

Dan Schawbel:
Let technology remove the work that you don't even wanna do. All that routine work, like making sure that you and your coworker or friend are going to the same event or birthday party, conference room at the same time so that you can be more thoughtful about the time you're spending with them when you're at that event, when you're in the conference room or celebrating someone's birthday party. And so I think that calendars and chat box and some of these newer technologies can remove the logistical work from what you have to do on a daily basis so you can spend more time doing the face to face.

Bobbi Rebell:
All good tips. Thank you so much Dan. And the final tip, of course, is to read your book, Back to Human because it has so many more incredibly ways to optimize the way that you interact with technology so it's actually supporting your life goals and making your life better and not having all of these negative effects that so many of us are fighting back against. So thank you Dan.

Dan Schawbel:
Thank you.

Bobbi Rebell:
Thanks everyone for joining us. Make sure to subscribe so you don't miss anymore upcoming Financial Grownup Guides. I am very excited about some of the ones that we have planned and be in touch on Instagram at BobbiRebell1 on twitter at BobbiRebell, and of course you can always email us, we are at hello@financialgrownup.com so glad you joined us in investing in getting a little bit 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.

Guest co-host and shopping expert Trae Bodge joins Bobbi with her three rules that practically guarantee you will avoid amateur spending mistakes this holiday season.

Refinery 29’s work and money vertical editor Lindsey Stanberry and her frugal husband were checking all the boxes as financial grownups. But when they had a child, the new parents found themselves scrambling to make sense of their new urge to splurge. 

In Lindsey's money story you will learn:

-The financial changes that come with having children

-How to adapt a budget when financial values change

-Tips on how make career decisions while balancing a family

In Lindsey's money lesson you will learn:

-How big changes impact little everyday purchases 

-Two of Lindsey's biggest financial regrets

In Lindsey's every day money tip you will learn:

-The benefits of a high-yield savings account

-The app she uses to sell her clothes and make extra cash

Bobbi and Lindsey also talk about

-Her new book Money Diaries

-What women are spending their money on right now

-The Money Diaries series updated regularly on Refinery 29

In My Take you will learn:

-Ways to save money on baby clothes

-Travel more! Ways to plan amazing trips whether you have kids or not

EPISODE LINKS

https://www.refinery29.com/

Follow Lindsey!

Instagram @lestanberry

Twitter @lestanberry

Follow Refinery 29!

Instagram @refinery29

Twitter @refinery29

Facebook @Refinery29

Check out the companies Lindsey mentioned! 

Poshmark 

Capital One 

Trader Joes 

Bank of America 

---

Transcription

Lindsey Stanber:
He has said to me recently he would spend all the money on our kid if we needed to. But that doesn't stop him from being slightly annoyed when I pick out organic hot dogs that we will probably throw away because our son will not eat them.

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:
That was Refinery29 Money Diaries author Lindsey Stanberry talking about how her natural instinct to always save money took a nose dive after the birth of her son. I think a lot of new parents can relate to this, feeling like they would spend their very last penny on their kid even if things were very different before baby.

Bobbi Rebell:
Welcome, everyone. We keep the show short, about 15 minutes, because you're busy, but if you have a little more time, feel free to do a little bit of binging, and if you like the show, maybe do a screen grab and share it so we can grow the podcast. And speaking of growing the podcast, big news, Financial Grownup is a finalist for Best New Personal Finance Podcast for the Plutus Awards which celebrate excellence in money content. So thank you for all of your support.

Bobbi Rebell:
And the paperback of my book, How to Be a Financial Grownup, is coming out in October. So if you have not had a chance to read it, I hope you'll check it out, and again, share with someone you care about.

Bobbi Rebell:
Let's talk about Refinery29 Money Diaries and our amazing guest, Lindsey Stanberry. Now, the book grew out of Refinery29's popular series by the same name and gives a very detailed, and I mean detailed, look of the spending habits of millennial women. The stories are jaw dropping. The reactions to them are dramatic in the comments. But I wanted to know more about Lindsey and her money diary stories so I pushed her to talk about something that she has yet to reveal, and that is money life after baby and what that does to one's money diary.

Bobbi Rebell:
She and her husband were the best of budgeters. They didn't eat out. They were champion savers. They bought an apartment in their 20s and were checking all the boxes on retirement and investing until they had the baby. And then it all went poof, well, not all poop, but life changed. Here is Lindsey Stanberry.

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

Lindsey Stanber:
Thanks so much for having me.

Bobbi Rebell:
I am such a fan of Money Diaries so I could not have been more excited when your book Money Diaries from Refinery29 came out. Congratulations on all the early success because it just was released, and of course, it is number one new release on Amazon. Love it.

Lindsey Stanber:
Generally awesome. Thank you.

Bobbi Rebell:
And you did this all in a very busy time in your life because not only are you married, you have a relatively young child, I think a one-year-old? Is that correct?

Lindsey Stanber:
Ike has just turned two.

Bobbi Rebell:
He just turned two. So happy birthday.

Lindsey Stanber:
Thank you.

Bobbi Rebell:
And that brings us to your money story. Do tell.

Lindsey Stanber:
Yeah. So I've talked a lot of in the past about how my husband and I saved $100,000 to buy our first apartment in New York. And my husband is very frugal, and by extension, I've become more mindful of my money. Two years ago, when we had our son, we knew it was going to change our budget. We had to sell that apartment and buy a new one and start paying for child care, and we anticipated those big expenses. But I was really shocked at how my time became much more valuable than it had ever been before. And I talk about in the book this incident where my husband and I were at Trader Joe's having a fight over organic yogurt.

Lindsey Stanber:
My son is an incredibly picky eater. He has been since the moment we introduced solids. We will try everything, and we end up throwing away all that food. And it drives me absolutely crazy. And I write in the book about this experience of realizing that my time is so valuable, and I'm wiling to spend more money in ways that I never anticipated and had never before. My husband dubbed it Baby bourgeois.

Lindsey Stanber:
So it's been a weird and stressful experience for us. And I just had to kind of let go of some of that control and feel appreciative that we were so careful with our money in our 20s when we were able to just worry about ourselves.

Bobbi Rebell:
So give us an example of something that you spent money on, now that you have a child, that you never would have thought have spending money on before?

Lindsey Stanber:
People think that I'm crazy but like service fees to go to the movies. We would have never in a million years paid extra money to reserve tickets online. We would specifically go early to the box office to buy the tickets, and we would save the $2. And now, it's just like well if you want to see the movie, first of all, you're going to have to find a babysitter, and that's really expensive, and then you want to make sure you can actually get into the movie. So we're pre-buying our movie tickets now, and that $2 is just out the window.

Lindsey Stanber:
But then also stuff like we would never pick up milk from the place around the corner because it was $1 more, but now we do because I want more time with my kid. I don't want to go out in the rain. I am tired after working and writing a book and taking care of a baby. But it's also made me a lot more ambitious. I care about earning money more than I have before which surprised me.

Bobbi Rebell:
So give us an example of that.

Lindsey Stanber:
Well, I think that when you think about things like negotiating or saying yes to something, I took on this book, which is an incredible opportunity, but I did take it on top of my regular job and on top of having a kid. And I knew I was going to have to make some sacrifices in my personal life, but I did that with the idea that this would be something that would help me grow my career, and that would ultimately be good for my family and, in theory, help me earn more money in the long run.

Lindsey Stanber:
So it's a real push pull, and I think that I am more excited about opportunities, but I'm also more careful about what I say yes to.

Bobbi Rebell:
What's interesting though also is that you and your husband don't always approach spending as parents in exactly the same way. Tell us about that.

Lindsey Stanber:
He was a reluctant parent and very open about that, and I appreciate that. He said to me recently he would spend all the money on our kid if we needed to. But that doesn't stop him from being slightly annoyed when I pick out organic hot dogs that we will probably throw away because our son will not eat them. It's been a struggle for both of us to figure out how this spending is changing.

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

Lindsey Stanber:
I think people expect those big expenses. They expect that childcare will be a huge chunk of their budget, but they don't think about the small things. I joke in the book I'm never going tell you not to buy a latte, but enjoy buying that latte and saving that money when you only have you to worry about because your finances do change so significantly when you have a kid and in a good way. I'm happy to spend my money on him. I say that in the dedication to the book. It's a joy, but it does really change things, and it's really important to talk about that.

Bobbi Rebell:
Are there things that you look back on that you would have done differently?

Lindsey Stanber:
There's two things. I wish I had started investing earlier. I was always very nervous about the stock market, having been a young adult when the recession happened last time, and I have always felt really intimidated by that, and I wish we had been smarter and not sat on so much cash. And this is the thing that would have cost money, but I wish we had traveled more. It's expensive now to do it with a kid, and we could have done it cheaply and smartly. And we worked so hard in our 20s, and I'm really proud of the work we did, but I definitely wished we would have taken a few more vacations.

Bobbi Rebell:
I hear you. Traveling with kids and with a family is a lot. All right. Let's talk about your everyday money tip because that is a way that people can pretty much instantly, at least, have a trickle more cash. Maybe a little extra money for their latte or maybe money to then move into other kinds of investments. Do tell.

Lindsey Stanber:
One thing that we recommend in the book is getting a high-yield savings account. I have a Bank of America account and a Capital One account and the differences in their 401Ks is crazy. Bank of America I think is like zero, zero, zero ... It's negligible. I get like 38 cents every quarter versus my Capital One savings account, which I think is like 1.85, and I have a nice little emergency fund in there and so I get a little bonus each month that I kind of consider my free money. My husband just bought some sunglasses, and I was like, "Oh, I think that some of our interest rate covered that. So don't worry about it," which is not necessarily the most responsible way to think about that interest rate, but it is nice to have that little extra bonus.

Lindsey Stanber:
We talk about side hustles in the book too, and that's a way that we saved a lot of money. So there's lots of little tweaks that you can make to find cash that can be used to buy that latte.

Bobbi Rebell:
What other tweaks do you have? Other ideas?

Lindsey Stanber:
I am such a fan of selling clothes on Poshmark. It's a little embarrassing. I'm totally addicted, and I use that money to buy new clothes. I'm a little bit more careful about my shopping these days because of said child.

Bobbi Rebell:
Where do you get your kids clothing then? Do you buy new or are you buying that off the websites? Does Poshmark do kids clothing? I know there's a lot of other ones for kids.

Lindsey Stanber:
I think they do. I don't ever buy cloths. I have two very doting grandmothers who dress him, and I never buy anything. There's a really fantastic kind of underground parent exchange at both Refinery and among my friends. So we do lots of hand-me-downs and trades. And I didn't buy a car seat for a long time because I used my boss's, and yeah, it's been great. And then I just hand that all off to other people. So clothing, my kid is cheap. It is free. Feeding him is not.

Bobbi Rebell:
All right. We're going to talk later. We're going to work on that food thing. I have some ideas for you about that.

Lindsey Stanber:
Okay.

Bobbi Rebell:
I want to talk about Money Diaries because this came out of a successful series that you have shepherded over at Refinery29. Tell us more about the book because what I love about this is it's really similar to my mission here at Financial Grownup. It's really about opening the door to very personal and candid stories about the reality of how people actually approach their money in different situations but so many universal themes.

Lindsey Stanber:
Yeah. It was really important to me that this book, not shame the readers. We present Money Diaries without judgment. And the comment section on Money Diaries can be, at times, very judgmental. But for us, from Refinery perspective, we don't want you to feel bad. I think that there's so much ... Especially for women, there's a lot of guilt around both earning money and spending money, and I really wanted to get rid of that and to just really talk to our readers like you do, like a grown up, and not be condescending or a bully or make them feel bad because they like to buy a latte on their way to work every morning because they hate their job.

Lindsey Stanber:
So it's really thinking about how your spending impacts your life now and how it can impact your future, and that future doesn't need to be 100 years from now when you're retiring. It can be what you do next year or what you do five years from now.

Bobbi Rebell:
And what's interesting is that a lot of these stories reveal trends that you see, not only the stories in the book, but it's an ongoing living series on Refinery29.

Lindsey Stanber:
Yeah. It's really interesting to see how women interact with their money and how there are things that are deeply personal. There are things that are ... We don't reveal anything about race or ethnic background in these or sexuality, but if you're a careful reader, you can pick up some clues. And so it's very interesting to see how a woman of color manages her money versus the famous intern who is getting $3,000 a month from her parents. It's fascinating-

Bobbi Rebell:
Right. Which do get a lot of judgy comments to say the least.

Lindsey Stanber:
On both sides, they're getting judgy comments. So it's interesting. But then we do see trends like there's a lot of spending on self-care right now because people are really uncomfortable in this political climate, and we see couples struggling to figure out how they're going to manage their finances. A lot of women who are maintaining separate bank accounts and tracking every dollar that their partner spends. It's really interesting. I always say that personal finance is very personal, but there are definitely themes and things that we go back to again and again.

Bobbi Rebell:
Well, I know you're going on a book tour so I want you to give people all the information about how they can find out about that and follow you and Refinery29 on all the socials.

Lindsey Stanber:
Yeah. So you can read Money Diaries daily at Refinery29. We also have an awesome Facebook group. And of course, you can follow Refinery on Instagram and Twitter, and you can find me on Twitter and Instagram as well at lestanberry and I will be doing lots of fun stories around the book tour. I'm really exited about that.

Bobbi Rebell:
Awesome. Thank you, Lindsey.

Lindsey Stanber:
Thank you so much, Bobbi. Super fun.

Bobbi Rebell:
Hey friends, so think about what would be in your money diary and would you have the courage to share it publicly. Hm. Here's my take on what Lindsey had to say.

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup Tip Number 1. She talked about free clothing for kids. Well in addition to the places that she mentioned, which are great, especially, grandparents, parenting Facebook groups are a great way to get not just free clothing, but also toys and furniture. Be sure to join one that is hyper local because very often the givers only ask is that you come to them and pick it up in person.

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup Tip Number 2. Lindsey mentioned that she regretted not traveling more before kids, and I couldn't agree more. For my family if all five us go, it is a lot. I mean breakfast alone, crazy. So another challenge is that kids have different interest, especially if you have kids that are boys versus girls or are different ages, which are spread out. That's what I have. I have older step-kids that are now in college, and then I have an 11 year old.

Bobbi Rebell:
So one idea is to do smaller, one or two kid trips. You don't all have to go. And you could have one parent go and not just two. So for example, we recently went, my husband and I, with the 11 year old to Iceland, just him. Another time, my husband took the older two kids to Washington DC when my son was younger because he wouldn't have been interested. He would have been bored to tears, but it was a great time for the older kids to go and see the nation's capitol.

Bobbi Rebell:
Each time, it was three of us on a trip, which is a lot less than five if you can imagine. And usually, at that point, you can be hotel room, which makes a huge difference. And we weren't dragging kids that didn't want to be there. That doesn't mean you shouldn't do one trip at least a year or some trips with all of you, it just doesn't have to be every trip with everyone. And the more direct one-on-one time is also really special. And when you take just some, maybe it's a good time for the kids that aren't going to spend time with other relatives like grandparents or aunts and uncles.

Bobbi Rebell:
Hope you guys enjoyed this episode. Show notes can be found at Bobbirebell.com/podcast/lindseystanberry where we'll have all the information that she said at the end about how to follow Money Dairies and all the places that she mentioned. Be sure to [inaudible 00:16:12] me on all the socials. I am at bobbirebell1 on Instagram, bobbirebell on Twitter. Find out more about the podcast at Bobbirebell.com/Financialgrownuppodcast, and thanks to Refinery29 Money Diaries author, Lindsey Stanberry for helping us all get one step closer to being financial grownups.

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

Jane King caved in to pressure to buy an apartment with her first son on the way, but soon realized going against her gut created a lot of financial indigestion. Plus tips on how to make sure you get your bills paid on time. 

In Jane’s money story you will learn:

-Why Jane decided to buy real estate, against her gut instinct, right when her son was born

-The key consideration that Jane and her husband overlooked when buying property in that location

-The indication in the economic news stories she was reporting that was a red flag to Jane that they were headed for real estate disasters

-How falling interest rates actually created a challenge for Jane and her family

-Why Jane had to move out of the first property

In Jane’s money lesson you will learn:

-How not trusting your gut can cost you a lot of money

-How to apply that theory not just to real estate but also to buying a stock any decision

-Our instincts are often stronger than we think

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

-Why Jane does all of her bill paying on Saturday

-How that creates a checks and balances system for her

-How we can apply this kind of system to our own lives

In My Take you will learn

-The importance of getting out of big mistakes before they become even worse, even if it is expensive

-How Jane leveraged a layoff into a successful business venture

We also talk about:

-How Jane took a business that was folding at her employer, and created her own entrepreneurial venture, LilaMax media. 

-Jane’s podcast about kids and money “KaChing with Jane King”

-About my side-hustle filling in for Jane doing local news updates  live from the Nasdaq MarketSite that are seen all over the United States

Episode Links

Learn more about Jane King and LilaMax media at lilamaxmedia.com

Learn more about Jane’s podcast KaChing with Jane King at https://kachingpodcast.com/

 

Follow Jane!

Twitter https://twitter.com/MarketJane

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

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/jane.king.560

---

Transcription

Jane King:
I wish I would have just trust my instinct at the time because I feel like I knew, gut, what was going on with the housing market. I don't think I understood just how deep the problems were.

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 everyone! Today's episode features a friend I've known for more than a decade and learned a lot from and I know that you will as well. Jane King is a familiar face to so many of you because she's been anchoring local news business updates for years. First, on CNN, then on Bloomberg, and now with her entrepreneurial venture, LilaMax Media. Named after her two kids, Lila and Max.

Bobbi Rebell:
Even though her official money story has to do with a real estate flop, pay close attention to the extra story she casually slips in about launching her content syndication company, LilaMax. Previously referred to, which continues to grow at a time when so many bigger content companies are struggling. She makes it seems like no big deal, but I was there, and this Mompreneur is holing her own against some heavy competition. Here is Jane King.

Bobbi Rebell:
Hey Jane King! You're a Financial Grownup. Welcome to the podcast.

Jane King:
Great to be here, Bobbi, and I really loved hearing your podcast over the weekend. It's great advice out there.

Bobbi Rebell:
Oh, thank you, and I love your podcast, “KaChing With Jane King” and all of your entrepreneurial ventures. Tell us a little bit about that.

Jane King:
Well, right now I run a company called LilaMax Media. I'll just give you a little history of how this came to be. So, I worked for CNN. I worked for Bloomberg and then the division that I worked for at Bloomberg, in 2013, they decided to shut that down at the end of the year. So, they gave us about a six weeks notice and another guy on my time and I decided just to take it on. We started this company LilaMax Media.

Jane King:
We do broadcast of the NASDAQ Monday through Friday for local TV stations around the country and try to keep up everybody on this very interesting business news atmosphere that we have lately. Oh, my goodness!

Bobbi Rebell:
And, many of my listeners, I'm sure see you on their local morning news, so we love that.

Jane King:
Right. And, I have some great fill ins, like you!

Bobbi Rebell:
I do.

Jane King:
Good help.

Bobbi Rebell:
I do help you out. I love doing it. But, let's talk about your money story, because it has to do with something near and dear to my heart, because I have had a lot of financial security come my way because of real estate investments. You made a big real estate purchase. We were actually all pregnant together, us and a bunch of friends.

Jane King:
Yes.

Bobbi Rebell:
We had our babies all at the same time back in 2007 and we all bought real estate at that time. But, your story is a little bit different from the standard run of the mill story. Tell us what happened.

Jane King:
Well, I got caught up in that whole disaster of what we lived in 2008 and 2009. So, I was working as a financial reporter at the time and I just had this feeling that the housing market was over valued. I, you know, I had even had discussions with people. I'm like, come on, the average house is $250,000. But, the average American is only making like 45 and nothing just added up. So, I just ...

Bobbi Rebell:
Right, so logically, you went to buy a house. A home.

Jane King:
Well, so here's how this all came about. So, we had a friend who was moving and he said “Hey, how would you like to buy our apartment?” And, I was like “Oh, I really don't want to do that.” He was like “Oh, we don't have to pay commissions.” I was pregnant at the time as you mentioned. I thought “Well, gosh, it wouldn't be good for the child to have a house instead of a rental, for some reason. Even though, it kind of makes no sense.” Our accountant weighed in. Said the tax write offs were great so, we bought a home. Let's see. We closed on that in March or May of 2007, and ...

Bobbi Rebell:
So, right before Max was born?

Jane King:
Right before Max was born and at almost the exact peak of the housing market. When we closed on the home, I think they were around, just under seven percent. Like, six and a half or six point seven.

Bobbi Rebell:
Which, sounds really high right now.

Jane King:
Sounds high right now, but this was 2007. They went all the way down to three something and we just could not take advantage of that because the home values just ... the value of the appraisals were coming in too low. So ...

Bobbi Rebell:
So, your equity was not high enough to refinance?

Jane King:
That's right. So, third times a charm. Finally got that done, and of course we paid all the fees and everything in the process. But ...

Bobbi Rebell:
So, so much for saving so much on the commission.

Jane King:
So much for saving on the commission. You know, I don't know. You know, it was a co-op. We had trouble selling it because the co-op board was just ... that's another thing. I would never buy in a co-op again.

Bobbi Rebell:
Wait, let's go back to the story. So, okay, you get into the apartment. First of all, you wanted to refinance just because the rates were going lower, right?

Jane King:
Oh yeah.

Bobbi Rebell:
Okay.

Jane King:
We did, but it was, you know, a couple thousand dollars a month difference.

Bobbi Rebell:
Oh wow. So, your payments were high, number one. So, number two, then you're being rejected from refinancing because your equity relative to the value of the home was not a good enough ratio.

Jane King:
That's right.

Bobbi Rebell:
And then, number three, why did you want to sell? Why not, once you were able to refinance, why not just hang there?

Jane King:
Well, because it's a co-op and you can't rent it out for more than two years, so another one of those co-op rules that you have to deal with in New York City. So, we could only rent it out for two years and then we had to finally sell it. Because, we had moved to a different neighborhood and we weren't really ...

Bobbi Rebell:
Okay, so why did you move then, I guess is the question. Because, you bought it in 2007, why not just live there?

Jane King:
Two things. So, one was the apartment was up by Columbia University and they were taking over the building where my husband had a business. So, we needed to find a new location for the business, and the timing of that was right at the time when my son was entering Kindergarten and the schools in that area, of course, I was pregnant at the time. I didn't even think about to ask about the schools, but the schools in that area were not good schools. So, we moved to a better district where the schools were better. My husband set up a business and, you know in the end, everything's better. But, it's just I don't know. I wish I would have just trust my instinct at the time because I feel like I knew, gut, what was going on with the housing market. I don't think I understood just how deep the problems were, but you just got to trust your gut. We know more than we think we do.

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

Jane King:
Well, I would think that if you're somewhat informed about finances, trust your gut. Don't let somebody else talk you into something. Whether, it's buying an apartment or buying a stock or buying something else, you know, whatever. I would just trust your gut and really think about it, because I do think we know more instinctively than we think we do.

Bobbi Rebell:
Alright, let's talk about your every day money tip. Because, this is very basic and yet, sort of brilliant because it probably works. I mean, if it does work for you, I think it would work for a lot of our listeners.

Jane King:
Well, it's so easy. Anybody can do this. I pay all my bills on Saturday morning. It helps me keep all of my accounts in check. I know what the balances are. Nothing is ever paid late. So, I don't have any of the late fees or anything like that. I just set them down. It's part of my morning. My Saturday morning routine along with doing the laundry and doing the dishes, its I sit down and pay the bills. And, it's so easy and I think it's a great tip and anybody can do it. You can start this Saturday!

Bobbi Rebell:
Yes! Or, it can be any day of the week. The point is that you have an appointment with yourself to focus on your finances.

Jane King:
That's right. Saturday morning works well for me. Whatever day happens to work with you is good. It's just I'm a creature of routine and I find that it helps me lead a more organized life.

Bobbi Rebell:
Excellent. Alright, tell us more about what's going on with your podcast KaChing.

Jane King:
Okay. KaChing with Jane King. It's all about kids and money. It really kind of comes from the financial crisis, because I felt like people were doing irresponsible things because they didn't know. They didn't know that housing doesn't go up forever or that you can't spend more than you earn. You know, things like this, so I really decry the lack of financial education in our schools and in our society. So, I started this little podcast and we have some great guests on there. Authors, and people who come and they talk about, you know, just helping to raise kids so they're financially responsible. KaChing with Jane King.

Bobbi Rebell:
Alright everyone. Check it out. Thank you so much Jane, you're the best!

Jane King:
Thank you Bobbi! Great to see you!

Bobbi Rebell:
Hey friends, there's a lot to take from Jane's story. The first thing though, that strikes me is this.

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup tip number one: If you make a real estate mistake. Admit it and get out. Jane did that right. Holding on to something you bought. Just because you bought it, is not going to fix the problem. And yes, you could lose money, but holding on, you could lose even more money. You don't know. So, staying put is just going to add to the pain. When we drill down the key problem with the apartment, was that the schools weren't a fit for Jane's kids. The other issue was that her husband's business was losing its lease. So, by paying the price, and it was expensive, it was painful for her. But, admitting the mistake, her family was able to move to one of, if not, the best public school districts in the entire city. Her husband set up a new business, in a hot neighborhood, with great clientele, and they moved on and they prospered. Digging in their heels and hoping things would just get better would have been a mistake.

Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup tip number two: Let's talk about Jane's business, LilaMax Media, which produces content primarily from the NASDAQ market site. So, this is the bonus story that I mentioned at the top. Her previous employer, Bloomberg, was shutting down that line of business. She and her partner, Bob Morris, figured out a way to make the economics work with lower overhead as a smaller company. So, instead of being out of work, Jane actually became the co-founder of a business that is going strong more than four years later.

Bobbi Rebell:
She took a terrible situation and made it into an opportunity of a lifetime and yes, you can see me filling in for Jane, so DM me and say “hi” if you see me on your local news in the early hours of the morning. If you have not already hit that subscribe button, so you don't miss any upcoming episodes and be in touch. On Twitter, I am @BobbiRebell. On Instagram @BobbiRebell1. On Facebook @BobbiRebell and as I said, DM me. I love hearing your feedback on the podcast.

Bobbi Rebell:
Jane had to make some very Grownup decisions as a consequence of that against the gut real estate decision, but she did it. And, it's a great lesson. Trust your gut, and if you find yourself having made the wrong decision, get the heck out. So, thanks Jane for helping us get one step closer to being Financial Grownups.

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