Ron Lieber:
Consultant Julie Finn loved her her consumer products strategy career and says her employer, Deloitte, did everything possible to accommodate her lifestyle needs as a mom. So no one was more surprised than she was when she opted for an early exit strategy.
In Julie’s money story you will learn:
-How Julie left two major jobs but each one was a completely different exit strategy
-Julie’s strategy of applying the same financial criteria to job choices as wel do to other major financial choices like buying a home.
-How Julie’s employer, Deloitte, was family friendly and did what they could to accommodate her needs.
-Why the decision to leave was not an obvious one
-The advice she received from mentors that led her to her life changing decision
In Julie’s money lesson you will learn:
-As well-intentioned as an employer may be- the job may not be a fit forever
-Age should not hold you back from leaving a job that is no longer the right fit for your goals and needs
-The importance of structure and planning in making a major career shift- and how to get it
In Julie’s everyday money tip you will learn:
-The importance of continuing to learn even as you progress through your career
-The value of online courses as well as coaching
-How to save money on skill building education
-Not to try to go it alone- reach and and get the right help
-How to make decisions about priorities when it comes to investing in further career education
Bobbi and Julie also talk about:
-The Working Mothers Mentor Podcast
-Julie’s career coaching for executive women
-How side hustles can help in the decision making process
-How listeners can support working moms, especially who don’t know where to get the help they need
In My Take you will learn:
-The importance of a gracious exit from a company
-Why it is important strategically to stay in touch and on good terms with co-workers and supervisors even after you leave the job
-Ways to get discounts on online education courses
Episode Links
Learn more about Julie Finn and The Working Mother’s Mentor:
Theworkingmothersmentor
Follow Julie!
Twitter @mothersmentor
Instagram @theworkingmothersmentor
Facebook The Working Mothers Mentor + join her community!
IRS info on education deductions
https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc513
This is a quick way to determine if you can get an education credit
https://www.irs.gov/help/ita/am-i-eligible-to-claim-an-education-credit
Udemy https://www.udemy.com/
Coursera https://www.coursera.org/
Teachable www.teachable.com
Transcription
Julie Finn:
You know when I took a job, in my head it was my forever job. It was, "I'm going to retire from this company." Because I had the structure, because I had the support, I had a very clear plan and I had very clear strategy in place and that made all the difference.
Bobbi Rebell:
You're listening to Financial Grown Up. With me, financial planner, Bobbi Rebell, author of How to be a Financial Grownup. You know what? Being a grown up is really hard especially when it comes to money, but it's okay. We're 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. I remember my first day at my first post college job as what was called a news associate at CNBC and thinking, and this is true, "This is literally the best job on the planet. I can't believe I got the job. There's money associated. It comes every two weeks. I would literally be happy doing this job forever." I wanted it to be my forever job. I hope you guys have all had that feeling, the excitement and optimism of working somewhere you hope you can stay forever.
Bobbi Rebell:
That was Julie Finn at Deloit. She climbed her way up in the consumer product strategy field and had finally made it. They were super family friendly there. Whatever she needed, they were going to work with her to make it happen. But then, something changed. We'll get to that in a sec.
Bobbi Rebell:
But just quickly, welcome to our new listeners. So excited the show continues to be discovered and thank you to all of you regulars for sharing it. Please keep telling your friends. Word of mouth is everything. It is the best way for people to find out about our program. It matters a lot. We keep it short, as you guys know, around 15 minutes, but a lot of our listeners like to stack a few together. Think of it like flex time for podcasts.
Bobbi Rebell:
Let's get to Julie. She is a business coach and host of the Working Mother's Mentor Podcast, but it was not long ago that she was in what she thought was her forever job, until we now know, it wasn't. The story gets really interesting. Here is Julie Finn.
Bobbi Rebell:
Hey, Julie Finn. You're a Financial Grownup. Welcome to the podcast.
Julie Finn:
Bobbi, thank you so much. I'm excited to be here.
Bobbi Rebell:
And I'm excited to learn so much from you because you are a business coach and you host the Working Mother Mentors Podcast, which is very popular. I hear you have some great guests on there.
Julie Finn:
Like you.
Bobbi Rebell:
You've actually turned a lot of your life experience into things that you are teaching so many others so that's great. Congratulations on all your success.
Julie Finn:
Thank you. I really appreciate it. It's been quite a journey. It's so fulfilling to be able to do work that you love and to know that you're serving others and empowering and inspiring others so it's been fantastic.
Bobbi Rebell:
And you brought a money story with you that has to do with something that can be very delicate and really has to be handled the right way in order to have the right financial future, financial exit, I should say and that is my not so sophisticated way of saying that you're going to talk about exit strategies and the different ways that you've handled them at different points in your career. Go for it.
Julie Finn:
Yes. That's exactly right and that's funny because when you sit down and think about it, career choices, the choices to take a job or to leave a job, are really some of the most important financial decisions that we make, but we often don't frame them that way. We frame buying a house or making an investment as a financial decision, but oftentimes when we think about career, we don't think about it that way. Particularly for those of us who have made decisions around leaving jobs later in our careers. I have two big leaps. One in my 30s and one in my 40s and those are massive decisions. When I look back over those choices that I've made, it's interesting to see how I've matured and I approached it very differently when I was in my 40s than I did when I was in my 30s.
Bobbi Rebell:
So let's get specific. Tell us what happened.
Julie Finn:
So when I was in my 30s, when I was making the decision to leave a job, it was really based on the fact that I'd just had my first child. I wanted to go part-time. I wasn't able to do that. I felt backed into a corner. It wasn't a positive, happy, leave. It wasn't a leave that was planned in advance. It wasn't strategized. It was more of a leap versus fast forward about ten years. I really worked hard with the company, and it was Deloit and they were super family friendly. They tried very hard to accommodate what I needed at that stage.
Julie Finn:
What I found is that dropping to part-time, which is what my intermediate solution was, wasn't the silver bullet that I envisioned it to be. I think for a lot of working moms, we think, "Wouldn't it be great if we could have a big corporate job with full benefits and work part-time and work from home?" That for me was the holy grail. It's what I had written down on a piece of paper that's what I wanted. That's what Deloit provided for me.
Julie Finn:
The decision to leave was not an obviously one. It was a really difficult one because I had a "good job". I knew that if I was going to make a leap from a job like that, it had to be based on something really compelling pulling me, and it had to be based on a really logical strategy.
Julie Finn:
What I did this time in making that decision, is I got support. I worked with coaches. I took online courses. I went to conferences. I made sure that I surrounded myself with others who made similar decisions. I sought out support from my mentors. It made the decision a positive one and it made the transition a successful one.
Julie Finn:
I found that even though I loved my company and I had a great time, I wasn't passionate about the work and I knew there was other work I wanted to be doing. Historically, I did consumer product strategy which is great training and I got to work with a lot of great clients and great people, but what I'm passionate about is inspiring and supporting women, particularly professional women in living the big life that they are here on earth to live, to overcome the fears and the doubts, to stand in their power.
Julie Finn:
I got frustrated working with so many really smart women who would doubt themselves and who often were making trade offs when children came into the mix and they didn't really know how to handle it. That's part of the reason why I started the Working Mothers Mentor, first as the podcast, to give people inspiring stories behind the scenes of really successful people to show you not only how they juggle everything but how they made career decisions, how they built their business, and to show you the messiness, not just the shiny, glossy stuff that you often see. Then also providing actual support through programs and coaching.
Julie Finn:
So the transition from Deloit has been a really positive one.
Bobbi Rebell:
And part of the takeaway of that is as good willed and as well intentioned as the company may be, that does not mean it is your forever job.
Julie Finn:
That's exactly right and that's part of the reason why it was such a hard decision because I was already over 40. When I took a job, in my head it was my forever job. It was, "I'm going to retire from this company." So making that decision to leap into entrepreneurship in my mid 40s, for a lot of people, it's a very scary time to make any kind of massive career change.
Julie Finn:
For me, part of my tip for people, is make sure if you're making any kind of pivot or massive change that you don't try to do it unsupported and you don't try to do it unguided.
Bobbi Rebell:
So what is the lesson for our listeners from your story of leaving Deloit for your own entrepreneurial adventure?
Julie Finn:
The real lesson is don't make any big leap of any big decision unsupported and unguided. I think when I look back over the different decisions I've made in my career, early in my career I often felt like I was winging it whereas with this leap, because I had the structure, because I had the support, I had a very clear plan and I had very clear strategy in place and that made all the difference.
Bobbi Rebell:
Let's talk about your every day money tip because that also goes along this theme but let's get very specific. What is it? What could people do?
Julie Finn:
I think it's very important for us all, all professionals whatever level you are, to continue to invest in yourself in terms of your education and your access to expertise. What I mean by that is in addition to reading books and having mentors, think about online courses, think about investing in a coach, think about going to conferences. I think for a lot of us, particularly when the busyness of family life and trying to keep our career on track, when that comes in development seems to disappear. We might do something in our company. They'll have professional development but I'm talking about you personally, things that are important for you.
Julie Finn:
For me, like I said, part of what made the decision easier is the fact that I invested. I took online courses to improve the skills where I needed. I invested in coaches to give me the confidence where I needed it, to give me the push where I needed it, to give me the guidance where I needed. The important lesson here is don't try to go it alone. Make sure that you continue to invest in yourself and that way when you are making these big decisions you're completely educated around them.
Bobbi Rebell:
Now are the ways that people who maybe tight on money can better afford these things because it can get expensive and where is the balance there? Because you're struggling to pay your bills, you want to build up things like and emergency fund so you maybe can take the leap to be an entrepreneur. How do you know how much is the right amount to spend in time and money.
Julie Finn:
That's a really great question. In terms of time, I think for a lot of us, we would say we don't have enough time. So it is about making the decision to prioritize. I think when you take a step back and look, you can certainly find maybe it's two hours a week, maybe it's for a season, maybe it's a weekend conference. It's about the prioritization, making the time.
Julie Finn:
In terms of money, we should all start to work on having a development part of our budget. Again, if you take a look at your budget and if you look at things that maybe you're spending money on, getting your nails done, or getting your hair done, or something that feels maybe a little bit less necessarily. If you took some of those resources and invested in attending a conference or working with a coach or if you can't afford a coach one on one, investing in a group coaching program. That's often a way to have access to a very seasoned, experienced coach but without having to pay the fee that you would pay for one on one attention.
Julie Finn:
I think the other thing is there are a lot of great platforms where you can access online platforms that are less expensive like Udemy, Teachable. So you can find courses for as little as $69. Some of the more sophisticated courses obviously can cost you a thousand, two thousand dollars, but you can get started with any budget.
Bobbi Rebell:
Thank you so much. So tell us more about what's going on with you, because I know you offer some of this.
Julie Finn:
Yeah. We're having a great time over at the Working Mothers Mentors. In addition to the podcast, we have a group coaching program that's launching soon. That's really designed to support women who are considering leaving their corporate jobs in order to start a business either as what a lot of people affectionately call a side hustle or to fully replace their full time income. We also offer group coaching and one on one coaching programs. The idea is really to support working moms who often feel like they're juggling so much and they don't really know where to go for support. That's really our mission.
Bobbi Rebell:
Where were you a few years ago? I needed you so much. I'm so happy that you're here now though doing all this for so many people that will really benefit from it.
Julie Finn:
Thank you so much. That's exactly why I do it. I needed me ten years ago and I needed me again three years ago and I couldn't find me and so I decided to become me. So thank you.
Bobbi Rebell:
Before I let you go, tell us all the social channels and where people can find you.
Julie Finn:
Our website is theworkingmothersmentor.com and that's a great hub to find out more about our coaching programs, to find out more about the podcast. The podcast also called the Working Mother's Mentor. You can certainly access on any platform where you currently listen to podcasts like your podcast. On social, you can find you on Facebook and Instagram @theworkingmothersmentor. Twitter @mothersmentor and me personally, Julie Finn, on LinkedIn.
Bobbi Rebell:
You're the best, Julie.
Julie Finn:
Thank you, Bobbi.
Bobbi Rebell:
Hey friends. So companies have a long way to go towards keeping more women in the workplace, but Julie's story at least shows real progress at some. No hard feelings, it just didn't work out.
Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup Tip #1: If and when you leave a company, take a we from Julie and be gracious. As great as Julie's story is, sometimes we don't have the best feelings when we leave a job, and it is really tempting to let them have it, but the truth is, those former coworkers and bosses could well become the best assets you have in your future business ventures.
Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup Tip #2: Julie mentioned the importance of investing in continuing education throughout your career. You know I'm a big fan of this. Many online courses are actually free and those that are not often go on sale. Sometimes your employer will pay for your classes. Make sure that you know if there are any requirements like getting a certain grade. If your employer does not pay, you can also often deduct education from your taxes if it meets certain criteria.
Bobbi Rebell:
I'm going to leave some links in the show notes bobbirebell.com/podcast/JuliFinn. I was also leave links to some popular online course websites like Udemy, which often has sales as I mentioned, classes can be under $10 there, and Coursera which has partnerships with universities including my alma mater, Penn.
Bobbi Rebell:
Thanks to Julie for candidly sharing her amicable breakup. It is one thing to storm out of a job you hate. It's another to just well not be that into it anymore and leave in search of finding your true love in terms of your career.
Bobbi Rebell:
So thank you to Julie for helping us realize sometimes life isn't so clear cut and getting us 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.
Legendary entrepreneur Shelley Zalis, Founder and CEO of The Female Quotient, The Girls Lounge, FQ Talent and FQ Impact, knew she needed to be fearless when she started her first company Online Testing Exchange. So when her relatives offered to fund the venture, she turned down the money, choosing instead to go to outside investors.
In Shelley’s money story you will learn:
-How she had an idea to disrupt the online research field
-The pivotal decision she had to make when it came to raising the million dollars she needed to get her company started
-The concerns she had about her ability to take risks with family financing
-How her strong track record and achievements in the industry allowed her relatively easy access to financing her dream company
-Examples of specific risks she was able to take because she was not emotionally connected to her funding
In Shelley’s money lesson you will learn:
-The danger of being greedy and not wanting to share equity by taking outside financing
-The importance of making bold decisions and not playing it too safe when starting and building a business
In Shelley’s everyday money tip you will learn:
-The best ways to manage giving
-Shelley’s strategy to make sure the businesses she supports get the financing they need
-How Shelley makes sure her donations are always used as she intended
Bobbi and Shelley also talk about:
-Her latest venture, The Female Quotient
-The growing components of The Female Quotient including The Girls Lounge
-How The Female Quotient evolved from the Intelligence Quotient, and then the Emotional Quotient
-Men are welcome in the Girls Lounge
-The Girls Lounge is launching permanently on university campuses in over 122 countries
-FQ Talent and FQ Impact will launch soon
In My Take you will learn:
-The way to apply Shelley’s strategy to businesses you want to support
-Strategies to gain the experience and industry respect to be able to get others to buy in to your dreams when you go looking for funding
Episode links
Learn more about The Female Quotient https://www.thefemalequotient.com/
Follow Shelley and The Female Quotient!
Twitter: @shelleyzalis @wearetfq
Instagram @shelleyzalis @wearetfq
Facebook: Shelley Zalis The Female Quotient
Transcription
Shelley Zalis:
I thought well if I take my husband's and my parent's money, I would be too afraid to take chances. We always say, if you're building something new, you gotta be bold and brave and willing to take risks and fail before you succeed, but failure wouldn't have been an option and I did not want to play it safe. I needed to go way out there and take some significant risk.
Bobbi Rebell:
You're listening to Financial Grownup with me, certified financial planner, Bobbi Rebell, author of 'How To Be a Financial Grown up'. But you know what? Being a grown up is really hard, especially when it comes to money, but it's okay. We're gonna get there together. I'm gonna bring you one money story from a financial grownup, one lesson and then my take on how you can make it your own. We got this.
Bobbi Rebell:
Hey, financial grownups. It sounds like a dream come true to be able to avoid outside financing when you're starting a business. Keep it in the family, right? But let's be honest, how much risk would you really take with your parents or your spouse's money? And as our guest Shelley Zalis makes very clear, you need that risk to succeed. Not all money is created equal when it comes to funding startups. Welcome everyone. The show continues to grow, so thanks to all of you who have been telling your friends. If you're new, we work on flextime here. The podcast runs about 15 minutes or so. So pretty much anyone can fit it into their schedule, but if you have more time, go ahead and binge.
Bobbi Rebell:
All right. Let's talk about Shelley Zalis. I first met her or should I say I first witnessed Shelley taking total command of a room of mesmerized women about a year ago. I was fortunate to be included in a dinner that she hosted and have been in awe ever since. She is a force. She is a disruptor in the online research business with OTX, Online Testing Exchange, that was her first company and now is taking aim at equality with The Female Quotient. Here is Shelley Zalis.
Bobbi Rebell:
Hey, Shelley Zalis, you're a financial grownup. Welcome to the podcast.
Shelley Zalis:
Oh, thank you. I hope I never grow up though, because once you're grown up, you feel you never have the opportunity to keep learning and I learn every day. So I hope that I never grow up. I guess I'm like Peter Pan-
Bobbi Rebell:
Just financially.
Shelley Zalis:
Okay.
Bobbi Rebell:
So you can find all your youthful adventures, right?
Shelley Zalis:
I'll take it.
Bobbi Rebell:
Okay.
Shelley Zalis:
Perfect.
Bobbi Rebell:
And I'm a huge fan of your company. You're CEO of The Female Quotient, which of course encompasses the Girls' Lounge. Tell us just a little bit about what it is before we get to your money story.
Shelley Zalis:
Thank you. First of all, I am your greatest fan 'cause you make every conversation, whether it's complicated or easy, fun, interactive, engaging-
Bobbi Rebell:
Well thank you.
Shelley Zalis:
And with solutions for change. So thank you for doing what you do as well. The Female Quotient, the name came ... first came the Intelligence Quotient, IQ, then the Emotional Quotient EQ, now the Female Quotient, FQ. When you put women in any equation, the equation gets better so that we can start creating solutions around diversity. We say that diversity is good for business and yet we're going backwards. So The Female Quotient is in the business of equality and we have four key pillars, the Girls' Lounge. There's a boys club, why not have a girls' lounge, a place where the minority acts and feels like the majority. Men are welcome, but they come into our world with our rules and they all feel comfortable. And we will be launching a permanent Girls' Lounge on university campuses in over 122 countries. And then we'll also be launching the FQ Talent, a talent business for corporate women to bring more visibility to women doing remarkable things. And then we also have a practice of equality, helping companies become a quality fit because we can help women all we want, but if we don't rewrite the rules than women will continue to fall out in middle management or what we call the messy middle. And then the fourth is the FQ Impact, which is our giving back with generosity really to women in developing markets.
Bobbi Rebell:
All this costs money and a lot of that money came from Online Testing Exchange, which you built earlier in your career. You have a money ... Sort of share with us about a strategic decision that you made, a psychological strategic decision you made about how to finance your first business venture. Tell us your money story, Shelley.
Shelley Zalis:
I needed a million dollars because I met a 21 year old. I was doing website testing, usability testing and I thought, "What if we migrate research from offline to online?" And I said to him, "Trevor, why don't you build this for me?" I said, "But I have no money." And I said, "But the second someone gives you money, I'll give you a million dollars. So believe in me, invest in me and I will give it back in a very significant way." And so I needed a million dollars and I had two options, go to a big company and get them to buy in, or my husband and my father both agree to give me half a million dollars to realize my dream and they believed in me.
Shelley Zalis:
I thought about that. I thought well that's the easy way just to go to my family, but it was gonna be hard. My husband was just starting out in medicine. We did not have that kind of money. We would have been putting everything in our savings account into this and of course my father wanted to help out. And I thought well, if I take my husband's and my parent's money, I would be too afraid to take chances. We always say if you're building something new, you gotta be bold and brave and willing to take risks and fail before you succeed. But failure wouldn't have been an option if I had my family's option and I did not want to play it safe. I needed to go way out there and take some significant risk and so I did not take their money and I went to Nielsen and they were the first to fund me. And as soon as they said yes, I handed a 21 year old a million dollar check.
Bobbi Rebell:
And you already had a relationship with Nielsen?
Shelley Zalis:
Yep. I went to Nielsen. I said, "I have a big idea." And they said, "Great. What do you need?" I said, "I need a million dollars." And that is the check that I gave to this young man that just said yes to me, believed in me, not knowing what the results would become. But what I had was passion and purpose and an unstoppable mindset. And I went in saying, "I really want to try something new. I don't know if it's gonna work, but if it does, it's certainly gonna be a game changer." And I sold that same company three times. So they took a good risk and they also got a great reward as a result of saying yes.
Bobbi Rebell:
When you look back at those early days, do you feel that there are risks that you took? Is there a specific example you can think of, of a risk that you took that you may have been more hesitant to take had you been financed by your relatives, by your husband and your ... well really, you and your husband and your father?
Shelley Zalis:
Absolutely. The first risk I took when I got to Nielsen was I said to Nielsen, "Not only do we need to pay this young man a million dollars, but I'm going to go break into the movie business." I was very well known in the consumer packaged good business, but I decided to go after the movie business because they had two and a half minute trailers versus just 30 second spots. They tested a lot of content and they needed data within 48 hours and security was very important for them, because you could close the movie before it opens if people panned the trailer. And so I thought if I could build a system around the hardest thing possible than doing 30 second spots for products that are womb to tomb would be very simple. So I said to Nielsen, "I'm gonna go to the studios and everything they're testing offline ..." And there was a monopoly. One guy owned the research business for the movie ... for the movie industry. I said, "Everything they test offline, I want to parallel test for free online so I could calibrate the scores and build the model and build the technology that would work." And that was very risky and that was very expensive and I wouldn't have been able to take those chances if I couldn't go way out there and build the [echo system 00:08:06] very quickly by parallel testing.
Bobbi Rebell:
Right. Versus if you were investing ... If you had your father's money and your husband's money, you would have been watching every penny and maybe been a lot more reluctant to do something like that.
Shelley Zalis:
I would have played it safe and if you play it safe, there's no way you'll be really the first to own something. And I always said to myself, "I need to be the first, the second and the third." The first has to come up with this big idea, but they usually lose. So if I took my father and husband's money, I probably would have lost. So the first always comes up with a big idea. You have to make the investment, but you don't reap the benefit because the second one comes in, they copy everything you did, but they don't really know what's under the hood, and the third is the sweeper. You've now built an [echo system 00:08:53], everyone is buying in. They get the money and they win.
Bobbi Rebell:
So for our listeners, what is the takeaway here? What is the lesson for them, how they can apply it to their own lives?
Shelley Zalis:
Well I think number one, don't be greedy. Like had I've taken my husband's money and my father's money, I would have ... the equity would have stayed in the family and that was the positive. But the negative was I would have been risk averse and failure would not have been an option for me, and there is no companies that succeed building something that doesn't exist if you're not willing to fail before you succeed. Number two, when you are pioneering something that's never been done before, make sure you set yourself up in your own mind that you will have freedom to color out of the lines, that you're not gonna play it safe. You've gotta be bold, you've gotta be brave, you've gotta be willing to take chances, and you do need a partner that will support that mindset.
Bobbi Rebell:
Okay. Let's talk about your everyday money tip now though, because it sort of flips where you're seated. Because now instead of being the one receiving the money, now you're in a position to support businesses that you believe in.
Shelley Zalis:
I once had someone come to me, they needed $100,000.00 to create a project that I thought was very worthwhile. And so of course I gave them $10,000.00 and I said, "Here's $10,000.00 towards the hundred thousand." As it turns out, they never raised the additional $90,000.00 that they needed and I never got my money back, and that really bothered me. That's hard worked money for me that I really gave to this organization to make something happen. So now I designate all of my giving and so if someone needs 100,000 and I'm planning to give 10, I will say to them, "You go get your 90,000 and I will give you the last 10 so that I know the project is a go." Or I will designate my giving. Of I'm gonna give 10,000 to something, I will buy three dogs sniffing dogs or I will buy three rehabilitation machines in Tel HaShomer Hospital or for my children's bar in Bar Mitzvahs. I said to them, "10% of what you get for your Bar Mitzvah, we're gonna give to an organization." And we built a gym for handicapped children and my kids were able to go and see that that actually happened. Because when you can see the results of your giving, you want to give more.
Shelley Zalis:
My mother always used to tell me that giving is like wearing a new pair of shoes. When you put them on the first time, it pinches but the more you wear them, the more comfortable you get. Like I just was at the MAKERS Conference recently and I met a young girl. She's 12 years old from India living in Colorado and she found a technology, a way to remove lead from water and she needed $25,000.00 for her dream and I thought, if they're asking everyone in the audience and someone says, "I'll give you 500, I'll give you a thousand." She might've ended up with 3,000 out of 25 and one, it would have been discouraging for her and two, she would not have been able to realize her dreams. If I'm gonna give, I want to know that it's gonna make a difference and help you go where you need to go.
Bobbi Rebell:
Love that. All right, Shelley. Let's talk quickly about the Girls' Lounge and The Female Quotient and what is happening in the rest of 2018.
Shelley Zalis:
Oh, thank you. So we are doing Girls' Lounge popups. It is a space, as I said before, where the minority acts and feels like the majority. A space for women to connect, collaborate, activate, change together, but more importantly to support each other and have unplugged conversations. So we have popups at pretty much every major industry. We will be rolling out on college campuses starting in September. We already opened two, but we'll be opening 200 universities at a time. We have access to 3,800 universities in 122 countries. Our FQ talent business will be launched in about three months. We are building it right now with wire frames.
Bobbi Rebell:
What will that be?
Shelley Zalis:
It will be a talent agency for senior women, placing women in keynotes. I'm just so sick of hearing that there's no women for keynote speeches-
Bobbi Rebell:
I know. I've heard that too, Shelley. It's amazing.
Shelley Zalis:
It's ridiculous. We have all the women, the women are all here. We have over 17,000 corporate women in our community that are all bad ass in their own regard with their own stories to tell. So no excuses. Sorry, not sorry. There's plenty of women. So if you don't find them, then that's just a poor excuse for not moving forward.
Bobbi Rebell:
Shelley, where can people find out more about all of this and be in touch with you and your team?
Shelley Zalis:
Thank you. You can follow us on social @shelleyzalis or @wearetfq and you can find us ... our website is The Female Quotient.
Bobbi Rebell:
Shelley, this has been amazing. Thank you so much.
Shelley Zalis:
Bobbi, you're amazing. Thank you for sharing our journey.
Bobbi Rebell:
All I can say is one day I hope I have the means to be able to make someone's dreams come true the way Shelley does. It's pretty incredible, but take her advice to heart. Financial grownup tip number one, when giving to a startup, maybe your friend is starting a business, has a page on Kickstarter. Don't be afraid to take a step back and see how they raised funds from other people first. If you wanna give something to show your support early on, well maybe make a small donation, but hold back and know what happens to your money if the project is not fully funded. Financial grownup tip number two, Shelley talks about being fearless and taking risks. But take that in the context of the fact that she already had a ton of experience in the industry. She knew what she was doing. Companies like Nielsen don't just hand you a million dollars. You need to know your stuff and have the credibility and the experience.
Bobbi Rebell:
Thanks so much for joining us. If you have not already, please subscribe and while you're there, make sure to go to settings and select auto downloads. You don't have to worry about missing any episodes and I want to hear your thoughts. DM on Instagram at bobbirebell1, on Twitter @bobbirebell, and of course, sign up for our newsletter more about the podcast at bobbirebell.com/financialgrownuppodcast. Shelley Zalis, truly fearless and so inspiring. Thank you Shelley 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.
Modern Loss author Rebecca Soffer not only had to come to terms with losing her parents at a young age, she also had to reconcile complicated feelings about using the money she inherited after their deaths, to fund her dream home for her own growing family.
In Rebecca’s money story you will learn:
-How she lost her mother when she was 30, and her father just a few years later
-Her conflicted feelings about the money she inherited
-How Rebecca approached managing her inheritance
-The decision to use it towards a home for her growing family
In Rebecca’s money lesson you will learn:
-Accept that receiving money from parents, or any relative after death is complicated and emotional
-It can be scary to make huge financial decisions after a loss
In Rebecca’s everyday money tip you will learn:
-How to spend less money on snacks, especially with kids
Bobbi and Rebecca also talk about
-Rebecca’s book, co-written with Gabrielle Birkner, Modern Loss
-The collection from essays from different authors offering unique but universally relatable stories
-Mindy Kaling’s reaction to the book, and how she is supporting Modern Loss
-Stephen Colbert’s role in Rebecca’s life and how his experiences influenced his decision to support the book
-The role of digital memories on social media like Facebook, in our lives
In My Take you will learn:
-Have a plan for your social media.
-Go to settings and set up a legacy contact
-My tips on how to avoid spending money on snacks when you are on the go
Episode Links:
Learn more about Rebecca’s platform at Modernloss.com
Order the book Modern Loss!
Follow Rebecca and Modern Loss
Instagram @modernloss
Twitter @modernloss
Facebook: Modern Loss
How to set up a legacy contact on Facebook:
Go to General Settings, click Manage account, and add a friend’s name
Transcription
Rebecca Soffer:
I really connected this to, would my parents want me to buy this home? Would my parents want this for me? Would they think this is a waste? Is this how they'd want to take care of me? Would they want me to use it for something else? It really got into my head.
Bobbi Rebell:
You're listening to Financial Grown Up with me, certified financial planner Bobbi Rebell, author of How to Be a Financial Grown Up. You know what? Being a grown up is really hard, especially when it comes to money, but it's okay. We're going to get there together. I'm going to bring you one money story from a financial grown up, one lesson, and then my take on how you can make it your own. We got this.
Bobbi Rebell:
Hey, financial grown up friends. No amount of money can replace a loved one, but money does sometimes come after a loss, inheritance. Spending that money can be really complicated. Should it matter what they would want you to do? Is there a period of time that you should wait, and what if it allows you to do things you never could have done had they not passed away? In other words, it is complicated. Welcome, everyone. If you are new, glad you are joining us. You picked a really good episode. We try to keep them short, around 15 minutes, even though we hear many listeners bash them together. It's about flexibility and doing what works for you. When you subscribe, make sure to go into settings, hit auto download, automate your podcasts like you automate your bill paying, so you never miss one.
Bobbi Rebell:
Let's get to our guest, Modern Loss author, Rebecca Soffer. She lost both of her parents at a relatively young age while she was a young adult working at the Stephen Colbert Show. It led her down an unexpected path. Here is Rebecca Soffer. Hey, Rebecca Soffer. You're a financial grown up. Welcome to the podcast.
Rebecca Soffer:
Thank you so much, and thank you for calling me a grown up. That feels really nice.
Bobbi Rebell:
You are very much a grown up, and we're going to talk about why and how you became a grown up before you really wanted to, which is kind of all of our stories, I think. You're also the author of one of the most talked about books of the summer. It's Modern Loss, candid conversations about grief, [inaudible 00:02:10]. I should say you're a co-author along with Gabrielle Birkner. This is a book that's being talked about by some very influential people including Mindy Kaling. I'm looking right at the front cover. It says, "I am not sure how a book about grief could also be witty and entertaining, but Modern Loss accomplishes just that." Your old boss, because you are like me, a TV veteran or survivor, however we want to put it.
Rebecca Soffer:
Refugee.
Bobbi Rebell:
Sticking with the theme here, trying to have a sense of humor. Stephen Colbert says, "Talking about loss can feel scary. These surprisingly candid and funny stories aren't about death. They're about life." I love that.
Rebecca Soffer:
I love it too.
Bobbi Rebell:
We're going to talk more about the book after your money story, but how did this come about, because you're young? You're still young.
Rebecca Soffer:
Thank you, new best friend. I would think it's safe to say that I did not grow up daydreaming about eventually co-founding a site and publication and writing a book about loss and grief in the modern age. That didn't really enter into my consciousness as a career option. I had other plans, but as it goes the universe had other plans for me. When I was 30 years old I was working in daily TV, as you mentioned, the Colbert Report, and my mother was killed in a car accident.
Bobbi Rebell:
I'm so sorry.
Rebecca Soffer:
Thank you. It was terrible. It was the worst. I mean, I could talk about that for eons with you, but we don't have that much time. She was my best friend. She was my person. I had just seen her just an hour beforehand. Not only was it awful in a profound, profound loss, but I was 30. That's like the new 21, right? I really felt like a kid in many respects. It was also sudden, so I had no time to prepare for it. Then beyond that, three years later my dad died. He had a heart attack when he was traveling abroad.
Bobbi Rebell:
So sorry.
Rebecca Soffer:
Yeah, thanks. It was again, awful. It was terrible. It was isolating, and wrenching, and insanity-driving. By 34 I had no parents who were above ground. I did inherit some money because my parents did have some legal tender in their accounts, so by extension, some of that went to me. I had to figure out what to do with the portion that I could spend, when to spend it, what to spend it on, how much to spend it. The one really huge thing that I did, I went in with my husband on a down payment on a house in the Berkshires in rural Massachusetts. That sounds all nice and fancy, but the fact of the matter we lived in a one bedroom rent subsidized apartment in Manhattan, and then eventually kept living there with our one kid and our Labradoodle. It was nice and cramped.
Rebecca Soffer:
I never thought that we'd actually buy a place outside of the city in which we lived, but after my dad's death that all changed. I used part of this money that I was left, which I would have given all of my limbs to not have. I would have much rather had my parents with me to purchase this home with my husband, which was our foundation, which we were starting to create together.
Bobbi Rebell:
Do you think if you had had that money through some other means with your parents still alive you would have been able to make such a grown up decision?
Rebecca Soffer:
Absolutely, because for a couple years beforehand my husband had been saying, "Let's look at properties because interest rates are really low. I think this might be a good time to invest in something," keeping in mind that we were being very frugal with our rental in New York City. We had low overhead with regards to rent and living expenses there. I just thought we were playing around. It was fun looking at houses. It sounded like a very grown up thing to do, to purchase a home, especially when you're in New York, and you feel like you're always a kid no matter what. Only adults buy houses. That's like most people in this country go through that, but it still felt very foreign to me.
Rebecca Soffer:
After my dad died, and I put that home on the market, everything changed. I all of a sudden became very aware in a way that I had become aware after my mom died, of the fleeting nature of life, that it can go at any minutes, and that this is your one life. I was living it now. This was no dress rehearsal. This was an opportunity to start something and to create a foundation where we could build memories with our kids, with our friends, which otherwise would not have not been build in, says, their maternal grandparents' home.
Bobbi Rebell:
What's interesting is that the inheritance that allowed you to buy a house, it was the money, of course, but it was also the idea that this is your life, and you do have to grow up. You do have to be financially grown up, and that was in a way part of what happened after they passed away.
Rebecca Soffer:
Yeah. I don't think it really had entered into my mind that I would have purchased something. Also, everything is really expensive in New York. That was not in the realm of possibility in my mind. Very quickly, the need to have a sense of home became very, very, very integral to my life.
Bobbi Rebell:
What is the lesson for our listeners? How can they make this their own?
Rebecca Soffer:
When you lose your parents, and this money is from your parents, wow. It was so complicated. I really connected this to, would my parents want me to buy this home? Would my parents want this for me? Would they think this is a waste? Is this how they'd want to take care of me? Would they want me to use it for something else? It really got into my head. I also was really scared to take any huge financial action shortly after a profound loss. I didn't want it to result from strong emotions because people always say, "Don't make any big moves within the first year of a deep loss." We bought the house three or four months after my dad's death. A lot of people would say, "Wow, that seems rash," but my mom had already died. I was no stranger to this experience, so you could really argue that I was about three years into it already. I needed a foundation.
Rebecca Soffer:
I learned that even though you're making a purchase that is going to be the right thing for you, it doesn't mean that it's not a complicated, emotional experience. It is very, very hard to spend money that is inherited, very, very heard, and especially for younger people because it's not like when I was 30. You just called me a financial grown up, that's amazing. Can you please put that on my tombstone because that's not a term that's really been used in connection with me a lot. I didn't feel like a financial anything, and I really didn't feel like a grown up.
Bobbi Rebell:
You have an every day money tip that is something that many people do, but I think it's important to point out on a practical level because it's something we all think we should do. I personally, have never been great at executing it. I want you to share it with us, and I want you to tell us most importantly, how you actually execute.
Rebecca Soffer:
Yeah. Now I have a one-year-old and a four-year-old, both little boys, and they are hungry, like they are hungry. They are constantly hungry, and I constantly find myself, as soon as we leave the house, even though we have just eaten, my four-year-old will 10 seconds later say, "I'm hungry." I'm like, "How is it humanly possible for you to have more space in your stomach right now?," but he does. I constantly find myself, or had found myself, buying into purchasing the snacks from the museum we're at, or whichever entertainment based facility.
Bobbi Rebell:
Which are very expensive.
Rebecca Soffer:
Which are expensive. They're like a billion times more expensive than they should be, or the bottle of water. I spend some time a couple nights a week, it takes me 10 minutes, it's really not a big deal, putting together snacks, putting them in little Ziploc bags, separating them. I stockpile them. I have them ready every day. I take the new slew of snacks, and I bring them with me. I put them in my older son's little backpack. Wherever we are, whenever the inevitable, I'm hungry pops up, I'm like, "Great. Go into your backpack." What's really great about that is not only are there are a billion different things to choose from, but there's no arguments about, I want this. No, you can't have that. A, because it's like $20, and D because it's made of crap. He knows that anything in that bag is fair game.
Bobbi Rebell:
Let's talk a little bit about Modern Loss. There's one part that really stood out to me that I hadn't really thought that much about, and that has to do with our digital legacy. It's a collection of essays from different authors, and then you and your co-author Gabby introduce them. Was there a conscious decision to include these digital stories, or did that just happen? What is your take on them?
Rebecca Soffer:
Yeah. It was a very conscious decision to have a dedicated chapter to the ways that grief and loss can throw a loss into our digital lives because it's very much a part of everything we do right now. It wasn't as much so 15 years ago, maybe even 10 years ago. My mom died in 2006, and she did not have a Facebook presence.
Bobbi Rebell:
Doesn't that make you sad? I wish my mom had a real Facebook page.
Rebecca Soffer:
Yes, it does make me sad. I always say, "If a person isn't a searchable, did they really exist?"
Bobbi Rebell:
Before I let you go, people are dying to know, how did you get Mindy Kaling involved with the book? Then also, Stephen Colbert, I know that you worked there. Can you tell us about their involvement and connection?
Rebecca Soffer:
With regards to Stephen, yes, he's my former boss. I think he's an amazing human being and very ... I think the general public, anyone who knows a lot about him knows that he suffered profound loss when he was very young. He lost very close relatives very quickly, and he gets it. He's one of those people who gets it. When I was starting to co-author this book, I reached out to him and told him all about it. He offered to write a blurb, immediately offered to support it and knew that there was a need for it. With Mindy Kaling, it was through a mutual friend, actually. She had lost her mom. I had read it in her own book and in a lot of news articles that she had lost her mom around the time, I think, that she got her TV deal for the Mindy Project. She really must understand what it's like to go through loss while you're revving up your career.I thought, who doesn't love Mindy Kaling? Everything she does it so great, and her tone is so approachable. I approached our mutual friend and asked if she would send along my request and a few chapters of the book. She agreed to support it.
Bobbi Rebell:
What's unique about this book is it's a book that you're read once, put down, and then keep coming back to. I think that's a very special thing. Where can people find out more about you, and the book, and everything else that is important to you right now?
Rebecca Soffer:
I run ModernLoss.com. It's an online publication that has hundreds, and hundreds, and hundreds of personal essays that are narrowly focused around different aspects of grief and loss. We're @ModernLoss on Twitter, on Instagram. We have a very active Facebook page. What I really love is we have a closed group, which has become this incredible source of support.
Bobbi Rebell:
Thank you so much, Rebecca. This has been wonderful.
Rebecca Soffer:
Thank you.
Bobbi Rebell:
Rebecca mentions with her usual humor that she's really sad her mom was never on Facebook, but these days social media does live on and can be a gift. Financial Grown Up tip number one, keep your social media secure, but make sure if something does happen to you, loved ones can have access to whatever you want them to. Talk to relatives, especially older ones about making plans for what they want done with their digital assets. A lot of grandparents, by the way, are on Facebook. It can be as simple as finding the right settings on a certain platform. It may also be something to include in your estate planning and in your will.
Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grown Up tip number two. Rebecca's money tip really hit home with me as a parent, but it can also apply to all of us in our every day lives. It's not just kids that get the munchies and get stuck buying pricey snacks. Pick a go-to food. In my case, it is often pistachios and those power bars. Keep it somewhere that is always with you for a quick pick-me-up. Totally obvious, but often not done. Maybe this is a reminder, if you already knew that. For me, it keeps me away from M&M's, sometimes. DM me your take on this and what your danger food is, if you don't have those go-to snacks with you.
Bobbi Rebell:
Thanks for sharing this time with us. The podcast is free, but in order to grow we need your support. Reviews are amazing. Also, follow us on the social channels @bobbirebell on Twitter, @bobbirebell1 on Instagram, and Bobbi Rebell on Facebook. The shows notes for this episode are at BobbiRebell.com/podcast/rebeccasoffer along with more info on the podcast at bobbirebell.com. Thanks to Rebecca Soffer for helping us get one step closer to being financial grown ups.
Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grown Up with Bobbi Rebell is edited and produced by Steve Stewart and is a BRK Media Production.
Entrepreneur Lyss Stern, CEO of networking and event planning company DivaMoms and author of two best-selling books explains how she dealt with a major company that approached her to work with them, and offered to pay her in Craisins. Lyss also shares her secret to controlling costs, and still saying yes, when she is out with her kids and they want to have some for treats like ice cream.
In Lyss’ money story you will learn:
-How a billion dollar food company tried to hire her for no pay
-Why they said they had no budget to hire Lyss
-What they offered her instead of money
-The strategy Lyss uses to make sure she is properly compensated for her work
In Lyss’ money lesson you will learn:
-Her negotiating strategy and tips on how it can be used by others
-The best ways to communicate the value of your business
-How mompreneurs can leverage their skillset
-How to handle low ball offers
In Lyss’ everyday money tip you will learn
-How to save money on treats like ice cream
-The questions you should ask while ordering to find out about sizes and other items not on the menu
Lyss and Bobbi also talk about:
-Her books: If You Give a Mom a Martini
and Motherhood is a B****
-How her life inspired her books and her business
-The realities of life as a mom and an entrepreneur
In My Take you will learn:
-How to decide whether it is worth it to take on a low-paying client, when you don’t have other clients in place
-How to find value in a client that truly does not have money to pay for your services
Episode Links:
Divamoms.com
Follow Lyss!!
instagram @diva_moms
twitter @divamoms
Facebook lys. Lyss Stern
Get her books!
If you give a mom a martini
Motherhood is a B****
Transcription
Lyss Stern:
They wrote back to me, "But we can pay you in craisins," and that was it for me. That day, I'll never forget. I could not believe what I was reading in front of me. They had the nerve to tell me that they could pay me in craisins.
Bobbi R.:
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 R.:
Hey, financial grownup friends, so this episode is going to give us permission to push back a little or actually a lot when we don't get what we need to run a profitable business. Emphasis on profit. Mompreneur, Lyss Stern, is the CEO of the networking and event planning company, DivaMoms. There are a number of them out there, but she was really a pioneer and helped create and define an industry that is thriving. And since she has so much free time, not while raising her three kids, she also writes books.
Bobbi R.:
You may have heard of If You Give a Mom a Martini and her more recent hit Motherhood is a B: 10 Steps to Regaining Your Sanity, Sexiness, and Inner Diva, which she co-wrote with Cheryl Burke, and it has a forward by odd-mom-out star, Jill Kargman. Special welcome to our new listeners. We keep the shows short, about 15 minutes so that we can fit it into your busy day, but we also do three a week, so we hear a lot of listeners like to binge listen on, for example, longer commutes. Think of it like flex-time for podcast listening. Hit subscribe if you have not already, and be sure to set up automatic downloads, so you have one less thing to remember. Just like you should automate your savings. One less thing. Okay, now let's get to the fantastic, Lyss Stern, who runs a for-profit business, something potential clients seem to have a hard time fully understanding. Here is Lyss Stern.
Bobbi R.:
Hey, Lyss Stern, you're a financial grownup, welcome to the podcast.
Lyss Stern:
Thank you for having me.
Bobbi R.:
And I am such a fan of your company Divalysscious Moms, major event planning company. I mean literally, you have millions of mothers and Mompreneurs in your universe that you have coming to your incredible events. So I'm over the moon that you were able to make time to chat with us. So thank you for being here.
Lyss Stern:
Of course. Thank you for having me on. I'm so excited to be talking with you.
Bobbi R.:
Before we get to your money story, just tell us a little bit about the company.
Lyss Stern:
Sure. So DivaMoms is a lifestyle company for moms everywhere. What we do is we bring the best of the best directly to the moms. We've really become a direct marketing company, so we work with whatever is new, fabulous for moms, for kids, but everything has to be approved by DivaMoms, by Lyss Stern herself, before we promote it to our moms and our community.
Lyss Stern:
And we throw these amazing events and we have DivaMoms book clubs and lots of fabulous parties where moms can come and just be, let their hair down, have fun, mix and mingle with other fabulous moms and really a great social network for moms everywhere. A really amazing community online and offline.
Bobbi R.:
And you're also an author. We're going to talk about your books, in a couple of minutes, but first I want to get to your money story, because you're talking about your business, and it's really important for people to hear a little bit of the behind-the-scenes of what goes on behind these events, and the kind of decisions that you have to make in running a successful business. Tell us your money story.
Lyss Stern:
Sure. So my money story is that I get hundreds and hundreds of emails a day, as I'm sure many Mompreneurs do, where companies want to work with me. They want to advertise with DivaMoms. They want to sponsor DivaMoms events. They want social media, They want email blasts, you name it. They want it.
Bobbi R.:
So there was one company that approached you and this was not a startup. What specifically did they approach you about doing with them as a business?
Lyss Stern:
Sure. So this one company, in particular, that is a billion dollar business.
Bobbi R.:
A food company?
Lyss Stern:
A food company, billion dollars.
Bobbi R.:
A company we've all heard of?
Lyss Stern:
Yes, oh yes. Reached out to me and said, "We love DivaMoms. We want to work with you, we want to advertise with you. We want to sponsor some of your events. We want to do direct marketing with you, want to do social media with you. We want email blast with you," all this other fabulous stuff. Okay, great. So I write back and "Thank you for reaching out. Let's talk, when you have some time, about what your budget may be," and all this other stuff.
Lyss Stern:
And they write back to me, "Oh no, no, no, no, no. We don't have a budget. We don't have a marketing or advertising budget." No, but I see their advertisements on every billboard, on every bus.
Bobbi R.:
Well they don't have a budget for you.
Lyss Stern:
But they don't have a budget for me. Correct.
Bobbi R.:
And they came to you?
Lyss Stern:
Yes. I did not approach them, and they can come directly to me. I wrote back something very polite and then they wrote back to me, "Oh no, no, no, no, no, but we can't pay you," because I guess they got, they understood where I was coming from, that this DivaMoms is a for-profit business. Yes, we are affiliated. We work with different charities that we're passionate about, but DivaMoms is not a charity, we're a for-profit business like everybody else like they are.
Lyss Stern:
And they wrote back to me, "But we can pay you in craisins," and that was it for me. That day, I'll never forget. I could not believe what I was reading in front of me. They had the nerve to tell me that they could pay me in craisins. And ladies and everybody out there know your worth, and you know that you are better at getting paid in craisins.
Bobbi R.:
Oh, my goodness. Tell me how you would, in another situation, how can you turn around that kind of approach to something that is paying you in money? Have you had any stories where you've been able to make the pivot and get someone to see the value and then actually pay you in a currency?
Lyss Stern:
Yes. So I've had this many a times and this was the one time, obviously, that was with the craisins, and it was just ridiculous. But a lot of times I will write back to companies that reach out to me, and I'll explain to them who we ... Sometimes I don't think they really understand what I am or what we do. They might think that I'm, I don't know what they might think, maybe it's just a hobby for Lyss Stern. Maybe this is a hobby DivaMoms, this is not a business, and I make it, it's all business.
Lyss Stern:
This is what it is. It's very black and white and I send them, obviously, information. I send them photos, I send them videos, I send them press links and let them know who I really am. And then a lot of the times they do come back, and they say, "Oh, I didn't realize," and, "I didn't know that you did this and this and this. Let me go back and see if we can find some money in the budget." And a lot of the times they do go back, and they do, miraculously somewhere, find money out of their budget to work with us.
Bobbi R.:
So what is the lesson for our listeners to get more situations like scenario number two rather than number one?
Lyss Stern:
Sure. My mom always taught me, and I'm sure we get everybody's heard this a million times, "You get more with sugar, so always be sweet." Always put your best self out there and hopefully they will come back and understand. That you, obviously, that you have a business that you have worth. And it's always nicer to respond with a nice email and/or pick up the phone and set up a time to call and explain yourself. Explain what the business is, who you are, what you actually really do. And if they don't understand, no worries, no problem. But, hopefully, after speaking to you, after really going through your email and going through your information and doing their due diligence. They'll come back and say, "Okay, we found money," or "We'd like to really work with you and this is what we're going to do and this is what we can do."
Lyss Stern:
And I also always, I think it's important too, to give companies options to say, "What is your budget? What are you looking to do? Because we could start at this, and we can go to this." But it depends on again, what every company's looking for. And I just think it's there from the beginning, from day one of the conversation to be open and hat in hand and to have that conversation. And that's just even an example of a few days ago, a company reached out to me, a clothing company. They want me to host an event for them and Dah, Dah, Dah. And she starting to getting into this whole conversation about where the event was going to be. And I said, "Before we even begin this conversation, I just have to tell you we charge and this is what we do and this is-
Lyss Stern:
And she's, "Oh well, oh, I didn't know, I didn't know that you ... and so I had to explain it and then I sent her a proposal and that's also important too. Write it out, a, b, c, bullet point, make it visual and show them what you do, and then hopefully they'll come back with a budget.
Bobbi R.:
And I like the way that you phrase that, because what you're doing is you're giving people the benefit of the doubt. That they may think, on the surface, not fully understand your business, that they're in fact helping you give you exposure, give you new contacts, that kind of thing when in fact, as you said, you do need to be compensated, because this is the business. And I think that's something that people can sometimes get lost in, and they are well intentioned. You can't necessarily come back with negativity.
Lyss Stern:
Absolutely. I think that if you come back with negativity, at least from the beginning, from right on, it's not going to get you anywhere, but sometimes they really might not understand what you are, who your business is and what you really do. So just again, send an email, really show them what you do or set up a phone call with them or even have a meeting, go for coffee, have a lunch meeting and be a person and talk about what you do. So I think that they get a better understanding and then hopefully they can wrap their head around it and see the value and see the worth. And I think that's really important.
Bobbi R.:
Do you try to let them say the number first in terms of budget?
Lyss Stern:
I do. A lot of times I'll say to the company, "What are you looking to do? What is your budget?" And a lot of times they'll come back to me, and they'll say, "Well, what can you do for this amount? What can you do for that amount?" And sometimes they'll say to me, "Well, I don't really know, so can you give me a breakdown of what things cost?" Which I'll do always. I think a lot of times a lot of companies today don't pay, because they don't have to, because a lot of times people or companies or influencers might do stuff for free, which is fine and great. Or they might do stuff for products, I mean whatever that's wonderful. But we, my company, happens to be a for-profit business, so I just need to make that clear from early on.
Bobbi R.:
All right, let's move on to your everyday money tip, because this one made me really happy. Tell us.
Lyss Stern:
Okay. I have three children, and we love to go for ice cream. However, there is a great way to save money for ice cream. For us as adults, they always do offer kiddie cups and kiddie cones. They might not show it out on the counters-
Bobbi R.:
And they don't always tell you, which is tricky with the kids. You have to be proactive, because your kids are going to see the bigger sizes.
Lyss Stern:
Yes. You have to be proactive. You have to ask, they most usually do not put the kiddie cone, or the Kiddie cup out there, especially during the summertime, their busiest time. And same thing for going for a ladies lunch. A lot of times you don't have to order the whole salad. You could ask for half a salad, and it also affects the cost, obviously. They're just little tips about food that you can, obviously, save a few dollars by asking and being proactive.
Bobbi R.:
Always order the small or even just order an appetizer. If you're super hungry, of course, eat what you want to eat, but if you're really just there to spend time with your friends, and the food is kind of an afterthought. Don't feel you have to order an appetizer, a drink, a full entrée, a dessert, a coffee, tea.
Lyss Stern:
No, it's definitely not necessary.
Bobbi R.:
All right. I want to talk about your books, because in addition to this big business that you re running you're also churning out some books. So your first book was If You Give a Mom a Martini, which I loved. I remember reading that. A 100 ways to find 10 blissful minutes for yourself. We all need that. And, by the way, it applies to dads too, okay.
Lyss Stern:
Yes, it does.
Bobbi R.:
And then your latest one is Motherhood is a B, 10 Steps to Regaining Your Sanity, Sexiness and Inner Diva, which is a great summer read. Tell us a little bit more about that.
Lyss Stern:
Sure. So this book was created, because I felt, after having three kids, that I was just on the verge of losing it, losing myself actually. I wasn't feeling well. I was just in a place, my father just passed away, and I remember going to a retreat by myself for a few days. I said to my husband, "I just need to go away for a few days." I went to a retreat, and I remember coming back from that retreat and saying, "I need to start taking care of myself. I need to start putting myself first, because if mom's not happy, kids aren't going to be happy." Motherhood is really hard. I don't think that anybody tells you, there are no parenting books out there that really tell you what motherhood is.
Lyss Stern:
Everyone, sometimes they paint pictures of that it's rainbows and roses and Unicorns every day and it's happiness, and it's ... but it's really hard being a parent, and I think that the book is all about really empowering you to step back and get yourself back. It's like almost like a Stella Got Her Groove Back, right.
Bobbi R.:
When feel like someone gets you.
Lyss Stern:
Yes. And that's really what the book is about, and it's a great beach read, and you could have conversations with your friends and don't forget to have a B-Tini on the beach as well, because we have the recipe in there. It's absolutely delicious, with watermelon juice, and it's just again, taking care of you and putting your foot down and learning to say no and really regaining your inner-B, because motherhood is a B.
Bobbi R.:
All right. Tell us more about where people can find you and learn more about you, DivaMoms, your books, all that good stuff.
Lyss Stern:
Sure. So everybody can find me. The best place to find me is on Instagram, which is diva D-I-V-A _ moms M-O-M-S. And you can also find me on Twitter, which is divamoms.com, and of course my website, which is divamoms.com and also on Facebook. I'm very active on Facebook.
Bobbi R.:
You're everywhere.
Lyss Stern:
We have a Divalysscious Moms pages, but we also have a Lyss Stern page where I post a lot of stuff too, and also everybody listening, I'm a little sarcastic online, and I'm a little bit funny I'm a little bit witty, and I'm very real and what you see is what you get.
Bobbi R.:
Which is awesome.
Lyss Stern:
Thank you.
Bobbi R.:
Okay, friends. So the most upsetting thing about Liz's story is that while the whole craisins thing with the currency was pretty unbelievable, the idea that potential clients will try to convince you that they have no money is not unusual, especially when it comes to Mompreneurs. Let's face it. So Financial Grownup tip number one, every time you take on a client that pays you a low market or less than you want or need, the time that you used to work for that client is time you are not using to find better paying-work or to do better-paying work. So for example, let's say Lyss decided to work on a client that paid her 20% below what she needed to make a profit, because well, it was better than nothing and maybe she didn't have something else at the time, when that offer came in, those days are locked in.
Bobbi R.:
Okay, so now another potential client comes along, and we'll meet her price, but now she's not available. Don't work with clients who either cannot afford to pay you at the rate that you need to hit your profit targets, and especially don't work with clients that have the resources to pay you appropriately, but choose to try to low ball you.
Bobbi R.:
Financial Grownup tip number two, but here is the caveat to what I just said. If there is a client that, in the short term, cannot afford to pay you in currency, as I joked with Lyss, but you believe they will add value for your brand in a constructive way, it is okay to try to work something out. Don't be stubborn. Not every case is black and white. Live in the gray areas, just not in the red, of course.
Bobbi R.:
Thanks for sharing this time with us. Tell us your Financial Grownup money tips, DM me on the social channels @bobbirebell1 on Instagram, @bobbirebell on twitter, and learn more about the show at bobbirebell.com/financialgrownupspodcast. Lyss Stern does not mess around. She is definitely a Financial Grownup, so thanks, Lyss, for helping us all get one step closer to being Financial Grownups.
Bobbi R.:
Financial Grownup with Bobbi Rebell is edited and produced by Steve Stewart and is a BRK Media production.
Susie Orman Schall was financially content and lacked the motivation to rev up her writing career. Then a ’tough love’ conversation with a friend motivated her to get back to her A game. The mindset change resulted in phenomenal reviews and success for her latest novel, Subway Girls.
In Susie’s money story you will learn:
-How Susie was not motivated by money in becoming a novelist
-The one thing a friend said that changed her perspective, and leveled up her ambition
-How Susie was able to get an agent for her third novel
-How Susie got a two-book deal for The Subway Girls
In Susie’s money lesson you will learn:
-How Susie defines success as a writer
-The change in self worth after quitting her corporate job to be a stay at home mom with three children
-Why earning money makes her feel valued
In Susie’s everyday money tip you will learn:
-Resources to get books at a lower cost, including Bookbub
Bobbi and Susie also talk about
-Susie’s latest book “The Subway Girls”
-The economic message that is a theme of “The Subway Girls”
-How Susie researched the book
-The history of the Miss Subways contest
-How Susie got the idea as a foundation for her book
In My Take you will learn:
-The importance of financial rewards in self worth
-Why having a second earner can be an important safety net even if one partner is the primary breadwinner
Episode Links
SusieSchnall.com
Get your copy of her latest book “The Subway Girls”
Follow Susie!
On Twitter @susieschnall
On Instagram @Susieormanschnall
On Facebook Susie Orman Schnall
Check out Susie’s Balance Project interview Series!
Featured on the Balance project:
Reese Witherspoon, Sara Blakely and Sarah Michelle Gellar
BookBub
Transcription
Susie Orman Sch:
One of the things I said was, "You know, I don't really need to make a living from this book, so it shouldn't be something that stresses me out and overwhelms me because my husband, luckily, is earning the money that our family requires." She said, "Well, what if your husband weren't earning that money? What if you had to make money? How would you approach this entire process differently?" And that was a light bulb moment for me.
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, grownup friends. So that was my college friend and now novelists, Susie Orman Schnall. Her new book, The Subway Girls, was named one of five inspiring career girl stories to enjoy on your commute by Buzzfeed. InStyle called Subway Girls one of 11 bucks to bury your nose in the summer, and PopSugar called it one of the summer's hottest new books. Not bad, Susie.
Bobbi Rebell:
Alright. In our interview, Susie gets very candid about the fact that she wasn't really trying that hard with her career as a novelist. She wasn't the breadwinner, so why stress? Well, you will hear why, especially if you dream of turning in your resignation to your boring office job the minute you have kids or other financial resources, and you don't have to go in and work for the money. You need to go in with your eyes open. Here is Susie Orman Schnall.
Bobbi Rebell:
Susie Orman Schnall, you're a financial grownup. Welcome to the podcast.
Susie Orman Sch:
Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.
Bobbi Rebell:
And congratulations on your latest book, huge bestseller already. The Subway Girls getting rave reviews. Wait, I have to read some of these. You were named one of the most anticipated novels of summer by, this is a very long list. I'm just going to read some of them. Refinery 29, PureWow, Working Mother, PopSugar, Parade, and we could go on. I'm so proud of you. I have to tell everyone, we know each other a long time. We were actually college classmates and for one semester we were even roommates. So we've come a long way together and I'm really excited for you.
Susie Orman Sch:
Thank you. Likewise. It's wonderful that we can do this now as adults professionally, so it's a great honor to be on your show.
Bobbi Rebell:
And we also reconnected when we both decided to get into the book writing business a few years ago. You started when you had a lot on your plate already at home. You had three growing boys, a husband to take care of, a very busy life in the suburbs, and you decided to write books, and you were successful. You had a couple of very good books come out, but your motive wasn't necessarily to earn money. It was really about being fulfilled.
Bobbi Rebell:
And then one day, one of your friends said something to you that really changed your mindset and resulted in this book, which all your books are good, but this book really is a huge commercial success and has taken your career to a new level. Tell us about what that friend said and what happened.
Susie Orman Sch:
What happened with my first is I wasn't able to secure a literary agent, and so I ended up self publishing it. And then it got picked up by a small publisher, and that was really a wonderful experience for me. I really loved being with that publishing house. So for my second novel, which is called The Balance Project, I didn't even try to get an agent and go the traditional publishing route. I stayed with my publisher because I was comfortable there, they treated me really well. It was just a kind and gentle way to publish a book.
Susie Orman Sch:
And then I was talking to a friend who also happens to be a life coach, and she said something that changed my entire framework. One of the things I said was, "You know, I don't really need to make a living from this book, so it shouldn't be something that stresses me out and overwhelms me because my husband, luckily, is earning the money that our family requires." She said, "Well, what if your husband weren't earning that money? What if you had to make money? How would you approach this entire process differently?" And that was a light bulb moment for me. It kind of gave me more of a sense of urgency.
Bobbi Rebell:
So how did you then implement changes? What happened that was different?
Susie Orman Sch:
So I ended up writing the book, but instead of just opting to go with the publisher who I had been with who I still absolutely love, I went and queried the book and tried to get an agent, and I was successful. That was really one of the most wonderful professional experiences that I'd had because I knew that it was going to set me up to take me to a different level with this book. And then she put it in on submission, and I got an offer from St. Martin's Press for a two book deal.
Susie Orman Sch:
Right away, I felt like a completely different person. It gave me a validation as an author that I didn't have before. So I'm just so grateful that she made me think, well, what if? You know, stop staying in your comfort zone. Go outside of that and try something hard and something uncomfortable. Be comfortable being uncomfortable because that's how you get where you want to go.
Bobbi Rebell:
And it also brought you more financial rewards.
Susie Orman Sch:
Absolutely.
Bobbi Rebell:
What is the lesson for our listeners?
Susie Orman Sch:
I think of my success in the fact that I wrote these books and they were published, and they get great response from readers. To me, that is success. That makes me feel fulfilled and I feel like I've already won. The sales of the book are kind of the icing on the cake and that is because I don't have to earn a living as an author. But I don't really want to act like I don't have to earn a living as an author because, as we all know, everything can change.
Susie Orman Sch:
I was fortunate enough, and I'll use that word "fortunate" and then I'll qualify it in a minute, that when I started having children, I was able to quit my full time job. I was working for an internet company and earning a nice living that made me feel like I had value. I stopped working so that I could be a full time stay at home mom. Unfortunately, that didn't make me feel valuable, and what I realized is that earning a paycheck is something that's important to me.
Susie Orman Sch:
I don't judge other people's choices. Stay at home mom, full time working mom, whatever people want to do is great, but I do know that for myself, earning money makes me feel valued, and feeling valued is really important. It's very hard as a full time state home mother. You don't get a lot of recognition and validation for your work, and I do call it work. And so I started freelancing very soon after I had my first son, and that led into writing the novel. But the lesson for me is that if it makes me feel a certain way, then I absolutely need to do whatever it is to make that happen for myself.
Bobbi Rebell:
Alright, let's talk about your everyday money tip because this is something that I think a lot of our listeners who love to read books will really find a lot of value in.
Susie Orman Sch:
Yeah, so I love to read books, and I find myself buying more books than I can read. Luckily now, authors give me their books and I go to the library. I'm constantly inundated by books, but one wonderful resource is called BookBub and that's B-O-O-K-B-U-B as in book, U, book. And it's a website and if you go on there and you sign up with your email address and you put down what genre books you like, then every day, you get an email with daily deals of books that are ninety nine cents or $1.99 or even free, and it's a great way to load up your Kindle with books and not spend a lot of money.
Bobbi Rebell:
I love that. I want to talk about Subway Girls a little bit more and about the economic message of this book because people looked at this campaign and it almost looked like a beauty pageant, but in fact, it was actually a way at the time, as I see it, an opportunity for many of these women to have economic opportunity that they might not have otherwise had.
Susie Orman Sch:
Exactly. So my novel, The Subway Girls, is historical fiction and it's based on fascinating Miss Subways Contest, which was essentially a beauty contest that took place in the New York City subway system from 1941 to 1976. So my novel is dual storyline and the 1949 story features two young females who are competing for the Miss Subways title, and then in 2018, you have a female advertising executive who's pitching the MTA, comes across the Miss Subways campaign in her research. The two story lines intersect, and that's where the fun begins.
Susie Orman Sch:
But the initial, the motivation for both of the women is to find professional success. They both are incredibly ambitious, my main character in 1949, along with my main character in 2018, and they both have different motivations and reasons why professional success is so important to them. And for both of them, it ends up that the Miss Subways Contest, even though my 2018 character doesn't actually compete for Miss Subways, but it's this contest that allows them to fulfill their ambitions.
Bobbi Rebell:
It represents economic dreams because that is a way out, especially for the character in the 1940s. That is a way to basically not "just be a housewife," which is what she was fighting against. At the time, there were very limited opportunities for women. She would have basically just worked for her father. She did have someone that wanted to marry her and she put off getting married because she wanted to do other things.
Susie Orman Sch:
Yes, Charlotte is, she was unique for her time and she didn't want to have to go only with the constraints, what the expectations were for her by society, by her family, by herself, by her professors. They all wanted something for her and she just completely butted up against that box and wanted to get out of it. She found that, for various reasons, and you'll have to read the book to find out, that the Miss Subways Contest was her ticket out.
Bobbi Rebell:
You did a lot of research for this book. What happened in terms of their career paths for these women, the ones that you were able to interview?
Susie Orman Sch:
It was amazing. A lot of them, this became a stepping stone to a career either as an entertainer, or a model, or a singer. The very first Miss Subway was Mona Freeman. In 1941, she became a big Hollywood star. I actually coordinated a reunion a couple of days ago for Miss Subways in New York City. We had about 15 Miss Subways. The earliest one was Miss Subways of 1946, and the latest one was the very last Miss Subways in 1976.
Susie Orman Sch:
I just got to hear so many stories from them about how this launched their careers. These were every day New York city girls next door, and to have this opportunity to be seen as special, and to get recognition, and then have that launch into a career, was just something that changed most of their lives.
Bobbi Rebell:
How did you first discover this and decide to write about it?
Susie Orman Sch:
I was actually driving in my car and listening to NPR and a story came on about the Miss Subways Contest and I was floored. I found it fascinating. I had worked in advertising, so that was relatable. And just this small slice of New York City history was beyond. And so I went home and I started doing research on the contest. Everything about it was fascinating to me, especially because it was rooted in this whole concept of female ambition, and women seeking their professional and personal dreams, and how this contest aided and abetted them with that. So the more research I did and I ended up interviewing former Miss Subways and hearing about their experiences, I realized that this would be a great foundation for a novel, and took it from there.
Bobbi Rebell:
Well, you took it very well. I loved this book. I read it in, literally, one day. I couldn't put it down, and it's truly summer beach reading at its best and more. So congratulations on all your success. Where can people learn more about you, about The Subway Girls, and how to follow you?
Susie Orman Sch:
So the best place is my website, which is susieschnall.com, and that's S-U-S-I-E-S-C-H-N-A-L-L .com. And that has all of my social media links, and links for my books, and also my Balance Project interview series, which you're featured on. That is where I interview women about work life balance, but not from the perspective that we should all be trying to achieve this perfect level of work life balance, but more revealing it for what it is, as something that's hard to be perfect and absolutely no reason why we should try.
Bobbi Rebell:
And you've had some major stars on there by the way. Do some name dropping.
Susie Orman Sch:
Okay. Reese Witherspoon has done the interview. Sara Blakely, who founded Spanx. I have the founders of The Skim. I have women from all walks of life, all different professions, and it's a really ... There are 175 interviews posted up there now, and it's a really great way to see how different women are dealing with this challenge of work life balance. I know that there's a lot of pushback about, why do we ask women about work life balance, but semantics aside, a lot of women are interested how other women are dealing with it. So this interview series gives a way for women to see that everybody's struggling with it. Everybody's making sacrifices. We're not alone in that regard.
Bobbi Rebell:
Well, thank you so much, Susie. This was great.
Susie Orman Sch:
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Bobbi Rebell:
Susie was pretty candid, and I appreciate that she was honest about some things. We aren't always comfortable talking about in public and saying out loud, that she just wasn't all that into being a stay at home mom, that she didn't feel valued. She didn't feel validated until she started making money again.
Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup tip number one, admit that for most of us, many of us at least, money, our paycheck, does make us feel appreciated. There's a great scene in Mad Men where the character of Peggy goes into her boss, Don Draper, and she complains that he never says thank you, and his answer of course is, "Well, that's what the money is for." If that happened today, I would hope that instead of Peggy wanting a thank you, Peggy would ask for a raise. In other words, it is okay for your work to be about the money. Bonus points for fulfillment, of course.
Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup tip number two. Susie talks about not being stressed out because she wasn't the breadwinner. Well, I'm glad she did get the wake up call from her friend. Twice, I have unexpectedly and temporarily, thankfully, been the primary breadwinner for my family. One time, my ex husband's job just ended after a merger, not his fault in any way. Nothing we could have seen ahead of time. Another time, my family was hit by the recession and while my husband landed very well and pretty quickly, we were both glad that I had some money coming in along with benefits like health insurance.
Bobbi Rebell:
Make the choice that is right for your family, but it's never a bad idea to have two incomes, even if one is much lower than the other. You'll be glad to have it if something happens and a lot of the time, at least once in your life, something's going to happen. Family, multiple income streams. If you are not already, please subscribe to the podcast and while you are there, manually change the settings to automatically download episodes.
Bobbi Rebell:
We put out these episodes three times a week. They're about 15 minutes, so you can easily fit one, two, or more episodes into your listening time and make it work for you. Be in touch. DM me your thoughts on the podcast @bobbirebell on Twitter, @bobbirebell1 on Instagram, and Bobbi Rebell on Facebook. To learn more about the show and get the show notes with links to everything that we talk about, go to bobbirebell.com/financialgrownuppodcast. And thank you to Susie Orman Schnall 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.
Influencer author Brittany Hennessy shares her strategies for getting large raises even when companies push back. Her book, Influencer: Building Your Personal Brand In the Age of Social Media, focuses on strategies for content creators to monetize influence.
In Brittany’s story you will learn:
-Why she did not negotiate her first job offer
-The strategy she used to get a raise from $35,000 to $55,000 after just 6 months
-How she got yet another $20,000 jump in pay not long after
-Why the third time she tried to get a raise, she got a different result, and how she moved forward from there
In Brittany’s lesson you will learn:
-How to understand your worth and be prepared to negotiate
-When to walk away
-How to look at job interviews as a two way street, and integrate that into your strategy
In Brittany’s everyday money tip you will learn:
-The importance of staying in touch and being reachable if your work demands that.
-The consequences of not being available when an opportunity comes up
-How to put the pressure to disconnect in perspective relative to your reality
Bobbi And Brittany also talk about
-Her new book Influencer
-The four parts of Brittany’s book: Building your audience, packaging your brand, monetizing your influence and planning your future.
-The Don’t be that Girl sections of the book
-The mega influencers that Brittany interviewed for the book
-How being an influence is a lot of work, sometimes a lot more than a traditional job, with none of the financial security
-Many of the most successful influencers went years without any financial compensation
-How brands can get more transparent value working with influencers, where they see the specific impact, compared to traditional celebrities on traditional media platforms
-Brittany’s #1 piece of advice for aspiring influencers
In My Take you will learn:
-Disconnecting from technology is a good thing- but if your business is tied to being reachable- make sure you are still reachable.
-Use apps to limit and control the amount of time wasted on social media,so you can be more productive and focus on income generating activities
Episode Links:
Learn more about Brittany Hennessy on her website: https://brittanyhennessy.com/
Read Brittany’s Book #Influencer!
Follow Brittany!
Instagram @mrsbrittanyhennessy
Here are some roundup articles with apps to turn off social media:
https://www.reviewed.com/smartphones/features/10-apps-that-block-social-media-so-you-can-stay-focused-and-be-more-productive
https://www.teensafe.com/blog/best-app-limits-social-media-time-iphones/
https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/apps-to-reduce-screen-time-iphone-android/
Reward Style
Shop Style Collective
Transcription
Brittany Hennes:
I had $50,000 for someone for eight hours of work and one Instagram post, and she just did not respond. And when she did, she was heartbroken, because $50,000 is a lot of money.
Bobbi Rebell:
You're listening to Financial Grownup. With me, certified financial planner, Bobbi Rebell, author of How to be a Financial Grownup. You know what? Being a grown up is really hard, especially when it comes to money, but it's okay. We're gonna 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 grownup friends. So, I think we would all like to make $50,000 for a day's work. It almost makes that famous quote from supermodel, Linda Evangelista, the one where she says she doesn't get out of bed for less than $10,000 seem a little quaint.
Bobbi Rebell:
Apparently, according to our guest, Brittany Hennessy, at least one influencer didn't pick up the phone and missed out on $50,000. That is a very expensive missed call.
Bobbi Rebell:
Welcome everyone. Thanks for spending some time with us here at Financial Grownup. We keep it to about 15 minutes, but feel free to binge if you have a bit more time, and it would mean the world to us if you would hit that subscribe button. Go into settings and then set up automatic downloads. Automation is everything just like with investing, right?
Bobbi Rebell:
All right. Let's get to Brittany Hennessy. She is the senior director of influencer partnerships at Hearst, and she was a pioneer in the influencer field, first as a nightlife blogger, and then she worked as an influencer for brands including Bacardi, Pop Chips and The Gap, as well as having amazing assignments like ooh going enough to Germany for [inaudible 00:01:46] and hanging out with Rihanna and live tweeting about it.
Bobbi Rebell:
Her book, Influencer, is really a first. Even if you aren't in the content creator influencer world, you should definitely check it out. We're going to talk a little bit about that too. Here as Brittany Hennessy.
Bobbi Rebell:
Hey, Brittany Hennessy. You're a financial grownup. Welcome to the podcast.
Brittany Hennes:
Thanks for having me. Happy to be here.
Bobbi Rebell:
Congratulations are in order. Your book, which has only been out a week, Influencer, Building Your Personal Brand in the Age of Social Media, already an Amazon bestseller, so congratulations.
Brittany Hennes:
Thank you very much.
Bobbi Rebell:
And I know you've been very busy. Tell us just a little bit about you, your background and what you've been up to. The last week or two you've been touring around with your book.
Brittany Hennes:
Yeah, I'm currently the senior director of influencer partnerships at Hearst, and here I book all of the branded content talent across all of our digital platforms and spent a lot of time working with influencers.
Brittany Hennes:
My background, for the last five years, has been in influencer marketing and just realizing that a lot of influencers were not getting the education and resources that they needed to be successful in this industry, and that's mostly because it's a new industry. There are not a lot of people who could give that sort of advice, and I love giving advice.
Bobbi Rebell:
You brought a great money story to share, and it has to do with getting paid more, which you're so good at it. So tell us.
Brittany Hennes:
So my money story ... My first job that I had after a long break of freelancing, and I had just taken the job at the amount, it was $35,000, and I was really happy.
Bobbi Rebell:
Tell us what the job was. What were you doing?
Brittany Hennes:
Oh it was to be ... So, I was the social media manager of a fitness chain.
Bobbi Rebell:
Okay.
Brittany Hennes:
And happy to have a steady paycheck, have health insurance. And so I took the number, even though it was much lower than what I wanted, and after the first six months I realized that I can't live on this.
Bobbi Rebell:
Well wait, had you tried to negotiate it at the beginning or you just took it because you just wanted to be working?
Brittany Hennes:
You know what? I knew better to negotiate, and I was scared. And so, I think that happens to a lot of people. We're afraid that if we negotiate, a company will take back the offer. And so that is a lesson I learned the hard way and quickly course corrected when I asked for my first raise.
Bobbi Rebell:
So, you did not negotiate it all when they made you your very first offer for the job?
Brittany Hennes:
I did not, and that's something I think everyone should do, and I've done every time since.
Bobbi Rebell:
Okay. So, let's go on. But then things get better?
Brittany Hennes:
Things get better. So, I put together a big proposal, and I asked for promotion, and I asked for a $20,000 raise, and they gave it to me.
Bobbi Rebell:
Wait, wait, you asked ... Let's just slow that down. You asked for $20,000 on a $35,000 base. How did you present that case?
Brittany Hennes:
You know, I think it really was explaining what I had been doing at the company and the returns they had been seeing, because they hadn't really been a digital company at all, and I really put them on the map with social media, digital advertising, and I had the numbers to show. Like before I started working here, this is how many signups you were regenerating. This is how much revenue you are making. And in the six months I've been here, here are the new numbers. So, they more than make up for the increase I'm asking for, and unless you want to go back to not making as much money, you should give me what I'm asking for, and they took the bait.
Bobbi Rebell:
That's great. Then, you actually did it again though.
Brittany Hennes:
I did it again. Once I was grooving at that new level, I also stepped up the amount of work I was doing. I really stepped into like a brand director role, and we had an apparel line that we made. We had a radio station that we were playing in all the locations. So, really doing things that increased the brand value of the company, and that's something that translated into reviews online, into sales, into word of mouth. And again, when you can show that you're adding value, I think you should not be afraid to ask for a hefty bump. And I asked for another $20,000, and I got that as well.
Brittany Hennes:
And so I think, you know, if you're working hard and you're adding value, and you can put that on paper and quantify it real numbers, you should not be afraid to ask for more money because your job will give it to you, and if they don't, they don't appreciate you, and you probably should look for a new job anyway.
Bobbi Rebell:
What if they'd come back and said, "We agree you're worth this, but we don't have that in our budget."
Brittany Hennes:
So, that's actually what happened the third time.
Bobbi Rebell:
Oh, you went back for more. How far apart? It was six months for the first time, and how much between each subsequent time?
Brittany Hennes:
Six months for the first time, and then I think a year and a half for the second time because I was there for almost three years.
Bobbi Rebell:
Okay. And then you came back the third time.
Brittany Hennes:
And my last negotiation came at the end.
Bobbi Rebell:
Okay. And?
Brittany Hennes:
And they didn't have it. They said, "You know, you're great, and we don't have it." And I think you can either be able to walk away, which I was able to walk away, and I had also gotten another job offer that was for significantly more than they were paying me, so I was willing to walk away. Or, you know, if you can't, then you can look into trade offs. Like, if you can't give me X amount, can I have more vacation? Can I have a work from home day? Can I, you know, have shorter days? I think, if you really love your job, and the job is not just about the money. It's also about the work-life balance that you have.
Bobbi Rebell:
What is the lesson for our listeners when you look at a big picture in sort of a broader sense of how it can apply to our listeners' lives?
Brittany Hennes:
I think the lesson there is really when you're going into a job situation, to understand your worth and be prepared to negotiate for what you want, and also be prepared to walk away.
Brittany Hennes:
I think lots of times we're very much, "I hope they like me." And we forget that interviewing for a job is a two-way street. Of course, you're going to be able to work at this great company and all the perks that come with it, but this company is benefiting greatly because they're going to get to have you as an employee.
Bobbi Rebell:
So I want to talk about your everyday money tip because it's fascinating and brilliant, because it goes against the grain.
Bobbi Rebell:
We're in a period where a lot of people are saying, "We look at our phones too often. We need to completely detach, turn it off, put it away for a full day or whatever it is and be in the moment." But that could be very expensive and could be a money mistake. So, what's your everyday money tip?
Brittany Hennes:
My everyday money tip is don't play hard to get and definitely be present.
Brittany Hennes:
I work with a lot of influencers who, I email them, I have contracts, I have offers. Sometimes it's four or five, six figures, and they don't respond because they just didn't get around to it, and they're always heartbroken when they try and connect with me later, and the opportunity has passed them.
Brittany Hennes:
So, I think, you know, it's definitely important to disconnect and recharge, but you still need some sort of out of office-on even if it's just letting people know that you only check email twice a day, and the next time you'll check is that this time because you never know what's sitting in your inbox or in your voicemail, and you have to make sure you're ready.
Bobbi Rebell:
Without naming names, what's the worst case that this ever happened?
Brittany Hennes:
I won't name names because the poor girl's probably still traumatized by it, but I had $50,000 for someone for eight hours of work and one Instagram post, and she just did not respond. And when she did, she was heartbroken because $50,000 is a lot of money for anybody.
Brittany Hennes:
Even Warren Buffet, if you want to give him $50,000, would probably take it. Why not? It's a nice amount of money, and she could have made that doing relatively little work, you know, compared to what a lot of people have to do for $50,000, and she just wasn't there.
Bobbi Rebell:
Heartbreaking. All right, let's talk about Influencer because, as I said, I love this book, and I don't know that there's any other book out here yet that lays it all out so clearly and in such a specific way.
Bobbi Rebell:
I love your expert tips. You have throughout the book this Don't Be That Girl, which is a lot of no-BS advice for people as to what you can't do. Tell us more about the book and what went into it.
Brittany Hennes:
The book is broken out into four parts, building your audience, packaging your brand, monetizing your influence and planning your future, and it's really just giving you tips and practical advice. Like I even give email templates on if someone asks you this, you should write back this, because I think part of what makes people successful is having a formula and having some sort of standard, and influencer marketing is still so young that there really hasn't been anything that's been created that's a textbook, and that's really what I tried to write.
Brittany Hennes:
And I think my favorite part ... I really liked the icons that I interviewed eight mega influencers who were at the top of their game, but I do really like, Don't Be That Girl just because I think it's really ... I think it's really funny, and people always like horror stories, and so I had to change some details so that people aren't easily identified, but the meat of the story and how ridiculous some of the [inaudible 00:10:49], they are a hundred percent true.
Bobbi Rebell:
Yeah. You talk about the request that some of them put forward as if they were celebrities of a caliber that they just are not at this point, but because they live in this bubble, they believed that they are.
Bobbi Rebell:
And I think another good thing that I love about the book is that you make it very clear that they treat this like a job, and in most cases it's not even a solo job. It is a job with multiple people working on these brands. So, it may look very carefree, these beautiful photos, but in fact, they're very planned. The equipment is specific. The lighting, the filters. The other people working on it have very targeted jobs. This is work even though you say it's eight hours, for example, for $50,000 that that person missed out on. To be at the caliber where you ae being offered $50,000 for eight hours of work and an Instagram post, that person probably was working for many years very hard.
Brittany Hennes:
That's 100 percent true, and I think that's the part people miss when they, I think, are a little disgusted, might be the proper word, about how much some of these top-tier influencers are making, and a lot of these women weren't making that much money until recently, and some of them have been YouTubers, bloggers, Instagram stars for 10 years, and for the first five they made $0.
Brittany Hennes:
People just think they snap one photo and slap it on Instagram. Have you ever taken one photo of yourself? It's not perfect. You take at least five. And so, they're taking hundreds, then doing select, then editing, and that's even before they were mood boarding the clothing and the locations and getting permits, and they're ... You know, if you think of any major brand that does a photo shoot, they're doing the exact same thing just sometimes on a smaller scale.
Bobbi Rebell:
Brands can tell on a much more granular level exactly what return they're getting. So, if you were a traditional celebrity and you're in a shampoo ad on TV, they never know how many bottles of shampoo they sold. But it's much easier, somewhat, to track the impact of an influencer campaign.
Brittany Hennes:
Absolutely. Between ... Even if you just look at basic media, if you're looking at engagements, the cost per click, the cost per impression, we have those data points now because Instagram is providing them, and YouTube provides them, and then you have huge affiliate networks like Reward Style and you know, Shop Style Collective where influencers can actually see how much product they're moving because they make commission off of it.
Brittany Hennes:
And so I think Reward Style has crazy numbers that like in a very short period, they did a billion dollars worth of sales, and companies like Nordstrom, 80 percent of their mobile traffic comes from influencers.
Brittany Hennes:
And so, brands can really see the difference that influencers are making, and it's not just enough to make great content, you also have to be able to move product.
Brittany Hennes:
And the girls who are commanding six figures for a campaign, they can do both really well.
Bobbi Rebell:
All right, final question on this. Number one piece of advice for people that want to be an influencer that earns money.
Brittany Hennes:
Number one piece of advice is make sure you are in it for the right reasons. Everything is great, but everything, once it is your job, is now a job, and you may not want to get up some days, but you still have to go and shoot content. Definitely pick something that is your passion. And if you could do it and no one would pay you, you would do it anyway, because it will be a while. It can be a short while or a long while until you see real revenue from it. So, you definitely want to make sure you don't burn out before your time comes.
Bobbi Rebell:
Great Advice. Tell us where we can follow you because you are an influencer in your own right.
Brittany Hennes:
I'm on Instagram. That's my primary channel at MrsBrittanyHennessy.
Bobbi Rebell:
Love it. Thank you so much, Brittany.
Brittany Hennes:
Thank you so much. This was so much fun.
Bobbi Rebell:
Hey friends, so Brittany did not hold back. Here's my take on it though. Financial grownup tip number one. There is a big trend now that we should take breaks from our technology, and that is a really good thing, but if you have a job where you need to be reachable, be reachable.
Bobbi Rebell:
One option is to use, for example, the do not disturb feature settings on your phone. So, within there, you can set it up so that the calls from one group, let's say VIPs are allowed. You can also usually set it up so that repeated calls get through. That way if someone's calling you over and over again to hand you money, like $50,000, you may notice repeated calls and eventually they will get through to you. You can also, obviously, have some kind of message on your voicemail telling people to call someone like an assistant that can reach you.
Bobbi Rebell:
Financial grownup tip number two. While we are talking about phone settings, one way to not make money is to always be on social media, unless of course that is literally your work. Then be on social media.
Bobbi Rebell:
There are all kinds of apps and settings that can put controls in, so you won't be distracted by all the apps on your phone, but you can leave the right things on and use the setting.
Bobbi Rebell:
So I'm going to list some roundup articles with a bunch of these, but a couple to check out are Moments, Off Time, and Freedom.
Bobbi Rebell:
Thanks to everyone for sharing your time with us DM me and tell me what your financial grownup tips are. I am at BobbiRebell1 on Instagram, BobbiRebell on Twitter, and Bobbi Rebell on Facebook, and you can get the show notes, for example, with the links of those articles for this episode BobbiRebell.com/podcast/BrittanyHennessy, and all of the show notes follow that same pattern where it's BobbiRebell.com/podcast, and then forward slash and the guest's name. And we have lots of great information there, including links to their books, where you can find them on social media and all that good stuff.
Bobbi Rebell:
All right. Thank you for Influencer author, Brittany Hennessy, for helping us get one step closer to being financial grownups.
Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup with Bobbi Rebell is edited and produced by Steve Stewart and is a BRK Media production.
Philip Taylor, aka PT Money was too cool to do any research, or any real negotiation when buying his first car. But the crushing payments, and having to call his dad for help, quickly brought him back to reality.
In PT’s money story you will learn:
-Why PT felt guilty and went into a panic after buying his first car
-How he determined what car to buy and the budget
-The exact steps he used to buy his first car
-What his costs were relative to his financial resources
-His negotiation strategy
-What happened when he got home and made a huge decision
-How he tried to correct the mistake himself
-Why he reached out to his father for help, and how the situation was resolved
In PT’s money lesson you will learn:
-How to know what to pay for a car and how to negotiate it in advance
-The specific steps PT now uses to buy cars
-The best ways to finance a car purchase
-How you can avoid the pitfalls PT experienced
-The exact resources PT uses when buying a car
-Other skills PT now has to be a financial grownup
In PT’s everyday money tip you will learn:
-How PT and his wife have streamlined their grocery shopping
-How to balance saving money with saving time
-How to avoid buying things you don’t need when food shopping
-Strategies to get grocery shopping done with kids in tow
-When to pay fees for grocery related services
In My Take you will learn:
-Don’t let your pride get in the way of correcting a mistake
-When free is not the best value
-What to look for in a business where you are paying a fee for service to determine if it is worth paying the extra money
Episode Links:
PT’s website https://ptmoney.com/
Come to Fincon! Learn more here.
Follow PT and Fincon!
Twitter: @PTMoney @Fincon
Instagram @PTMoney @finconexpo
Facebook PTMoneyblog Finconexpo
Car resources PT mentioned
Edmunds
TrueCar
KellyBluebook
Craigslist
Grocery resources PT mentioned
WalMart
Kroger
Target
This episode was taped at Podcast Movement
Transcription
Philip Taylor:
I all of a sudden felt a rush of severe guilt and severe panic that I think I've actually put myself in a big hole here. I felt embarrassed that I couldn't have gone into the dealership and made us smarter choice. And I tried to call the dealership up and say, "Hey, would you guys take this car back?" And I think they got laughed at me over the phone.
Bobbi Rebell:
You're listening to Financial Grownup with me Certified Financial Planner, Bobbi Rebell. Author of How to Be a Financial Grownup. But you know what, being a grown up is really hard especially when it comes to money. But it's okay. We're going to get there together. I'm going to bring you one money story from a financial grownup, one lesson and then my take on how you can make it your own. We got this.
Bobbi Rebell:
Hello my Financial Grownup friends. Making your first really big purchase, is a really exciting. But it's also a reality check. That is what you are hearing in the voice of Philip Taylor, known to many of his fans, as PT money. He later went on to start a huge money content conference called FinCon, which we'll talk about later. Welcome to the podcast to everyone. We keep it to about 15 minutes because you're busy. We're focused and intentional in bringing you a mini story and a lesson from that mini story, and then we'll always give you what I call an everyday money tip and specific ways that you can put it all to work in your life. All right, so let's get to PT's story. It is about buying his first car. But as you will hear, it is also about learning that even if you are legally an adult, you sometimes have to be humble and make that call to your dad. I was able to connect with PT at Podcast Movement in July. So you're going to hear a little bit of that in the background. Here is PT.
Bobbi Rebell:
Hey Philip Taylor, aka PT aka PT Money. You're a Financial Grownup. Welcome to the podcast.
Philip Taylor:
Thanks for having me on Bobbi. It's great to be here.
Bobbi Rebell:
This is an honor for me because we are approaching year three for me of your venture FinCon, which is a big conference for money people. Tell us quickly about it, and then we're going to get your money story.
Philip Taylor:
Yeah. It's a digital marketing conference for people who talk to people about money. So if they're out there, whether they're the Dave Ramsey type or the Suze Orman type, they're reaching people with a financial message. We'd like to have them at the event and show them how to do it better.
Bobbi Rebell:
And you're going to show us how to do buying a car better. Tell us your money story.
Philip Taylor:
Yeah, my money story is this. When I was, let's see, 22, 23 left college. Thought it was a big time college graduate with my new career.
Bobbi Rebell:
What was your new career?
Philip Taylor:
In accounting. So I was going to go work for one of the big financial firms, big accounting firms. My salary was 33,000. And through college, my parents had most have helped me out with a lot of the financial expenses. I had took out some student loans to help me out with some of the college. So, for the most part, I hadn't really managed my own money yet.
Bobbi Rebell:
But you were in accounting just to be clear.
Philip Taylor:
But I was in accounting. Yeah.
Bobbi Rebell:
Okay.
Philip Taylor:
And I knew some of the high finance stuff at that point. But I didn't know really how to handle my own money. And I was kind of naturally a spender. So, left for the new job that I had this big paycheck coming in, and the world was mine, right?
Bobbi Rebell:
And what were your other ... were you paying rent? What else was going on financially with you in terms of your overhead? Were you living with mom and dad?
Philip Taylor:
No, I moved into an apartment with some buddies. I was at least splitting I guess rent with some friends. But it was the nicest apartment in town because here we were big time college grads now, we could afford it all, right? And the next thing I wanted to do is run out and buy a brand new car, like a brand new SUV. I think it was the Mitsubishi Montero Sport had just come out. And it was this brand new SUV and it was 1999. So that dates me a bit. But it was like this beautiful vehicle that I thought now I had earned the right to go by.
Bobbi Rebell:
Okay.
Philip Taylor:
And so I kind of just blindly went down to the dealership.
Bobbi Rebell:
Now did you bring your buddies? Did you bring a family member? Anyone?
Philip Taylor:
No. The ego was there and I was like, I'm an accountant. My dad's a CPA. I can go figure this thing out.
Bobbi Rebell:
So you did the research that you knew what car you wanted, but anything on pricing financing anything? [crosstalk 00:04:05] my young accountant.
Philip Taylor:
No. I did None of that. I literally went down to the dealership thinking, I'll just work it out when I get there. I think my buddies and I were going to go on a trip the next weekend. And so it was in my mind that I would have this SUV by the time we went on this trip. I left my old car there for whatever they were going to give me for.
Bobbi Rebell:
Did you negotiate that?
Philip Taylor:
I didn't even negotiate, no.
Bobbi Rebell:
So you negotiated nothing?
Philip Taylor:
No. I took what they were giving me on that. I took the interest rate that they were going to give me.
Bobbi Rebell:
Which was?
Philip Taylor:
Somewhere between 9% and 12%. So it was ridiculous. Yeah.
Bobbi Rebell:
Okay.
Philip Taylor:
I was being taken to the cleaners totally.
Bobbi Rebell:
And what was the price of the car?
Philip Taylor:
I don't remember that. I think it was somewhere around 32,000. Something like that.
Bobbi Rebell:
So, your yearly salary, which you do remember-
Philip Taylor:
Yeah.
Bobbi Rebell:
Was 33,000. You went out and bought a $32,000 car, brand new. You don't really remember the actual price of the car. You don't remember the actual interest rate. You didn't negotiate anything. But you had a fancy car and you were in the nicest apartment in town.
Philip Taylor:
That's it. That's it.
Bobbi Rebell:
That's good. All right. And you're going on a trip?
Philip Taylor:
That's right.
Bobbi Rebell:
Continue.
Philip Taylor:
Yes. So I get home and I we're getting ready for a trip. And then I start realizing what insurance is going to be for me. And because I was a young guy, I guess and not married yet or not a homeowner yet, insurance on this new Montero Sport was going to be just absolutely through the roof. And so when I started putting it all together, the car payment, the insurance-
Bobbi Rebell:
Well, what's the car payment?
Philip Taylor:
It was somewhere around $400 I think. $400, $500.
Bobbi Rebell:
What was your monthly take home pay?
Philip Taylor:
33,000 divided by 12, whatever that is. I don't know. It was not much.
Bobbi Rebell:
I hope you paid taxes too. So it wasn't [inaudible 00:05:36].
Philip Taylor:
Exactly. Yeah. So all in all-
Bobbi Rebell:
Yeah.
Philip Taylor:
I was going to be probably spending close to at least a third of my take home pay on this whole car experience, if not more. So, overburdening myself for sure.
Bobbi Rebell:
How did you feel?
Philip Taylor:
I all of a sudden felt a rush of severe guilt and severe panic that, "Okay, I think I've actually put myself in a big hole here." I felt embarrassed that I couldn't have gone into the dealership and made a smarter choice and negotiated it a little better. And so, yeah, I felt, I guess a sense of the immediacy of owning this thing was now fading. And I was feeling bad.
Bobbi Rebell:
So what did you do?
Philip Taylor:
At that point, I tried to call the dealership up and say, "Hey, would you guys take this car back?" And I think the guy laughed at me over the phone. And I didn't even then attempt to go down there. I was like, "Well, what can I do now? Can't really afford this thing. So should I try to sell it on the secondary market? And that would be foolish." I knew enough to know that. And so I just felt, I was at the end of my rope. So I called my dad.
Philip Taylor:
And here I am this 22 year old, big ego, new college grad, at the end of the day calling dad for a bailout. And I said, "Dad, what do I do in this situation?" And luckily, dad is able to call up the dealership and somehow spin his magic and convince them to take the car back from me. I do remember one thing about this is that it was $1,000 down payment that I put down because that's pretty much what I lost in this whole process. So they took the car back and I didn't owe any payments anymore, but I did lose my $1,000. And they gave me my old Saturn back that was paid for. And I drove my Saturn for the next five years, proudly. I swore going forward that I would own my financial life going forward. And I wouldn't ever rely on someone else to kind of help me out.
Philip Taylor:
But then I also studied up on actually how to buy a car. And I actually learned how to do it right. And so the next one I bought, I used some smarter tactics there.
Bobbi Rebell:
So, give us a lesson for our listeners, what is the takeaway from that?
Philip Taylor:
Yeah, number one, you need to absolutely have the price of the car pretty much nailed down before you even walk into the dealership.
Bobbi Rebell:
The retail price of the price that you are willing to pay?
Philip Taylor:
The price that you are willing to pay.
Bobbi Rebell:
Okay.
Philip Taylor:
And what other people are buying that car for. So we have all kinds of tools out there these days that will let you research that. Whether it's in edmunds.com or truecar.com. Those services will allow you to kind of research what people are actually buying cars for on the public market. And so you really need to kind of nail that down before you go to a dealership.
Philip Taylor:
The second thing I like to do is to actually take a step further and start communicating with dealerships about a potential offer and saying, "This is what I'm looking for. What's kind of your best offer to get me down there?" And so I have these conversations over email with these dealerships to let them put their best foot forward. Dealerships are used to this now. They are very used to consumers who want to just communicate beforehand. And so nail down that price as much as possible before you walk into the dealership. With financing, go to other sources. Go to your bank go to other vendors who could provide a good rate for you and have that loan secured before you walk into that dealership.
Philip Taylor:
Secondly, know what your car's worth. Look it up on Blue Book. Understand what your trade in value is going to be. At the end of the day, we're going to take this to Craigslist with and sell it on the open market. So know those numbers. And then once you're going in, and once you go to the actual dealership, bring someone with you. So I made that mistake the first time. And this is a chance for you to rely on someone else. Negotiate each of those factors separately. So start with the price get that nailed down. They're going to want to talk to you about payments. They're going to want to talk to you about interest rates.
Bobbi Rebell:
Well, let's talk about why they want. They want to talk about payments, because most people just think, can I afford the payment rather ... And that's a way for them to charge a higher price because you can manipulate the payments.
Philip Taylor:
Yeah.
Bobbi Rebell:
All right. Let's talk about your everyday money tip. Because this is one that is near and dear to my heart as a busy mom and someone that doesn't want to get suckered into buying stuff that I don't want. Do tell.
Philip Taylor:
Yeah, so my wife's the frugal one. Mrs. PT is super frugal. I'm the spender. So, she's got all the cool money saving ideas. And so one of the things she does is buy her groceries every week or every other week. And in the past it's always been good advice to make a grocery list before you go the grocery store, right? Because that way you won't pick up anything extra, you'll get exactly what you need. You'll be able to maybe even price some things out beforehand. That's good advice.
Philip Taylor:
But I find that through the years, it's like we made the event in January for a couple weeks, and then it kind of falls off, right? You're less diligent about that. So you end up just buying sort of random things at the grocery store every time you go. So one of the things we started doing is taking advantage of grocery pickup, right? So many folks are familiar with this. But this allows us to beforehand, before we go the grocery store, use the online portals of Walmart, of Target, of Kroger, whoever, and pre select our items we want to buy. Walmart is free for this service. Some other grocery stores will charge you these days. It's a small fee, though. And to me, it's worth it because you're selecting beforehand, before you're hungry before you're walking the aisle, seeing the tempting things. You're seeing exactly what you need.
Philip Taylor:
And then you pop in your car. At the scheduled time you show up, and you don't even have to go in the store keep your kids in the car, which is really cool for my wife, we have three kids. And then you pay your fee if you're going to the one of the places that pay a fee, or you go to Walmart, you pick it up free, and then you head home knowing that you didn't buy anything extra that you didn't need. And you saved some time because you're not wandering the stores picking random things.
Bobbi Rebell:
Tell me more about FinCon because this is your how much?
Philip Taylor:
This is our eighth one.
Bobbi Rebell:
Eighth one. Wow.
Philip Taylor:
Yeah. And so it's an annual event and community. And our event will be this September 26 to 29 in Orlando, Florida. Be 2,000 money nerds like us sitting around talking about money but also how we talk about money. So talking shop. Whether it's how to create better content, promote it better or make money on our efforts.
Bobbi Rebell:
How has the business evolved, because you've really grown. You've got a big ... we're here by the way, recording a Podcast Movement. You've got a lot of people here on your team which is really impressive.
Philip Taylor:
About the third year I decided I wanted to take it a little more seriously. And so I started looking for ways to add value to the attendees. Things I'd held off on before because I wanted to keep the pricing low on the tickets. So, I just said, "Well, I can still have a low ticket but then now I can have a premium ticket. And I even have a premium above that." So I look for ways to add value for attendees that we could kind of build some margin in and charge a higher price for.
Philip Taylor:
Secondly, was to create more of a true marketplace at the event where people were coming together to do business and to do deals. And so for the ROI of the experience being face to face. You for instance, meeting with brands at the event can turn into a podcast sponsorship. And so, that's kind of what we want to create. A marketplace for that to happen at the event. And so the more we leaned into our expo hall experience, which we call FinCon Central now, to make that a bigger part of the event. The more value that sponsors and exhibitors saw and being a part of it.
Bobbi Rebell:
Where can people find you and learn more about FinCon and about you. Because you also have your own stuff going on.
Philip Taylor:
Sure. We're on the socials @FinCon or @FinConExpo. And then our website is finconexpo.com. And then me personally, I have my own blog and some podcasts I've done in the past. All at ptmoney.com.
Bobbi Rebell:
Awesome. Thank you PT.
Philip Taylor:
Thanks Bobbi.
Bobbi Rebell:
There is a lot in what PT had to share with us. So much that we can all relate to. Financial grownup tip number one. If you get into a bad situation, do not let your pride get in the way of fixing it. PT could have just accepted defeat and been under a mess of payments for years. But he did the hard thing and called his dad, and his dad was there for him.
Bobbi Rebell:
Financial grownup tip number two. You may have noticed that in PT's money tip, some of the grocery services were free and some had a payment. There are times when free is not the best value. Not saying it isn't in that case. But a well run business is profitable. So they must make money somewhere. Give your business to the stores that work the best for your life. The store that executes better. That has delivery done on time for example and correctly. May cost more, but be worth it. That cost may be in a fee or it may be in slightly higher prices. But look at the total picture.
Bobbi Rebell:
A quick word about PT's business, FinCon, it is happening in Orlando on September 26th to the 29th. If you are interested in coming, please come hear me speak on Wednesday at 1:30. I will be doing a joint presentation with my editor and producer, Steve Stewart. We'll be sharing the behind the scenes look into what went on when we launched the Financial Grownup podcast and where we have come from those first episodes back in February of 2018. And we'll also have a lot of information about how you can get started podcasting if that is something that interests you.
Bobbi Rebell:
Make sure to let me know if you are coming so that we can connect in person. I'm going to leave a link to sign up for FinCon and learn more about it in the show notes. Those show notes are at bobbirebell.com calm/podcast/ptmoney. Or you can just DM me on any of the social media channel and I will make sure that you get the right information. On Instagram, I am @BobbiRebell1 and on Twitter @BobbiRebell and thank you to PT for helping us all get one step closer to being financial grown ups.
Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup with Bobbi Rebell is edited and produced by Steve Stewart and is a BRK Media production.
John Schneider and David Auten went 40 percent over budget at their recent wedding- including a couple thousand dollars on a very fancy portable restroom known as the Lavish Loo. Looking back, they would have said I don’t to many of their expenses.
In John and David’s money story you will learn:
-How their wedding went 40% over budget
-Why they spent $2,000 on a fancy portable bathroom called the Lavish Loo
-Why they regret not waiting a little bit longer to get married
-The choices they would make differently in hindsight
In John and David’s money lesson you will learn:
-The importance of focusing on your own priorities for your wedding or special event not what is expected by friends and family
-How they leveraged their wedding spending to pay for their a good portion of their honeymoon
In John and David’s every day money tip you will learn:
-How to use the strategy they call money chunking to make your budget feel larger
In my take you will learn:
-How to get things for free from vendors and party planners
-How better communication about expectations for sharing expenses can avoid misunderstandings.
Episode Links
The Debt Free Guys website
Queer Money podcast
Follow the Debt Free Guys!
Instagram @debtfreeguys
Facebook DebtFree Guys
Twitter @DebtFreeGuys
The Lavish Loo
The Posh Potty
Come see the Debt Free Guys at The National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce Business and leadership conference in Philadelphia
Come see the Debt Free Guys at FinCon in Orlando!
Transcription
David Auten:
We had to pay a little bit extra to have some nice, they were called the Posh Potty, no the Lavish Loo. So we had some pretty fancy toilets at our wedding.
John Schneider:
The Lavish Loo was just under $2,000 for the one night.
David Auten:
We had it for three nights.
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 Financial Grownups, so everyone wants their weddings, their birthdays, special occasions to be remembered especially when they throw a big party. In the case of John Schneider and David Auten, also known as the Debt Free Guys, the big buzz at their wedding in addition to the overall joy of them tying the knot, was actually about the fancy porta potty. Which by the way was technically called The Lavish Loo.
Bobbi Rebell:
All right, just a minute here. A special welcome to our new listeners and welcome back to our regulars. We keep the episodes to about 15 minutes to fit your schedule. So if you have more time, we hear binging a few for a long drive or a commute works well. Think of it like flextime for podcast listeners.
Bobbi Rebell:
It would mean the world to us if you would subscribe and then go into settings and make sure that you are set up for auto downloads. That way, you won't miss any upcoming episodes. Automate your podcast like you automate your retirement savings. There you go. All right, let's get to John and David.
Bobbi Rebell:
So they just got married and they did go over budget on their wedding, but it wasn't just splurging on things like fancy porta potties, which they'll explain by the way. They kind of got into a pickle where they really had no choice about that. It was also kind of about being too busy to make the effort to watch those expenses and not asking the right questions in time to control the costs. Here are the Debt Free Guys.
Bobbi Rebell:
Hey Debt Free Guys. You guys are financial grownups. Welcome to the podcast.
John Schneider:
Thank you for having us. We're excited to be here.
David Auten:
Yes, thank you.
Bobbi Rebell:
Let me do one more formal introduction. First of all we have John Schneider. So say hello so people know your voice.
John Schneider:
Hello this is John Schneider.
Bobbi Rebell:
And David Auten.
David Auten:
Hi, this is David.
Bobbi Rebell:
All right and I am a huge fan of your website because so much of the advice applies to everyone even though you are out there talking about your sexual orientation. This is universal themes that you talk about, including the fact that you guys successfully paid and this is a big deal, $51,000 in credit card debt in just over two years. So first of all, congratulations on that.
John Schneider:
Thank you. That was very liberating. It was coming out of a closet with our finances.
David Auten:
Yes.
Bobbi Rebell:
And you also have been able to really leverage your successes into business opportunities and into productive ones that really help others to find a path that is right for them financially. So tell me about some of these partnerships that you've been able to put together that are spreading the word.
John Schneider:
Yeah exactly. We actually are excited to share that we just resigned with a Queer Money sponsor, which will be MassMutual. It'll be their second time sponsoring our podcast which is, not only does it help us put food on the table, but it helps us be able to promote and market our podcast and get it out to more people so we can help more people with the content that we create, both with ourselves and with our guests.
Bobbi Rebell:
I have to congratulate both of you. You both recently said, "I do." At your wedding.
John Schneider:
We did.
David Auten:
Absolutely.
Bobbi Rebell:
I saw amazingly beautiful photos. Everyone should go to your social media, which is all @debtfreeguys. We'll have more info at the end of the podcast on that. You said, "I do." But you also now wish you said, "I don't." To a bunch of stuff. Tell us your money story.
John Schneider:
Yeah. Hindsight's 20/20, right? And even though our entire life revolves around helping ourselves and other people with their money, we definitely have some big takeaways even just a month after our wedding.
David Auten:
Yeah.
John Schneider:
I think the biggest mistake that we made overall was that we have a lot going on in our lives. This year, we just sold our condo January 3rd of this year and then we had to move out, find a new apartment. We're trying to ramp up our business, we had the wedding, and then we've been planning for a couple of years to spend a month or so in Europe come the end of August. So we have just a lot going on right now and I don't know that it was the best time to plan a wedding because we weren't as focused and as diligent with the planning and most specifically, the expenses.
Bobbi Rebell:
So give us some examples.
John Schneider:
We first found the location that we wanted to have the wedding. It was a 40 acre ranch in the mountains of Colorado, kind of between Salida and Buena Vista. It was a beautiful ranch, beautiful location, the mountains were in the background. Wonderful. That's all we thought about when we saw the pictures on the website. Then we went and visited the ranch and it wasn't until after the fact that we realized all of the peripheral costs that came with having a wedding at that location.
John Schneider:
We had envisioned that we would be completely out in the open so that people could see the sky and the sunset and the moonrise. And we had learned that every now and then, they get some pretty heavy gusts of wind and that you ran a big risk of people eating dirt if you didn't have a tent there to protect yourselves in case there was some inclement weather.
David Auten:
Yeah.
David Auten:
I think one of the other things about having it at that ranch is we didn't realize, it being in a remote location, it's not on a sewer system that most people are familiar with using. So we actually had to have porta potties brought up, but of course we didn't want the kind of typical green or blue.
John Schneider:
That you see at the park.
David Auten:
Yeah the ones that everyone kind of their stomach turns when you think about them. So we had to pay a little bit extra to have some nice, they were called The Posh Potty or no, the Lavish Loo.
David Auten:
So we had some pretty fancy toilets at our wedding only because we needed to provide that and that did cost us a little extra.
Bobbi Rebell:
How much did they cost? How much does a posh potty cost?
John Schneider:
The Lavish Loo was just under $2,000 for the one night.
David Auten:
We had it for three nights.
Bobbi Rebell:
Which one did you go with? Did you go with The Lavish Loo or the Posh Potty?
John Schneider:
We went with The Lavish Loo and it was really fancy, in fact. We didn't realize how nice it was until after the wedding. That was one of the biggest talking points of the wedding. So we're like, "We have to check this out." There was a men's and women's side. They weren't gigantic, but they were big enough for one or two people they had air conditioning, there was music playing. They had plants inside. There was all sorts of air freshener and all the hand wash, soap. Everything that you could ever want.
John Schneider:
And one of the guys that was actually at the wedding he said he almost thought about sleeping in there that night because it was the coolest place to sleep in.
Bobbi Rebell:
So you did get good value at least from The Lavish Loo.
David Auten:
We did.
Bobbi Rebell:
All right things to everyone should make sure to put into your wedding budget. All right. What else surprised you? What about the traditional expenses? Were there things that you guys just didn't think ... Did you have a wedding planner or somebody guiding you? Did you make a budget in advance of the wedding? So you had a certain fixed amount that you were going to spend and kind of worked back from there and then had to drop things. What was going on here?
David Auten:
We did have a budget from the get go and we hired a wedding planner who was actually a friend of ours and specializes in doing same-sex weddings. And she was wonderful. She acted as a great resource. Not only as a guide to ... There were just things that we never thought of and would never have thought of had we tried to do this on our own. So that was very helpful. Plus she also had an inventory of resources like candle holders and plates and silverware and all that kind of stuff can really rack up your costs that she was willing to give us access to at no additional cost other than her fee.
David Auten:
So that was super helpful partly because we weren't paying enough attention to the management of the expenses. I think we maybe spent about 40% more than what we had originally budgeted.
Bobbi Rebell:
So 40% is a lot and it's clearly not just the $2,000 Lavish Loo.
John Schneider:
We specifically kept the size of the wedding down. So we invited mostly our very supportive friends.
Bobbi Rebell:
What was the guest list? How many people about?
David Auten:
We invited about 60, about 41 came I think was the final count.
Bobbi Rebell:
Okay. And what was your initial budget if you feel comfortable disclosing that?
David Auten:
My original in my mind was that this was going to cost us about $15,000. Like I said, we'd spent probably about 40% more so we did cross the $20,000 mark.
Bobbi Rebell:
Yeah and the $2,000 then I guess, as a portion of the wedding expense, you spent 10% of your budget on The Lavish Loo.
David Auten:
Right.
Bobbi Rebell:
That was a chunk.
John Schneider:
And I think another cost that we didn't manage appropriately was ... so we rented this ranch and it slept a total of 14 people, I believe. And only four of those were single beds. Our idea was that we would have our closest friends stay in the ranch with us and that they would help share in the cost of that. We were negligent at letting them know that in advance of making the offer to them and never asked for the money in advance or never asked for the money afterwards.
Bobbi Rebell:
What is the takeaway for our listeners?
David Auten:
I would definitely say give yourself the time to think about what it is that you truly want. What it is that you truly want, not what you want for your friends, not what you want for your family. What do you want your day to look like? That was one of the things that helped us save some money, but I think that having that extra amount of time to really think through all of the costs that are associated with it.
John Schneider:
In hindsight, even though it was more expensive than we expected it to be, I couldn't get over. I've been so excited about it. We only have so far half a dozen pictures from the wedding, but I look at them all the time. To me, it was just the most amazing week. And so, I think part of that was because we created what we wanted and not what everybody else wanted like David said.
David Auten:
We did find one way to actually get a benefit out of the amount of money that we spent. We opened up two new credit cards, used those credit cards exclusively for the wedding knowing we had the money to pay it off and because of that, we're getting five nights free hotel when we're on our honeymoon in Ireland.
Bobbi Rebell:
Well you guys are very good at budgeting and so let's move into your everyday money tip because that has to do with an interesting take you that I think will really help people get their heads wrapped around the different fluctuations in the cost of living.
David Auten:
Yeah so this is what I call money chunking. I kind of joke with John that this is something that he does regularly. He'll grab a pint of Ben & Jerry's and will eat the whole thing. And then throughout the week he's wishing he had ice cream.
Bobbi Rebell:
I can't imagine what that would be like.
John Schneider:
One pint is a serving. I don't care what anybody says. I don't believe [crosstalk 00:10:44].
Bobbi Rebell:
Or else it would be in two different containers, right?
John Schneider:
Thank you.
David Auten:
Right. So the idea with money chunking is I'm the kind of person who would eat a quarter of the pint and then put it back in the freezer, go and eat another quarter of the pint and put it back in the freezer. So that's kind of the idea with money chunking is that when you have an amount of money that you have set aside in your budget for something. Whether that's for the week or for a month, we often times have this tendency to think, "Okay I've got this amount of money." And then you go out and you blow it either the first day or maybe the second into your budget.
David Auten:
And then the rest of the time, whether it's the rest of the week or the rest of the month, you feel like you're sacrificing. You feel like you're not having fun. You feel like you're not able to actually do what it is that you enjoy in life.
David Auten:
When we money chunk, what we do is we'll take that amount of money. Let's say we have $50 for dining out for the week, we'll break that into a couple of pieces so that instead of just one time going out, we actually get to go out two or three times. So it allows us to spread our happiness over the whole budget rather than just those first two nights or first night.
Bobbi Rebell:
Love that. All right tell me what you guys are up to for the rest of 2018 and beyond.
John Schneider:
Right now we're super excited because we are joining a whole bunch of LGBT entrepreneurs in Philadelphia August 14th through the 17th at the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce Business & Leadership Conference. That's our next event. Then we're going out of the country. We'll be in Ireland for a week followed by three weeks in Spain and that's predominantly for fun. Lik David said, it's our honeymoon. It's also a little bit to celebrate my birthday. But it's also we've created our entire business for the most part, everything that we do with our business other than public speaking, we can do from anywhere in the world.
John Schneider:
So we're trying to test to see how good we are at actually being in Spain near a beach and being able to focus a little bit on the business, but also focus a little bit on having some fun while we're abroad. Shortly after that, we'll be joining you at FinCon in Orlando.
Bobbi Rebell:
Very fun. And where can people learn more about you, follow you on social, and so on?
David Auten:
Sure. On almost every platform, we are @debtfreeguys so that's Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. We are @debtfreeguys. Our website is debtfreeguys.com and then on iTunes, our podcast is called Queer Money.
Bobbi Rebell:
And it is climbing up the charts as we speak. So congratulations on all your success.
John Schneider:
Thank you so much for having us on. We appreciate it.
David Auten:
Definitely. We appreciate it.
Bobbi Rebell:
Hey friends, as the guys mentioned, they will see me in Orlando at FinCon. We'd love to see some of my Financial Grownup friends there as well. I'm going to leave a link on how to find out more about FinCon in the show notes. That is at bobbirebell.com/podcast/debtfreeguys and be sure to DM me if you be there so we can connect in Florida.
Bobbi Rebell:
All right, here we go. Financial Grownup tip number one. Event planning on a budget 101. Ask for things that you might be able to get for free. So the guys, for example, got candle holders from their party planner. At my wedding, which was a Jewish wedding, the florist asked what we wanted on the chuppah. And the chuppah is basically a canopy that a couple stands under at a wedding and it represents a home.
Bobbi Rebell:
So many people have it constructed these days out of branches and flowers and they are beautiful and fantastic. And most ceremonies that this is used for run about half an hour. So you can spend thousands, you can spend infinite money on this. For me, it was just not that important. So I asked the synagogue if they had one that we could just borrow. And they did. They described it. It was a beautiful deep blue velvet with gold trim, Hebrew lettering and some other décor. It was simple, it was traditional. I loved it. And it was free.
Bobbi Rebell:
Also free basic linens for tables usually come with whoever you're working with, the place, the venue. Instead of going for a layer on top or bows on the chairs, just ask the florist to put aside the non-perfect flower petals or just extra flower petals that are falling off from whatever flower arrangement you have and then use those petals to sprinkle on those standard white tablecloths. And you can also do that, by the way, to dress up the cake. So those are some specific things that you can do.
Bobbi Rebell:
So pick something you're ambivalent about, not the things that you really care about, but the things that you're kind of like, "Eh, I don't care that much about the tablecloths." And see if someone can make that work for you for free.
Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup tip number two. The biggest budget buster for the guys was so easy to avoid. When you invite guests to stay at the hotel, include the cost and make sure that they are opting in. In their case, since they did not say anything, their well-intentioned friends probably assumed that it just came with the wedding package and there was no additional costs. That's what I would think.
Bobbi Rebell:
I get the awkwardness of asking after the fact. One possible idea; have a close friend, a very close friend delicately call the people that you've invited to stay at the ranch and explain that you're shy about asking for the cash, but that paying for everyone to stay is not in the wedding couple's budget. Honestly, very few people expect to have the wedding couple pay for their hotel. You could even have your friend say that their wedding gift to the wedding couple could be staying at the hotel and absorbing your own costs and that no further gift is necessary.
Bobbi Rebell:
All right, let's connect. Please be in touch. DM me on social media. I want to hear from you guys and I want to hear what you think about the show, what you want to see more of. We're trying a lot of different things and we're getting great feedback. And I want your feedback.
Bobbi Rebell:
On Instagram, I am @bobbirebell1. On Twitter, @bobbirebell. And thanks to the Debt Free Guys for getting us all one step closer to being financial grownups.
Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup with Bobbi Rebell is edited and produced by Steve Stewart and is a BRK Media production.
After 148 rejections in the first funding round, Kathryn Minshew co-founder and CEO of the Muse took note of what she did wrong and upped her game when she went looking for new financing. Minshew scored close to $30 million thanks to the new approach.
In Kathryn’s money story you will learn
-How Kathryn and the Muse team re-vamped their strategy the second time they raised money
-How Kathryn rebounded from the 148 rejections in the seed round of financing
-How The Muse raised $30 million from investors
-How they were able to ask for less money and come out with more than the original targets
-The way Kathryn structured her process when pitching investors
-How they organized their pitches and research to be more effective
-Kathryn’s investor prioritization strategy
-The specific thing Kathryn said to investors to get them to the table faster- and with more interest in her company
-How a second round of financing is different- and should be approached differently from a seed round
In Kathryn’s lesson you will learn:
-The advice Kathryn found most helpful from her networks and mentors
-How she got help from other entrepreneurs
-How to tell if the investors are wrong not to invest- or if your idea and pitch is missing the mark
-How to figure out who your end users are- and why it is important
-Strategies and specific things to ask in order to get honest input about your company
In Kathryn’s money tip you will learn:
-Negotiations can be about more than just cash
-How to ask for signing bonuses, signing bonuses, flextime, vacation time, better titles.
-Why budgets for professional training are essential and how to negotiate for them
In my take you will learn:
-How to learn lessons from rejection, and incorporate them in your next venture
-The importance of taking the time to throughtfully plan and customize presentations and pitches
-How to level the playing field even when the other party is clearly more powerful.
Episode links:
TheMuse.com
Kathryn’s book with Muse co-founder Alexandra Cavoulacos The New Rules of Work
Follow Kathryn and The Muse!
Instagram @kminshew @themuse
Twitter: @Kmin and @TheMuse and @TheNewRules
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/thedailymuse
https://www.facebook.com/minshew
Transcription
Kathryn Minshew:
If you tell someone you're the founder of a company and ask for their input, they are more likely to give you positive impact because they don't want to hurt your feelings. If you tell them that you're a consultant helping a company understand how its market positioning lands, or helping a company better understand what it's doing well and what it's not, people are much more likely to give you totally unfiltered feedback for the series A because I was running a process.
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, everybody. This is an episode about rejection, and what you would do differently the second time around. How to tell were they wrong to reject you? Maybe your message could be a little bit more on point. The Muse founder and CEO, Kathryn Minshew has told the story many times of how she and her colleagues were rejected 148 times when they when to raise money for their startup, The Muse. Once the company got off the ground, it has been a massive success, and many people would say, "Well, those 148 people, they must be so sorry that they rejected it." And of course, that is true to some extent. But also, Kathryn looks back and realizes she had a lot that she would do differently the next time. And in fact, she did do it differently when she went back for the next round of financing, and that's what we talked about. Here is Kathryn Minshew.
Bobbi Rebell:
Kathryn Minshew, you are a financial grownup. Welcome to the program.
Kathryn Minshew:
Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here.
Bobbi Rebell:
And you are well known as the founder and CEO of The Muse, the amazing job site, and also well known for being rejected when you went to raise money. Tell me how many, 140 something times?
Kathryn Minshew:
148 times. It was like rejection for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, with a few meetings and noes inbetween for fun.
Bobbi Rebell:
And you are the queen of resilience, and one thing that you talk about in your book, "The New Rules of Work", which I should have mentioned to everybody. She is the author of a fabulous career book called "The New Rules of Work".
Bobbi Rebell:
You talk about your personal brand, and how important it is to define it. That fundraising and the lack of it for so long became your personal brand. So you brought with you a money story that has to do with what happened next, after you finally did get the initial funding and you went back for me. Tell us.
Kathryn Minshew:
Absolutely. Well, first of all, I'll say it's much easier as we all know to talk about failure once you've moved past it. So it became much easier to tell the story of the 148 noes after we had already successfully raised our series A and B rounds. So we've raised almost $30 million in venture capital so far for The Muse.
Bobbi Rebell:
Amazing.
Kathryn Minshew:
It's been a totally wild ride. So my financial story involves what I set out to do, or rather what I did in the series A to ensure that we had an outcome that was very different than the seed round. Because, obviously, I knew how important it was for that next round, to get it right from the go-ahead. And so to try and condense the story into something very quick, we wanted to go out and initially we were thinking about raising six to $7 million. But actually given the advice that I got while preparing for a fundraise, we were actually told to start out saying we were thinking five to six or five to seven, and then slowly let the demand build. So instead of us going out for a big number and being less sure if the market would respond, start out with a smaller number. And then, if the market is really excited about our business, let the negotiations and the demand push it up, which ended up working really well for us because we ended up raising 10 million after we had overwhelming demand.
Kathryn Minshew:
I also was incredibly structured about the process probably because I was a little bit paranoid after having such a difficult time with our seed round. So ahead of time, I really worked the story, got all of our metrics out there. I thought about how best to position them, which numbers to lead with, what to put first so that we could really grab people's attention. We were obviously lucky in that we had really great revenue growth and a lot of very strong metrics.
Kathryn Minshew:
And then, I actually created a spreadsheet. I took all of the investors that I was even remotely interested in talking to. I put them in a spreadsheet. Divided it up by location, so that when I was in New York, San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, DC, et cetera, I could meet with people who were there. Then, I included information about whether they had invested in any similar companies, any competitors. Any companies that might give them a better understanding into what we did at The Muse. I would include notes from different meetings. I actually would also rank how excited I was after each meeting to continue conversations, so I could prioritize the ones that I was most excited about. I would say that really helped to keep me on track, and so we were also able to run a pretty tight process, where we pinned all of our first meetings with investors to the same two-and-a-half or three-week period.
Kathryn Minshew:
It was really interesting because in the seed round, we had a lot of trouble with investors saying, "Oh, I'm busy, right now. But how about in a month?" I wasn't confident enough in the business, so we would just take whatever we could get for the series A because I was running a process. I would write back to people and be like, "You know I'd love to talk, but unfortunately, I need to get all of our first meetings done by X date. So I can push it a few days, but let me know if you're going to be able to make it work. And if not, I'm totally fine. We'll keep in touch and maybe there'll be another round that you can participate in." And what was fascinating is a lot of people would say, "Oh, let me move around my schedule. Absolutely, I can make it work." And suddenly, we were negotiating from a more even position. And the ones that weren't able to or the ones that said, "No, sorry. I can't do it," they probably would have never backed the company to begin with.
Bobbi Rebell:
True. Do you think looking back, obviously when you were going for the most money, the second round, you were a stronger situation to begin with. But had you used the techniques that you were now using that you just talked about, would you have had more success the first time?
Kathryn Minshew:
You know, maybe. It's so hard to know because the seed round for a startup is really different than later rounds because people aren't necessarily looking at your metrics. They are to some extent, but they're really betting on you. And I think the fact that it was my first proper company that I was fairly young at the time, this was six-and-a-half years ago, so it was very early in my career. And I think that plus the lack of knowledge or understanding about what we were trying to do in the business were some of the biggest concerns. So I do think we could have had a better time and controlled the process a bit more, but I also think there were just some fundamental and structural things that we had to get through and really prove on very limited capital before we could really go out and successfully fundraise from bigger investors.
Bobbi Rebell:
So now, what is your advice to listeners and especially want-to-be entrepreneurs that are looking to raise money, start businesses, and especially to young women?
Kathryn Minshew:
I would say, firstly, you can't understate the importance of perseverance because it is so hard in the early days. But I think that doesn't mean that you just keep doing the same thing without adjusting your tactics and thinking about how you could be more strategic. I found it to be so invaluable to get the advice from others, especially other female entrepreneurs. Because sometimes we have a lot of great friends who are entrepreneurs, who are men, but sometimes the tactics or the approaches or behaviors that would work for them, didn't work the same when I did them because of unintentional or unconscious bias or other things. And so I found that it was really helpful to surround myself with a network of entrepreneurs of both genders to get a lot of advice, to test out different approaches to see what felt natural and normal to me. Because if it feels too unnatural to you, investors will probably pick up on that, and it won't help you communicate that confidence that you are looking for when you're starting to talk to investors about your business.
Bobbi Rebell:
So one last question about this for our listeners, how do you know the difference between maybe your idea just isn't that good, and that's why you're not getting funding and you should stop, or you should persevere as you did because your idea just isn't hitting the right people at the right time with the right message?
Kathryn Minshew:
Absolutely. So you've just gotten to the crux of what makes this so hard, which is that there is no silver bullet, and you will never have 100% confidence or certainty either way, which is incredibly difficult. However, I think there are a few things you can use to help you directionally get that sense of whether your business is likely to be successful. The first, and I think the most important is to figure out who are your end users and do as much as possible to get unfiltered feedback from them.
Kathryn Minshew:
For example, if you tell someone you're the founder of a company and ask for their input, they're more likely to give you positive input because they don't want to hurt your feelings. If you tell them that you're a consultant helping a company understand how its marketing positioning lands or helping a company better understand what its doing well and what it's not, people are much more likely to give you totally unfiltered feedback, and you need that unfiltered feedback when you're trying to ascertain if you really need to keep pushing forward on your business.
Kathryn Minshew:
So in my case, even though we were getting rejection, after rejection, after rejection from a lot of investors, we were hearing things from our users and from people who were signing up to use The Muse that indicated we had tapped a nerve and we were on a path that people love. They wanted us to use the product. They'd say I love The Muse, but can you do these five things? Make it better here. Change this. That's all positive feedback because that shows you that there is a need. You just have to keep getting better, and I think that is what gave me the oomph to keep going. But I will just call out it's not like I knew the whole time, oh my gosh, this is a great idea. I just have to keep going. I definitely struggled with whether I should accept that these people that were much more experienced than I, that were successful investors, maybe they knew something I didn't, and I just had hubris.
Bobbi Rebell:
All right. Let's do a money tip. You are the career guru, and you have so many amazing ideas and tips in your book. I wanted to pull some out of there and get maybe your favorite tips that people can use in their careers, and their ventures that they could maybe put to work ASAP at their next job interview or their next negotiation, what have it.
Kathryn Minshew:
I thought through a lot of different things I could share here, and the one I came up with that I wanted to talk about today is the fact that when you negotiate, it is not just all about cash and I think it can be really empowering to realize that because so many of us have anxiety about negotiating a salary, negotiating a raise. Whether it's at the beginning of a job search, or when you're getting a promotion. But I would encourage people, remember that there are a lot of other things you can negotiate for.
Kathryn Minshew:
So obviously, base salary is the thing that people talk about most. But what about signing bonuses, performance bonuses if you achieve certain things? You can also negotiate for flex time, for vacation time, for a better title that might help you in your career. One of the most creative things that I've heard is people negotiating for a budget for professional development and training.
Bobbi Rebell:
Specific money. In other words, not just saying, "Will you send me," in theory. It's very specific.
Kathryn Minshew:
Oh, very specific. In fact, there was someone at an organization that had mandatory salary bans that the leadership wasn't able to go beyond, and so she said great. Why don't you dedicate ... I think it was five or $10,000 towards training development conference that will include my travel, and that will help level me up to be a better employee for you, to let me do my job better, and it won't invalidate the salary cap. This will just be another way that you're investing in my growth, and they said yes, and I think that is such a great example of creativity when it comes to negotiation.
Bobbi Rebell:
Amazing. That's such great advice. Thank you so much. Tell us quickly before we wrap up, what are you guys up to at The Muse these day, and where can people find you?
Kathryn Minshew:
Absolutely. So people can find me at The Muse or @kmin on Twitter. As a company, we are doing a lot right now, but we have been really focusing on we rolled out a new feature called Discussions on TheMuse.com, where people can ask and answer each other's questions. So if you have a career question or you want to learn more about negotiating a raise, we've got a way now to get advice from our community and hear other people's stories. And then, I'm also just kind of fascinated down the road by continuing to explore this idea of how people make the best career decisions, how they find the right fits, and how we help companies tell their stories in a more genuine and authentic way that isn't about just come work here, we're great, but really shares the information people need to know to decide do I want to be part of that organization, or be part of that company?
Bobbi Rebell:
Hey, friends. Here's my take on what Kathryn had to say.
Bobbi Rebell:
Financial grownup tip, number one. Like she did, do your homework, including learning what went wrong the first time. Even if you think the companies or whomever you were pitching to were wrong to reject your idea, we all have room for improvement. Kathryn went out and asked for advice, for example, about how much money to ask for. She actually went for a smaller number based on the advice as a strategy, and ended up raising more money, so it worked. She was also much more organized and structured in her preparations the second time around. She was specific to each company, and deliberate in her presentation. She planned geographically, so she could be efficient with her time. Kathryn even ranked how excited she was about prospects, so she could prioritize and focus on her resources and the best alow there.
Bobbi Rebell:
Financial grownup tip, number two. Stand up for yourself, even if you need them more than they need you. In Kathryn's second round, when prospects said they didn't have the time to meet with her any time soon, she pushed back and was not only able to get them to the table faster when they were interested, but also to level the playing field for a stronger negotiating position.
Bobbi Rebell:
Thank you for listening to this episode of financial grownup. Please subscribe if you have not already. Reviews are great if you have just a few minutes. You can follow me @bobbirebell on Twitter, @bobbirebell1 on Instagram, and learn more about the show at BobbiRebell.com/FinancialGrownupPodcast. I hope that you all enjoyed this episode of "Financial Grownups" with The Muse's Kathryn Minshew, and that we all got one step closer to being financial grownups.
Bobbi Rebell:
"Financial Grownup" with Bobbi Rebell is edited and produced by Steve Stuart, and is a BRK Media production.
Perez Hilton pioneered blogging as a profession, starting with his first $5 payday from Google Adsense. The once-bankrupt Hilton has built a multi-media business on that foundation, moving into YouTube, television and his latest venture, a guest stint at Chippendales in Vegas.
In Perez’ money story you will learn:
-How Perez first earned money as a blogger, and the size of his first payment
-How he promoted his wesite perezhilton.com when it first started, well before social media existed
-How he realized he could make money blogging
-The big life failure that happened that led to his ability to focus on and monetize his blog
-The turning point in his career as a blogger when he was able to help his family
-What Perez tells his kids about his job
-Perez’s daily schedule and how he maintains productivity
-Why Perez wakes up at 5:51 every morning
-What was Perez’s biggest payday, and how much he has made in one day
-Why he is so excited talking about Lady Gaga!!
In Perez’s money lesson you will learn:
-The big warning he has to new business owners about the pace of growth
-Why he warns startup founders not to invest all their own money in their business when they can get investors
In Perez’s everyday money tip you will learn:
-How to negotiate better rates with the people that you have been doing business with for years
-How much you can reasonably expect them to discount services
-How to leverage your social media following to get discounts on products
In my take you will learn:
-Why it is important to note that Perez Hilton wakes up everyday at 5:51 am
-The significance of his regular, reliable schedule, especially as an entrepreneur and a parent
-How he is putting time management Laura Vanderkam’s strategies to work.
-The importance of building out a brand in an intentional and focused way
-How Perez is integrating new platforms to expand his audience from his core platform
-The video on Perez’s personal youtube channel that I am personally completely fascinated by and why.
Perez and Bobbi also talk about:
-How he has had to re-think his finances since having three kids
-Why Perez believes in diversifying financial assets, but also focuses on real estate
-The kinds of real estate Perez believes will be the best investments and why
-Where Perez is invested right now
Episode Links:
Check out Perez’s block perezhilton.com
Subscribe to Perez’ youtube channels
His personal channel The Perez Hilton
His regular content channel Perez Hilton
Here is more info about Perez’s Chippendales show in Las Vegas!
You may also be interested in Time Management expert Laura Vanderkam’s interview. You can listen to it at bobbirebell.com/podcast/lauravanderkam
Follow Perez!
On Twitter: https://twitter.com/PerezHilton
On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/perezhilton
On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ThePerezHilton/
Listen to Perez’s podcast with Chris Booker: http://perezhiltonpodcast.com/
Want to learn more about Perez? Check out his interview with Michael Dinich
Transcription
Perez Hilton:
I'll get anywhere from $25,000 - $50,000 a night for two hours just to show up and promote the club. And I remember one event it was 4th of July, I was the headliner. I decided, you know what I want to have a special guest, so my special guest was Lady Gaga billed underneath me.
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 friends. That was gossip blogging pioneer Perez Hilton dishing on some of his own finances and getting very candid about how much and how little other headliners really make. Perez has talked in public pretty candidly about some of his financial let's say adventures, including declaring bankruptcy and spending several hundred thousand dollars on surrogacy for his three kids. Go to his YouTube channel The Perez Hilton to hear more about that. His gossip YouTube channel is Perez Hilton, but I wanted to know more. After all, love him or hate him the guy started making money from blogging before it was a thing. And if you look at some of the ways we use social media now, like even the doodling people do on pictures and all that stuff he was doing it way ahead of us. He's made mistakes, which we talk about, but now that he's gotten older and wiser with three kids and a team that works with him, which includes by the way his mom, and his sister Perez Hilton is all about being a financial grownup. Here is Perez Hilton.
Bobbi Rebell:
Hey Perez Hilton you're a financial grownup, welcome to the podcast.
Perez Hilton:
Hello, I try to be. Actually I don't even try, I am. It takes work.
Bobbi Rebell:
You very much are. Oh, come on. Yeah anyone who watches you have two YouTube channels, you have your fun gossipy one and then you have your also fun personal one. And people that watch that they know you talk about your bankruptcy, you talk about spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on surrogacy and the financial implications of that. So you are definitely, you're a grownup Perez.
Perez Hilton:
Well not even that, you know last year at the beginning of 2017 when I knew I was having a third child and that was coming it was a huge push for me to completely re haul my financial life. Meaning, overtly looking at every possible way to spend less and make more. And shorter term goals are definitely to diversify, it's a key word especially given how everything changes so quickly in entertainment, and just the world. For me though, and I may have still been at this before but I'm still trying to make it happen. And I wish I would have heard this before, I wish I would have made it a priority younger, I really want to get into real estate. Like some people want to play the stock market, some people want to invest in startups, some people want to start new businesses, some people want to let their money sit in a savings account, I want to go old school and own land. Own property. Not commercial property, I specifically want to own like a duplex or a triplex or four plex because I think that, that will only go up and it will only win.
Bobbi Rebell:
Where do you keep your assets now? Do you own your home? Do you have some stocks? Are you diversified? Because if you do everything in real estate you're not diversified and we just heard you want to be diversified.
Perez Hilton:
Yeah, no I mean I have a retirement account and I have different thing for my kid's college. I'm making all of the smart moves but instead of going heavier in the stock market, which I was advised to ... I did not listen to that advice and I'm going to go more into real estate. If I keep most of my money in real estate I don't care. I don't mind.
Bobbi Rebell:
We talked before we started taping about the first time you were able to actually monetize blogging, because you were basically the first. You were blogging before there was social media. You were blogging you were just trying to promote it on something called Friendster, which most of my listeners probably never even heard of. When did you realize you could monetize this and what was the first memory you have of receiving money for blogging?
Perez Hilton:
Well I didn't make any money for the first year plus. It was really just a hobby. Thankfully I ended up getting fired from a job that I had during that first year of blogging, which I credit to my website becoming successful. Because as a result of getting fired during that first year I was able to collect unemployment. So I didn't have to worry about feeding myself and having enough to pay rent. Thank God that happened. Sometimes a negative really is a positive. So, when I finally started making money to pay rent ...
Bobbi Rebell:
So a lot of bloggers today they make money from ads, from affiliate links, things like that. How was the first way that you made money?
Perez Hilton:
The first way that I made money, of course Google Ad Sense, was probably less than $5 but I was like, "Wow this is something exciting."
Bobbi Rebell:
$5 for something you were doing as just a fun little side thing is money, right?
Perez Hilton:
Absolutely.
Bobbi Rebell:
Was there a pivotal moment where you realized, "This is actually my ..." It's not your whole career because you do a lot more, you first of all you went to NYU, you studied acting you did a lot and you do a lot. This doesn't just come from nowhere, and I think you make it look easy but it's not as easy as you make it look. But when did you realize that this in terms of your general identity was going to be it and that there was a way to monetize this? I mean reports are you've made many millions.
Perez Hilton:
I would say that by 2007 things got to a point where I was able to and I needed to get help. And I was able to help my family by doing so. I hired my mom and my sister with me and really made it a family operation. So, I moved them from Miami to Los Angeles and they still work with me today.
Bobbi Rebell:
Awesome. And how do you think you'll explain to your kids how you earn a living? Or will it just be kind of organic as they grow up?
Perez Hilton:
Well they already understand who Perez Hilton is. They've seen me on TV many times, the many different things I've done. They've been on TV with me. Last year I did a show for the Food Network called Worst Cooks in America Celebrity Edition, which I ended up winning by the way. I was the best of the worst. They got to be part of the show and they watched it every week with me. I do a lot of talking head commentary whenever I'm on like The Talk, or The Real, or local news here in LA. My mom will always record it and make sure my kids see it. Plus I make all my YouTube videos, they're in the background hearing daddy work and seeing me work as well on my laptop on my website. So they definitely have an understanding. They know I work so hard.
Bobbi Rebell:
Well tell me about that. Do you have a schedule or do you just keep going until it gets done? How does it work?
Perez Hilton:
I just keep going until it gets done, but I wake up at 5:51 every morning. I literally start working before I even get out of bed, before I even pickup my laptop I'm able to get some work done on my phone on Instagram. It's like you have to be doing everything everywhere. And I'll work, work, work. Then I'll take my kids to school, then I'll go to gym. Then I'll come back, catch up on work, do more work. Then I'll usually have a meeting or a filming or something in the afternoon. Come back home, catch up on work, spend early evening in dad mode. Put my kids to bed after getting them their shower and all that jazz, read their nightly book. And then get more work done, catch up on emails, and then usually get to bed like 11:30 maybe. I still love what I do, 14 years later. And I'm filled with so much gratitude that I am continuing to have fun and entertain people, and get new followers through different ways. Yeah, like even in a couple of days I'm heading to Las Vegas. I'm going to be doing the Chip 'n Dale show there.
Bobbi Rebell:
That's so wild.
Perez Hilton:
That's so exciting. I'm going to be the special celebrity host of Chip 'n Dales.
Bobbi Rebell:
Do you remember your biggest payday? What can you tell us about it and most of all how it made you feel?
Perez Hilton:
I remember like 2006 - 2012 before the rise of the DJ, which is where Vegas is now. It's all about the big name DJ's. You used to have a ton of celebrities hosting club nights in Vegas. And they would just throw ridiculous amounts of money my way and everybody's way. Now you'll have celebrities host Vegas, but because I know the market so well now, and I have so many friends that work in nightlife they're paying for the Vanderpump Rule for a housewife or whomever, five maybe $10,000. If you're a celebrity like Drake or somebody of that stature they'll make tons of money, but TV personalities five to $10,000.
Bobbi Rebell:
So let me ask you, how much would you make in those days in Vegas? And what was it like?
Perez Hilton:
Yeah. Well it depends on the venue, and the time of year, and a whole bunch of variables but I would say I would get anywhere from $25,000 - $50,000 a night for two hours just to show up and promote the club. And I remember one event I had back in 2008 it was 4th of July weekend, and I was the headliner. I decided, you know what I want to have a special guest. So my special guest was Lady Gaga billed underneath me.
Bobbi Rebell:
What are the lessons, the business lessons that you've learned from going from making $5 from Google Ad Sense, to Vegas at $50,000 doing DJ stuff, to now where you've got this multi-media empire that you are growing and building to invest in real estate as we know it for your kids?
Perez Hilton:
One advice I would give somebody is don't grow too much too quickly, which is a big mistake that many companies make. I would also say ... and a lot of this is just my experience, my advice, it probably maybe goes against what traditional business people might say. I would also say if you start making a lot of money on your business do not invest it back into your business or invest some but not a lot. Ideally to grow you can grow with other people's money. That's the goal.
Bobbi Rebell:
No, that's something a lot of people do. They leverage other people's money. Maybe put some of your own skin in the game, but it's also important to have some money set aside personally for you.
Perez Hilton:
Absofreakinglutely. Yep.
Bobbi Rebell:
Yeah. All right Perez, I don't want to keep you too long. Give me an everyday money tip.
Perez Hilton:
One simple thing people that you do business with regularly, maybe your pool cleaner, or trainer at the gym, or for me I get my meals delivered from this one company. So I reached out to a lot of these people I've been very loyal to for a long time and I'm like, "Can we work anything out? Can you charge me less if I promote more?" Even if you don't have a large social media following, if you've been loyal to a company for a long time and been paying them they'll probably say, "Sure we can give you five percent off, 10% off." Any savings anywhere is good.
Bobbi Rebell:
I love that. All right, where can we support you? You're heading to Vegas, I just watched your video today, you're packing everyone up. Tell us about that and everything else that you want us to be paying attention to.
Perez Hilton:
Well I am a busy dude, yeah I'm going to Vegas. I'll be staring in the Chip 'n Dales show at the Rio from July 26th through Labor Day Sunday. I've got two YouTube channels, The Perez Hilton for everything family and then Perez Hilton for everything pop culture. Of course my website. And then I've got a podcast, The Perez Hilton podcast with Chris Booker where we talk everything pop culture.
Bobbi Rebell:
It is an empire. Congratulations on it all. Thank you for doing this.
Perez Hilton:
Thank you.
Bobbi Rebell:
So Perez is a lot of fun my friends, and he kind of makes it look easy if you watch his content. But let's look at what is really going on with this business, and it is business.
Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup tip number one, note that Perez casually mentions that he always wakes up at 5:51 in the morning, and that he does work before his kids get up. Getting up early is a common thread of successful self starter entrepreneur, in fact according to time management expert Laura Vanderkam who was a recent guest on this podcast the vast majority of successful executives wake up before 6:00 am on weekdays. So, go set your alarm clock and try it out.
Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup tip number two, I love that Perez is always trying new things, but at the same time they are things that make sense with the brand that he has created. Perez still has his blog for sure and has expanded to different vertices, but he also knows that YouTube is very important to his audience as well. And so, he is growing there. One channel that extends his traditional gossip content, but he also now wants his audience to know him as a person. And he does very candid personal videos including a strangely amazing video by the way of how he brushes his teeth and keeps them so white. Watch it, you'll find yourself watching till the end, it's mesmerizing. Silly but mesmerizing. And now he's starting the Chip 'n Dales thing in Las Vegas, so this man is fearless but it is all on brand and all designed to appeal to his audience. Perez is consistent with his content and keeps his audience engaged.
Bobbi Rebell:
If you enjoyed this show please tell a friend. The best way for us to grow and keep bringing you these great stories is by sharing. You are busy but if you have time please leave a review and hit subscribe, and keep in touch on social media. We love it when you DM us on Twitter @BobbiRebell, on Instagram at BobbiRebell1 and on Facebook at Bobbi Rebell. And a big thanks to Perez Hilton who's having a great time in his very grownup life, 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 Stuart 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.
High Fiving Dollars' Sarah Li Cain had a contract that said her company had to pay her medical costs, but when she got pregnant, she and her husband had to come up with a strategic plan to actually collect the cash they were owed. Plus her tips on how to make sure you get the luxuries you want in life, without feeling nickel and dime’d
In Sarah’s money story you will learn:
-The challenge Sarah faced when pregnant as a teacher in China
-How the healthcare system there required employees to pay upfront, and then fight to get re-imbursed
-The financial risk that created for Sarah and her colleagues
-How careful documentation helped to get her money back
-The technique Sarah used to negotiate with her employer and her boss for both her healthcare needs and those of her colleagues
In Sarah’s money lesson you will learn:
-That is is essential to read your contract when you take a job, and not assume it will provide things, even if it is the law.
-The importance of standing your ground when you are entitled to something.
In Sarah’s every day money tip you will learn:
-Why she is willing to pay more for homes that have the amenities that are important to her and her family
-The importance of building in value-add activities and facilities into your home or community, so you don’t have to spend extra cash to have services and other things that you value but might not pay for on an individual basis.
In My Take you will learn:
-The importance of documentation especially when you need to be re-imbursed by an employer
-The tools and apps I personally use for document management and scanning
-My take on lifestyle amenities where you live
-The crazy and outrageous amenities that may not be worth paying for in many cases
Episode Links
Learn more about Sarah at https://highfivingdollars.com/
Listen to her podcast with Garrett Philbin (from Be Awesome not Broke) Beyond the Dollar! https://highfivingdollars.com/podcast/
Follow Sarah Li Cain!
Twitter: @sarahlicain
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/highfivingdollars
Pinterest https://www.pinterest.com/sarahlicain/
The tools I use to store and track documents are
Dropbox dropbox.com
Evernote evernote.com
The App I use to scan documents is Jotnot https://www.jotnot.com/
Here’s a fun article from curbed.com on The Most outrageous amenities in NYC apartments https://ny.curbed.com/2017/12/18/16743830/nyc-outrageous-apartment-amenities-2017
Here is one from Elledecor.com on over the top amenities
https://www.elledecor.com/life-culture/fun-at-home/g14031044/over-the-top-amenities-nyc/
And here is one from Streeteasy.com on What Building Amenities to New Yorkers Want Most?
https://streeteasy.com/blog/nyc-building-amenities-top-10-most-popular/
Transcription
Sarah Li Cain:
I don't think they really thought it through if someone were to get pregnant because I chose to go with someone who was able to speak English because I don't speak Chinese and so they were pretty expensive. I think I racked up a total about $25,000.
Bobbi Rebell:
You're listening to Financial Grownup with me, certified financial planner, Bobbi Rebell, author of How to Be a Financial Grownup. And you know what? Being a grownup is really hard, especially when it comes to money. But it's okay. We're going to get there together. I'm going to bring you one money story from a financial grownup, one lesson, and then my take on how you can make it your own. We got this.
Bobbi Rebell:
Hey friends. That was holistic money coach Sarah Li Cain of the blog High Fiving Dollars and the podcast Beyond the Dollar, taking a stroll down memory lane to a financial experience she'd probably rather forget. But she got through it.
Bobbi Rebell:
Welcome everyone and thanks for taking the time to join us here at Financial Grownup. We keep the shows on the short side so you can squeeze it into your busy day. But if you have more time, or are commuting, they are also meant to be listened to a few at a time. So when you subscribe, make sure the settings are at auto download and you will get three episodes each week.
Bobbi Rebell:
Back to Sarah. Her story is truly a financial grownup one because it begins with the birth of her first child which is a big life transition in and of itself, without all the financial responsibilities that comes with it, and she had to deal with a lot of money headaches. Here is Sarah Li Cain.
Bobbi Rebell:
Sarah Li Cain, you're a financial grownup. Welcome to the podcast.
Sarah Li Cain:
Thank you so much for having me Bobbi. I'm a big fan.
Bobbi Rebell:
Oh thank you, and I am a huge fan of yours ever since we met a couple of years ago actually at FinCon, which is a conference for content creators, because you were behind High Fiving Dollar and now the new Beyond the Dollar podcast. So congratulations on all of your success.
Sarah Li Cain:
Thank you so much.
Bobbi Rebell:
You are a holistic money coach. You also as I mentioned are a financial writer, and you are also someone who has worked all over the world, which brings us to the money story that you brought with you to share because it has to do with the time that you spent in China and something momentous that happened while you were there. Tell us.
Sarah Li Cain:
Yes, so actually spent a total about eight years in China. So before I was a writer and a money coach I was a elementary school teacher at a bunch of different international schools. My very last job, my husband and I found out that were pregnant. The interesting thing was in my contract the employer actually didn't pay for healthcare. So it's the employer legally has to provide you with healthcare, and so instead of actually giving us health insurance he had a little clause at the bottom of the contract that basically said we will reimburse 100% of any healthcare cost that you incur.
Bobbi Rebell:
That sounds really good.
Sarah Li Cain:
Yeah, it does, except if you don't have the money upfront and pay for that, then it makes it very difficult. And so for some of my coworkers-
Bobbi Rebell:
So you had to front the money?
Sarah Li Cain:
Yes. For some of my coworkers it was very difficult for them, number one, the ones who have children, they had to cover all their healthcare cost, and number two, I remember one of my coworkers had ... It wasn't major surgery but it was fairly big. She actually [inaudible 00:03:28] having to borrow money to cover that, until the employer was willing to basically reimburse it.
Bobbi Rebell:
So wait. Was it a situation where you would have to pay out of pocket and then basically fight to get reimbursed?
Sarah Li Cain:
Yes, exactly. So as long you had the receipt in theory they were going to pay you back. I don't think they really thought it through if someone were to get pregnant because healthcare is fairly cheap in China, but I chose to go with someone who was able to speak English because I don't speak Chinese and so they were pretty expensive. So I think I racked up a total about $25,000 American, including the birth, including the prenatal and postnatal care.
Bobbi Rebell:
So you had to forward that money, you had to pay that, and then try to get reimbursed?
Sarah Li Cain:
Yeah. One thing I did try to do was as the receipts payments, so every month when I'd have my prenatal appointments I would just sent, forward the receipt to my ... the owner of the school. Then the principal and I sat down and I said, "Listen, you know this is going to get really expensive. I'm going forward the boss or the owner a big, big bill, probably at least 10 grand after all of my prenatal appointments. He's going to have to be very careful because he's going to make sure, like, he's going to have that money and give it me." The principal and I actually worked together and figured out a way to approach the owner and how we were ... She was going to help me get that. The principal was going to help me get that money back.
Bobbi Rebell:
Was the school which is almost an independent school that did not have big financial resources, was that part of the issue why you were worried they wouldn't have the money?
Sarah Li Cain:
Part of it was the owner was new. I think he had taken over that school maybe for about a year, and number two, he's been, and this like anecdotal evidence, I haven't directly heard him say this but he's always mentioned about try to pay as little as possible for the foreign staff as he called us, and so I kind of knew that if I slapped him with this $25,000 bill that he'd probably pretty shocked and would try to find a way out of it.
Bobbi Rebell:
So what happened?
Sarah Li Cain:
I actually added up, I predicted all the cost for the birth and everything like that and I forwarded it to my principal. Then again the principal and I sat down and we basically said, "Okay, what's the best case scenario, what's the worst case, where can we meet in the middle with him." So we kind of came up with different ways to negotiate with him. The best case was he gives all that money back to me in one go. The second the best was if he paid in installments. And the worst case he refused.
Sarah Li Cain:
But I also said, "Hey, listen, I'm a great employee," and I actually calculated how many students that I brought into the school, so it kind of proved to him that like, hey, I'm helping you make money so therefore this little $25,000 expense wasn't that expensive in the grand scheme of things. What happened then was my principal then forwarded all of this information to the owner of the school and he actually agreed and was like, "Okay, I will pay all this back, I'll reimburse you as soon as you provide all the bills."
Bobbi Rebell:
And did they?
Sarah Li Cain:
Yes. So they did try to fight us a little bit. After my son was born my husband was the one to submit all the bills and so. Then they negotiated with him and said, "Well, we can't pay all this all at once. Is there some way we can just pay you back in increments?" So they did I think pay us the money back in about five installments but we did end up getting all the money back.
Bobbi Rebell:
Okay, that's great. But you used this to actually make broader changes.
Sarah Li Cain:
Yeah. The funny thing was I had no idea that my principal was trying to fight for everyone to get free health insurance. Again, the owner of the school had to legally provide this. She actually ended up using the large medical bill to say to the owner, was like, "Hey, listen, what if another one of your employees gets pregnant. That's like a huge cost," and then she actually presented him with different health insurance options in China and how it ended up being cheaper. And so because of what happened with me, the entire staff actually got free health insurance afterwards.
Bobbi Rebell:
Wow. So how did you feel during this time? I mean you're pregnant, you're having to fight for all this stuff. What were your coworkers saying?
Sarah Li Cain:
It was really interesting. My coworkers didn't necessarily directly ask me about the money side of things because I think in their mind they're like, "Oh man, Sarah's really going to have to fight for this money because the owner is such a cheapskate," as they called him. I was really thankful because ... So my husband and I worked together, and so he really advocated for me when I couldn't, like when I was out on maternity leave and when I was just too tired to really say anything. So he would push me like, "No, listen, Sarah, you have to fight this," or he would go in himself and then talk to the principal which I found out later that he did, and say like, "Here, how can we negotiate all of this?" If it wasn't for his support, I probably wouldn't be able to keep pursuing the money.
Bobbi Rebell:
So what is the lesson for our listeners?
Sarah Li Cain:
The lesson is number one, read your contract, and number two, stand your ground. If it says in your contract that you're supposed to get something, then fight for it because it's written down, it's not a verbal contract, it's a written contract, so definitely pursue it, and get as much support as you need in order to pursue it.
Bobbi Rebell:
Looking back is there anything you would've done different yourself?
Sarah Li Cain:
No, not at all.
Bobbi Rebell:
And Sarah, that brings us to your everyday money tip which also kind of has to do with your health and wellness.
Sarah Li Cain:
Yeah. One of the things I really strive to do is that whenever my husband and I are renting a new place, or when we're looking for a new apartment, we always make sure the kind of amenities there are. We're always looking for somewhere with a gym, how easy it is to walk from let's say the supermarket or my son's preschool, if there's a swimming pool, and just anything else where we don't have to spend extra money. For example, an apartment that we just rented is actually a five minute walk to my son's preschool, it's a few minutes walk to a couple of supermarkets, it's actually closer to my husband's work, it's got a gym, it's got a swimming pool, it's got a playground for my son. So we're effectively saving thousands of dollars a year because now that I can walk with my son to preschool, I don't need a second car. I can just walk again to the supermarket when I need to. I'm saving money on membership fees, things like that.
Bobbi Rebell:
Awesome. All right, Sarah, tell us more about what you're up to. I know you have started season two of your podcast.
Sarah Li Cain:
Yeah. So Beyond the Dollar I co-host it with another money coach, Garrett Philbin. We're just having a lot of fun. We discuss a lot of issues that go literally beyond the dollar, just not practical finance tips, but more of the deeper how money really affects your well being. You can also find me in High Fiving Dollars. I talk a lot about my personal life there. If you have any questions, I love answering reader questions there as well.
Bobbi Rebell:
Awesome. Thank you Sarah.
Sarah Li Cain:
Thank you for having me.
Bobbi Rebell:
I love that Sarah and her husband paid it forward fighting for everyone else to have real health insurance even after they had won their own battle. Financial Grownup tip number one, whenever you know you're going to need to be reimbursed, as was the case with Sarah and her husband, document everything and make sure you have backups including electronic backups. I happen to use Evernote and Dropbox for storage, and I use an app called JotNot as a mobile scanner, and from that app I can upload to the Evernote and/or Dropbox accounts.
Bobbi Rebell:
Make sure you follow up on getting reimbursed, and on bills sometimes the way that the healthcare system is set up may not be as well-run as you would necessarily expect. If you want to learn more about the dangers of what can happen if you're not on top of these things, check out my interview with Chris Browning of the Popcorn Finance podcast. Just go to bobbirebell.com/podcast/chrisbrowning.
Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup tip number two, let's talk about lifestyle amenities because I know Sarah's a big fan of them. She makes this a priority. There's an upside and there's a downside. If you have amenities built into your rent or your home cost, you don't have to worry that if money gets tight or you just have a lot of expenses coming up or you're feeling uneasy about your financial situation, you're not going to feel pressured to say take a break from the gym. On the other hand, they do add to your overhead in most cases and if you're not going to use certain amenities, you need to factor that in and be honest with yourself.
Bobbi Rebell:
For example, just about all of us can at least make the argument that we can make good use of a gym. We might blow it off in reality, but we can at least make the case. That might be worth paying for when you're looking for a new residence, especially if it's in a community or an apartment building that has a really nice one. But if you don't have young kids, something like a playground does not add value to your life.
Bobbi Rebell:
Those are pretty mainstream amenities, but some buildings can even have quirky amenities that sound so cool like wine cellars, relaxation lounges, climbing walls, hydrotherapy circuits, bowling allies, pet spas, and of course dog training studio, something we all look for. They are designed to wow buyers and renters, but just because something looks super cool when you're checking out the residence, doesn't mean it's something that you're going to actually use. If they deliver value for you, that's great. But some are just gimmicky and can up the prices. By the way, if you want to read about some of the crazy things happening in the amenities business, I'm going to leave a few fun articles about hot new amenities in the show notes for you guys.
Bobbi Rebell:
If you have not already hit that Subscribe button so you don't miss any upcoming episodes, remember, the episodes are short, about 15 minutes, so if you want to listen for longer, there are three new episodes every week so you can easily binge on a bunch if you have a long commute or you're just running errands and you want a little more content.
Bobbi Rebell:
Be in touch. I am on Twitter @bobbirebell, on Instagram @bobbirebell1, and on Facebook @bobbirebell, and of course DM me your feedback on the podcast. Thanks to Sarah Li Cain and her growing family for helping us get one step closer to being financial grownups.
Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup with Bobbi Rebell is edited and produced by Steve Stewart and is a BRK Media production.
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
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.
Tom Corley grew up in financial turmoil but after studying the wealthy was able to copy their habits and make his money dreams into a reality.
In Tom’s money story you will learn:
-How Tom’s childhood money disappointments created poor money habits in his early adulthood
-The specific things Tom’s parents did that created financial instability for Tom and his siblings
-Why his graduation party was cancelled because of his parents’ financial troubles
-How he was unable buy a car and to rent an apartment as a young adult again, because of his parents financial needs
-The emotional component of his financial challenges early in his life
-How a client inspired him to do the research that became “Rich Habits"
In Tom’s money lesson you will learn:
-The impact of your parents money habits on your own money habits
-The importance of avoiding “want spending" driven by envy
-How you can change those habits
-Why changing only two or three habits can change your life
-Tom’s habit that he does every day on his way to work to re-inforce gratitude
In Tom’s every day money tip
-Why successful people keep track of other people’s birthdays
-How calling them on their birthday makes a meaningful impact
-Why to avoid the birthday wish on social media
-The connection between the Happy Birthday habit and why it will help you prosper through genuine friendships
In My Take you will learn:
-How to move past parents who have poor money habits
-The advice Tony Robbins offers to people who get a rough start in life, as he did
-How my new friend Ramit Sethi uses birthdays as a way to connect with friends and get "Birthday Wisdom"
Episode Links:
Tom’s website: www.richhabits.net
Follow Tom!
Twitter: @RichHabits
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/thomas.c.corley.3
Learn more about Rich Neighbor, Poor Neighbor
Get Tom’s books including "Rich Habits, Poor Habits" and "Change Your Habits, Change Your Life” and “Rich Kids"
Tom is also writing a book called “The Other Side of Cancer”. Learn more about the Ashely Lauren Foundation which helps families struggling with pediatric cancer.
Also mentioned in the episode:
Tony Robbins
David Bach
Ramit Sethi
More about Tom Corley:
CBS Nightly News Interview: http://richhabits.net/cbs-news-rich-habits-interview-with-lisa-hughes/
Dave Ramsey Interview:http://richhabits.net/dave-ramsey-rich-habits-tom-corley/
SUCCESS Magazine Interviews: http://shar.es/1HKwDe http://shar.es/1HK95w
USA Today Article: http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2015/02/22/credit-dotcom-credit-card-habits/23545023/
Tom Corley is an internationally recognized authority on habits and wealth creation.
Tom has spoken alongside Richard Branson, Robin Sharma, Dr. Daniel Amen and many other notable speakers.
In Tom’s five-year study of the rich and poor he identified over 300 daily habits that separated the “haves” from the “have nots.” Tom is s bestselling author and award winning author. His books include: Rich Habits, Rich Kids and Change Your Habits Change Your Life and Rich Habits Poor Habits.
Tom has appeared on or in CBS Evening News, The Dave Ramsey Show, CNN, MSN Money, USA Today, the Huffington Post, Marketplace Money SUCCESS Magazine, Inc. Magazine, Money Magazine, Kiplinger’s Personal Finance Magazine, Fast Company Magazine, Epoca Magazine (Brazil’s largest weekly) and thousands of other media outlets in the U.S. and 25 other countries. Tom is a frequent contributor to Business Insider, CNBC, SUCCESS Magazine and Credit.com.
Tom is also a CPA, CFP and holds a Master’s Degree in Taxation and heads a top financial firm in New Jersey
Transcription
Tom Corley:
I told all my friends that I'm having a graduation party, I told them the date, and a couple of weeks before the party date I just let my mother know, and she said, "We can't have a party, we don't have any money." I said, "Yeah, I know, I saved $200." That night my father came into my room and he said, "You know what, I hate to do this to you, but we need the money."
Bobbi Rebell:
You're listening to Financial Grownup, with me, certified financial planner, Bobbi Rebell, author of How To Be a Financial Grownup, and you know what? Being a grownup is really hard, especially when it comes to money. But it's okay, we're going to get there together. I'm going to bring you one money story from a financial grownup, one lesson, and then my faith on how you can make it your own. We got this.
Bobbi Rebell:
Hey, friends, if you feel a big knot in your stomach from that clip you just heard from our guest today, I'm right there with you, this was a tough one. But it's also an important story, so I hope you stick with us. Welcome, everyone. As our regular listeners know, while we try to keep the mood light, we also get real here on the Financial Grownup podcast, and we listen and we learn from others' experiences. So my guests are brave and they reveal very personal financial stories sometimes, in the hopes that it will make your lives better, our lives better.
Bobbi Rebell:
Tom Corley is the author of a number of bestselling books including Rich Habits, and it was inspired by his devastating childhood experiences, but also how you can change your habits and have financial freedom. This really goes to the heart of what we try to do here. Here is Tom Corley.
Bobbi Rebell:
Hey, Tom Corley, you are our financial grownup, welcome to the podcast.
Tom Corley:
Hi, Bobbi, thanks for having me on, I appreciate it.
Bobbi Rebell:
I'm so excited to have you because you are the author of Rich Habits, and we all need to develop rich habits for sure.
Tom Corley:
Yeah, I spent five years doing research on the daily habits of rich people and poor people, gathered three hundred and forty something data points, and decided to incorporate some of them, the most important keystone habits, into my book Rich Habits, which has become very popular around the world.
Bobbi Rebell:
Well, you're being very modest, it's been a huge bestseller, and you've been on everything from Dave Ramsey to the CBS Evening News, literally you've been all over the place, and I know that the book has helped so many people, so thank you for that. Also I'm going to thank you in advance for sharing what's a very sensitive money story having to do with your upbringing and the poor habits that you learned from your father. Tell us more.
Tom Corley:
Yeah, so I actually have two stories that I'll try and be as concise as possible. So you know, we were rich and then we were poor. My father's business went under when I was aged nine, it's a complicated story, but it was really random bad luck. Anyway, from the age of nine until, I guess, I left the house, we were poor.
Bobbi Rebell:
And you had a big household, by the way.
Tom Corley:
We had 11 in our family, so we were constantly worried. Our home was in foreclosure, as least as far as I can remember, four times. So we were worried about being homeless. I remember I used to shovel snow and mow lawns, and I spent the whole year doing that, saved money, saved $200, because in the 8th grade I wanted to have a graduation party. I told all my friends who I wanted to come that I'm having a graduation party. I told them the date. A couple of weeks before the party date, I just my mother know, just to make sure it was okay, and she said, "We can't have a party, we don't have any money." I said, "Yeah, I know. I saved $200." Well, that night my father came into my room and he said, "You know what, I hate to do this to you, but we need the money, because I have bills that I have to pay or they'll shut off my electricity, our phones, or whatever." So I handed him the money.
Tom Corley:
The second story was when I was 23 and I had just been working for about a year. I was still living at home, but I was trying to get ready to leave home. So I saved about $5,000, I wanted to buy a car, and use whatever was left to put down on a rental, an apartment somewhere. Somebody in my family found out about it, and my father approached me a couple of days later and said, "You know, we need that $5,000 to pay our real estate taxes. They're in the process of foreclosing on our house again." So I had to give up that $5,000.
Tom Corley:
So what I learned from those two experiences, which were very emotional experiences to me, was, don't save, if you save, somebody will take it. I was young when I learned those lessons, so they stayed with me in my adult life. And it wasn't until really I did my Rich Habits research that I realized I had this horrific poor habit of not saving, and it was emotion based, which most habits are.
Bobbi Rebell:
What even started the idea of doing Rich Habits research?
Tom Corley:
When I took over my CPA firm here from my predecessor, I had a small business client in the auto body business, he had inherited the business from his father and over the course of 20 years he found himself with cashflow issues. He asked me, "What are your successful clients doing that I'm not doing?" Then he started crying because he couldn't make payroll that week, and basically he was going out of business.
Tom Corley:
So I started doing research, I couldn't find anything other than The Millionaire Next Door, that didn't help me really, it wasn't specific enough. So I said, "You know what? I'm going to do my own research." I interviewed 361 rich people and poor people, find out what the rich do and what the poor do, and I didn't know I was doing a habit study, I just was trying to uncover the truth, why are some people rich and why are some people poor? What I wanted to do, Bobbi, was find out what they did from the minute they put their feet on the floor in the morning to the minute they put their head on the pillow at night. So that's kind of what started me on that research.
Bobbi Rebell:
Did you talk to your dad about this at all?
Tom Corley:
No. My dad passed away in 2013, and he was always one of my biggest cheerleaders, but we never really saw eye to eye on a lot of things. I did everything a good son is supposed to do to help my father, and he loved me, you know, we just didn't have that kind of relationship.
Bobbi Rebell:
You never talked to him about your feelings when the money was taken from you after saving it?
Tom Corley:
No. I couldn't do that to him. I know, he was older, why burden him with that? I just felt, this is something that I don't ever want him to know about.
Bobbi Rebell:
For our listeners, what is the takeaway from your story?
Tom Corley:
Well, the takeaway is this: I was able to turn things around, thanks to my Rich Habits research, I started saving, started putting money into my 401(k), and other things. Whether you are aware of it or not, you have certain good habits and bad habits, I call them rich habits and poor habits, that are the result of your upbringing. They primarily are from your parents. So if you are, like I was, not saving any money, and maybe have debt, credit card debt, there's a very good likelihood that that has something to do with your upbringing, and some habits that you forged in your childhood that stayed with you in your adult life. The good news is that I'm evidence you can change your habits, and not only am I evidence, I have 177 self-made millionaires that are proof that once you change your habits, you change your life.
Tom Corley:
So there's light at the end of the tunnel here for anyone, doesn't matter if you're poor or stuck in the middle class. You can change your habits, and it only takes two or three habits to change your life.
Bobbi Rebell:
So give us some habits.
Tom Corley:
So many people struggle with savings, right? If you really peel that onion, what's the reason why they just can't save? In many cases, especially in America, it's the keeping up with the Jones's mindset, it's, my friend bought a BMW, or leased a BMW, my other friend, or someone I know, or colleague just got a really nice house. So you supersize your life. I call it want spending. What drives want spending is envy. Envy is a negative emotion. What shuts down the want spending is turning the fuel off for your want spending, which is turning off your envy. How do you do that? You shift your mindset from negative to positive by, instead of being envious, be grateful for what you have.
Tom Corley:
What I do every day, every morning on my commute to work, is, I sit in my car as I'm driving and I say, "What are three things that went right yesterday with my life, that I'm grateful for?" I spend about 10 minutes thinking about it and going over it. It's an amazing thing, Bobbi, but it completely makes you positive. Gratitude is the gateway to positivity, it's a domino effect. So it's not just, "Oh, all of a sudden I have this gratitude, positive mental outlook." You have a completely changed mental outlook, everything, you start seeing the glass half full, you start seeing the good in life, the good in people. It's amazing when you start treating people as valuable instead of finding the flaws and the faults in them, they respond, and next thing you know you've got these powerful relationships with people that you didn't have before, all because of a shift in your mindset.
Bobbi Rebell:
Tom, for your everyday money tip, I think you're going to win the most original, and should I just wish you a happy birthday even though I don't even know when your birthday is, but I just want to say happy birthday.
Tom Corley:
Thank you, Bobbi, I appreciate that. It wasn't long ago, June 12th. The happy birthday call was one of the things that I uncovered that the self-made millionaires did. All you do is just call people, you don't tweet them, you don't Facebook them, no social media interaction here, you're calling them on the phone, just to wish them a happy birthday. The amazing thing is, when you call somebody on their birthday, guess what, you're going to probably be one of three or four phone calls that they receive. Here's the really cool thing, Bobbi, I found, because I've been tracking this since I uncovered it in 2007, 25% of the people that you call on your birthday will reciprocate, so it's called the reciprocal happy birthday call, that really takes your relationship off life support, takes it to another level.
Bobbi Rebell:
And especially, you mentioned, not social media and that kind of thing, taking it in a different medium really differentiates you.
Tom Corley:
Yeah, look, you want to stand out. If you're going to just be saying "happy birthday" on Facebook, you don't stand out, because the herd is doing that. You want to step outside the herd. What do people outside the herd do? They make happy birthday calls. It's going to emotionalize your relationship. Why is that important to making money? Because the people that really help you open doors, they might be on board of directors with you on nonprofits, they might be other successful people, well, these are the people you want to be making the happy birthday calls to, they're going to remember you, it's going to improve your relationship, strengthen it, and now you're going to start to develop friendships with these people.
Bobbi Rebell:
Love it. Tell us more about what you're up to this summer and into fall, and where people can learn more about you, Tom.
Tom Corley:
Sure. So I've got a book, Rich Neighbor, Poor Neighbor, that I'm just about wrapping up. I'm going to be traveling to Vietnam for a couple of speaking engagements. I'm also going to start work on a book called The Other Side of Cancer. So I've got a few things in the pipeline this summer.
Bobbi Rebell:
What prompted that, Tom?
Tom Corley:
I'm the president of The Ashley Lauren Foundation. We help families who are struggling with pediatric cancer. So if you found out your child had cancer, we step in to help you financially, emotionally, all different sorts of things. We've bailed people out where they were almost homeless because cancer costs money to fight that fight. We've kept people in their homes just by paying their mortgage and paying their rent. So growing up poor, that means a lot to me, because we didn't really have anybody to help us, so I'm going to write a book and proceeds are going to go to The Ashley Lauren Foundation, and it's going to be an upbeat book about how some of the kids who survived cancer went on to become doctors, lawyers, and other things.
Bobbi Rebell:
All right, well keep us posted on that, and I'll make sure to have you send me some links that we can put in the show notes, and people can learn more about it. Thank you so much, Tom.
Tom Corley:
Thank you, Bobbi, I appreciate it.
Bobbi Rebell:
So, can't thank Tom enough for sharing such a candid and raw story. I truly hope none of you have had to go through that kind of, not just financial devastation, but the toll that it takes on the relationship with your parents and how you view them and how you relate to them.
Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup tip number one: as much as our parents set the foundation for our financial perspectives, if you get a bad deal, like Tom, you can move past it. In addition to Tom's books, there are other resources to check out. As our regulars know, I'm a big fan, for example, of Tony Robbins, who was kind enough to support my book, How To Be a Financial Grownup, by contributing the foreword. Tony is a big believer in owning your own situation. Whatever happened in the past with your parents, in your childhood, whatever, look forward, you're an adult, be a financial grownup, and move past anything your parents may have done that you feel hurt you financially. Almost all our parents are well intentioned and really do try their best. Maybe try to teach them what you learn places like here, and from Tom Horley or from Tony Robbins.
Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup tip number two: let's talk about those birthday wishes. I recently met Ramit Sethi at a dinner party that he co-hosted with my friend, David [Bock 00:13:50], Episode 1, by the way, guys, if you want to go back. You guys may know Ramit as the author of the book, I Can Teach You To Be Rich. So I follow him now on social media. It was recently Ramit's birthday, and he said that when his friends have birthdays he reaches out, and he asks them to share birthday wisdom with him. So maybe that's something that we can all do when we reach out and call them, as Tom suggested.
Bobbi Rebell:
Thanks to all of you for joining us. This was an emotional one, but that's okay, it was also honest. If you have not, please hit that subscribe button, and follow us on social media, on Twitter @BobbiRebell, and on Instagram @BobbiRebell1. Thanks to Tom Corley for helping us all get one step closer to being financial grownups.
Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup with Bobbi Rebell is edited and produced by Steve Stewart, and is a BRK Media production.
Broadway Roulette founder and CEO Liz Durand Streisand literally gave birth to her child just as her business came to life. Having that dual focus on the baby and Broadway Roulette created the perspective and balance to keep push past challenges and grow them both.
Celebrity journalist turned CEO creating a new marketplace model to buy and sell event tickets. After a decade in the trenches of New York's entertainment scene, Liz saw the opportunity to pair expiring inventory to cultural events with consumers who were being bombarded by choice overload -- and Broadway Roulette was born. Broadway Roulette's key investors include Jesse Draper of Halogen Ventures and Randi Zuckerberg of Zuckerberg media. In 2018, Broadway Roulette was accepted to Morgan Stanley's Multicultural Innovation Lab, an accelerator focused on female and minority-led companies positioned to disrupt industries.
In Liz’s money story you will learn:
-About Liz’s background as an entertainment and lifestyle journalist journalist covering celebrities like the Kardashians
-How she and her co-founder husband came up with the idea for affordable tickets to ALL Broadway shows
-Why the business morphed from a hobby to a business
-How they launched the business at the same time he was making a career change and their child was born, and the challenges that came with it
-How being a busy mom impacted the business- as a positive
In Liz’s money lesson you will learn:
-The importance of choosing a life partner that really sees you as a true life partner
-How Liz breaks down big projects into smaller and more manageable tasks
In Liz’s every day money tip you will learn:
-Why Liz feels hiring a stylist is worth the money
-How it will save you money
-Specific ways to find the stylist that is right for you and your budget
In my take you will learn:
-How to get tickets to Broadway shows and other live events at deep discounts
-Ways to find free tickets to events and shows
Episode Links
Learn more about Broadway Roulette at Broadwayroulette.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/missdurand/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/broadwayroulette/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/missdurandnyc?lang=en
Twitter: https://twitter.com/BWayRoulette?lang=en
Here are some options for discount and free Broadway tickets:
http://www.playbill.com/article/broadway-rush-lottery-and-standing-room-only-policies-com-116003
https://www.nytix.com/Links/Broadway/lotteryschedule.html
Great article in the penny hoarder on getting free and discount theater tickets!
https://www.thepennyhoarder.com/smart-money/discount-theatre-tickets/
Seat fillers!
https://seatfillersandmore.com/
https://www.theaterextras.com/about.aspx
You could even go to the Oscars!!
https://www.refinery29.com/2018/01/189571/oscars-seat-filler-academy-awards-interview
Transcription
Liz Durand:
One day I was at the box office in labor, but didn't know it, buying tickets at the box office. Two days later I was back at the box office with no baby, buying tickets again. And the box office manager, there's two that are women, the one who was at the window that moment looked at me and was like, what just happened? Where is your baby?
Bobbi Rebell:
Your 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, it is summer time to get out and do some fun things, oh but that budget. Well, this show is for you wherever you live. I hope this inspires you to go to live theater or go to a concert or whatever you enjoy. Just get out because it can be affordable in part because there are more and more disruptors in the entertainment business, like our guest who heads up Broadway Roulette. Welcome everyone. Thanks for joining us. If you have not already, please subscribe to the podcast, we try to keep it to about 15 minutes to fit easily into your schedule. If you have more time, you can binge on, more episodes, especially if you're in a long car ride, going somewhere to visit friends. Maybe you're visiting some friends in New York. Our guests, Liz Durand Streisand knows all about that. Before she and her husband became parents, they had a lot of friends staying with them in their New York City apartment because they had something you don't hear about very often here in New York City, a spare bedroom. So their friends would come and they would want to see shows, but the big Broadway shows, the ones that they had heard of, we're always either sold out or ridiculously expensive. Fast forward, Liz and her husband came up with a way to disrupt the old Broadway discount model. Let's spend a money story with Broadway Roulette's Liz Durand Streisand.
Bobbi Rebell:
Liz Durand Streisand you're a financial grownup welcome to the podcast.
Liz Durand:
Thank you for having me, so excited to be here.
Bobbi Rebell:
And I'm excited to learn more about Broadway Roulette. What is Broadway Roulette?
Liz Durand:
Broadway Roulette, it's basically price Priceline for Broadway with only two levels of bids. So you go onto the site and tell us when you want to go and how many tickets you're looking for and set some basic criteria about the type of show you want to see or don't want to see. And then the morning of the show you get an email that's like, surprise this is the show you're seeing and all the tickets are a flat price, so you don't have to like negotiate with your friends or look for discounts are stand in lines.
Bobbi Rebell:
Love that. We're going to talk more about that in a minute, but I want to talk about your money story because it ties into Broadway roulette. This happens all the time I feel, people are going through major life changes in their personal life. They're having babies, they're getting married, they're moving. All these things are happening and that is exactly when the greatest business opportunity ever just drops in their lap. Tell us your money story.
Liz Durand:
So I liked to be very orderly and very type A, which made me a good New Yorker for many years and I wanted to do things in the order that made sense and I saved 10% of my paycheck every month and did all that good stuff. I had a career as a journalist. I've been doing it for about a decade. I was very settled. It was very steady.
Bobbi Rebell:
And you're being modest, you were a very top entertainment journalist.
Liz Durand:
Yeah I was probably like the most prolific entertainment journalist in New York City for a decade. I wrote for every major publication that anyone has read on their phone, on the subway, on the way to work, hoping no one is seeing the story they're reading about the Kardashians. That was me.
Bobbi Rebell:
But they loved it.
Liz Durand:
But They loved to, and I actually really enjoyed it. And I would married. And then I finally was able to have a baby, which was very exciting, but at the same time that that happened HIS business that we had started kind of, not like as a joke, but as a hobby. It was sort of a side project just to see if anything would happen. And you know, two days after I gave birth, we landed this major contract with our first Broadway show and it was time to decide like go big or go home. He was actually in a very cushy family office job and it was about six weeks after I had the baby that he decided that would be a great time for him to leave that job and go basically be what I call a financial, a cowboy, to strike out on his own.
Bobbi Rebell:
And also in that time period this financing comes through.
Liz Durand:
Yeah, it was right around the same time. We had been sort of casually talking to friends and family about, hey, would you want to give us money for this weird thing we built in our living room? And that none of us know really that much about. And it turned out that the answer was yes. We met with two, they were technically venture firms but they were friends and they both said yes within a few hours of meeting us and that kind of, the tide turned and all the checks came in and all of a sudden it was just time to go for it. And you know, the timing was terrible in the sense that it's like I was nursing every three hours. I had just had a baby, my husband had just left his job, but the timing was also the timing. That's when it was. So it was the perfect timing because that was the only time if I didn't say yes to that money then, they weren't going to come back in six months and say, "Oh, can I give you money now?" They're giving the money now. So now is the time.
Bobbi Rebell:
Wow. So what happened next?
Liz Durand:
So what happened next is I briefly lost my mind. I was working around the clock literally, plus not sleeping because I was taking care of the baby. So I was running out to buy Broadway tickets in the two hour pocket-
Bobbi Rebell:
So you were, just to be clear, you're literally, it looks like you've got this massive company going on. You, Liz are going out and literally procuring these tickets.
Liz Durand:
Yes. So like one day at the box office and I was in labor but didn't know it buying tickets at the box office. Two days later I was back at the box office with no baby buying tickets again and the box office manager, there's two that are women in Broadway and the one who was at the window that moment was a woman and she looked at me and was like, "What just happened? Where, where is your baby?"
Bobbi Rebell:
Oh my God.
Liz Durand:
But I think that's just ... on one hand I was very out of sorts because there's just all the drama that you just had a baby. But on the other hand was actually really nice for me to have something that was like the anchor and a goal that was unrelated to becoming a mother. That was, I have this business that is growing that needs my attention and the act of like leaving my apartment and running around in 95 degree weather and buying tickets at the theaters and begging people to hold them for me, actually was something that was very familiar at that point. And it gave me a sense of stability during a time that felt like it could have been just like spiraling out of control. In a weird way it was actually nice to do something over and over that wasn't that enjoyable, but that I knew how to do.
Bobbi Rebell:
When you look back, what is your takeaway for the listeners? If they experience something like that? And a lot of people do. Not that situation, but the convergence of different parts of their lives at the same time.
Liz Durand:
I think there's two things. I think it's important that you pick a life partner who truly sees you as a partner. Whether you want to pursue business or you just want to, do something else with your time. You want to work on charity, you want to take care of your kids. Having someone who's going to back you and they're going to back you, not because they necessarily agree with everything you want to do, but because they agree that you should be allowed to do whatever you want to do and you should use the corded is the number one thing. The second thing is just breaking big projects down into small manageable tasks. Like when you're sitting there and you're trying to nurse and the baby's not latching on and you haven't slept in like eight hours. It feels like that's never going to end and your life is never, this is going to be your future forever and I think it's important to break down that bigger thing into a smaller task like all I have to do right now is try for 10 more minutes and then I'm going to put the baby down and I'm going to go buy these Broadway tickets and when I get back I'll try again.
Liz Durand:
And I'm going to give myself permission right now to not think that because this one moment didn't work that the rest of my life isn't going to work.
Bobbi Rebell:
You also have an everyday money tip that I had not really thought of. I've resisted doing this, but you made me think about it very differently and I'm really excited to kind of consider this.
Liz Durand:
My money is if you are a woman with limited time, hire a stylist immediately. Unless you love shopping as an actual recreational pastime and it's something you do socially or you find it relaxing, cut it out. You don't need to be doing it. Hire someone the money you pay that person to accrue all the clothes for you, will be paid out in spades because they will number one, find things that are $25 that look like $200 or $2000. And number two, all that time that you would have spent trying things on at the store feeling bad about yourself, you can instead spend on something that is more valuable to you, like an extra hour at the park with your child or sending three extra emails that wouldn't have gotten done because you just wasted an hour at Bloomingdale's staring at 300 pairs of shoes and bought nothing.
Bobbi Rebell:
I know my hesitation is, oh, it feels so frivolous to spend money paying someone to shop for me, and then what if they make me buy things are too expensive. I don't want to spend that much money. I feel like there's a lot of reasons people resist that kind of thing.
Liz Durand:
Well you need to find one who you're comfortable with who you can say to them, "I don't like this, I'm not buying it." But if you find the right one, it saves you so much time and so much money because you get an entire wardrobe that's like $25 dresses and then you have one handbag that goes with all those dresses that was a splurge, and now everything looks like it was a splurge. And I just think the emotional toll and the energy toll of shopping if you don't enjoy it, is so high. There's something to be said for outsourcing things so that you have time to work on things that add value. Like if you're not standing at Bloomingdale's, being miserable, finding things you don't like, that time can be spent on finding new clients. That time can be spent on something that generates revenue, that pays for the stylists, plus stylists are frankly not that expensive. They can shop in an hour, what it takes you, takes me four hours to find a dress that I don't really like, but I've finally given up because my friend's wedding is tomorrow and I need something. That's my shopping experience. My stylist in one hour, she's got me a wardrobe for the next six months.
Bobbi Rebell:
So where can people find a stylist?
Liz Durand:
I think Instagram is a great place to go. As much as I have a love hate relationship with social media, I think if you find someone who's page you like who has style that looks like yours, that's a great place to go and find someone. It's also great to ask your friends because any of your friends that have really good style like that, I'd bet ne of them is using a stylist. A lot of people [inaudible 00:10:47] tell you unless you ask. It's like a dirty little secret.
Bobbi Rebell:
Whoa. Alright, let's talk a little bit more about Broadway Roulette. One of the many things that impresses me is that if I go to one of the traditional ticket booths to buy a discount ticket, the shows that I see on the board are often the shows that are having a lot of trouble filling seats. When I go to Broadway Roulette, the shows are the ones we all want those tickets for. How does that happen?
Liz Durand:
Well, to be fully transparent, every Broadway show, except for the top like five average, have about 25% of their seats empty on any given night. There's very, very few shows that are actually sold out all the time consistently. The ones on the board in Times Square, which I affectionately call the wall of shame. It doesn't mean that they're terrible shows and it doesn't mean that you don't want to see it or that they have tons of empty etas, it means that the people that are behind that show have done the math and figured out that they'd rather have these seats sell at whatever price they're offering it there than have them go empty. There's other shows that decide they'd rather just not do that and not have their name up there and not have the seats all sell. So it is actually more of a management question then like a quality of the show question, but the way that our system works, we work directly with the Broadway shows. One of our big sales pitches to the show partners is, it's not an advertised discount or customers don't know what they're buying and so it protects your brand in a way that's very unique compared to like a big slash through it that says 80% off.
Liz Durand:
And because our brand partners to us as a company that is sort of based on the concept of rising tide lifts all boats versus race to the bottom, we're able to broker better seats at cheaper rates than you can find on public discount. And the second part of that is that we make a conscious effort to include, we literally send people to every single show on Broadway regularly. And that's a marketing expense for us. And the reason we do that is that we're not primarily a discounter where a discovery platform. So there's tickets to Hamilton and Dear Evan Hansen and Hello Dolly and all the shows that you won't be able to see if you go to the TKTS booth, though I do think there's a time and place for that and no shade to TKTS. If you're not beholden to a particular show, this is a great way to see everything. And our customers do use our service over and over and over and we eliminate every show that you've ever seen through us every time you spin. So you can go 30 times and see 30 different shows.
Bobbi Rebell:
Which is also a great business model because it promotes loyalty.
Liz Durand:
Yes it encourages repeat business. The thing I like about that part of the model especially, I mean really and truly is let's say we have a customer that we send to Miss Saigon that show's closed now, but let's say we send them to Miss Saigon. They have a great experience. That then prompts them to buy another ticket through Broadway Roulette. We then send them to, let's say, Phantom. We've now basically the experience that Miss Saigon has helped sell a ticket for Phantom. So our argument is that all the shows that work with us are helping each other versus competing for the consumer business.
Bobbi Rebell:
Perfect. Liz, where can people learn more about Broadway Roulette and about you?
Liz Durand:
Well, you can learn about Broadway Roulette on our site, it's just broadwayroulette.com. It's simple fun and easy, which is sort of our sales pitch. And the best place to follow me is just my Instagram account, which is just Miss Durand.
Bobbi Rebell:
Love that.
Liz Durand:
Lot's of cute pictures, if don't want to see cute pictures of the child don't follow my Instagram.
Bobbi Rebell:
Cool. Well thank you so much.
Liz Durand:
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Bobbi Rebell:
So Liz's story resonates on so many levels, but let's start with the one that's the most fun, which is getting tickets for what you want for less money. Financial Grownup tip number one, just because you don't have a big budget doesn't mean you can't see big shows. First of all, Broadway Roulette, as we discussed, is a game changer. But I'm also going to give you some other options, all of which have pros and cons. Obviously with Broadway Roulette you can see the best shows for less, but you do give up some control. Personally, I think that for as little as 49 bucks a ticket, that is part of the fun, but okay, maybe you're just in town for one night and you want to see a very specific show. You want another option. Most Broadway and off Broadway shows sell rush tickets and they also have lotteries.
Bobbi Rebell:
Some are online and some you do have to go in person. They can run for as little as $10 as is the case of Hamilton. Most are around 40 bucks, but yes, you can see Hamilton for as little as 10 bucks. You've got to be really lucky though, but it's there. Broadway shows also have standing room tickets. They are often under 30 bucks. Also look for student and active military discounts. Links that will tell you all the details for each show are going to be in the show notes. Financial Grownup tip number two, better than discount is free. Free entertainment this summer, there's also free theater in many cities. For example, right here in New York City where I live, we have free Shakespeare in the park. So you can wait in line, got to get up early, but you can also enter the online lottery. So if you've got to be at work, it's okay. Just remember to do this. I've always been able to get tickets at least once per summer. You may have to try a bunch of times, but you know what? Just set a reminder on your phone to enter each day and you're good to go wherever you live there are opportunities.
Bobbi Rebell:
One option, for example, get social. Follow the venue on social media of what you want to see. Sometimes if a theater isn't full, they will actually offer free or heavily discounted tickets to followers. You can also see things for free if you're willing to volunteer at a theater, maybe ushering or doing various other jobs to support the production. One thing I've yet to do but I hear about and I'm so curious about is being a seat filler. I'll leave links in the show notes, but basically you attend show tapings or live musicals or plays so they don't have empty seats and the stigma that goes with them.
Bobbi Rebell:
Alright. Thank you all for spending your time with us. It means a lot as do the social media DM's and shares that we've been getting. Please be in touch. I am at Bobbi Rebell on Twitter. And Bobbyrebell1 on Instagram. And if you're coming to New York, try Broadway Roulette. You can book up to three months in advance and if you follow them on social, they do freebie giveaways. Just saying. Thanks Liz for sharing the story of the birth of your business and your baby and for helping us get one step closer to being financial grownups. Financial grownup with Bobbi Rebell is edited and produced by Steve Stewart and is a BRK media production.
Newlywed Hilary Hendershott CFP® found herself with a limited cash flow after launching her own financial advisory firm, and started using her husband’s credit cards to make up the difference. What she considered to be a money secret she was keeping from her new husband, she discovered actually wasn’t, but was the catalyst that brought them together to discuss their finances as a married unit.
In Hilary’s money story you will learn:
-How as newlyweds, Hilary and her husband set up their finances
-The unseen pitfall that caught them both off guard
-Why Hilary considered spending money on her husband’s credit cards a “secret”
-What happened when she revealed her actions
In Hilary’s money lesson you will learn:
-Specifically what Hilary would do now in the same situation
-The exact questions you should be asking if your financial partners- romantic or otherwise
-Ways to motivate yourself to be financially open even in uncomfortable situations
In Hilary’s everyday money tip you will learn:
-Why she is against buying service plans from auto dealerships
-The tactics they use to get you to buy the plans and how to flag them
-How to find alternative options to keeping you car properly maintained
-How Hilary got burned at auto dealerships
In my take you will learn:
-The importance of discussing cashflow, not just revenue
-Why taking ownership of your actions is the key to finding solutions
-The biggest danger of not talking about credit card bills with your partner
-How identity theft can be more of a threat if multiple people use the same credit card account
EPISODE LINKS
Learn more about Hilary Hendershott and the Profit Boss® Radio Podcast
https://www.hilaryhendershott.com
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/hilarythecfp
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/profitbossradio
Transcription
Hilary Hendersh:
I don't know if I'd found one of his credit cards laying around, or it was a credit card that I was using, or using intermittently. Well anyway, I started using this credit card to live off of. And this went on for months, and every time I pulled it out I felt like I was cheating or lying or stealing or something, but I was doing this thing that I didn't have agreement to do.
Bobbi Rebell:
You're listening to Financial Grownup. With me certified financial planner Bobbi Rebell, author of How to be a Financial Grownup. And you know what, being a grownup is really hard especially when it comes to money, but it's okay we're going to get there together. I'm going to bring you one money story from a financial grownup, one lesson, and then my take on how you can make it your own. We got this.
Bobbi Rebell:
Hey friends, so if you spend your significant other's money and you don't actively tell them that you are spending that money is that cheating? I'll let you guys be the judge.
Bobbi Rebell:
Quick welcome to our newest listeners and welcome back to everyone else. Hit that subscribe button while you are there. We do three short episodes a week to fit your schedule. Each episode delivers a money story from a high achiever, a lesson in takeaway so you can apply it to your own life, and an every day money tip to help you save and have more money. If you've got more than about 15 minutes feel free to binge, get a few lessons in a row.
Bobbi Rebell:
Okay, now to our guest, Hilary Hendershott. In addition to being the real deal, a certified financial planner who has been named one of Investopedia's Top 100 Financial Advisors she also hosts the Profit Boss Radio podcast, which I highly recommend. I'm going to be a guest on a future episode likely in the fall. She is also relatively newlywed but regrets keeping a secret from her new husband, or did she? Here is Hilary Hendershott.
Bobbi Rebell:
Hey Hilary Hendershott you're a financial grownup, welcome to the podcast.
Hilary Hendersh:
Thank you so much.
Bobbi Rebell:
And congratulations, you are one of Investopedia's Top 100 Financial Advisors, quiet an honor.
Hilary Hendersh:
Isn't that cool? Yeah, I'm honored to be ranked.
Bobbi Rebell:
And you are a certified financial planner, which we know is serious business, and of course your hit podcast Profit Boss Radio podcast, which I am huge fan of. So, welcome.
Hilary Hendersh:
Thank you so much, I'm really happy to be a financial grownup today.
Bobbi Rebell:
And you brought with you a great story and a very interesting one with a little bit of a plot twist. You were apparently using your husband's credit cards without his knowledge, but there's a lot more of the story, tell us.
Hilary Hendersh:
So for many years I worked for my father's financial planning for about 15 years. I went out on my own in 2014, so I took my clients and I formed a registered investment advisory firm. So here I am, I'm a bootstrapping entrepreneur and my husband was very generous, he said, "Of course, don't pay yourself for a while." And I think any of you who've started a business you understand you just really feel like all that dry kindling needs to go back onto fan the flames of the fire that is your new business. So I was not drawing an income from my business.
Bobbi Rebell:
And you were relatively newlywed, correct?
Hilary Hendersh:
We got married in 2013, yes so we were newlyweds. My husband had his own banking system, I had my own banking system we didn't join accounts, so I had separate checking account from him. So, I didn't think about the fact that we had set this scenario up where there was no money coming into the account that I was spending from. And so, I get to the end like I didn't want to go below $1,000 in this account, but there's no money coming in. I'm like, "What am I going to do now?" Well I happen to ... I don't know if I'd found one of his credit cards laying around or it was a credit card that I was using or using intermittently. Well anyway, I started using this credit card to live off of. And this went on for months, and every time I pulled it out I felt like I was cheating, or lying, or stealing, or something, but I was doing this thing that I didn't have agreement to do. And finally I was like, "I have to come clean honey, I've been spending on your credit card to live."
Hilary Hendersh:
And he said, "I know."
Bobbi Rebell:
So wait, but you didn't tell him and you thought he didn't know. I was about to ask you, wait who's paying these bills? Doesn't he look at the bills? So the people have auto pay.
Hilary Hendersh:
Well he was.
Bobbi Rebell:
People have auto pay.
Hilary Hendersh:
No, he paid the bills and I just thought maybe he wasn't paying attention. I don't know that he combs the transactions at a detailed level. It wasn't like the portal was accounting for this is Hilary's card versus this is your card. I don't know what I thought, I was just in denial. I think I just probably wishing and hoping that my surreptitious little activities were not being found out by him. But of course, we're married it's all joint assets anyway, but it was just the fact that I hadn't asked him or gotten approval, it wasn't what we had planned. It wasn't what we said would happen. And I said to him, "How in the world were we designed? How did you think I was going to get money? How was money ever going to come into my accounts?"
Hilary Hendersh:
And he said something about me taking profit distributions from my business.
Hilary Hendersh:
And I said, "But I wasn't taking money out of the business." He and I just had very different expectations of what was happening from a cashflow management perspective, but it was very cool that he gave me a very soft landing, because when I did say, "I've been using your credit card to live."
Hilary Hendersh:
And he said, "I know."
Bobbi Rebell:
Awe that's so nice. So then how did it evolve? What system did you put in place?
Hilary Hendersh:
Well now I'm on payroll.
Bobbi Rebell:
Right, but I mean did you just say, "Well okay, we'll continue this"? Or did you just merge your accounts then? Or did it just continue where you were just still using his credit card but you guys were open about it?
Hilary Hendersh:
I think a little bit of both. I think he like wrote me a check for $20,000 or something so I had money in my checking account. And then we did create a joint account so I changed my bank over to his bank, and now I'm on payroll from the business. So, our personal finances evolved and grew, but we really should have been spending from the same bank account before that. But, yeah so we just kind of dealt with it step-by-step.
Bobbi Rebell:
So what is the lesson for our listeners from that? What is their takeaway?
Hilary Hendersh:
I think it's really common at the beginning of starting a business for someone's spouse to financially support them. And if you're going to do that you just want to be clear where's the pool of funds that you're actually spending from? And you want to be I think in communication, how much can I spend and have us still be on track for our plan? What is your expectation here? I think the problem was that Robert and I just didn't fully talk through the plan. What saved me was my need to be ... I really am fundamentally an honest person. I'm like, "Uh I need to come clean here." But being open and transparent communication with your partner, your spouse is your financial partner. And so, being able to talk about that really helps.
Bobbi Rebell:
And it sounds like he is really supportive of the business.
Hilary Hendersh:
Oh tremendously. I could not have done it without him. Yeah, absolutely.
Bobbi Rebell:
All right, I want to talk about your money tip because it is something that so many people don't even think twice about, they just assume it's the best thing to do, but maybe not always.
Hilary Hendersh:
Yeah, so when you buy a car from a dealership they give you this schedule of appointments that you're supposed to be on for maintenance and tune-ups, that's a major profit center for those dealerships, those maintenance garages, or fix it places. So, I just went on Yelp and I found a four and a half star local mechanic and we take our cars there. I don't think I've had more than about $100 in maintenance costs over the last seven to eight years. One time I could literally hear the brake discs grinding on each other and I brought the car in thinking I was going to spend ... I had mentally budgeted like $1,000. I was like, "Maybe it'll be like $700 but I don't want to be disappointed, so I'll mentally budget $1,000."
Hilary Hendersh:
The guy said, "I'm going to retool it, it costs $49." It's like I can't spend money at this place if I try to, so that's my tip.
Bobbi Rebell:
So what do you think goes on that people are always feeling like they have to go the dealerships? And full disclosure, when we bought our car we did pre-pay for a maintenance plan. And so, we are locked in because we've paid for it, to our dealer.
Hilary Hendersh:
It's just a problem of information and education. A lot of people in my world, I see come into my office with things inside their investment portfolio that they don't understand, or aren't good for them, or have hidden fees. And under the hood of the car is the same thing. I myself, I know nothing about vehicles. And so, you want to trust dealer just sold you your car. You've been sitting with them all Saturday afternoon and they say, "This is your maintenance schedule."
Hilary Hendersh:
And you don't want to have to think, "Well I'm being taken advantage of or there's a way I can get it for a quarter of the cost." But you know these are huge profit centers for the dealerships and in my experience is I feel that I've been personally taken advantage of because I didn't know what to say or what to ask for.
Bobbi Rebell:
Well what happened at the dealer that you got burned?
Hilary Hendersh:
I think getting really high ticket maintenance bills. Having to do things like, "Well, we removed the rotor," or whatever.
Hilary Hendersh:
And then you go, "Okay can I see the part?" Because somebody tells you that in order to be a critical consumer you need to ask for your old parts.
Hilary Hendersh:
And they go, "Well, it's already at the dump," or whatever. Just signs of lack of credibility. And it's been so long since I've been to a dealership that I definitely am not going to remember the details, but just the fact of my maintenance costs went from several thousand dollars a year to under $100.
Bobbi Rebell:
Great advice. All right, before I let you go, tell me a little more about Profit Boss Radio and your mission, and a little bit about the show, and where people can find you.
Hilary Hendersh:
Yes, so Profit Boss Radio is your wealth mastermind. So, I take all the best of what I've learned over 18 years as a certified financial planner. I do solo shows on technical topics like, how to debunk economic doomsayers. You know those articles that always say, "The stock market's going to fall. The stock market's a huge bubble." I pull those articles apart and talk through every line item of them so that you understand how to think about and what to do about them when you read them. We've had finance experts such as David Bach and Dan Ariely on the show. I interview everyday entrepreneurs and even some really incredible everyday women, so not media experts but women who have done just remarkable things in their own financial life. I interviewed a single mom, she was left with no money and three kids, she had literally no income and now she owns a major clothing studio and online business living in the house of her dreams having paid cash for all of her kid's college. She was just an incredible interview. So lots of different kinds of topics. The show is designed to empower you financially to take control of your money.
Bobbi Rebell:
Well I am a huge fan of the podcast and of you. Where can people find you and follow you?
Hilary Hendersh:
If you have room in your podcast lineup check out Profit Boss Radio wherever you find your podcast online. You can find me HilaryHendershott.com and that is Hilary with one l and Hendershott with two t's.
Bobbi Rebell:
Thank you so much, this was amazing.
Hilary Hendersh:
Thank you so much for having me.
Bobbi Rebell:
Okay everyone here is my take. The first year's of any relationship that merges finances romantic or not is always challenging. Financial Grownup Tip #1, Hilary did talk to her new husband about the fact that she would not have income in the early stages of her business, but then she didn't follow up with exactly how the cashflow would work. So it was an incomplete discussion. Don't assume that your partner is making the leap to the next step. While Hilary takes ownership of her actions and feels she should have told him she was spending on his account, and she should have, why didn't he point out the charges to her? Because here's the really alarming thing about this story, given that he did not ask her or anyone about the charges that were appearing on his bill, how did he know that they were not unauthorized charges from strangers, and that his credit card and/or identity had not been compromised?
Bobbi Rebell:
So Financial Grownup Tip #2, if more than one person in your family is using a credit card or even a debit card you need to really be communicating. So taking it beyond the spouse example, maybe to build credit you put your teenage child on a credit card, or some people may give a caregiver a debit card to pay for expenses for a child. Make sure that person is giving you receipts or at the very least communicating what their buying. You may assume that because for example, they shop at Walmart every charge from Walmart is legit and is theirs, but a smart thief might make charges at places you already shop thus avoiding detection. Just think about it.
Bobbi Rebell:
Thank you all for spending some time with us. Feel free to binge a little and check out some other episodes. Learn more about Financial Grownup at BobbiRebell.com/FinancialGrownupPodcast and do follow us on social media. I am on Twitter @BobbiRebell and on Instagram at Bobbi Rebell 1.
Bobbi Rebell:
Hilary's relationship with her hubby is still going strong as is her growing financial advisory business. Be sure to check out Profit Boss Radio for more great insights from Hilary, and thank you to my friend for bringing us all one step closer to being Financial Grownups.
Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup with Bobbi Rebell is edited and produced by Steve Stuart and is a BRK Media production.
Jessi Fearon lives her Real Life on a Budget- but getting her husband in line when he saw a great sale on Fireworks was still a challenge. Plus her tips on how she got her book buying obsession under control!
In Jessi’s money story you will learn:
-Why her husband blew the budget on fireworks!
-How he tried to avoid telling her about the splurge
-How she reacted when she found out he spent more on fireworks than on their wedding
-What her husband’s buddies had to say about the situation
-What else the Fearon’s could have bought with the money he spent on the fireworks
-The upside of the incident: they had their first big money talk as a couple
-The mindset that allowed Jessi to forgive her husband, and give him a roadmap for handing future temptations
In Jessi’s money lesson you will learn:
-Tools to put in play if you are a saver married to a spender
-How to better understand and manage the mindset of an unintentional spender
-Specific ways Jessi and her husband set and execute financial priorities
-Exactly how much money Jessi now gives her husband when he goes shopping for fireworks
In Jessi’s every day money tip you will learn:
-How Jessi spent over $250 in one year on books on Amazon.com
-How she was tempted to spend more than she realized
-How Jessi rediscovered the library
In my take you will learn:
-Why approaching well-intentioned overspenders in a non-judgemental way can be effective in helping them to adjust their behavour
-Specific pitfalls that trigger us into spending more than we planned, and how to counteract them
-How to understand the mindset of consumers who fall into the trap of spending more than they planned because of well-designed targeted sales tactics
-The benefits of having intentional discussions with anyone with whom you have shared finances.
Episode Links:
Learn more about Jessi’s blog jessifearon.com
Get Jessi’s new free five-day money challenge
Follow Jessi!
Instagram @jessifearon
Twitter @Jessifearon
Facebook @JessiFearon
Transcription
Jessi Fearon:
They were having to buy two, get two free. And so he just kept buying stuff, and he said, “I didn't even pay attention when I checked out how much it was”. They looked at the receipt, and his buddy was like, “dude, you seriously spent $700 on fireworks”.
Bobbi Rebell:
You're listening to Financial Grownup with me, certified financial planner, Bobbi Rebell, author of How to be a Financial Grownup. But you know what? Being a grown up is really hard, especially when it comes to money. But it's okay. We're gonna get there together. I'm going to bring you one money story from a financial grownup, one lesson, and then my take on how you can make it your own. We got this.
Bobbi Rebell:
Happy 4th of July, my friends, we have a special just for Independence Day money story. Thanks to our friend Jessi Fearon from Real Life on a Budget. Hopefully you are relaxing and not at work today. If you're joining us for the first time, welcome. Glad to have our returning folks as well, and thank you all for the DMs and the social sharing that's been going on. It's been so fun watching the show continue to gain traction, and we have you guys to thank. So, thank you. Hopefully, like I said, you're getting some time off this holiday week. For mom, Jessi Fearon, who is also an accountant, by the way. She celebrates every 4th of July with her husband, her family, and her friends in Georgia. And her husband is in her words, a total pyro. He loves his fireworks. So much so that he blew the budget, literally, which is not going to fly when your wife runs a blog called Real Life on a Budget. Here is Jessi Fearon.
Bobbi Rebell:
Hey Jessi Fearon, you're a financial grownup. Welcome to the podcast.
Jessi Fearon:
Well, thank you Bobbi, I appreciate you having me.
Bobbi Rebell:
And I am a huge fan of your blog, Real Life on a Budget, because you get very real. So, congratulations on the success of all that.
Jessi Fearon:
Thank you.
Bobbi Rebell:
And you manage it down in Georgia with three kids, which is pretty cool.
Jessi Fearon:
Yes. Yes. My sweet three children that can drive me crazy sometimes, but are such a blessing at the same time.
Bobbi Rebell:
And not to be forgotten, your husband, who ... This is ... Okay, little bit of trivia here, so your wedding, for fans of your blog, they already know this. Your wedding cost all of $500.
Jessi Fearon:
Yes.
Bobbi Rebell:
But, your husband spent even more, more than ... Your husband spent more than your entire wedding budget on fireworks. So this is an episode that we're going to drop in honor of July 4th. You have the ultimate July 4th money story. Go for it, Jessi.
Jessi Fearon:
Okay, well, a real quick little just background. It was our first year as a married couple. So we decided that we were going to celebrate the 4th of July with a good old American barbecue. And at the time our state, Georgia. You couldn't buy fireworks in the state of Georgia. You had to go outside the state. And so my husband and his buddies, they load up the truck, and they take the two hour trek over to Alabama. They buy fireworks, and they come back. And I'll never forget it. Me and my girlfriends were watching the truck pull in, and it literally looked like the Clampetts coming down the road. There were so many fireworks in the bed of this truck, it was insane. I mean, I even commented to one of the friends, I was like, "oh my goodness, it looks like they just bought fireworks enough for town hall to shoot off tonight". And so as I'm walking up to the truck, my husband's friends had this look on their face.
Bobbi Rebell:
Oh, oh. Like this guilty look?
Jessi Fearon:
Yeah. It's like they didn't want to talk to me, they didn't wanna look at me. It was almost like they were afraid they were gonna witness a murder or something, like they just didn't want to talk to me. And I was like, okay. And so I kind of made a joke to one of them. I said, "good mighty, how much did y'all spend"? And the one friend goes, "oh no, it wasn't us". "It was not y'all, it was your husband". What? I look over at my husband, I'm like, "honey, how much did you spend"? And so he starts going to this big deal about how they had this great sale, that it was like, buy two, get two free, and blah blah blah. And I'm like, "okay honey, how much did you spend"? And he was like, "oh, we'll talk about it later". So in my mind I'm thinking, okay, he spent a lot of money. He spent probably like $200. I'm thinking that's an insane amount of money. How could you spent $200 on fireworks, right?
Bobbi Rebell:
So you're guessing he splurged and spent about $200.
Jessi Fearon:
Yeah.
Bobbi Rebell:
What happens next?
Jessi Fearon:
I cornered my husband and I finally got him to tell me how much she spent. But he spent $702.48 on fireworks. And I literally couldn't believe it. I thought he was joking. I kept looking at him like, what? No you did not. That's our rent money. How could you spend $700 on fireworks? And I was so mad, and so upset, I didn't scream and yell, but it was one of those things where you could just tell that I was really upset about this. I couldn't talk to anybody anymore. I was like, how could you spend $700 on fireworks?
Bobbi Rebell:
Right, and to put that in context too, you do disclose some of your budgeting and your expenses online, but give us a high level, what would $700 buy in the Fearon household in a typical month?
Jessi Fearon:
That would have bought groceries for about three months at that time, because it was just the two of us. So that would have bought groceries for about three months. That would have paid the one car payment that we had for two months. It would have definitely covered utilities probably for about six months, at the time. And it was in fact our rent money. So it was quite the expense. It definitely was not planned. I really did not think my husband was going to spend that much money. To say that my husband's a pyro is a little bit of an understatement. He likes to blow stuff up.
Bobbi Rebell:
So what happened next? You have this talk.
Jessi Fearon:
Yes. So the next morning, I remember I was still so mad. I could not believe it. And the thing is, that you can't return fireworks. It's a nonrefundable sale. So, it's not like we could take back any fireworks, because I mean, again, my husband bought so many fireworks, we couldn't even shoot them all off that one night. We had to shoot them off on Labor Day and then on New Year's Day, because there were so many still left. I remember we were cleaning up from the party and we were putting all the fireworks that were left over in the garage. I remember, I was so, so mad, and I kept thinking like, I just wanna scream, I just want to yell. But then the more and more I thought about it, I thought, okay, if I just scream and yell we're not going to get anywhere in this conversation. So why don't I just kind of calm down and take my emotions out of it, and talk to him about this, because I really need to know why he would spend $700. I was raised in a very frugal household, and you don't spend $700 on fireworks. Only people with yachts spend $700 on fireworks. Why would you do this? And so I remember I just kind of turned around to my husband and I was like, "this was a lot of fireworks". And he goes, "it kind of is, isn't it"? "I went a little overboard, didn't I"? And I was like, "yeah honey, you went a little overboard". "So you want to tell me about this because this was a lot of money you spent". This is the first time that I really got to see how, because I'm a saver, my husband's a spender. And so this is first time I got to see how kind of a spender, for him anyways, rationalized his purchase. And it was because of that really awesome sale they were having. They were having to buy two, get two free. And so he just kept buying stuff. And he said, "I didn't even pay attention when I checked out how much it was". He said, it wasn't until we were halfway home that one of his buddies had asked how much did you spend? And they looked at the receipt, and his buddy was like, "dude, you seriously spent $700 on fireworks". And my husband couldn't believe it. He didn't even think it was going to be that much money because he thought he was saving a whole bunch of money. So for us this was the first real money conversation that we actually had as a married couple. We had been married for almost a year. Our anniversary is July 24th. And so we had been married for almost a year at this point, and this is the first time that we really sat down and talked about money, because even though we knew one day we wanted to have kids, or one day we wanted to buy a house, we had no plans for any of that. And so, this situation kind of pushed us into actually having to sit down and have a conversation about money, and we started realizing, okay, if we don't come together and be a team on this, there's going to be more and more $700 expenses on random stuff that isn't important, because he certainly wasn't the only one spending money. He just happened to spend a lot of money at one time, versus where, our day to day lives, we were spending little increments of money here and there, without thinking about it. And I think that it really for us kind of showed us that it compounded on itself to this one big $700 purchase where we went into it with no plan to attack at all. So it was quite the interesting thing. And I forgave my husband, obviously, we've been married now for nine years. So I forgave him, and it's kind of become our epic story for our family, about my husband's $700 expense.
Bobbi Rebell:
So looking back, I guess it's about eight years later. What is the lesson for our listeners?
Jessi Fearon:
One, if you are married to a spender, always remember to give a grace, because a lot of times spenders don't recognize that they're spending so much money, because they believe that they're saving money because of the sale. And a lot times spenders are really good at finding the bargains. They really are great at that. And just like spenders always get upset with the saver, when they want to save a bunch of money and not spend it. And so for us it came down to finding that balancing act between being a saver and a spender, and having the honest money conversation where we decided together, okay, how much are we going to spend, how much are we going to save? What is the best of both worlds? And it came down to us writing down what our financial goals were, which was saving for a house, paying off debt, and saving an emergency fund. And all of that. So we were able to put those into the budget, but then we were also able to put in spending money for my husband to go and spend money because he still buys fireworks every 4th of July. And he still spends more than probably what most people would. But now it's a planned thing, and he just gets to carry cash. He has to leave the debit card at home, so he can't go crazy in the firework store anymore.
Bobbi Rebell:
So how much cash is he getting this year in 2018?
Jessi Fearon:
Like I said, it's still more than normal, what most people would spend, but it's $150 that he gets to buy whatever fireworks he wants. So then he can go blow them up all that he wants to.
Bobbi Rebell:
All right. Let's talk about your money tip, because you've gone over budget with things as well. Especially one of your pleasures, which is reading.
Jessi Fearon:
Yes. Oh my goodness. Yes. And like I said, my husband's definitely not the only one that's at fault. I had spent well over $250 in one year on Amazon buying books. And I kind of didn't even realize it because I think Prime makes it so easy. And so does Kindle, where your just buying books, and you see the deals, and you're like, oh my gosh, I wanted to read that book. So let me get that one. Oh, Amazon suggests this book. Okay. I like that one.
Bobbi Rebell:
But you were actually reading the books?
Jessi Fearon:
Yes.
Bobbi Rebell:
Because sometimes people buy and they don't read.
Jessi Fearon:
No, I was definitely reading them, because I love, love to read. I read on average of about four book a month, sometimes more, sometimes less. But I just love to read. And here I was just buying all these books and reading, and reading, and getting excited about it. And then when I finally, I usually do, my husband and I will sit down every year and we kind of do a big annual spending review, where we literally look at how much we spent in every single category. And what we spent it on. And when I kinda sat down and realized just how much I had spent in one year on books, I was like, oh. This is my fireworks story, isn't it? I'm like, okay. we got to do something, and so I rediscovered the library. And that has kept me in check this past year so far. So it's been wonderful. I've been able to feed my guilty pleasure without a completely wrecking our budget this time.
Bobbi Rebell:
Love it. All right. Tell us more about what you are up to. I know you've got some new courses on tap.
Jessi Fearon:
Yes. Right now I have a free five day money challenge. All about things that you can do for the next five days. It's only about 10 minutes, 10 minutes or less a day that you can do right now. These steps that will help you to be able to start managing your money better. It will get you started on the right path to taking control over your money, and to stop letting money control you, and start putting you at the helm of your finances.
Bobbi Rebell:
Excellent. And where can people find out more about you and your blog?
Jessi Fearon:
They can find me at jessifearon.com, and on Instagram, twitter, and Facebook at Jesse Fearon. I'm constantly on Instagram trying to just share all the little snippets of our real life and all of its imperfect details. Everything for my husband working his side hustle here recently to buy a new boat motor, and our [inaudible 00:12:03] vacation that we go on for the cheap.
Bobbi Rebell:
Awesome. Well, thank you so much and have a great 4th of July.
Jessi Fearon:
Well, thank you Bobbi. You too.
Bobbi Rebell:
Okay everyone, one thing that Jessi said really resonated when she talked about how a saver, like herself, can better understand a spender, and it has to do with the mindset of the spenders. Financial grownup tip number one. Jessi says, if you're married or in a relationship to a spender, always remember, give them grace. Many spenders are well intentioned, and go off track thinking in that moment when they're making the buying decision, that they're saving money. Seeing a two for one sale sets off a feeling of excitement. So many of us have fallen into buying more of an item than we intended because of the way the seller has priced it. They're smart, they know what they're doing. It sometimes is a better deal. In fact, never once did Jessi criticize the fact that the per firework price of what her husband bought wasn't a deal. He may have gotten good value. He just spent too much. She gets it. And I love her empathy and understanding. By figuring out the mindset of her husband, she was able to steer him on a healthier path and give him the tools. Okay, and also she gave him restricted cash on a budget this year, to resist the next great deal, rather than just screaming at him that he blew the budget.
Bobbi Rebell:
Financial grownup tip number two. Jessi also talks about the fact that this was the very first time the two of them had really sat down and intentionally talked about money. They didn't have kids yet, but they were newlyweds and they had no plan. So if you're in a relationship that involves shared financial resources, maybe have a little chat. If you are not already, please hit that subscribe button, and if you are listening on Apple Podcast or iTunes, please rate the podcast and leave a review. They really matter. Also, if you like the show, just tell a friend to check us out as well. And thanks to Jessi for giving us such a great Independence Day story. Let's all go out and celebrate with our friends and family. Maybe take Jessi's advice, and read a good book. Libraries are great. Also though, it's also nice to buy books on occasion, because we want to support our authors and value what they contribute as well. Authors need to make a living. So, it's a balance. Be sure to check out Real Life on a Budget and Jessi's great free course. I will leave links to both in the show notes. And thank you Jessi 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.
Author Cristina Alger wrote her first book, The Darlings as a side hustle while working 120 hours a week as a lawyer. When she ditched the day job to write full time, Cristina also walked away from the pricey perks. But the author of The Bankers Wife, quickly found herself with the time to create better benefits for herself and her family.
Cristina Alger is a lifelong New Yorker. A graduate of Harvard College and NYU Law School, she worked as a financial analyst and a corporate attorney before becoming a writer. Her third novel, THE BANKER'S WIFE, will be published on July 3 by Penguin Random House. She lives in New York with her husband and two children.
In Cristina’s money story you will learn:
-How and why she came to work in finance after college even though she had been an English major and says she had no financial skills
-How and why she wrote the Darlings while working 120 hours a week as a corporate lawyer, often on the road
-How she got the book published
-How she had to adjust her budget and spending lifestyle when she left her corporate job to write fulltime
-Specific examples of the changes she made to lower her spending, but make up for it with time
In Cristina’s money lesson you will learn:
-How at her corporate job Cristina had to use money to make up for the lack of time she had
-How as a writer, Cristina now has time to make up for the lack of steady paycheck
-The specific current changes Cristina makes in her every day life to improve the quality of her family time and her overall lifestyle
In Cristina’s everyday money tip you will learn:
-How Cristina and her husband have disrupted the common advice to hire babysitters and go out in order to really have a date night as parents of young children
-Exactly what they do to protect the time, and to focus on each other, not distractions around their home
-Ideas for how you can create time in your life for special moments - without spending more money than you would like.
-Other benefits from at-home date nights, including avoiding all the stress and to-do list of setting up the going-out date night!
About how Cristina researched her book “The Bankers Wife”
-She learned about Geneva as a child visiting her uncle
-As an ex-pat she was fascinated by the glamorous and mysterious world of swiss banking and offshore banking
-She is fascinated by the Panama Papers and used them for ideas. They were leaked while she was writing the book in the summer of 2016,
-Another case that inspired her was that of whistelblower Bradley Birkenfeld, who exposed how UBS helped ultra-wealthy Americans commit billions in tax fraud.
-Birkenfeld went to prison for 30 months, but when he got out he got $104 million from the IRS as a whistleblowers fee!
In my take you will learn:
-How to find the time to do what you love, even if you feel like you are too busy
-How to determine if in fact you should not try to find the time- because ultimately it’s not that important to you, or not realistic during this phase of your life.
-Ways to come to terms with your actual priorities not being what you think they SHOULD be.
-The difference between side hustles for enjoyment, and side hustles for pay.
-Ways to approach and re-think the pressure from friends and family to have a formal ‘date night’ when you really do have other financial needs- or the planning of the date night is creating stress.
EPISODE LINKS:
Learn more about Cristina Alger and her other books at her website:
CristinaAlger.com where you can also buy her book.
Follow Cristina!
Facebook: @AuthorCristinaAlger
Instagram: cristina.alger
Twitter: CristinaAlger
Here are some great articles about the Panama Papers:
International Consortium of Investigative Journalists
https://www.icij.org/investigations/panama-papers/
NY Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/06/us/panama-papers.html
The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/news/series/panama-papers
Wired: https://www.wired.com/2016/04/reporters-pulled-off-panama-papers-biggest-leak-whistleblower-history/
Here is more about Bradley Birkenfeld.
https://lucifersbanker.com!
You can read more about him in his book: https://lucifersbanker.com/books/lucifers-banker/overview/
Transcription
Cristina Alger:
There was a salad place in basement of my loft apartment, we used to go everyday for lunch and you'd spend 30 dollars on a salad and kind of not think anything of it, and a lot of times we'd expense it to the firm and you can't do that anymore.
Bobbi Rebell:
You're listening to Financial Grown Up with my, certified financial planner Bobbi Rebell, author of How to be a Financial Grown Up, but you know what, being a grown up is really hard, especially when it comes to money, but it's okay. We're going to get there together, I'm going to bring you one money story from a financial grown up, a lesson, and then my take on how you can make it your own. We got this.
Bobbi Rebell:
Hey friends, the glam life of an entrepreneur, you can work from the beach, but you also need to watch out for those 30 dollar a day salads because that expense account has sailed away. Welcome everyone, so glad you are here, we have a great guest today in novelist Cristina Alger, whose latest book the financial thriller, The Bankers Wife, kept me up all weekend, I could not put it down until the very last page and it was a good ending. The book is fiction but also very realistic, taking us into the secretive world of Swiss banking and chock full of villains, if you can figure out who exactly are the villains. You can really tell that in Cristina's background in banking and law as well as growing up in a family that worked in finance, gave her insights into this actually really crazy world that we haven't seen before in a novel, at least not that I'm aware of.
Bobbi Rebell:
This book takes you on quite the adventure. Alger wrote her first book, The Darlings, as a side hustle while working 120 hours a week, when she ditched the day job though to write full time Cristina also walked away from those pricey perks and she had to learn to be quite the financial grown up, you're going to love this story. Here is Cristina Alger. Hey Cristina Alger, you're a financial grown up, welcome to the podcast.
Cristina Alger:
Thank you, thank you for having me.
Bobbi Rebell:
Thank you so much for taking over my weekend, I spent the weekend reading your new book, I got a sneak peak at it, The Bankers Wife. We're going to talk more about it after your money story, but just high level, give us a little sneak peak?
Cristina Alger:
Well the bankers wife is a thriller and it's set sort of in Europe and New York and it's about a woman who is an ex pat, an American ex pat living in Geneva, and her husband is a private banker and he goes missing on a private plane, and she goes in search of him. It's really kind of a fun fast paced thriller that kind of takes you through the world of off shore banking.
Bobbi Rebell:
So we love that, a money thriller, and to get to the point where you are giving us this wonderful novel, and by the way it's your third novel, you had to leave your corporate job and become your own boss and that involved some big money decisions of your own. Nothing quite as dramatic as what goes on in The Bankers Wife, trust me, this book goes there, but lets hear about your life and your money story?
Cristina Alger:
Yeah, when I graduated in college, I was an English major, I had no actual marketable skills and I went to work at Goldman Sachs.
Bobbi Rebell:
Okay, let me just correct that, you must have had some skills to get a job at Goldman Sachs, but go on.
Cristina Alger:
Well I had no financial skills and I grew up in a family where both my mom and my father worked in finance, I had never taken economics, I had never taken accounting, my dad passed away when I was a senior in college.
Bobbi Rebell:
I'm sorry.
Cristina Alger:
And I sort of realized that I had to start paying my own bills and so I decided to take the highest paying job I could get, which was a financial analyst at Goldman Sachs and they were one of the few banks that were hiring people out of undergrad who did not have a finance background, so I took that job and I sort of stuck with that through my 20's. I went to law school and when I came out of ... I became a corporate lawyer because I had spent these two years at Goldman Sachs learning how to be a financial analyst. So I spent about 10 years doing finance in sort of various roles and I wrote The Darlings really as a passion project, I wrote it while I was working as a lawyer and ...
Bobbi Rebell:
So let me just ... so it was a side hustle, was it intended to make money or just ... it was just a project?
Cristina Alger:
No, it was just a project, I never thought it would get published ... actually even intended for it to see the light of day. I sent it to a writer friend of mine who asked, so are you still writing, are you still working on sort of creative projects, and so I sent this to her and she sent it to her agent, and her agent called me and said I really like this, do you want to publish it. I thought oh wow, I don't know if I have the time to do that, so I sort of hemmed and hawed about it ...
Bobbi Rebell:
And the economics, I mean I don't know what the advance was but you're in a job that you've said you're in for the money and now I mean it's a first time novel, it might pay well but probably not the same?
Cristina Alger:
No, and it's funny, being a lawyer and being a novelist are complete opposites. I mean being a lawyer is such a consistent steady job, you know you're really paid salary, it's a salary based job, the bonuses are not huge, and it's just a very consistent job. You sort of stay there, you keep your head down, you work hard and you get paid very well and you have great benefits and it's a very conservative kind of risk averse job. Obviously being a writer is the exact opposite, you get paid in kind of these lump sums, you never know when you're going to get paid next, there are no benefits, so ... it's a huge transition.
Bobbi Rebell:
So how did you make that transition?
Cristina Alger:
So we took the book to auction, it actually did really well at auction and we sold it for a fairly large advance, but it was a big leap for me. It was really stressful, it was hard in the beginning to figure out how to be my own boss and how to kind of manage my budget given that I wasn't getting a consistent salary.
Bobbi Rebell:
So what did you do, what was it like?
Cristina Alger:
I set up a budget that would carry me through the next year and I really stuck to it. In fact, every month I was sort of coming under my budget because I was so scared that I would run out of money.
Bobbi Rebell:
So give us an example of something maybe that you would have done in your lawyer life financially and you weren't doing anymore as a novelist, year one?
Cristina Alger:
Okay, yeah. Well the first thing and the most obvious thing that I actually ... and this is the change that I will never go back, I stopped doing take out. I just stopped, I now cook lunch and dinner, I bring my lunch to work if I'm going somewhere. I mean New York is sort of dangerous because there's so many quick lunch options and dinner options around but it's expensive, it adds up. So there was this salad place in the basement of my loft apartment, we used to go every day for lunch and you'd spend 30 dollars on a salad and kind of not think anything of it. A lot of times we'd expense it to the firm and you can't do that anymore, so I had to get much more organized about doing meal planning and grocery shopping and ... but I also had more time, so I actually really enjoy cooking and that's something that my husband and I do a lot together and my kids and I now do it together. So it's been actually a really positive change, but we save a lot of money as a family by not really eating out very much.
Cristina Alger:
We almost never do take out, so that's one thing. Then another is that I don't take cabs anywhere, I was always in a rush when I was at my law firm and I was always traveling around the city. I literally can't remember the last time I took a cab, I walk everywhere, I take the subway, my kids love the bus, that's a huge cost savings. I also realized that I don't have to dry clean my clothes the way I did when I was a lawyer, when I was a lawyer I was wearing a suit every day and I would honestly throw things in the dry cleaning bin because I was just too lazy to think about it and ...
Bobbi Rebell:
And busy, you were working 120 hours a week.
Cristina Alger:
I know. Then you know, I was a lot more conscious about going out with friends at night and the money I was spending on entertainment and that kind of thing.
Bobbi Rebell:
What is the lesson then for our listeners, what's their take away from this?
Cristina Alger:
One of the thing that I realize is when you work these very intense corporate jobs, you're spending money to create time, and that goes away when you cease to have a job that takes over your whole life. So a lot of the things that I was spending money on I realized didn't actually bring me any joy, they were just ... I was spending money to save time. So I was paying for a housekeeper, I was paying for transportation as I said, I was paying for take out, and all these things really what I was buying was time because I was so busy that I couldn't ... I didn't have the time to go grocery shopping and sit out on a Sunday and plan out what I was going to eat for the whole week and when you get back some of that time and you reclaim that time, you can actually save a lot of money because you're not making decisions kind of on the fly based on what's the most convenient thing to do right then.
Bobbi Rebell:
Let's talk about your everyday money tip because it's kind of along the same theme and it's really about date night with your husband.
Cristina Alger:
Yes.
Bobbi Rebell:
Because now you're married, when The Darlings came along you were single, and when The Bankers Wife comes along now you are married.
Cristina Alger:
I am, I am, we have started doing date night at home and we cook a really nice elaborate dinner and we light candles, we set the table, and my husband brings me flowers, a date at home and it's really nice. Sometimes we'll watch a show or a movie on the couch and we'll drink wine and sort of do whatever we would do at a restaurant, but at home. We save money because it's just infinitely cheaper to eat at home but we also save on babysitting and sort of the mental gymnastics of getting a babysitter, so ... we just find it so much easier to be like okay, Thursday night we're doing it. It makes a big difference when you set the table and you use real silver wear and you're not sort of shoving food in your mouth because you have to put your kids down in the next 30 minutes.
Cristina Alger:
So we kind of make a production of it and it's nice, it's really romantic and my husband actually has now started to cook with me, which is fun. It's a fun different kind of date night so I highly recommend it.
Bobbi Rebell:
So lets talk about The Bankers Wife because I told you this beforehand, I chose to read this rather than watch The Handmaids Tale, which is basically huge, if anyone's every watched The Handmaids Tale, I could not put this book down. I read it in a day and a half, there's a lot of things that happen that at least I didn't see coming at all but make total sense in hindsight, you're like of course, but they don't make sense. Tell us about how you even came up with this idea, did you know about this world, did you know about things like this without getting to into the details, were you witness to this?
Cristina Alger:
I did, you know, I did because ... well I sort of have in two ways. One is the book is set in Geneva and my uncle actually lives in Geneva and so as a child we would spent a lot of time visiting him there and I always thought the ex pat world there was just so glamorous and it's sort of mysterious and ... I just thought it would always be a fabulous sort of setting for a novel. I became really fascinated with the Panama Papers Case, which is the data leak that came out of a Panamanian law firm that did a lot of business with these off shore banks. In the summer of 2016 when I was writing this book the Panama papers had just leaked out and they were all over the news and I'm sort of a nerdy financial news junky, and I just couldn't get enough of this case.
Cristina Alger:
I thought it was so fascinating that someone from inside this law firm had leaked all this really confidential information and it occurred to me that there was this whole world of banking that exists completely outside any sort of regulatory body and it's ... for the ultra rich and it's all operated in kind of numbered bank accounts, and no one knows who owns the numbered bank accounts and it's super shady. It amazed me that there's trillions of dollars in this sort of off shore banking system that exists and all the different people that can be involved, there are drug cartels that store their money, there's Presidents, there are all kinds of people. There was another case I did a lot of research on and it's this man named Bradley Burkenfeld who is an American private banker at UBS, United Bank of Switzerland, and he was a whistleblower.
Cristina Alger:
He ended up ... this is such a crazy story. He knew what he was doing, you know, that he was helping a lot of people evade taxes by having Americans bank at UBS and he knew what he was doing was illegal and he sort of saw the writing on the wall and he ended up becoming a whistleblower for the IRS, and he gave over a lot of confidential information from inside the bank to the DOJ and the IRS. They ended up prosecuting him anyway, so he went to jail.
Bobbi Rebell:
Oh my gosh, really?
Cristina Alger:
Yes, for aiding and embedding, tax evasion, and then he walks out of prison and the IRS awards him I think 114 million dollars because ...
Bobbi Rebell:
The finders fee.
Cristina Alger:
Whistleblower, yes. So it's a totally insane story.
Bobbi Rebell:
Well I think you have another best seller on your hands, so congratulations.
Cristina Alger:
Thank you so much, that's so kind.
Bobbi Rebell:
And where can people find out more about you?
Cristina Alger:
Well you can always go to my website, so it's Cristinaalger.com, it's Cristinaalger.com, and also on Penguin Random House they have pages on all the different authors and the books available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble, so ...
Bobbi Rebell:
And to follow you on all your social channels.
Cristina Alger:
Yes, definitely, I'm all over the place.
Bobbi Rebell:
Thank you Cristina.
Cristina Alger:
No, thank you, it was such a pleasure.
Bobbi Rebell:
So I'm still kind of trying to process how Cristina found the time to write while working 120 hours a week, but therein lies the takeaway, financial grown up tip number 1, if you want to do something you love you will find the time because you won't be able to stop yourself. Notice I didn't say it will necessarily pay, separate topics, whether that project will pay, but Cristina wrote her first book as a way to relax and cope with the stress of her job. As it happens, the book was also really good and she was able to turn it into a profitable project, but that has nothing to do with the fact that she was finding the time while working 120 hours a week. So the next time you feel you don't have time for a project, just think about Cristina and finding those pockets of time in that crazy week. If it feels like it's a chore and you're struggling, maybe it's okay to decide not to do it and do other things or maybe you don't time for anything else, that's okay.
Bobbi Rebell:
So rather than beat yourself up and feel bad about it, just say in this phase of my life I'm not going to do it because I don't have the time and it's not giving me enough joy that I'm going to find a way to make the time, it's okay. Financial grown up tip number 2, we get so many messages these days that we need to build in that date night with our significant other and commit money so that it sticks. When my husband and I had our son, we were told pre-schedule a baby sitter every Saturday night so we were forced to have a date night because things come up otherwise, this way we put money on it, we were going. I have to tell you, paying someone money to sit in our house watching TV while our son slept so we could go to a restaurant, maybe spend money on a taxi to get there, to spend more money for the meal then.
Bobbi Rebell:
It doesn't always work for everyone and sometimes the idea that you're spending all this money puts a lot of pressure on you. Also maybe the money just isn't there for that, maybe your priority is saving for something else, maybe it's paying down debt, maybe that's where your priority is right now and you can make ... and it was great that Cristina pointed this out, you can make a date night at home. Yes, it is absolutely easier to blow off if you haven't made this commitment, but Cristina's example really was telling. The little things are important, her husbands bringing her flowers, they really set the table, that makes a difference. I'm going to try it, maybe you guys can too.
Bobbi Rebell:
If you are enjoying the promos and want one for yourself or your business, follow me on social media and share them, I'm going to be choosing a winner soon and it could be you to get a promo made for you or your business. I am on Twitter @BobbiRebell, on Instagram and BobbiRebell1 and on Facebook my author page is @BobbiRebell. Also, love it when you guys DM me and share your thoughts on the show and also suggest guests that you would like to see on Financial Grown Up. Everyone, go out and get Cristina Alger's new book, The Bankers Wife, it is the perfect summer read and thank you Cristina for sharing all your money saving tips and advice and experiences and helping us all get one step closer to being financial grown ups.
Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grown Up with Bobbi Rebell is edited and produced by Steve Stewart and is a BRK Media production.
