00:02:24.240You and I share a passion for something I think that a lot of my audience has a passion for, which is that women need and deserve financial independence if we want to thrive, if we want to be happy, and if we just want to be productive citizens of the world.
00:02:41.700I couldn't have said it better myself. And I don't think we talk enough about the intersection between our financial well-being and our overall well-being and truly our ability to live a very authentic and meaningful life. It's such a critical, critical component because if you're laying around worried about how you're going to put a roof over your head or how you're going to pay your bills or how you can't dream big, right? You can't think about what you want for your future and make it happen.
00:03:09.300Absolutely. And one of the things that concerns me so much about the rise of the trad girl memes and the soft girl videos on social media, and I say this constantly, I'm like, my biggest issue is always the dependence on a man.
00:03:27.240every time i'm like we we cannot bet our future on a man i mean frankly i think for for anything i
00:03:37.740don't think you should bet your future on any other human being right right on anybody we should0.52
00:03:42.420always be trying to cultivate some kind of independence for ourselves but the trad wife
00:03:49.900themes are so entwined with well let him be the breadwinner let him control the finances
00:03:56.160and it terrifies me because I've, I've never seen that work out well for anyone.
00:04:01.440Never. And I feel like I'm a poster child for, for that. In fact, in, in my, um, you know,
00:04:08.120my journey, my life's journey was certainly very different than, um, what you've described. I never
00:04:13.940intended to rely on someone else ever. Um, but I wanted to give my kids something that I didn't
00:04:20.140have. I grew up in a really dysfunctional family. And, you know, I saw this opportunity and frankly,
00:04:27.320I was forced to make a choice. So and it didn't work out for me, even though my beginnings are
00:04:33.160so much different than what you're talking about on social media. So I get so frustrated over this
00:04:38.200because they're consciously doing it. Right. And I was really unconsciously doing it. And yet,
00:04:44.760you know, everything fell apart and it was one of the most devastating things that have ever
00:04:49.380happened. And now looking back, one of the greatest things that's ever happened. But it's so
00:04:53.700frustrating. So I couldn't agree with you more. Well, tell me a little bit about your story.
00:04:59.480You know, how how did you end up financially dependent on your husband? Yeah. What happened
00:05:05.260when when that marriage ended? And you're like, holy shit, what happens next?0.99
00:05:09.660Yep. That was my wake up call, no doubt. So so like I said, very different from the trad wife0.99
00:05:15.020story and narrative that's out there. I actually was incredibly driven to build my own career,
00:05:21.520never wanted to get married, quite frankly. Again, based on this horrific upbringing,
00:05:27.340which I talk very openly about, because again, I don't think we're talking enough about
00:05:31.940how much our childhood and what we experienced goes into the decisions we make.
00:05:37.740And, you know, so I set off to build an amazing career in investment banking. I did. I got a
00:05:44.380a great job as an analyst at a at a big time investment bank and then quickly, fortunately,
00:05:50.420got into this world of private equity, which is such a big word today. It's everywhere. But back
00:05:56.040then in the late 90s, nobody was in private equity. Right. It was so relatively new. And I
00:06:03.020quickly really climbed within my career. And in my, you know, mid to late 20s was vice president
00:06:09.000of an amazing private equity fund. But also I had married my college sweetheart. We started to have
00:06:15.820a family and, you know, we kind of that whole thing of we can have it all. Well, the reality
00:06:21.700it was is, you know, I was faced with some pretty hard decisions as as a vice president of private
00:06:28.600equity fund asked to go look at a deal in rural Alabama, get on a Cessna, no less, not even a
00:06:34.220A big plane. And I was six months pregnant with a two-year-old at home. My husband at the time
00:06:41.080traveled 150 plus nights a year and something had to give, right? And there was no mentorship
00:06:47.900out there. There was no women in private equity. I had no one to talk to. And I saw that decision1.00
00:06:53.180as very black and white, but yet also very temporary. And I didn't really think about
00:06:58.640the economic consequences of it beyond just losing my income if I left. But I was pretty
00:07:08.080confident that I could come back at any time and I quit, literally. But what I didn't realize back
00:07:14.220then when I made that decision is it eventually led to me leaning out of my entire financial life
00:07:20.560because life gets busy, right? We divide and conquer. That's kind of what happens generally
00:07:27.240in a marriage. And that certainly happened within mine when it came to our household finances.
00:07:32.680I was busy raising kids. Eventually I had three little boys and, you know, I also trusted and
00:07:38.620loved my husband. He was my everything. And I got a little too comfortable in this situation and
00:07:45.320it all worked until it didn't. You know, fast forward about 14 years, I, in a really horrific,
00:07:54.060very short period of time. I mean, literally learned he was having an affair, had been living
00:07:58.740a double life and everything I thought was, wasn't. And it was a really, really, really big
00:08:05.660moment. But when I stopped to think about it, I was like, holy shit, to your point, like not only0.97
00:08:13.660am I losing my security around my family and everything I had dreamed that we had and thought0.97
00:08:19.220we had, but how in the heck am I going to support myself? Like, I don't even know what we have,
00:08:27.280you know, and what I have to work with to rebuild my life. And it was a really big wake-up call,
00:08:32.920you know, and it's really become my life's mission to build awareness around if it can happen to me,
00:08:37.920it can happen to anyone. But also if I can rebuild my life, so can someone that finds
00:08:43.220himself in my shoes. But also I want to I want, you know, to your earlier point, get out there
00:08:49.400that you can't afford to do this and make the mistakes I made, that you've got to maintain
00:08:55.600financial autonomy throughout your entire life. Yeah, I think about it all the time. And when
00:09:02.860I'm talking to these young women and I talk to so many young women who say to me who are like,
00:09:08.260you were the girl boss generation you leaned in your generation doesn't seem that happy
00:09:13.920and i'm like no girl i'm good i just realized how much we still have to fight right to be able to
00:09:20.140get the things that we deserve this is unhappiness this is tenacity that's right but i watched my
00:09:28.560own mother who was a teacher she she still worked but she let my father do all of the financial
00:09:34.680things. He died. She finds out he had a second mortgage on the house. She has no idea where
00:09:38.680any of that money went. She's in debt. He hasn't paid taxes in 10 years. Like, it was a disaster.
00:09:45.380And I'm like, it can happen to anyone. I don't want to say, don't get married, don't fall in
00:09:50.540love. But men die, men cheat, men, you know, will leave. Like, as could anyone. This isn't
00:09:57.100just a male bashing thing. It's anyone could do that. That's right. And also, Joe, it's important
00:10:02.720to note that it doesn't even have to be death or divorce. It could be the loss of a business. It
00:10:07.600could be, you know, the loss of a job. It could be a medical crisis. Right. And and, you know,
00:10:14.260suddenly, you know, in that case, a family is sitting here facing a crisis, not just as a
00:10:20.660single person, but as a married or a partnered couple. And it shouldn't just be one person's
00:10:25.700responsibility to figure it all out, right? I think we have to think more about what makes
00:10:34.580a true partnership, right? And have a more equal balance so that the family isn't at risk. And
00:10:39.900you're not at risk if you do find yourself alone. Yeah. I mean, because we are also living in a
00:10:46.100world of massive job uncertainty. That's right. I took my son to a comedy show this weekend. He's
00:10:53.780eight. It was his first one. It was a very family friendly one. We saw Nate Bergotzi and the opener
00:10:58.480was was was another comedian who was talking to an 11 year old boy in the audience. And he's like,
00:11:04.240what do you want to be when you grow up? And the kid's like, I don't know. And the comedian's like,
00:11:07.560that's OK. We don't know what's going to be available. Well said. And I was like, well said,
00:11:13.900sir. Well, yeah, I don't know what's available right now. Right. And so so many of the women
00:11:20.920that I know were in marriages where everyone worked for 10, 15 years, and then their husbands
00:11:27.440lose their jobs and can't get another job, right? So it just doesn't make sense to not have this
00:11:33.340financial literacy and independence right from the start. And that's the message I just want
00:11:38.520to hammer home to all people, not just young women, all people growing up.
00:11:45.240well yeah and i pray and hope that my story can be not only something that inspires a woman that
00:11:54.120has gone alongside and lived a similar journey or path but also a very much a cautionary tale
00:11:59.860of what could happen right um but i also think it's important joe to unpack the why behind it
00:12:06.280like you know and i think my journey fortunately i really used it as an opportunity to really think
00:12:12.800about how did I get into this mess really? Right. Like despite my my I loved math. I loved my
00:12:19.160finance classes. I had a business degree from USC. You know, I wanted to be in the world of
00:12:24.740corporate finance. I did it. I love this stuff. And yet I still abdicate it. And so, you know,
00:12:30.480for me, and I think it's helpful for other people. Why? Like, why do we have this lack of confidence
00:12:36.580around money or this, this, this enormous trust, right, on the other side that someone could do
00:12:46.540it better. And I can afford to lean out of these conversations. I think we're, you know, at least
00:12:51.880what I'm seeing, and I'd be curious to hear your thoughts around this. I think we're living in such
00:12:55.680an exciting time for women on what I like to call the front end of, of earning and money, which1.00
00:13:02.200means, or the front end of money, which means our ability to earn.
00:13:05.240I'm seeing these young women, you know, you know, I'm in my fifties, I'm watching, you
00:13:11.600know, my, I have three sons, I'm watching their girlfriends and their friends that are
00:19:35.840And you have five steps to build a structured financial plan that will work for an individual. I don't want to give away the whole book, but just give me give me a little taste of what that looks like.
00:19:47.700You got it. Yeah. And, you know, overall, there are there are five to your point building blocks and then two more that once you're there, things you need to think about.
00:19:58.720And I'll get to that in a second. But, you know, first, definitely unpack your relationship with money that I talked about. I think next, too often, we don't sit in, you know, where are we really today? And have honest conversations. Because again, depending on where we're at financially and, you know, what we have and don't have, that can actually make us feel more insecure and let that shame creep in.
00:20:25.320But you have to really examine where you're at and have and look hard at, you know, what do you currently own? What do you owe? You know, what is what's your income look like? Is it diversified? Are you at risk? Right. But more importantly, what are those outflows look like?
00:20:41.960And I think that's where we are living in this world where it's harder and harder to actually, um, track some of that stuff because so much is automated. Right. Um, and, and we have to examine that because if you want to get somewhere, it's just kind of, I hate to use this overused analogy, but it's so true.
00:21:02.180if you want to lose weight, you kind of have to look at what's my current lifestyle and what do
00:21:07.000I weigh, right? And what's my behaviors every day so that I know what to change. So that's kind of
00:21:13.160step number two. And then, you know, as you go, it's, it gets into, you got to understand how
00:21:20.780money works. I think too often we focus or what's out there is a bunch of rules. You should be doing
00:21:27.540this. All debt is bad. Always pay cash for a car. You know, there's all these are just some of the
00:21:32.420examples. And we shouldn't be living in a society with a bunch of rules. If we really want to be
00:21:39.560empowered around this, I believe we need tools. We need to really learn how money works so that
00:21:46.040we can apply some of these tools that I teach throughout the book in our everyday life when
00:21:53.360we're faced with decisions to make, right? That's only going to build confidence. You know, I always
00:21:59.100say confidence, you can't give someone confidence. You can't give it to our kids. We can't give it
00:22:04.680to each other. We can't give it to ourselves. We have to earn it. We have to develop it. And so
00:22:09.720learning and having tools to rely on and then using those tools and going, wow, I feel really
00:22:17.740good to see. Those are the building blocks that slowly by slowly, but surely we really become
00:22:23.280powerhouses in this, right? We become extremely confident and, you know, and our abilities expand
00:22:29.100as some of the complexities around investment choices and things that we can make,
00:22:34.240we feel much more secure about. So that's hugely, and I believe there's only four principles you
00:22:40.120need to learn. I think too often women think, men too, everyone thinks, oh, finance is complicated.
00:22:46.420it. No, it's not. If you can add, subtract, multiply, and divide and truly embrace what I
00:22:53.520believe are these, you know, four basic principles, opportunity costs, compounding, diversification,
00:22:58.940and frankly, arbitrage, which is a little bit of a complex word, but it's really not. It just
00:23:03.120sounds scary. It can have a profound impact on your overall financial well-being, but you can't
00:23:09.340learn anything on the surface. You got to dig deep and really learn this stuff and apply it.
00:23:14.340Um, and so those are kind of the basics that then set you up to your plan, to build your
00:23:21.000own plan and figure out how to make shifts in your day to day, um, that really start
00:23:26.880to put you on the right path to, uh, to financial freedom and security.
00:23:32.500What are some of the things that you did?
00:23:34.720How old were you when this happened to you?
00:23:43.860I didn't. And I was 40 as I set off to build this new life. And I think one of the things I did
00:23:52.220was lean into what I could control. I hadn't worked, believe it or not. This was never my
00:24:00.500intention. And despite my, like I said, my background and my, and this amazing career I'd
00:24:06.760started. I ultimately, life happened and I really hadn't worked for 13 years. I did stuff. I did a
00:24:15.160lot of stuff. There were more hobbies that made a little bit of money, but it wasn't like I was
00:24:19.560really staying in the game with my earning power. So if I couldn't control that and I knew it was
00:24:25.680going to take a little bit of time to rebuild my career and have income, I started to focus on what
00:24:31.100I could control. And that was, how do I begin to put what little money I had to work to begin to
00:24:38.020build wealth for myself? And how do I adjust my living expenses so that I could understand a lot
00:24:48.500of what I was spending was on wants and not needs. And I need to focus on the needs and prioritize
00:24:54.460investing in myself and my and my, you know, my wealth and to to grow. So I think too often we
00:25:03.660jump in and are like, I got to focus on my income. And I'm here to say, if you really begin to think
00:25:11.740about, you know, income is really important. Don't get me wrong. It's huge. But if you begin to
00:25:18.200really think about the other thing you have in your that you have to work with you, which is,
00:25:22.640you know, your balance sheet. Right. And even if you don't have very little, how do I become more
00:25:27.680strategic with that to start growing that? And that's where I focus. I also knew emotionally I
00:25:34.380was a disaster and and that it was giving me some real limiting beliefs and a lot of self-doubt and
00:25:40.480a lot of imposter syndrome about how I was going to rebuild my career. So I leaned into what felt
00:25:45.680comfortable. And that was the financial aspect, given my background. So that may not be the case
00:25:51.440for everyone. But I think my big pieces of advice, focus on what you control and focus on what you're
00:25:57.340already feeling confident about so that you can continue to build that growth mindset instead of
00:26:03.960living in scarcity, which, of course, a lot of us live in when we go through massive transitions.
00:26:11.740And transitions can look like a lot of different things. It can look like a divorce. It can look
00:26:16.540like losing your job. That's right. I really like your suggestion to have a money date with yourself.
00:26:24.720Yeah. What do your money dates look like? Yeah. Well, thank you for that, because I think if you
00:26:30.260back up for one second, I think you can have the best laid out plan in the world. But if you don't
00:26:35.160have a real commitment to living out your plan every day and staying connected to your money,
00:26:43.760all it doesn't matter how great your plan is it will fail right it's just you've got to continue
00:26:49.680to water the garden and so the bunny date that you bring up is a huge component of that and
00:26:55.340because it's your time to sit my time to sit right with with myself but also with a computer in hand
00:27:02.800and to go through all this stuff and to look for surprises or to look look for unintentional
00:27:08.480surprises like fraud and things like that which always happen but also surprises of wow i didn't
00:27:13.700really think about how much those little things add up. And suddenly I had no idea my credit card
00:27:18.540balance was that high. So what a money date is, is, you know, setting aside about 15 to 20 minutes
00:27:25.200every week. I typically do it on a Saturday morning with a cup of coffee in hand in bed,
00:27:31.480right, you know, after I'm, you know, kind of chilling. And I just kind of look through
00:27:35.900everything, every single account I have and just do. And the more you do it, frankly, the more
00:27:42.600automated and quicker it becomes, right? It's just like building a new habit. And you can't imagine
00:27:48.760what I discover. I think you might laugh at this. I don't know how old your kids are, but like my
00:27:53.940youngest is now a senior in college and he knows that every single Saturday morning I'm having my
00:27:59.420money date because even before he wakes up, I've got texts going to him of, excuse me, what was
00:28:05.060this uber eats charge and why is that on your credit card why is it on mine so so um you know
00:28:14.040i think the money it's teaching him pretty good money habits too i hope yeah i mean that is one
00:28:19.740of the things my kids are much younger so i've got a eight a five and a two but we already talk
00:28:24.760about money a lot for your house way more than we ever did when i was growing up and my parents
00:28:30.160were such crap with money that is why i'm a psychopath about money and budgeting um and
00:28:35.860saving and i mean which drives my husband insane but i'm like you grew up with parents who were0.98
00:28:42.340very careful with their money i grew up raised by financial wolves and so therefore i am deadly
00:28:50.360serious about this and i talk to my kids about how much things cost all the time i'm like do you want
00:28:54.420to see our taxes my son's like no and i'm like you should really see our taxes well can i um i'd
00:28:59.800love to break that down a little bit if you don't mind please do well actually let's take a quick
00:29:03.940break and then you can totally dissect perfect great okay we are back go for it all right well
00:29:17.200it's so interesting you brought that up because that is such a real like goes back to the importance
00:29:21.440of understanding your relationship with money and i love it sounds like you had a very similar path
00:29:26.940than me is my my dad was horrible with money. My mom had no control over it. As I said, my dad did
00:29:32.960everything, despite the fact that he didn't know how to do it. He knew how to earn it, but he didn't
00:29:37.740know how to, you know, put it to work the right way. He just spent it all. And so like you, I did
00:29:44.220the opposite. I became much like you when suddenly I was at the helm of this and I was felt like, oh,
00:29:51.220my gosh, I'm always going to live on the brink of financial disaster. Right. Because I watched
00:29:55.740him do it. And I really had to build awareness around it. But what you just highlighted is so
00:30:02.060important when you're in partnerships, your partner may have a completely different relationship with
00:30:08.180money. And until you understand what that relationship looks like and how dramatically
00:30:14.520similar or different it is than yours, you're not going to have constructive conversations around it
00:30:19.060because you're going to say things, right? And think that they're going to be interpreted the
00:30:24.780way that you would interpret them. But really, they're not. They may be completely, they may
00:30:30.180trigger him in ways that are so confusing to you. So by unpacking not only your money story,
00:30:37.560but also your partners or even your children's building awareness on what are you doing to
00:30:43.220create a money story for them, until you do that, it's really hard, I think, to have these
00:30:48.680very, you know, cohesive conversations as a partnership and as a family. So, you know,
00:30:57.280I throw that out because I'm often asked, gosh, it's always a source of conflict. How do we,
00:31:01.980how do I get on a better page with my partner on this? Or I've always been uninvolved in this and
00:31:08.600now I really want to get involved, but how do I start conversations around it when I've never
00:31:14.840been in the game that don't trigger him or her. So I think it's important to spotlight that.
00:31:21.340And by the way, I love that you're already talking about this as a family, because that's
00:31:26.580oftentimes why we're not seeing this progress, right? It's not taught in school. So much of what
00:31:32.460we're doing, again, despite progress we're making in other aspects of our lives, is just repeating
00:31:38.600the same behavior that we learned decades ago or generations ago.
00:31:45.380Exactly, exactly. So let's get let's just let's get into a little bit more of of the nitty gritty
00:31:52.640right now to talk about what should women be thinking about in terms of financial literacy.
00:32:02.520Your book is a great place to start. What other practical things can we be doing? I mean,
00:32:07.440things like the money date like I love that idea because I'm like oh I can do that yeah that's
00:32:11.920something I can start with I mean because I do think that investing and saving seems daunting
00:32:16.820it's daunting even to me and we did the financial audit last year we were like okay we're friendly
00:32:22.660we're gonna make sure to hook up with a financial advisory firm we're gonna put all put the money
00:32:28.240in the retirement accounts do the thing and I'm still like am I doing this right like yeah oh my
00:32:33.520God, what else should I be doing? Am I failing? I still feel like I'm failing every day. Meanwhile,
00:32:37.540my husband's like, it's fine. So I would challenge everyone. First of all, I think it's more
00:32:43.160important than ever that women, you know, really get engaged in this. We talked about things that
00:32:50.220can happen throughout our lives early on, like me and, you know, we talked about these women0.88
00:32:55.660making these early decisions to be dependent on a man. But the reality is we are living longer than
00:33:01.200ever. You know, it's very likely that you and I could be living 90 to 100. And, you know, eight
00:33:08.560out of 10 women do end up alone because of divorce and widowhood. And we outlive men. So doing it
00:33:14.620now, getting these habits now is critical if we want security long term and we want to reduce the
00:33:20.200risk of outliving our money, which becomes a very, very real risk, you know, if we don't have this
00:33:25.080proper plans. So I think it's, you know, I think your question is so, so important. You know,
00:33:31.680like I said, given our current situation, but as we plan for the future and make sure that we
00:33:36.140really are prepared for all the different chapters of life. I mean, one thing you've got to commit to
00:33:42.760learning. And I think part of your apprehension, Joe, is like, okay, but where do I go? Okay,
00:33:47.920I did the scratch the surface, but now how deeper do I get? I would challenge everyone to really
00:33:53.200commit to learn this stuff, to ask questions. If you have advisors, you know, make sure you work
00:34:01.380with people that encourage you to learn and to ask questions and not to be afraid of a stupid0.99
00:34:08.420question because there's no such thing. You know, I often say, listen, you know, there's like you0.98
00:34:16.800could be the most brilliant person in the world, but if you never were taught this, how would you
00:34:21.040know it. Right. I mean, I was in finance, but it wasn't a totally different world of finance.
00:34:25.940I didn't know this stuff at all. And there was a lot of shame around that, to your point,
00:34:30.720because everyone assumed I did and I had no clue. So, you know, I think committing to that.
00:34:36.500Well, where do you start? There's a ton of great resources out there. I mean, I am constantly still
00:34:42.020and I'm a finance expert in the world of women and wealth, and I'm still Googling. But also,
00:34:48.020trying to, I'm a big proponent of community, you know, find, find a group of a community out there0.98
00:34:55.980where women are talking about this, you know, where we're learning from each other. We're0.99
00:35:00.680learning from experts. We're sharing stories because learning through other people's stories
00:35:05.940is where we had, we have these aha moments and then start to realize where are, where we're
00:35:12.640doing well and where we may have to do some work. But then go back. And like I said, don't rely on
00:35:19.160rules. Think about building your toolbox so that when you're thrown things, you can make
00:35:27.660confident decisions. And, you know, I'll dive deeper into, like I said, I scratched the surface
00:35:34.120of this in one of my chapters in the book, which is expand your knowledge, where I'm diving into,
00:35:38.520As I mentioned, opportunity cost, you know, compounding, which is how money grows, right? If you let it. Diversification and arbitrage. But once you scratch the surface, I think that chapter gives you a really good context. You got to keep going. So what is the ultimate lesson there? Money's complex. Don't just scratch the surface. Keep going.
00:36:03.600And, you know, and I think also the other thing I would say is if you're just starting out, don't jump to where it gets complex. Don't forget those building blocks, because those are the baselines that build, you know, a solid foundation.
00:36:18.780I think too often we're like, I need to learn how to go invest in stocks.
00:37:09.200You mentioned a great point. It takes literally 21 days, right, to create a new habit. And so, you know, I would say you've got to start to shift your thinking, right? And you mentioned the money date.
00:37:25.040I, something I did that I really recommend everyone do is start to look at money as a
00:37:30.660game and ways that you can change your behavior by embracing some, some challenges or games.
00:37:38.500And I lay some of this out in, in, um, in the book of when I talk about how do you go
00:37:45.040Um, I think a couple of funny challenges are like the seven day rule, right?
00:37:49.300We all make impulse purchases that tend to bust open our budgets, which, by the way, I don't really believe in budgets.
00:37:57.160But I believe in kind of another type of framework for structuring your expenses.
00:38:04.260But if you employ the challenge of, like, the seven-day rule, well, that forces you to say, let me think about that impulse purchase for seven days.
00:38:13.360And if I still want it, well, maybe it's something I should really consider.
00:38:17.540But chances are, you know, more often than not, those urges go away and you're on to the next thing. And there's a couple of other, you know, ideas of how do you begin to build awareness so that you're spending more intentional, thinking about the opportunity cost of those impulse purchases or purchases at all, and what that money could have done for you to grow and to create more security for yourself.
00:38:43.300When you put it all together, that's kind of where some change happens in terms of your thinking. But to your point, it takes practice. And you've got to incorporate some of these challenges or some of these, you know, games, I like to call them. And then suddenly they just become something you naturally do.
00:39:01.560And there's plenty of opportunities to pull your kids into it as well, because at the end of the day, you know, it's not only a learning opportunity, but you got to get your kids invested if you want, if you want to get them to stop with all those asks that are causing you to continue, you know, to continuing to be tempted to spend.
00:39:28.520They really, I mean, they're genuinely more thoughtful now since I've started doing that about a year ago.
00:39:34.260My last question for you is, why don't you think budgets work?
00:39:38.420You know, I think it goes back to shame and building, disempowering us.
00:39:42.540I think oftentimes budgets are set up so that, okay, we set a budget, but then we look at things at the end of the month and we go, I missed it, you know?
00:39:52.940I think and then all that does is kind of go shoot look at all that time I wasted like how
00:39:59.120didn't I have better control over this what happened and again if if we're trying to change
00:40:05.120our emotional you know connection with money and it be more empowering and confidence building
00:40:11.720we've got to make sure that we've got a system around our spending that supports that empowering
00:40:18.580you know abundance mindset and I think like I said too often than not budgets kind of set up
00:40:25.300to fail so I use more of a framework that says all right I'm going to basically put my net income
00:40:34.020that I get every month into buckets I've got my unavoidables things to put a roof over my head
00:40:41.700you know get me from place to place typically that's going to be a car depending on where you
00:40:45.480live, but there's other types of transportation costs. Utilities and then insurance, you know,
00:40:51.380things like that. Pretty much non-medical because most of America pays medical through their,
00:40:56.800you know, paycheck or an overwhelming, you know, number. And then the next part is out of the gate,
00:41:05.64020% is going to go to me. It's going to invest in my future. And how I spend that depends on
00:41:11.640my circumstance. If I already have a well-funded emergency fund, which should be a priority,
00:41:16.760great. I got to make sure that I'm investing enough in my retirement. You know, if that's
00:41:22.700already well-funded and, you know, after doing the analysis, you're like, okay, I feel good about
00:41:28.480myself on that. Maybe I need to diversify into other types of investments. But also don't forget
00:41:34.860some of the things that build your own emotional self-worth because that's investing in you too,
00:41:41.080whether it's starting a business or committing to, I want to be more intentional about travel
00:41:46.840and enjoy and doing things that create good inside of me so I feel better. Again, there's
00:41:54.680a hierarchy of priorities and you kind of go down and make sure you've tackled the big stuff before
00:42:00.980you get to some of those other ones. But then the rest, what's left over, that 35,
00:42:07.340is really what I like to call my empowerment money.
00:42:12.420And that is money that is based on things
00:42:24.220But also discretionary things like, you know,
00:42:27.060whatever it is that are completely avoidable,
00:42:29.340but, you know, if you can afford it and want to do it
00:42:32.440and you know it's not going to bust your plan, go for it.
00:42:35.020So I like that empowerment money because it fluctuates how you spend it depends on, you know, your circumstance and and you have to make choices around it.
00:42:44.940You can't have it all. So sticking to that framework to me is much more empowering.
00:42:51.500And if you if you have a money date once a week, you can check in and see where you're at and make adjustments before you get to that end of the month.
00:42:59.840it does involve you know not being afraid to rip the band-aid off like a lot of us are like like
00:43:05.560i don't want to i went through my 20s thing i don't want to look at my bank account um and it's
00:43:10.500just all right no i'm just going to check in i'm going to see what i did uh it's very it's been
00:43:14.180very interesting now that my mom has been living in philly and we've kind of helped her take control
00:43:19.660of her finances and she's looking at her budget for the first time maybe in 70 years wow yeah are
00:43:28.060Have you seen her? You know, it's amazing what I've seen and the women I've helped throughout,
00:43:32.460you know, so many years now, decades really is, is just standing up straighter,
00:43:39.560feeling more confident that resonates over into the other aspects of our lives. And
00:43:44.820that's kind of what I meant at the beginning of our conversation is I think we underestimate the
00:43:51.500power of when we build confidence and are in the game on this, it opens up confidence and
00:43:57.820opportunities for us, you know, in the rest of our lives. And, you know, it's so, so important.
00:44:04.580I'm just curious if you've seen some of that with your mom. So much. So much. She's just,
00:44:10.400you know, more confident. She's happier, less fear, less anxiety. And these are things that
00:44:19.040are just so important i wish we could make them as sexy and aspirational as trad wives make the0.98
00:44:28.360fantasy of checking out on social media well i think we have to um you know it's why i want my
00:44:35.300story out there is you know as as sexy in that looks listen there's a whole other side of the
00:44:41.400story that they're not highlighting um and you know i'm so happy with my journey and i would i
00:44:47.240I don't believe in regrets, but, you know, I don't because I feel like everything's a
00:44:52.380learning opportunity, but they're showing one side of it.
00:44:56.220And you've got to look at the whole picture and the risk.
00:44:59.680And really, does it truly make you happy when you're not building something and contributing
00:45:04.700to something bigger than something so short-sighted?
00:45:16.400Oh, thank you so much. Well, Fly, a woman's guide to financial freedom and building in life you love is on, you know, all the outlets, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, you know, all of them. And I was so excited, Joe, I got to record the audio book and what an amazing experience that was. It was crazy. But that all of this will be out in November. Super exciting. And you can find me on Instagram. You can find me on LinkedIn and at StephLWagner.com.
00:45:46.400Thank you so much for being here today.