April 8, 2025 • 40 mins
Rene Daniella, aka Owned by Femme, shares her inspiring rise from financial struggles to becoming a six-figure content creator and homeowner. From tax pitfalls to creative hustle, this candid conversation is packed with wisdom for anyone navigating the ups and downs of entrepreneurship and personal finance.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's Rodney Williams, co founder of The Wealth Break. Listen.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
I know firsthand that building wealth can feel like everyone's
playing a game you never got. The rules for good
information usually locked behind paywalls full of fine print, or
shared in conversations we're never invited to. That's exactly why
we created The Wealth Break. It's way more than a podcast.
(00:24):
It's a whole platform dedicated to making wealth building transparent,
real and accessible to everyone. Want the inside stories, the
secrets successful people actually use in those exclusive gems you
won't find anywhere else. It's all here. Tap into our
growing community. Soak up those insights and get clear, actionable
(00:46):
strategies you can apply right now.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
No secrets, no gatekeepers, just real talk for real wealth.
Don't let anyone keep you from getting with yours.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Visit the wealthbreak dot com today and start changing the
game for yourself.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Welcome to the Wealth Break. I'm Rodney Williams, Travis holloweod.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Now this is where we explore real stories about building wealth,
about overcoming financial challenges. But most importantly, we hope that
you leave with some quick nuggets to improve your financial health. Today,
we have an incredible guest, Renee Daniella, and we're going
(01:42):
to explore her journey over being a creative, being an influencer,
and honestly getting a home.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
And I think she's accomplished so much.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
But before we go into that, since we're talking about
homeowner shit, since we're talking about the dream, what are
your thoughts?
Speaker 3 (01:59):
You know, I think home ownership is interesting. I think
that that's always been the American dream, right It's you
want a home, you want a white pick a fence,
you want a yard for your kids. But for me,
that hasn't necessarily been my American dream. I think that
the American dream was that for so long, largely because
individual's largest asset are their most valuable asset historically has
(02:23):
been their home. But I think for people like ourselves
who are in the business of building businesses, our largest
asset or our most valuable asset, will always be the
companies that we create, and that's really where I've decided
to focus my time and attention. I think that home
ownership is really important for some and I think it's
less important for others. But I do think that it's
(02:45):
an incredible journey to go on, and I know that
you have an experience where you started purchasing homes very
early as you got into your professional career, and I've
always kind of chuckled sometimes when I see people who
enter that journey and it's a lot different than what
they expect.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Before we dive in.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
But can you please tell us what's your job because
the audience may not know.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
I mean, yeah, we.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
Started talking about home ownership some mon name is Travis Holloway,
co founder and CEO Solo Funds, and we started a
company based off of experiences that we had where our
friends and family would frequently ask us for these really
small dollar loans, and they asked us for money because
they didn't have it, and there's such a lack of
resources to go to to get it. And that's something
(03:28):
that Rodney and I bonded over where we would see
our friends struggling even though they were college educated, even
though they had good jobs, but they might live in
New York City where the cost of living was really
high and they just really couldn't afford to make ends
meet if they had any emergency expenses, really unexpected expenses.
And that's really formed our life over the last seven
(03:51):
years of building this business and realizing that our experiences
aren't unique though, right our friends and family having these
experiences where they needed money, We're not unique at all.
It's not a Black problem, it's not a Latino problem,
it's an American problem. It's really a global problem. There's
nowhere on the earth where people don't need emergency capital
(04:11):
for unexpected expenses. And there's nowhere on earth where people
are not looking for returns and yield. And that's what
we were able to start out and create. You know,
our goal for this this podcast is hopefully that you
guys see what's special about two business owners, technically small
business owners, deciding to share their vulnerable stories.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
You know, trivs are saying, my asset is this company,
and I've poured everything into it, and I've had to
struggle along the way, just like many other people we served,
just like many people that are going to come here
and talk about it. But at the same time, we're
not going to kind of hide behind the icon. We're
going to be in front of the camera and hope
that you guys see our story. At the end of
the day, you'd be surprised. It's always going to be
(04:53):
this is going to be our best asset. Fortunately, I
was able to get a home. It's been part of
a strategy. But I will tell you I hold on
to that strategy with a band aid, trying to keep
it all together because if I ever have to choose
that asset over the asset of the company, the company
is going to always be chosen. And that's just what
you decide to do when you decide to do something great.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Yeah again, you know when you go when you think
about home ownership and renting, right, rent technically is the
most you're going to pay in a month for where
you live, right for the roof over your head. Right,
your mortgage is the least you're going to spend every
month for the roof over your head. And I think
that because of this concept of like the American dream
(05:36):
of hey, I'm successful if I own a home, I
think many people sometimes rush into that before they're ready
because they can only afford that mortgage. They haven't really
contemplated all of the additional expenses that might come alongside that.
And I see a lot of individuals after they purchased
that home say man, I wish I didn't do it,
(05:57):
or I wasn't ready yet.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
And I think that's the most important thing is are
you truly ready? Right?
Speaker 3 (06:02):
Do you have the emergency savings fund? Do you know
that if anything happened you're not going to be dusted too?
What if you lose your job?
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Right?
Speaker 3 (06:09):
Can you actually still keep up with the property taxes
and all of the ancillary fees that come along with
home ownership? But I think that home ownership can be
a beautiful thing, and you know, I would love to
know from you, like what's the best side of that
that you've experienced, and also like what's the.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Yeah, I mean things like the best side of it
is when you enter a city and you can own
a home for cheaper than what you could rent that
same home, And that's a really positive. That's not the
same in every city, so that's really important. So if
you enter yourself in a city where that equation works
out in your favor, it's a positive. And when you're
a first time buyer, there's so many incentives, right, you
(06:48):
get credits in terms of your interest rate, and also
buy a house and economic opportunity zone because then you
have potential to be taxibated in some instance. So my
first home had all of those things and it was
super easy. It was so cheap. If I tell you
my down payment was like five thousand dollars, so it
was really cheap. I would tell you that was the
great part. Now as I've graduated into bigger homes and
(07:10):
bigger problems, them homes are not taxibated, I don't get
none of those credits. And yeah, things are significantly more expensive.
And I think that that's the challenge is that it's
really hard to estimate those costs.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
You can't really estimate those costs.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
You know what they could be, you just don't know
what they will be, yes, And that's the part that
will take you out if you push it too much.
I would say, don't buy the house you can afford
by something less.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
We'll talk to Renee about this later.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
But you know, particularly in industries where you have more
creative income, right and it could be up this month,
it could be down next month. You know, incomes tend
to fluctuate, right like they're up and down, but your
expenses usually are kind of stagnant. But that still creates
like these opportunities where your income and what you need
are not aligned, and then when you have that unexpected expense,
(08:03):
it really throws things off. You have to be really
cognizant about not living above your means, because it's a snowball.
It just continues to compound and compound them. Before you
know it, you're in a really, really tough situation and
it's really hard to dig out when you got yourself behind.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
You know, my favorite part of the American Dream now
you're gonna hear it, Renee, you gotta be a hustler. Listen,
at the end of the day, when you get dead
or you miss that payment, you got to figure out
how to get that money back. So this is my
favorite part of our segment is when we code switch.
And for many folks watching or listening, you know, we
go to work every day and we have our professional
(08:38):
voice and then we got our real voice, and me
and Travis talk all the time in our real voice.
Unfortunately sometimes that's in the office. But nonetheless, we're gonna
have a topic today about the TikTok ban.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
To be honest, you start off with how you feel
My wife uses TikTok as Google. Right if she wants
to look up something, she goes to TikTok. She does
not go to Google, and that's it's essentially used as
a search engine.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
For some which is crazy.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
Then you have all of these content creators, right who
literally that is work when they wake up and they
grab that phone and they go to the TikTok app.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
That is how they make their money.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
And you're essentially talking about confiscating hundreds of thousands and
millions of jobs, right, And I don't know how intelligent
that is for the economy either. Right, So when you
think about cost of living, astronomical interest rates still up
even though they're coming down. What are these individuals supposed
(09:40):
to do when they lose their income? Are they supposed
to all go be door dash delivery people? That's not possible, right,
They're not all going to be college educated and qualified
to go get you know, a high pain job. It's
over right, So I think the economy is going to
be too impacted for that to happen. So I don't
think it's going to happen, but I think if it does,
(10:01):
I think it's going to be anarchy outside.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
So this is going to have to get sold. Who's
going to buy TikTok? Because I think that the problem
is still true. They don't want a certain group to
own it, and that's what this is all about. So
at some point somebody got somebody new to own it.
You know, if you guys want to give me TikTok,
I'll take it, you know what I mean. I think
I got great plans, I got great vision, you know,
(10:24):
I'm passionate, but like, what's really going to happen, Because
at the end of the day, even they do not
want that particular country to have control. The world is
not America.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
And I think we as Americans sometimes get really overconfident
that the three hundred and twenty million of US or
however many of us there are like we rule everything.
And I think that that company can still be really
successful not being here. I don't know if it hurts
the US economy more or not having it versus hurting
that company to not be here.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
I don't know. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
It sales feels like it might be mayhem regardless, I'm
looking forward to it for various reasons. But for all
my TikTokers out there, I would definitely think about diversification.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Yeah, you go back to hustle, right, you know, when
you lose the opportunity to be an influencer or content
creator on TikTok, I would be going crazy right now,
building out following on every other platform possible and making
sure that you know, I'm setting myself up to.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Not go out of business.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Yeah, So, as we get into this incredible guest with
Renee Daniella, we're going to talk about the story of hustle,
creativity and how do you diversify in this economy.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
So let's do it.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
Our guest today is Renee Daniella. We're so excited to
have you. Number one I'll talk for today is about
building wealth and growing and you have such a unique
and incredible experience traveling the globe, living across so many
different cities and speaking so many different languages owned by
femas for heavy.
Speaker 4 (12:01):
Thank you, guys, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
We like to kick off every guest with the story
or a question, and it stems because of our day
jobs helping people get access to capital. But we all
been broke and we all, you know, have a challenge
and where do we go? I would love for you
to start off and tell us the story when we
didn't have much.
Speaker 5 (12:20):
Okay, So I've got two that I want to share
for context, because I feel like sometimes being broke as
a cycle in that we might have to revisit that.
But to start, when I first got into the content
creation industry, which for anyone who doesn't know, I'm a
full time content creator. I've been doing this for about
a decade now and I make multi six figures doing that.
But starting out initially, I you know, the industry was new.
(12:43):
Being an influencer wasn't a term people were aware of.
So it wasn't even like, you know, you were able
to pitch and work with marketing teams because it wasn't.
Speaker 4 (12:50):
A budget they had set aside.
Speaker 5 (12:52):
So in that time, I had just finished my master's program.
I was like, let me try this blogger content creation
life I had finished. I gave myself one year instead
of in this one year I can start making money,
I will, you know, pursue this full time. If I don't,
I'm going to go back to my career in populations,
which is what I did originally. And so we got
to the end of that year and I found myself
(13:13):
in over ten k max on one credit card. I
had owed my family over four grand You know, my
parents were very wonderful in helping me with a little
bit of cash when I needed it.
Speaker 4 (13:22):
I also had.
Speaker 5 (13:23):
Defaulted on student loans, and then I just had, you know,
some additional debt and I didn't have a great income.
So I decided I was going to move from London,
where I was at the time, back to New York,
back into that space to work in populations. But I
had gotten my first job opportunity with Passport Heavy and
that kind of was a turning point in my career initially.
So they invited me to come to Columbia to host
(13:45):
travel videos, where I got a monthly stipend. It wasn't big,
but it was enough that by the end of my
I think at six seven months that I spent their
hosting news videos, I had made enough money to pay
off all my debts, get right with my student loans,
and just pay off my family, and then also just
kind of get myself moving with the social media industry,
which by the end of that I had started, the
industry had developed itself. So I went from you know,
(14:08):
begging for money with brands and I'm not knowing what
an influencer was to brand hitting me up and being like, hey,
we've got seven thousand dollars for you to do this,
ten thousand dollars for you to do that, we want
to fly you here to Paris for something with you know,
fragrance companies.
Speaker 4 (14:22):
Or whatever the case is. So I was about twenty.
Speaker 5 (14:24):
Seventeen in the industry blossomed, So that's where I started
making my first six figures.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
One question and just for clarity, how much debt did
you get yourself into and obviously got yourself out?
Speaker 5 (14:36):
So at that time it was, you know, we were
in that cute area where it was like just the
student loans, I had the ten k credit card I had. Well,
to be honest, now that I had some real debt,
I look back and I'm like, oh.
Speaker 4 (14:47):
Sweet here and you were so stressed.
Speaker 5 (14:49):
But at the time, yeah, it was about ten k
on one credit card, about four thousand to my family,
so we'll say less than twenty grand. But I had
no real income and I'd never made more than like,
I think, fifteen twenty grand.
Speaker 4 (15:00):
And a year.
Speaker 5 (15:00):
You know, I always look to the founder of Passport
Heavy Gebrawl, and I have a lot of gratitude because
he kind of gave me a real big stepping stone
where I got to find out what it's like to
have consistent income and pay things off and also the
industry got to develop. Let's remember I didn't have a
lot of financial literacy and only started making money. So
I got excited, you know about the hitting six figures
for the first time, and so yeah, that continued to grow.
(15:21):
Twenty nineteen I think was one of my best years.
I think I made somewhat over three hundred and seven thousand.
We won't care too much about the numbers. But as
we fast forward, I got to twenty twenty two where
I bought my house. So you know, imagine between twenty
seventeen or twenty twenty two were making comfortable, sustainable income.
I bought my house, and then that's where things started
(15:44):
to get more real because I really I started to
realize how expensive homes were. So yeah, come to twenty
twenty three, their time when I was broke. A reason
I had a lot of cash on my account too,
by the way, is that I was behind on taxes.
There are so many people in the entrepreneurial space, and
you guys, I know some as well who have not
paid taxes for a few years. And I think it happens,
(16:05):
you know, like a slippery slope. You kind of feel
uncertain about it. You don't have a good tax accountant,
or you just feel a little behind, and so yeah,
I was one of those people. Twenty twenty happened, so
you know, I kind of got off of my taxes then,
and it just kind of cascaded into twenty twenty three
where I decided I needed to get all my taxes
taken care of. Especially that process was difficult when buying
a house without having my taxes to prove income. But
(16:28):
I had enough money sitting there, so they were like, well,
we've lived, she makes this money.
Speaker 4 (16:31):
Right, of course, all this money's an account.
Speaker 5 (16:33):
So anyway, so we get to twenty twenty three, I
caught up on my taxes, so I was getting all
the letters. I was getting the real letters, and I
was getting the scam letters being like we're taking your
house if you don't pay this one hundred and something
thousand dollars. So that was kind of a rock bottom
for me where I realized, oh my god, I owe
all this money. I have this house, which is amazing,
but it's also expensive. And so I went from making
(16:53):
an income that was really comfortable to now having a
debt income ratio that wasn't balanced anymore.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
Also, twenty twenty three, we saw the market shift quite
a bit where a lot of brands were pulling away
from influencers because they didn't have budget. How did that
transition impact you at all or if at all?
Speaker 4 (17:14):
Sure, Well, I mean that was definitely a contributing factor.
Speaker 5 (17:16):
Right. So I'm lucky in that I've been in the industry,
in the content creation industry for a while, so I
have a lot of contacts within the agency space who
did book me. But at the same time, I do
feel like twenty twenty three was substantially less in terms
of bookings. I was still making, you know, I think
over two hundred thousand, but again with the debt that
I had, and with my new expense of just having
(17:37):
a house in general, you put those together like that
two hundred thousand got eaten up so fast. And what
I was not preparing myself for is the fact that
I was spending as if I was still going to
be making that money and not really accounting for the amount.
Speaker 4 (17:48):
That I was paying back in debt.
Speaker 5 (17:50):
I didn't have a lot of awareness on my monthly
expenses and bills, and so yeah, I just it was
like a what a it called a recipe for disaster.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
Yeah, So talk to me a little bit about as you, right,
you went from making fifteen thousand dollars a year to
over three hundred thousand dollars a year. Talk to me
a little bit about how your lifestyle started to shift
to where you see all of this additional money coming
in and you're just like, all right, it's a study flow.
Life is good, the gravy train is here, and you
(18:19):
may adapt your lifestyle to that perfect scenario versus any
downside scenarios.
Speaker 5 (18:25):
Gosh, I mean, I was just spending my money a lot.
Me and my friends are really really living a lavish lifestyle, right.
I'm in my late twenties early thirties in this time period,
and me and my friends were taking loads of trips.
Speaker 4 (18:39):
I mean, I've been over sixties six or sixty.
Speaker 5 (18:43):
Seven countries now, so travel is a huge priority for me.
So I think you see a big shift for me
going to more affordable travels and like saying in more
affordable accommodations, to me staying at more five style properties,
me going for the lobster and the brands, you know,
and me just experiencing life with a little bit more ease.
But I also I was not financially literate. I think
(19:05):
at that time, if I was doing any amount of investing,
even just keeping that cash that I had on my account,
if I put it in a high old savings like,
there were so many ways that I could have been
more responsible with my money. I was enjoying life, I
was buying a house. I was you know, that's where
you were seeing my money go. So I wasn't into savings,
but it was into you know, my one kind of
(19:28):
venture into wealth building, which was purchasing my home.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
One of the things you mentioned, and it's a challenge
for both of us, and I think you should talk
a little bit about it, and I want you to
answer as well. The creative income, right, you know, talent
and entrepreneurs and founders and small business owners. It's so
hard to talk to a bank like I would love
your conversation with the bank.
Speaker 4 (19:50):
Wow.
Speaker 5 (19:50):
Well, I will say again, I was in the best
position because I did not have those taxes when it
came to purchasing my home. That to me, I think
is one of the biggest experiences where you're going to
have somebody going over your finances with the fine tooth comb.
So that's where you do find yourself having more of
those discussions and arguments around validating your income as a creative.
(20:12):
So I used a loan broker. You know, they took
a nice little chunk of money for their service, but
they made the difference for me being able to probably
not get approved for a loan at all to being
able to get a you know, one and a half
million dollar house in LA by myself as an entrepreneur.
Speaker 3 (20:26):
What are some of the tips or tricks that you
would give the younger version of yourself right who's maybe
now just starting to get on that gravy train. They
see the money coming in, but they don't necessarily have
a plan for it yet.
Speaker 5 (20:39):
I would definitely start with the idea of reframing your
mindset around money. I think a lot of us there's
an ignorance to money in terms of how it all works,
this feeling of like it's fleeting, it's feeling of that
it's you know, cynical or negative. I think taking that
new approach to money and saying, Okay, well, I want
to be incredibly educated because I think there's a lot
of there's like a basic understanding that we should all
(20:59):
have that most of us don't.
Speaker 4 (21:01):
I don't think that I'm alone in that.
Speaker 5 (21:03):
I think there's a lot of people out there who
look at money and it is just still kind of
this mythical space. Had a friend I was talking to
who was putting money into savings, like a high old
savings account where she'd think she was getting about not
actually no, not even a high old savings account. She
was putting money into her savings account, but she had
an income that she could trust that was going to be.
Speaker 4 (21:22):
Coming in, that was gonna be consistent.
Speaker 5 (21:24):
She had a full time job nine to five, but
she had a rolling balance of like twenty three or
twenty five thousand on her AMEX And I'm like, oh,
why are you working worrying about this nest egg when
you've got a high interest credit card debt And on
top of that, she's putting this nest egg in her
regular savings And I'm like, use a high old savings account,
you know me?
Speaker 4 (21:42):
I read my one book that told.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Me about it.
Speaker 4 (21:44):
And I'm like, oh, no, I'm so knowledgeable now.
Speaker 5 (21:46):
But yet it is an idea of like, once you
learn some of these small things, they become so much
more understandable and it helps you really conceive money in
a new way. And so I think that's a great
place to start if you look at money and you're
someone who doesn't come from a naturally, you know, literate background,
where your family is maybe a bit more traditional, and
how they built wealth or they didn't have a lot
of access to wealth building resources like we might do now,
(22:08):
or like we might be in a position to now.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
I mean you're doing it.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
I mean you're doing it because we talk about you
don't get good with money unless you get money.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
But you got to have money to figure out what
to do with money.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
It's real easy for everyone to tell us all about
these financial literacy stuff and I'm like, well, I can't
even afford to, you know, eat tonight and put it
into action.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
I can't put into action.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
Well, honestly, what we're hearing is, you know from this
career that is actually multifaceted.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
It's not just influencer.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
I would look at it as like a small business
and you have a brand and you've turned out and
tell home ownership, what do you think that there are
some mistakes that certain people do in your position that
you want to tell everyone.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Not to do.
Speaker 5 (23:08):
One I would say a mistake that creators might make
is putting all their eggs in one basket, which is
something that I kind of did. I didn't really finish
my broke story, but basically we got to the end
of the twenty twenty three timeline and I realized I
had a rolling debt of like over twenty grand on
my credit card. I had the six figure tax debt
that I was on a payment plan with the IRS.
But still we're watching those penalties pile up, and it's
(23:31):
just this huge debt and I'm getting all the letters.
And then on top of that, I wasn't in my
bank account. I had calculated I had just enough cash
coming in from these net twenty net thirty at sixty
day payments that would last me until March of twenty
twenty four, and at that point I would now not
have any cash in my account to pay my mortgage,
to pay this minimum amount on the rolling credit card debt,
(23:54):
or to pay the IRS fee that I had set up.
So right like, I had this countdown, and that's where
I had to get really serious and say, Okay, I've
been doing content creation for this time. It is a
consistent income that I know that I can make at
least these couple one hundred thousand, But I've gotten myself
in a position where, hey, it wasn't enough this year,
and so now I know I need to make more
(24:14):
money or else I'm going to be in a position
where I'm going I don't even know what it looks
like to lose a house.
Speaker 4 (24:18):
And I was like, I don't want to know what
that or how that happens.
Speaker 5 (24:21):
So I said, how strategic can I get as a
content creator? What are some ways that I can leverage
my platform that I can leverage?
Speaker 4 (24:28):
What tools and resources can I lean into? And one
of them was pitching.
Speaker 5 (24:31):
But I sat down, you know, literally November December twenty
twenty three, and I wrote a big list of these
brands that I would love to work with, brands that
I'd either work with previously, or agencies that I knew of,
and I started pitching them all. I put together my
media card, I put together pitch deck, I put together
some concepts, some content ideas. I started pumping out a
lot of original content on my platform so I could
get more momentum, And by March twenty twenty four, I
(24:53):
had signed like a quarter of a million and brand deals.
So I went from literally being like, ah, I don't
know what I'm going to do to having this huge success, right.
Speaker 4 (25:01):
And the thing is you can't always control that.
Speaker 5 (25:04):
Like I could have pitched all those brands and not
been able to you know, not have received any yesses, right,
And I you know, I got a couple of responses
that ended up being really lucrative deals. But additionally I
pursued other income streams. I started renting my space out
on pier Space. I have an ADU in my back
house that I got very serious renting that out. It
actually pays I think about forty percent of my mortgage.
(25:24):
So yeah, you got to get creative sometimes.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
Yeah, I mean it sounds like you eventually have to
become a Swiss army knife.
Speaker 4 (25:30):
Right, Yeah, because.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
You know, you've been a really successful creator and so
many people have seen your face on you know, whether
it's different partnerships you've had or it's actually your content
that you're putting out directly. But as the market shift
and change, you can't again have all your eggs in
one basket. But it seems like you have started to
leverage a lot of the skills that you have accumulated
(25:54):
along the way to be able to create these micro
businesses or micro services that you're presenting to others. And
I think people feel like content creators are just so
one dimensional, but you're not, because you know, you're creating content,
you're distributing it, you're creating brand deals, you're building relationships,
you're figuring out how to pitch yourself. Like those things
are all really important and the outcome can be significant,
(26:17):
But you're going to hear a lot.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
Of nose along the way.
Speaker 3 (26:20):
Absolutely, tell me a little bit about how the nose
impact you or do they.
Speaker 5 (26:26):
I think people look at the content creation space and
they just kind of think it's this superficial idea. But
everyone I know in the space wears all these different hats, right,
Like they're doing production, they're doing the sound engineering, they're
doing all the editing, they're doing the creative direction, they're
doing the brand outreach, they're doing the marketing, they're doing
the puerperpulations. Within this space, it's a billion dollar industry,
(26:47):
multi billion dollar industry, and there are people that I
know personally with smaller audiences than I have that are
making seven figures. So for me to have my first
half a million year, like I'm so grateful and really
excited about that. I paid off my taxes in full,
I paid off my credit cards in full. I paid
off a big lug of my mortgage.
Speaker 4 (27:04):
Thank you. I know, I feel like really you know, relieved.
Speaker 5 (27:06):
This year going into twenty twenty five, I replenish my
emergency fund to be at least six months of my
monthly expenses, which are pretty high.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
So what's putting to.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
The emergency fund, Because we folks need to understand these
little things that are being dropped.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
What is the emergency fund?
Speaker 5 (27:20):
Your emergency fund is like if you don't have any
income coming in, if you were in a physician like
I was in twenty twenty three, where I knew by
March twenty twenty four I wasn't going to have another
penny potentially, then I would have this fund that is
set aside. Personally, I keep it in a hyal savings
account and it is for three, six, nine or twelve
months worth of your income. So if you don't have
anything coming in, you're able to cover kind of your
(27:43):
basic spent expenses. Right, So that's going to be your mortgage,
that's going to be your car payment, that's going to
be your insurance things like that. It's not necessarily going
to be your travel expenses, it's not going to be
extracurricular activities, but it is going to be that bare
bones like these are the things that I need to
pay before somebody comes knock on my door and they're
taking something back from me. And I finish twenty twenty
three with all that debt, but additionally, any cash that
was my account was gone, right, So now I had
(28:04):
this intentional, calculated fund that I put together this year,
and I said, I need that.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
So you know, the American dream historically has been, you know,
the house in the white picket fence, right, and you
were fortunate enough to accomplish that. But once you accomplished that,
I think your eyes were opened up to a new
level of responsibility. Could you just talk a little bit
about the difference that you felt between renting and home
(28:29):
ownership and in your first twelve months did you feel
like it was better did you feel like it was not.
Speaker 5 (28:38):
When you first buy a home, you put all that
cash down and it was a very competitive time to
get a home. And so yeah, that first twelve months
I lost.
Speaker 4 (28:47):
The kind of comfort that I had and having a
lot of cash.
Speaker 5 (28:51):
I also had that realization of how expensive homes are,
all the hidden costs. I think when you first buy
the house, you have that upfront visuals of your cost
and you see what that mortgage looks like, and your
insurance and these things. So there was a seriousness about
money that came in that first twelve months that I
didn't have before. There was a new respect for money.
(29:11):
Buying a home felt like a huge accomplishment. It felt
like something when we talk about the American dream, when
we talk about the house and the white picket fence,
we also picture it with a family. We also picture
it with you know, as a woman, you often picture
this husband and these kids, and that's the purpose of
buying a house. So here I am as a single
woman and I'm buying myself and it's a three bedroom,
three bathroom with an ADU. That's like, what am I
(29:34):
doing with all this space? I'm really imagining what that
vision is for myself. I'm redefining what that success looks
like to myself. So I think that's been a beautiful
aspect of my content that I've been able to share.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
I mean, to be honest, I think that is a
beautiful message for women and honestly for everyone, because we
always are waiting for like the mousetone of life. Oh
I'm waiting for to find a perfect partner, I'm waiting
for the perfect job, or I'm waiting for the perfect situation.
See no perfect situation for building wealth or to establishing
freedom for yourself. You literally wake up and you need
(30:05):
to figure out that plan for yourself because I think
what this environment has taught us is that the environment
is not going to create it for you and you
we hope someone else is going to come created for you.
That's also not going to happen. You should be figuring
out how to create some freedom for yourself and some
security for yourself, such as you can go to sleep
at night and wake up in pursuit those passions. Great,
(30:36):
So we have some fun, little lightning fun questions before
we wrap up.
Speaker 4 (30:41):
So first question, I'm nervous or.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
No giving someone a knife as a housewarming gift?
Speaker 1 (30:48):
Agree or disagree? Is it a great idea? Agreed?
Speaker 5 (30:51):
Yeah for housewoman gift if it's like a great high
quality kitchen part like knife, right, kitchen tool? Absolutely is
somebody at home to go and through? Yes, Yes, knives
are really expensive, and I'm assuming you gentlemen have high
quality tastes and that this knife that you would have
got them is in the You know, I didn't do
a housewarming.
Speaker 3 (31:10):
Okay, I know she was living high in the she
got her house. She's like, I don't need a housewoman
at all.
Speaker 5 (31:17):
You know, the projects kept happening, so I never found
a good time to do one. But one of these
days you make at the invite.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
So they say that the superstition is that if you
give someone a knife, that you cut the friendship.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
So apparently you're not supposed to give knives.
Speaker 4 (31:32):
Is that like a universal superstition or.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Is that you know? Interestingly enough, I got gifted a knife,
and you.
Speaker 4 (31:38):
Know, I'm not friends with them anymore.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
It's not that I'm not friends.
Speaker 5 (31:40):
Were definitely, Oh my gosh, Okay, well I'll keep that
in mind.
Speaker 4 (31:44):
Thank you for that.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
It was a great knife, see it.
Speaker 4 (31:47):
It was nice in the moment.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
It's a great knife. Who knew, all right?
Speaker 3 (31:50):
So the second question is most Americans have security systems
to protect their homes.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
True or false?
Speaker 4 (31:56):
Yes, absolutely, it's false.
Speaker 5 (31:59):
I literally had my security system installed the day I
got my keys to my house, like that appointment was
booked before I even I think finalized everything.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
Yeah, they say that only thirty percent of people actually
have security systems.
Speaker 4 (32:12):
Well that's insane, which is.
Speaker 3 (32:13):
Probably why insurance is so expensive. Live in LA, and
insurance is expensive because of earthquakes, and well.
Speaker 5 (32:20):
Security systems are expensive. We could reference that as well.
Security systems are expensive. I think I spent over four
grand on all the installation of all the window sensors,
door sensors, whatever. The keypads are door locks. So yeah,
they're expensive, and then you pay monthly. But so I
guess I can understand there's a barrier to entry for
some people, but I will say there was a priority
(32:40):
for me.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
Final question, why do you think house swimming parties started?
Is it to shop the home or is it actually
to warm it up?
Speaker 4 (32:49):
I think it's I think it is to warm it up.
Speaker 5 (32:52):
I think it's to support the people and celebrate them
as they purchased their home and moved into that big
next chapter and says congratulation, and let me help you
as you furnish this place, because buying it was already
hard enough, So let me get you some of these
key things that you might need to kind of lift
that load while also giving you, you know, the small
celebration to celebrate your accomplishments.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
It turns out it was actually literal. It was actually
to bring wood like fire with it, So you would
bring firewood is the gift?
Speaker 5 (33:20):
Oh, I feel like I had not said anything. I
just like that one word answer.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Yeah, we didn't know. I think.
Speaker 3 (33:29):
I think how's warmings, depending on your demographic and where
you're from, mean different things to different people. I think
in Beverly Hills is probably to show up the home.
I think in the South Bronx, it's like I need
a couch, I need a kitchen knife.
Speaker 4 (33:42):
Fair enough, thanks to that.
Speaker 6 (33:43):
I'm side guys, So talk to me a little bit
about some of your travels, right, so even the sixty
six sixty seven countries, which is fantastic.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
I don't know if I can name sixty six or
sixty seven countries. I can't with that. Just give us
a travel hack of how.
Speaker 3 (34:02):
To travel affordably affordably but still, look, look, let get car. Yeah,
let's make it. Let's make it look good for our content.
But how do you actually do that on a budget?
Speaker 5 (34:14):
Okay, Well, I do want to say that I think
if you're traveling, that you should do it for self fulfillment,
and that we should always do everything for the GRAM.
But I will say there's definitely a lot of travel
hats out there. One of the ones that I leaned into,
especially in twenty twenty three, I didn't have as much
funds to be able to play around with, but I
still wanted to travel. I was still going on trips.
I was able to leverage points for purchasing flights. So
(34:37):
if you do have an AMEX or a Chase Sapphire
or maybe an airline card, so I use my American
Airlines card.
Speaker 4 (34:44):
That's my airline that I'm loyal to.
Speaker 5 (34:46):
But whether you're with Delta Southwest, whatever, honestly.
Speaker 4 (34:49):
I get it.
Speaker 5 (34:49):
If it wasn't for Chabrill, your real would pass forever.
Speaker 4 (34:52):
We always use American Airlines.
Speaker 5 (34:54):
That's where I first got my status, and the minute
you get status in an airline, you want to keep it.
It makes a difference between getting your free upgrades, getting
into first class, getting into business class, getting early boarding,
getting anyway, all sorts of fabulous perks and benefits.
Speaker 4 (35:08):
So that's one for sure.
Speaker 5 (35:09):
Stick to an airline if you can if you're at
that position in your travel experiences where you can pay
that litt lecture to continue to use the same airline,
do it, because when you get the status, it's going
to make.
Speaker 4 (35:18):
Travel a lot more enjoyable for you.
Speaker 5 (35:20):
But yeah, additionally, use your credit card points more strategically,
So always transfer those points to the airline or to
the hotel, and it's going to make those points gosh
over one hundred percent more.
Speaker 4 (35:31):
Useful to you.
Speaker 3 (35:31):
So instead of going to mxtravel dot com and just
purchasing with your points, you're actually transferring those points to
the airline yeah, that you would want to book on,
and that's basically going to give you like a bonus essentially,
and your points will go further than they would if
you just paid directly. There's a site which I don't
remember off the top of my head right now, but
(35:53):
I'll share it with everyone soon. There's a site which
will basically give you what airlines have bonuses right now,
so like that twenty or forty percent bonus they may
have for like a period of time. I learned something
new today, I'm gonna go home and transfer some points
a sad Yes, I have one question and this goes
way back to your early days though. So you talked
(36:13):
a little bit about your family upbringing, more traditional, pay
your debts. Talk to me a little bit about how
your family dynamic shaped your current you know, who you
became financially as an adult. And I also want to
know how did they feel when you went to all
that school and you got your master's and you called
home and you said, I want to do content creation
(36:34):
before that was really a thing.
Speaker 5 (36:37):
Sure, Okay, So to start, I just want to shout
out my parents to the fact that they invested in
me so much, just even from the early days, the
sense of just a lot of confidence in me, like
a lot of independence, allowing me to make a lot
of my own choices. So there was just that sense
of agency that I always had. My dad, there was
a point in time where like he you know, he
was always linked to my original my first ever bank account,
(36:59):
so if he saw get low, you'd text me and say, hey,
put one hundred dollars in there, you know, be mindful.
Speaker 4 (37:03):
So it's like I never really.
Speaker 5 (37:04):
Had a point in life where I thought, if I
don't achieve this, or I don't do this, or if
I don't make some money.
Speaker 4 (37:10):
Right now, I'm not going to be able to eat.
I'm not going to make it.
Speaker 5 (37:13):
And I will say that safety net alone allowed me
to say, Okay, I'm going to take a risk for
a year if I get in some debt.
Speaker 4 (37:19):
Oh, now, go back to PR.
Speaker 5 (37:21):
Yes, my background was in public relations, and yes I
did at that schooling. To clarify, my undergrad was in
broadcast journalism and my masters was in global communication. But
the industry I worked in was PR, and my intention
was to go into global PR by the end of
my masters. So as we laugh and we say, oh,
you got that degree, but you went into you know,
(37:41):
this good time career of influencing.
Speaker 4 (37:45):
All that background experience that I have for.
Speaker 5 (37:46):
My education led to me being successful as a content creator,
especially in those early days where again, being an influence
on content creator wasn't in the industry yet. Right. So
I'm pitching these brands based on my knowledge of public relations.
I'm self branding based on my knowledge of PR. I'm
also learning how to storyteller, learning how to be in
front of the camera from my experience in broadcast journalism.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
Right.
Speaker 5 (38:08):
So all those things that I was learning aided me
in developing my career and my opportunities within the social
media space. So we can laugh at the social media
space and think of it as this pivot that doesn't
align with a lot of the education that people invest in,
but really it is. It can exactly be an extension
of what you've studied for.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
Now.
Speaker 4 (38:29):
Absolutely, oh my god, absolutely, And.
Speaker 5 (38:31):
So yeah, when the day when I said this is
what I'm doing, you know again, they just they always
believed in me, Like the money is out there, the
opportunities are out there. I'm never going to be too
humble for the idea that like twenty twenty three could
happen again to me. And so I am in a
position where I want to move smarter and I want
to be moved with more intention.
Speaker 4 (38:47):
But at the same time, I have so much respect for.
Speaker 5 (38:49):
You know, the fact that things can get hard, and
so I just you know, keep pushing forward, believing in
my ability to succeed in it.
Speaker 4 (38:58):
And yeah, I encourage other people to do.
Speaker 5 (38:59):
That at and I think you'll see yourself going a
lot further than you than you would have a few
stuck with, you know, these limiting beliefs.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
We're super excited for you.
Speaker 3 (39:08):
Power of manifestation is so powerful and you know you
got to say it first, right, and.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
Then you got to go get it.
Speaker 3 (39:14):
So absolutely, we we're a fully supportive of you on
your journey and if we could be helpful, please listen.
Speaker 4 (39:19):
Yes, oh I sure will. I'll be hitting you guys up.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
Absolutely, yuyes.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
Please let everyone know where to find you, how to
follow you, how to support you.
Speaker 1 (39:29):
That'd be great.
Speaker 4 (39:29):
Okay, great.
Speaker 5 (39:30):
So I have a few platforms that are all under
the name own by them.
Speaker 4 (39:34):
It's O W N B Y F E, M M E.
I'm a full time content.
Speaker 5 (39:38):
Creator and a travel host, so definitely check out my
content if you're into travel, home, decll, women's lifestyle, all
of that.
Speaker 2 (39:49):
Thanks for listening everyone. The hosts of The Wealth Break
are Me, Rodney Williams, and Travis Holloway. If you want
to stay connected, follow us at the Wealth Break on
all platforms, and be sure to visit the Wealthbreak dot
com for additional resources to help you on.
Speaker 1 (40:06):
Your journey to building wealth.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
Our executive producers are Ryan Marx and Malik Soaka, with
Meredith Barnes as our supervising producer.
Speaker 1 (40:16):
Catch you next time on The Wealth Break.
It's Rodney Williams, co founder of The Wealth Break. Listen.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
I know firsthand that building wealth can feel like everyone's
playing a game you never got. The rules for good
information usually locked behind paywalls full of fine print, or
shared in conversations we're never invited to. That's exactly why
we created The Wealth Break. It's way more than a podcast.
(00:24):
It's a whole platform dedicated to making wealth building transparent,
real and accessible to everyone. Want the inside stories, the
secrets successful people actually use in those exclusive gems you
won't find anywhere else. It's all here. Tap into our
growing community. Soak up those insights and get clear, actionable
(00:46):
strategies you can apply right now.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
No secrets, no gatekeepers, just real talk for real wealth.
Don't let anyone keep you from getting with yours.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Visit the wealthbreak dot com today and start changing the
game for yourself.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Welcome to the Wealth Break. I'm Rodney Williams, Travis holloweod.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Now this is where we explore real stories about building wealth,
about overcoming financial challenges. But most importantly, we hope that
you leave with some quick nuggets to improve your financial health. Today,
we have an incredible guest, Renee Daniella, and we're going
(01:42):
to explore her journey over being a creative, being an influencer,
and honestly getting a home.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
And I think she's accomplished so much.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
But before we go into that, since we're talking about
homeowner shit, since we're talking about the dream, what are
your thoughts?
Speaker 3 (01:59):
You know, I think home ownership is interesting. I think
that that's always been the American dream, right It's you
want a home, you want a white pick a fence,
you want a yard for your kids. But for me,
that hasn't necessarily been my American dream. I think that
the American dream was that for so long, largely because
individual's largest asset are their most valuable asset historically has
(02:23):
been their home. But I think for people like ourselves
who are in the business of building businesses, our largest
asset or our most valuable asset, will always be the
companies that we create, and that's really where I've decided
to focus my time and attention. I think that home
ownership is really important for some and I think it's
less important for others. But I do think that it's
(02:45):
an incredible journey to go on, and I know that
you have an experience where you started purchasing homes very
early as you got into your professional career, and I've
always kind of chuckled sometimes when I see people who
enter that journey and it's a lot different than what
they expect.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Before we dive in.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
But can you please tell us what's your job because
the audience may not know.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
I mean, yeah, we.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
Started talking about home ownership some mon name is Travis Holloway,
co founder and CEO Solo Funds, and we started a
company based off of experiences that we had where our
friends and family would frequently ask us for these really
small dollar loans, and they asked us for money because
they didn't have it, and there's such a lack of
resources to go to to get it. And that's something
(03:28):
that Rodney and I bonded over where we would see
our friends struggling even though they were college educated, even
though they had good jobs, but they might live in
New York City where the cost of living was really
high and they just really couldn't afford to make ends
meet if they had any emergency expenses, really unexpected expenses.
And that's really formed our life over the last seven
(03:51):
years of building this business and realizing that our experiences
aren't unique though, right our friends and family having these
experiences where they needed money, We're not unique at all.
It's not a Black problem, it's not a Latino problem,
it's an American problem. It's really a global problem. There's
nowhere on the earth where people don't need emergency capital
(04:11):
for unexpected expenses. And there's nowhere on earth where people
are not looking for returns and yield. And that's what
we were able to start out and create. You know,
our goal for this this podcast is hopefully that you
guys see what's special about two business owners, technically small
business owners, deciding to share their vulnerable stories.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
You know, trivs are saying, my asset is this company,
and I've poured everything into it, and I've had to
struggle along the way, just like many other people we served,
just like many people that are going to come here
and talk about it. But at the same time, we're
not going to kind of hide behind the icon. We're
going to be in front of the camera and hope
that you guys see our story. At the end of
the day, you'd be surprised. It's always going to be
(04:53):
this is going to be our best asset. Fortunately, I
was able to get a home. It's been part of
a strategy. But I will tell you I hold on
to that strategy with a band aid, trying to keep
it all together because if I ever have to choose
that asset over the asset of the company, the company
is going to always be chosen. And that's just what
you decide to do when you decide to do something great.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Yeah again, you know when you go when you think
about home ownership and renting, right, rent technically is the
most you're going to pay in a month for where
you live, right for the roof over your head. Right,
your mortgage is the least you're going to spend every
month for the roof over your head. And I think
that because of this concept of like the American dream
(05:36):
of hey, I'm successful if I own a home, I
think many people sometimes rush into that before they're ready
because they can only afford that mortgage. They haven't really
contemplated all of the additional expenses that might come alongside that.
And I see a lot of individuals after they purchased
that home say man, I wish I didn't do it,
(05:57):
or I wasn't ready yet.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
And I think that's the most important thing is are
you truly ready? Right?
Speaker 3 (06:02):
Do you have the emergency savings fund? Do you know
that if anything happened you're not going to be dusted too?
What if you lose your job?
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Right?
Speaker 3 (06:09):
Can you actually still keep up with the property taxes
and all of the ancillary fees that come along with
home ownership? But I think that home ownership can be
a beautiful thing, and you know, I would love to
know from you, like what's the best side of that
that you've experienced, and also like what's the.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Yeah, I mean things like the best side of it
is when you enter a city and you can own
a home for cheaper than what you could rent that
same home, And that's a really positive. That's not the
same in every city, so that's really important. So if
you enter yourself in a city where that equation works
out in your favor, it's a positive. And when you're
a first time buyer, there's so many incentives, right, you
(06:48):
get credits in terms of your interest rate, and also
buy a house and economic opportunity zone because then you
have potential to be taxibated in some instance. So my
first home had all of those things and it was
super easy. It was so cheap. If I tell you
my down payment was like five thousand dollars, so it
was really cheap. I would tell you that was the
great part. Now as I've graduated into bigger homes and
(07:10):
bigger problems, them homes are not taxibated, I don't get
none of those credits. And yeah, things are significantly more expensive.
And I think that that's the challenge is that it's
really hard to estimate those costs.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
You can't really estimate those costs.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
You know what they could be, you just don't know
what they will be, yes, And that's the part that
will take you out if you push it too much.
I would say, don't buy the house you can afford
by something less.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
We'll talk to Renee about this later.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
But you know, particularly in industries where you have more
creative income, right and it could be up this month,
it could be down next month. You know, incomes tend
to fluctuate, right like they're up and down, but your
expenses usually are kind of stagnant. But that still creates
like these opportunities where your income and what you need
are not aligned, and then when you have that unexpected expense,
(08:03):
it really throws things off. You have to be really
cognizant about not living above your means, because it's a snowball.
It just continues to compound and compound them. Before you
know it, you're in a really, really tough situation and
it's really hard to dig out when you got yourself behind.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
You know, my favorite part of the American Dream now
you're gonna hear it, Renee, you gotta be a hustler. Listen,
at the end of the day, when you get dead
or you miss that payment, you got to figure out
how to get that money back. So this is my
favorite part of our segment is when we code switch.
And for many folks watching or listening, you know, we
go to work every day and we have our professional
(08:38):
voice and then we got our real voice, and me
and Travis talk all the time in our real voice.
Unfortunately sometimes that's in the office. But nonetheless, we're gonna
have a topic today about the TikTok ban.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
To be honest, you start off with how you feel
My wife uses TikTok as Google. Right if she wants
to look up something, she goes to TikTok. She does
not go to Google, and that's it's essentially used as
a search engine.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
For some which is crazy.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
Then you have all of these content creators, right who
literally that is work when they wake up and they
grab that phone and they go to the TikTok app.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
That is how they make their money.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
And you're essentially talking about confiscating hundreds of thousands and
millions of jobs, right, And I don't know how intelligent
that is for the economy either. Right, So when you
think about cost of living, astronomical interest rates still up
even though they're coming down. What are these individuals supposed
(09:40):
to do when they lose their income? Are they supposed
to all go be door dash delivery people? That's not possible, right,
They're not all going to be college educated and qualified
to go get you know, a high pain job. It's
over right, So I think the economy is going to
be too impacted for that to happen. So I don't
think it's going to happen, but I think if it does,
(10:01):
I think it's going to be anarchy outside.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
So this is going to have to get sold. Who's
going to buy TikTok? Because I think that the problem
is still true. They don't want a certain group to
own it, and that's what this is all about. So
at some point somebody got somebody new to own it.
You know, if you guys want to give me TikTok,
I'll take it, you know what I mean. I think
I got great plans, I got great vision, you know,
(10:24):
I'm passionate, but like, what's really going to happen, Because
at the end of the day, even they do not
want that particular country to have control. The world is
not America.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
And I think we as Americans sometimes get really overconfident
that the three hundred and twenty million of US or
however many of us there are like we rule everything.
And I think that that company can still be really
successful not being here. I don't know if it hurts
the US economy more or not having it versus hurting
that company to not be here.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
I don't know. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
It sales feels like it might be mayhem regardless, I'm
looking forward to it for various reasons. But for all
my TikTokers out there, I would definitely think about diversification.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Yeah, you go back to hustle, right, you know, when
you lose the opportunity to be an influencer or content
creator on TikTok, I would be going crazy right now,
building out following on every other platform possible and making
sure that you know, I'm setting myself up to.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Not go out of business.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Yeah, So, as we get into this incredible guest with
Renee Daniella, we're going to talk about the story of hustle,
creativity and how do you diversify in this economy.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
So let's do it.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
Our guest today is Renee Daniella. We're so excited to
have you. Number one I'll talk for today is about
building wealth and growing and you have such a unique
and incredible experience traveling the globe, living across so many
different cities and speaking so many different languages owned by
femas for heavy.
Speaker 4 (12:01):
Thank you, guys, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
We like to kick off every guest with the story
or a question, and it stems because of our day
jobs helping people get access to capital. But we all
been broke and we all, you know, have a challenge
and where do we go? I would love for you
to start off and tell us the story when we
didn't have much.
Speaker 5 (12:20):
Okay, So I've got two that I want to share
for context, because I feel like sometimes being broke as
a cycle in that we might have to revisit that.
But to start, when I first got into the content
creation industry, which for anyone who doesn't know, I'm a
full time content creator. I've been doing this for about
a decade now and I make multi six figures doing that.
But starting out initially, I you know, the industry was new.
(12:43):
Being an influencer wasn't a term people were aware of.
So it wasn't even like, you know, you were able
to pitch and work with marketing teams because it wasn't.
Speaker 4 (12:50):
A budget they had set aside.
Speaker 5 (12:52):
So in that time, I had just finished my master's program.
I was like, let me try this blogger content creation
life I had finished. I gave myself one year instead
of in this one year I can start making money,
I will, you know, pursue this full time. If I don't,
I'm going to go back to my career in populations,
which is what I did originally. And so we got
to the end of that year and I found myself
(13:13):
in over ten k max on one credit card. I
had owed my family over four grand You know, my
parents were very wonderful in helping me with a little
bit of cash when I needed it.
Speaker 4 (13:22):
I also had.
Speaker 5 (13:23):
Defaulted on student loans, and then I just had, you know,
some additional debt and I didn't have a great income.
So I decided I was going to move from London,
where I was at the time, back to New York,
back into that space to work in populations. But I
had gotten my first job opportunity with Passport Heavy and
that kind of was a turning point in my career initially.
So they invited me to come to Columbia to host
(13:45):
travel videos, where I got a monthly stipend. It wasn't big,
but it was enough that by the end of my
I think at six seven months that I spent their
hosting news videos, I had made enough money to pay
off all my debts, get right with my student loans,
and just pay off my family, and then also just
kind of get myself moving with the social media industry,
which by the end of that I had started, the
industry had developed itself. So I went from you know,
(14:08):
begging for money with brands and I'm not knowing what
an influencer was to brand hitting me up and being like, hey,
we've got seven thousand dollars for you to do this,
ten thousand dollars for you to do that, we want
to fly you here to Paris for something with you know,
fragrance companies.
Speaker 4 (14:22):
Or whatever the case is. So I was about twenty.
Speaker 5 (14:24):
Seventeen in the industry blossomed, So that's where I started
making my first six figures.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
One question and just for clarity, how much debt did
you get yourself into and obviously got yourself out?
Speaker 5 (14:36):
So at that time it was, you know, we were
in that cute area where it was like just the
student loans, I had the ten k credit card I had. Well,
to be honest, now that I had some real debt,
I look back and I'm like, oh.
Speaker 4 (14:47):
Sweet here and you were so stressed.
Speaker 5 (14:49):
But at the time, yeah, it was about ten k
on one credit card, about four thousand to my family,
so we'll say less than twenty grand. But I had
no real income and I'd never made more than like,
I think, fifteen twenty grand.
Speaker 4 (15:00):
And a year.
Speaker 5 (15:00):
You know, I always look to the founder of Passport
Heavy Gebrawl, and I have a lot of gratitude because
he kind of gave me a real big stepping stone
where I got to find out what it's like to
have consistent income and pay things off and also the
industry got to develop. Let's remember I didn't have a
lot of financial literacy and only started making money. So
I got excited, you know about the hitting six figures
for the first time, and so yeah, that continued to grow.
(15:21):
Twenty nineteen I think was one of my best years.
I think I made somewhat over three hundred and seven thousand.
We won't care too much about the numbers. But as
we fast forward, I got to twenty twenty two where
I bought my house. So you know, imagine between twenty
seventeen or twenty twenty two were making comfortable, sustainable income.
I bought my house, and then that's where things started
(15:44):
to get more real because I really I started to
realize how expensive homes were. So yeah, come to twenty
twenty three, their time when I was broke. A reason
I had a lot of cash on my account too,
by the way, is that I was behind on taxes.
There are so many people in the entrepreneurial space, and
you guys, I know some as well who have not
paid taxes for a few years. And I think it happens,
(16:05):
you know, like a slippery slope. You kind of feel
uncertain about it. You don't have a good tax accountant,
or you just feel a little behind, and so yeah,
I was one of those people. Twenty twenty happened, so
you know, I kind of got off of my taxes then,
and it just kind of cascaded into twenty twenty three
where I decided I needed to get all my taxes
taken care of. Especially that process was difficult when buying
a house without having my taxes to prove income. But
(16:28):
I had enough money sitting there, so they were like, well,
we've lived, she makes this money.
Speaker 4 (16:31):
Right, of course, all this money's an account.
Speaker 5 (16:33):
So anyway, so we get to twenty twenty three, I
caught up on my taxes, so I was getting all
the letters. I was getting the real letters, and I
was getting the scam letters being like we're taking your
house if you don't pay this one hundred and something
thousand dollars. So that was kind of a rock bottom
for me where I realized, oh my god, I owe
all this money. I have this house, which is amazing,
but it's also expensive. And so I went from making
(16:53):
an income that was really comfortable to now having a
debt income ratio that wasn't balanced anymore.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
Also, twenty twenty three, we saw the market shift quite
a bit where a lot of brands were pulling away
from influencers because they didn't have budget. How did that
transition impact you at all or if at all?
Speaker 4 (17:14):
Sure, Well, I mean that was definitely a contributing factor.
Speaker 5 (17:16):
Right. So I'm lucky in that I've been in the industry,
in the content creation industry for a while, so I
have a lot of contacts within the agency space who
did book me. But at the same time, I do
feel like twenty twenty three was substantially less in terms
of bookings. I was still making, you know, I think
over two hundred thousand, but again with the debt that
I had, and with my new expense of just having
(17:37):
a house in general, you put those together like that
two hundred thousand got eaten up so fast. And what
I was not preparing myself for is the fact that
I was spending as if I was still going to
be making that money and not really accounting for the amount.
Speaker 4 (17:48):
That I was paying back in debt.
Speaker 5 (17:50):
I didn't have a lot of awareness on my monthly
expenses and bills, and so yeah, I just it was
like a what a it called a recipe for disaster.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
Yeah, So talk to me a little bit about as you, right,
you went from making fifteen thousand dollars a year to
over three hundred thousand dollars a year. Talk to me
a little bit about how your lifestyle started to shift
to where you see all of this additional money coming
in and you're just like, all right, it's a study flow.
Life is good, the gravy train is here, and you
(18:19):
may adapt your lifestyle to that perfect scenario versus any
downside scenarios.
Speaker 5 (18:25):
Gosh, I mean, I was just spending my money a lot.
Me and my friends are really really living a lavish lifestyle, right.
I'm in my late twenties early thirties in this time period,
and me and my friends were taking loads of trips.
Speaker 4 (18:39):
I mean, I've been over sixties six or sixty.
Speaker 5 (18:43):
Seven countries now, so travel is a huge priority for me.
So I think you see a big shift for me
going to more affordable travels and like saying in more
affordable accommodations, to me staying at more five style properties,
me going for the lobster and the brands, you know,
and me just experiencing life with a little bit more ease.
But I also I was not financially literate. I think
(19:05):
at that time, if I was doing any amount of investing,
even just keeping that cash that I had on my account,
if I put it in a high old savings like,
there were so many ways that I could have been
more responsible with my money. I was enjoying life, I
was buying a house. I was you know, that's where
you were seeing my money go. So I wasn't into savings,
but it was into you know, my one kind of
(19:28):
venture into wealth building, which was purchasing my home.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
One of the things you mentioned, and it's a challenge
for both of us, and I think you should talk
a little bit about it, and I want you to
answer as well. The creative income, right, you know, talent
and entrepreneurs and founders and small business owners. It's so
hard to talk to a bank like I would love
your conversation with the bank.
Speaker 4 (19:50):
Wow.
Speaker 5 (19:50):
Well, I will say again, I was in the best
position because I did not have those taxes when it
came to purchasing my home. That to me, I think
is one of the biggest experiences where you're going to
have somebody going over your finances with the fine tooth comb.
So that's where you do find yourself having more of
those discussions and arguments around validating your income as a creative.
(20:12):
So I used a loan broker. You know, they took
a nice little chunk of money for their service, but
they made the difference for me being able to probably
not get approved for a loan at all to being
able to get a you know, one and a half
million dollar house in LA by myself as an entrepreneur.
Speaker 3 (20:26):
What are some of the tips or tricks that you
would give the younger version of yourself right who's maybe
now just starting to get on that gravy train. They
see the money coming in, but they don't necessarily have
a plan for it yet.
Speaker 5 (20:39):
I would definitely start with the idea of reframing your
mindset around money. I think a lot of us there's
an ignorance to money in terms of how it all works,
this feeling of like it's fleeting, it's feeling of that
it's you know, cynical or negative. I think taking that
new approach to money and saying, Okay, well, I want
to be incredibly educated because I think there's a lot
of there's like a basic understanding that we should all
(20:59):
have that most of us don't.
Speaker 4 (21:01):
I don't think that I'm alone in that.
Speaker 5 (21:03):
I think there's a lot of people out there who
look at money and it is just still kind of
this mythical space. Had a friend I was talking to
who was putting money into savings, like a high old
savings account where she'd think she was getting about not
actually no, not even a high old savings account. She
was putting money into her savings account, but she had
an income that she could trust that was going to be.
Speaker 4 (21:22):
Coming in, that was gonna be consistent.
Speaker 5 (21:24):
She had a full time job nine to five, but
she had a rolling balance of like twenty three or
twenty five thousand on her AMEX And I'm like, oh,
why are you working worrying about this nest egg when
you've got a high interest credit card debt And on
top of that, she's putting this nest egg in her
regular savings And I'm like, use a high old savings account,
you know me?
Speaker 4 (21:42):
I read my one book that told.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Me about it.
Speaker 4 (21:44):
And I'm like, oh, no, I'm so knowledgeable now.
Speaker 5 (21:46):
But yet it is an idea of like, once you
learn some of these small things, they become so much
more understandable and it helps you really conceive money in
a new way. And so I think that's a great
place to start if you look at money and you're
someone who doesn't come from a naturally, you know, literate background,
where your family is maybe a bit more traditional, and
how they built wealth or they didn't have a lot
of access to wealth building resources like we might do now,
(22:08):
or like we might be in a position to now.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
I mean you're doing it.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
I mean you're doing it because we talk about you
don't get good with money unless you get money.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
But you got to have money to figure out what
to do with money.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
It's real easy for everyone to tell us all about
these financial literacy stuff and I'm like, well, I can't
even afford to, you know, eat tonight and put it
into action.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
I can't put into action.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
Well, honestly, what we're hearing is, you know from this
career that is actually multifaceted.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
It's not just influencer.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
I would look at it as like a small business
and you have a brand and you've turned out and
tell home ownership, what do you think that there are
some mistakes that certain people do in your position that
you want to tell everyone.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Not to do.
Speaker 5 (23:08):
One I would say a mistake that creators might make
is putting all their eggs in one basket, which is
something that I kind of did. I didn't really finish
my broke story, but basically we got to the end
of the twenty twenty three timeline and I realized I
had a rolling debt of like over twenty grand on
my credit card. I had the six figure tax debt
that I was on a payment plan with the IRS.
But still we're watching those penalties pile up, and it's
(23:31):
just this huge debt and I'm getting all the letters.
And then on top of that, I wasn't in my
bank account. I had calculated I had just enough cash
coming in from these net twenty net thirty at sixty
day payments that would last me until March of twenty
twenty four, and at that point I would now not
have any cash in my account to pay my mortgage,
to pay this minimum amount on the rolling credit card debt,
(23:54):
or to pay the IRS fee that I had set up.
So right like, I had this countdown, and that's where
I had to get really serious and say, Okay, I've
been doing content creation for this time. It is a
consistent income that I know that I can make at
least these couple one hundred thousand, But I've gotten myself
in a position where, hey, it wasn't enough this year,
and so now I know I need to make more
(24:14):
money or else I'm going to be in a position
where I'm going I don't even know what it looks
like to lose a house.
Speaker 4 (24:18):
And I was like, I don't want to know what
that or how that happens.
Speaker 5 (24:21):
So I said, how strategic can I get as a
content creator? What are some ways that I can leverage
my platform that I can leverage?
Speaker 4 (24:28):
What tools and resources can I lean into? And one
of them was pitching.
Speaker 5 (24:31):
But I sat down, you know, literally November December twenty
twenty three, and I wrote a big list of these
brands that I would love to work with, brands that
I'd either work with previously, or agencies that I knew of,
and I started pitching them all. I put together my
media card, I put together pitch deck, I put together
some concepts, some content ideas. I started pumping out a
lot of original content on my platform so I could
get more momentum, And by March twenty twenty four, I
(24:53):
had signed like a quarter of a million and brand deals.
So I went from literally being like, ah, I don't
know what I'm going to do to having this huge success, right.
Speaker 4 (25:01):
And the thing is you can't always control that.
Speaker 5 (25:04):
Like I could have pitched all those brands and not
been able to you know, not have received any yesses, right,
And I you know, I got a couple of responses
that ended up being really lucrative deals. But additionally I
pursued other income streams. I started renting my space out
on pier Space. I have an ADU in my back
house that I got very serious renting that out. It
actually pays I think about forty percent of my mortgage.
(25:24):
So yeah, you got to get creative sometimes.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
Yeah, I mean it sounds like you eventually have to
become a Swiss army knife.
Speaker 4 (25:30):
Right, Yeah, because.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
You know, you've been a really successful creator and so
many people have seen your face on you know, whether
it's different partnerships you've had or it's actually your content
that you're putting out directly. But as the market shift
and change, you can't again have all your eggs in
one basket. But it seems like you have started to
leverage a lot of the skills that you have accumulated
(25:54):
along the way to be able to create these micro
businesses or micro services that you're presenting to others. And
I think people feel like content creators are just so
one dimensional, but you're not, because you know, you're creating content,
you're distributing it, you're creating brand deals, you're building relationships,
you're figuring out how to pitch yourself. Like those things
are all really important and the outcome can be significant,
(26:17):
But you're going to hear a lot.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
Of nose along the way.
Speaker 3 (26:20):
Absolutely, tell me a little bit about how the nose
impact you or do they.
Speaker 5 (26:26):
I think people look at the content creation space and
they just kind of think it's this superficial idea. But
everyone I know in the space wears all these different hats, right,
Like they're doing production, they're doing the sound engineering, they're
doing all the editing, they're doing the creative direction, they're
doing the brand outreach, they're doing the marketing, they're doing
the puerperpulations. Within this space, it's a billion dollar industry,
(26:47):
multi billion dollar industry, and there are people that I
know personally with smaller audiences than I have that are
making seven figures. So for me to have my first
half a million year, like I'm so grateful and really
excited about that. I paid off my taxes in full,
I paid off my credit cards in full. I paid
off a big lug of my mortgage.
Speaker 4 (27:04):
Thank you. I know, I feel like really you know, relieved.
Speaker 5 (27:06):
This year going into twenty twenty five, I replenish my
emergency fund to be at least six months of my
monthly expenses, which are pretty high.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
So what's putting to.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
The emergency fund, Because we folks need to understand these
little things that are being dropped.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
What is the emergency fund?
Speaker 5 (27:20):
Your emergency fund is like if you don't have any
income coming in, if you were in a physician like
I was in twenty twenty three, where I knew by
March twenty twenty four I wasn't going to have another
penny potentially, then I would have this fund that is
set aside. Personally, I keep it in a hyal savings
account and it is for three, six, nine or twelve
months worth of your income. So if you don't have
anything coming in, you're able to cover kind of your
(27:43):
basic spent expenses. Right, So that's going to be your mortgage,
that's going to be your car payment, that's going to
be your insurance things like that. It's not necessarily going
to be your travel expenses, it's not going to be
extracurricular activities, but it is going to be that bare
bones like these are the things that I need to
pay before somebody comes knock on my door and they're
taking something back from me. And I finish twenty twenty
three with all that debt, but additionally, any cash that
was my account was gone, right, So now I had
(28:04):
this intentional, calculated fund that I put together this year,
and I said, I need that.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
So you know, the American dream historically has been, you know,
the house in the white picket fence, right, and you
were fortunate enough to accomplish that. But once you accomplished that,
I think your eyes were opened up to a new
level of responsibility. Could you just talk a little bit
about the difference that you felt between renting and home
(28:29):
ownership and in your first twelve months did you feel
like it was better did you feel like it was not.
Speaker 5 (28:38):
When you first buy a home, you put all that
cash down and it was a very competitive time to
get a home. And so yeah, that first twelve months
I lost.
Speaker 4 (28:47):
The kind of comfort that I had and having a
lot of cash.
Speaker 5 (28:51):
I also had that realization of how expensive homes are,
all the hidden costs. I think when you first buy
the house, you have that upfront visuals of your cost
and you see what that mortgage looks like, and your
insurance and these things. So there was a seriousness about
money that came in that first twelve months that I
didn't have before. There was a new respect for money.
(29:11):
Buying a home felt like a huge accomplishment. It felt
like something when we talk about the American dream, when
we talk about the house and the white picket fence,
we also picture it with a family. We also picture
it with you know, as a woman, you often picture
this husband and these kids, and that's the purpose of
buying a house. So here I am as a single
woman and I'm buying myself and it's a three bedroom,
three bathroom with an ADU. That's like, what am I
(29:34):
doing with all this space? I'm really imagining what that
vision is for myself. I'm redefining what that success looks
like to myself. So I think that's been a beautiful
aspect of my content that I've been able to share.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
I mean, to be honest, I think that is a
beautiful message for women and honestly for everyone, because we
always are waiting for like the mousetone of life. Oh
I'm waiting for to find a perfect partner, I'm waiting
for the perfect job, or I'm waiting for the perfect situation.
See no perfect situation for building wealth or to establishing
freedom for yourself. You literally wake up and you need
(30:05):
to figure out that plan for yourself because I think
what this environment has taught us is that the environment
is not going to create it for you and you
we hope someone else is going to come created for you.
That's also not going to happen. You should be figuring
out how to create some freedom for yourself and some
security for yourself, such as you can go to sleep
at night and wake up in pursuit those passions. Great,
(30:36):
So we have some fun, little lightning fun questions before
we wrap up.
Speaker 4 (30:41):
So first question, I'm nervous or.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
No giving someone a knife as a housewarming gift?
Speaker 1 (30:48):
Agree or disagree? Is it a great idea? Agreed?
Speaker 5 (30:51):
Yeah for housewoman gift if it's like a great high
quality kitchen part like knife, right, kitchen tool? Absolutely is
somebody at home to go and through? Yes, Yes, knives
are really expensive, and I'm assuming you gentlemen have high
quality tastes and that this knife that you would have
got them is in the You know, I didn't do
a housewarming.
Speaker 3 (31:10):
Okay, I know she was living high in the she
got her house. She's like, I don't need a housewoman
at all.
Speaker 5 (31:17):
You know, the projects kept happening, so I never found
a good time to do one. But one of these
days you make at the invite.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
So they say that the superstition is that if you
give someone a knife, that you cut the friendship.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
So apparently you're not supposed to give knives.
Speaker 4 (31:32):
Is that like a universal superstition or.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Is that you know? Interestingly enough, I got gifted a knife,
and you.
Speaker 4 (31:38):
Know, I'm not friends with them anymore.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
It's not that I'm not friends.
Speaker 5 (31:40):
Were definitely, Oh my gosh, Okay, well I'll keep that
in mind.
Speaker 4 (31:44):
Thank you for that.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
It was a great knife, see it.
Speaker 4 (31:47):
It was nice in the moment.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
It's a great knife. Who knew, all right?
Speaker 3 (31:50):
So the second question is most Americans have security systems
to protect their homes.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
True or false?
Speaker 4 (31:56):
Yes, absolutely, it's false.
Speaker 5 (31:59):
I literally had my security system installed the day I
got my keys to my house, like that appointment was
booked before I even I think finalized everything.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
Yeah, they say that only thirty percent of people actually
have security systems.
Speaker 4 (32:12):
Well that's insane, which is.
Speaker 3 (32:13):
Probably why insurance is so expensive. Live in LA, and
insurance is expensive because of earthquakes, and well.
Speaker 5 (32:20):
Security systems are expensive. We could reference that as well.
Security systems are expensive. I think I spent over four
grand on all the installation of all the window sensors,
door sensors, whatever. The keypads are door locks. So yeah,
they're expensive, and then you pay monthly. But so I
guess I can understand there's a barrier to entry for
some people, but I will say there was a priority
(32:40):
for me.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
Final question, why do you think house swimming parties started?
Is it to shop the home or is it actually
to warm it up?
Speaker 4 (32:49):
I think it's I think it is to warm it up.
Speaker 5 (32:52):
I think it's to support the people and celebrate them
as they purchased their home and moved into that big
next chapter and says congratulation, and let me help you
as you furnish this place, because buying it was already
hard enough, So let me get you some of these
key things that you might need to kind of lift
that load while also giving you, you know, the small
celebration to celebrate your accomplishments.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
It turns out it was actually literal. It was actually
to bring wood like fire with it, So you would
bring firewood is the gift?
Speaker 5 (33:20):
Oh, I feel like I had not said anything. I
just like that one word answer.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Yeah, we didn't know. I think.
Speaker 3 (33:29):
I think how's warmings, depending on your demographic and where
you're from, mean different things to different people. I think
in Beverly Hills is probably to show up the home.
I think in the South Bronx, it's like I need
a couch, I need a kitchen knife.
Speaker 4 (33:42):
Fair enough, thanks to that.
Speaker 6 (33:43):
I'm side guys, So talk to me a little bit
about some of your travels, right, so even the sixty
six sixty seven countries, which is fantastic.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
I don't know if I can name sixty six or
sixty seven countries. I can't with that. Just give us
a travel hack of how.
Speaker 3 (34:02):
To travel affordably affordably but still, look, look, let get car. Yeah,
let's make it. Let's make it look good for our content.
But how do you actually do that on a budget?
Speaker 5 (34:14):
Okay, Well, I do want to say that I think
if you're traveling, that you should do it for self fulfillment,
and that we should always do everything for the GRAM.
But I will say there's definitely a lot of travel
hats out there. One of the ones that I leaned into,
especially in twenty twenty three, I didn't have as much
funds to be able to play around with, but I
still wanted to travel. I was still going on trips.
I was able to leverage points for purchasing flights. So
(34:37):
if you do have an AMEX or a Chase Sapphire
or maybe an airline card, so I use my American
Airlines card.
Speaker 4 (34:44):
That's my airline that I'm loyal to.
Speaker 5 (34:46):
But whether you're with Delta Southwest, whatever, honestly.
Speaker 4 (34:49):
I get it.
Speaker 5 (34:49):
If it wasn't for Chabrill, your real would pass forever.
Speaker 4 (34:52):
We always use American Airlines.
Speaker 5 (34:54):
That's where I first got my status, and the minute
you get status in an airline, you want to keep it.
It makes a difference between getting your free upgrades, getting
into first class, getting into business class, getting early boarding,
getting anyway, all sorts of fabulous perks and benefits.
Speaker 4 (35:08):
So that's one for sure.
Speaker 5 (35:09):
Stick to an airline if you can if you're at
that position in your travel experiences where you can pay
that litt lecture to continue to use the same airline,
do it, because when you get the status, it's going
to make.
Speaker 4 (35:18):
Travel a lot more enjoyable for you.
Speaker 5 (35:20):
But yeah, additionally, use your credit card points more strategically,
So always transfer those points to the airline or to
the hotel, and it's going to make those points gosh
over one hundred percent more.
Speaker 4 (35:31):
Useful to you.
Speaker 3 (35:31):
So instead of going to mxtravel dot com and just
purchasing with your points, you're actually transferring those points to
the airline yeah, that you would want to book on,
and that's basically going to give you like a bonus essentially,
and your points will go further than they would if
you just paid directly. There's a site which I don't
remember off the top of my head right now, but
(35:53):
I'll share it with everyone soon. There's a site which
will basically give you what airlines have bonuses right now,
so like that twenty or forty percent bonus they may
have for like a period of time. I learned something
new today, I'm gonna go home and transfer some points
a sad Yes, I have one question and this goes
way back to your early days though. So you talked
(36:13):
a little bit about your family upbringing, more traditional, pay
your debts. Talk to me a little bit about how
your family dynamic shaped your current you know, who you
became financially as an adult. And I also want to
know how did they feel when you went to all
that school and you got your master's and you called
home and you said, I want to do content creation
(36:34):
before that was really a thing.
Speaker 5 (36:37):
Sure, Okay, So to start, I just want to shout
out my parents to the fact that they invested in
me so much, just even from the early days, the
sense of just a lot of confidence in me, like
a lot of independence, allowing me to make a lot
of my own choices. So there was just that sense
of agency that I always had. My dad, there was
a point in time where like he you know, he
was always linked to my original my first ever bank account,
(36:59):
so if he saw get low, you'd text me and say, hey,
put one hundred dollars in there, you know, be mindful.
Speaker 4 (37:03):
So it's like I never really.
Speaker 5 (37:04):
Had a point in life where I thought, if I
don't achieve this, or I don't do this, or if
I don't make some money.
Speaker 4 (37:10):
Right now, I'm not going to be able to eat.
I'm not going to make it.
Speaker 5 (37:13):
And I will say that safety net alone allowed me
to say, Okay, I'm going to take a risk for
a year if I get in some debt.
Speaker 4 (37:19):
Oh, now, go back to PR.
Speaker 5 (37:21):
Yes, my background was in public relations, and yes I
did at that schooling. To clarify, my undergrad was in
broadcast journalism and my masters was in global communication. But
the industry I worked in was PR, and my intention
was to go into global PR by the end of
my masters. So as we laugh and we say, oh,
you got that degree, but you went into you know,
(37:41):
this good time career of influencing.
Speaker 4 (37:45):
All that background experience that I have for.
Speaker 5 (37:46):
My education led to me being successful as a content creator,
especially in those early days where again, being an influence
on content creator wasn't in the industry yet. Right. So
I'm pitching these brands based on my knowledge of public relations.
I'm self branding based on my knowledge of PR. I'm
also learning how to storyteller, learning how to be in
front of the camera from my experience in broadcast journalism.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
Right.
Speaker 5 (38:08):
So all those things that I was learning aided me
in developing my career and my opportunities within the social
media space. So we can laugh at the social media
space and think of it as this pivot that doesn't
align with a lot of the education that people invest in,
but really it is. It can exactly be an extension
of what you've studied for.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
Now.
Speaker 4 (38:29):
Absolutely, oh my god, absolutely, And.
Speaker 5 (38:31):
So yeah, when the day when I said this is
what I'm doing, you know again, they just they always
believed in me, Like the money is out there, the
opportunities are out there. I'm never going to be too
humble for the idea that like twenty twenty three could
happen again to me. And so I am in a
position where I want to move smarter and I want
to be moved with more intention.
Speaker 4 (38:47):
But at the same time, I have so much respect for.
Speaker 5 (38:49):
You know, the fact that things can get hard, and
so I just you know, keep pushing forward, believing in
my ability to succeed in it.
Speaker 4 (38:58):
And yeah, I encourage other people to do.
Speaker 5 (38:59):
That at and I think you'll see yourself going a
lot further than you than you would have a few
stuck with, you know, these limiting beliefs.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
We're super excited for you.
Speaker 3 (39:08):
Power of manifestation is so powerful and you know you
got to say it first, right, and.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
Then you got to go get it.
Speaker 3 (39:14):
So absolutely, we we're a fully supportive of you on
your journey and if we could be helpful, please listen.
Speaker 4 (39:19):
Yes, oh I sure will. I'll be hitting you guys up.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
Absolutely, yuyes.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
Please let everyone know where to find you, how to
follow you, how to support you.
Speaker 1 (39:29):
That'd be great.
Speaker 4 (39:29):
Okay, great.
Speaker 5 (39:30):
So I have a few platforms that are all under
the name own by them.
Speaker 4 (39:34):
It's O W N B Y F E, M M E.
I'm a full time content.
Speaker 5 (39:38):
Creator and a travel host, so definitely check out my
content if you're into travel, home, decll, women's lifestyle, all
of that.
Speaker 2 (39:49):
Thanks for listening everyone. The hosts of The Wealth Break
are Me, Rodney Williams, and Travis Holloway. If you want
to stay connected, follow us at the Wealth Break on
all platforms, and be sure to visit the Wealthbreak dot
com for additional resources to help you on.
Speaker 1 (40:06):
Your journey to building wealth.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
Our executive producers are Ryan Marx and Malik Soaka, with
Meredith Barnes as our supervising producer.
Speaker 1 (40:16):
Catch you next time on The Wealth Break.
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