May 1, 2025 • 47 mins
In this episode of The Wealth Effect, I chat with Nancy Ward, a passionate and purpose-driven financial coach helping clients break free from credit card debt without relying on traditional budgeting methods. Nancy shares her journey from personal debt and financial uncertainty. Nancy empowers families to prioritize their financial well-being with personalized strategies for a secure financial future.
Nancy brings a calm, compassionate, and practical perspective to financial coaching. Whether you're feeling stuck in your finances, struggling with money conversations, or just need guidance to create a plan that works—this episode will give you tools and inspiration to take your next step.
Links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nancyward1/
Money Snapshot: https://www.nancywardfinancialcoach.com
Email: nancy@nancywardfinancialcoach.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to The
(00:00):
Wealth Effect.
Today, we welcome
Nancy Ward.
Nancy is a dedicated financial coach who
helps clients break free from credit card
debt without relying on
traditional budgeting methods.
Nancy empowers families to prioritize
their financial well-being with
personalized strategies for
a secure financial future.
Thank you for being
on the podcast, Nancy.
(00:22):
Thank you for
having me.
I did see that you
grew up in Cincinnati.
And funny enough, this is the second
person from Ohio I've interviewed.
So how was growing
up in Cincinnati?
Well, funny enough, I grew up in Cleveland
and went to school in Cincinnati.
And I've been here ever
since with college.
(00:42):
So this feels like my second home,
but it's a great place to live,
great place to
raise your kids.
And the weather, you
have all four seasons.
So it's
always good.
Yeah, I spent a couple of months in
Cleveland, and it is a different place.
Very, I think, unique compared to other
(01:03):
cities that are bigger
cities around the country.
But I think it is a really
good place to be at.
Yeah.
What did you study?
Ohio is a little different
than California, let's say.
It is.
What did you study at the
University of Cincinnati?
I was in business administration
and had a major in marketing.
(01:25):
I did take some finance classes and
accounting classes, and I was considering
doing a double major with finance
and just something about it.
I don't know if life happened or I just
didn't grab on to the
books as well as I thought.
But I've always been
a numbers person.
So that was another reason why I was a
(01:46):
little bit geared toward doing some either
accounting or
some finance.
And did your passion for money arise
from childhood or from college?
Did you grow up talking about
finances with your family?
Actually, no.
I was a child of the 80s, was born in
(02:07):
the 70s, but my life was in the 80s.
And we really didn't
talk about money.
The only thing I remember about having
money or not having money is the fact that
my dad was a
construction worker.
And I knew that he was working on
different sites, and then he'd be on
unemployment for two weeks
to a month or what have you.
(02:27):
So I know that my mom was very savvy as
far as watching her finances
because you had money
coming in.
And then when you're on unemployment, you
know, the bills still need to be paid.
And we didn't
have credit cards.
I think they had a Sears
card back at the time.
And if you didn't have the
money, you just didn't buy.
And that might be another reason why our
(02:50):
Gen Xers are loving spending is because
when we grew up, we didn't, you know,
we didn't have all that extra money.
We didn't go to the shopping
malls once or twice a week.
There wasn't as much
commerce back then.
And I'm not talking
about e-commerce.
So I'm just talking about
just general commerce.
In order to go to a mall, it was
at least a 20-minute drive for me.
(03:10):
Now I can two exits up on the highway,
and I've got Target and, you know,
you name it.
Any fast food place,
restaurants, things like that.
So times were so
different back then.
And I guess it comes back to
I really always loved math.
And I'll embarrass myself for the moment,
(03:32):
but I remember being in my basement.
We had a huge chalkboard, probably
about the size of what's behind me.
And we would get books from
the school when they expired.
So the school would get new textbooks,
and then they would sell the old ones.
And I remember having math books,
and here's my embarrassing part.
(03:54):
I taught invisible kids
in my basement math.
So I've always been
math-centric and data-driven.
So, you know, fast forward, I was in
credit card debt before I got married.
I was $40,000 in
credit card debt.
(04:15):
And it's like, how
did I even do that?
I still sometimes
question myself.
But I've gone through that process
where I've paid off that debt.
And after the divorce, I said, there's
no way I am going to be down in
that road again.
And I've made
some changes.
And so that's the reason why I
decided to become a financial coach.
Because I can help people,
which I've always been good at.
(04:37):
And I like numbers.
And so I was able to help other people
so they can not necessarily live the life
that they want, but have their money work
for them in the right places and kind of
get rid of all of that
debt that everybody has.
And how was it becoming an entrepreneur
for starting this coaching business?
(04:58):
Was it tough at
the beginning?
Because just like anything,
it's always a rough start.
How did you
keep it going?
You know, I started when
I was working full time.
And I started
this up in 2021.
Of course, I was at a remote job because
of COVID that I got the job during 2020.
(05:20):
And I don't know, I just decided to go for
it because I felt, you know, my friends
would ask me questions because they knew
I was good with numbers
and so forth like that.
And I just, I guess I kind of ripped the
band-aid off and started this all up.
And because I looked at it and said,
well, I'll show you really quick.
You know, back in 2020,
(05:42):
I was journaling myself.
You know, every week that I would send in
a payment, I would
correspond that with coloring
in a color.
And, you know, some of us like to have,
still like to color as adults with adult
coloring books.
But the point was, is that every time
I was able to color in another box,
(06:04):
it was just one step forward
to paying off that debt.
And I decided to take it and split it up
to how many weeks it would take to get
paid, which is a different
concept than most people go for.
But I had money coming in at different
times of the month, but my bills were
always on the 25th or on
(06:24):
the 2nd or on the 5th.
So, if I didn't have enough money right
before that payment had to come out,
I might have
overdraft.
And I said, again, I
don't want to do this.
I want to be
financially sound.
I want to have all of these
checks and balances in order.
And that's why I decided
to do it on a weekly basis.
(06:45):
So, when I came up with my idea of being a
financial coach, I was like, I'll call it
weekly debt plan.
Because I was able to get out of debt so
easily by paying small amounts of money
every single month.
So, if I paid $25 for a bill and the
minimum payment was $49, you can do easy
math that you know I at least paid off
my minimum payments and I put more down
(07:07):
towards the
principal.
But knowing at that end of that X amount
of weeks, the whole thing was paid off,
interest-free.
Wow.
I really like
your journal.
That's a very different way than I usually
go about my finances because I was an
accountant for
a couple years.
I mainly worked
on Excel.
So, all my stuff
isn't color-coded.
(07:28):
It's all just a
spreadsheet of numbers.
And for most people,
they can't even...
Like, it's not legible or
understandable what they're seeing.
But for me, I, like,
clearly see it.
And it's hard for me to
explain that to people.
I'm like, oh, yeah,
you see this number?
Yeah, that number
means this.
But it's not as
clear-cut as yours is.
(07:49):
How do you go about teaching
people financial literacy?
Because it's very different than
what I would expect my approach is.
Yeah, and that's
so interesting.
I mean, when people ask me,
oh, do you do investments?
I'm like, no,
no, no, no.
Let's take
a step back.
I'm not a
financial advisor.
I'm not a
financial planner.
(08:10):
I work with your bank
account and your credit card.
I don't do
insurance.
I don't do
real estate.
Don't do
investments.
Don't do retirement.
Because I want you to
get your money first.
Then you can go talk to your
financial planner or advisor.
You know, go
from there.
But I approach it as having that
(08:31):
first look of what's going on.
And you don't have to answer the
number, but yes or no right now.
Do you know your own
credit score at the moment?
Yeah.
Funny enough.
I figured
you would.
I actually checked my credit score
and my bank account twice a day.
Even though I know your credit
score doesn't change at all.
I don't know why.
It just became such a
(08:52):
habit for me to check.
I'm in that
club too.
You're
exactly right.
Money's not going to change as of
the first thing in the morning.
Unless, obviously, you withdraw
your money out of your bank account.
But, yeah.
So, I work
with people.
So, going back
to that question.
(09:13):
A lot of people have no clue
what their credit score is.
Or if they do, they might say,
oh, it's like 700
something, 600 something.
They might know that.
So, I work with my clients and say,
let's get an idea of what's going on.
Where are you
at right now?
If you decided to lose weight,
what's the first thing that you do?
You hop on the scale.
(09:35):
So, that's the first step I work with my
clients is, let's step
on the financial scale.
What are your
credit card debts?
How much are you making
on an average month?
Because sometimes it might change whether
it's your job or bonus or, you know,
side hustle,
what have you.
But it's also looking at how much
do you owe on your credit cards?
How much do you
have for loans?
(09:56):
How much do you have to have in your bank
account every single month in order to pay
your bills?
Because you can't pay your
mortgage on a credit card.
You can.
But if you do, oh, my gosh, you're in
a world of hurt worse than you thought.
So, that's the first step is we look at
what's coming out of your bank account.
Because when's the last time
you looked at your checkbook?
(10:17):
Okay, you
might have.
But when's the last time you wrote
every single transaction in a checkbook?
We don't have
that anymore.
We go to our app.
We look inside and go, yep,
everything looks right.
Move on with
our day.
Okay, so that's where we're looking
at those numbers and saying, okay,
all right, we've got the
numbers, but what do you want?
(10:39):
Do you want to save
money for college?
Do you want to go on
an awesome vacation?
And you want to make sure that it's
going to be a debt-free vacation.
Are you trying to pay
down your credit cards?
Do you not have
credit cards?
And now you want to take money and instead
of spending it on stuff, you want to take
that money and you want to build
a, you know, X fund or, you know,
(11:01):
want to fix something in
your house and so forth.
We look at those, the goals of what you
want to do so we can make that money work
for you and
your goals.
So you have a purpose
for your money.
Yeah, that's a very good and interesting
point because I have very little
experience with debt because straight
out of college, I didn't have any debt.
(11:23):
I had a credit card, but I
didn't accumulate any debt.
I always knew that you just paid off
even though I didn't, like, need it much.
I'm like, how do people, like, you
mentioned, how do people
keep getting in them?
Like, you
just paid off.
You hold yourself back from overspending
what the limit is or what it is.
(11:44):
So a lot of these follow-up questions are
going to be related to debt since that's
your specialty.
And I'm not as experienced, even though
my credit score, my credit score,
I have a perfect credit score just
because I have managed all my debt.
My credit cards
are all paid off.
I have a mortgage that is
paid off, is getting paid.
So there's nothing, like,
(12:04):
going wrong with it.
But I think a lot of our audience
are not in that similar boat.
So these questions are geared
towards, like, how to understand debt.
Yes, that
is so true.
And one of the other tasks that I work
with my clients in the beginning is to
look at the last few months' statements
(12:25):
and write down how much did you charge,
how much did you pay off, and
what was your interest payment.
And that's the
kicker of it.
Debt sometimes isn't so bad if you have
to, you know, wait another paycheck or two
in order to pay it off in full,
but the problem is, is that people,
like you said, they're spending, they're
(12:46):
not thinking of the ramifications
of not paying off the bill at
the end of the billing cycle.
And when you look at those numbers and you
have a $249 minimum payment, but only $140
is interest, interest, you're in theory
paying $140 a month for the convenience of
(13:12):
not paying off
your credit card.
Or if you really want to enjoy the United
States culture, you're basically tipping
the credit card $141
a month for nothing.
And sometimes that, yeah, that's,
it's like, whoa, mind blown going,
(13:33):
wow, I didn't even
think about that.
Yeah, you're paying for the convenience
of not paying it off on time.
Yeah, people just think that, oh,
that's the payment, like, that's fine.
They don't, like, put a name towards it
or, like, try to attach it to something
that makes it more impactful that
they grasp that it's not right.
It's not a good idea to be paying these
(13:55):
amounts that it's just spending money
where you could have been saving
it if you planned it out, right?
Well, yeah, and that's what's ending up
happening is that, you know, they'll come
and talk to me and say, well,
I paid my minimum payment.
I feel like I'm getting
nowhere on my credit card.
It's like, yeah, because you're putting
$100 towards the principal, $141 you're
(14:18):
paying off that interest payment,
but if it only goes down $100,
you're still going to have that 22, 24,
29, 32% tip, tax, whatever you want to
call it, inconvenience fee
in order to get that done.
And I actually had one client who's like,
(14:39):
I was putting extra
$25 towards every card.
She's like, I realized really quickly
it was eating up my money and it wasn't
getting me
anywhere.
I said, you're
correct.
And if you have that plan, and that's
where I think having the plan is really
the important part because once you see
(15:00):
what's going on, then
you need to make a plan.
So in that person's suggestion
or situation, it's okay.
If you're putting $25 each to every
credit card, take that four times 25,
put that extra $100
towards one credit card.
Pay your minimum payment
plus an extra $100.
(15:20):
That's what's going to give you momentum
versus just paying off the minimums.
And if you look at your statements
on the first page of every statement,
no matter what you got, whether it's
a Lowe's card or a loan for whatever,
the simple credit card type loans and your
credit card statements, on that first page
(15:42):
of your statement, it's going to tell
you if you only pay the minimum payments,
it's going to take you seven,
eight, 10 years to pay this off.
And then you're also stressed out because
I don't have another credit card because
I've got to
buy groceries.
How am I going
to find that?
So, yes, having that plan to pay that
down is also going to help with everything
(16:05):
mentally and physically and emotionally in
order for you to have
a better life going on.
And that also takes away from the stress
of always having to think about your debt
because that takes
like a hold every day.
You might always, always, always be
thinking about it and takes the joy out of
a lot of everyday things or grocery
(16:26):
shopping, you constantly
have that in mind.
What do you think would be someone's
first approach to budgeting?
Because I know budgeting is always a
big topic for like paying down debt,
but most people don't really enjoy
it or know how to really go about it.
Right.
And I, the reason why I don't talk about
(16:47):
budgeting is there are some people who
just don't
want to budget.
And to be fair, if you wanted to budget,
you'd be on Etsy or you'd be having your
own spreadsheet.
You'd be pounding the pavement in order to
make sure that you only spend $75 at the
grocery store.
But what happens is that we restrict
ourselves so much that
(17:09):
that stresses us out.
And, you know, if you, if you, all
of a sudden you're like, oh my gosh,
you know, I'm having a family dinner and I
need to go buy a hundred
dollars worth of groceries.
Well, they're
wanting my budget.
And then we get mad at ourselves and
we're, you know, get depressed and all
this other stuff.
So I just, I just wipe out budgeting
(17:31):
because it's, it's so stressful.
It's like
counting calories.
If you're on a diet,
you know what to do.
You need to watch
your weight.
You need to watch
what you're eating.
You need to exercise, drink more
water, those types of things.
Get better sleep.
Same as this.
You need to look
at your spending.
So instead of teaching my, my clients
(17:51):
budgeting, I am having
them just do an analysis.
Look at the last three months, your
credit cards or your debit cards,
any of those places, you can go online and
you can download your transactions or you
can look at
them online.
You can print off the
statement and things like that.
What's important about that is that you're
(18:13):
going to look at it and that overall
billing cycle, you spent X amount of
dollars at the grocery store, X amount of
dollars dining out,
entertainment, things like that.
X amount of dollars on shopping,
X amount of dollars on whatever,
you know, whatever the
categories that is.
And that's where is an epiphany for my
(18:36):
clients because they go, wow, I had no
idea that this past month
I spent $700 dining out.
Now, I don't tell my clients to stop
drinking their Starbucks coffee.
I don't tell them to
stop doing anything.
But again, go back
to those priorities.
Is, is eating out
(18:57):
a priority for you?
Can you have that
self-control?
Now that you know the category, okay,
I need to like really
chill that out.
Maybe I need to buy a little bit more
groceries and then I need to cook a little
bit more at home or take
out, bring my lunch in.
Or if you want to do the takeout,
get the extra large pizza and have
(19:17):
leftovers for the next two days to
take to work, which is zero dollars.
So it's, it's one of those things where
they can still enjoy
what they want to spend.
But I think a lot of people who have a lot
of debt are not realizing what they are
spending their money on because it's so
(19:38):
easy to pull out of the
wallet and tap and go.
Now, because years ago, we
didn't have credit cards.
You had cash in a checkbook and you had
that checkbook and you wrote down every
transaction and you minused it from your
balance and said, Oh, I don't have enough
money left.
I can't buy this.
That's what
stopped you.
(19:59):
Now, there's nothing
stopping you.
You put it on
the credit card.
The only thing that's stopping
you is your credit limit.
Yeah, that's how I help people
not have to worry about budgeting.
But it's like I said, it is a big epiphany
for my for people who are going through
that process.
Yeah, I tell people to budget, but I
(20:20):
don't budget myself because I always
think of it
like how you do.
And I think that's an advanced way of
budgeting where you start thinking about
the spending itself, not the actual money
of it that you're spending to really get
into, is it worth the money or
is the money going to a place?
Not just the amount, but the actual value
you're getting from the item, whether it's
(20:42):
food or anything.
And I think that's a very hard thing
for a lot of people to come about with.
And how do you think people should go
about like asking for help or seeking out
other methods of reducing their
debt, controlling and also support?
Because I know it's like taboo to go ask
(21:02):
for money help, especially because even I
avoid it, like it
hurts your ego.
It really says that, oh,
you don't got it together.
How do you like approach
that to support people?
Well, I have a Facebook group, I have
an email, and I actually have some
new products
coming out.
Do you mind if
I mention it?
Oh, yeah, go ahead.
(21:23):
We'll have links to
everything below.
So if anything that she mentions is like
catches your attention for our audience,
it will be linked
down below.
Perfect.
Well, what I love about
this, this is my newest item.
It's called the
money snapshot.
And it's exactly what I was just talking
about, where you're going to go through,
you've got some education on one side,
(21:45):
you've got some places
to fill out as well.
And I talk about
financial goals.
You're going to write down
some simple financial goals.
You're going to start
tracking your credit score.
And I give some advice on how
to improve your credit score.
You're going to put in some information
about your credit card statements.
So then you can see, as I was mentioning
(22:06):
before, let me just
screw up this page here.
As I was mentioning before, like this
whole page, we talked about that every
month, you're going to put those
statements in, and you're going to see
that information
going across.
And again, it's just one of those
having it visually in your hand.
But this, what I like about this is that,
again, going back to, you have your,
(22:29):
what are you having out of
your bank account every month?
And then you have a calendar in
order to put that information there.
Circle those dates in green that
says, hey, this is my payday.
So this is the
first step.
So it's a small book that is going to
help you just look at your finances.
That's a very low price point
that you don't have to worry.
Or you can just, it's like a DIY book,
(22:51):
a workbook, and you can
work on it yourself.
Because, again, if you're not willing to
go step on that scale and make that change
and rip off the band-aid and say,
okay, I need to take
control of my finances.
I really want to use my money for
something else instead of
paying off past purchases.
That's where this
(23:11):
comes into play.
Because, again, you've got, you've
got this action that you want to take.
And this just
helps guide you.
I also have a
one-on-one coaching.
So I can look at the coaching or the
numbers with the client and look at it and
say, how can we
make these changes?
They're going to
make the changes.
(23:32):
I always say we because it's, it is a,
it's like a group effort helping them.
Um, but then they're going to get some
advice from me and they're going to have
that accountability.
And I think that's another
thing, too, is that you're right.
Money is so taboo.
You don't want to talk to your, to
your friends unless you have a really
good best friend that you're
willing to talk to that stuff about.
(23:52):
You're not willing to talk to your family
because they're going
to go, I told you so.
You shouldn't
have bought that.
It's like, I don't need
that in my life either.
And that's what's great about working
with a financial coach is that it's
judgment-free.
Money, I, like I said, if you want to
drink that coffee every single day,
every single day,
I'm all for it.
I'm not going to, I'm
not going to knock it.
This is your money, but we're going to
(24:13):
look at other places where you can cut
down those budgets.
I said budget.
Uh, those, those different spending
categories or, you know, realize it.
And I've had some clients come back and
say, oh my gosh, Nancy, I was about ready
to buy this.
And I, you were in my head and I said,
nope, I can't buy this today because it is
not focused on what,
(24:33):
uh, what my goals are.
So that's, what's nice about too, is,
is being okay with
admitting you need help.
And it, it is so true because there's so
many things that in life that you might
need to have that extra help, whether it's
this or in your marriage or, you know,
you're like,
(24:54):
okay, fine.
I just can't
do it anymore.
I need to hire
a house cleaner.
And then you get embarrassed because
you're like, oh my gosh, my friends know I
have a house
cleaner.
You need to do
what's best for you.
And if working on your finances is best
for you because you want your money to
stretch further, that's where hiring,
hiring a coach can really help out and
move the needle faster than you trying
(25:15):
to say, yeah, I can stop spending.
And then you really don't because you've
got somebody who's accountable to you.
And what does your
typical client look like?
Like, are they heavily
in debt, like mildly?
How, how does your like average person
you're helping out come
into you like for help?
(25:35):
Most of them do have
credit card debt.
I've had some clients have had one
credit card and just about maxed it out.
And I've had another client who's had
about 10 credit cards
plus a few credit lines.
So it all just depends on it's, it's
sometimes it's just relative on how
much that you make as well, because the
more that you make, the more that you feel
(25:57):
like you can spend.
And then, oh yeah, I'll
open up a card over here.
Oh yeah, I'm going to
get a jewelry purchase.
I'll open up
that card.
Oh, I need to get
something from Lowe's.
I'll open up that.
And you're continuously opening and
opening and opening and opening.
But the key is, is if you
could have them open, great.
Try not to
max them out.
And that's probably in your situation
(26:17):
where, like you said, you've got a perfect
credit score, you've got credit cards,
you use them just to keep them active or
use the points on, on the, uh, the
credit cards, but also pay them off at
the end of
the month.
So you've got open credits,
but it's good credits.
Yeah.
And also there's like also, uh, good
and bad debt, just like
(26:38):
mortgages are good debt.
And typically if you can afford it, a
house, just not overdo it on the house.
If it's not like generating some type of
rental income, because that makes up a
majority of
people's expenses.
If they, like how you said, go overboard,
if they earn a lot more, they start
spending more, they think they can afford
(26:58):
a certain lifestyle or people expect them
to have a certain
lifestyle.
So then they, they accumulate all this
debt just to show it off to the people.
And then the last few years with inflation
and groceries and life, all of a sudden
they're like, okay, I thought I could
handle this, but now I'm a little bit
(27:19):
overwhelmed with more expenses
than the money coming in.
Yeah.
And I did see that you started a small
series on tax preparation, like getting
people ready.
Um, how do you think that, because I know
I worked as an accountant and I actually
prepare my
own taxes.
I don't file on myself because I still
(27:41):
don't think I'm like extremely smart.
So I always have a, my CPA, like double
check everything, make sure
that I'm doing it right.
How could you explain someone the
importance of not only tax preparation,
but tax strategy, preparing
in advance everything?
Yes.
And I came up with that because I, I'm
(28:02):
an entrepreneur as well, but I've also
been a direct
seller for 28 years.
So I've been doing
1099 for 28 years.
So I'm very
familiar with it.
And what's nice about it is your taxes
allow you to reduce your tax burden when
you have a 1099, because most of the times
you have those expenses that go with,
(28:23):
with your business
and so forth.
So what I was doing is I, I did have
a workshop at one point, which I,
I'm, I might have to do that again,
come a end of the year when people are
thinking about how to, how to
get ready for their tax season.
But what, what I really focused on was a
lot of our entrepreneurs or direct sellers
specifically are putting all of their
(28:44):
expenses on a business, on their personal
credit cards.
And then they're
forgetting about it.
And they're not looking at those credit
cards and saying, Oh, that was a,
a, a, something for my business,
a charge for my business.
And then keeping
that all organized.
And I love
being organized.
I love numbers.
So, you know, it all
(29:04):
kind of goes together.
But what I was providing was a tax ready
system because you're, again, you're
putting this on a personal credit card,
but if you don't print off the receipt or
put it in a certain file folder or things
like that, come tax time, you might miss
out on some of those good expenses that
you needed to put up on your business for
(29:26):
your schedule C.
So that's, that's what I was helping
people with as far as
a very small business.
I mean, if you're at a point where you
have accounts payable, you need to have
the accountant.
It's not going to, this system's not going
to work for you because you're going to
have a better system with your accounting
and you might have Quicken or any of those
types of software packages in
(29:47):
order to provide for your CPA.
But I was trying to help the little guys
who have that little small side hustle and
want to want to take a little bit of tax
advantage in order to
bring down that W-2 burden.
Yeah, that is definitely helpful,
especially because I don't think a lot of
people that have never started business
know that with your business and even if
(30:07):
you have a job of more stable job,
you can offset all the income and
basically pay no taxes to the point to
get a refund just by properly tracking all
your expenses properly, like researching,
if not like once presented to your
accountant, because I think at a certain
(30:28):
point, if your business is making money,
you should not be
doing your own taxes.
You got to find someone because there's
too, too much complication taxes.
I'm like, you can study all you want,
but if you're not a CPA, you're not going
to know every
single detail.
And it could lose you thousands of
dollars or future benefit or the opposite.
You could get in trouble by listening to
(30:50):
some of these TikTokers or influencers
give misleading information that on the
surface, word by word on the tax away
might be right, but the implication
of it, they're applying it wrong.
And that's very dangerous
for a lot of people.
Right.
And even just that quick little note that
you can have dinner and pay for a dinner
(31:11):
with you and the client, it's only
going to be 50% write-offable.
So it's not
the 100%.
It used to be.
Because you have
to eat anyways.
That's the way the
government thinks about it.
And I'm like, yeah,
that's pretty smart.
It used to be
100% during COVID.
And I remember when that was a thing, so
many businesses were like having these
lavish dinners to impress their clients
(31:32):
because they knew it's a write-off.
It's on the books.
Yeah.
There's a few stipulations for these
things, such as your home office expense
and your cell
phone and so forth.
But for the most part, you go and buy a
ream of paper, that's 100% put it on the
taxes as a write-off.
So, yeah.
Yeah.
(31:52):
Also, another one
is mileage for cars.
I'm like, you could use it to a
certain point, depending on business.
I'm like, some people might not know
that and never keep track of it.
I'm like, that mileage is a big
deal if you're driving quite a bit.
It adds up
really fast.
That is true.
As one of my other side
(32:12):
hustles, I have a Macari store.
It's like eBay.
I don't know if you've ever heard
of it, but I have a Macari store.
And when I sell stuff, I've got
plenty of extra stuff in the house.
I put it up on
Macari to sell.
When I sell it, I have the
person pay for the shipping.
I just print off the
label, put it all together.
But my mileage from my house to the post
office or to the UPS or to the FedEx,
(32:34):
I put that
on my taxes.
And I... God, I
don't even want...
I want to say it's
more than $0.60.
It might be $0.
70.
I don't know.
It's like $0.64.
I do TurboTax.
So, yeah.
So, I do TurboTax.
It just calculates
it all for me.
So, that helps to offset my income
from the Macari, even though, you know,
the 1099K.
(32:56):
..
I know we're going over some people's
heads here, but 1099K is
still not in place yet.
But I just decided to be honest and put it
out there as a 1099-type business schedule
C, but I'm able to take my mileage that I
drop off at the post office and take that
off my taxes, because that is part of the
(33:16):
business is delivering
the package to the person.
And I think another interesting concept
that normal people that aren't as
financially aware is the concept of,
on paper, on your taxes, your business
might be losing money, but your cash
intake might actually be positive.
So, you're taking in real cash, but
(33:37):
on tax, like paper,
you're losing money.
Like, everything's going, like,
negative because of all the deductions.
And that's a very hard concept to grasp
that people might not understand because,
like, how are you losing
money, but you have cash.
And I think that's always a good, like,
random point to bring up to people
that want to be entrepreneurs or, like,
(33:59):
start these small side gigs to help
them, like, get out of debt or progress
even more to make it something they can
live off of.
Yes.
Yeah.
And it's interesting as there have been
times where I've put all my expenses in,
I'm like, oh, I did pretty well as far as,
you know, getting close to zero as far as
paying the taxes.
(34:19):
But once I put that mileage
in, there goes my refund.
I get, I get a little bit more and the
TurboTax automatically
calculates it while I'm doing
my TurboTax.
So, yes,
you're right.
You know, you've got your expenses, but
the mileage really does push it over
the edge, depending on how much,
obviously, depending on how much mileage
that you have.
(34:40):
But that does take into consideration at
the end of all your other
expenses for the business.
And I think that's why it's always
important to go, like, for specialties,
like a CPA is for taxes and
for a coach like you for debt.
Like, even though I'm more of an investor,
I don't know how to manage or help someone
go through debt as well as someone like
(35:02):
you that's more experienced with that.
And we all got to find, like, the
right resources to help us with that.
Yes.
Find that person with that superpower
because they're going to help you out of
your situation faster than you trying to
figure it out and go to Google and go to
YouTube and
so forth.
(35:22):
So, definitely, yeah, going towards an
expert, no matter what the category is.
I also saw on your website that you have
a free financial roadmap survival guide.
Can you explain
more on that?
Yes.
It gives you seven tips
of what to look for.
And those are some of the things that we
talked about today was looking at your
(35:44):
finances, having the
bill paying and so forth.
So, it's just a small little PDF just
to get you motivated to say, okay,
maybe I really should
look at my finances.
So, thank you.
That is a free
resource on my website.
Yeah.
I always like highlighting, like, the
different types of resources because
different people are, like,
(36:04):
attracted to different things online.
Like, I'm not as attracted to, like,
colorful, like, written things.
I'm more of an Excel computer type person,
but I know other people cannot imagine it
on a computer.
They rather see it, write it down,
because it has more of an impact writing
the numbers
down by hand.
(36:25):
And that's always good to adapt to
your situation and not try to be, oh,
like, these professionals,
high earners, only use Excel.
Like, no, that works for them, but
you got to make sure things work for
you, especially
at a lower level.
Like, maybe once you hit, like,
$100,000 in income, you can switch to
these more complicated,
more detailed tools.
(36:46):
Right.
And the other thing, too, is that there's
people who, you know, if you wanted to use
Excel, and if you booger up a cell and
mess up a formula, it
messes up your numbers.
So, there's also something
to be said about that.
And that's why I, you know, if you want
to work with spreadsheets and so forth,
(37:07):
that's why there's so many resources out
there that people have built on Etsy,
or you can get on Google and so forth,
because that's what, if
that makes that person
comfortable, great.
But I'm looking at it, and what's also
nice about this, too, is that you're
writing down the numbers,
and you're right.
There's something about taking it
from your brain to your pen to paper,
(37:28):
and also visualizing it at a different
time frame in order to
have the impact on it.
But what I'm also looking at, too, is
how many of us are
going to grab our phone?
And you're like, oh, I need
to check my bank account.
Oh, yeah, I got
five emails.
Oh, I need
to do that.
You're like, why
did I come here?
You totally
(37:49):
got distracted.
So, if you take that information and you
write it down, you have it in writing,
and you can talk to your spouse,
if you want to take this into bed,
or take it to dinner, and say, hey,
we need to talk about our finances.
Let's look at
our numbers.
There's no distraction
on the phone.
This is what
you're looking at.
You're talking about what's
(38:09):
right there in front of you.
It's like running a report every
single month for your finances.
So, then you have a better grasp of
where you are and where you're going.
You can see it visually on a calendar
to say, oh, in two weeks, we've got this
payment due.
Every six months, people have to pay their
property taxes or their car insurance or
(38:29):
things like that.
And then all of a sudden, they're like,
oh, my gosh, I don't
have the money for it.
Well, you know what, if you would have
planned, even on a simple calendar,
that's what's going to help you to
visualize it and have it in your head and
not have to worry about, oh, gosh,
where do I have to
scramble to get that money?
Because you already have a plan set,
because you've been putting money into a
savings account for your car
(38:49):
insurance or anything like that.
That is where having it down on paper and
visualizing it and flipping through it,
but also going back and saying, wow,
this is where I was at the beginning
of the year.
I had $7,200
in debt.
Now it's the end of the
year, and I'm at $4,600.
The back on me because I have done what I
(39:11):
needed to do in order to reduce my credit
card debt, and my sanity is much better
and my stress levels are
lower and things like that.
So it really is... the
proof is in black and white.
Yeah.
And also, I think another helpful thing
for people, even if you're not in debt,
knowing the strategies ahead of time or
(39:32):
even planning out, even if you're always
paying off your credit card is very
helpful before you start
getting off the track.
And like you've mentioned, there's more
complicated things as you go along in
life, whether it's car payments,
mortgages, like they might be straight out
of college or high school and listening
to this, that no debt, like they think
they'll be fine, but it's prepping ahead
of time before things start piling up
(39:54):
because then you'll start soon realizing
your check is going to come at the wrong
day before your or after
your credit cards due.
Things are off timing,
like everything.
No one is going to
sink the world for you.
So if you got to plan it out, know how
you're going to plan out yourself through
your month.
Exactly.
(40:14):
And let's let's just take a story of,
you know, a husband and
wife who are debt free.
They're in their
40s or 50s.
And all of a sudden, their child says,
we're going to have a
wedding and we want to help.
We want you to
help pay for it.
Well, if it's not in their budget,
or if it's not in their, you know,
financial outlook, well, I guess they
(40:34):
need to start saving for that wedding.
So, you know, just because you don't have
debt doesn't mean that
you don't have expenses.
Yeah.
And it's always important to understand
what tools are also available when
managing debt, because
I know debt is evolving.
Like credit cards are not just the only
things are available as like credit lines,
(40:55):
and they're easily accessible
nowadays, just to anyone.
Even people that are have no job, they
can get access to these debt tools
and to learn to not only understand them,
but manage them if they need to use them
to use them in
a proper way.
Yes.
And have you seen that like where people
are coming in debt with these new like
(41:17):
style of like credit lines or
like other borrowing positions?
I've had some people who have borrowed on
their 401ks while they're still working.
And then that payment is being taken
directly out of their paycheck.
So they don't actually
see that payment.
But if they used it to pay down a bill
(41:39):
or college or things like that, I've also
seen people with home equity line of
credits, also called HELOCs, in order to,
again, have that extra money in order
to spend on paying down credit cards or
enhancing their home with a new
deck or remodel or things like that.
So beyond that, I haven't
(42:00):
seen anything else yet.
Oh, that's pretty interesting,
because I think it is going to start
evolving faster as these new generation of
people coming out of college gonna like my
hear it online to leverage their positions
on anything they get access to or whether
they get some type of like
(42:21):
property from their family.
Like it might be hectic in a few years
once they get access to these tools,
just like the older Gen Z like myself,
like are coming into the workplace.
We're accessing different things at
different times now, and there's going to
be a shift of how people manage
their debt in the future.
(42:44):
Exactly, exactly.
And you know, nowadays, I mean, I
still get emails from my credit card
saying, would you
like a personal loan?
I'm like,
no, thanks.
I don't need another, I don't
need extra money for that.
Not, not to pay you
9%, but thanks anyways.
No, I'm good.
I don't, I
don't need that.
And unfortunately,
(43:05):
there's that temptation.
And when you have those temptations,
whether it's your credit card or whether
it's, you know, target saying,
here's what's on sale this week.
Click the
unsubscribe.
Yeah, a lot of people get stuck on
like what they're seeing in ads.
And I fall
for it too.
Like I get those
Amazon ads.
(43:25):
I'm like, Oh,
that's so nice.
I could get it and
it isn't too much.
I'm like, Oh, but then
that gets me buying.
And I returned a lot
of stuff on Amazon.
Cause I'm like, eh, kind
of regretted it now.
At least I could have
like 30 days to return it.
Yes.
I love that
policy of 30 days.
And then November 1st, you have until
January 31st because of
(43:46):
the holidays coming up.
So, but yeah, I, there are many times
where I'm like, ah, did
this really work out?
And it's nice to know that
you have that 30 days.
And if it doesn't work, then
get it out as soon as possible.
That's, that's
definitely the key.
And then I usually say, we're refunded
back to my credit card instead of putting
it in my Amazon account because you know,
(44:07):
that again, it's just too much temptation
and put stuff in the cart and save
for later and let it sit there and,
and, and figure out whether or
not you really need that item.
And there's a lot of in
my save my save for later.
And sometimes I'll
go through it.
I'm like, yeah, yeah,
yeah, that project's over.
I figured something else out and I
(44:28):
just delete because it's so tempting,
especially
with Amazon.
You order it and it's here either, you
know, 10 o'clock tonight, four o'clock
tomorrow morning.
You know, it's just too
tempting, too tempting.
It is.
I remember I ordered something and it
was here in like four hours or five.
I was like, wow.
Like that just made me want to spend more,
(44:50):
but I'm like, I know I gotta make sure I
stop and don't look at it as much because
I know there's so much, there's everything
at the, at your fingertips, all the
products you can possibly imagine you can
buy online and have delivered
relatively fast nowadays.
Yeah.
And then when it says it's, it's not
going to be here for another two weeks,
it's like, well, let me see
(45:11):
what other vendors have it.
Yeah.
I remember when years ago when things
would take a month to come and I would be
like, oh, we
ordered this.
Like you would forget what you ordered
because it took so long
to get to your house.
Yeah.
Definitely.
Definitely.
But yeah, you know, it's, it's amazing
how, if you look at that shopping or you
(45:32):
tell, you know, tally it up from far,
as far as how much you spend on Amazon,
that could be a big
category as well.
Yeah.
Cause you know, it's not groceries unless
you do Amazon fresh, but it's most of the
stuff is stuff.
And that's where, you know, the small
business owners have to be cautious and
make sure they get that receipt out of
(45:52):
that Amazon and put it
with their text forms.
So when the tax time comes around, they
can go, oh, okay, well I bought some,
you know, copy paper from Amazon, not
from Office Depot, but from Amazon.
You have to have it clearly marked
so then you can put it on your taxes.
Yeah.
It's always about preparing, try and keep
(46:12):
everything in order because it all matters
in the end.
Oh yeah.
And do you have any final
words for our audience?
You know, finances take a little bit of
time, just take small steps because small
steps are going to
go to great results.
Like I said, just
losing weight.
You're not going to lose
20 pounds in the next week.
(46:33):
Just like you're not going to lose
$5,000 in credit card unless you got,
you know, you
got a bonus.
So it's going to take time,
but keep the progress going.
And that's the most
important part.
Whether it's putting a little bit of money
away or sending a little extra money every
single month to one credit card, being
consistent and having
(46:54):
those small steps, do
what you can.
And that's what's going to
help you move the needle.
Well, well said.
Well, thank you for
being on podcast.
If anyone in the audience is interested in
what you heard, I'll have her links down
below in the description and
feel free to reach out to her.
Great.
Thanks so much for
having me today.
Yes.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Welcome to The
(00:00):
Wealth Effect.
Today, we welcome
Nancy Ward.
Nancy is a dedicated financial coach who
helps clients break free from credit card
debt without relying on
traditional budgeting methods.
Nancy empowers families to prioritize
their financial well-being with
personalized strategies for
a secure financial future.
Thank you for being
on the podcast, Nancy.
(00:22):
Thank you for
having me.
I did see that you
grew up in Cincinnati.
And funny enough, this is the second
person from Ohio I've interviewed.
So how was growing
up in Cincinnati?
Well, funny enough, I grew up in Cleveland
and went to school in Cincinnati.
And I've been here ever
since with college.
(00:42):
So this feels like my second home,
but it's a great place to live,
great place to
raise your kids.
And the weather, you
have all four seasons.
So it's
always good.
Yeah, I spent a couple of months in
Cleveland, and it is a different place.
Very, I think, unique compared to other
(01:03):
cities that are bigger
cities around the country.
But I think it is a really
good place to be at.
Yeah.
What did you study?
Ohio is a little different
than California, let's say.
It is.
What did you study at the
University of Cincinnati?
I was in business administration
and had a major in marketing.
(01:25):
I did take some finance classes and
accounting classes, and I was considering
doing a double major with finance
and just something about it.
I don't know if life happened or I just
didn't grab on to the
books as well as I thought.
But I've always been
a numbers person.
So that was another reason why I was a
(01:46):
little bit geared toward doing some either
accounting or
some finance.
And did your passion for money arise
from childhood or from college?
Did you grow up talking about
finances with your family?
Actually, no.
I was a child of the 80s, was born in
(02:07):
the 70s, but my life was in the 80s.
And we really didn't
talk about money.
The only thing I remember about having
money or not having money is the fact that
my dad was a
construction worker.
And I knew that he was working on
different sites, and then he'd be on
unemployment for two weeks
to a month or what have you.
(02:27):
So I know that my mom was very savvy as
far as watching her finances
because you had money
coming in.
And then when you're on unemployment, you
know, the bills still need to be paid.
And we didn't
have credit cards.
I think they had a Sears
card back at the time.
And if you didn't have the
money, you just didn't buy.
And that might be another reason why our
(02:50):
Gen Xers are loving spending is because
when we grew up, we didn't, you know,
we didn't have all that extra money.
We didn't go to the shopping
malls once or twice a week.
There wasn't as much
commerce back then.
And I'm not talking
about e-commerce.
So I'm just talking about
just general commerce.
In order to go to a mall, it was
at least a 20-minute drive for me.
(03:10):
Now I can two exits up on the highway,
and I've got Target and, you know,
you name it.
Any fast food place,
restaurants, things like that.
So times were so
different back then.
And I guess it comes back to
I really always loved math.
And I'll embarrass myself for the moment,
(03:32):
but I remember being in my basement.
We had a huge chalkboard, probably
about the size of what's behind me.
And we would get books from
the school when they expired.
So the school would get new textbooks,
and then they would sell the old ones.
And I remember having math books,
and here's my embarrassing part.
(03:54):
I taught invisible kids
in my basement math.
So I've always been
math-centric and data-driven.
So, you know, fast forward, I was in
credit card debt before I got married.
I was $40,000 in
credit card debt.
(04:15):
And it's like, how
did I even do that?
I still sometimes
question myself.
But I've gone through that process
where I've paid off that debt.
And after the divorce, I said, there's
no way I am going to be down in
that road again.
And I've made
some changes.
And so that's the reason why I
decided to become a financial coach.
Because I can help people,
which I've always been good at.
(04:37):
And I like numbers.
And so I was able to help other people
so they can not necessarily live the life
that they want, but have their money work
for them in the right places and kind of
get rid of all of that
debt that everybody has.
And how was it becoming an entrepreneur
for starting this coaching business?
(04:58):
Was it tough at
the beginning?
Because just like anything,
it's always a rough start.
How did you
keep it going?
You know, I started when
I was working full time.
And I started
this up in 2021.
Of course, I was at a remote job because
of COVID that I got the job during 2020.
(05:20):
And I don't know, I just decided to go for
it because I felt, you know, my friends
would ask me questions because they knew
I was good with numbers
and so forth like that.
And I just, I guess I kind of ripped the
band-aid off and started this all up.
And because I looked at it and said,
well, I'll show you really quick.
You know, back in 2020,
(05:42):
I was journaling myself.
You know, every week that I would send in
a payment, I would
correspond that with coloring
in a color.
And, you know, some of us like to have,
still like to color as adults with adult
coloring books.
But the point was, is that every time
I was able to color in another box,
(06:04):
it was just one step forward
to paying off that debt.
And I decided to take it and split it up
to how many weeks it would take to get
paid, which is a different
concept than most people go for.
But I had money coming in at different
times of the month, but my bills were
always on the 25th or on
(06:24):
the 2nd or on the 5th.
So, if I didn't have enough money right
before that payment had to come out,
I might have
overdraft.
And I said, again, I
don't want to do this.
I want to be
financially sound.
I want to have all of these
checks and balances in order.
And that's why I decided
to do it on a weekly basis.
(06:45):
So, when I came up with my idea of being a
financial coach, I was like, I'll call it
weekly debt plan.
Because I was able to get out of debt so
easily by paying small amounts of money
every single month.
So, if I paid $25 for a bill and the
minimum payment was $49, you can do easy
math that you know I at least paid off
my minimum payments and I put more down
(07:07):
towards the
principal.
But knowing at that end of that X amount
of weeks, the whole thing was paid off,
interest-free.
Wow.
I really like
your journal.
That's a very different way than I usually
go about my finances because I was an
accountant for
a couple years.
I mainly worked
on Excel.
So, all my stuff
isn't color-coded.
(07:28):
It's all just a
spreadsheet of numbers.
And for most people,
they can't even...
Like, it's not legible or
understandable what they're seeing.
But for me, I, like,
clearly see it.
And it's hard for me to
explain that to people.
I'm like, oh, yeah,
you see this number?
Yeah, that number
means this.
But it's not as
clear-cut as yours is.
(07:49):
How do you go about teaching
people financial literacy?
Because it's very different than
what I would expect my approach is.
Yeah, and that's
so interesting.
I mean, when people ask me,
oh, do you do investments?
I'm like, no,
no, no, no.
Let's take
a step back.
I'm not a
financial advisor.
I'm not a
financial planner.
(08:10):
I work with your bank
account and your credit card.
I don't do
insurance.
I don't do
real estate.
Don't do
investments.
Don't do retirement.
Because I want you to
get your money first.
Then you can go talk to your
financial planner or advisor.
You know, go
from there.
But I approach it as having that
(08:31):
first look of what's going on.
And you don't have to answer the
number, but yes or no right now.
Do you know your own
credit score at the moment?
Yeah.
Funny enough.
I figured
you would.
I actually checked my credit score
and my bank account twice a day.
Even though I know your credit
score doesn't change at all.
I don't know why.
It just became such a
(08:52):
habit for me to check.
I'm in that
club too.
You're
exactly right.
Money's not going to change as of
the first thing in the morning.
Unless, obviously, you withdraw
your money out of your bank account.
But, yeah.
So, I work
with people.
So, going back
to that question.
(09:13):
A lot of people have no clue
what their credit score is.
Or if they do, they might say,
oh, it's like 700
something, 600 something.
They might know that.
So, I work with my clients and say,
let's get an idea of what's going on.
Where are you
at right now?
If you decided to lose weight,
what's the first thing that you do?
You hop on the scale.
(09:35):
So, that's the first step I work with my
clients is, let's step
on the financial scale.
What are your
credit card debts?
How much are you making
on an average month?
Because sometimes it might change whether
it's your job or bonus or, you know,
side hustle,
what have you.
But it's also looking at how much
do you owe on your credit cards?
How much do you
have for loans?
(09:56):
How much do you have to have in your bank
account every single month in order to pay
your bills?
Because you can't pay your
mortgage on a credit card.
You can.
But if you do, oh, my gosh, you're in
a world of hurt worse than you thought.
So, that's the first step is we look at
what's coming out of your bank account.
Because when's the last time
you looked at your checkbook?
(10:17):
Okay, you
might have.
But when's the last time you wrote
every single transaction in a checkbook?
We don't have
that anymore.
We go to our app.
We look inside and go, yep,
everything looks right.
Move on with
our day.
Okay, so that's where we're looking
at those numbers and saying, okay,
all right, we've got the
numbers, but what do you want?
(10:39):
Do you want to save
money for college?
Do you want to go on
an awesome vacation?
And you want to make sure that it's
going to be a debt-free vacation.
Are you trying to pay
down your credit cards?
Do you not have
credit cards?
And now you want to take money and instead
of spending it on stuff, you want to take
that money and you want to build
a, you know, X fund or, you know,
(11:01):
want to fix something in
your house and so forth.
We look at those, the goals of what you
want to do so we can make that money work
for you and
your goals.
So you have a purpose
for your money.
Yeah, that's a very good and interesting
point because I have very little
experience with debt because straight
out of college, I didn't have any debt.
(11:23):
I had a credit card, but I
didn't accumulate any debt.
I always knew that you just paid off
even though I didn't, like, need it much.
I'm like, how do people, like, you
mentioned, how do people
keep getting in them?
Like, you
just paid off.
You hold yourself back from overspending
what the limit is or what it is.
(11:44):
So a lot of these follow-up questions are
going to be related to debt since that's
your specialty.
And I'm not as experienced, even though
my credit score, my credit score,
I have a perfect credit score just
because I have managed all my debt.
My credit cards
are all paid off.
I have a mortgage that is
paid off, is getting paid.
So there's nothing, like,
(12:04):
going wrong with it.
But I think a lot of our audience
are not in that similar boat.
So these questions are geared
towards, like, how to understand debt.
Yes, that
is so true.
And one of the other tasks that I work
with my clients in the beginning is to
look at the last few months' statements
(12:25):
and write down how much did you charge,
how much did you pay off, and
what was your interest payment.
And that's the
kicker of it.
Debt sometimes isn't so bad if you have
to, you know, wait another paycheck or two
in order to pay it off in full,
but the problem is, is that people,
like you said, they're spending, they're
(12:46):
not thinking of the ramifications
of not paying off the bill at
the end of the billing cycle.
And when you look at those numbers and you
have a $249 minimum payment, but only $140
is interest, interest, you're in theory
paying $140 a month for the convenience of
(13:12):
not paying off
your credit card.
Or if you really want to enjoy the United
States culture, you're basically tipping
the credit card $141
a month for nothing.
And sometimes that, yeah, that's,
it's like, whoa, mind blown going,
(13:33):
wow, I didn't even
think about that.
Yeah, you're paying for the convenience
of not paying it off on time.
Yeah, people just think that, oh,
that's the payment, like, that's fine.
They don't, like, put a name towards it
or, like, try to attach it to something
that makes it more impactful that
they grasp that it's not right.
It's not a good idea to be paying these
(13:55):
amounts that it's just spending money
where you could have been saving
it if you planned it out, right?
Well, yeah, and that's what's ending up
happening is that, you know, they'll come
and talk to me and say, well,
I paid my minimum payment.
I feel like I'm getting
nowhere on my credit card.
It's like, yeah, because you're putting
$100 towards the principal, $141 you're
(14:18):
paying off that interest payment,
but if it only goes down $100,
you're still going to have that 22, 24,
29, 32% tip, tax, whatever you want to
call it, inconvenience fee
in order to get that done.
And I actually had one client who's like,
(14:39):
I was putting extra
$25 towards every card.
She's like, I realized really quickly
it was eating up my money and it wasn't
getting me
anywhere.
I said, you're
correct.
And if you have that plan, and that's
where I think having the plan is really
the important part because once you see
(15:00):
what's going on, then
you need to make a plan.
So in that person's suggestion
or situation, it's okay.
If you're putting $25 each to every
credit card, take that four times 25,
put that extra $100
towards one credit card.
Pay your minimum payment
plus an extra $100.
(15:20):
That's what's going to give you momentum
versus just paying off the minimums.
And if you look at your statements
on the first page of every statement,
no matter what you got, whether it's
a Lowe's card or a loan for whatever,
the simple credit card type loans and your
credit card statements, on that first page
(15:42):
of your statement, it's going to tell
you if you only pay the minimum payments,
it's going to take you seven,
eight, 10 years to pay this off.
And then you're also stressed out because
I don't have another credit card because
I've got to
buy groceries.
How am I going
to find that?
So, yes, having that plan to pay that
down is also going to help with everything
(16:05):
mentally and physically and emotionally in
order for you to have
a better life going on.
And that also takes away from the stress
of always having to think about your debt
because that takes
like a hold every day.
You might always, always, always be
thinking about it and takes the joy out of
a lot of everyday things or grocery
(16:26):
shopping, you constantly
have that in mind.
What do you think would be someone's
first approach to budgeting?
Because I know budgeting is always a
big topic for like paying down debt,
but most people don't really enjoy
it or know how to really go about it.
Right.
And I, the reason why I don't talk about
(16:47):
budgeting is there are some people who
just don't
want to budget.
And to be fair, if you wanted to budget,
you'd be on Etsy or you'd be having your
own spreadsheet.
You'd be pounding the pavement in order to
make sure that you only spend $75 at the
grocery store.
But what happens is that we restrict
ourselves so much that
(17:09):
that stresses us out.
And, you know, if you, if you, all
of a sudden you're like, oh my gosh,
you know, I'm having a family dinner and I
need to go buy a hundred
dollars worth of groceries.
Well, they're
wanting my budget.
And then we get mad at ourselves and
we're, you know, get depressed and all
this other stuff.
So I just, I just wipe out budgeting
(17:31):
because it's, it's so stressful.
It's like
counting calories.
If you're on a diet,
you know what to do.
You need to watch
your weight.
You need to watch
what you're eating.
You need to exercise, drink more
water, those types of things.
Get better sleep.
Same as this.
You need to look
at your spending.
So instead of teaching my, my clients
(17:51):
budgeting, I am having
them just do an analysis.
Look at the last three months, your
credit cards or your debit cards,
any of those places, you can go online and
you can download your transactions or you
can look at
them online.
You can print off the
statement and things like that.
What's important about that is that you're
(18:13):
going to look at it and that overall
billing cycle, you spent X amount of
dollars at the grocery store, X amount of
dollars dining out,
entertainment, things like that.
X amount of dollars on shopping,
X amount of dollars on whatever,
you know, whatever the
categories that is.
And that's where is an epiphany for my
(18:36):
clients because they go, wow, I had no
idea that this past month
I spent $700 dining out.
Now, I don't tell my clients to stop
drinking their Starbucks coffee.
I don't tell them to
stop doing anything.
But again, go back
to those priorities.
Is, is eating out
(18:57):
a priority for you?
Can you have that
self-control?
Now that you know the category, okay,
I need to like really
chill that out.
Maybe I need to buy a little bit more
groceries and then I need to cook a little
bit more at home or take
out, bring my lunch in.
Or if you want to do the takeout,
get the extra large pizza and have
(19:17):
leftovers for the next two days to
take to work, which is zero dollars.
So it's, it's one of those things where
they can still enjoy
what they want to spend.
But I think a lot of people who have a lot
of debt are not realizing what they are
spending their money on because it's so
(19:38):
easy to pull out of the
wallet and tap and go.
Now, because years ago, we
didn't have credit cards.
You had cash in a checkbook and you had
that checkbook and you wrote down every
transaction and you minused it from your
balance and said, Oh, I don't have enough
money left.
I can't buy this.
That's what
stopped you.
(19:59):
Now, there's nothing
stopping you.
You put it on
the credit card.
The only thing that's stopping
you is your credit limit.
Yeah, that's how I help people
not have to worry about budgeting.
But it's like I said, it is a big epiphany
for my for people who are going through
that process.
Yeah, I tell people to budget, but I
(20:20):
don't budget myself because I always
think of it
like how you do.
And I think that's an advanced way of
budgeting where you start thinking about
the spending itself, not the actual money
of it that you're spending to really get
into, is it worth the money or
is the money going to a place?
Not just the amount, but the actual value
you're getting from the item, whether it's
(20:42):
food or anything.
And I think that's a very hard thing
for a lot of people to come about with.
And how do you think people should go
about like asking for help or seeking out
other methods of reducing their
debt, controlling and also support?
Because I know it's like taboo to go ask
(21:02):
for money help, especially because even I
avoid it, like it
hurts your ego.
It really says that, oh,
you don't got it together.
How do you like approach
that to support people?
Well, I have a Facebook group, I have
an email, and I actually have some
new products
coming out.
Do you mind if
I mention it?
Oh, yeah, go ahead.
(21:23):
We'll have links to
everything below.
So if anything that she mentions is like
catches your attention for our audience,
it will be linked
down below.
Perfect.
Well, what I love about
this, this is my newest item.
It's called the
money snapshot.
And it's exactly what I was just talking
about, where you're going to go through,
you've got some education on one side,
(21:45):
you've got some places
to fill out as well.
And I talk about
financial goals.
You're going to write down
some simple financial goals.
You're going to start
tracking your credit score.
And I give some advice on how
to improve your credit score.
You're going to put in some information
about your credit card statements.
So then you can see, as I was mentioning
(22:06):
before, let me just
screw up this page here.
As I was mentioning before, like this
whole page, we talked about that every
month, you're going to put those
statements in, and you're going to see
that information
going across.
And again, it's just one of those
having it visually in your hand.
But this, what I like about this is that,
again, going back to, you have your,
(22:29):
what are you having out of
your bank account every month?
And then you have a calendar in
order to put that information there.
Circle those dates in green that
says, hey, this is my payday.
So this is the
first step.
So it's a small book that is going to
help you just look at your finances.
That's a very low price point
that you don't have to worry.
Or you can just, it's like a DIY book,
(22:51):
a workbook, and you can
work on it yourself.
Because, again, if you're not willing to
go step on that scale and make that change
and rip off the band-aid and say,
okay, I need to take
control of my finances.
I really want to use my money for
something else instead of
paying off past purchases.
That's where this
(23:11):
comes into play.
Because, again, you've got, you've
got this action that you want to take.
And this just
helps guide you.
I also have a
one-on-one coaching.
So I can look at the coaching or the
numbers with the client and look at it and
say, how can we
make these changes?
They're going to
make the changes.
(23:32):
I always say we because it's, it is a,
it's like a group effort helping them.
Um, but then they're going to get some
advice from me and they're going to have
that accountability.
And I think that's another
thing, too, is that you're right.
Money is so taboo.
You don't want to talk to your, to
your friends unless you have a really
good best friend that you're
willing to talk to that stuff about.
(23:52):
You're not willing to talk to your family
because they're going
to go, I told you so.
You shouldn't
have bought that.
It's like, I don't need
that in my life either.
And that's what's great about working
with a financial coach is that it's
judgment-free.
Money, I, like I said, if you want to
drink that coffee every single day,
every single day,
I'm all for it.
I'm not going to, I'm
not going to knock it.
This is your money, but we're going to
(24:13):
look at other places where you can cut
down those budgets.
I said budget.
Uh, those, those different spending
categories or, you know, realize it.
And I've had some clients come back and
say, oh my gosh, Nancy, I was about ready
to buy this.
And I, you were in my head and I said,
nope, I can't buy this today because it is
not focused on what,
(24:33):
uh, what my goals are.
So that's, what's nice about too, is,
is being okay with
admitting you need help.
And it, it is so true because there's so
many things that in life that you might
need to have that extra help, whether it's
this or in your marriage or, you know,
you're like,
(24:54):
okay, fine.
I just can't
do it anymore.
I need to hire
a house cleaner.
And then you get embarrassed because
you're like, oh my gosh, my friends know I
have a house
cleaner.
You need to do
what's best for you.
And if working on your finances is best
for you because you want your money to
stretch further, that's where hiring,
hiring a coach can really help out and
move the needle faster than you trying
(25:15):
to say, yeah, I can stop spending.
And then you really don't because you've
got somebody who's accountable to you.
And what does your
typical client look like?
Like, are they heavily
in debt, like mildly?
How, how does your like average person
you're helping out come
into you like for help?
(25:35):
Most of them do have
credit card debt.
I've had some clients have had one
credit card and just about maxed it out.
And I've had another client who's had
about 10 credit cards
plus a few credit lines.
So it all just depends on it's, it's
sometimes it's just relative on how
much that you make as well, because the
more that you make, the more that you feel
(25:57):
like you can spend.
And then, oh yeah, I'll
open up a card over here.
Oh yeah, I'm going to
get a jewelry purchase.
I'll open up
that card.
Oh, I need to get
something from Lowe's.
I'll open up that.
And you're continuously opening and
opening and opening and opening.
But the key is, is if you
could have them open, great.
Try not to
max them out.
And that's probably in your situation
(26:17):
where, like you said, you've got a perfect
credit score, you've got credit cards,
you use them just to keep them active or
use the points on, on the, uh, the
credit cards, but also pay them off at
the end of
the month.
So you've got open credits,
but it's good credits.
Yeah.
And also there's like also, uh, good
and bad debt, just like
(26:38):
mortgages are good debt.
And typically if you can afford it, a
house, just not overdo it on the house.
If it's not like generating some type of
rental income, because that makes up a
majority of
people's expenses.
If they, like how you said, go overboard,
if they earn a lot more, they start
spending more, they think they can afford
(26:58):
a certain lifestyle or people expect them
to have a certain
lifestyle.
So then they, they accumulate all this
debt just to show it off to the people.
And then the last few years with inflation
and groceries and life, all of a sudden
they're like, okay, I thought I could
handle this, but now I'm a little bit
(27:19):
overwhelmed with more expenses
than the money coming in.
Yeah.
And I did see that you started a small
series on tax preparation, like getting
people ready.
Um, how do you think that, because I know
I worked as an accountant and I actually
prepare my
own taxes.
I don't file on myself because I still
(27:41):
don't think I'm like extremely smart.
So I always have a, my CPA, like double
check everything, make sure
that I'm doing it right.
How could you explain someone the
importance of not only tax preparation,
but tax strategy, preparing
in advance everything?
Yes.
And I came up with that because I, I'm
(28:02):
an entrepreneur as well, but I've also
been a direct
seller for 28 years.
So I've been doing
1099 for 28 years.
So I'm very
familiar with it.
And what's nice about it is your taxes
allow you to reduce your tax burden when
you have a 1099, because most of the times
you have those expenses that go with,
(28:23):
with your business
and so forth.
So what I was doing is I, I did have
a workshop at one point, which I,
I'm, I might have to do that again,
come a end of the year when people are
thinking about how to, how to
get ready for their tax season.
But what, what I really focused on was a
lot of our entrepreneurs or direct sellers
specifically are putting all of their
(28:44):
expenses on a business, on their personal
credit cards.
And then they're
forgetting about it.
And they're not looking at those credit
cards and saying, Oh, that was a,
a, a, something for my business,
a charge for my business.
And then keeping
that all organized.
And I love
being organized.
I love numbers.
So, you know, it all
(29:04):
kind of goes together.
But what I was providing was a tax ready
system because you're, again, you're
putting this on a personal credit card,
but if you don't print off the receipt or
put it in a certain file folder or things
like that, come tax time, you might miss
out on some of those good expenses that
you needed to put up on your business for
(29:26):
your schedule C.
So that's, that's what I was helping
people with as far as
a very small business.
I mean, if you're at a point where you
have accounts payable, you need to have
the accountant.
It's not going to, this system's not going
to work for you because you're going to
have a better system with your accounting
and you might have Quicken or any of those
types of software packages in
(29:47):
order to provide for your CPA.
But I was trying to help the little guys
who have that little small side hustle and
want to want to take a little bit of tax
advantage in order to
bring down that W-2 burden.
Yeah, that is definitely helpful,
especially because I don't think a lot of
people that have never started business
know that with your business and even if
(30:07):
you have a job of more stable job,
you can offset all the income and
basically pay no taxes to the point to
get a refund just by properly tracking all
your expenses properly, like researching,
if not like once presented to your
accountant, because I think at a certain
(30:28):
point, if your business is making money,
you should not be
doing your own taxes.
You got to find someone because there's
too, too much complication taxes.
I'm like, you can study all you want,
but if you're not a CPA, you're not going
to know every
single detail.
And it could lose you thousands of
dollars or future benefit or the opposite.
You could get in trouble by listening to
(30:50):
some of these TikTokers or influencers
give misleading information that on the
surface, word by word on the tax away
might be right, but the implication
of it, they're applying it wrong.
And that's very dangerous
for a lot of people.
Right.
And even just that quick little note that
you can have dinner and pay for a dinner
(31:11):
with you and the client, it's only
going to be 50% write-offable.
So it's not
the 100%.
It used to be.
Because you have
to eat anyways.
That's the way the
government thinks about it.
And I'm like, yeah,
that's pretty smart.
It used to be
100% during COVID.
And I remember when that was a thing, so
many businesses were like having these
lavish dinners to impress their clients
(31:32):
because they knew it's a write-off.
It's on the books.
Yeah.
There's a few stipulations for these
things, such as your home office expense
and your cell
phone and so forth.
But for the most part, you go and buy a
ream of paper, that's 100% put it on the
taxes as a write-off.
So, yeah.
Yeah.
(31:52):
Also, another one
is mileage for cars.
I'm like, you could use it to a
certain point, depending on business.
I'm like, some people might not know
that and never keep track of it.
I'm like, that mileage is a big
deal if you're driving quite a bit.
It adds up
really fast.
That is true.
As one of my other side
(32:12):
hustles, I have a Macari store.
It's like eBay.
I don't know if you've ever heard
of it, but I have a Macari store.
And when I sell stuff, I've got
plenty of extra stuff in the house.
I put it up on
Macari to sell.
When I sell it, I have the
person pay for the shipping.
I just print off the
label, put it all together.
But my mileage from my house to the post
office or to the UPS or to the FedEx,
(32:34):
I put that
on my taxes.
And I... God, I
don't even want...
I want to say it's
more than $0.60.
It might be $0.
70.
I don't know.
It's like $0.64.
I do TurboTax.
So, yeah.
So, I do TurboTax.
It just calculates
it all for me.
So, that helps to offset my income
from the Macari, even though, you know,
the 1099K.
(32:56):
..
I know we're going over some people's
heads here, but 1099K is
still not in place yet.
But I just decided to be honest and put it
out there as a 1099-type business schedule
C, but I'm able to take my mileage that I
drop off at the post office and take that
off my taxes, because that is part of the
(33:16):
business is delivering
the package to the person.
And I think another interesting concept
that normal people that aren't as
financially aware is the concept of,
on paper, on your taxes, your business
might be losing money, but your cash
intake might actually be positive.
So, you're taking in real cash, but
(33:37):
on tax, like paper,
you're losing money.
Like, everything's going, like,
negative because of all the deductions.
And that's a very hard concept to grasp
that people might not understand because,
like, how are you losing
money, but you have cash.
And I think that's always a good, like,
random point to bring up to people
that want to be entrepreneurs or, like,
(33:59):
start these small side gigs to help
them, like, get out of debt or progress
even more to make it something they can
live off of.
Yes.
Yeah.
And it's interesting as there have been
times where I've put all my expenses in,
I'm like, oh, I did pretty well as far as,
you know, getting close to zero as far as
paying the taxes.
(34:19):
But once I put that mileage
in, there goes my refund.
I get, I get a little bit more and the
TurboTax automatically
calculates it while I'm doing
my TurboTax.
So, yes,
you're right.
You know, you've got your expenses, but
the mileage really does push it over
the edge, depending on how much,
obviously, depending on how much mileage
that you have.
(34:40):
But that does take into consideration at
the end of all your other
expenses for the business.
And I think that's why it's always
important to go, like, for specialties,
like a CPA is for taxes and
for a coach like you for debt.
Like, even though I'm more of an investor,
I don't know how to manage or help someone
go through debt as well as someone like
(35:02):
you that's more experienced with that.
And we all got to find, like, the
right resources to help us with that.
Yes.
Find that person with that superpower
because they're going to help you out of
your situation faster than you trying to
figure it out and go to Google and go to
YouTube and
so forth.
(35:22):
So, definitely, yeah, going towards an
expert, no matter what the category is.
I also saw on your website that you have
a free financial roadmap survival guide.
Can you explain
more on that?
Yes.
It gives you seven tips
of what to look for.
And those are some of the things that we
talked about today was looking at your
(35:44):
finances, having the
bill paying and so forth.
So, it's just a small little PDF just
to get you motivated to say, okay,
maybe I really should
look at my finances.
So, thank you.
That is a free
resource on my website.
Yeah.
I always like highlighting, like, the
different types of resources because
different people are, like,
(36:04):
attracted to different things online.
Like, I'm not as attracted to, like,
colorful, like, written things.
I'm more of an Excel computer type person,
but I know other people cannot imagine it
on a computer.
They rather see it, write it down,
because it has more of an impact writing
the numbers
down by hand.
(36:25):
And that's always good to adapt to
your situation and not try to be, oh,
like, these professionals,
high earners, only use Excel.
Like, no, that works for them, but
you got to make sure things work for
you, especially
at a lower level.
Like, maybe once you hit, like,
$100,000 in income, you can switch to
these more complicated,
more detailed tools.
(36:46):
Right.
And the other thing, too, is that there's
people who, you know, if you wanted to use
Excel, and if you booger up a cell and
mess up a formula, it
messes up your numbers.
So, there's also something
to be said about that.
And that's why I, you know, if you want
to work with spreadsheets and so forth,
(37:07):
that's why there's so many resources out
there that people have built on Etsy,
or you can get on Google and so forth,
because that's what, if
that makes that person
comfortable, great.
But I'm looking at it, and what's also
nice about this, too, is that you're
writing down the numbers,
and you're right.
There's something about taking it
from your brain to your pen to paper,
(37:28):
and also visualizing it at a different
time frame in order to
have the impact on it.
But what I'm also looking at, too, is
how many of us are
going to grab our phone?
And you're like, oh, I need
to check my bank account.
Oh, yeah, I got
five emails.
Oh, I need
to do that.
You're like, why
did I come here?
You totally
(37:49):
got distracted.
So, if you take that information and you
write it down, you have it in writing,
and you can talk to your spouse,
if you want to take this into bed,
or take it to dinner, and say, hey,
we need to talk about our finances.
Let's look at
our numbers.
There's no distraction
on the phone.
This is what
you're looking at.
You're talking about what's
(38:09):
right there in front of you.
It's like running a report every
single month for your finances.
So, then you have a better grasp of
where you are and where you're going.
You can see it visually on a calendar
to say, oh, in two weeks, we've got this
payment due.
Every six months, people have to pay their
property taxes or their car insurance or
(38:29):
things like that.
And then all of a sudden, they're like,
oh, my gosh, I don't
have the money for it.
Well, you know what, if you would have
planned, even on a simple calendar,
that's what's going to help you to
visualize it and have it in your head and
not have to worry about, oh, gosh,
where do I have to
scramble to get that money?
Because you already have a plan set,
because you've been putting money into a
savings account for your car
(38:49):
insurance or anything like that.
That is where having it down on paper and
visualizing it and flipping through it,
but also going back and saying, wow,
this is where I was at the beginning
of the year.
I had $7,200
in debt.
Now it's the end of the
year, and I'm at $4,600.
The back on me because I have done what I
(39:11):
needed to do in order to reduce my credit
card debt, and my sanity is much better
and my stress levels are
lower and things like that.
So it really is... the
proof is in black and white.
Yeah.
And also, I think another helpful thing
for people, even if you're not in debt,
knowing the strategies ahead of time or
(39:32):
even planning out, even if you're always
paying off your credit card is very
helpful before you start
getting off the track.
And like you've mentioned, there's more
complicated things as you go along in
life, whether it's car payments,
mortgages, like they might be straight out
of college or high school and listening
to this, that no debt, like they think
they'll be fine, but it's prepping ahead
of time before things start piling up
(39:54):
because then you'll start soon realizing
your check is going to come at the wrong
day before your or after
your credit cards due.
Things are off timing,
like everything.
No one is going to
sink the world for you.
So if you got to plan it out, know how
you're going to plan out yourself through
your month.
Exactly.
(40:14):
And let's let's just take a story of,
you know, a husband and
wife who are debt free.
They're in their
40s or 50s.
And all of a sudden, their child says,
we're going to have a
wedding and we want to help.
We want you to
help pay for it.
Well, if it's not in their budget,
or if it's not in their, you know,
financial outlook, well, I guess they
(40:34):
need to start saving for that wedding.
So, you know, just because you don't have
debt doesn't mean that
you don't have expenses.
Yeah.
And it's always important to understand
what tools are also available when
managing debt, because
I know debt is evolving.
Like credit cards are not just the only
things are available as like credit lines,
(40:55):
and they're easily accessible
nowadays, just to anyone.
Even people that are have no job, they
can get access to these debt tools
and to learn to not only understand them,
but manage them if they need to use them
to use them in
a proper way.
Yes.
And have you seen that like where people
are coming in debt with these new like
(41:17):
style of like credit lines or
like other borrowing positions?
I've had some people who have borrowed on
their 401ks while they're still working.
And then that payment is being taken
directly out of their paycheck.
So they don't actually
see that payment.
But if they used it to pay down a bill
(41:39):
or college or things like that, I've also
seen people with home equity line of
credits, also called HELOCs, in order to,
again, have that extra money in order
to spend on paying down credit cards or
enhancing their home with a new
deck or remodel or things like that.
So beyond that, I haven't
(42:00):
seen anything else yet.
Oh, that's pretty interesting,
because I think it is going to start
evolving faster as these new generation of
people coming out of college gonna like my
hear it online to leverage their positions
on anything they get access to or whether
they get some type of like
(42:21):
property from their family.
Like it might be hectic in a few years
once they get access to these tools,
just like the older Gen Z like myself,
like are coming into the workplace.
We're accessing different things at
different times now, and there's going to
be a shift of how people manage
their debt in the future.
(42:44):
Exactly, exactly.
And you know, nowadays, I mean, I
still get emails from my credit card
saying, would you
like a personal loan?
I'm like,
no, thanks.
I don't need another, I don't
need extra money for that.
Not, not to pay you
9%, but thanks anyways.
No, I'm good.
I don't, I
don't need that.
And unfortunately,
(43:05):
there's that temptation.
And when you have those temptations,
whether it's your credit card or whether
it's, you know, target saying,
here's what's on sale this week.
Click the
unsubscribe.
Yeah, a lot of people get stuck on
like what they're seeing in ads.
And I fall
for it too.
Like I get those
Amazon ads.
(43:25):
I'm like, Oh,
that's so nice.
I could get it and
it isn't too much.
I'm like, Oh, but then
that gets me buying.
And I returned a lot
of stuff on Amazon.
Cause I'm like, eh, kind
of regretted it now.
At least I could have
like 30 days to return it.
Yes.
I love that
policy of 30 days.
And then November 1st, you have until
January 31st because of
(43:46):
the holidays coming up.
So, but yeah, I, there are many times
where I'm like, ah, did
this really work out?
And it's nice to know that
you have that 30 days.
And if it doesn't work, then
get it out as soon as possible.
That's, that's
definitely the key.
And then I usually say, we're refunded
back to my credit card instead of putting
it in my Amazon account because you know,
(44:07):
that again, it's just too much temptation
and put stuff in the cart and save
for later and let it sit there and,
and, and figure out whether or
not you really need that item.
And there's a lot of in
my save my save for later.
And sometimes I'll
go through it.
I'm like, yeah, yeah,
yeah, that project's over.
I figured something else out and I
(44:28):
just delete because it's so tempting,
especially
with Amazon.
You order it and it's here either, you
know, 10 o'clock tonight, four o'clock
tomorrow morning.
You know, it's just too
tempting, too tempting.
It is.
I remember I ordered something and it
was here in like four hours or five.
I was like, wow.
Like that just made me want to spend more,
(44:50):
but I'm like, I know I gotta make sure I
stop and don't look at it as much because
I know there's so much, there's everything
at the, at your fingertips, all the
products you can possibly imagine you can
buy online and have delivered
relatively fast nowadays.
Yeah.
And then when it says it's, it's not
going to be here for another two weeks,
it's like, well, let me see
(45:11):
what other vendors have it.
Yeah.
I remember when years ago when things
would take a month to come and I would be
like, oh, we
ordered this.
Like you would forget what you ordered
because it took so long
to get to your house.
Yeah.
Definitely.
Definitely.
But yeah, you know, it's, it's amazing
how, if you look at that shopping or you
(45:32):
tell, you know, tally it up from far,
as far as how much you spend on Amazon,
that could be a big
category as well.
Yeah.
Cause you know, it's not groceries unless
you do Amazon fresh, but it's most of the
stuff is stuff.
And that's where, you know, the small
business owners have to be cautious and
make sure they get that receipt out of
(45:52):
that Amazon and put it
with their text forms.
So when the tax time comes around, they
can go, oh, okay, well I bought some,
you know, copy paper from Amazon, not
from Office Depot, but from Amazon.
You have to have it clearly marked
so then you can put it on your taxes.
Yeah.
It's always about preparing, try and keep
(46:12):
everything in order because it all matters
in the end.
Oh yeah.
And do you have any final
words for our audience?
You know, finances take a little bit of
time, just take small steps because small
steps are going to
go to great results.
Like I said, just
losing weight.
You're not going to lose
20 pounds in the next week.
(46:33):
Just like you're not going to lose
$5,000 in credit card unless you got,
you know, you
got a bonus.
So it's going to take time,
but keep the progress going.
And that's the most
important part.
Whether it's putting a little bit of money
away or sending a little extra money every
single month to one credit card, being
consistent and having
(46:54):
those small steps, do
what you can.
And that's what's going to
help you move the needle.
Well, well said.
Well, thank you for
being on podcast.
If anyone in the audience is interested in
what you heard, I'll have her links down
below in the description and
feel free to reach out to her.
Great.
Thanks so much for
having me today.
Yes.
Thank you.
Thank you.
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