April 8, 2024 • 61 mins
Walli's unique approach to personal finance has taken her from the Bronx to millionaire status, all while breaking generational cycles of money mismanagement. Together, we dissect the emotional ties to our wallets and provide listeners with straightforward tips for tracking finances, setting achievable goals, and bravely facing the financial fears that hold many of us back.
Today's conversation goes beyond mere savings and budgeting to explore the heart of our relationship with money. Drawing on Walli's life experiences and my own path to financial independence, we share invaluable insights into the importance of recognizing 'wallet leaks' and making intentional choices about spending and saving. Plus, hear how a no-spend challenge revealed the traps of mindless consumption and how tools like Rocket Money can turn the tide in your favor. We also tackle the taboo of money talk, urging listeners to bring financial discussions into the light to truly understand how to make your income work for you.
About Walli:
Walli is a financial coach and money mentor who went from being an overspender and compulsive shopper to being debt-free and building a 7-figure investment portfolio.
After spending her 20s spending every dollar she earned and saving very little she knew she had to start doing something different. The thought of working for the next 30 to 40 years just to survive wasn’t the life she wanted. After gaining control of her finances and creating a plan, she became work-optional before the age of 40! Walli is a first generation college graduate, Latina, and daughter of an immigrant. Born and raised in the Bronx, she is the first millionaire in her family.
Where to find Walli:
https://financiallythriving.com/
https://www.instagram.com/financially_thriving/
0:00 - Intro
6:39 - Personal Finance and Financial Freedom
13:12 - Understanding Mindless Spending and Budgeting
20:11 - Unpacking Our Relationship With Money
31:47 - Financial Coaching and Wealth Building
36:52 - Building Wealth and Achieving Financial Independence
47:37 - Achieving Financial Independence and Investing Early
1:01:11 - Outro
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello everyone and welcome back to the A Word to
the Wise podcast, a space wherewe curate conversations around
mind, body, spirit and personaldevelopment.
I'm your host, jumi Moses.
On the show today is WallyMiller.
Wally is a financial coach andmoney mentor who went from being
an overspender and compulsiveshopper to being debt-free and
(00:21):
building a seven-figureinvestment portfolio.
After spending her 20sliterally spending every dollar
she earned and saving verylittle, she knew she had to
start doing something different.
The thought of working for thenext 30 to 40 years just to
survive wasn't the life shewanted.
After gaining control of herfinances and creating a plan,
(00:42):
she became work optional beforethe age of 40.
Wally is a first generationcollege graduate.
She's a Latina and daughter ofan immigrant.
Born and raised in the Bronx.
She is the first millionaire inher family.
In the words of Wally,financial survival is no longer
enough.
We need to gain control of ourfinances, believe it's possible
(01:06):
to reach our money goals andstart financially thriving.
Forget complicated financialjargon.
This is money made simple, andthat is exactly what this
conversation is all about.
I wanted to have a financialexpert come on the show to talk
about finance 101.
Because, if you're like me, youprobably get confused with all
(01:28):
of the different financialjargon out there.
It feels like, oh my God, thisis so much to digest.
I don't really understand this.
I don't even know where tostart.
I feel overwhelmed, and I thinkthat Wally is so knowledgeable.
She makes it so plain and easyto understand.
This is where you need to startfrom.
This is what you need to lookat, this is what you need to pay
(01:51):
attention to, this is what youneed to track, and I left the
conversation with Wally feelingvery empowered and feeling more
knowledgeable about finances ingeneral.
Wally and I also talk about theenergy and the emotions people
have tied to money, because in alot of these conversations,
(02:11):
people forget to talk about howthey view money, and a lot of
times, how you view money alsoties into how you attract money.
It also ties into how you growyour wealth and it also ties
into how you manage yourfinances, and a lot of times,
people are too afraid to look attheir bank accounts.
(02:34):
They're too afraid to kind ofsee on a paper.
Hey, this is what I'm workingwith.
There's a fear around money andwe talk about that, and she
talks about how important it isto acknowledge the emotions you
may have tied to money and muchmore.
Again, this was a conversationthat was very illuminating for
(02:55):
me, it was very empowering, andit's a conversation that I'm
going to go back and listen to afew times, because Wally
dropped so much digestibleknowledge and easy to implement
knowledge, and I can't wait foryou guys to listen to this
episode.
Let's get into the show, wally.
(03:29):
Welcome to A Word to the Wise.
Thank you so much for beinghere.
How are you today?
Speaker 2 (03:34):
I'm good.
Thank you so much for having me.
I'm excited about thisconversation.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Me too.
I think it's honestly timely,because I'm always the type of
person, like every year, whereI'm like I want to get better
with money, I want to budgetbetter.
I have all of these differentquestions related to money and
just managing my finances.
But I do get overwhelmed by itall and I like that.
One of your slogans is justmaking it easy, like cutting out
(04:01):
all of the jargon and makingmoney talk easier.
So I'm excited to like hearabout all of the insightsgon and
making money talk easier.
So I'm excited to like hearabout all of the insights that
you have to share.
But I want to start off byasking you a fun question, and
that is do you have a life motto?
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Yeah, I would say that this changes probably not
even by year.
It sort of changes by seasons,depending on sort of what's
going on.
And so one of the things that Ihave right now and I looked up
because I have it posted is weeither repeat or we evolve, and
that is something that I've beenliving with sort of you know,
(04:39):
it's kind of a model that I'vebeen living by the last maybe
two months or so, because it canbe it can be a little bit fear
inducing to try something new,and so we stay with the same old
, same old.
So it's like you're eithergoing to repeat the same
mistakes or sort of repeat thesame life circumstances, or
(05:00):
you're going to evolve, andevolving can feel a little bit
scary, but yeah, I'm like Idon't want to be on repeat, I
definitely want to evolve.
So that's sort of my littlemantra going on for this season
of my life.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Oh my God, I feel like again, this is also really
timely because I've beenthinking for myself too.
I'm like I feel like I've beenfeeling a lot of stagnant energy
and I'm like I need to startdoing something or making
decisions that are a little bitoutside of my comfort zone.
And that's where you like getto evolve and live when you
(05:36):
start doing things that areoutside of your comfort zone
instead of just staying inwhat's familiar.
But you're kind of stagnant.
So I resonate so much with whatyou just said, and speaking of
an area of my life that I wantto continue to evolve in is
finances, and I think a lot ofpeople listening to this episode
can probably relate to that.
(05:57):
So I want to get into yourbackground a little bit.
Right, so I know that you are afirst-generation college
graduate and now you work as afinancial coach.
So can you just talk to usabout your journey being a
first-gen graduate to becoming afinancial coach and why that's
important to you?
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Yeah, so I love money , I love talking about money, I
love teaching people about moneyand in some ways that was
always kind of my jam.
But the thing is that I thoughtI was really good with money
until I realized that there wasa whole different world that I
knew nothing about.
(06:38):
So, as you mentioned, my nameis Wally.
I'm a Latina, a daughter of animmigrant.
As you mentioned, my name isWally.
I'm a Latina, a daughter of animmigrant, born and raised in
New York City, first-gen collegegraduate and recently first-gen
millionaire.
Right, and I say all of thosethings because every single one
of those aspects has reallyshaped the way I move around
(07:00):
this world and I, you know,growing up in in the Bronx.
I was born and raised in thewell, born in Manhattan but
raised in the Bronx, so I'mreally from the Bronx, growing
up in the Bronx, in the poorestborough in New York City.
There was just certain thingsthat I was and was not exposed
(07:21):
to.
Right, my mom was a stay athome-home mom.
I'm one of five children.
My dad worked Again, he's animmigrant and we just didn't
have a lot of money going around.
Right, my parents didn't sitdown and talk to me about
opening bank accounts or savingmoney or spending money, right.
So we didn't have conversationsaround money.
(07:42):
But that doesn't mean that as akid, as a teenager, there
weren't things that I learnedand observed and sort of
overheard conversations aroundand those definitely shaped how
I interacted with money as I gotolder.
Especially, my dad, who wasn'tborn in this country, came from
a third world country where thetrust of financial institutions
(08:05):
is almost non-existent, like ifwe think here in America there's
a distrust of financialinstitutions, it's even so much
more for our immigrant parents,right.
So when I, I always got theinclination that education was
going to be the key out and thekey to sort of success.
So you know, when I was injunior high, I was thinking
(08:26):
about high school.
When I was in high school, Iwas thinking about college.
When I was in college, I wasthinking about career.
And so I'm going to fastforward a little bit into sort
of like getting a career that Ireally enjoyed and that I loved.
I began working in thegovernment, I began working in
public service, and it wasreally a job that was super
fulfilling, it was challenging.
(08:48):
I felt like this role was sortof created for me and I went
from one office to anotheroffice, but always in the same
work, and I was like I'm good, Ireally didn't get the Sunday
blues, as some people say.
Right, I really enjoyed my job.
Of course there was aneverything that was perfect
about it, but I felt my work tobe really fulfilling until it
(09:12):
wasn't right.
And when that happened for me,I realized that I felt a little
stuck.
Now it wasn't that I stoppedloving the work, but there was
sort of a change in managementand went from sort of an ideal
work environment to like Ialways enjoyed the people that I
worked with, but it was thepeople that I was working for,
(09:33):
that sort of you know.
When management changed, mywhole experience of the
workplace and of the work that Iwas doing really shifted.
And I remember feeling so stuck,like I didn't have any options.
I couldn't just like get up andquit and find a job tomorrow.
It really felt like if I missedthe paycheck definitely if I
(09:55):
missed two paychecks I was goingto lose everything I had worked
so hard to build right.
So I was paying off my studentloans, I had a car note, I had
housing to pay for, so I wasjust like man, like what is
going on?
Like I can't just leave, and itwas that feeling of stuckness
that really made me sit down andthink like I think there's like
(10:17):
something wrong here.
Like why don't I have anysavings?
Because by that point I wasmaking decent money and I wasn't
married, I didn't have kids andI was just like where's all my
money going?
And that was sort of like thefirst wake up call that I had
that something was wrong.
Right In my mind, I was goodwith money because I was able to
(10:39):
pay my bills.
I never had my phone turned off, I never had the lights cut off
, so it felt really good to beable to pay my bills on time.
I really try to stay out ofcredit card debt, and so I was
like I'm good.
But that feeling of not havinga whole lot of options and
really living paycheck topaycheck became really real for
(11:02):
me in that moment, and that waswhen I realized, okay, I'm
missing something here, there'ssomething happening.
And that was sort of my wake-upcall to checking out my own
personal finances.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Wow, you said so much there that I think a lot of
people can relate to, which isthis notion of you're making
pretty good money but you stillkind of feel stuck, like,
paycheck to paycheck, bills arepiling up and it just feels like
there's never enough money andit's almost like you feel
chained to a system, chained tothat rat race.
And something that you said thatwas important was you know the
(11:39):
management within your job hadchanged.
You were no longer feelingfulfilled, but you couldn't just
get up and leave right, likeyou didn't.
It felt like you didn't reallyhave options to kind of move
around or potentially discoveror live the life intended for
you, because you were stuck tothis job, because you needed the
money, et cetera.
(11:59):
If I'm understanding youcorrectly, and when I think
about money, I think about notjust having money to buy things,
but the sense of freedom to beable to move and like, god
forbid, if I were to lose my job, I still wouldn't be like, oh
my God, I'm suffering herebecause I have ample savings,
etc.
So I want to know how did you,like, when you had that
realization, what steps did youstart to implement to kind of
(12:22):
become this millionaire andfinancial coach that you are
today.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Yeah, I think one of the things that happened was it
wasn't that it was bills pilingup, right?
So in my mind I was good.
A lot of the financial gurusand the financial advice if you
picked up books was like get outof debt, stay out of debt.
And I was like, ok, like I havestudent loan debt and I have
car notes, but like I pay mybills and I don't have credit
(12:48):
card debt, so like I'm good.
So it was like this disconnect,like I'm paying my bills, I
feel fine, only to realize, waita minute, I don't think I'm
fine, right?
Because, like I said, if Imissed one paycheck definitely
two paychecks everything that Iworked for was going to be gone.
And it made me sort of askmyself that simple question like
(13:10):
where is my money going?
And there's something called ano-spend challenge, and people
do this on a variety ofdifferent ways.
You could say you know what I'mgoing to take this week and not
spend any money at all exceptthe things that I absolutely
need, right?
So I'm only going to spendmoney on paying my rent, I'm
only going to spend money on,you know, paying for gas in the
(13:31):
car or transportation, whateverthe case might be, but I'm not
going to spend money on anythingextra.
So I decided to do a one-weekno-spend challenge where I was
going to stick specifically tolike these main categories that
I had set for myself.
To stick specifically to likethese main categories that I had
set for myself.
Every single day I was violatingor I was, you know, sort of
(13:55):
breaking the no spend challenge.
And it wasn't that I was goingto the mall and buying big
things.
It was that I would go toTarget to buy laundry detergent
and toilet paper and I wouldleave with candles and pillows.
I would be on my way to the gasstation and make a detour to
Ross and Marshall's andBurlington Coat Factory, right,
and so it was all of theselittle things.
(14:15):
It was even something as simpleas picking up medication from
the pharmacy and then grabbing amagazine or a candy bar or you
know.
It was just all of these likewallet leaks that kept happening
, like all of this money keptslipping away.
And so I wasn't.
I tried over and over again totry to complete a no spend
challenge and I wasn't able to,and what that made me realize
(14:36):
was that my money was sort ofseeping out of me not in huge
chunks.
I wasn't going and buyingluxury handbags and like
expensive clothes, but it was inall of these like little things
that I was just purchasing andI was a little bit of an
impulsive shopper.
So if I would see something, Iwould just like buy it.
(14:57):
And here's like the mistakethat I made.
For me, I thought I was a wiseand savvy shopper because I
would try to buy things on saleor maybe it was fun to try to
like find a coupon and get like50% off, right.
So in my mind I was being wisewith money.
(15:18):
But just because you buysomething on sale doesn't mean
you're not spending the money.
You're still spending the money.
And so it was sort of thatrealization that I couldn't go a
couple days without spendingmoney.
Like every single time it wasall of these little things.
And that was when I realized,okay, like I don't have credit
(15:38):
card debt, I'm able to pay thebills.
It's not that they're piling up, but I don't have anything to
show for the hard work that I'mdoing.
Right, and it's because I'mmaking all of these like very
impulsive purchases.
And there's a saying that saysif you want to know what someone
values, take a look at theirbank statements.
And if somebody would havelooked at my debit card
(16:02):
transactions, my credit cardtransactions, it would have said
that I really favored fast foodand I really favored shopping
trips to the mall and jeans andshoes and clothes, and that
wasn't really what I valued.
I am not a fashionista.
I would buy clothes and nevereven wear them right Because
(16:24):
they didn't fit right or itwasn't my style or I didn't know
how to wear it.
But if I thought it was prettyor if I thought it was nice, I
would buy it with, like, no plan, right, there was a lot of
mindless spending and a lot ofmindless shopping going on, and
so I had to sort of become awareand answer that question to
(16:45):
myself of where is my moneygoing?
Right, because it can be so easyto say, oh, my money's going to
bills, right, and that's what Iwould just say.
But it's like, is it really allgoing to bills?
And I had to really get crystalclear of like, okay, what does
a bill look like?
What am I calling a bill?
And really like, okay, a roofover my head, that's a true
(17:09):
living expense.
Food on the table?
That's a living expense.
Going out to brunch notnecessary, right?
Doesn't mean that I don't wantto do that and that doesn't mean
that I can't do that.
But I really needed to getcrystal clear about what exactly
were my true needs, right?
And then when I figured outwhat my true needs were and I
(17:31):
added up that number and Icalculated how much of my needs,
my expenses for need for thatneed category was in a month, it
said I was supposed to havelike a lot of money left over
and I was like I don't have thatmoney left over.
I do not have that money leftover.
So number one is like gettingcrystal clear about what your
(17:51):
numbers are doing, get crystalclear about where your dollars
are sort of going.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Oh, I can relate to you on the mindless shopping,
because when I go into TargetI'll be like, okay, I'm just
picking up this one thing that'sat most $20.
And then by the time I'm outI'm like, why did I just spend
$150 to $200 at Target?
Target is one of those placeswhere, like you go in for one
thing, you just can't leave withone thing.
(18:18):
And I get what you're sayingagain, with the mindless
spending in your wallet justleaking, because it's like you
on food, on outings, which allof those things are important,
but if you're not tracking themand seeing how your money flows,
you actually don't know howmuch excess you have after you
paid your rent, after you'vepaid your bills, etc.
(18:38):
So then it starts to feel likeyou're living paycheck to
paycheck but there might be alot more money that you have
that you're not stewarding overenough.
So some people obviously puttogether like Excel sheets.
Some people put together.
There's this app called RocketMoney.
I'm not trying to endorse anyapp, but I will say for someone
(18:59):
like me who the whole Excelsheet thing doesn't really work
well for me, rocket Money kindof allows me to see where, how
my money is moving in and out ofmy account every single month,
week, I should say.
So I can like review, like okay, this is where I have like
recurring bills, you know,coming from Cause there's some
(19:20):
subscriptions that I had that Iwas like why am I paying for
this Like every month or likeonce a year annually?
So there's so much that yousaid there and I want to kind of
dig deeper into that a littlebit more.
But before we get into thatstuff I want to talk about.
You know, when it comes tomoney, people are avoidant,
right.
So, like you said, we'respending money.
(19:41):
We're not sure how money'sflowing in and out of our
accounts.
A lot of that, too, can comefrom not having a good sense of
money, being in a family wheremaybe you had to kind of
struggle with money a little bit, so money's a little taboo.
So why do you think, fromworking with so many people who
need financial advice andcoaching, why do you think money
(20:04):
is such a taboo subject for alot of people and what are the
biggest misconceptions peoplehave around money?
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Yeah, you know, money is neutral.
It's not good, it's not bad,but it's laden with emotions,
right, how we spend money, howit makes us feel the lack of
money, right, the scarcity of it, especially.
You know, like I said, wedidn't grow up in poverty, but
we were really low income.
(20:32):
There wasn't a whole lot ofextra to spend money on.
You know, we had the lightsturned off, we had the cable
turned off, things like that,cars repossessed.
So there was a lot of thingsthat, even though my parents
didn't sit down and chat with meabout money, there were a lot
of things that I was absorbing,right and observing, and it was
(20:53):
okay.
You need money in order to feelsafe.
If you don't have money, youcan't buy things, right.
And so that was why there waslike a little bit of a
disconnect.
When I began making money and Ihad money left over, I was like
, okay, well, I paid my bills.
I know that that was superimportant.
But then what do I do with it?
What do I do with like theextra?
(21:15):
And I was like oh, I guess Ican now do some of those fun
things that I couldn't do as akid.
Maybe I could buy more thanjust having like one or two
pairs of shoes.
Like, maybe I could buy fivepairs of shoes, right?
Maybe I don't have to justchoose between two jeans and
three shirts and I could havelike five jeans and 10 shirts,
right?
So it was all of these likelittle things that began to
(21:37):
influence how I was spending,really, because I didn't know
what to do with the money.
Right, they don't teach thisstuff in school.
They don't tell us, they don'treally talk to us about putting
money aside.
I knew saving was good and Iwas like, okay, yeah, I'll just
put $25 a paycheck, but what is$25 a paycheck going to do if
you lose your income, right?
(21:58):
What is five dollars going todo if you want to go on vacation
, right?
So it was all of those lessonsthat I realized that I had sort
of missed.
And you know, during that periodwhere I was like really
stressing when it came to workand like really unfulfilled, I
went to the Googles, right.
I went to Google and try tofigure out, like, what was going
(22:20):
on and there was like this veryclick baity article that came
up and it was about a couple whohad retired in their forties to
travel the world.
Now, one of the other thingsthat really would have been
reflected in my like credit cardtransaction and history was
travel.
Like that was something that Idid value and I didn't feel any
(22:40):
guilt or shame about spendingmoney there, right, like I felt
more kind of guilt about likeoverspending on clothes that I
wasn't valuing and, you know,using, right, it was just kind
of sitting in my closet but Idid.
I had no qualms about spendingmoney on travel, and so when I
read that this couple was ableto retire in their 40s in order
(23:02):
to travel the world, I was likewhat, what nonsense is this?
But I was very intrigued as Iread their story and I was
thinking they must be likemultiple six-figure earners and
blah, blah, blah.
And as I read the story andstarted beginning and started to
see some of the changes thatthey made and some of the things
(23:24):
that they implemented, I waslike, well, if them, why not me?
Right, if them, why not me?
And that was when I realized,ok, these wallet leaks may not
seem like a whole lot, becausemaybe it's like a ten dollar day
here, extra twenty five dollarday here, $30 there.
But when I began to add up theextra money that I was spending
(23:46):
on things that weren't addingtrue value to my life and that
really weren't necessary.
I realized, okay, I do, I couldfind some money to be putting
aside to at least give me someoptions when it comes to my job,
right, and could provide somesort of comfort.
(24:10):
And so I began really digginginto this whole world of
personal finance and I learned afew basic things, which was
just because you have it tospend doesn't mean that you can
or that you should.
Right, and it was understandingand I know that sounds so
simple Like, of course, youdon't have to spend every dollar
(24:31):
you get, but like I knew that,but like I didn't know that,
like I didn't, I really wasn'tpracticing that, I just didn't
really know what to do with mymoney.
I didn't know what I should besaving for and the importance of
goal setting, right Of like whywould I be putting money aside?
You know, why was thatimportant?
And so, as I began to sort oflike uncover my own personal
(24:55):
relationship with money and thisis what I see with my clients
all of the time right, thatthere's so much guilt and so
much shame, but the reality isthat they don't teach this stuff
in school.
I will say that today there aremore schools requiring personal
finance and financial literacy,but it's still just a fraction
(25:17):
of the country.
Right, in ways that you knowpeople are, you know we learn
what a parallelogram is, but wedon't know anything about taxes
or entrepreneurship or creditscores or investing in the stock
market or investing period andbuilding wealth.
(25:37):
And so when I began sort ofunderstanding, okay, like these
wallet leaks, if I begin to likeadd them up, it's not just a
couple dollars, right, it's like$100 a month.
Right, it's $200 a month, it's$300 a month.
And so as I began to add upwhere my money was going and
really understanding it, Irealized, okay, something needs
(25:59):
to happen and money can feelreally taboo because nobody
wants to talk about the thingthat they don't understand.
So many of us are making moneybut we don't know why the money
isn't there for us.
There's shame because we'relike, oh man, yeah, I got paid
Friday and it's Monday and I'mbroke already, right, like
(26:22):
nobody really wants to talkabout that.
There's shame in talking abouthow much money you make because
you don't want to be the lowestearner, but there can be shame
and guilt if you're earning morethan your peers.
Right.
Like wealth, guilt is a realthing about like not wanting to
share how much money you make ifeverybody around you is making,
you know, 20, 30, 50% less thanyou are.
(26:43):
And so when we're talking aboutmoney, it can bring up so many
different feelings, right.
It can feel very scarce, it canfeel very taboo to talk about,
and so a lot of people will cometo me as a financial coach and
sure, I have a heart of ateacher and I will teach you
some financial concepts, thethings that they should have
taught us right.
(27:03):
Everything from taxes andcredit scores and investing and
compound interest right.
So we learn some of thatfinancial literacy.
But most of us know some things, and it's the problem we have
is not in total lack offinancial literacy, it's in two
things One, in knowing how itapplies to our personal finances
(27:26):
and how it applies and how weshould implement those
principles we know.
And then number two, it's insort of taking it to the next
level and really understandinghow to build wealth right and
the emotions that come with it.
Right?
I have people who finally savemoney for the first time for a
specific goal.
(27:46):
Maybe they, you know, theyspend five months saving for a
vacation and now it's time tospend that money and they're
like, oh, I can't spend thatmoney right.
And it's like, well, the wholepurpose of it was to be able to
use that money for that specificgoal.
And they have so much minddrama about it.
And this has happened to me andI'm not talking about like
(28:08):
years ago, I'm talking about ayear ago, six months ago where
you save up for something andyou see that money sitting in
there for that specific goal andit's like, man, I'm just gonna
like use it in one shot.
And so there's so many emotionsthat come up.
So money, yes, we got to dealwith the math.
There's some addition andsubtraction we need to
(28:30):
understand.
But we also need to understandhow we interact with money and
what our relationship looks likewhen it comes to money.
And I think making sure thatwe're balancing both is really
important.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
I 100% agree with everything that you said.
I think there's the managementpart of money, but then there's
the energy that we give to money.
I think everything in thisworld is energy and you can have
a lot of money, but if you havea scarcity mindset, you might
hold on to everything and notreally live your life right and
(29:04):
not take the vacations becauseyou can't actually afford it but
because you're scared that, ohmy God, I might lose this money.
You might hoard it right or youmight spend recklessly because
you don't want to address money.
It's scary.
So you know you're avoidant, etcetera.
You know I'm constantly workingon my relationship with money
and I want to get to a pointwhere money feels like something
(29:25):
that flows to me and flowsthrough me.
Right, not just like somethingI have to hold on to and feel
fearful of, but look at it asanother form of abundance.
Right, and abundance has like aflowing energy to it.
So obviously you know you areable to figure out your finances
.
And are you a full timefinancial coach or do you still
(29:47):
work in the corporate world?
Speaker 2 (29:50):
Ah, very interesting question.
So I, at the age of 39, Iwalked away from my nine to five
job because I reached financialindependence A few years ago.
I, as I was sort of learningand in my own personal finance
journey, I realized that therewas a lot of things that I had
no idea about and nobody that Iknew was talking about finances,
(30:13):
and so I first started as ablogger.
I was like an anonymous blogger, like sharing all of the things
that I was learning, and fromthere I got a couple of gigs
doing some freelance writingwork, and people started
messaging me and emailing me andasking if I did consultations
and I'm like, no, no, go readthis book, go watch this YouTube
(30:34):
channel, like go watch this pod.
You know, listen to thispodcast, right, like there was
like resources that reallytransformed my life.
Right, when I was traveling forwork and I was in my car I was
listening to a podcast, like itwas.
I was like in the school ofreally trying to figure out this
money thing, and so I wantedeverybody else to be in that
same journey.
But what I realized was thatthere was an emotional piece to
(30:59):
why people were reallystruggling with again
implementing what they knewabout money right, and even
wanting to understand money,became very overwhelming because
they couldn't open up theirchecking accounts, they couldn't
open up the bill, they couldn'tlike.
They felt it felt reallyoverwhelming to like sit and
understand really where moneywas going.
(31:20):
And so that was where Irealized, okay, it's not just
the lack of information likethat is a piece of it for sure
but there's also that emotionalcomponent and sort of the trauma
, right, that can come with someof our experiences with money.
And so someone asked after manytimes just saying, yeah, just
(31:42):
go watch this, listen to this,read that Someone asked if I did
a consultation.
I said, sure, let's go ahead andI'll do it.
And I realized that it wasn'tthe complex things that people
were nervous about or worriedabout.
It was just sitting with theemotions and the shame and the
fear and the scarcity and youknow, and the overwhelm with
(32:08):
just organizing their finances.
And that was when I was like,oh, this is what's also missing
in as part of the conversation.
And so that was how I startedfinancial coaching.
But I had my career in publicservice, that job that I was
talking about, like I ended upleaving because I was able to
fund an emergency fund and Ifelt comfortable taking some
(32:31):
risk and changing from oneoffice to another.
So when I began developing that, I began having some more
options.
Right, that's what money wasable to afford me was having
some freedom and having someoptions.
And so when I started doing theconsultations that's what I
called them at the beginning Irealized, okay, like people need
(32:51):
a coach the way they need youknow, like a personal trainer,
the way you know you yeah, thebest athletes have coaches right
.
Like you need someone not justto teach you.
It's not just about being aneducator or a teacher, it's also
about helping you andsupporting you along the way.
(33:12):
And so I started doing financialcoaching, consultations and
then financial coaching whatsort of transform into financial
coaching because of thoserealizing that what people
needed wasn't only financialliteracy that is definitely one
piece, right, the educationalpiece but it was also the
support that they needed and theaccountability to make sure
(33:34):
that they were implementing notonly all the things that they
were learning, but the specificthings that were right for them.
Right, because there's a lot ofstuff out there and we don't
need to be listening to all ofthe stuff.
We just need to be listening tothe things right in front of us
.
So you know one thing that Iwill mention because it's really
important to me and to you knowwhat I help my clients with?
(33:57):
Sure, creating debt payoffplans, getting out of debt,
building savings accounts,reaching financial milestones.
But even if you do all of that,if you're not using a vehicle
to build wealth, you're going tobe missing a huge portion.
Right, and when I'm talkingabout I couldn't even relate to
(34:17):
the word wealth.
Right, wealth meant to me.
You know, the athletes who make, you know, millions of dollars,
or the actresses or the actors.
Right, or an artist or amusician.
I had no concept of what beingwealthy was.
Right, it was like an old mansmoking a cigar in a velvet robe
.
Like I had no connection tothat word wealth.
(34:39):
But what I realized was thatthat couple remember I mentioned
that article one of the thingsthat they talked about in order
to build wealth was that theyused investments as a way to
make sure that their money wasmaking money for them.
And I was like, huh, my moneycould make money for me.
And you can choose a couple ofdifferent ways to get there.
(35:02):
Right, you can use real estate,entrepreneurship, right
Business, investing or the stockmarket, and I chose the stock
market as a way to generatewealth for me.
Now I will say I'm anentrepreneur now and I have real
estate and I also invest in thestock market.
But the stock market was one ofthe easiest and laziest ways to
(35:24):
build wealth because we haveaccess A lot of us have access
to things like a 401k plan or a403b, or we can open up an IRA
if you don't have a workplaceretirement account and so
understanding the very simpleinvesting rules.
I'm not talking about watchingthe stock market from the time
(35:45):
you wake up until they closes.
I'm not talking about watchingred and green charts and trying
to figure out what shapes likethat is way too much work.
I'm talking about using passiveinvestment streams in order to
build wealth, and one of thepieces of financial coaching for
(36:05):
me that's really important isthat my clients get crystal
clear about which investmentvehicle fits their style right.
So it's understanding.
Like you mentioned, you're notinto spreadsheets.
You like the apps.
I'm like it's important for youto understand how you want to
interact with money right Forsome people to understand how
you want to interact with moneyright.
For some people it is apps.
For some people it's a pen andpaper right.
(36:27):
For some people it's aspreadsheet, like understand how
you want to best interact withmoney, how best you want to plan
for money, but and then what isa way that you want to use in
order to build wealth?
Because if you don't have thatwealth building piece, all we're
doing is sort of extending thattime that we will have to work
(36:49):
and not using money for us.
So I have been.
I was able to reach financialindependence, and how I define
financial independence, or howmost people define financial
independence, is that myinvestments make enough money
that I never have to work againand it covers my cost of living
Right.
And so I reached that throughinvestments, and that didn't
(37:11):
happen overnight.
It took years of investing tobe able to do that.
But because we were my husbandand I were very strategic in how
we saved and how we spent andhow we invested, we were able to
reach work.
Optional status is what I callit now, because even though I
don't need to work and I didearly retire early from my
(37:33):
career I'm choosing to workbecause I want other people,
other families, other women tounderstand the power of building
wealth and the freedom and theoptions that it affords you.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
Wow, this is so good.
You addressed every singlething I was going to ask,
especially on the side of youknow, how did you build your
wealth?
How can people invest?
Because I get stuck in themiddle, right, there's so many
like jargons, like open a highyield savings account, invest in
a Roth IRA, and, you know, openstocks.
(38:08):
There's just so many terms that, personally, for me, they're a
little bit overwhelming, right.
And then I'm always in themiddle of okay, should I double
down on paying down student loandebt, for example, or should I
double down and go towards theyou know, growing my money?
It's always this like catch 22for me, and I'm sure for a lot
(38:31):
of people who are listening.
It's like how can I really growmy money when I still have all
this debt to pay down?
So the question I want to askyou, right, because student
loans is a big thing for a lotof people.
I think that's where a lot ofpeople have so much money to pay
back and they feel really inshackles.
It's one thing to work and haveto pay your regular bills, but
(38:53):
it's another thing, right?
So what are your thoughts onpaying off student loans or
debts in general and also tryingto invest and grow your money.
(39:14):
Should you pick either or or.
What should you focus on more?
Speaker 2 (39:20):
Yes.
So I like to teach my clientsthat when making financial
decisions, there is amathematical component.
So it's understanding what isthe in this specific situation?
What is it costing you?
So what is the debt costing you, right?
Or what is the alternativeoption going to cost you, right?
(39:41):
What is it going to bring infor you?
So there's that mathematicalcomponent.
The other component that weneed to take into consideration
is the emotional one, and thisis where people don't really
think about it right.
So knowing both is reallyimportant.
Sometimes we make onlyemotional decisions and don't
(40:02):
take into consideration the math, and sometimes we only take
into consideration the math andthen we regret the decision or
we have guilt, or we haveregrets or doubt because we're
totally disregarding how we feelabout it, only thinking about
the math.
So I think it's important tothink about the math and then
also think about what's going tohelp you sleep better at night.
So let's take debt in general.
(40:23):
Also think about what's goingto help you sleep better at
night.
So let's take debt in general.
When we think about credit carddebt, credit card debt is not 2%
interest.
Credit card debt compounds andit's 19, 25, 30% interest.
So if the question is should Ifocus on paying off credit card
debt or putting money in thestock market?
(40:43):
I'm going to say well, onaverage, the stock market could
return 10, 11, 12%, right?
I mean last year, in 2023, itwas 20%, right, but that's not
average, right?
That was out of the ordinary.
What you could grow your moneyin the stock market is, on
average, 10%, but what good isit if your money is growing at
10% but your debt is growing at25 and 30%?
(41:07):
It doesn't make a whole lot ofsense, right?
So then we think aboutsomething more like student
loans, right?
If your student loans are at 4%, but you could grow your money
at 10%, even if you take away 4%from the 10, you still have
your money growing at 6%.
So that doesn't mean you don'tfocus on paying off your debt.
(41:29):
But what I'm saying is that ifyou have extra money, you could
either put it towards the debtor you could put that extra
money into a wealth buildingvehicle, right?
So not all debt is going to bethe same.
I think that you can have debtand you could be building wealth
at the same time.
But we want to look at thatmathematical component, right?
But we don't want to forgetabout the emotional side, right?
(41:51):
If it's like, look, every timeI think about how much student
loan debt I have, even thoughit's only at five, six, 7%, I
can't sleep.
It makes me feel overwhelmed.
Know what?
The math is right.
But if you are not sleeping atnight and you're having trouble
(42:12):
sort of thinking about futureplans because you have this
really heavy burden of that debt, then I would say, maybe
consider no, but what?
Both are right.
But then making an emotionaldecision to really focus on
paying off the debt, it's goingto be the right option for you,
(42:32):
right?
So I can't say as a blanketstatement focus on paying off
debt first, focus on investingonly or first.
Right, I think you could doboth.
I think you can pay off yourdebt and you can also invest.
But take a look at what youremotions feel like when you
think about the debt and alsowhat do they feel like knowing
(42:55):
that?
Okay, even though I might havethis debt for a little bit
longer because it has a lowerinterest rate we're not talking
about credit card interest ratewhich is again 19, 20, 30%.
But if that debt is sitting atthree, four, five, six, seven,
8%, then we could say okay, nowI can make a decision as to how
quickly I wanna get out of debtor how soon do I wanna start
(43:19):
building wealth.
And that's an exercise that Itake my clients through, right,
because I want them to see okay,if I take 10 years to pay this
off, how much interest am Igoing to pay?
What is it going to cost me?
But if I wait 10 years before Ineed to pay off all my debt
first and I wait 10 years beforeI start investing, what is that
(43:41):
going to cost you?
How long is it going to takeyou to reach financial
independence?
How long is it going to takeyou to be able to fund your
retirement?
Right?
So I think, knowing what thosenumbers are, first checking in
with your mind, with your body,with your spirit, to see what's
going to help you sleep betterat night, then you make a
decision about what's going tobe best for you and that can
(44:04):
change, right.
What your focus is right nowversus what your priorities will
be in six months or yourpriorities will be in two years
will be different and you makeadjustments.
But you want to check in withthe math, because that's
important, but you also want tocheck in with yourself.
Speaker 1 (44:22):
That was very, very helpful.
That gave me a lot to thinkabout, and I was as you were
talking.
I was also thinking about thenotion of savings.
So you know vehicles that helpus make more money, whether
that's investing in stocks, youknow investing in real estate,
et cetera.
Does that count as savings, ordo we still need to consider
savings as an additional bucketwith paying off debt and also
(44:47):
growing money?
Speaker 2 (44:48):
Okay, beautiful question.
So I like to take my clientsthrough an exercise where we
first determine short-term goals.
So your short-term goals ismoney or experiences or expenses
that are coming up in the nextthree, six, 12, 18 months.
Okay, think about all of thethings that you want to
(45:08):
accomplish, all of the thingsyou want to experience, the
things you want to buy, thethings you want to pay off in
the next year, year and a half.
So those are your short-termgoals.
Then you want to think aboutwhat are your goals for that
mid-range time, which is two tofive years from now.
So maybe you're like, okay, I'mnot going to buy a house in the
(45:29):
next year and a half, but Ithink in four years I want to be
a homeowner, right.
So think about those.
I want to have a down paymentfor a home, right?
So think about those goals thatyou have for the next two to
five years.
And then we're going to thinkabout long-term goals.
Right, when we're thinkingabout long-term goals, we're not
gonna need that money for five,10, 15, 30 years from now.
(45:51):
How you save and how you buildthat bucket is gonna be
determined by the time horizon,right, the time horizon.
Your goal is gonna.
How you fund those goals isreally gonna be determined by
how long you have to reach itright.
The time horizon your goal isgoing to, how you fund those
goals is really going to bedetermined by how long you have
to reach it right.
So, if you know you're going togo on summer vacation, we're
not going to want that money tobe in a risk, in a risky place
(46:16):
like the stock market, because Idon't know what's going to
happen in June.
I don't know what's going tohappen when you're going to need
that money.
So we want to have that moneyin a safe place, and a safe
place to have that money issomething like a savings account
, right.
But if we're thinking aboutbuilding wealth for the long
term so maybe 10 years from now,15 years, 30 years from now we
(46:38):
want to use something that cantolerate and sort of I'm trying
to think of sustain, sort of theebbs and flows and the ups and
downs of something like thestock market, right?
You mentioned something a littleearlier and you were like.
You know, people talk about ahigh yield savings account.
Like, what does that mean?
I know it's, I don't know whythey use all these big terms
(46:58):
right, but the differencebetween a high yield savings
account and a regular savingsaccount is how much money the
bank is giving you, and so Iwould suggest to anybody out
there who might be listening totake one simple step is to call
your bank that you have yoursavings account at and say hey,
I have a savings account withyou, mr Banker, what is my
(47:22):
interest rate that I'm earningon my money that's sitting in my
savings account?
Just get that number Right now,a high yield savings account,
the banks will give you four,four and a half 5% on your money
.
Okay, if you call the bank andthey're giving you half a
percent or 1% on your money, youmay wanna switch banks.
(47:44):
High yield just means a higherreturn on your money.
And here's a little cheat sheetIf you have your money sitting
at a Bank of America Wells Fargoor Chase you're not earning 4%
or 5%.
The big banks have no incentiveto, or don't incentivize,
(48:05):
people to, keep their money withthem.
Right, they give really littleinterest.
They could care less about your$500 sitting in the savings
account, so they're not going toreward you for that.
But there are other banks oreven credit unions who will have
these higher interest ratesbecause their overhead is lower,
(48:26):
and so they just reward peoplefor having their money at their
banks.
So some of those banks might besomething like Marcus by
Goldman Sachs, might be AllyBank A-L-L-Y, which is my
favorite one.
It's the one that I've used foryears and years and years, and
the one that I recommend themost right.
So that's going to be like onesimple homework assignment Just
(48:49):
call your bank, or maybe you cango online and check to see what
is the interest that yoursavings account is earning.
But we want to be earninginterest, but if you have debt,
you're probably paying interestas well.
And so the second assignmentnow for this week, we're going
(49:09):
to do one.
We're going to just find outour savings account first.
Next week, what I want you todo is to start calling some of
the people or some of theinstitutions that you have debt
with.
Right.
Call American Express and sayhey, I have an American Express
card.
What is the interest rate on mycredit card?
Call your Chase credit card hey, chase, I have a credit card.
(49:33):
What is the interest rate on mycredit card?
And just begin to write downthose numbers, right.
The higher the interest rate,the more money we're paying to
that institution.
Right, we don't wanna be payinginterest, we wanna be earning
it.
So if your money is in asavings account, you want a high
interest rate.
If you have debt, you want alower interest rate.
(49:55):
So just start with those twoactionable steps to sort of
begin getting organized when itcomes to your finances.
Speaker 1 (50:06):
That was good.
I recently I had a savings withBank of America and I recently
switched over to Capital One.
I think they have a interestrate of like 4.5% on savings.
So you know, starting to takebaby steps on that.
Speaker 2 (50:25):
Yes, amazing, and that's what it is Like.
Capital One is another greatplace, right.
They even Capital One, haschecking accounts that earn
interest.
So it's really we want to be.
Or this is free money, right,this is free money that they
will give you, and sometimesit's just a couple pennies,
right.
But we want to be earning moneyon money that's just sitting in
(50:46):
the bank because they're makingmoney off of your money.
Speaker 1 (50:51):
Exactly exactly.
We should be getting moneythat's just sitting in the bank
rather than having to constantlybe paying interest and speaking
of interest.
I want to kind of go back tothe student loan conversation a
little bit.
Go back to the student loanconversation a little bit.
(51:12):
In your opinion, what do youthink the quickest way is to
paying student loans?
And should more peoplereconsider or consider what's
the word refinancing right?
So I know some people likeconsolidate their student loans
and like refinance it, et cetera.
So I just wanted to hear fromyou in hopes of getting a
smaller interest rate.
I think that's why a lot ofpeople do it.
(51:33):
So if someone was trying toaggressively pay down their
student loans, what do you thinkthe quickest way to do that is?
Speaker 2 (51:41):
There's quite a few different strategies, but we
have to start with the goalright.
Someone who is in publicservice or who qualifies for a
public student loan forgiveness,they may disqualify themselves
by consolidating their loan,right.
So we want to understand whatis the goal first, and so I'm
(52:02):
really reluctant to say this iswhat you should do, because we
need to understand the type ofloan it is.
Is it subsidized, unsubsidized,Is it private?
Is it federal loan?
So we need to get some moreinformation about that right.
Most of the time, companies,just by asking, will give you a
(52:27):
smaller student, we'll give youa lower interest rate.
You can call American Express,you can call Discover, you can
call Chase and say, hey, what'smy interest rate?
Oh, your interest rate is 26%.
By the way, I've been acustomer with you for four years
.
I've paid my credit card billon time every four years, even
(52:51):
though it's just the minimumpayment, but I've paid every
time.
Is there a lower interest rateavailable to me?
Right?
And so when we're thinking aboutdifferent types of interest
rates that we have, there'squite a few different options
that we have.
When we're talking aboutrefinancing loans, consolidating
loans, these are strategies andtools that we should be aware
(53:14):
of.
But you want to know the goalfirst, right, and we want to
understand the type of loan thatyou have, because you don't
want to put yourself in asituation where you're just
putting a Band-Aid and it's likeit didn't need a Band-Aid, it
needed stitches, right.
So we really want to get clearabout what the goal is.
(53:35):
I have all of the informationabout the type of debt that it
is, whether it's credit cards orthe different types of student
loans before we make thatdecision.
Debt consolidation can workreally well sometimes, and then
sometimes it doesn't work sowell.
So before you exhaust thatright, working with a
professional is going to be thebest option for you or for
(53:58):
anybody yeah, I think that makesa lot of sense.
Speaker 1 (54:02):
And, um, now I want to ask you about this term that
you call fire and you kind ofalluded to it throughout our
conversation which is financialindependence, invest early.
Why did you come up with thatterm?
I mean, I think it's clear,right, Investing early means
retiring quicker.
But I just want to talk alittle bit more about.
(54:24):
You know the term FIREfinancial independence, invest
early.
Why was that important for youto kind of call out?
Speaker 2 (54:31):
Yeah, so FIRE is actually financially independent
, retiring early.
So it's F-I-R-E.
Speaker 1 (54:36):
Oh sorry.
Speaker 2 (54:37):
Yeah, so it's F-I-R-E financially independent,
retired early and so it is acommunity, a movement of people
who are pursuing building wealth, reaching financial
independence and then retiringearly.
So I would say that sometimesthe retirement police will come
(54:58):
after me they say you're notretired because you have a
business and you're earningincome.
So I have changed the acronymto financially independent and
I'm just simply refocusing myenergy.
Okay, so I still work, becauseI do have a.
I don't have my nine to five, Iwork with my financial clients.
I've basically retired toentrepreneurship, if you want to
(55:20):
say so.
I'm still earning money.
There's a difference, though,between between having to work
because you needed to pay foryour bills and needed to pay for
your expenses versus choosingto work right and you make
working an option and I reallylike that term work optional.
Or, like I said, I retired frommy 19-year career in public
(55:45):
service and I became workoptional year career in public
service, and I became workoptional and I just exercised
that option and I refocused myenergy from, you know, from sort
of, again, public interest workand public service, to working
in, working for myself, andrefocusing my energy to helping
(56:05):
other people reach financialindependence.
How do you reach financialindependence.
How do you reach financialindependence?
How do you reach earlyretirement?
It's really going to be throughinvesting, right, you have to
use, because when we're thinkingabout long-term goals, saving
money, even if your money isearning 4%, 5%, that's great,
(56:25):
but we want to be earning 10%,12%.
Like I said, the stock marketwas up over 20% last year, so we
want to be earning money.
We want our money to be reallyaccelerating in that journey and
this is not about investing$1,000 today and making $2,000
tomorrow.
That is gambling, that isspeculative.
(56:48):
I am not the financial coach foryou.
I am not gonna tell you thatI'm gonna do that, but you can
make small, incremental changesand begin building wealth over
time, and time is gonna be thebest asset that you can use or
is gonna be your best tool,vehicle that you can use.
(57:08):
When we're thinking aboutinvesting, we're investing for
the long term.
We're not thinking about thoseshort-term goals that we're
going to need the money for inthree, six, 12 months.
We're thinking about okay, I am35 years old and I want to be
retired by the time I'm 45.
That is retired early, right.
We're thinking about okay, Idon't want to wait until I'm 65
(57:30):
to retire.
Can I retire at 55?
What do I need to do?
Right, that's 20 years from now.
Instead of thinking, okay, Igot to work for the next 40
years, is there a path for me sothat I could accelerate my
journey?
And if you choose to continueto work, awesome.
But you could also choose to befinancially independent and
(57:50):
have this nest egg that you'vebuilt over time that now will
cover your cost of living.
Speaker 1 (57:57):
Thank you for that.
That's really the dream, and Ifeel like this conversation
again was so timely.
I've learned so much I'mprobably gonna go back and
listen to this a few timesmyself and I think you shared
some amazing tips for anyone whodoesn't know too much about
finance but wants to startfiguring out how to save better,
track their money and alsostart growing it.
(58:18):
So thank you so much forsharing all of your insights.
I have to ask you one finalquestion and because the show is
called A Word to the Wise anyfinal words of wisdom to the
listeners?
It could be about what we'vebeen talking about or something
completely different that youkeep in your back pocket.
Speaker 2 (58:35):
Yeah, I think it's really important to get crystal
clear about designing the lifethe way you want, right?
This isn't about being frugal.
This isn't about deprivingyourself now so that you could
retire early, right?
This is really about living afull life now and being
intentional with the way youspend money and the way that
you're earning money.
(58:56):
If you want to build wealth,keep it simple.
It doesn't have to becomplicated.
It can be kind of like a set itand forget it.
And it's more important, nothow much money you make, right?
Because the first thing I thinka lot of people say is oh, I
got to make more money.
I can't do this unless I earnmore money Now.
Making more money is great,right, but what generally
(59:16):
happens is that the more moneywe make, the more money we want
to spend, and what we want to dois widen the gap between the
amount of money that's coming inand the amount of money that's
going out, right, and we want tobe able to say, okay, I have
this amount of money coming in,this is the amount of money that
I have going out, and I'm goingto use the difference to build
(59:37):
the savings and to build wealth,and that is what we want to do,
okay, so I would highlyrecommend to anybody, please.
It's more important to thinkabout how you're using the money
.
It's more important to thinkabout being intentional and to
being consistent, and withconsistency comes the reward
(01:00:01):
over time.
Speaker 1 (01:00:04):
Yes, and I think everything you're saying just
kind of boils down to balance.
It's a lot simpler than wethink it is.
So, thank you, this has beenthe best financial conversation
that I've had in a while andmuch needed.
Again, like I said, I'm goingto listen to this a couple of
times because you shared so muchhere.
So thank you, wally, so muchfor stopping by the show.
(01:00:24):
Where can people find you ifthey want to check out your
website and your work orpotentially reach out to you for
some coaching?
Speaker 2 (01:00:31):
Yeah, absolutely so.
I only offer one-on-onecoaching.
So anybody who works with me,it's gonna be me and you on a
Zoom call and we're gonna divedeep into your finances and we
can talk about what it wouldlook like to work together and
what that financial coachingprogram is like.
And if you're interested inthat, feel free to follow me on
(01:00:55):
Instagram I'm most active thereor go to my website, which is
financiallythrivingcom, andyou'll find my social media
handles there.
On Instagram I'm financiallyunderscore thriving, where I
share tips and a lot moreactionable steps that you can
take to begin gaining control ofyour finances and building
wealth.
Speaker 1 (01:01:11):
Awesome.
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (01:01:13):
Thank you so much for having me.
It's been a great conversation.
Speaker 1 (01:01:16):
You can follow Award to the Wise on Instagram and
TikTok at Award to the Wise Pod.
We're also on YouTube at Awardto the Wise Podcast.
Please be sure to subscribe Ifyou are enjoying the show.
Please rate, leave a review,share and subscribe wherever you
listen to podcasts.
Till next time, peace and love,always, always, always.
Hello everyone and welcome back to the A Word to
the Wise podcast, a space wherewe curate conversations around
mind, body, spirit and personaldevelopment.
I'm your host, jumi Moses.
On the show today is WallyMiller.
Wally is a financial coach andmoney mentor who went from being
an overspender and compulsiveshopper to being debt-free and
(00:21):
building a seven-figureinvestment portfolio.
After spending her 20sliterally spending every dollar
she earned and saving verylittle, she knew she had to
start doing something different.
The thought of working for thenext 30 to 40 years just to
survive wasn't the life shewanted.
After gaining control of herfinances and creating a plan,
(00:42):
she became work optional beforethe age of 40.
Wally is a first generationcollege graduate.
She's a Latina and daughter ofan immigrant.
Born and raised in the Bronx.
She is the first millionaire inher family.
In the words of Wally,financial survival is no longer
enough.
We need to gain control of ourfinances, believe it's possible
(01:06):
to reach our money goals andstart financially thriving.
Forget complicated financialjargon.
This is money made simple, andthat is exactly what this
conversation is all about.
I wanted to have a financialexpert come on the show to talk
about finance 101.
Because, if you're like me, youprobably get confused with all
(01:28):
of the different financialjargon out there.
It feels like, oh my God, thisis so much to digest.
I don't really understand this.
I don't even know where tostart.
I feel overwhelmed, and I thinkthat Wally is so knowledgeable.
She makes it so plain and easyto understand.
This is where you need to startfrom.
This is what you need to lookat, this is what you need to pay
(01:51):
attention to, this is what youneed to track, and I left the
conversation with Wally feelingvery empowered and feeling more
knowledgeable about finances ingeneral.
Wally and I also talk about theenergy and the emotions people
have tied to money, because in alot of these conversations,
(02:11):
people forget to talk about howthey view money, and a lot of
times, how you view money alsoties into how you attract money.
It also ties into how you growyour wealth and it also ties
into how you manage yourfinances, and a lot of times,
people are too afraid to look attheir bank accounts.
(02:34):
They're too afraid to kind ofsee on a paper.
Hey, this is what I'm workingwith.
There's a fear around money andwe talk about that, and she
talks about how important it isto acknowledge the emotions you
may have tied to money and muchmore.
Again, this was a conversationthat was very illuminating for
(02:55):
me, it was very empowering, andit's a conversation that I'm
going to go back and listen to afew times, because Wally
dropped so much digestibleknowledge and easy to implement
knowledge, and I can't wait foryou guys to listen to this
episode.
Let's get into the show, wally.
(03:29):
Welcome to A Word to the Wise.
Thank you so much for beinghere.
How are you today?
Speaker 2 (03:34):
I'm good.
Thank you so much for having me.
I'm excited about thisconversation.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Me too.
I think it's honestly timely,because I'm always the type of
person, like every year, whereI'm like I want to get better
with money, I want to budgetbetter.
I have all of these differentquestions related to money and
just managing my finances.
But I do get overwhelmed by itall and I like that.
One of your slogans is justmaking it easy, like cutting out
(04:01):
all of the jargon and makingmoney talk easier.
So I'm excited to like hearabout all of the insightsgon and
making money talk easier.
So I'm excited to like hearabout all of the insights that
you have to share.
But I want to start off byasking you a fun question, and
that is do you have a life motto?
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Yeah, I would say that this changes probably not
even by year.
It sort of changes by seasons,depending on sort of what's
going on.
And so one of the things that Ihave right now and I looked up
because I have it posted is weeither repeat or we evolve, and
that is something that I've beenliving with sort of you know,
(04:39):
it's kind of a model that I'vebeen living by the last maybe
two months or so, because it canbe it can be a little bit fear
inducing to try something new,and so we stay with the same old
, same old.
So it's like you're eithergoing to repeat the same
mistakes or sort of repeat thesame life circumstances, or
(05:00):
you're going to evolve, andevolving can feel a little bit
scary, but yeah, I'm like Idon't want to be on repeat, I
definitely want to evolve.
So that's sort of my littlemantra going on for this season
of my life.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Oh my God, I feel like again, this is also really
timely because I've beenthinking for myself too.
I'm like I feel like I've beenfeeling a lot of stagnant energy
and I'm like I need to startdoing something or making
decisions that are a little bitoutside of my comfort zone.
And that's where you like getto evolve and live when you
(05:36):
start doing things that areoutside of your comfort zone
instead of just staying inwhat's familiar.
But you're kind of stagnant.
So I resonate so much with whatyou just said, and speaking of
an area of my life that I wantto continue to evolve in is
finances, and I think a lot ofpeople listening to this episode
can probably relate to that.
(05:57):
So I want to get into yourbackground a little bit.
Right, so I know that you are afirst-generation college
graduate and now you work as afinancial coach.
So can you just talk to usabout your journey being a
first-gen graduate to becoming afinancial coach and why that's
important to you?
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Yeah, so I love money , I love talking about money, I
love teaching people about moneyand in some ways that was
always kind of my jam.
But the thing is that I thoughtI was really good with money
until I realized that there wasa whole different world that I
knew nothing about.
(06:38):
So, as you mentioned, my nameis Wally.
I'm a Latina, a daughter of animmigrant.
As you mentioned, my name isWally.
I'm a Latina, a daughter of animmigrant, born and raised in
New York City, first-gen collegegraduate and recently first-gen
millionaire.
Right, and I say all of thosethings because every single one
of those aspects has reallyshaped the way I move around
(07:00):
this world and I, you know,growing up in in the Bronx.
I was born and raised in thewell, born in Manhattan but
raised in the Bronx, so I'mreally from the Bronx, growing
up in the Bronx, in the poorestborough in New York City.
There was just certain thingsthat I was and was not exposed
(07:21):
to.
Right, my mom was a stay athome-home mom.
I'm one of five children.
My dad worked Again, he's animmigrant and we just didn't
have a lot of money going around.
Right, my parents didn't sitdown and talk to me about
opening bank accounts or savingmoney or spending money, right.
So we didn't have conversationsaround money.
(07:42):
But that doesn't mean that as akid, as a teenager, there
weren't things that I learnedand observed and sort of
overheard conversations aroundand those definitely shaped how
I interacted with money as I gotolder.
Especially, my dad, who wasn'tborn in this country, came from
a third world country where thetrust of financial institutions
(08:05):
is almost non-existent, like ifwe think here in America there's
a distrust of financialinstitutions, it's even so much
more for our immigrant parents,right.
So when I, I always got theinclination that education was
going to be the key out and thekey to sort of success.
So you know, when I was injunior high, I was thinking
(08:26):
about high school.
When I was in high school, Iwas thinking about college.
When I was in college, I wasthinking about career.
And so I'm going to fastforward a little bit into sort
of like getting a career that Ireally enjoyed and that I loved.
I began working in thegovernment, I began working in
public service, and it wasreally a job that was super
fulfilling, it was challenging.
(08:48):
I felt like this role was sortof created for me and I went
from one office to anotheroffice, but always in the same
work, and I was like I'm good, Ireally didn't get the Sunday
blues, as some people say.
Right, I really enjoyed my job.
Of course there was aneverything that was perfect
about it, but I felt my work tobe really fulfilling until it
(09:12):
wasn't right.
And when that happened for me,I realized that I felt a little
stuck.
Now it wasn't that I stoppedloving the work, but there was
sort of a change in managementand went from sort of an ideal
work environment to like Ialways enjoyed the people that I
worked with, but it was thepeople that I was working for,
(09:33):
that sort of you know.
When management changed, mywhole experience of the
workplace and of the work that Iwas doing really shifted.
And I remember feeling so stuck,like I didn't have any options.
I couldn't just like get up andquit and find a job tomorrow.
It really felt like if I missedthe paycheck definitely if I
(09:55):
missed two paychecks I was goingto lose everything I had worked
so hard to build right.
So I was paying off my studentloans, I had a car note, I had
housing to pay for, so I wasjust like man, like what is
going on?
Like I can't just leave, and itwas that feeling of stuckness
that really made me sit down andthink like I think there's like
(10:17):
something wrong here.
Like why don't I have anysavings?
Because by that point I wasmaking decent money and I wasn't
married, I didn't have kids andI was just like where's all my
money going?
And that was sort of like thefirst wake up call that I had
that something was wrong.
Right In my mind, I was goodwith money because I was able to
(10:39):
pay my bills.
I never had my phone turned off, I never had the lights cut off
, so it felt really good to beable to pay my bills on time.
I really try to stay out ofcredit card debt, and so I was
like I'm good.
But that feeling of not havinga whole lot of options and
really living paycheck topaycheck became really real for
(11:02):
me in that moment, and that waswhen I realized, okay, I'm
missing something here, there'ssomething happening.
And that was sort of my wake-upcall to checking out my own
personal finances.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Wow, you said so much there that I think a lot of
people can relate to, which isthis notion of you're making
pretty good money but you stillkind of feel stuck, like,
paycheck to paycheck, bills arepiling up and it just feels like
there's never enough money andit's almost like you feel
chained to a system, chained tothat rat race.
And something that you said thatwas important was you know the
(11:39):
management within your job hadchanged.
You were no longer feelingfulfilled, but you couldn't just
get up and leave right, likeyou didn't.
It felt like you didn't reallyhave options to kind of move
around or potentially discoveror live the life intended for
you, because you were stuck tothis job, because you needed the
money, et cetera.
(11:59):
If I'm understanding youcorrectly, and when I think
about money, I think about notjust having money to buy things,
but the sense of freedom to beable to move and like, god
forbid, if I were to lose my job, I still wouldn't be like, oh
my God, I'm suffering herebecause I have ample savings,
etc.
So I want to know how did you,like, when you had that
realization, what steps did youstart to implement to kind of
(12:22):
become this millionaire andfinancial coach that you are
today.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Yeah, I think one of the things that happened was it
wasn't that it was bills pilingup, right?
So in my mind I was good.
A lot of the financial gurusand the financial advice if you
picked up books was like get outof debt, stay out of debt.
And I was like, ok, like I havestudent loan debt and I have
car notes, but like I pay mybills and I don't have credit
(12:48):
card debt, so like I'm good.
So it was like this disconnect,like I'm paying my bills, I
feel fine, only to realize, waita minute, I don't think I'm
fine, right?
Because, like I said, if Imissed one paycheck definitely
two paychecks everything that Iworked for was going to be gone.
And it made me sort of askmyself that simple question like
(13:10):
where is my money going?
And there's something called ano-spend challenge, and people
do this on a variety ofdifferent ways.
You could say you know what I'mgoing to take this week and not
spend any money at all exceptthe things that I absolutely
need, right?
So I'm only going to spendmoney on paying my rent, I'm
only going to spend money on,you know, paying for gas in the
(13:31):
car or transportation, whateverthe case might be, but I'm not
going to spend money on anythingextra.
So I decided to do a one-weekno-spend challenge where I was
going to stick specifically tolike these main categories that
I had set for myself.
To stick specifically to likethese main categories that I had
set for myself.
Every single day I was violatingor I was, you know, sort of
(13:55):
breaking the no spend challenge.
And it wasn't that I was goingto the mall and buying big
things.
It was that I would go toTarget to buy laundry detergent
and toilet paper and I wouldleave with candles and pillows.
I would be on my way to the gasstation and make a detour to
Ross and Marshall's andBurlington Coat Factory, right,
and so it was all of theselittle things.
(14:15):
It was even something as simpleas picking up medication from
the pharmacy and then grabbing amagazine or a candy bar or you
know.
It was just all of these likewallet leaks that kept happening
, like all of this money keptslipping away.
And so I wasn't.
I tried over and over again totry to complete a no spend
challenge and I wasn't able to,and what that made me realize
(14:36):
was that my money was sort ofseeping out of me not in huge
chunks.
I wasn't going and buyingluxury handbags and like
expensive clothes, but it was inall of these like little things
that I was just purchasing andI was a little bit of an
impulsive shopper.
So if I would see something, Iwould just like buy it.
(14:57):
And here's like the mistakethat I made.
For me, I thought I was a wiseand savvy shopper because I
would try to buy things on saleor maybe it was fun to try to
like find a coupon and get like50% off, right.
So in my mind I was being wisewith money.
(15:18):
But just because you buysomething on sale doesn't mean
you're not spending the money.
You're still spending the money.
And so it was sort of thatrealization that I couldn't go a
couple days without spendingmoney.
Like every single time it wasall of these little things.
And that was when I realized,okay, like I don't have credit
(15:38):
card debt, I'm able to pay thebills.
It's not that they're piling up, but I don't have anything to
show for the hard work that I'mdoing.
Right, and it's because I'mmaking all of these like very
impulsive purchases.
And there's a saying that saysif you want to know what someone
values, take a look at theirbank statements.
And if somebody would havelooked at my debit card
(16:02):
transactions, my credit cardtransactions, it would have said
that I really favored fast foodand I really favored shopping
trips to the mall and jeans andshoes and clothes, and that
wasn't really what I valued.
I am not a fashionista.
I would buy clothes and nevereven wear them right Because
(16:24):
they didn't fit right or itwasn't my style or I didn't know
how to wear it.
But if I thought it was prettyor if I thought it was nice, I
would buy it with, like, no plan, right, there was a lot of
mindless spending and a lot ofmindless shopping going on, and
so I had to sort of become awareand answer that question to
(16:45):
myself of where is my moneygoing?
Right, because it can be so easyto say, oh, my money's going to
bills, right, and that's what Iwould just say.
But it's like, is it really allgoing to bills?
And I had to really get crystalclear of like, okay, what does
a bill look like?
What am I calling a bill?
And really like, okay, a roofover my head, that's a true
(17:09):
living expense.
Food on the table?
That's a living expense.
Going out to brunch notnecessary, right?
Doesn't mean that I don't wantto do that and that doesn't mean
that I can't do that.
But I really needed to getcrystal clear about what exactly
were my true needs, right?
And then when I figured outwhat my true needs were and I
(17:31):
added up that number and Icalculated how much of my needs,
my expenses for need for thatneed category was in a month, it
said I was supposed to havelike a lot of money left over
and I was like I don't have thatmoney left over.
I do not have that money leftover.
So number one is like gettingcrystal clear about what your
(17:51):
numbers are doing, get crystalclear about where your dollars
are sort of going.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Oh, I can relate to you on the mindless shopping,
because when I go into TargetI'll be like, okay, I'm just
picking up this one thing that'sat most $20.
And then by the time I'm outI'm like, why did I just spend
$150 to $200 at Target?
Target is one of those placeswhere, like you go in for one
thing, you just can't leave withone thing.
(18:18):
And I get what you're sayingagain, with the mindless
spending in your wallet justleaking, because it's like you
on food, on outings, which allof those things are important,
but if you're not tracking themand seeing how your money flows,
you actually don't know howmuch excess you have after you
paid your rent, after you'vepaid your bills, etc.
(18:38):
So then it starts to feel likeyou're living paycheck to
paycheck but there might be alot more money that you have
that you're not stewarding overenough.
So some people obviously puttogether like Excel sheets.
Some people put together.
There's this app called RocketMoney.
I'm not trying to endorse anyapp, but I will say for someone
(18:59):
like me who the whole Excelsheet thing doesn't really work
well for me, rocket Money kindof allows me to see where, how
my money is moving in and out ofmy account every single month,
week, I should say.
So I can like review, like okay, this is where I have like
recurring bills, you know,coming from Cause there's some
(19:20):
subscriptions that I had that Iwas like why am I paying for
this Like every month or likeonce a year annually?
So there's so much that yousaid there and I want to kind of
dig deeper into that a littlebit more.
But before we get into thatstuff I want to talk about.
You know, when it comes tomoney, people are avoidant,
right.
So, like you said, we'respending money.
(19:41):
We're not sure how money'sflowing in and out of our
accounts.
A lot of that, too, can comefrom not having a good sense of
money, being in a family wheremaybe you had to kind of
struggle with money a little bit, so money's a little taboo.
So why do you think, fromworking with so many people who
need financial advice andcoaching, why do you think money
(20:04):
is such a taboo subject for alot of people and what are the
biggest misconceptions peoplehave around money?
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Yeah, you know, money is neutral.
It's not good, it's not bad,but it's laden with emotions,
right, how we spend money, howit makes us feel the lack of
money, right, the scarcity of it, especially.
You know, like I said, wedidn't grow up in poverty, but
we were really low income.
(20:32):
There wasn't a whole lot ofextra to spend money on.
You know, we had the lightsturned off, we had the cable
turned off, things like that,cars repossessed.
So there was a lot of thingsthat, even though my parents
didn't sit down and chat with meabout money, there were a lot
of things that I was absorbing,right and observing, and it was
(20:53):
okay.
You need money in order to feelsafe.
If you don't have money, youcan't buy things, right.
And so that was why there waslike a little bit of a
disconnect.
When I began making money and Ihad money left over, I was like
, okay, well, I paid my bills.
I know that that was superimportant.
But then what do I do with it?
What do I do with like theextra?
(21:15):
And I was like oh, I guess Ican now do some of those fun
things that I couldn't do as akid.
Maybe I could buy more thanjust having like one or two
pairs of shoes.
Like, maybe I could buy fivepairs of shoes, right?
Maybe I don't have to justchoose between two jeans and
three shirts and I could havelike five jeans and 10 shirts,
right?
So it was all of these likelittle things that began to
(21:37):
influence how I was spending,really, because I didn't know
what to do with the money.
Right, they don't teach thisstuff in school.
They don't tell us, they don'treally talk to us about putting
money aside.
I knew saving was good and Iwas like, okay, yeah, I'll just
put $25 a paycheck, but what is$25 a paycheck going to do if
you lose your income, right?
(21:58):
What is five dollars going todo if you want to go on vacation
, right?
So it was all of those lessonsthat I realized that I had sort
of missed.
And you know, during that periodwhere I was like really
stressing when it came to workand like really unfulfilled, I
went to the Googles, right.
I went to Google and try tofigure out, like, what was going
(22:20):
on and there was like this veryclick baity article that came
up and it was about a couple whohad retired in their forties to
travel the world.
Now, one of the other thingsthat really would have been
reflected in my like credit cardtransaction and history was
travel.
Like that was something that Idid value and I didn't feel any
(22:40):
guilt or shame about spendingmoney there, right, like I felt
more kind of guilt about likeoverspending on clothes that I
wasn't valuing and, you know,using, right, it was just kind
of sitting in my closet but Idid.
I had no qualms about spendingmoney on travel, and so when I
read that this couple was ableto retire in their 40s in order
(23:02):
to travel the world, I was likewhat, what nonsense is this?
But I was very intrigued as Iread their story and I was
thinking they must be likemultiple six-figure earners and
blah, blah, blah.
And as I read the story andstarted beginning and started to
see some of the changes thatthey made and some of the things
(23:24):
that they implemented, I waslike, well, if them, why not me?
Right, if them, why not me?
And that was when I realized,ok, these wallet leaks may not
seem like a whole lot, becausemaybe it's like a ten dollar day
here, extra twenty five dollarday here, $30 there.
But when I began to add up theextra money that I was spending
(23:46):
on things that weren't addingtrue value to my life and that
really weren't necessary.
I realized, okay, I do, I couldfind some money to be putting
aside to at least give me someoptions when it comes to my job,
right, and could provide somesort of comfort.
(24:10):
And so I began really digginginto this whole world of
personal finance and I learned afew basic things, which was
just because you have it tospend doesn't mean that you can
or that you should.
Right, and it was understandingand I know that sounds so
simple Like, of course, youdon't have to spend every dollar
(24:31):
you get, but like I knew that,but like I didn't know that,
like I didn't, I really wasn'tpracticing that, I just didn't
really know what to do with mymoney.
I didn't know what I should besaving for and the importance of
goal setting, right Of like whywould I be putting money aside?
You know, why was thatimportant?
And so, as I began to sort oflike uncover my own personal
(24:55):
relationship with money and thisis what I see with my clients
all of the time right, thatthere's so much guilt and so
much shame, but the reality isthat they don't teach this stuff
in school.
I will say that today there aremore schools requiring personal
finance and financial literacy,but it's still just a fraction
(25:17):
of the country.
Right, in ways that you knowpeople are, you know we learn
what a parallelogram is, but wedon't know anything about taxes
or entrepreneurship or creditscores or investing in the stock
market or investing period andbuilding wealth.
(25:37):
And so when I began sort ofunderstanding, okay, like these
wallet leaks, if I begin to likeadd them up, it's not just a
couple dollars, right, it's like$100 a month.
Right, it's $200 a month, it's$300 a month.
And so as I began to add upwhere my money was going and
really understanding it, Irealized, okay, something needs
(25:59):
to happen and money can feelreally taboo because nobody
wants to talk about the thingthat they don't understand.
So many of us are making moneybut we don't know why the money
isn't there for us.
There's shame because we'relike, oh man, yeah, I got paid
Friday and it's Monday and I'mbroke already, right, like
(26:22):
nobody really wants to talkabout that.
There's shame in talking abouthow much money you make because
you don't want to be the lowestearner, but there can be shame
and guilt if you're earning morethan your peers.
Right.
Like wealth, guilt is a realthing about like not wanting to
share how much money you make ifeverybody around you is making,
you know, 20, 30, 50% less thanyou are.
(26:43):
And so when we're talking aboutmoney, it can bring up so many
different feelings, right.
It can feel very scarce, it canfeel very taboo to talk about,
and so a lot of people will cometo me as a financial coach and
sure, I have a heart of ateacher and I will teach you
some financial concepts, thethings that they should have
taught us right.
(27:03):
Everything from taxes andcredit scores and investing and
compound interest right.
So we learn some of thatfinancial literacy.
But most of us know some things, and it's the problem we have
is not in total lack offinancial literacy, it's in two
things One, in knowing how itapplies to our personal finances
(27:26):
and how it applies and how weshould implement those
principles we know.
And then number two, it's insort of taking it to the next
level and really understandinghow to build wealth right and
the emotions that come with it.
Right?
I have people who finally savemoney for the first time for a
specific goal.
(27:46):
Maybe they, you know, theyspend five months saving for a
vacation and now it's time tospend that money and they're
like, oh, I can't spend thatmoney right.
And it's like, well, the wholepurpose of it was to be able to
use that money for that specificgoal.
And they have so much minddrama about it.
And this has happened to me andI'm not talking about like
(28:08):
years ago, I'm talking about ayear ago, six months ago where
you save up for something andyou see that money sitting in
there for that specific goal andit's like, man, I'm just gonna
like use it in one shot.
And so there's so many emotionsthat come up.
So money, yes, we got to dealwith the math.
There's some addition andsubtraction we need to
(28:30):
understand.
But we also need to understandhow we interact with money and
what our relationship looks likewhen it comes to money.
And I think making sure thatwe're balancing both is really
important.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
I 100% agree with everything that you said.
I think there's the managementpart of money, but then there's
the energy that we give to money.
I think everything in thisworld is energy and you can have
a lot of money, but if you havea scarcity mindset, you might
hold on to everything and notreally live your life right and
(29:04):
not take the vacations becauseyou can't actually afford it but
because you're scared that, ohmy God, I might lose this money.
You might hoard it right or youmight spend recklessly because
you don't want to address money.
It's scary.
So you know you're avoidant, etcetera.
You know I'm constantly workingon my relationship with money
and I want to get to a pointwhere money feels like something
(29:25):
that flows to me and flowsthrough me.
Right, not just like somethingI have to hold on to and feel
fearful of, but look at it asanother form of abundance.
Right, and abundance has like aflowing energy to it.
So obviously you know you areable to figure out your finances
.
And are you a full timefinancial coach or do you still
(29:47):
work in the corporate world?
Speaker 2 (29:50):
Ah, very interesting question.
So I, at the age of 39, Iwalked away from my nine to five
job because I reached financialindependence A few years ago.
I, as I was sort of learningand in my own personal finance
journey, I realized that therewas a lot of things that I had
no idea about and nobody that Iknew was talking about finances,
(30:13):
and so I first started as ablogger.
I was like an anonymous blogger, like sharing all of the things
that I was learning, and fromthere I got a couple of gigs
doing some freelance writingwork, and people started
messaging me and emailing me andasking if I did consultations
and I'm like, no, no, go readthis book, go watch this YouTube
(30:34):
channel, like go watch this pod.
You know, listen to thispodcast, right, like there was
like resources that reallytransformed my life.
Right, when I was traveling forwork and I was in my car I was
listening to a podcast, like itwas.
I was like in the school ofreally trying to figure out this
money thing, and so I wantedeverybody else to be in that
same journey.
But what I realized was thatthere was an emotional piece to
(30:59):
why people were reallystruggling with again
implementing what they knewabout money right, and even
wanting to understand money,became very overwhelming because
they couldn't open up theirchecking accounts, they couldn't
open up the bill, they couldn'tlike.
They felt it felt reallyoverwhelming to like sit and
understand really where moneywas going.
(31:20):
And so that was where Irealized, okay, it's not just
the lack of information likethat is a piece of it for sure
but there's also that emotionalcomponent and sort of the trauma
, right, that can come with someof our experiences with money.
And so someone asked after manytimes just saying, yeah, just
(31:42):
go watch this, listen to this,read that Someone asked if I did
a consultation.
I said, sure, let's go ahead andI'll do it.
And I realized that it wasn'tthe complex things that people
were nervous about or worriedabout.
It was just sitting with theemotions and the shame and the
fear and the scarcity and youknow, and the overwhelm with
(32:08):
just organizing their finances.
And that was when I was like,oh, this is what's also missing
in as part of the conversation.
And so that was how I startedfinancial coaching.
But I had my career in publicservice, that job that I was
talking about, like I ended upleaving because I was able to
fund an emergency fund and Ifelt comfortable taking some
(32:31):
risk and changing from oneoffice to another.
So when I began developing that, I began having some more
options.
Right, that's what money wasable to afford me was having
some freedom and having someoptions.
And so when I started doing theconsultations that's what I
called them at the beginning Irealized, okay, like people need
(32:51):
a coach the way they need youknow, like a personal trainer,
the way you know you yeah, thebest athletes have coaches right
.
Like you need someone not justto teach you.
It's not just about being aneducator or a teacher, it's also
about helping you andsupporting you along the way.
(33:12):
And so I started doing financialcoaching, consultations and
then financial coaching whatsort of transform into financial
coaching because of thoserealizing that what people
needed wasn't only financialliteracy that is definitely one
piece, right, the educationalpiece but it was also the
support that they needed and theaccountability to make sure
(33:34):
that they were implementing notonly all the things that they
were learning, but the specificthings that were right for them.
Right, because there's a lot ofstuff out there and we don't
need to be listening to all ofthe stuff.
We just need to be listening tothe things right in front of us
.
So you know one thing that Iwill mention because it's really
important to me and to you knowwhat I help my clients with?
(33:57):
Sure, creating debt payoffplans, getting out of debt,
building savings accounts,reaching financial milestones.
But even if you do all of that,if you're not using a vehicle
to build wealth, you're going tobe missing a huge portion.
Right, and when I'm talkingabout I couldn't even relate to
(34:17):
the word wealth.
Right, wealth meant to me.
You know, the athletes who make, you know, millions of dollars,
or the actresses or the actors.
Right, or an artist or amusician.
I had no concept of what beingwealthy was.
Right, it was like an old mansmoking a cigar in a velvet robe
.
Like I had no connection tothat word wealth.
(34:39):
But what I realized was thatthat couple remember I mentioned
that article one of the thingsthat they talked about in order
to build wealth was that theyused investments as a way to
make sure that their money wasmaking money for them.
And I was like, huh, my moneycould make money for me.
And you can choose a couple ofdifferent ways to get there.
(35:02):
Right, you can use real estate,entrepreneurship, right
Business, investing or the stockmarket, and I chose the stock
market as a way to generatewealth for me.
Now I will say I'm anentrepreneur now and I have real
estate and I also invest in thestock market.
But the stock market was one ofthe easiest and laziest ways to
(35:24):
build wealth because we haveaccess A lot of us have access
to things like a 401k plan or a403b, or we can open up an IRA
if you don't have a workplaceretirement account and so
understanding the very simpleinvesting rules.
I'm not talking about watchingthe stock market from the time
(35:45):
you wake up until they closes.
I'm not talking about watchingred and green charts and trying
to figure out what shapes likethat is way too much work.
I'm talking about using passiveinvestment streams in order to
build wealth, and one of thepieces of financial coaching for
(36:05):
me that's really important isthat my clients get crystal
clear about which investmentvehicle fits their style right.
So it's understanding.
Like you mentioned, you're notinto spreadsheets.
You like the apps.
I'm like it's important for youto understand how you want to
interact with money right Forsome people to understand how
you want to interact with moneyright.
For some people it is apps.
For some people it's a pen andpaper right.
(36:27):
For some people it's aspreadsheet, like understand how
you want to best interact withmoney, how best you want to plan
for money, but and then what isa way that you want to use in
order to build wealth?
Because if you don't have thatwealth building piece, all we're
doing is sort of extending thattime that we will have to work
(36:49):
and not using money for us.
So I have been.
I was able to reach financialindependence, and how I define
financial independence, or howmost people define financial
independence, is that myinvestments make enough money
that I never have to work againand it covers my cost of living
Right.
And so I reached that throughinvestments, and that didn't
(37:11):
happen overnight.
It took years of investing tobe able to do that.
But because we were my husbandand I were very strategic in how
we saved and how we spent andhow we invested, we were able to
reach work.
Optional status is what I callit now, because even though I
don't need to work and I didearly retire early from my
(37:33):
career I'm choosing to workbecause I want other people,
other families, other women tounderstand the power of building
wealth and the freedom and theoptions that it affords you.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
Wow, this is so good.
You addressed every singlething I was going to ask,
especially on the side of youknow, how did you build your
wealth?
How can people invest?
Because I get stuck in themiddle, right, there's so many
like jargons, like open a highyield savings account, invest in
a Roth IRA, and, you know, openstocks.
(38:08):
There's just so many terms that, personally, for me, they're a
little bit overwhelming, right.
And then I'm always in themiddle of okay, should I double
down on paying down student loandebt, for example, or should I
double down and go towards theyou know, growing my money?
It's always this like catch 22for me, and I'm sure for a lot
(38:31):
of people who are listening.
It's like how can I really growmy money when I still have all
this debt to pay down?
So the question I want to askyou, right, because student
loans is a big thing for a lotof people.
I think that's where a lot ofpeople have so much money to pay
back and they feel really inshackles.
It's one thing to work and haveto pay your regular bills, but
(38:53):
it's another thing, right?
So what are your thoughts onpaying off student loans or
debts in general and also tryingto invest and grow your money.
(39:14):
Should you pick either or or.
What should you focus on more?
Speaker 2 (39:20):
Yes.
So I like to teach my clientsthat when making financial
decisions, there is amathematical component.
So it's understanding what isthe in this specific situation?
What is it costing you?
So what is the debt costing you, right?
Or what is the alternativeoption going to cost you, right?
(39:41):
What is it going to bring infor you?
So there's that mathematicalcomponent.
The other component that weneed to take into consideration
is the emotional one, and thisis where people don't really
think about it right.
So knowing both is reallyimportant.
Sometimes we make onlyemotional decisions and don't
(40:02):
take into consideration the math, and sometimes we only take
into consideration the math andthen we regret the decision or
we have guilt, or we haveregrets or doubt because we're
totally disregarding how we feelabout it, only thinking about
the math.
So I think it's important tothink about the math and then
also think about what's going tohelp you sleep better at night.
So let's take debt in general.
(40:23):
Also think about what's goingto help you sleep better at
night.
So let's take debt in general.
When we think about credit carddebt, credit card debt is not 2%
interest.
Credit card debt compounds andit's 19, 25, 30% interest.
So if the question is should Ifocus on paying off credit card
debt or putting money in thestock market?
(40:43):
I'm going to say well, onaverage, the stock market could
return 10, 11, 12%, right?
I mean last year, in 2023, itwas 20%, right, but that's not
average, right?
That was out of the ordinary.
What you could grow your moneyin the stock market is, on
average, 10%, but what good isit if your money is growing at
10% but your debt is growing at25 and 30%?
(41:07):
It doesn't make a whole lot ofsense, right?
So then we think aboutsomething more like student
loans, right?
If your student loans are at 4%, but you could grow your money
at 10%, even if you take away 4%from the 10, you still have
your money growing at 6%.
So that doesn't mean you don'tfocus on paying off your debt.
(41:29):
But what I'm saying is that ifyou have extra money, you could
either put it towards the debtor you could put that extra
money into a wealth buildingvehicle, right?
So not all debt is going to bethe same.
I think that you can have debtand you could be building wealth
at the same time.
But we want to look at thatmathematical component, right?
But we don't want to forgetabout the emotional side, right?
(41:51):
If it's like, look, every timeI think about how much student
loan debt I have, even thoughit's only at five, six, 7%, I
can't sleep.
It makes me feel overwhelmed.
Know what?
The math is right.
But if you are not sleeping atnight and you're having trouble
(42:12):
sort of thinking about futureplans because you have this
really heavy burden of that debt, then I would say, maybe
consider no, but what?
Both are right.
But then making an emotionaldecision to really focus on
paying off the debt, it's goingto be the right option for you,
(42:32):
right?
So I can't say as a blanketstatement focus on paying off
debt first, focus on investingonly or first.
Right, I think you could doboth.
I think you can pay off yourdebt and you can also invest.
But take a look at what youremotions feel like when you
think about the debt and alsowhat do they feel like knowing
(42:55):
that?
Okay, even though I might havethis debt for a little bit
longer because it has a lowerinterest rate we're not talking
about credit card interest ratewhich is again 19, 20, 30%.
But if that debt is sitting atthree, four, five, six, seven,
8%, then we could say okay, nowI can make a decision as to how
quickly I wanna get out of debtor how soon do I wanna start
(43:19):
building wealth.
And that's an exercise that Itake my clients through, right,
because I want them to see okay,if I take 10 years to pay this
off, how much interest am Igoing to pay?
What is it going to cost me?
But if I wait 10 years before Ineed to pay off all my debt
first and I wait 10 years beforeI start investing, what is that
(43:41):
going to cost you?
How long is it going to takeyou to reach financial
independence?
How long is it going to takeyou to be able to fund your
retirement?
Right?
So I think, knowing what thosenumbers are, first checking in
with your mind, with your body,with your spirit, to see what's
going to help you sleep betterat night, then you make a
decision about what's going tobe best for you and that can
(44:04):
change, right.
What your focus is right nowversus what your priorities will
be in six months or yourpriorities will be in two years
will be different and you makeadjustments.
But you want to check in withthe math, because that's
important, but you also want tocheck in with yourself.
Speaker 1 (44:22):
That was very, very helpful.
That gave me a lot to thinkabout, and I was as you were
talking.
I was also thinking about thenotion of savings.
So you know vehicles that helpus make more money, whether
that's investing in stocks, youknow investing in real estate,
et cetera.
Does that count as savings, ordo we still need to consider
savings as an additional bucketwith paying off debt and also
(44:47):
growing money?
Speaker 2 (44:48):
Okay, beautiful question.
So I like to take my clientsthrough an exercise where we
first determine short-term goals.
So your short-term goals ismoney or experiences or expenses
that are coming up in the nextthree, six, 12, 18 months.
Okay, think about all of thethings that you want to
(45:08):
accomplish, all of the thingsyou want to experience, the
things you want to buy, thethings you want to pay off in
the next year, year and a half.
So those are your short-termgoals.
Then you want to think aboutwhat are your goals for that
mid-range time, which is two tofive years from now.
So maybe you're like, okay, I'mnot going to buy a house in the
(45:29):
next year and a half, but Ithink in four years I want to be
a homeowner, right.
So think about those.
I want to have a down paymentfor a home, right?
So think about those goals thatyou have for the next two to
five years.
And then we're going to thinkabout long-term goals.
Right, when we're thinkingabout long-term goals, we're not
gonna need that money for five,10, 15, 30 years from now.
(45:51):
How you save and how you buildthat bucket is gonna be
determined by the time horizon,right, the time horizon.
Your goal is gonna.
How you fund those goals isreally gonna be determined by
how long you have to reach itright.
The time horizon your goal isgoing to, how you fund those
goals is really going to bedetermined by how long you have
to reach it right.
So, if you know you're going togo on summer vacation, we're
not going to want that money tobe in a risk, in a risky place
(46:16):
like the stock market, because Idon't know what's going to
happen in June.
I don't know what's going tohappen when you're going to need
that money.
So we want to have that moneyin a safe place, and a safe
place to have that money issomething like a savings account
, right.
But if we're thinking aboutbuilding wealth for the long
term so maybe 10 years from now,15 years, 30 years from now we
(46:38):
want to use something that cantolerate and sort of I'm trying
to think of sustain, sort of theebbs and flows and the ups and
downs of something like thestock market, right?
You mentioned something a littleearlier and you were like.
You know, people talk about ahigh yield savings account.
Like, what does that mean?
I know it's, I don't know whythey use all these big terms
(46:58):
right, but the differencebetween a high yield savings
account and a regular savingsaccount is how much money the
bank is giving you, and so Iwould suggest to anybody out
there who might be listening totake one simple step is to call
your bank that you have yoursavings account at and say hey,
I have a savings account withyou, mr Banker, what is my
(47:22):
interest rate that I'm earningon my money that's sitting in my
savings account?
Just get that number Right now,a high yield savings account,
the banks will give you four,four and a half 5% on your money
.
Okay, if you call the bank andthey're giving you half a
percent or 1% on your money, youmay wanna switch banks.
(47:44):
High yield just means a higherreturn on your money.
And here's a little cheat sheetIf you have your money sitting
at a Bank of America Wells Fargoor Chase you're not earning 4%
or 5%.
The big banks have no incentiveto, or don't incentivize,
(48:05):
people to, keep their money withthem.
Right, they give really littleinterest.
They could care less about your$500 sitting in the savings
account, so they're not going toreward you for that.
But there are other banks oreven credit unions who will have
these higher interest ratesbecause their overhead is lower,
(48:26):
and so they just reward peoplefor having their money at their
banks.
So some of those banks might besomething like Marcus by
Goldman Sachs, might be AllyBank A-L-L-Y, which is my
favorite one.
It's the one that I've used foryears and years and years, and
the one that I recommend themost right.
So that's going to be like onesimple homework assignment Just
(48:49):
call your bank, or maybe you cango online and check to see what
is the interest that yoursavings account is earning.
But we want to be earninginterest, but if you have debt,
you're probably paying interestas well.
And so the second assignmentnow for this week, we're going
(49:09):
to do one.
We're going to just find outour savings account first.
Next week, what I want you todo is to start calling some of
the people or some of theinstitutions that you have debt
with.
Right.
Call American Express and sayhey, I have an American Express
card.
What is the interest rate on mycredit card?
Call your Chase credit card hey, chase, I have a credit card.
(49:33):
What is the interest rate on mycredit card?
And just begin to write downthose numbers, right.
The higher the interest rate,the more money we're paying to
that institution.
Right, we don't wanna be payinginterest, we wanna be earning
it.
So if your money is in asavings account, you want a high
interest rate.
If you have debt, you want alower interest rate.
(49:55):
So just start with those twoactionable steps to sort of
begin getting organized when itcomes to your finances.
Speaker 1 (50:06):
That was good.
I recently I had a savings withBank of America and I recently
switched over to Capital One.
I think they have a interestrate of like 4.5% on savings.
So you know, starting to takebaby steps on that.
Speaker 2 (50:25):
Yes, amazing, and that's what it is Like.
Capital One is another greatplace, right.
They even Capital One, haschecking accounts that earn
interest.
So it's really we want to be.
Or this is free money, right,this is free money that they
will give you, and sometimesit's just a couple pennies,
right.
But we want to be earning moneyon money that's just sitting in
(50:46):
the bank because they're makingmoney off of your money.
Speaker 1 (50:51):
Exactly exactly.
We should be getting moneythat's just sitting in the bank
rather than having to constantlybe paying interest and speaking
of interest.
I want to kind of go back tothe student loan conversation a
little bit.
Go back to the student loanconversation a little bit.
(51:12):
In your opinion, what do youthink the quickest way is to
paying student loans?
And should more peoplereconsider or consider what's
the word refinancing right?
So I know some people likeconsolidate their student loans
and like refinance it, et cetera.
So I just wanted to hear fromyou in hopes of getting a
smaller interest rate.
I think that's why a lot ofpeople do it.
(51:33):
So if someone was trying toaggressively pay down their
student loans, what do you thinkthe quickest way to do that is?
Speaker 2 (51:41):
There's quite a few different strategies, but we
have to start with the goalright.
Someone who is in publicservice or who qualifies for a
public student loan forgiveness,they may disqualify themselves
by consolidating their loan,right.
So we want to understand whatis the goal first, and so I'm
(52:02):
really reluctant to say this iswhat you should do, because we
need to understand the type ofloan it is.
Is it subsidized, unsubsidized,Is it private?
Is it federal loan?
So we need to get some moreinformation about that right.
Most of the time, companies,just by asking, will give you a
(52:27):
smaller student, we'll give youa lower interest rate.
You can call American Express,you can call Discover, you can
call Chase and say, hey, what'smy interest rate?
Oh, your interest rate is 26%.
By the way, I've been acustomer with you for four years
.
I've paid my credit card billon time every four years, even
(52:51):
though it's just the minimumpayment, but I've paid every
time.
Is there a lower interest rateavailable to me?
Right?
And so when we're thinking aboutdifferent types of interest
rates that we have, there'squite a few different options
that we have.
When we're talking aboutrefinancing loans, consolidating
loans, these are strategies andtools that we should be aware
(53:14):
of.
But you want to know the goalfirst, right, and we want to
understand the type of loan thatyou have, because you don't
want to put yourself in asituation where you're just
putting a Band-Aid and it's likeit didn't need a Band-Aid, it
needed stitches, right.
So we really want to get clearabout what the goal is.
(53:35):
I have all of the informationabout the type of debt that it
is, whether it's credit cards orthe different types of student
loans before we make thatdecision.
Debt consolidation can workreally well sometimes, and then
sometimes it doesn't work sowell.
So before you exhaust thatright, working with a
professional is going to be thebest option for you or for
(53:58):
anybody yeah, I think that makesa lot of sense.
Speaker 1 (54:02):
And, um, now I want to ask you about this term that
you call fire and you kind ofalluded to it throughout our
conversation which is financialindependence, invest early.
Why did you come up with thatterm?
I mean, I think it's clear,right, Investing early means
retiring quicker.
But I just want to talk alittle bit more about.
(54:24):
You know the term FIREfinancial independence, invest
early.
Why was that important for youto kind of call out?
Speaker 2 (54:31):
Yeah, so FIRE is actually financially independent
, retiring early.
So it's F-I-R-E.
Speaker 1 (54:36):
Oh sorry.
Speaker 2 (54:37):
Yeah, so it's F-I-R-E financially independent,
retired early and so it is acommunity, a movement of people
who are pursuing building wealth, reaching financial
independence and then retiringearly.
So I would say that sometimesthe retirement police will come
(54:58):
after me they say you're notretired because you have a
business and you're earningincome.
So I have changed the acronymto financially independent and
I'm just simply refocusing myenergy.
Okay, so I still work, becauseI do have a.
I don't have my nine to five, Iwork with my financial clients.
I've basically retired toentrepreneurship, if you want to
(55:20):
say so.
I'm still earning money.
There's a difference, though,between between having to work
because you needed to pay foryour bills and needed to pay for
your expenses versus choosingto work right and you make
working an option and I reallylike that term work optional.
Or, like I said, I retired frommy 19-year career in public
(55:45):
service and I became workoptional year career in public
service, and I became workoptional and I just exercised
that option and I refocused myenergy from, you know, from sort
of, again, public interest workand public service, to working
in, working for myself, andrefocusing my energy to helping
(56:05):
other people reach financialindependence.
How do you reach financialindependence.
How do you reach financialindependence?
How do you reach earlyretirement?
It's really going to be throughinvesting, right, you have to
use, because when we're thinkingabout long-term goals, saving
money, even if your money isearning 4%, 5%, that's great,
(56:25):
but we want to be earning 10%,12%.
Like I said, the stock marketwas up over 20% last year, so we
want to be earning money.
We want our money to be reallyaccelerating in that journey and
this is not about investing$1,000 today and making $2,000
tomorrow.
That is gambling, that isspeculative.
(56:48):
I am not the financial coach foryou.
I am not gonna tell you thatI'm gonna do that, but you can
make small, incremental changesand begin building wealth over
time, and time is gonna be thebest asset that you can use or
is gonna be your best tool,vehicle that you can use.
(57:08):
When we're thinking aboutinvesting, we're investing for
the long term.
We're not thinking about thoseshort-term goals that we're
going to need the money for inthree, six, 12 months.
We're thinking about okay, I am35 years old and I want to be
retired by the time I'm 45.
That is retired early, right.
We're thinking about okay, Idon't want to wait until I'm 65
(57:30):
to retire.
Can I retire at 55?
What do I need to do?
Right, that's 20 years from now.
Instead of thinking, okay, Igot to work for the next 40
years, is there a path for me sothat I could accelerate my
journey?
And if you choose to continueto work, awesome.
But you could also choose to befinancially independent and
(57:50):
have this nest egg that you'vebuilt over time that now will
cover your cost of living.
Speaker 1 (57:57):
Thank you for that.
That's really the dream, and Ifeel like this conversation
again was so timely.
I've learned so much I'mprobably gonna go back and
listen to this a few timesmyself and I think you shared
some amazing tips for anyone whodoesn't know too much about
finance but wants to startfiguring out how to save better,
track their money and alsostart growing it.
(58:18):
So thank you so much forsharing all of your insights.
I have to ask you one finalquestion and because the show is
called A Word to the Wise anyfinal words of wisdom to the
listeners?
It could be about what we'vebeen talking about or something
completely different that youkeep in your back pocket.
Speaker 2 (58:35):
Yeah, I think it's really important to get crystal
clear about designing the lifethe way you want, right?
This isn't about being frugal.
This isn't about deprivingyourself now so that you could
retire early, right?
This is really about living afull life now and being
intentional with the way youspend money and the way that
you're earning money.
(58:56):
If you want to build wealth,keep it simple.
It doesn't have to becomplicated.
It can be kind of like a set itand forget it.
And it's more important, nothow much money you make, right?
Because the first thing I thinka lot of people say is oh, I
got to make more money.
I can't do this unless I earnmore money Now.
Making more money is great,right, but what generally
(59:16):
happens is that the more moneywe make, the more money we want
to spend, and what we want to dois widen the gap between the
amount of money that's coming inand the amount of money that's
going out, right, and we want tobe able to say, okay, I have
this amount of money coming in,this is the amount of money that
I have going out, and I'm goingto use the difference to build
(59:37):
the savings and to build wealth,and that is what we want to do,
okay, so I would highlyrecommend to anybody, please.
It's more important to thinkabout how you're using the money
.
It's more important to thinkabout being intentional and to
being consistent, and withconsistency comes the reward
(01:00:01):
over time.
Speaker 1 (01:00:04):
Yes, and I think everything you're saying just
kind of boils down to balance.
It's a lot simpler than wethink it is.
So, thank you, this has beenthe best financial conversation
that I've had in a while andmuch needed.
Again, like I said, I'm goingto listen to this a couple of
times because you shared so muchhere.
So thank you, wally, so muchfor stopping by the show.
(01:00:24):
Where can people find you ifthey want to check out your
website and your work orpotentially reach out to you for
some coaching?
Speaker 2 (01:00:31):
Yeah, absolutely so.
I only offer one-on-onecoaching.
So anybody who works with me,it's gonna be me and you on a
Zoom call and we're gonna divedeep into your finances and we
can talk about what it wouldlook like to work together and
what that financial coachingprogram is like.
And if you're interested inthat, feel free to follow me on
(01:00:55):
Instagram I'm most active thereor go to my website, which is
financiallythrivingcom, andyou'll find my social media
handles there.
On Instagram I'm financiallyunderscore thriving, where I
share tips and a lot moreactionable steps that you can
take to begin gaining control ofyour finances and building
wealth.
Speaker 1 (01:01:11):
Awesome.
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (01:01:13):
Thank you so much for having me.
It's been a great conversation.
Speaker 1 (01:01:16):
You can follow Award to the Wise on Instagram and
TikTok at Award to the Wise Pod.
We're also on YouTube at Awardto the Wise Podcast.
Please be sure to subscribe Ifyou are enjoying the show.
Please rate, leave a review,share and subscribe wherever you
listen to podcasts.
Till next time, peace and love,always, always, always.
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