We’ve brought back the listener's mailbag. Today we’re answering your family and finance questions about keep your grocery bills manageable, deciding on how to travel with kids, and getting started with real estate!
Listener Mailbag: Spring 2023
One of my favorite parts of creating Simplify and Enjoy is the community.
While I’m happy to share our journey as a family, it’s fun when you chime in with your wins, stories, and questions.
Today we’re going to be diving into your family and finance questions.
First, we’ll look at how to save money on your grocery bill.
Next, we’ll talk about how to adjust or if needed, revamp your budget. There’s still plenty of time to have some big wins with your family and financial goals.
Finally, we’re following up from last week’s episode about different options in real estate. There are so many different paths.
Which is why I’m so glad to share a fun and informative conversation I had with Stacking Deeds Podcast Hosts Crystal Hammond and Alan Corey. We get into their own journeys and they have advice on what to consider if you’d like to get started with real estate investing.
We have plenty to cover, so let’s get started!
Resources to Stay on Top of Your Money
If you’re ready to jump into the year and knock out some of your health and wealth goals, here are a few of my favorite resources and includes what we covered in the podcast.
If you’d like to chat more your money system, please join us in our private and free Facebook group – Thriving Families.
We’re families looking to support and help one another out.
Hope to see you there!
Thank You to Our Sponsor Coastal!
Support for this podcast comes from Coastal Credit Union! Come check out Coastal today if you’re living in the Raleigh Durham area and looking to bank better.
As a credit union, Coastal serves its members first and foremost including an annual loyalty bonus.
We've been members for years and love their service and competitive rates on checking and savings accounts!
Support the Podcast!
Thank you so much for listening to the podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and found it helpful, here are some ways to support it.
Spread the word! If you enjoyed this episode and think it can help a buddy get on the path to dumping debt and become financially free, please share.
Join our coffee group ☕: Get access to exclusive behind the scenes videos, chats, and more!
Leave a review. Honest feedback and reviews make a big difference and gets the word out about the podcast. Leave your review on Apple or Stitcher.
Grab a copy of Jumpstart Your Marriage and Your Money. My book is designed for a busy couple to set up their finances in four weeks. Get tips and tools that have worked for other couples on their journey of building their marriage and wealth together!
Are you interested in getting started in real estate investing but don't know where to begin? We’ll uncover some opportunities and niches out there that could be a good fit for you!
Adventures in Real Estate Investing
In our community we have families at different points in their financial journeys.
This year we have some who are focused on knocking out debts that have been weighing them down.
Then some, including us are in the CoastFI phase of things. That foundation is in place and we’re considering options that can give us more flexibility with our schedule while still producing income.
Real estate investing can be a great way to be a solid path towards that and financial freedom. By investing in a property, you can generate passive income through rent.
However there’s more to it than what you see on HGTV, Magnolia, or those real estate flip channels on YouTube.
Buying property takes money and finding good tenants and contractors takes time. You may also worry about being trapped with a money pit.
Which is why I’m happy to have Rachel Hernandez on the show. Rachel is an award-winning mobile home investor with over ten years of experience and author of several books about real estate including Adventures in Mobile Homes.
In this episode we’ll get into:
her journey into real estate investing and what made her choose to hone in with investing in mobile home
different options out there besides flipping and buying holding property
an honest look at the good and the bad with real estate so you have a clearer idea of what to expect
Hope you enjoy!
Resources to Stay on Top of Your Money
If you’re ready to achieve your family and financial goals and want to explore real estate, here are a few of my favorite resources, including what we covered in the podcast.
If you’d like to chat more your money system, please join us in our private and free Facebook group – Thriving Families.
We’re families looking to support and help one another out.
Hope to see you there!
Thank You to Our Sponsor Coastal!
Support for this podcast comes from Coastal Credit Union! Come check out Coastal today if you’re living in the Raleigh Durham area and looking to bank better.
As a credit union, Coastal serves its members first and foremost including an annual loyalty bonus.
We've been members for years and love their service and competitive rates on checking and savings accounts!
Exploring Options in Real Estate
In our discussion, Rachel discusses her experience with real estate investing, including her motivation for getting started and her transition to mobile home investing.
She emphasizes the importance of taking action and gaining experience, as well as finding a niche within the industry.
Rachel also offers advice for those interested in real estate investing and provides resources for learning more about mobile home investing.
Read the transcript below (edited for time and clarity) or watch our chat on YouTube!
Elle Martinez: You are seasoned with real estate investing. That's something my husband and I are in the early stages of talking about. We are thinking of having some cash flow for this next stage of financial freedom.
There's so many different ways to invest. We've done like index fund investing, which is really popular. But for you, what was your motivation getting started with real estate investing? What was that pull?
Rachel Hernandez: For you?
Sure. For me personally, I will make a disclaimer.
I hated viewing homes as a kid. I was with the family that moved every five to seven years because my mom wanted a bigger and better home, so we were in that rat race.
My parents were both professionals and so basically it's very surprising that I got into real estate because I hated riding in the car with the realtor, looking at homes as a kid every five to seven years.
Obviously as a kid you don't have any say. It's the parents deciding and I moved from so many different schools. I think that's why one of the reasons why I'm so outgoing, because I just had to make friends on my own because I'd be moving every five to seven years.
I will tell you, I was influenced by the book Rich Dad, poor Dad by Robert Kiosaki. You've probably heard about that, but what actually sparked my interest in real estate was the concept of passive income in that book.
I always knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur. As a kid, I did the lemonade stand, puppet show. Going into college as a young adult, I was supposed to be studying for my classes I was a humanities major, but on the side I had a resume business.
I got paid actually by my university to take notes, right? For classes. So I always had all these side hustles, you know?
Once I got influenced by that book, rich Dad, poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki then the light bulb kind of set off, ‘oh, there's actually income that you can make passively and it doesn't require work from you to do it.'
I learned the difference between active income, which depends on you working at a job, you know, you get paid a certain amount to work that job. There's also this concept of passive income and it's more on the investing side.
You make your money work for you so that you don't have to work so hard. That's how I got into real estate investing.
I was a business to business corporate account executive, so I had the sales experience.
While I was learning, I actually started finding deals for other real estate investors. What I do, I'd go to my local real estate investor club and I'd meet these real estate investors who just didn't have the time to go out there and find these deal. They'd give me their criteria.
I did something called bird dogging, which is like, you go out and you find these deals, you get all the information, and then you bring the deal to the investor and then they talk things out with the seller, try to negotiate you to deal. If they do, then I get paid for that lead.
I did that for a while, and then after that I went into wholesaling, basically taking it one step further, getting all the information, but then putting it under contract and then assigning my interest in the deal to the investor buyer, like the end buyer, and then I get paid for that.
I did that for a while to build up cash. Eventually I started building up enough cash to buy and hold properties as a single family home landlord. I did that for a while. I built up our portfolio and I got burned out from that because every month. Guess who the first person who got paid? Was a mortgage company.
I was like, ‘why is all my cash flow going to the mortgage company or h o a or the insurance company, you know?'
I was the one that was paid last. , I'm like, ah, that doesn't sound right.' Yes. You know, where's all the, the, the, the passive income and cash flow that I was reading about.
Then I decide to, you know what? I'm just gonna sell my entire single family home portfolio. Wow. Which sounds crazy. Cashed out at a great time and then use that money to actually get into mobile home investing, which is what I do now.
I buy mobile homes for cash without a mortgage and then if I decide to rent it or sell it on payments and all that cash flow comes to me.
So that's pretty much what I do in
Elle Martinez: a nutshell. Yeah.
I love how you had this plan and you build up, I think. . I don't wanna say it's a myth, but to a degree a lot of entrepreneurs are put in this bucket where they're risk takers, they're doing this but then when I talk to entrepreneurs like you who've been doing this for years, there's like a calculated risk. There's some kind of numbers and analysis as you jump in.
And I didn't know about the different roles in real estate that you were just mentioning. I feel like I'm gonna have to put in the show notes of this dictionary for real estate.
Rachel Hernandez: Yeah, that'd be a good idea.
Elle Martinez: Yeah. But as you mentioned, there's different ways even to invest in real estate. Single family homes is what people imagine. They see H G T V, and these channels and think, oh yeah, this would be great. What made you pivot into mobile home investing?
Rachel Hernandez: Pretty much the mortgage company getting paid first. When I got that rent check. That money, a large portion of it went to the mortgage company, then the h o A association, then the insurance taxes, and then whatever was left over that's pretty much what I had.
To tell you the truth, I made more money wholesaling than I had with these cash flow properties in single family homes.
Oh, ok.
Yeah. Pretty much my first deal as a wholesaler, I made a whole year's salary. Which is crazy. Wow. Looking at that, I just kind of got burnt out and I even brought property managers to manage these properties for me, but they got their fee and I had to manage the managers so,
Yeah, it was crazy and I can't do this. And you hear all of these stories from these burnt out landlords, and I will tell you, it's true. It can be a nightmare, you know? So now, as a mobile home investor, I've learned how to balance that, but not having that mortgage and buying these mobile homes for cash, actually puts less strain on me financially.
When I have to evict a tenant, money's not coming in because this tenant's not paying. There are issues, with the home. I gotta do repairs.
It just kind of lessens the burden on me. I just can't imagine some of these real estate investors in California who have these crazy large mortgages on their home. You miss one payment. I mean, that's a whole paycheck to some people, you know?
Yeah. If you have to fill the home and it's empty and you don't have it filled with a tenant, so it's crazy. . Yeah.
Elle Martinez: Okay. So there's a couple things I'm trying to like order my questions . Sure. Cause we had a lot of good ones there.
First of all, let's talk about like buying a home because I know many are familiar. They bought their home that they're living in. Is there a different process or mindset when you go in and you're buying an investment for you, your process with that?
Rachel Hernandez: Yeah, absolutely. As a first time homeowner, if you're buying a home for yourself, it's completely different than buying an investment because as an investment, you are looking at how can this make me money?
To me, an investment is more of an asset because it puts money in your pocket. Whereas I know a lot of people are not gonna want to hear this. Your home is a liability. Because it's taking money out of your pocket.
Now we always hear, from the banks, like, no, your home is an asset. To me, it's not an asset. I learned this from Robert Kiosaki in his books. It's actually a liability because it's taking money out of your pocket. You gotta think about that.
When you're buying a home for yourself, you're looking at the home, you're looking at the location. Mm-hmm. , you're looking at, can I actually live here?
But you're not looking at it from an investment perspective. How can I make money off of this home unless you do that, but that's different philosophy. My own philosophy your home is not in an investment because it's just a place to live.
Whether you buy a home or you rent a home, it's both a place to live versus an investment.
You're figuring out, you've gotta have this extra strategy. How's this gonna make me money? Either I'm going to sell it to a retail buyer and fix it up. I'm gonna sell it to an investor, like what I did wholesaling or am I just gonna rent it out and become a landlord? So that is your exit strategy as an investor.
As an investor, you're thinking how generate a profit so you're looking at it from a business perspective versus buying your own home. It's just for you, but you're not looking at it as a business perspective. That's just my thoughts.
Elle Martinez: Gotcha. Yeah, I, I think it does take a mindset shift when you're looking at that. I was talking to some others about what they had noticed as a difference was when it's your home, even though you might do your own repairs and it's a fixer upper.
You're still like looking for I need this layout. It's you, you, you. But like you mentioned, you really, I mean, this is a business so you. Is this a place that functions for whoever I'm trying to rent out to? Is this gonna be feasible?
You mentioned, the realities. Again, I love that you're being transparent. You got good tenants, they pay, this is great. Things are flowing. And then you have bad tenant tenants.
I know there's no way to completely avoid bad tenants but for you through the years, what are like some processes or filters you put in place to make sure that you find first of all, like a good investment and then second, finding those tenants?
Rachel Hernandez: Yeah. The good investment it comes with experience. Honestly, what I can say to everyone listening on this podcast, there's only so much you can learn your education.
I do believe in education, reading books, listening to podcasts, watching videos, you know, in this case real estate investing, but there's gonna be a point where you actually have to take action and that is where you learn the most.
What I love about real estate is like you don't have to be the smartest person in the room. You don't have to have a lot of money. You don't have to have a PhD in real estate to do this.
It actually levels the playing field. So what you get from taking action is experience, and that experience is where you learn the most. From that, you obtain knowledge, what gives you confidence to do more deals and get out there. It really is having the courage to get out there and take action.
And I will be honest, I mean, I've been rejected a lot by a lot of sellers on the buying end. Like, no, I'm not gonna sell you this, but you just kind of have to brush it off. It's part of the business. If someone doesn't have that personality to be confrontational. They can always bring in a partner or work with someone.
Like what I did as a wholesaler. I have the experience because I was in sales. So I can take rejection, pretty much. On that end you just have to have the courage.
The only way people are gonna get that is by taking action and by taking action, you get to learn the market, you get to network, and you just get better.
There is no, educational university for real estate, despite what other people think with all these real estate gurus. You just gotta get out there and learn your market, figure out what you wanna do, and then just, keep learning as you go. I know that's very vague, but it's actually worked for me.
Elle Martinez: I understand. As an investor, are there some wins that you're super proud of or some hard, learned lessons that you picked up through your years of investing?
Rachel Hernandez: Sure. Probably my win that is the most memorable is my first mobile home deal. Yeah. And basically this deal came from, of all things, a flyer, I physically passed out in a mobile home park cuz I buy these homes in the parks most times.
This family called me, there was no for sale by owner sign on the home. Mm-hmm. , no one knew it was for sale, and the wife called me and said, ‘listen, we wanna move out of the park. We're looking to get into a regular home. Would you be interested in looking at our home and coming over to see if you would buy it?'
At that point I was like, ‘okay, sounds good.' And this was my first deal was completely new in mobile homes. I had the real estate investing experience in single family homes, but completely new to mobile homes.
Yeah.
I was like, okay, how much are you asking for the home? I mean, it's a natural question. And the wife paused and she said, ‘you know what? We don't wanna talk about that on the phone because we'd feel more comfortable if we kind of got to know you. And you came over for that.'
I was like, I've been told by many, many mentors and also these real estate groups spout out all day long. If they're not willing to give you a price, they're not a motivated seller.
Mm-hmm. I thought about that and I'll, but then I thought, you know, What have I got to lose? I haven't even done one mobile home deal if I passed this up. It could always be what if? What if? What if?
To make a long story short, I went over there. The reason why they didn't put a for sale by owner sign in their home is because they didn't want a bunch of people to go through the home and make it dirty, okay?
I went through the home. I negotiated. I got the home. It was, I believe it was a two bedroom, one bath. I think believe it was 1985, and I got that home for $3,600 cash. They even cleaned it. I filled that home in two weeks, sold it for 10,000, and with a nice starter family, they gave me a thousand dollars as a move-in fee, and then they paid me $250 a month for the next four and a half years.
Wow. So what did I learn from that lesson? You never know what's going through the seller's heads. So had I not gone over there and listened to what all these gurus are saying, or some MA mentors in the past, and they only tell me this because of their experience, but I could have a different personality than them.
You know? That's what I've learned. Then I may not be here on this podcast talking about mobile home investing. It may have never happened.
Elle Martinez: Wow. That's so fascinating. That's great that you were willing to take that risk. Again, it's like calculated risk. You had some experience already within real estate. I think that's fantastic.
For someone that is thinking about it, maybe it's on their radar getting started with real estate investing and they're also just curious about mobile home investing. How can people reach out to you?
Rachel Hernandez: Sure. Well, I do have a podcast. It's called Adventures and Mobile Homes. Really easy to remember and find on any podcast player.
I have a website, adventures in mobile homes.com. If anyone wants to learn about mobile home investing, I do offer a free class. If you are interested, check it out.
As for real estate investing, my advice is to pick a strategy and figure out where are you at this point in life.
Do you want to build up cash so that you can eventually buy and hold properties? Or can you buy properties now, but you want to have them for cash flow?
So do you wanna be a landlord? Or do you wanna be like, what I did BirdDog and a wholesaler, figure out what your strategy is. And I do have a book, it's called Real Estate Investing Sucks, how to Find Your Niche and Dominate.
Basically, from all my experience as a real estate investor, the most successful people are the ones that actually have a niche, and mine is mobile homes.
In terms of mobile home investing, my recommendation is to, pick a niche, stick with the niche and then learn it as much as you can.
It's funny cuz I did have a mentor when I first got started. She was local in my area. I met her at a real estate conference.
She had never done anything in real estate investing. She just picked mobile homes. She just read the, she just read up all the books on mobile homes started it. And she was a corporate executive too for a tech company. And we just had similar back.
She's like, you could teach me a lot because you have more experience than me.
I'm like, I have, I don't know anything about mobile homes. She's like, Rachel, it's not that different. You know, I was coming from single family homes. Yeah. That's one of the things I do and she just stuck with it all this time. That's all she did. She's done great for herself.
Basically stick with a niche. And if you wanna check out that book, I have a whole series of books. Real Estate Investing Sucks. Then if you are interested in learning about mobile home investing, I have a book, adventures and Mobile. How I got started in mobile home investing and how you can too as well too. So that's just my suggestions. And of course, listen to podcasts like this.
Support the Podcast!
Thank you so much for listening to the podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and found it helpful, here are some ways to support it.
Spread the word! If you enjoyed this episode and think it can help a buddy get on the path to dumping debt and become financially free, please share.
Join our coffee group ☕: Get access to exclusive behind the scenes videos, chats, and more!
Leave a review. Honest feedback and reviews make a big difference and gets the word out about the podcast. Leave your review on Apple or Stitcher.
Grab a copy of Jumpstart Your Marriage and Your Money. My book is designed for a busy couple to set up their finances in four weeks. Get tips and tools that have worked for other couples on their journey of building their marriage and wealth together!
Do you want to start a garden this year, but are you've been bad with plants? Here are my best tips on how to design and grow an easy garden!
Learning to Grow a Garden
Before we get into gardening, I want to be upfront about something- I used to be the person who kept cacti around because it was the only plant I could keep alive.
It's true.
I am not someone who naturally has a green thumb. This is something that I had to build up from and learn.
Good news, though, is now I'm hunting through seed catalogs each season, picking out what we're going to grow. I enjoy seeing how much of our own food we can grow from the garden.
Obviously, this was not an overnight process, but surprisingly, it wasn't as hard as I thought.
A key part of me enjoying gardening is by starting off small and going with easy to grow plants. With some small, but powerful wins I was motivated to dive into this new hobby that I love.
The good news is if I can do it, you can do it.
If you are thinking of starting a garden, but you're worried about your skills or if it's gonna be a lot of work, I want to help you out.
I want you to have an incredible and awesome year of gardening without a ton of hassle. So in this episode, we're gonna get into how to design your garden so that it's productive. Yet easy to How to decide which plants to grow.
And some of my favorite garden tips to get you started on the right foot. We have a lot to cover. So let's get started!
In this episode, we’ll get into:
how to design your garden so that it’s productive yet easy to maintain
how to decide what to grow
some of my favorite garden tips to get you started on the right foot
Hope you enjoy!
Resources to Easily Jumpstart Your Garden
If you’re ready to start growing your garden, here are a few of my favorite resources and includes what we covered in the podcast.
Send In Your Family and Finance Questions for the Listener Mailbag episodes HERE!
If you’d like to chat more your family and financial goals, please join us in our private and free Facebook group – Thriving Families.
We’re families looking to support and help one another out.
Hope to see you there!
Thank You to Our Sponsor Coastal!
Support for this podcast comes from Coastal Credit Union! Come check out Coastal today if you’re living in the Raleigh Durham area and looking to bank better.
As a credit union, Coastal serves its members first and foremost including an annual loyalty bonus.
We've been members for years and love their service and competitive rates on checking and savings accounts!
Support the Podcast!
Thank you so much for listening to the podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and found it helpful, here are some ways to support it.
Spread the word! If you enjoyed this episode and think it can help a buddy get on the path to dumping debt and become financially free, please share.
Join our coffee group ☕: Get access to exclusive behind the scenes videos, chats, and more!
Leave a review. Honest feedback and reviews make a big difference and gets the word out about the podcast. Leave your review on Apple or Stitcher.
Grab a copy of Jumpstart Your Marriage and Your Money. My book is designed for a busy couple to set up their finances in four weeks. Get tips and tools that have worked for other couples on their journey of building their marriage and wealth together!
Want to have more work-life balance in your life? Today we’ll explore how the principles of FI can help you make the transition to part-time work!
Finding Work-Life Balance as Parents
Work- life balance can be a struggle for parents, especially if your kids are young.
You wand to have this time with them, but you also have to take care of the essentials like bills. Or maybe you have a job you really enjoy, but it’s very demanding of your time. You want some flexibility so you can work, but still be there with your little ones.
What if you want to work, but just not the traditional full-time?
Our culture and the way office work is structure makes that difficult. Family first employers can be hard to find. It’s an all or nothing approach.
Part-time work is regulated to lower paying work, which may not be viable for families.
It’s almost easier to just have one stay home while the other works full-time.
If you want something different, in most cases, you have to carve out your own path.
We had to do that and so have other families.
Which is why I’m thrilled to have Marriage, Kids, and Money creator and my buddy Andy Hill on the show. Andy and his wife Nicole have carved out that path of family and work that’s flexible and allows them to work part-time and hang out with their kids.
In this episode we get into:
conversations you two need to have create a plan you’re both happy with
how to use principles from FI to build flexibility so you can switch to part-time work
key financial milestones to help prepare you for the transition
Hope you enjoy!
Resources to Pivot Your Career
If you’re ready to jump into the year and knock out some of your health and wealth goals, here are a few of my favorite resources and includes what we covered in the podcast.
Send In Your Family and Finance Questions for the Listener Mailbag episodes HERE!
If you’d like to chat more your money system, please join us in our private and free Facebook group – Thriving Families. It’s a group Andy, Andrew from Family Money Plan, and myself run as a team.
We’re families looking to support and help one another out.
Hope to see you there!
Thank You to Our Sponsor Coastal!
Support for this podcast comes from Coastal Credit Union! Come check out Coastal today if you’re living in the Raleigh Durham area and looking to bank better.
As a credit union, Coastal serves its members first and foremost including an annual loyalty bonus.
We've been members for years and love their service and competitive rates on checking and savings accounts!
Switching to Part Time Work with Andy Hill
Elle Martinez: I think this is a great conversation to have, especially going into 2023. A lot of families are trying to reset things. We've had a crazy, to say the least go last couple years.
We've had to prioritize just making sure that everything is flowing but I think we're all to kind of taking a step back and hoping, Hey, can I get back on track? Can I reset and pivot?
And I saw this post episode, and I instantly thought, okay, I have to have Andy on, which was talking about part-time work and still having that time with the family. I think this is a conversation a lot of families want to have, but they're not sure how to go about it, right?
Because full-time work that's understandable. Working from home parents, remote work. Got that, but how do you transition to part-time work?
I know for me, being someone who works part-time as a career. I enjoy having the extra time, but let's be real. It, you can't just snap your finger and have it happen. So Absolutely. I'd love to dig into this.
First of all, who came up with this idea? Was this always a part of your financial journey or was this something that as you were paying off the debt, and I know you knocked out that mortgage, you said, okay, let's explore this?
Andy Hill: Yeah, I think for the longest period of time it was just, I was just a full-time employee and I just thought that's what you do. You just have a job and it takes up the majority of your day and your week, and you spend more time with the people at the office than you do with your, actually your actual family or your friends or your loved ones. And that's just what it is.
Then when you started to do some of these wild things like, you know, pay off all of our consumer debt or student loans, our car loan, and then eventually pay off the house and you realize that you're growing the gap between your income and your expenses quite a bit.
What if you just didn't need as much income then because the gap could be closed? So that's something sort of flipped in our heads being like, okay, well if we've got the retirement stuff set by saving and investing through those employer plans for so long, and Roth IRAs and HSAs and things like that. And then we paid off all the debt , what do we need to make a bunch of our money for?
If we've got our retirement set and we definitely need to make money because we gotta pay for our bills, we gotta pay for the food, we gotta pay for the bills. You know, gotta pay for the, this crazy inflation that keeps going up but we don't have to hustle hard forever.
I think there was a few epiphany moments. I think the pandemic was definitely one of them. I finished my full-time career and then I jumped into a life of entrepreneurship and I'm like, I'm gonna take this to the moon as well. You know, like, Hey, I'm gonna make a million dollars.
And then the pandemic happened and it was like, well, why ? Why continue to push, push, push, push, push what's it four? And I think that that great pause that we all got with the pandemic was, was nice. It was sort of a reset to say, ‘What do we want the next 20 years of our lives to look like?'
And you know, God willing, we have 20 years to move forward. Are we utilizing the time we have right now to the best of our ability? So I think that's when part-time work got interesting.
Mm-hmm.
Another reason I think that part-time work not only got interesting but realistic was I really kind of fell for this fire movement thing for a while of like, I wanna push so hard that I don't have to work ever, you know, and it sounds really romantic and cool and, but man, I would say that is difficult for 99% of our world, our country, and our world.
I think the reality of, I like the idea of financial independence and, being able to have more time, but I think if you're able to do some work that you enjoy and have that time freedom. I think that's the best of both worlds, and that's what we're pursuing as a family right now.
I currently have the opportunity to work part-time and my wife went back to school to become an esthetician. So she's seeking out part-time employment right now.
Elle Martinez: That's awesome and I love that. We're like you, we're a CoastFI family and we've had similar conversations and I think it's important to bring that up.
Of course, at the beginning when you're in your financial journey we had the credit card debt. I know when we started off I had to pay off the debt before the wedding, and then we had the car loan student loans. And so there is, and I get this, there's an intensity, right?
Your focus, you're trying to knock that out, but with your financial journey doesn't have to be off on switch, especially with financial independence.
I know it is a very popular topic. Like we retired in X amount of years, we're free. But I think the, like you said, more realistic, but I think also the more flexible and enjoyable path is after you do knock out a lot of that unnecessary debt and you're evaluating, you know, having these conversations along the way, finding, are there more options a and B that I've always heard about or been given and are there ways to explore that?
I think sometimes we get on that path and it almost becomes the extreme, like, before we weren't paying attention to our money, we got into debt, and now we're paying too much attention to the money and the number and chasing it.
And it's like, wait, wait, wait. And you have two kids like I do too. Yes. At at, at some point. It's like, I wanna enjoy the time I have with my kids. They grew up way too fast. So yeah, having that ability to maybe slow down worth work is incredible. And you laid out in that episode the steps and the process that you take.
I definitely recommend, if you haven't already, I'll put it in the show notes. Check out Andy's post an episode. But I wanted to talk about two key steps.
The first one, and you mentioned a bit about this, is growing that gap. I think a lot of families struggle with that. Like, where do I start? How do I one earn more? How do I pay down my expenses. How did you guys first approach it and maybe tell me which one was harder, earning more, or optimizing those expenses.
Andy Hill: Yeah, absolutely. I think at the beginning of our marriage we got together and we were living for today, having a great time, enjoying all that our late twenties had to offer, and having a great time.
We had no gap, you know, so we had $130,000 coming in. I think I was making 60, she was making 70, something like that.
Mm-hmm.
And we were using all of it for fun, which is great. I mean, it was just us and we were enjoying ourselves and we were newlyweds. When we learned we were gonna be parents, that's when something said, okay, we gotta pay attention to things a little bit more because we've got a human coming into the world and we want her to have a great life. So that's when sort of conversations happen around growing that gap, not just everything that's coming in is now going out.
What can we do to save a little bit for our daughters? 5 29. Okay, that gap's gotta be a little bit bigger. What can we do to eliminate our student debt and my car debt?
Okay, the gap's gotta be a little bit bigger for that too. And then save and invest for our retirement so that we don't always have to work or what if we're not able to work or if we get laid off in, in our fifties or sixties.
Those conversations started to happen a little bit more. So we needed to grow the gap. I guess first things first is have a need, have a why, have a have a reason to actually want to grow the gap. But growing that gap between your income and expenses creates a. Power. It creates your ability to do things that you never thought were possible, right?
‘Oh, wow. Didn't think we'd be able to buy that house, but we grew the gap so we have enough saved for it. ‘Or, ‘Hey, I never thought we'd become millionaires by the time we're 40.'
Well, that's because we grew the gap and we're able to invest and, and get things that we needed to get done. So I guess the hardest part, to answer your second question of that, is probably the increasing income part.
I would say based on my nature, I sort of have a…. I don't know, frugal side of me. So it's like, hey, if I need to not go out to dinner as much or cut back on grocery spending or negotiate some bills or whatever. Mm-hmm. , that's kind of like a hunt for me, I think. And so that becomes a little easier for me.
Or sell some stuff around the house on, you know, Craigslist or Facebook marketplace and you know, get a quick thousand bucks. Just like easy things like that, you know? So lowering the expense is a little easier for me. But yeah, the harder part is, is going and earning more, but it's probably the more important and, and more effective part which is tough.
If you're looking to increase the income, the quickest place to start, instead of saying, Hey, I wanna start a whole business and do all these different things, it's like, where are you currently earning money and could you get more money? Like do you have a job where you maybe haven't gotten a raise in a while or do you have the opportunity for overtime at this place?
Or can you get a bonus? Can you get commission? Do you have a client you've been working with for a while that you can say, Hey, I'm interested in raising my rates cuz we've been working together for a while and I believe you enjoy this situation. So those are difficult conversations. Mm-hmm. , but Woo man are they effective when you're looking to grow the gap!
Elle Martinez: Yeah, absolutely. We're working from home, so people like, oh yeah, you would obviously, put that as first piece of advice, but I absolutely agree with you. If you have a nine to five, first of all, it can be either a tool to help you reach your goals faster, build new skills and everything. But yeah, negotiating, seeing if you can get some flexibility. Talk with your manager. Start building up a portfolio. This is something that you have, especially when you're a parent.
It's like, do I have the time and energy, depending on how old your kids are and where you're at professionally, to actually grow something from, the bottom up. I think that's a good piece of advice.
I also love how you talked finding that balance and you found it to be a game to cut on expenses, but I'm curious, one of the benefits I would say with financial independence and freedom is it kind of forces you to prioritize, right?
You're gonna be cutting certain things, but then on the other side, you are going to be defining. , I'm going to keep this expense. I might, minimize it for now because I gotta pay down debt, but these are my must haves.
For you guys, what were those? What was that line for you and Nicole where you said, no, no, we need to put aside some money for
Andy Hill: this?
Yeah, I think there were some difficult moments when we were. You know, working our way up this debt free ladder, mortgage free ladder, Coast Fire Ladder, where I got pretty excited about it cuz I'm a numbers guy and I get really geeked about it and she, she gets equally interested, but as long as I talk about the emotional benefits or the payoff, like why mm-hmm.
why are we doing these things with all the numbers? Like what's the purpose of it? So there was some points in time where we'd be looking at the numbers and I'd be like, well, you know what this cleaning lady. I you know, you're a stay-at-home mom right now and we got this cleaning lady. It just seems like an unnecessary expense to me.
Ooh, that did not go well, Elle. And you know what I didn't do? I didn't really empathize with her situation. She's got two kids. at home that she's taken care of. Maybe, I think there were probably four and two at the time. Like really? I mean, beautiful, beautiful kids. Yeah. But difficult lot of work. Kids are kids. So a treat of somebody coming over and doing a deep clean your house once a month, it's not really that lavish.
And so when I poked at that little piece of an expense that became a very touchy subject for for her, and I'm quickly realized, wow, that's something that's very important to her.
And. . It hasn't come up yet. It hasn't come up again, . But I guess my point is, is that there are things that I really would feel super passionate about if she brought up and said, Hey, you know, that's not that important. Mm-hmm. to me either. And I would defend them. , but I think the point of the conversation is that we need to step in the shoes of our partners, Uhhuh , to say if it's important to them, then it's important to me.
And obviously there are lines you gotta draw as a couple, as you have these conversations. But I would try to go at it with an empathetic heart to say. , it might not be. It might be something that I think is completely silly, but really, you know what? That's not, that's doesn't matter. She thinks it's great or he thinks it's great, and so it's great for me.
So I think, I think having those conversations and a budget and some conversations around sitting down to look at a budget could open up those conversations in a friendly way as opposed to doing it in passing, which I've done many times and it does not go well for our relationship.
If you could dedicate time to specifically talk about these important things about growing the Gap, saying, okay, where are some areas that we could maybe work on so that we could eventually get to a part-time lifestyle, maybe in five, 10 years from now those can happen with some scheduled, specific time.
Where the kids are maybe not hanging on your legs to speak to that. Do you have that problem
Elle Martinez: too, ? Oh, you know it, sister.
Yeah. I mean, and, and that's the thing with family. It's all. Balance and I feel, well, I like that word balance. And at the same time, I think the reality is like we have seasons and cycles when you, you have kids and you're working, but I love that you're saying set aside time for conversations.
Cuz I'm a big believer in that, you know, I love the money date. I know you do budget parties, but kind of taking the tension out.
For me it was making sure it is regular enough. Mm-hmm. that we're having these conversations that it doesn't feel like it's the money talk.
I feel like if you only save it for special occasions, that's when you get a little more stressed out. You feel like you mentioned defending yourself with these expenses, but saying, Hey, you know, this month went well. I was looking ahead. Did you? This expense is coming up, or maybe we can cut back. Having that space, like I love how you guys are open about it saying what you you wanna say, and then yes, sometimes there's gonna be a little pushback on either side and understanding, okay, well maybe we need to go back to the drawing board and find a compromise we're both happy with, or we just keep it as is, but you won't know until you have those conversations.
Kind of breaks me to the next part. So conversations are great. You're making progress, you're getting ready to transition. I feel like this is a different, like another pivot point. Mm-hmm. , how did that conversation go with you and Nicole? Did you do like one at a time or how did you decide to make that, because I know like every family kind of calculates it differently.
Andy Hill: Yeah. We've had varying times in our relationship mm-hmm. when we've gone both full-time workers mm-hmm to ladder down to a single worker and then back up to, to full-time. And then now we're in this position of could we both be two half-time workers? You know?
I think that's how it, it's how it started for us. So we were both working full-time and then we got to a position of financial strength where I was making some good money at my job and we had paid down all of our debt.
It was the point in time when we had our first child. We figured, hey, Nicole could have the ability to work part-time. So that was, that was sort of our step into it.
That was much better than saying both of us are fully retired, or one of us is fully retired or not working anymore. It's a step down and it's a lot easier to get used to, just like all these financial steps that we do. It's easier when it's in small incremental steps as opposed to being like, let's do it all right now cuz it's very stressful.
We went from two full-time workers down to one full-time worker and a part-time worker with Nicole, and then eventually full-time stay-at-home mom. So she did that for about five or six years. So we had one full-time worker. And with that, I'll be honest with you, and I've been honest with her about it too, it was stressful.
It was stressful to own 100% of the financial responsibility. And I did it, you know, I'm like, you know, prideful, I'm working hard. Yeah, I'm gonna grow my income. And but after a few, four, five years, I'm like, And I kind of bottled that up a little bit and I didn't really share it with her how I should have.
And sometimes I would explode, you know, and it would be no good. It would be one of those things where I'm like, well, you should know, but I didn't share anything with her . So that's when things like marriage counseling would, would really help us out because. Our counselor would help us to say, well, Andy, all those things that you're thinking that you conveyed to her, you didn't.
So let's have that forum to be able to have that conversation. So we found that, yeah, 100% of the ownership, the financial responsibility is tough, even if you're making good money.
Honestly, on her end, 100% of the, of the, of the parenting or the, the stay-at-home mom duties is also very stressful.
We found a little balance after that act where I went down to leaving my corporate full-time job and being a part-time stay-at-home dad at a part-time business owner and Now we are both in that train. She's decided to go back to school and learn a new trade because after finishing the stay at home mom thing, she went back to advertising and it was like, this is not for me either.
So now she's gone back to school to learn to be an esthetician, which is somebody does like facials and things like that, and she loves it. Yeah. So now she's seeking out part-time employment.
So that'll be two part-time workers, which will make one full-time worker together, which is great because it's like, okay, we are one collective here as a family.
So we've gone essentially from two full-time workers down to now one full-time worker over the 12 years of our marriage because we've done these things to grow the gap and have some, yeah, financial strength. We're not saving as much as we used to at all, but because we're not saving as much as we used to, we now have the ability to own more of our time.
Elle Martinez: Yeah, absolutely. I love this because you, you're kind of carving out your own. You're finding, this is where I'm happy. This is the kind of mix as you could say, with, professional paid work, taking care of the kids, spending time with them.
She's going back to school and I love that she went back to work, realized it's not for her.
Yeah. And then she said, okay, let me find a different path. And you guys were able to work as a family and create a plan. And I think that's flexibility is what a lot of families are looking for. And while financial independence, a lot of stores might be shared about, oh, we retired in, you know, 10 years, or we did this crazy side hustle and made six figures.
I think the bigger takeaway are the stories where families are creating meaningful and memorable, lives for themselves, however that looks for them.
Maybe you do wanna travel in an RV with your kids, or maybe you just wanna stay put and be next to your family, right? And have that network.
There's so many different flavors to fry and I sometimes taking the word independence and just put freedom, just having some more freedom, whether that's money, but more importantly, in the end time, To spend with whoever or whatever you wanted do.
Andy Hill: Yeah, that's a great point. And I think the funny thing, and I think I'm part of the problem too is it's hard to quantify what we're describing right now. So it's difficult to share and draw people in because I think as humans, we really like to see something that you can measure at least I do. You know, where it's like, Paid off that much or saved that much by X age.
It's something that we could quantify. You know, quantifying time ownership and quality time with family and quantifying happiness. That's a lot harder to do because it's personal and there's not a lot of numbers associated with it.
So I think the conversation we're having right now is a little bit more difficult to quantify. And therefore people are like, well, if it's not a $5 million net worth, what are you doing? What, why are you even, why are you working part-time? You could make, make making more money. It's like, hmm. It's hard to quantify .
Elle Martinez: Yeah, exactly. Oh my goodness. I know we just scratch the surface, Andy and I would love to chat with you some more but for those that are listening if you haven't already subscribed to Andy's Podcast, marriage, kids and Money, it is a holistic approach. It's not just, retiring and becoming financially independent.
It's enjoying the journey as well.
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Learn how you can get back into the swing of things and effectively network!
Why You Need to Rethink How You Network
For better and worse the pandemic has shifted how we work. For some families, working from home has now become an option. That’s blessing for sure.
Some companies have shifted how they communicate, with in-person meeting being replaced with chats, emails, and video conferencing.
However, there’s benefits for in-person events like conferences and team strategy sessions for a big project or to connect with coworkers.
With in-person events opening back up, you may feel a bit rusty with essential skills like networking.
Whether you’re an entrepreneur, remote worker, or back full time in the office, it’s vital to your career, and believe it or not, your joy to brush up on those skills.
That’s why I’m thrilled to have Michelle Jackson on the show today. She’s an author and content creator and the founder of The Brand Building Lab where she helps entrepreneurs dial in and design a profitable and authentic business that positively impacts their community.
I’ve known her for probably 10 years now and I can tell you she has a gift for connecting with people and networking.
In this episode, we’ll get into:
why the old model of networking doesn’t work
where and how you can organically connect with people
how to develop a strategy that’s a effective and fun
Hope you enjoy!
Resources
If you’re ready to jump into building your career and finances, here are a few of my favorite resources that we covered in the episode plus more.
If you want to chat more about creating better money habits, questions, or share your own tips, please join us at Thriving Families on Facebook. We’d love to see you there!
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Effective Networking is Building Connections
Elle Martinez: One of the things I love and respect about you is you have a great reputation in our original space, the FinCon space, the personal finance space for being someone who's just genuine fun to be around with, but also an effective networker.
I wanted to first jump into that because I feel like this is a skill that maybe post-Covid, were a little rusty on.
We're going back to in-person, events and working with people again. For you, have you always been like a natural networker or was that a skill that you've built upon?
Michelle Jackson: I wanna actually change how we're referencing this, which is relationship building.
I feel like when we say networking, it feels very like mechanical and stilted and like I get images of going to a cocktail bar and wearing, you know, a really cute cocktail dress, which I don't own because I've gained weight over Covid and I have to use Rent the Runway now as I try to lose weight.
Like just, I don't network. I build connections authentically, in organically with people. I think that would be a better way to kind of frame what I do.
The Effects of The Pandemic with Networking
Michelle Jackson: I've always been pretty good at connecting with people, but I do wanna say even though I am a natural extrovert, during Covid, I have definitely become very solidly an ambivert.
In the sense that I notice that there are times when I just get tired of people faster than before.
Now I will say, I'm an extrovert, a lifelong extrovert, but I'm an only child and so I would be social and then I would be fading away prior to Covid. Covid just made that tendency a lot more pronounced.
But because of how I approach connecting with people and just connecting with people.
I think that there's room to organically meet people where they're at, including yourself when we are in these professional spaces.
What I would say to anyone listening to our conversation as we get further into it is ask the question, how would you meet people if you could never go to a conference?
I think it's just a completely different approach, like how would you meet people in the content creation space that you're currently in and never attend conferences.
How to Approach Conferences
For context, I now alternate the years that I attend conferences so, Any conferences that I attend in 2023, I will not attend in 2024.
This has not harmed my visibility in the space. I see people all the time. In fact, today as we record this episode, prior to getting on the show, I was sharing how some mutual friends of the FinCon space will be in town. I'm gonna have, you know, cocktails and happy hour with them.
So I think my first question would be how are you meeting people if there's no conferences?
For a lot of people you've been doing that because of Covid, especially if you are observing, protocols. For me, I have only so much capacity and I do not want to go everywhere.
For conferences, like I'm very like, particular about the conferences that I attend. I want to enjoy the location. I wanna be excited about it.
I wanna feel like the content makes sense for me to even be there cuz I've been in the content creations space for a long time. Like it has to make sense to get me on a plane from basically the middle of the country to fly around.
The last conference that I attended, it took five hours to fly back because I live in Colorado, so it was almost five hours. That's not including once I arrived at home, like at our airport and getting home.
So for me, it has to really make sense to do these things, which is part of the reason why I emphasize connecting with people in other ways.
It's so much better, it's so much less pressure and I'll just get off my soapbox.
Finding the Right Spaces to Network
Elle Martinez: No, I think you bring up a lot of good points and one, we do have parents who are starting to build something on the side, either for a career pivot or for their specific financial goal, getting outta debt, saving up for a house, or, doing something else.
Then your advice about connecting with people, not just networking, I completely understand. A lot of people have like a bad taste in their mouth when they hear networking, but it is a necessary skill too if you have a nine to five, because I don't think people realize how important it is when it comes to promotion.
Even if you go job searching for another position, having your network there for you, letting you know about openings that might not be advertised. are great opportunities to build up your career.
I know, we're gonna be focusing a little more on entrepreneurs and freelancers but a lot of this advice is really helpful for families that are looking to get ahead with their nine to five career.
So, wanna take another step back. What you were saying about if you couldn't go to conferences, how would you network.
Let's say someone, it's been three years, what are some ideas or starting points for someone who is trying to, maybe a resource to find, like I need to develop my relationships and networks within the community that I'm around.
Michelle Jackson: Again, I kind of think of it this differently.
Right now there is a epidemic of loneliness in the United States and across the world and partly because of the impact of Covid, if we've been shut off and cut off for one another for a long time.
The reason why I keep kind of pushing back on this idea of networking is it takes a community to do a thing, right?
You would be surprised at the most unexpected people who may be a resource for you or related to someone that they connect you, that they could connect you with, because it's just they like you and they're like, oh, well my cousin so-and-so does this thing.
I'm gonna give a couple examples of how in regular, everyday life this can happen. If you're a nine to five, if you're an entrepreneur, it doesn't matter.
This is just making connections with people in an authentic and organic way where they're sustained over time and they would actually want to share things with you.
So simple things like what do you like to do for fun? What do you enjoy? There are different, and this is a very Colorado example, but there are so many different outdoor experience clubs, if you will. So if you like to ski, if you like to hike, if you like to work out, there's all these different communities that you can join for free here in my state and beyond.
Using Meetup.com to Find Your Community
Michelle Jackson: A good example of that is meetup.com actually. I absolutely love meetup.com. It is a community of communities.
Basically that came out of 9/11. They created meetup.com because people were like, we don't have a sense of community and we're feeling really apart from one another.
Meetup.com was a great way for people to create all these different interest focused meetups and and then it grew from there.
I've attended meetups in the US in Australia. They've just been amazing. What I like about them is they can be very, very, very niche.
So you could have multiple interests, you could be interested in. I actually, am in an online marketing community for women here in Denver. But there are FinTech meetups, so I go to the FinTech one.
There's podcasting meetups. I go to those. It's great because when they schedule an event, I see if it works with my schedule, and then I go, I don't have to pay.
It's just like a, a great thing. Maybe I buy a drink when I'm there. I don't have to dress up because here we don't really have to do that. It's just super low key. If we're going hiking, Same thing. I just go and sign up and I go hiking.
Consider Professional Development Opportunities
Michelle Jackson: The other thing I would say is, you know, again, talking about interests especially from like a professional standpoint where you're really trying to grow and expand in your area of expertise or your field that you're working in?
Anytime you can do a professional development program, say yes. There was a program on my campus that was professional development program and we were in a cohort for a year.
We got to go to conferences as a part of that cohort and mine was in Bozeman, Montana. It was phenomenal.
It was just a really amazing way to meet people who were aligned with what I was doing. They were my colleagues across campus and it was just cool.
What I would say is you could also look into that at your organization. There are fellowships you could apply for. You don't, just because you work for people doesn't mean that you have to put all your cards into them, like you don't need to put all your eggs in one basket.
You could apply these kind of communities where they could support what you're trying to do and expand your learning and then they become a community that you're a part of throughout the year.
I apply for fellowships and a lot of times with fellowships, you're part of a cohort.
I just feel like there's more than one way to meet people, and I feel like that's the part that people are missing.
Think Outside the Box with Networking
Michelle Jackson: It's just like there's this whole thing now where people are trying to date, right? They're always trying to date, but this is like a new thing that came up and they're like, wait, I don't have to use an app.
I can just go to Home Depot. And I'm like, Yeah, you can or you could be a part of a pickleball, pickleball league or corn hole if you're in the Midwest or here, like corn hole. Or maybe you like snowboarding. I feel like, yeah. Meeting people doesn't have to be work.
And a lot of times in these conversations, that's how people approach it and so it's painful. I would say the other thing is this- if you're a part of a community, as a creative, like we are there are a lot of different online meetups that they're hosting in state meetups. If people are coming to your state, Connect with them, but there's big caveat with that these are people that you've been in touch with for a while.
You know people are crazy, so you have to have discernment. If a person seems like a weirdo, they probably are, but if you've been in touch with someone for a while, and you're like, this is a person that I can transition from online to offline. You do have to do that thoughtfully.
You're meeting in a place with lots of other people. Maybe there's other people with you. I've made some really amazing friendships transitioning from online to offline but I do have some very strict ways to do that because I don't have time for crazy people.
I just would say there's 1,000,000,001 ways to meet people and expand your network, and most of them do not involve wearing a cocktail dress. I love to dress up and whatever, but it is cold today, right?
At the time we're recording this, it's freezing cold. I'm not gonna dress, wear a dress to meet people cuz I'll freeze. I totally get that.
Elle Martinez: Yeah. You're negative seven. So don't do that. Choose life. Yes.
But I I do appreciate you saying that cause I think we have kind of gotten out of, we have to get out of that mindset where here are my professional interests.
Therefore, when I meet people it's gonna be in this very strict setting that you can expand it, that it can be more organic. What are your interests? Because there's a benefit just in so many ways you learn and grow from each other on that.
We can meet people outside of conferences, but let's talk about conferences because that's still a big part.
I know like in our space to meet potential partners. Again, learning about what's going on in the community, great way to learn new things, trends that are going. How do you do it without one being exhausted, and two, how do you choose the conferences?
You said, you're not gonna be going every year to the same conferences. You're being very thoughtful and discerning.
How to Choose Which Conferences and Events to Attend
Elle Martinez: A lot of in my community are parents with kids and quite frankly, it's like if I travel, I want to make the most out of it. I do wanna enjoy it. How do you do it? I'm just curious about your thought process.
Michelle Jackson: So I am at the point in my online content creation career, if you will where there are certain things I'm really looking at. Does this event make sense for me at the point that I'm in with what I'm doing?
Like, have I heard that the content will be at a level that, that I will learn something. If I go there, will the attendees be great to to meet?
They're all the attendees of every conference are almost always like amazing. But for me to get on a plane and to fly across the country or whatever, It takes a lot of energy and so it just, there's just certain things I have to make sure I check before I say Yes.
Is it affordable? I am not trying to pay thousands of dollars to go to conferences. My goal is to make money when I attend a conference and to always be in the black. So any financial investment that I make when I attend. I have to recoup that money within that week or within a month of attending. Whether that is like a business partnership or something has to happen.
I just don't go to go. I go and it has to make sense. Is the audience aligned with the audience that I wanna be front of? Is there someone speaking that I'm like, wow, this is a really good opportunity to get in front of this? Like to see this person and hear what they have to share.
Do I like the community? Do I like and resonate with the community? I typically like most of the communities, but sometimes it's just like it's not quite the right fit.
Yeah . And so that's something to kind of be aware of as well.
Are there opportunities to highlight and share your expertise and that could be as a speaker, that could be if you decide to host something unofficially outside of the window of the event. So there's a lot of different things that I kind of look at.
One event that I'm attending this year, it will be the last time I go because I've been attending this event for a really long time. I see the people all the time. It's like family.
And so I think there's another thing to consider, which is like the life cycle of the event. I have done side hustles at conferences and it's interesting because they're some of the best side hustles, by the way. But it's interesting because you'll meet people who are like, yeah, I've been going for 15 years and I'm just like, you know what? Like you don't need to go for 15 years. Like this could be, maybe
Elle Martinez: at that point they should give you a free ticket. , you're like the
Michelle Jackson: mascot.
Oh my God. So for me, I don't wanna be doing anything for 15 years in a row. We're good.
I wanna also say that in 2024, I've decided not to attend any conferences partly because when I experimented with alternating years, it was just like phenomenal. And also it didn't really impact my business at all.
Like I had the capacity to implement what I was learning at these events, and then also to deepen the relationships that I was making with the people that I met.
I think that that's something that we don't talk enough about, which is going to conferences is , but there's a lot of information that we're taking in and I feel like most people don't give themselves enough time to actually implement what they're learning.
I think some people are kind of addicted to going, and so to me, it's like, again, I have other places I can go without like, all this, the obligations that come up with attending a conference.
I think the other thing too, to the second part of what you asked, which is how are you meeting people and connecting, you have to make these events small and quite frankly, if you're doing it right, you're still gonna be because meeting people is tiring.
Like this idea that you're not gonna be tired, I think , is not realistic. You're traveling to a new state or place, that the travel alone is tiring. You're talking with people you know throughout the day. Even introverts who talk to just a few people, they're gonna be tired.
Even extroverts, like everyone thinks that extroverts don't get tired. They get tired. And there's a point where you're like, where'd the extrovert friend go? They're taking a nap. You know, or, or
Elle Martinez: they lost their voice. .
Michelle Jackson: Yeah. Or they lost their voice. Which I have done. And so for me, what I tend to do at, at large conferences in part, especially I make it small.
I go to coffee meetups, like they always have these fun little things you can do if they're, if they're designed well conferences typically will have all these, smaller things that you can do, like a coffee meetup or a run or go to happy hour with a really niche group within the group.
I really focus on those things. This is the other reason why I'm so picky because a lot of people will arrive early to a conference and by early, I don't mean the day that it starts.
I mean, a day or two before it starts. So a lot of the events that I attend, I'm going one because I like the location. That's huge and so I'm gonna attend for a week because I wanna experience the location I wanna build in time so that I can meet with people in a really like, relaxed way without being rushed because maybe they're gonna be speaking and they're really well known.
We have friends that people follow them because they have fans like that. And so if I know that about them, I'm building in the time to really network in a way that's really like relaxing.
A good example of this is last year, I feel like it was last. Was it 2021? I think it was 2021. I was at an event in Austin and Austin's amazing right? Eating tacos, hanging out. And we went to I wanna call it Barton Springs. I feel like that's, is that Barton Springs? Yes. No. Yes. It's this cool massive pool.
It's a massive natural pool in the middle of Austin and we just hung out and swam and, you know, slid along the, the like slimy bottom . Cause the bottom is kinda slimy, but it was just so, such a great day.
That's how you meet people. You go swimming, you relax, you explore. That's what you do. That's how you network and make really authentic connections that are, yeah, pretty stress free because how relaxing is it to go swimming and floating around and just like relaxing and then go for tacos and drinks, like that's what we did that day.
That was one of the highlights of the conference and those people are a big reason why my revenue grew actually over time because they shared some insights into their business.
Again, the moral of the story, the lesson is have fun with people and keep showing up.
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Again there are various reason why people are struggling even with a healthy income and we’ll cover a few of them here in future episodes, but one big factor is they haven’t taken the time to prioritize their spending.
Whether you’re looking to pursue financial independence or something in the more traditional time frame, you have to master your cash flow.
When you have a gap between what you’re spending and earning while still enjoying life, you’re giving yourself more options and flexibility with your budget and schedule.
It’s not automatic though, it’s skill you have to learn.
That’s why I’m happy to have Cody Berman on today’s show.
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Support the Podcast!
Thank you so much for listening to the podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and found it helpful, here are some ways to support it.
Spread the word! If you enjoyed this episode and think it can help a buddy get on the path to dumping debt and become financially free, please share.
Join our coffee group ☕: Get access to exclusive behind the scenes videos, chats, and more!
Leave a review. Honest feedback and reviews make a big difference and gets the word out about the podcast. Leave your review on Apple or Stitcher.
Grab a copy of Jumpstart Your Marriage and Your Money. My book is designed for a busy couple to set up their finances in four weeks. Get tips and tools that have worked for other couples on their journey of building their marriage and wealth together!
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