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Maxed Out and Still a Great Mom: Your Step-by-Step Comeback Plan · Mom's Money

• 0:03
  If you are at square zero financially, I need you to stop giving a fuck what anybody thinks about what you do next. Seriously, your ego is no longer invited to this meeting. I don't care if you are 27 or 57.
• 0:21
  I don't care if you used to make $300,000 a year. I don't care if everybody around you thinks you're doing fine. I don't care if somebody from high school sees you driving Uber.
• 0:34
  I don't care if your neighbor sees you selling your furniture on Facebook Marketplace.
• 0:40
  I don't care if you have to text somebody you haven't spoken to in three years and say, "Hey, do you know anyone who needs help with this?" For the sake of all things tacky, go get the bag.
• 0:52
  Because right now, we are not building generational wealth. We are stopping the bleeding. So we're gonna get a little feisty today. This is Mom's Money Talk.
• 1:04
  I'm Ellie Ezra, the mom talking money like no one ever did for you. This is for the woman who's done managing money and ready to run her life like a business.
• 1:13
  I'm not a financial advisor, but I've built companies from nothing, sat in rooms with investors, and learned how money actually works. And here's the truth. You don't have a money problem, even at square zero.
• 1:28
  You have a systems problem. This isn't about budgeting harder or cutting lattes. It's about spending with intention, building assets, and thinking like the CFO of your household.
• 1:41
  Because if you're a mom, you're already running a business, the business of the home. So I'm giving you the playbook, one that makes your life feel lighter, not heavier.
• 1:53
  I need to talk today to the person who feels like they are starting at square zero, maybe less than zero. There is no emergency fund. The credit cards are maxed. The checking account is negative. The business failed.
• 2:08
  The job disappeared. Somebody left. Somebody got sick. You trusted somebody you shouldn't have. You made decisions you desperately wish you could undo. Maybe you owe people money.
• 2:20
  Maybe you have no idea how next month is working. And before anybody gets defensive with me, I believe you. I believe that circumstances can absolutely fuck people over. I believe you can work hard and still get hit.
• 2:39
  I believe you can do everything you thought you were supposed to do and still end up somewhere you never imagined you would be. I believe you can be a victim of something that happened to you, but
• 2:54
  you cannot make victimhood your financial strategy. There is a point where understanding why you are here stops helping you get out. Those are two different jobs. Explaining square zero is one job.
• 3:12
  Getting yourself off square zero is another. You may deserve compassion for the first. Okay, we'll take a beat. But the second requires action, and I know that sounds harsh.
• 3:27
  I know somebody listening is already forming the sentence, "Ellie, you don't understand." You're right. I probably don't. I haven't lived your exact life. I haven't carried your exact debt.
• 3:38
  I haven't had your exact divorce or your exact childhood or your exact job loss or your exact betrayal, but that does not make this next question wrong. Because I've had a lot of failure, and I have had a lot of low.
• 3:55
  But the question is, now what? That's it. Now what? I want you to write those two words down, because if every single reason you have is valid, fine. If every person who hurt you really did hurt you, fine.
• 4:12
  If the economy sucked, the timing sucked, the company screwed you, your ex screwed you, the deal fell apart, you made a mistake, fine. I believe you. I am not asking you to win the argument about how you got here.
• 4:27
  You can win. Doesn't matter. I'm asking you what you are going to do next. Your ego. Your ego is expensive. Here's what I think keeps a lot of people stuck when things get really bad.
• 4:42
  They're still trying to preserve the appearance of the life they no longer have. That's expensive. You don't want people to know you need work. You don't want to take the job because it feels beneath you.
• 4:58
  You don't want to sell the thing because then somebody might wonder why you're selling it. You don't want to ask for a payment plan because it's embarrassing.
• 5:06
  You don't want to post that you're available for freelance work because people thought your business was doing great. And you don't want your friends to know. You don't want your family to know.
• 5:14
  You don't want your old coworkers to know. So nobody knows you need work because you're working incredibly hard to make sure nobody knows you need work. Think about how insane that is.
• 5:27
  You need opportunities, but you're hiding from the people who could potentially give you opportunities because of what? Embarrassment? Embarrassment? Okay, that doesn't pay interest. Pride doesn't pay mortgage.
• 5:43
  Your image cannot Venmo you. And what other people think about you is none of your business anyway. So I am officially giving you permission to be tacky. Be tacky. Tell people you need work. Sell the designer bag.
• 5:58
  Put the furniture on Marketplace. Drive Uber. Clean houses. Babysit. Walk dogs. Take a contract job. Take a temp job. Pick up a shift. Ask for more hours. Put your service on Nextdoor. Call an old client.
• 6:13
  Text the former coworker. Ask the person you know who knows everybody. Offer the thing you're good at. Ask for the sale. Do the tiny business that isn't remotely sexy.
• 6:26
  Do the thing you aren't doing because you're worried someone will see you doing it. You know what's tackier than trying? Letting your ego keep you broke.
• 6:34
  After I had a high-paying job in New York City, I became a Monster Energy girl. Yeah, Monster Energy, giving out sodas because I needed something. And then they didn't have any shifts left for me, so that ended too.
• 6:50
  I have been here. Okay, this is not your forever strategy. Now, I wanna be very clear because this is Mom's Money Talk, and I'm constantly telling you that the goal is to make your life lighter, not heavier.
• 7:03
  I am not glorifying hustle. I don't want you working three jobs for the next twenty years. I don't think exhaustion is a wealth strategy. I don't think your value is measured by how much suffering you can tolerate.
• 7:16
  This is not the plan forever. This is the extraction plan. Sometimes before we build the machine, we have to get you off the floor.
• 7:29
  You fight like hell temporarily, so you can eventually build a system that means you never have to fight like this again, and that is something I do understand.
• 7:42
  There is a difference between emergency mode and wealth-building mode. If your financial house is on fire, I'm not standing outside talking to you about the resale value of the kitchen.
• 7:53
  We put out the fucking fire, then we rebuild. The square zero plan. So if this is you, here is what I want you to do. Step one, stop the bleeding.
• 8:07
  Just forget what your financial life is supposed to look like for a minute. What absolutely has to happen to keep you housed, fed, safe, working, and functioning?
• 8:18
  Housing, some sort of roof, food, utilities, and transportation that allows you to work if you have to transport to work, insurance that you genuinely need, medication and healthcare you genuinely need.
• 8:32
  Basic things that keep your household operating. Then you look at everything else. What can be canceled? What can be paused? What can be renegotiated? Who can you call and ask for a payment arrangement? What can wait?
• 8:46
  And this is important. Fear makes every bill feel equally urgent. They are not all equally urgent. Someone being annoyed with you is not the same thing as losing your housing.
• 8:56
  An uncomfortable phone call is not the same thing as having your electricity shut. Separate consequences from emotion. Separate consequences from emotions. You're the CFO right now.
• 9:10
  CFOs prioritize cash when the company is in trouble. You're going to do the same thing. Step two, find cash. Not your dream career, not passive income, not your five-year personal brand strategy. Cash.
• 9:27
  What can you sell today? What can you do this week? What skill do you have that another human being will pay you for right now? Who needs help with something you know how to do?
• 9:40
  Can you organize, write, design, clean, sell, tutor, drive, watch children, assemble furniture, do bookkeeping, make calls, run errands, take photographs, manage social media, help someone move?
• 9:56
  Do not reject a two hundred dollar opportunity because it isn't your two hundred thousand dollar plan. Square zero is about momentum. Step three, tell people. This may be the hardest one. Say it out loud.
• 10:09
  "I'm looking for work. I have avail-availability. I'm taking clients. I'm trying to bring in extra money right now. Do you know anybody who needs this?" That sentence may make your skin crawl.
• 10:23
  Send it anyway because you do not get to decide for other people that they are going to say no. You don't know who needs exactly what you could do. You don't know who heard about a job yesterday.
• 10:33
  You don't know who has a friend who needs help. You don't know, but you have to give luck somewhere to find you. Step four, make twenty uncomfortable asks. Twenty, not two, because two allows you to say, "See?
• 10:50
  Nothing works." Twenty gives the universe, or the market, or your network, or basic probability something to work with. Ask for the job. Ask for the introduction. Ask for the referral. Ask the creditor for terms.
• 11:06
  Ask the client to pay the invoice. Ask somebody if they need help. Ask somebody if they know somebody. Put an offer into the world. The goal is not twenty yeses. The goal is to stop letting fear make the decisions.
• 11:24
  Step five, separate debt by consequence. Make the list. Who do you owe, and what happens if you don't pay them today, and what happens if you pay them late? What has interest, and what threatens something essential?
• 11:39
  What is mostly creating emotional pressure? I'm not telling you to ignore legitimate obligations. I'm telling you to stop treating shame like a financial metric. You need visibility.
• 11:50
  Remember, a budget is a noun, not a verb. Right now, your numbers need to be on paper, so your fear cannot keep turning them into monsters in your head. Step six, do one tacky thing every day. One.
• 12:05
  One thing your ego hates, but your bank account might love. Post an offer. Make a call. Sell the thing. Ask the question. Show up. Apply. Follow up.
• 12:19
  Tell somebody every single day until you're breathing again, and then step seven, we build. This is the part I care about most because I don't want you surviving forever. I want assets. I want systems. I want margin.
• 12:35
  I want an emergency fund. I want income that isn't entirely dependent on your next hour of labor. I want you understanding your household economy. I want you acquiring things that can pay you back.
• 12:47
  I want your future financial life to be structurally different from the one that got you here, but we cannot build that from a place where shame has you frozen. And square zero, it's not an identity.
• 13:01
  Here's one thing I need you to hear. Your financial life is not over. I don't care how old you are. I don't care how badly this went.
• 13:08
  There may be so much life ahead of you that you cannot see from where you're sitting right now.
• 13:14
  There are soccer games you haven't watched yet, graduations you haven't cried through yet, weddings you haven't danced at yet, grandchildren you haven't met yet, trips you haven't taken, Christmas mornings you haven't woken up for,
• 13:29
  businesses you haven't started, houses you haven't lived in, people you haven't met, versions of yourself you haven't become yet. You have no fucking idea what your life could look like 10 years from now.
• 13:41
  And I think sometimes when you're at square zero, you start talking about it like it's who you are. "I'm broke. I'm a failure. I ruined everything." No. The thing about square zero, it's just a coordinate.
• 13:56
  It's not an identity. It's where you're standing today, and coordinates change when you move, so fucking move. Okay? Here is your assignment. I don't want your explanation. I don't want your defense.
• 14:10
  I don't want the 17 reasons every idea didn't work. I believe you that this is hard. Now what? Get a piece of paper and answer these questions. What can I sell? Who can I call? What can I offer? What can I negotiate?
• 14:27
  What can I cancel or pause? Where can I make money immediately? What am I refusing to do purely because I'm embarrassed? Who are the 20 people I can ask, and what are the first three things I'm doing today?
• 14:45
  Not Monday, not when you feel better, not after you finish researching, today. And if you're mad at me right now, fine. Get fucking mad. I hope you get so mad at me that you wanna prove me wrong.
• 14:56
  I hope you wanna shut me up. I hope you decide you're going to claw your way out just so someday you can say, "See? I fucking did it." Good.
• 15:05
  Use it, because I would rather you be pissed at me and moving than comforted me. Because I would rather you be pissed at me and moving than comforted by me and stuck, and I say that with love.
• 15:20
  I'm not saying nobody cares about you. I am not saying you should do everything alone. Ask for help. Take the help. Accept the love.
• 15:30
  Use every resource available to you, but nobody else can want what your next life move is going to be more than you do. Nobody can send the text for you. Nobody can make the call for you.
• 15:46
  Nobody can decide that your embarrassment is less important than your future for you. At some point, you have to fight for yourself. No one is coming to save you.
• 15:58
  It sounds terrifying until you realize the other half of that sentence. You don't have to wait for anybody to come save you. You can start. You can move.
• 16:10
  You can do one tacky, uncomfortable, humbling, money-making thing today, then another tomorrow, then another, and eventually you look back and square zero is somewhere you used to live.
• 16:30
  For the sake of everything tacky, go get the bag. Stop budgeting your life away. Start building something that pays you back. The goal is... Stop budgeting your life away. Start building something that pays you back.
• 16:48
  The goal isn't to save money, definitely not today. It's to build a life that money can support. Spend smart, acquire assets. I'm Ellie Ezra.
• 16:59
  I'll see you next time when you're not at square zero. [outro music]