Latest / Love, Happiness and Success with Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby / Money Shame: The Secret That’s Costing You More Than You Think | Success | E545

Transcript

Money Shame: The Secret That’s Costing You More Than You Think | Success | E545 · Love, Happiness and Success with Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I mean every month I was crying.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: We love money, we hate money. Money can be the
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: terror of our entire lives, can't it.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: I mean every mistake you can think of. When people
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: come to me with shame, I'm like, oh, come sit down,
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: we talk about mistakes. Let me tell you about mistakes.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: My guest today can relate true stories. She woke up
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: on her thirtieth birthday in her childhood bedroom, jobless, three
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: hundred thousand dollars in debt, and said to herself, I
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: had more money when I was fourteen years old than
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: I do right now. Seven years later, she was a millionaire,
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: and she did it on her own, without shame, and
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: without becoming someone she didn't recognize or like in the process.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: There are four questions that I say, Lucie should ask
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: yourself before you spend any money. Do I need it?
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: Do I love it? Do I like it?
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: Do I want it to Today? She is here to
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: reveal all to you. My guest today is Tiffany the
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: Budget Nista Alite.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: Whatever hole you found yourself in, if you can hear
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: the sound of my voice and you're still here, then
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: that means you have the chance to turn it around
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: for good.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, Tiffany.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: Hi Lisa, how are you.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: I'm good. I'm kind of in awe though, after learning
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: a little bit more about you and your story and
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: if it's okay, rather than just like asking you a
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: question and about money, may I invite you to take
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: me and all our friends here with us into this story,
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: Like how did you get there? In your bedroom? Like
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: look at the old wo'd you have like barbie dolls
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: like horses.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: It was one of those extra medium beds, like you know,
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: like the single super single, because then I was a
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: kid last time I slept in that bed, So I
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: I was fortunate that I did grow up learning about
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: money at home. My father was a CFO and an accountant,
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: oh I know. So he was the real technical side
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: of money. This is how you opened the bank account,
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: raise your credit score, budget. And my mom was the
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: application part of money because she was like the primary
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: caregiver of myself and four sisters. So five girls, it's
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: like hair and clothes and you know, I have to
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: get this, And so she taught us how to negotiate.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: Even now, she's one of the best negotiats I've ever seen.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: Before I buy a car, anything, I'm like, let me
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: call my mom to come with So between the academic
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: and the application, it really helped to form and inform
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: how I navigated money. And up until my mid twenties,
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: I was basically financially perfect. I had like an a eight
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: h two credit score. I had thirty thousand dollars saved.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: That was a preschool teacher. And I wasn't making more
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: than I was making about forty between forty to forty
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: five thousand dollars a year. But I used to babysit
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: and tutor, so I really in three years was able
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: to save just about thirty thousand dollars.
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: It's amazing.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: I mean, honestly, I was hustling. And then about twenty
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: five twenty six, I said, oh, let me blow my
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: life up, and I got scammed by someone that I
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: like to call Jake the Thief. He was a very debonair,
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: suave young man who I thought was rich because he
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: had the nice car and the apartment high vise apartment
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: in New York City. And he said he could teach
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: me to invest, but he just ended up stealing my money.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: He told me, like, you can get money off of
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: credit cards?
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: I did.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: I never heard it for cash advance before, and so
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: he had to go to the bank, pull money off
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: my credit cards, gave it to him to invest, and
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: of course he ran away with it. And I realized, oh,
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: that's why he had those nice things, because he's still
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: from people. So it was before, yes, and it was
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: right before the great Recession, which I did not know
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: was coming, and I had just bought a condo, I
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: just finished my masters, so it was like the imperfect
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: perfect storm. And then I lost my job. But here
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: I was credit card dead because of Jake the thief,
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: my masters and student loan deb mortgage from this condo
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: that I purchased in like at age twenty five, and
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: now jobless. And so by thirty it all came to
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: a head where I had to move back home with
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: my parents. And I was twenty nine turning thirty. That night,
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: October sixteenth, shout out to my October libers, and I
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: just remember looking up at the ceiling thinking like I
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: was calling myself everything but all the nice oh and
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: just I mean, so when you said without shame, I'm like, no,
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: there was a lot of shame because I was like Tiffany,
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: the lot that was stuff in his bed. You were
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: like fourteen fifteen and you were babysitting and you had
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: two thousand dollars say that, I remember you don't even have.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: You have negative three hundred thousand because the mortgaging everything
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: else you owe, and I just remember thinking, it's like
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: I'll never get out of this. That's how it felt
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: at first. That was not true, thankfully, because yes, seven
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: years later, I officially became a millionaire, most largely as
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: a result of being a business owner. And so I'm
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: here to say not that everyone's going to become a millionaire,
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: but whatever hole you found yourself in, if you can
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: hear the sound of my voice and you're still here,
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: then that means you have the chance to turn it
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: around for good.
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: Okay, we have at least one friend who now has
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: tears rolling down their face right now, Tiffity. Okay, so
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: there is so much to unpack. Can I ask you
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: a question? Of course, you tell me to back up
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: if this is too personal. I'm a shrink. We could
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: like go go deep. Okay. One of the things that
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: really stood out to me about your origin story, like
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: even your your family, is that you came from a
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: family that was I had skills when it came to money,
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: between your dad the CFO and your mom the negotiator,
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: and that your family, I would think took pride in
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: how they handled their financial affairs and the things that
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: they taught to you in contrast with my own family.
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: We could get into that in a later segment of
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: the show. I mean, like, there are a lot of
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: different familial messages around what money is, what a relationship
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: is to it. Right, we all come from our own places.
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: But I would imagine that going through what you did
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: at thirty, was there like a what will my family
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: think comparat of it because of the situation.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so much same around that because what I didn't
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: realize is that I was financially perfect up until twenty
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: three twenty four because I just did what they said.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: You know. I was like I'd be like, hey Dad,
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: this think of oh pay it like this? Hey dad?
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: You know, hey mommy Okay. So I just was following directions,
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: and by twenty six I was what the old folks say,
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: smelling myself. You know, You're like, hey, I'm an adult,
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: make these decisions. I to ask questions, you know, but
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: truly you understand as you get older. That true maturity
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: is knowing that you don't know anything. It's young people
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: to think, right, It's not like all the older you get,
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: the more you know. The older you get, the more
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: you realize I don't know. So I stopped asking questions
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: and started navigating on my own. And because I did that,
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: it took me. I probably didn't have to make all
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: mistakes that I made. But I didn't want to ask
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: because I was already in a hole, and I was
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: not afraid of my parents, but ashamed of like telling
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: them after they put so much work and effort and
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: they had left me with such a great foundation. I
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: just kept thinking I should have asked, because what happens
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: is when you don't ask for help and something happens,
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: then you're like, oh, now it's too late, and then
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: something worse happens. Now you know, now it's too too late,
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: and then something worse happened, and you're like, now it's
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: too too, too, too late, and so you never stop.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: And so it got to the place point where I
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: was like, you're gonna be homeless because their foreclosure on
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: your property, So what are you gonna do? So I
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: remember I didn't even tell my dad at the time,
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: because I thought he'd be the most disappointed. So I
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: told my mom and she was like okay. So I said,
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: can I move back home? She said of course. And
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: so I remember I brought my lamp and my dad
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: was like, oh, you're what is this. I said, oh,
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: I'm just I don't want this lamp anymore. And then
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: like I brought something like my plants. He's like, oh
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: to this. I'm like, oh, I just want to bring
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: these plants back. And I brought my mattress. He was like,
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: I live here now. He was like okay. At least
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: I didn't tell him because he knew I'd lost my job,
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: so he just assumed like, oh, well, I know she
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: lost her job, so maybe she's trying to save some money.
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: He didn't know I was going through foreclosure. It wasn't
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: until I wrote this book, my first book I self published,
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: called The One Week Budget, and I wrote it and
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: the last chapter was about debt and about the scam
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: and everything else, and I said, I'm about to self
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: publish this book. I need you to read from pages
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: like this pace of this page. I gave it to
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: him and he read it. He was like, why don't
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: you tell me that's why you moved, because it had
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: been like a year since then, and he's like, you
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: should have said. He was like, I would have told
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: you that anyone who made you that proposition about how
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: you were going to make money that was a scam.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: He honestly, my dad was like, I don't. I didn't
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: because I didn't realize when you are in your twenties,
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: you really think you're an adult, and you are, but
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: you're like a baby adult. And so he was not
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: shocked that I didn't know. He was like, that's my expectation.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: That's why we're still here to guide you. And so
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: it kind of like it put in me the realization
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: that like they were there to guide me, not to
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: make me feel bad, that the shame was mine and
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: shame shield solutions.
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, but can we just all acknowledge. Thank
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: you so much for telling this powerful story. And your
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: parents sound absolutely lovely, by the way, but you're right,
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: you know when you want to be like no, I'm
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: going to do it by way, and you're a kid.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: And but the shame part that you hid that story
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: from your dad under his roof for a whole year
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: and that's what we do, isn't it. When it comes
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: to money, it is a secret. There's so much secrecy, so.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: Much secrecy, and the only way to release yourself from
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: the shame is right, I realize, is to tell the
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: secret is you have to find you have to give
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: voice to it. And it's so hard because you have
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: to find the safest person that you know. For me,
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: it was my best friend Linda that we were just
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: actually talking right before here, because I know Linda literally
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: my whole life, like our parents who were friends before
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: we were born, and then we were like born into
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: our friendship and so oh.
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: That's so sweet.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: Linda is the sweetest. She's a social worker now she
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: and it's not a surprise because she is the sweetest,
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: the kindest. You can tell Linda I have a dead
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: body in my car. She's gonna be like, okay, friend, Okay,
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: So here's.
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: What we're gonna do.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: Social workers are also tough, they're sweet, but so we're.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: Gonna go to the police, but I will go with you.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: And so Linda has always been like that. So I
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: remember I told her first, like Linda bro because she
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: was calling me and calling me. I had been avoiding
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: her phone calls and she's like, what is going on?
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: I was like, I'm groll. I had to move back home.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: I don't have any money because I was like the
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: money friend, the friend who knew how to navigate money
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: in our friend group, and she was she laughed about it,
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: and I said, I feel to see what's so funny?
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: She said, well, I'm calling you for my mother's couch.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: Have you taken a look around, Tiffany, like all of
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: us are struggling financially because I didn't know, like, because
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: shame makes it feel like it's me, I'm not only
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: true yes, And when she said I looked around, she
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: was like, look at this friend and this friend this friend.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: Neck was like oh. And it was then that I
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: released the first top layer of that shame and I said, okay, okay,
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: I'm not the only I'm not in by myself. This
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: is not a Tiffany's bad issue. It's something that is
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: happening issue, you know. So it's like I got to
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: take responsibility without like it's like blame is not the
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: same as responsibility, you know, like it's my responsibility to
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: do these things, but I'm not going to blame myself
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: for trying, you know, like cause what else, what else
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: are we here to do? So when she did that,
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: it like opened up my eyes and I realized, wait,
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: the skill sets like grewup learning. I know how a budget,
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: I know how to safe like all of these things
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: that I learned from zero to twenty five. I know
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: how to do those things, and I started to put
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: them into action. And that's when I started to dig
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: my way out, because nothing moves like movement, you know.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: But I needed to release that shame by giving voice
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: to it first. So that's when I suggest anyone find
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: your safest place your work, mom, your partner, your best friend,
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: your sister, your favorite cousin. They don't have to have
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: any financial know how, but they's just a safe space
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: that you're like, I got to tell you something, so
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: they can help you release some of.
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: That well, and just can we illuminate that this is
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: such an important concept and certainly true for our financial lives,
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: but I think probably true with a lot of other stuff.
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: I think that so much of the time people are
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: carrying these things. They have so much shit, and there's
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: this narrative like if anybody knows this thing about me,
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: they're going to think X, y Z, they won't like
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: me anymore whatever. And what you experience is, I think frequently, uh,
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: the reality, which is no, no, they they probably actually
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: like you a little bit more like all of a sudden,
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: you're more relatable and human and like, yeah, you're also
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: a mess. Welcome to the come on, like.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, come see that.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we're totally but when you're in shame, you're like
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: torturing yourself with all these things. And oh my gosh, Okay,
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: So Tiffany, I really want to hear about the story
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: of you know how how you change this. But before
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: we shift, can I just ask one more question? And
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: this is my own twisted curiosity. Here was this person, Jake,
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: Jake the Thief. Was this somebody that they were like
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: romantically involved with or was this sort of a like
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: I'm your new best friend kind of comment.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: A little bit? And so I had met him on
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: spring break when I was in college, and so kind
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: of like he express kind of but I mean, and
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: I thought that he was handsome, but I didn't at
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: the time, if I remember correct, I think I had
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: a boyfriend, so I didn't it never like I met
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: a mon spring break that he was cute. We exchanged
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: numbers and we stayed connected, but never never dated, never anything.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: But then later I wasn't with my boyfriend anymore, and
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: we hung out a few times, but nothing, you know,
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: it never materialized into anything. So we had been friends
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: for about six years before this, so I'd watched him
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: navigate from a place of what I thought, when you're
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: in your twenties as well, cars. Yeah, so it wasn't
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: like this wasn't a stranger. I didn't know how he
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: made his wealth. I knew he would talk about investments,
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: and so I won't say to be fair because he's
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: a thief, but he I welcomed it because I asked him, hey, Jake,
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: you know you always have money. You always have this.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: I hear you talking about investments. Can you teach me
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: to invest? So he probably was thinking to himself, I
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: was not planning on scamming Tiffany, But okay.
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: You asked for it, all right, And.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: So he said it sounds so I always cringe when
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: I think about the proposition. He's essentially said, Tiffany, He's
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: originally from France, and he said, in Paris, I have
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: a number of stores and like I purchased a lot
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: of like American made products to send them to Paris
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: and these stores and they sell so like anything from
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: like Levi Jean's converse, like very American, you know. And
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: I said, oh okay. So he was like, if you want,
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: we can go in on a barrel together and this
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: will which sounds so crazy. I think it was like
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: either twenty or thirty thousand dollars, which is like a
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: million dollars to meet when I was like twenty thirty.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: And what I'll do is it will generate two thousand
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: dollars a month for you. Is that what he said?
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: For like two years, I don't even know it just
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: I look back at it now. That doesn't actually even
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: make sense. The math is not math, but it was
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: something to that effect that he would sell the clothes
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: and then I would get money for it. But I
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: remember it was like a good amount of money. It
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: was like two thousand dollars either a week or a
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: month for like two years. I was like, oh my god.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: I did the math. I'm like, oh my gosh, you
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: know that's like fifty thousand dollars sixty or seventy, basically
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: tripling my money. And I said sure, So I mean
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: asked me if we went to purchase the clothes. Now,
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: I just gave him the money, you know, so when
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: you go to the bank, and I should have known
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: because all the red flags, you know, and you are
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: you said you're a therapist, correct or yeah right, so
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: you because my therapist always says, what are you feeling
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: in your body? I was feeling it in my body,
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: you know. I walk you through the bank. Everything was
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: just And I remember at the time because at twenty three,
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: I looked like I was nineteen eighteen, and I was
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: teaching pre school and we used to have to wear
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: nurses scrubs so we could play with the kids and
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: not get our clothes dirty. So I was wearing Teddy
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: Bear nurse scrubs, going into the bank, looking like someone's
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: baby and saying, Hi, my name's Tiffany. I'd like to
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: take twenty thousand thousands off my credit card. They sat
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: me down and said, basically, they were asking me, are
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: you being trafficked? Every red flag, Lisa, are you okay?
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: Is someone threatening me? Are you? I'm like yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeh,
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: I'm fine. Every I mean, literally, it couldn't have been
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: more clear. And so I handed over the money and
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: he was I mean, it didn't take him even a
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: couple of days to just ghost me and be completely gone.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: And it took me. It took me a few weeks
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: to realize that he was gone. And I remember I
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: was like, no, no, no, he wouldn't do it to me.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: This is my friend of setiars. But he did. I
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: will say he tried to do one more scam on me,
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: because he finally called me a week so later. I
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: don't know if he ran out of money and said, oh,
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: I'm so so, I've been so busy. I just need
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: five thousand more dollars to complete the transaction. And I said,
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: I don't have that. You still have my money, just
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: give me my money back, and then he disappeared. So
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: his name is not really Jake. It's a very unique name.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: And so when I googled it every few years, I
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: would google it to see like what is he up to?
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: And it came up a few years ago. He's sitting
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: in federal prison because he I guess upped the ante
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: with his scams and not getting caught, and so he
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: tried to scam the federal government. And this is how
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: terrible he is. He has a twin brother, not identical,
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: but fraternal. In the document, he tried to pin it
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: on his twin brother, saying, oh, man, yeah, But then
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: when the government found that they were fraternal, was they
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: were like, I didn't even look alike. So that's what
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: you're claiming. Could be him, was not him. So either way,
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: this was not a good person. And so he's now
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: paying the price for that kind of Yeah.
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: But thank you, I mean again, just for sharing the story,
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: for giving this visibility. And part of my curiosity is
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: that I think there are so many highly effective ways
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: to lose a bunch of money, and I think that
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: getting caught up in different investment things and even going
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: into business with somebody who doesn't have terrible intentions, like
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: there could be people that just don't know what they're
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: doing and it seems like a good idea and mismanage it,
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: but that there are also actual predators among us. It
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: sounds like you connected with one of them. And just
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: as a resource for our friends who are listening, if
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: you scroll back through my podcast feed, it was probably
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: the end of last year. I recorded a very interesting
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: episode with a man Jonathan. I'll have to look up
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: the name. But it is really about psychopaths and scam
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: artists and how to spot one, how to protect yourself
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: from one. And so for anybody listening, just listen to that,
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: because I know, I'm sure you were like, how could
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: this possibly be happening to me? And that's what everybody thinks,
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: but it's real, and this is we're talking about finances today,
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: and that's really important.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: And I said, I'm grateful for that happening to me.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: And this is what I've learned to think about all
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: of my financial fiascal mistakes, because that made so many
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: that was like, please, that's not even I mean, I remember,
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: like I rented out my condo to a friend, thinking like, okay,
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: well while I move back home, somebody will pay my mortgage.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: He ended up not paying me for like every month.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: I was crying, please, maybe money, and so I know,
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: so that was a bus you know. I ended up
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: taking all the money out of my four one K
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: to try to save the condo, and so I lost
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: all that money because I lost the condo. Anyway, I
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: could have kept my forty thousand dollars in my four
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: one k. Every mistake you can think of when people
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: come to me with shame. I'm like, oh, come sit down,
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: we talk about mistakes. Let me tell you about the sticks.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: Like I got my masters, I should have worked on
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: some scholarships fifty thousand dollars only not to become a principal.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: I was like, I don't want to do it after
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: getting my master's in education. Just so many Well this
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: is good.
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: So let me ask you, because I know we are
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: all gathered around to learn how to crush it. I'd
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: be good at money and all the things, but I
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: cannot pass up this opportunity. So you have personally participated
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: in a number of situations where like that was not
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: a good idea, And I'm sure that you have had
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: a front row seat to so many other people and
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: the decisions that seemed like a good idea in the
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: moment that turned out not to be financially, What are
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: the common threads when you see somebody about to lose
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: their shirt? What are the common elements? Just so that
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: we can all get visibility into this.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: First things first is that you have no plan that
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: the money has come. You have no plan. Okay, it's magic,
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: it's just money comes in. So I had a client
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: that I was working with him and his wife. She
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: just recently lost her job and they're trying to figure
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: out what to do. Sadly, his arm passed away not
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: that long ago, and he was like, but she left
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: him seventy thousand dollars. I said, okay, So I told
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: them create a plan and then shared the plan with
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: me we could walk through. They called me. We pet
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: for a credit card debt. We gave our son ten
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: thousand dollars. We did. Now we're down to fifteen thousand.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: I said, why what plan? First paper to pen plan,
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: no movement. Put that money in a high yield Savors account.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: Remake the plan. They're like, oh, I thought, I was like,
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: because I know they met well, but this is why
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: the cycle continues for them, because they act without the plan.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: And I too was doing that. That's why the cycle.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: And so I disrupted and said plan first. Money is
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: coming in like a plan looks like a budget a planet,
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: like if you're having like your regular like income, but
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: let's just say you're getting your refront check, or maybe
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: you got into a car accident and getting money that way,
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: but a plan written down what I'm gonna do with
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: this money? Right? So that's one and then two, especially
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: if it's a lump sum more than you've had before
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: leaning in and asking for help. The reason why I
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: made the mistake with Jake the Thief is because literally
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: I had a CFO who I call father, and I
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: did not pick up the phone and say, hey, what
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: do you think about this incredible investment idea. He'd even like, yeah, no,
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: here's how he's scamming you. But I did not ask
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: for help, you know, And so it's okay not to know.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: That's what I tell my nineteen year old. I told Alyssa,
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: it's okay not to know, but it's not okay not
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: to ask for help when you don't know. And so
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: that couple, they didn't ask for help, they just did whatever.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: And then it's taking uneducated action. That's the third mistake.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: It's just like, so you've not created a plan, you've
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: not asked for help, and yet you're taking action anyway.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: Because I think it's like the average person who wins
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: the lottery after like four or five years is actually broker.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: So you win ten million and you're negative a million
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: dollars in dead later, because what happens is that uneducated
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: actually with money, it's never as much as you think,
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: whether it's five thousand or five million dollars, it's never
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: as much as it as you think. And it goes
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: very quickly. So when you're taking these uneducated choices with
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: your money, it goes very quickly. And I've made all
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: of those. So finally I had to disrupt. I said,
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: first we make a plan, whether it's my regular budget
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: or money is coming in in a lump sum. Then
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: is this the kind of money that I don't know
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: what to do? Then I'm going to seek out help.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: Financial advisors are as low as one hundred and fifty
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: dollars for an hour, like two hundred and three hundreds
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: on average, right, so you can literally sit down for
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: one hour to say here's the plan. So with that
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: seventy thousand, they could have sat down and said, we're
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: gonna spend three hundred dollars to sit down, but they
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: had me. They could have like, and they're part of
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: a program, so it was free for them, you know,
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: but they could have asked that, And then you start
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: to take the action that the plan has said, not
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: just uneducated, like, oh, we're just kind of pulling things
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: out of a hat. And so that's the mistakes I made,
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: and that's if you are finding yourself back in the
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: same psycho as your money, you're likely making one of
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: those three mistakes or all three. Typically.
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that is really good advice and just so clear,
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: like if you're not doing these things, you could run
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: into trouble.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. And it's not about blame. Like I told them.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: I was like, that's not about Blaine. They were like,
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: oh yeah, yeah yeah yah. I said no, no, no, no, no.
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: I said, now that you know when you nobody could
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: do better. So you've made I like, at this what
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: I would say, Lisa, like I've made five hundred dollars
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: mistakes and I'm like, oh no, but then it prevented
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: me from making a five thousand dollar mistake. I'm like, oh,
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: I've made five thousand dollars mistakes and I'm like no,
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: but then later it prevented me from making a fifty
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: thousand dollars mistake. And so I'm grateful for all of
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: it because it's also useful. So no matter where you are,
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: I know that you get to take that knowledge and say, oh,
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: this is going for prevent me from the next level
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: of mistake because I'm making it now.
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the whole growth mindset idea that it is by
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: having experiences that we learn about ourselves the world, and
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: so to not get too fixated on the mistake or
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: the loss, but really like what did I learn? And
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: that that's it sounds like really important when it comes
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: to money, especially Yes, yeah, oh my gosh, I have
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: so many more questions for you. Okay, we have to
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: take a super quick break, and then on the other side,
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: I'd love to get your insight into other things to
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: watch out for. Like, so what we've been talking about
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: are like the big dramatic, like catastrophic you did what
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: was seventy thousand dollars, like those kinds of things. But honestly,
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: I don't know if this is true for you. I
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: feel like most people never get their hands on seventy
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: thousand dollars and run into plenty of financial trouble anyway,
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: not because of the windfall, but because of more than
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: like day to day. Is that Okay, let's talk about
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: that on the other side of the break. Okay, you
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: guys were back with my very special guest, Tiffany Alice,
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: the budget nista and author of the book Get Good
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: with money. Ten simple steps to becoming financially whole. So, Tiffany,
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: just before the break our cliffhanger, you were about to
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: share some of your insights into the less dramatic ways
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: people get in trouble with money that are quiet. They
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: don't even realize it's happening until they look up one
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: day and it's like, oh, thirty thousand dollars in credit
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: card debt. Well, how does that happen?
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: Honestly, the money typically drips in and drips out, you know.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: So it's things like those subscriptions you're not really using
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: because you tell yourself, oh, it's only ten dollars, it's
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: only twenty dollars, it's only thirty dollars. But then collectively though,
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: that might be two hundred dollars a month worth of
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: its only, So that's one of the things it's only
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: and then not using automation to your advantage, Lisa, Right,
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: So I believe that automation is a new discipline, right.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: It's because I mean, if there's anything like me, if
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: I have to do it physically, I'm likely to forget.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: I have ADHD. I'm all over the place, right, And
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: so with automation you can automate your paycheck to land
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: and your wherever you wanted to land. I like for
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: it's I like to have a four bank account system
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: to checking, two savings checking, one for bills, checking, two
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: for spending, savings, one for emergencies, savings, one for goals.
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: And so I like to have my savings at a
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: high yield savings account, so away from my checking, so
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: I can earn more interest. And so automation. So if
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: that if my money comes in and splits it, I
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: call it split it before you get it. If money
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: comes in, it gets split into those four accounts. I
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: know my money is being saved. I know my bills
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: are sitting in my bill's account, and whatever I swipe
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: with my debit card that's attached to my because I
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: don't attach my bill's account to my debit card, that's
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: attached to my spending account. And so and then ideally,
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: if you know you make enough I like for my
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: bill's account to pay my bills automatically, the bill just
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: money goes out every month. And so one of the
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: ways that like that drip of financial responsibility slowly but surely,
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: is automating that process for yourself. Like oh, my money
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: comes in a HR payroll already knows to split my
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: money before I get my money into these accounts. So
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: when I'm out swiping my debit card, I know it's
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: not my bill money. I know it's not my savings.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: It's the money I've set aside for spending. And so's
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: that's one of the ways it's said it's only ten dollars,
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: it's only five dollars. It's only and yes, but also
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: it's also habits. You know you can it's only because
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden, ten dollars when you're twenty becomes
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: one hundred dollars when you're forty, you know, becomes maybe
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: a thousand dollars when you're in. Before you know it,
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: you're like, how much of that money? And I don't
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: want you to not enjoy life, but I want you
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: to be intentional with spending so much of So many
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: of us are unintentional spenders. There are four questions that
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: I say, Lisa, you should ask yourself before you spend
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: any money. Do I need it? Do I love it?
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: Do I like it? Do I want it? Need it?
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: Love it like it? Want it? Needs come first? Food, shelter, clothing, medicine, transportation.
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: I have to have it to be healthy and safe. Right,
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: then love's come second. A love is something a year
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: from now. That item will still that thing you purchase,
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: that experience, item, whatever, will still bring you joy a
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: year from now. So if you're not a foodie and
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: you're like splurging all the time on like Uber eat
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: to whatever, it's like, okay, but you're not really a
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: foodie and you look at your you're like, oh, I
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: spend two thousand dollars a year on Uber Eats. Why
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: that's a vacation. Where's a vacation? Maybe for you a
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: year later it would still bring you joy. Likes are
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: things six months from now. So some some temporary joy
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: and want to just instant, you know, gratification. And so
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: I don't want you to not get things that you
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: like and want. But most of your spending should be
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: in the needs and love category, so it's really meaningful.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: So it's not less. I'm not here to say, oh,
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: spend less. No, No, When you do spend, let it
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: be in the meaningful category of your life. So those
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: are some of the ways that you can redirect the
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: money in the ways that are really helpful. To you
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: and some of the ways that money is dripping out
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: these kind of day to day expenses that don't move
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: the needle really yeah.
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and to be more intentional about it as opposed
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: and reflexive. Yes, Okay, can I ask you another question?
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: I think I probably know what the answer to this is,
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: but I'm gonna ask anyway, how do you feel about
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: credit cards?
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: So I'm not anti credit card. I think I'll try
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: to think about a credit card like the way you
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: think of a hammer. A hammer in itself is not
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: better good. You can use a hammer to build a house,
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: that same hammer can be used to destroy a house.
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: It's the person wielding it that gets to the side.
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: So a credit card. You can certainly use a credit
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: card as a tool to help you on your financial journey,
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: or to purchase things that you might want to you
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: don't have the money for right now, but you're gonna
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: pay it off responsibly. Or maybe you want to earn points,
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: like I haven't paid for a flight not all hour
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: long because I use credit cards to earn points. So
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: I can use a credit card to help build my
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: financial house. But that same credit card, if I choose,
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: can be used to destroy my financial house. The credit
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: card is like, look, I'm just a beas plastic you
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: bring me to life. And so that's how I feel
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: about it, that it's a piece of plastic that you
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: bring to life. And if you're not ready, There's been
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: times when I went credit card free for like two
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: or three years because I could not trust myself. It's
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: like I don't buy chocolate tip cookies because I'm obsessed.
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: So if chocolate tip cookies are in the house, I'm
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: eating them. So I'm like, no chocolate tip cookies in nows.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: And so if you know right now, I don't have
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: the willpower to say no to my credit card, It's
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: okay to set it aside. It's not bad. You just
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: have to know yourself.
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: Okay, thank you so much. And that's such a great point.
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: And to yourself, how trustworthy are you in the middle
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: relationship where the credit card? Okay? But so can we
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: crack deeper into this because what you're talking about, any
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: of these habits or credit cards like inanimate objects. Right,
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: But we have a belief or we are telling ourselves
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: a story or we are there's like an internal thing happening.
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: And person number one who uses a credit card gets
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: the points all as well. Person number two. There's a
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: different story motivating different behaviors. What are the stories that
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: are associated with financial success wealth versus ruin?
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: So let's talk about ruin. It's never enough. I'll never
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: make enough. I will always struggle. I had a friend
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: who grew up an object poverty, like just and he
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: was making six figures and he can you sit down
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: and help me with budget? I just need to get
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: out of poverty. And I assume maybe he was unemployed
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: or whatever. So when he brought his pay stuff, I said,
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: but you make six figures. She said yeah. I said wait,
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: you said if you want me to help you get
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: out of poverty, which is very specific, and he said yeah.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: I'm like, you're not currently in poverty. But he was
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: in his head he was It wasn't him that was currently.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: Like my therapist always says, how old is that Tiffany?
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: Is that forty six year old tivity? You know, because
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: sometimes I'm like and then this happened, and then she's like,
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: how old is that Tiffany? And I'm like, that's my
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: nine year old self talking, not my forty six year
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: old self. Okay, So I for so that is some
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: of the story that some of us bring. Obviously, most
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: of it comes from how we grew up in relation
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: to money. So he was bringing that money is hard,
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: money is scarce, money is So he grew up with
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: family members who were who suffer from addiction, and so
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: a lot of money and things were stolen from him
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: as a child, and so he was carrying that story
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: with him, although his current life was not an actual
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: reflection of that.
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: But this is paradoxical because I would think that somebody
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: who had a mindset around, oh no, I am living
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: in poverty, I don't have any money, that they would
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: be very oriented to save money and like tuck it
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: away and then in reality maybe have a lot of money.
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: But you're saying that that's not true. That actually can create.
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: A sometimes too. What happens is like you bring yourself
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: to the Your money can only do as good as
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: your mindset will allow. So if you I noticed, he
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: would get a good job because he was well educated,
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: had his master's, then lose it, and then because he
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: would save up money and then have to live off
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: that money and bring him back to zero because that's
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: what he believed about himself. I don't have any money,
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: and so life is like, okay, well I agree, I
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: have plenty of money. Okay, well I agree. And so
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: that's what for many people like, either they bring themselves
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: back to that value of zero what they believe, or
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: you know, they hoard in such a way that they
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: might as well be at zero. You know, they don't
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: ever you know, they don't ever get to enjoy. And
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: so I lived there for a little while, not because
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: I grew up with the mindset that money was hard,
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: but because I made so many mistakes in a short
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: period of time. I no longer trusted myself. I didn't
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: know if that's what was happening. I was still mad
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: at twenty five to twenty eight year old Tiffany, and
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: I said, we don't trust you, So you don't get
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: any money, you don't get to spend anything. I was hoarding.
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: I had a year's worth of my salary. Say, I
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: wasn't getting anything done, I wasn't taking care of myself.
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: I was wearing old clothes. I was My parents were like,
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: are you okay? And I had all this money saved,
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: but I was so afraid to do anything because I said,
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: I don't trust Tiffany.
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: Well, I didn't trust herself. But also that was a trauma,
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: was a very real trauma that you experienced, a betrayal trauma,
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: and also the broken trust in yourself. I must have
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: been terrified.
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: I had to go back and forgive her. I had
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: to go back and say, you didn't know, you did
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: the best you knew, how was what you knew, and
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: you did finally ask for help, and not only did
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: you do that, now you help other people. I had
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: to literally talk to her and say, I need you
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: to I need I need you to know that I
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: forgive you. Now you're not the same Tiffany, because I
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: needed her to go sit down and stop showing up.
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: When I was starting to make money, it's like, before
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: you start, it's like, I don't know if you watched Rugrats,
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: Oh CHUCKI from Rugrats was like, that's not such a
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: good idea. I think we should just see that. It's
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: always praying. I call it post traumatic broke syndrome. And
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: so I literally one of the reasons why I started
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: therapy was to rid myself of that, you know, because
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: I thought it was a money thing, and it was,
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: but mostly it was like I needed to navigate the
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: trauma of that to say, so I forgive h that, Tiffany,
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: And so now I can make mistakes. And because I
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: still make mistakes and finances without tumbling back down to
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: here you go again, Tiffany, we knew you couldn't be trusted. No,
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: it's just like, no, this is this is a one off.
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: So the question if you are navigating this is a
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: question that my therapist, doctor Green, gave me. Is it
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: true I can't be trusted with money? Okay? Is that true?
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: And even if it's true that you made a mistake,
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: is it the only truth available? You know? So it's
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: like you made a mistake, but you are not a mistake.
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: There's other truths circulating here. You know, you don't have
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: to just cherry pick the one that makes you feel
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: the worst. It's like, let's let's you know fun. Yeah,
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: you know, it's like right, It's like, hey, you also
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: grown a successful business. Hey, you've also helped people. Hey,
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: there's other truths that we could join into the mix.
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: So I asked myself even when, like even now, because
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: sometimes I can get spirally sometimes, you know, like, is
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: it true? Maybe is it the only truth available? No?
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: Certainly not. So let's good, you know, let's blend the
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: other truth collectively so to what's actually happening here.
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Tiffy, this is so good and I love what
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: we're talking about, just you know, the inner turmoil that
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: our relationships with money and our experiences with money can create.
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: I know we don't have a ton more time with you,
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: so I want to be very, very sure that on
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: the other side of this break we talk about two things.
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: I know that you have so much insight into couples
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: dynamics because we're talking about how fraud it can be
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: when you're one person try to navigate your relationship with money.
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: But I think it's always true in a relationship there
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: are two people that a whole different set of values
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: and life experiences and hang ups and hopes and goals.
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: Money means different things to different people. It's never about
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: the money. I would love for you to take us
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: into some of your insights about that on the other
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: side of the break, and also some of your top
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: tips for how to get good with money.
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: Okay, it sound like a plan.
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: Okay, friends, we are back with Tiffany A. Leech, the
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: budget nista and author of the book Get Good with
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: Money tend Simple Steps to becoming financially Whole, now available
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: in paperback. Yeah. So, Tiffany, before the break we landed on,
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: you know, you were speaking so powerfully around what some
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: of your experiences with money did to you and how
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: you really needed to get visibility into that, like heal
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: it intentionally. And I think you and I both know
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: that there are so many people walking around with big
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: stuff attached to money, and then they get in relationships
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: with each other and then what happens. What are some
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: of the things you've seen.
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: Well, sometimes you're mismatimate, almost a savor almost always Marris
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: a spender. Hah.
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: Balance in the forest, yes, right.
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: But even like two savers can overdo it, two spenders
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: can overdo it. Money really reveals how well you communicate
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: or don't. So sadly, my husband passed away in twenty
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: twenty one, but we were on different He definitely was
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: more of a spender and I was more of a saver,
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: and it took a little while for us to find so,
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: you know when you first got mean, I know the
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: kids now don't dance, but like back to the day
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: we used to go to the club. You know, that's
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: right now you do a little two step. It's a
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: little awkward dance in the beginning until you both get
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: on the same rhythm. And so that's the way it
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: goes with like your money conversations. If you're if it's
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: awkward with your partner, it's meant to be. I mean,
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: we're just meeting each other. Do we grow up together?
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean? And so that awkward financial
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: dance you're trying to understand. The key to that dance
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: finding the rhythm is where is a baseline that we
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: both agree upon without compromise. So it might be it
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: could be something simple if we both like vacation, Okay,
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: let's start there. So for Jarelle and I, it was
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: how I would always get him is because he'd want
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: to spend money on whatever, and I'm like, well, we
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: haven't set aside money for Alissa, my bonus daughter, his daughter,
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: and so like, yes, let's do that, but let's also
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: equally match for her college fund or whatever. He was
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: never gonna say, now, who cares about Alissa? That was
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: the love of his life aside from me. And so
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: that was like the baseline where it's like whenever we
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: got into a financial I'm like, okay, we can do
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: that as long as we set aside money for Alissa.
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: And I was always on for it and he was
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: always for it. And then it became vacation, and then
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: it became saving for a wedding, and then it became
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: saving for a house. So we built upon that baseline,
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: and then it became easier to have the conversations even
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: if he didn't always agree and I didn't always agree,
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: because we had these safety baselines that we built up,
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: and we learned to talk about money in a healthy place.
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: But start with the baseline. It doesn't have to be responsible.
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: You know. It could be like I said, literally, it
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: could be vacation. It could be home renovation, something that
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: that we both We don't argue about it. We just yeah,
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: I love to eat out. I love to eat out. Great,
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: So then let's start saving to eat out. Because what
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: you're training each other is how to save together.
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: Oh I see, and so what this I mean? This
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: is brilliant. And you're saying, find points of agreement, find
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: points of connection, build on those. But I think I'm
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: also hearing make sure that those are outside the typical
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: day to day that what you're trying to do is
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: create savings goals together where you're you sort of have
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: a or a united mission.
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: Yes, some missions. It could be saving, it could be investing,
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: but some sort of united financial mission where you don't
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: have to be convinced neither does he even if it
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: seems silly or it's not as it's vacation, It's like no, no, no,
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: it's not really vacation because vacation could I took Alyssa
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: and vacation and we spread it into a life because
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: we were like, oh, we can agree about finances. Because
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: then it became well, if we're going to send a
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: side money for a listen, we have to budget. And
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: if we're going to budget, we have to get better credit.
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: We're got to get better credit. You see how it
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: can all of a sudden, this one goal, you know,
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: whatever it is, trips or eating out or buying clothes, whatever,
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: can activate these other things that have to happen to
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: make that thing happen.
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: I don't know if you would use this term, but
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: I'm thinking right now like a keystone habit, Like if
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: you find one thing that you can rally around, all
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: this other stuff can start to easily happen, and you've
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: seen that happen in your relationship, but also for others,
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: and that's wonderful because, you know, it seems like in
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: my experience, in my background, I'm an LMFT right, do
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: a lot of couples constant relationship coaching, and I think
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: that many couples can go dark, you know, like they're
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: very focused on points where they're not magic, and there
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: could just be so much judgment about it, Like my
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: way of looking at the situation is the correct way,
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: and if you could only be more like.
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: That ideas the bully he said, if people only knew
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: you and the budget East the bully and meanwhile, my
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: husband six y six, this beautiful black man, you know.
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: He was like I meanwhile, I'm five seven, Like this
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: is what we're gonna do? He was like, if they
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: only knew, they think it's so nice. I'm like, I
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: am nice. But I was a bit of it, like
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: we're doing this I know best? And if I realized
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: that's not fair, because is it true? Is it the
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: only truth available? Who said I know best? And so
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: once I realized, okay, what's the one thing we don't
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: argue about when it comes to money, and then we
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: built from there, and then we created a system because
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: I truly believe that couples should have joint money. This
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: is like marriage or like seriously committed you know, so
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: this is my boyfriend and girlfriend off the bat, but
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: I believe that committed couples should have some sort of
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: joint money, but also autonomous, separate money for yourself share,
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: you know. So we always had three accounts, three checking
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: so we had a checking together, which is where or
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: we would pay bills and things, family things out of,
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: and then we each had our own checking so we
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: can spend how we liked, and we will put like
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: our own money into it, like fairly kind of equal
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: money into that. So that way, when he bought some
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: sneakers or whatever, I wasn't like, did that come from
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: the Bill's account? I know it didn't, because we had
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: our separate We had joint savings for a goal that
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: we would have to get to purchase the house, and
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: then we had our own savings because maybe he wanted
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: something larger later on down the line, and when he
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: got it, it stopped me from saying, well, because he's
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: not a child, that's what it turned out, being like
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: would you get that. I've just been this. So once
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: we created that system, it's like it didn't come out
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: of our joint account. And as a married couple, the
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: majority of our money went to the family. So it
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: wasn't like, oh, twenty percent went to the family and
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: you got to keep eighty. It was like no, no, no,
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: the majority went to the collective. But I know now
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: I can relax knowing because it wasn't that I was
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: trying to control. I was I think about.
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: Therapy, like actually.
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: Right, because the troll was really what I was seeking
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: with safety, Yeah, I could, you know. And so once
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: I realized, oh, there's other ways to have safety that
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: doesn't involve me controlling every purchase that he makes, which
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: is like, oh, the joint money is always here, this
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: is our safety bubble. So same thing for investments. We
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: had joint investments, we had separate and so so yeah,
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: that was one of that. But it started off with
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: literally just saving for vacation and for Alyssa and then
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: growing from there and so but a lot of communication,
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: a lot of talking through it. I learned from him
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: that you can say the hard things softly, you know,
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: because I'd be like I probably was judging and I
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: didn't even realize. And he's like, you know, you could
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: be right, but still wrong. And so I learned to
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: be like, oh, you know, like he's not doing you know,
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: he's not He didn't buy sneakers to be like, aha, gotcha.
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: Once I explained I just didn't feel safe, He's like, oh, okay,
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: that makes sense. So what what what's necessary for us
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: to feel safe? Here? We've got six months of emergency savings. Okay,
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: oh you know, let me let's automate the bills and
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: you see the bill, money comes out of okay, you know,
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: And so we just had like he really taught me.
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: He was like such an amazing communicator. I didn't grow
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: up with a group a very traditional African household, and
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: so communication from children was not exactly like the normay
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: it was like you listened and you say yep, yes sir, yes, ma'am, yes, mommy,
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: yes dad. But he grew up in a very like communicative,
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: like conversational household with his mom. And I saw it
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: in the way he parented Alissa, because she would be
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: upset and he would say, Liz, you know you're allowed
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: to tell me what's wrong, you know, you're stomping around,
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: but no talk to me respectfully. But you're always allowed
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: to share what's wrong. And I remember being like, she's
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: allowed to say what she's feeling. I thought that that
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: was so awesome because not that I couldn't say, but
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: it was very prescribed how we had to show up
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: as children in a strict household, you know, like my
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: parents were great, but they were strict. And to watch
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: him negotiate and navigate like that, he really taught me
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: safe communication. So I was able to say, like, why
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: I was showing because it's never money, there is what
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: was actually happening behind the money, And consider having two
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: like we had a safe word that when a conversation
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: went from helpful to hurtful. Because I have four sisters,
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: it was always very competitive, so sometimes you'd be wanting
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: up each other like well, I can't wait to win
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: this argument. No, and then and then then you know,
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: like cause you're like whatever, we'll make up later. And
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: so but I took that kind of confrontation into relationship
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: with me where I'm like, oh, I'm gonna win this argument,
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: and but that's like that's not that wasn't how he
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: navigated because my sisters. It was like whatever, you know,
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: we you know, two seconds later we're laughing. But it
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: wasn't navigating like that in our relationship, and so we
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: learned to be like, okay. The word was pineapples for us,
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: which meant when it started to elevate beyond this is
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: not helpful, it's actually feeling kind of bad. One of
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: us could say pineapples, and it meant everyone stop talking, everybody,
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: and then you go to your corner, to the man
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: cab or whatever. You go to your corner to just
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: woos out for a moment before we come back together.
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: And sometimes it would make me so mad because I'd
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: be like I was winning and then I stopped like winning.
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: I guess your husband symphony. I know. So these are
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: really un candid because I just it's relationships. Nothing brings
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: out your trauma and all of your things like relationships do.
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: And this also thing is a perfect relationship. But we
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: had such a good one because of the level of
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: communication we got to because we learned to use that safeboard.
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: It was to the point where towards the end, right
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: before he passed away, the last year of his life,
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: he had an aneurysm, so I was very sudden we
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: went from a good marriage to an excellent one because
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: he didn't even have to say pineapples anymore, because I
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: would self pineapples myself, because I'd be like, you know what,
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: pineapples stiphany. Actually it's not even less serious, you know,
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: Like I used to what are we talking about here?
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: We agreed upon this is how we're gonna spend like
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: our vacation money. We're good, you know, And so like,
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: I cannot stress how important open, safe communication is with
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: any partner or relationship, especially when it deal when it
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: comes to money, because money already comes with its own
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: kind of like hang up and headache with it, so
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: if you can pair it with really safe communication. Like
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: the couple that I just met with that had spent
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: the you know, the seventy thousand dollars, they were feeling
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: so much shame, and I said, you have something even
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: more valuable than the seventy thousand that you basically like spent.
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: I said, you have each other. I could tell there
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: was so much love between them. I said, so there's
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: nothing that you can't overcome and fix. You get to
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: talk about it, and she's like, you know, it was
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: like that is so important and so that to me,
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: if you're in a partnership, that's a really good one. Yeah,
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: make it a safe place to talk about everything, especially money.
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: I'm so sorry for your lost Tiffany. You must miss
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: him so much. I mean, it sounds like a beautiful
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: man the best.
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: Honestly, it's crazy. He has an identical twin. Actually just
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: saw his twin today and I was like, I hadn't
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: seen him in a couple months, so I definitely was
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: because he had the same haircut. I mean, like when
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: I say identical, like identical, you know obviously I know
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: them apart because we met in our twenties. But it
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: just I'm just so grateful that I got to experience
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: that kind of love from somebody. And so and my
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: bonus daughter, Alyssa, her mom is awesome. She lives with
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: me still. She's like, can I because she was away
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: at school. I was like, oh, I hate she's the
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: only child. So she's like, I hate living on campus.
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: Can I live with you instead? I said sure, So
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: your mom okay with that because we live in the
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: same city. And she was like, yeah, you know, And
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: so her mom and I are close still. You know,
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: we were fortunate that, you know, we had a really
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: good relationship when he was alive, and we still have
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: a really good relationship now. And then I get to
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: still keep my big baby, she's nineteen. And then his
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: brother is my brother. I'm just saying that today, and
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: I just and I will say that, like even in
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: Durell was really like a looker after. Although I made
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: significantly more than him when my business really took off,
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: and so he candidly never made over seventy I mean,
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: never made a sixty thousand dollars a year, but I
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: could make that in a month in business. But he
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: was still very much to provide her. And when he
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: passed away, he left collectively Alyssa and I like seven
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: figures with insurance and money that he left behind and property,
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: and so we just got to be really looked after,
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: and so the same things that I'm sharing with y'all
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: or how I navigate my life. And so there was
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: a tremendous amount of money that I had not gotten
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: that much in one lump sum So I asked for help.
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: I said, let me create a plan, let me ask
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: for help, let me work the plan. And Alyssa gets
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: to do the same thing because she has a ton
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: of money coming when when she graduates college. And so yeah,
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: I mean, life is going to bury you so much,
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: but you know, I yeah, but I am fortunate. If
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: I could choose it again, knowing the outcome, I would
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: choose it a hundred times just how wonderful it was
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: to be. And still I really feel beloved by him.
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: You know, that's such a beautiful story, Tony. Thank you
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: so much for sharing it with us. And I think also,
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: like I think that when couples get sideways about money,
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: it can feel like everything is wrong right when there
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: are these differences. It's not just having differences around money,
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: it's like your character as a human, like that kind
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: of thing, and it can get so ugly. And I'm
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: so grateful for just you know, allowing us to bask
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: in the glow of this beautiful, beautiful relationship human just
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: for a moment and also have an example of what
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: it looks like. So people who are coming into a relationship,
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: did you guys hear this with differences? They had different
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: values around money, they wanted different things, safer spender. You know, Alyssa,
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: you are the budget deista bully, right, Yeah, it's the
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: destroyer of all fun. And we're able to create this
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: beautiful partnership just by starting with finding just some points
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: of agreement and focusing on emotionally safe communication and things
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: that you agree on, and then developing different systems that
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: were consensual you both were participating in, and so we're
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: not fighting about what's wrong. We are building things that
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: work and finding what's right. Oh so good. Yeah, And Alyssa,
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: just one one thing I will share. I'm afraid that
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: you and I were having such a good time that
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: we ran out of time to talk about the rest
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: of it, which are I'm sure this must be part
• 54:32
  Speaker 2: of the story, all of the systems and strategies and
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: mindsets and practices that you must have employed when you
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: got yourself out of that big fat hole. And so
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: maybe we leave it there. If you guys want to
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: know the rest of this, you're going to go have
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: to get your own copy of Get Good with Money.
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: Ten simple Steps to becoming financially whole. I'm sure that
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: all will be revealed.
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: By those ten steps are just quickly. Are the budgeting, savings, debt,
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: credit income, that's the find otional foundational five that investing
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: for both retirement and wealth, insurance, your net worth, your
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: financial team, and estate planning, and I walk you through
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: how to do all those tens so you can be
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: financially whole.
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: That's so good, I mean because honestly, who teaches us this?
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: Like even as you're just rattling those things up, there
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: were like probably two or three things on this list
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: of Lata which is talking about So I'm going to
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: get that book. But Tiffany, this was amazing. So Tiffany, Alichi,
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: tell us where else people might connect with you. Do
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: you have socials or what do.
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: You have to Yeah, so I am the budget Nista
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: on Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn YouTube, and then the budget Nista
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: dot com if you want to connect with me. And
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: the book Get Good with Money is sold everywhere, you know,
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: from wherever your favorite retailers are always and encourage people
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: to go to a small bookstore and then now so
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: they can get some business. But yeah, the budget Nista everywhere.
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: Okay, Tiffany, thank you so much for spending this time
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: with me today. It was truly a pleasure.
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: You're welcome.
• 56:12
  Speaker 3: Thank you, Lisa, thank you so much for spending this
• 56:21
  Speaker 3: time with me today.
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: And if you have found this episode helpful. Do your
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: good deed for the day, pass it on, pay it forward,
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: Share this episode with someone you care about who might
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: need to hear what you just heard today. Close your eyes,
• 56:41
  Speaker 2: think about who that is, and then boop hits end. Now.
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: As for you, if you are feeling inspired by what
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: we talked about today, if you're ready to go deeper,
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: whether it's in your relationship, your own personal development, or
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: maybe even your bigger sense of purpose, I would love
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: to help you. Come visit me at growing self dot com.
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: I have so many free resources for you, but you
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: can also schedule a free consultation with one of the
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: amazing licensed therapists on my team, who, like me, specialize
• 57:18
  Speaker 2: in evidence based coaching psychology. You can do that. You
• 57:22
  Speaker 2: can also explore the programs that we have designed for
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: you to create real and lasting change in your life
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: in a structured, step by step way, and do not
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: forget to go into my blog and podcast, my content
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: collections where you can find exactly what you need to
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: support your journey of growth. And hey, let's also stay connected.
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: If we're not already connected, come track me down. I
• 57:52
  Speaker 2: am on Instagram periodically and would love to hear from you,
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: or if you have a question or comment about the show,
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: just email me get in touch hello at growingseolf dot com.
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: All Right, until next time, you take care and keep growing.