Latest / Becoming Parents Podcast / Parenting and Finances - Reducing Stress to Increase Joy with Ryan Johnson - S7 E86

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Parenting and Finances - Reducing Stress to Increase Joy with Ryan Johnson - S7 E86 · Becoming Parents Podcast

0:00
Welcome to Becoming Parents podcast.
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I'm your host Jennifer Campbell, mom of 18 and executive director
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of the Doula Co-op of Nevada. With more than 15 years in birth
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work, I've had the privilege of walking beside families through
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life's transitions. My work centers on connection,
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community, and amplifying voices that too often go unheard.
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Each of these episodes is an honest conversation about the
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messy, beautiful, and transformative experiences that
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shape us as parents and as people.
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I'd like to extend a heartfelt thank you to the incredible
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guests who show up with and authenticity to share their
0:31
stories with us. Let's dive right in.
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Welcome to becoming parents. Today I have with me Ryan
0:37
Johnson. Ryan, how are you?
0:38
Super good, Jennifer. Thanks for having me on.
0:41
I'm really excited. This is I love this Segway.
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I want you to jump in and start sharing your parenting journey.
0:47
Absolutely. I have two beautiful young
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children, one who's going to turn 3 next week and then
0:54
another one who's over one. We just found out our third is
0:56
on the way soon, which is very exciting.
1:00
Yeah. So we'll have to.
1:01
You know, I've have parties who say 2 to 3 is horrible and
1:04
others who say O2 is much worse. So I'm kind of preparing for the
1:08
worst of it. But all that to say, my journey
1:14
to parenting was pretty unexpected.
1:19
One of the biggest and hardest parts of my engagement was I
1:22
always wanted a big family and my wife didn't want kids.
1:25
And it was like this moment of, well, what's, you know, where's,
1:29
where's they're gonna give here? And I just kind of was like, you
1:31
know, I love her so much. I'm willing to give up my own
1:33
hopes and dreams for that. My wife was also just kind of
1:36
like, well, we'll see how things go.
1:40
And what really was the strike for her was infertility.
1:44
Now, she didn't ever have that, but she's surrounded by friends
1:48
who were dealing with their own issues to get pregnant, some
1:50
taking years, some having several miscarriages.
1:54
And she kind of started to realize that the longer she
1:56
waits, you know, the more challenging it can be at times.
1:58
And so she was afraid that if she changed her mind down the
2:02
road, that it wouldn't be just a matter of, oh, you can decide to
2:05
get pregnant and then you get pregnant because that's kind of
2:07
how a lot of people treat it. So she's like, well, because
2:10
I'm, I might be open to it down the road.
2:11
We can, we can start trying now. And it happened right away.
2:14
So we're like, all right, well guess we're on this journey to
2:17
parenting and then the craziest thing happened.
2:19
We had our son and she's like being a mom is the most
2:22
important thing that's ever happened to me.
2:23
I am so happy about it. And during this crazy shift now
2:28
she's like, let's have 4 kids and I'm like all right, let's do
2:30
it. So that was my journey and it's
2:35
been fun 'cause I'm like, I, I always want a lot of kids and
2:37
there's just kind of a, it's like a story, you know, like a
2:40
movie, like I'll give up my dream so that I can be with you.
2:44
And she's like, aha, that was a test.
2:46
Now you can have your dream and me, you know so.
2:49
I mean, good for you kind of because there are deal Breakers.
2:54
My husband and I laugh about this all the time.
2:57
The deal Breakers. I'm like, how do you cut your
2:58
sandwich? Like straight down the middle?
3:00
I do it diagonally. Like this is probably a deal.
3:03
So we joke about the deal Breakers all the time, but
3:05
genuinely one person absolutely not wanting to have kids and one
3:10
person wanting a big family, that could be a huge deal
3:13
breaker. So for you to be like, actually,
3:15
I could live without having kids.
3:17
That's a massive concession. As well as her saying, you know
3:22
what, let's try this out. That's a big so that was that's
3:26
pretty huge. The good news is the way it
3:29
happened with you guys, you both got what you want, you just
3:31
didn't know it. Amen.
3:35
You know, I have this thing in my process with clients where I
3:38
talk about goals being guesses because we have this future idea
3:43
of what we think we'll want down the road.
3:44
And it tends to not be the case or more often what we want
3:48
shifts because our lives change. And so I kind of try to have
3:52
that philosophy like goals are helpful, they set, they set the
3:55
trajectory, but we don't have to hold on too loosely if over time
3:59
we're like, you know what, I don't want that anymore, or
4:01
here's everything I want. So.
4:02
Because A to B is not like this straight line, it's kind of all
4:05
the place and up the mountain and over to a different state.
4:08
And yeah, you're right, I think I think goal setting helps
4:11
people keep focused to move forward.
4:14
And so I love goals because of that.
4:16
And shorter term obviously are different.
4:18
But yeah, you have to have the flexibility to realize like
4:21
that's not the thing. And your wife ended up wanting
4:24
to stay home with so like going from not I don't think I want
4:27
kids to I'm going to stay home with them and let's have 4:00.
4:30
That's like a massive shift. So you guys had to navigate that
4:34
in your relationship. Also if she got pregnant that
4:37
feels like that wasn't even fun but.
4:40
Agreed. Yeah, I mean that's.
4:41
A sore subject for, you know, late night after a couple drinks
4:46
and I'm like, oh man, rolls me. And you know what's crazy?
4:49
It happened the same the same way the second time.
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And then it didn't happen right away for our for our third here.
4:55
That's on the way. But then it did the second one
4:58
so I was like hey at least I got 2 trimes, 2 trimes to cry that.
5:01
Time. I mean, we've all got to be good
5:02
at something, right? So there you go.
5:05
But that's that's crazy and great and what a blessing.
5:08
But you now have the three kids under 4.
5:12
You're gonna have three kids. 4 which is the third was the
5:15
hardest for me, by the way. But.
5:18
Well, you know, I think you can grab two kids with two hands and
5:21
you have like two sides of your lap and now you're, you're
5:25
outnumbered by the third one. And I just felt like I'm great,
5:29
it's great, it's great. And I was like, why did I think
5:31
I was going to do this? And then the 4th one came a year
5:34
later and I didn't care. Like it was you just go through
5:37
that initial, get a system for how you do things.
5:40
But your wife giving up work. That was never a point.
5:45
That was no issue for you, no issue for her.
5:48
That was a comfortable transition because that can be a
5:50
really tough transition for some families.
5:53
Yeah, and it's actually one that I, I help a lot of clients
5:56
navigate pretty regularly in the, there's a lot of fear,
6:01
right, Because dropping an income is not a big deal.
6:03
And in the modern landscape, it's like not an option for a
6:07
lot of folks. Then you introduce child care
6:10
costs and all that kind of thing.
6:12
So we did this thing for like probably the first nine months
6:14
after our son was born where my wife returned to work.
6:18
So she didn't immediately become a stay at home mom, but she
6:22
returned to work. And when they're really small,
6:25
you can kind of work from home and they're just sleeping and
6:27
napping and chilling in the little chair.
6:28
No big deal. As he was like 4 or five, six
6:31
months old, it was like, no, I can't get a Dang thing done.
6:34
I'm working from home. But really I'm getting like an
6:36
hour of work done. So that was kind of like the
6:39
point where it's like, OK, well, we got to figure out what we're
6:41
going to do here. And my wife at the time was
6:43
making like $50,000 a year and working in human resources and
6:49
all the childcare around us was like 30 to $40,000 a year.
6:53
And we're just like, and so for us then it was just kind of like
6:58
a, it would feel like we're losing out on, you know, the
7:03
$50,000 income. But in reality, so much of that
7:06
would go to childcare costs anyway, right?
7:10
We're have to, gonna have to make a, a lifestyle change.
7:13
And my wife was ready to quit the, the day she went back to
7:16
work. She was like, this is dumb.
7:18
Yeah. Nothing I do is as meaningful,
7:20
as important as caring for and, like, have an influence over the
7:24
trajectory of the soul that I now get to be to mother.
7:27
So. And that, that was beautiful to
7:30
me. I was not like, what?
7:31
You don't want to do that? Like, for me, it was like, OK, I
7:34
got to work harder, You know, I want to make sure I can provide
7:37
for a family. And there's also this reality of
7:41
very young children, depending on what you want for your kids,
7:45
where, you know, the zero to 4, zero to five time frame is, you
7:50
know, very, very crucial. And also like a huge point where
7:53
they need a lot of guidance. They can't, they're not going to
7:55
school yet. And that tends to be a huge
7:58
concern for a lot of clients when they're like, I, I can't
8:02
not do this. We're both going to have to
8:03
work. We have to pay for childcare,
8:05
but now that's like 30-40 thousand dollars going to
8:09
something that we're not able to save.
8:11
Like, what are we doing? Are we ruining our lives here?
8:14
And I'm like, no, no, no, like, let's actually look at this 510
8:16
year plan. Guess what happens in five
8:18
years? Like you either are going to
8:19
save money by sending in the private school or you're going
8:21
to save all of the money by sending them to the, you know,
8:23
public school, whatever is important to you.
8:26
And they're like, yeah, it's a good point.
8:29
You could save all of that or even just like half of it and
8:31
like get some breathing room back in your life.
8:33
You know, it's, it's just trying to, you know, have some
8:36
perspective, because I think one of the fallacies I know I make,
8:39
I mean, I think we we all tend to as humans is take our current
8:42
circumstance and just assume that's going to how it's going
8:44
to be for the long. Haul so.
8:46
Saying hey, guess what, this is actually OK and this is normal
8:50
and it's like helping your family.
8:52
I think I've seen like so many shoulders just kind of like
8:56
slowly lower when they realize like oh OK cool I'm not ruining
9:00
everything. Well, and we feel that way from
9:03
the moment like you get pregnant and then every decision you're
9:06
making about what you eat or just everything, everything
9:09
becomes a decision that's impacting someone else, this
9:13
child and an impact and it impacts your relationship and
9:16
you don't want to negatively impact either one of those
9:20
things. And so decisions seem
9:22
monumental. Let's talk about what you do
9:24
'cause you're talking numbers and you're talking about, you
9:26
know, like I, I love that you put pointed out that your wife
9:29
made 50,000 and if 30 to 40 is going towards daycare, you're
9:33
actually only making 10 to 20. Let's like maybe 12 to 15 in all
9:39
reality. And then so like, oh, that's
9:41
only like $1000 a month. Like I tend to reverse engineer
9:46
things and I'm guessing you tend to do that too.
9:49
So I want to segue to that because that's going to make a
9:51
big difference moving forward in our conversation.
9:56
Yes, absolutely. I, I do tend to reverse engineer
10:00
things so much of kind of my process with clients.
10:07
And just to kind of provide some context, I am a financial
10:09
planner. I primarily serve, you know,
10:12
high end, high earning young families of incomes like 200 to
10:16
$500,000 a year. But a lot of times the
10:22
introduction of a kid changes everything and quite honestly is
10:27
a catalyst for a lot of reasons. I start working with people and
10:31
just like you said, hey, this was really fun.
10:33
You know, when we were young and married and having no kids,
10:37
double income, no kids, the DINK lifestyle.
10:40
But now the decisions I make, even financially have
10:45
ramifications beyond just me. And so sometimes it's questions
10:50
around, hey, like we just have a, I've got a client I've been
10:54
working with. Last week we met and we went
10:56
through four different scenarios.
10:58
One, she stays home from work, she quits her job forever.
11:01
What would need to change? What would be the trade-offs?
11:04
Right. And a lot of that was like,
11:06
well, more modest vacations, you know, perhaps less charitable
11:11
giving. He's going to have to retire in
11:15
his late 60s instead of his early 60s.
11:17
You know, and we're we're taking a lot of assumptions into play
11:20
here. And then, you know, a couple of
11:22
other scenarios were like, OK, well, what if you take two years
11:24
off or what if you, you get a side gig while you're doing all
11:28
these things? And it's amazing how trying to
11:30
navigate to your point, $1000 a month really just depends on how
11:37
long you're trying to do things and what willing, what things
11:40
you're willing to give up to make it happen.
11:42
And for me and my wife were like, it's so important to us
11:48
that we, you know, I provide this for my wife and for her to
11:51
be like, I want to make it happen that we are willing to
11:53
give up, you know, trips to Europe or, you know, as regular
11:59
vacations as we would like. Like now our vacation is hopping
12:02
in a car, driving 8 hours to mother in
12:20
All they know is an existence where vacation is going to see
12:24
someone they love and who loves them really well.
12:25
And it's like, whoa, that sounds like a good, good experience.
12:28
So. I I think it's not just a change
12:30
in finances, it's a change in priority too.
12:32
Because priority might have been a vacation to the Bahamas or to
12:36
Europe or you know, taking three weeks and going somewhere out of
12:40
country or out of state where or a higher end resort or insert
12:45
thing here. Your priority shifted where it
12:48
isn't even that you aren't able to do that.
12:50
You could do that once a year. It's that that what you want to
12:54
do anymore because you're looking at this through a
12:57
different lens. So I think when people are
12:58
pregnant trying to like plan this out, you have no idea how
13:02
your life is going to change, how much it's going to change
13:04
once that child is in your world and that that's going to
13:08
continue to look different. And then like you guys adding a
13:11
second and then adding a third, had she stayed at work, adding
13:14
that second one would have made it like this is absolutely, it
13:17
might have been worth it with the first child, not when the
13:21
second child comes. So like, I love that you're
13:23
talking about it does not look one way for a family.
13:26
And a lot of it isn't even giving things up.
13:29
It's shifting what's important to you.
13:31
And when you see what's important to you, you're not
13:33
really giving anything up. Yeah, couldn't agree more.
13:37
That was honestly a huge part of the reason why I launched my
13:41
business too. Because when I think about my
13:44
shifting in priorities, like I love my job.
13:47
Like I get excited to go to work, but I also like will stay
13:53
at home until 9:00 in the morning because I want to make
13:55
my kids breakfast or leave at 4:30 because or noon because I
13:59
don't have any meetings. And guess what?
14:01
I'm going to go be there when they wake up from nap time and
14:03
take them to the mall or, you know, you name it.
14:06
Or even, like this past Monday, Like my wife is in the thick of
14:09
it. She's like 11 weeks pregnant
14:11
right now. And it's just like, exhausted.
14:14
And so I just took the day off. I just took Monday off.
14:17
I'd rescheduled one meeting with, it wasn't the client.
14:19
It was like a networking meeting.
14:22
And the flexibility for me was so worth it.
14:26
And like, for me, it's like, OK, there's probably some reality
14:29
that the business is gonna, quote UN quote, take a hurt, you
14:31
know, take a hit long term because I'm not planting seeds.
14:34
I'm not working as hard as I could, but it's more important
14:37
to me that I'm present with my kids in that in the season of
14:39
life than that. So, so be it.
14:42
So before kids, you did not own your own financial planning
14:46
business? Correct.
14:47
I actually launched it like a year after my son was born.
14:52
And I was just joking because last night I saw a friend of
14:56
mine who also owns a financial planning business posting about
15:00
all this stuff he's doing working 60 hours a week and they
15:02
don't have kids. And I was like, oh man, it's
15:05
amazing what I could do. What did I do with all my time
15:08
before, before I had kids? And so it's definitely a wild
15:14
thing, but I also like wouldn't trade it.
15:15
I don't think that, you know, it's possible.
15:17
If I never did that, I would never have had the motivation or
15:20
the value shift to make the change to your point earlier.
15:24
And so we all have our own stories, and I'm just grateful
15:28
that I get to be where I am today.
15:29
But I love that because it wasn't just your wife making
15:32
this pivotal shift, you also made a shift because the lens
15:36
that you view the world has now changed and you want change how
15:40
you show up in it. How scary was it to start that a
15:43
year after your baby was born and your wife's not working?
15:47
Oh, very scary. Yeah.
15:50
So I did a lot of research on case studies of people who have
15:55
launched their own firms and how like most people don't last two
16:00
years and like, there's a pretty high correlation between just
16:04
like surviving 3 years and having like amazing success.
16:07
So it's, it's pretty funny. I was like, I just got to get
16:10
there. And honestly, my wife was not on
16:12
board right away. I remember I was interviewing
16:14
with another company mowing my lawn and I was kind of like, oh
16:18
man, it'd be so great if they decide this wasn't a good fit
16:21
because then I could like go to my backup plan and launch my own
16:23
business. And I was like, I just realized
16:25
my backup plan is the thing I want to do.
16:27
And I like stopped. The lawn was halfway mowed and I
16:29
was dirty and I like run inside and she's like, he's sleeping.
16:33
And I was like, oh, sorry, hey, what if I quit my job and start
16:35
my own business? And she like, kind of stares at
16:37
me and I'm like, you know, it was not.
16:40
I was actually like, bummed about her response for a long
16:43
time was like, I shared my heart with you and you weren't excited
16:46
for me. But she sat there in silence for
16:48
a few seconds and was like, OK, where does health insurance fit
16:50
into this equation? You know, that was pretty funny.
16:53
And so that was kind of the ongoing conversation.
16:55
But all the research also shows that having a runway, it's is
17:00
what's most important runway being the kind of support system
17:04
or cash on the side that you can rely on.
17:09
And so I kind of ran the numbers and knew that I was going to
17:12
basically burn through all my all my life savings.
17:18
But, you know, here I am two years in and the businesses
17:21
survived. So it was worth it.
17:22
And I'm kind of starting over again.
17:25
But I just think the trajectory looks a little different than it
17:28
did when I was an employee because I have an ability now to
17:31
grow my business way more than just a 3% raise every year, you
17:34
know what I mean? So so.
17:35
On the flip side. Yeah.
17:39
And so there's definitely like, it's like, you know, my
17:41
trajectory is one line and then the new one is like take a dip
17:44
down, but then have it be a little bit more aggressive.
17:47
And so there's a gonna be a crossing point where, you know,
17:52
Lord willing, sooner rather than later, maybe a year from now,
17:54
where we're kind of back where we was before.
17:56
And then the pace and the trajectory is even better than
17:58
it was before. And.
17:59
So I. Just didn't want to be like,
18:04
take the safe path and then wonder for the longest time
18:06
because I was kind of like, hey, best case scenario, even if it
18:09
fails, I knew that I gave it a shot, right?
18:13
And there's a lot of people who would hire me right now because,
18:17
surprise, there's ironically not as many of financial planners as
18:21
you think, even though there's a lot of them on every street
18:23
corner. They're all aging out.
18:27
The average age is like 57. And fewer and fewer people are
18:30
getting into the industry just because it's really hard and
18:35
survival rates are really low. So it's really fascinating, but.
18:38
That's great. I, I love that you can help
18:40
people not only as a parent, but starting your business because
18:44
earlier you said one thing that people can do if like the wife
18:47
wants to stay home is a side gig and the side gig can end up
18:53
becoming something big. But when you're whittling down
18:58
like, OK, it's $1000 a month. So we can either do these things
19:02
so we don't need it and you can do this thing that could produce
19:07
that much money. And then there's really no gap
19:09
at all. But you've done it yourself.
19:11
So you've lived that. What after having kids, which is
19:15
the furious time to jump into a new business.
19:17
Oh, I agree. And I don't think I would have
19:21
to be fair and and not to say, you know, I think I also have a
19:24
leg up of having really, really tight knit close family nearby.
19:29
But with all within an hour, my parents, my siblings and I feel
19:34
like we have like a social guardrail where if like worse
19:38
came to worse and I like literally like had to go
19:40
bankrupt. Like I could probably live with
19:41
family for a little bit. You know what, I meanwhile I'm
19:43
finding another job. And so that's not a reality that
19:46
everyone gets to experience. So there's some privilege that I
19:48
have in that circumstance, but at the same time was like still
19:53
a risk, you know, still putting it all on the line either way.
19:58
So but it was fun. But even to your point, like
20:03
I've got a client who who started earlier this year where
20:05
she had started a side gig. When she was a nurse as like a
20:08
holistic coach, like mental, physical, spiritual well-being
20:13
and it took off and now it's like their main source of income
20:17
and she's like did 6 figures and is like really excited about.
20:21
So it was like originally a thing where she could like slow
20:24
down. And now she's like never mind.
20:25
I love this. And like, her kids are aged out
20:28
of like, the elementary age now. But to your point, it's like,
20:32
yeah, maybe it's just a float by or maybe there's like some
20:35
potential there you didn't even realize.
20:37
So it's really cool. Which is really, I just, I love
20:40
the when you get to a point where there's friction, but like
20:45
with having a baby, if you're pregnant, it's there's just like
20:48
that's not probably going to change.
20:50
So you're still going to be pregnant.
20:51
So it's a point where you have to make some decisions.
20:54
You're forced like it's in a corner.
20:56
This is our situation, our reality or the baby's born.
21:00
Like we're not giving the baby back to go back to work so we
21:02
can make that's like that's not on the table and you're kind of
21:07
in this corner. I think people become really
21:12
curious about what things they can do and willing to think
21:16
outside of the box. And just I just, I just think we
21:22
get, I don't know, we get tricky.
21:25
That's not the right word. Exactly.
21:27
But like we figure out how to make that work one way or the
21:31
other or even a couple things moved around.
21:33
So I love that. I love that she's like, yeah,
21:35
I'll do this thing and hopefully it will make money on the side
21:38
and bridge the gap. And now it's our main source of
21:40
income. Like, that's fantastic because
21:43
you really don't know. But there's so many ways you can
21:45
do this. And I think when you are like,
21:48
when you're in that corner, like, holy crap, we've got to
21:50
figure this out. I was a single mom for a while
21:54
and I worked 2 jobs. I, I cut hair and so like I've,
21:59
I've always had my license and I would do it a couple nights and
22:02
Saturdays. So it wasn't a lot, but I would
22:04
do two or three nights and then a Saturday And my kids actually
22:07
came to me. They were all elementary school,
22:11
junior high school ish. And they were like, we want you
22:14
to quit your job. We used to have family, family
22:17
meetings, right? And I said, OK, because we want
22:22
you home more. Like, what parent doesn't want
22:24
to hear that? And I said, so if I stopped
22:27
cutting hair on these two nights in the weekend, I would be home
22:29
then This is how much I bring in.
22:31
I laid it out. This is how much I make doing
22:34
that. These are the, this is what I
22:35
pay for in our house. We would have to get like back
22:38
then, like Dish Network cable was $120.00 a month.
22:41
No more network for you guys. You know, like like these are
22:46
the things that I will no longer be able to, I will have to
22:49
cancel them. You will not have the mail.
22:50
I'm working this hard to give you guys this home and these
22:54
things. And that's what this looks like.
22:56
So if I'm going to give up that income, I have to put it back in
22:59
the account. It's not coming from anywhere
23:01
else. And they were like, give it up.
23:03
We don't care. And so I cancelled those things
23:05
and I stopped working like 12 years ago.
23:08
I stopped doing hair. So I think like it's a constant
23:11
adjustment too. Constant adjustment.
23:15
You, you just, you don't know what life is going to throw at
23:17
you. Or the fact that like in that
23:20
situation, I as a parent was trying to provide a life I
23:23
thought my kids wanted. And in actuality, they wanted to
23:28
give up some things in that life to just have more time as a
23:32
family. Yeah, I mean, that's what they
23:34
want. It's presence more than
23:35
anything, you know? And like if my job is taking
23:38
them away, even if I'm physically there, but I'm
23:40
mentally not. Like I had a moment like that
23:43
recently that was really convicting when I was with my my
23:45
son and we were playing with trains and he said, hey, dad,
23:51
say wait. And I was like, what?
23:53
And I was like, oh, he realized I wasn't there present, but he
23:56
wanted me. So I said wait.
23:56
And he's like, oh, so he pushed his train across like he wanted
23:59
me to like tell him to stop pushing his train across.
24:02
So he like gave me the cue has been like, hey, dad, like can
24:06
you say something to me here? And to even to your point, I
24:10
just want to, I want to say that it's beautiful that your kids
24:12
did that and recognized. And that's really valuable
24:16
thing. A lot of parents, I'm noticing,
24:19
avoid financial conversations with their kids from like a
24:22
heart of protection. Like, I don't want you to have
24:24
to worry about this. I want to protect you and guard
24:26
you from this. But I have conversations with
24:28
client, every client, where we talk about what money was like
24:30
growing up. And I'd say like 4 out of five
24:34
times they say my parents never talked about money.
24:38
I wish they had. I had no idea what I was going
24:41
to do when real life hit because I just wasn't even aware of all
24:44
these different things. And so there's a reality that,
24:47
like, yeah, like, sometimes making them aware that things
24:53
are tight can put an unwanted anxiety on children.
24:57
But at the same time, like, the way that you approach it and the
25:01
way that you're with them and like, caring for them and loving
25:04
them is going to be the thing that makes the biggest impact.
25:08
And I have this kind of perspective on finances that
25:10
we're not solving for the most money.
25:13
That might sound kind of strange, but if it was always
25:16
about more money, we would never, ever consider staying
25:19
home. We would never go on vacations.
25:21
We would never do home remodels or upgrade our cars.
25:26
You know, we would pinch pennies.
25:28
We eat, you know, rice and beans and all these different things.
25:31
What we're trying to solve for is the best life.
25:33
I actually wrote a blog a few months ago, like, can I afford
25:37
to stay home with the kids? And the conclusion I had is,
25:39
yeah. But what if you love your life?
25:42
Yes, you might have to give up all these things.
25:43
Yes, you might have to go on more modest vacations for a
25:46
short time, all that kind of stuff.
25:48
But like, if this is what you want, like, you can make it
25:51
work. It's a values question.
25:53
And again, not everyone has to do that.
25:55
And I have a number of clients who had kids and they're like,
25:56
Yep, it wasn't even a temptation because they love their jobs.
25:59
And that's wonderful. And the conversation was
26:01
different. OK, well, how do we make
26:02
adjustments when childcare enters the picture?
26:06
But so much of like growing a healthy relationship with money
26:11
starts with understanding your values.
26:13
And then it's aligning where your money's going with it and
26:17
the actions that you're taking. And when you start to do that,
26:19
you're like, oh, I feel a lot better about this life that I'm
26:22
living. So it's amazing how many people
26:24
just don't take the time to understand what's important to
26:27
them first. Well, and again, that's that
26:29
same that kind of goes hand in hand with the perception like
26:32
you're not giving up vacations, you're changing what you want
26:35
it's. The.
26:36
Same thing. Like your values are huge in
26:38
that I remember like I wanted to always raise my kids in a home
26:42
with a backyard and have dogs and I did.
26:45
I raised them in a home with a backyard.
26:47
I didn't want to be in an apartment.
26:49
That was a value for me based on my upbringing.
26:52
You really have to dig into like, why is that?
26:55
Why was that important to me? Right?
26:58
What, what was it about that that was important?
27:00
And it, it was like feeling like you have your own place and
27:04
you're grounded. You're not interrupted.
27:06
And you know, I mean, that's not important to other people, but
27:09
that was a value for me. And so I would think like
27:13
people's values on what they want their life to look like
27:16
long term are wildly different because that, that was a massive
27:21
value for me. We're gonna be in a house with
27:22
our dogs in a backyard. So my finances looks different
27:28
because that was one of my values, part of my value system.
27:31
Yeah. How easy is it for people when
27:34
they have, I'm guessing they have conversations with you
27:36
where they come in like shoulders up to their ears,
27:38
super stressed, feeling like they're failing, and then they
27:41
walk out with a very different perspective?
27:46
Yeah. I think it really depends on
27:48
what, what, what they're dealing with.
27:49
So a lot of the clients that are attracted to kind of my process,
27:54
a lot of times they have like 80% of it there.
27:58
Like they feel like quote UN quote, they've got a lot going
28:00
on. They're just overwhelmed by the
28:02
fear of missing something or, you know, some gap or like, you
28:08
know, I can get by with YouTube for so long, but now that I have
28:12
kids, like it's not worth the risk.
28:15
I just want to work with the professional.
28:17
And so I have noticed that the biggest thing that helps Peace
28:23
of Mind from a financial perspective is 2 things.
28:26
One, all of the kind of gaps have been filled because every
28:33
time I work with clients, there's some kind of red flag
28:37
thing. I haven't had a situation where
28:38
I haven't done that. And a lot of times that's
28:40
preparing for the unexpected. So there's the five kind of
28:43
financial foundations that I'd go through with clients.
28:46
One of them is emergency fund. They have enough money saves for
28:51
the unexpected expense or losing a job, life insurance if
28:55
something happens to them, they know their family and their new
28:57
child or kids are going to be protected disability coverage.
29:01
So if they get hurt and they can't work or more common
29:04
nowadays they get an illness like cancer.
29:06
They can't work. They could still have income
29:09
having there's an estate plan done like having a guardianship,
29:13
having the hard decision of who's going to watch your kids
29:15
should the worst happen to you. And then lastly, just a
29:20
liability coverage. If someone like is mowing your
29:23
lawn and slips and breaks their legs and sues you or something
29:28
I, you know, protecting against the things you can't expect.
29:31
Those are like really, really helpful from mental kind of a
29:35
mental health perspective because when you're 2:00 AM and
29:38
you're your body's on high alert because it's 2:00 in the morning
29:41
and you're afraid someone's going to attack you, you think
29:43
of all these crazy hypothetical situations, what if this
29:46
happens? What would happen to us?
29:47
You know, and if you come back to like, oh, I actually been
29:50
working with Ryan and he told us to do this.
29:52
And so it's very rare that someone comes and have all those
29:54
boxes checked. So I help them work through
29:56
like, what's the right amount for you?
29:57
What's the right coverage? And it's not uncommon for
29:59
someone who had like no emergency fund.
30:01
And it's like, great, we're going to build over to that over
30:03
the course of the next year. Really.
30:05
You just have cash sitting there.
30:07
I'm not using. Yes, that's exactly right.
30:08
Because like, when nothing happens, that's great.
30:11
But when something does, you're going to be so glad you did.
30:14
And the second thing that adds to Peace of Mind is just having
30:17
a plan or an idea of what you're going to do next.
30:20
Like doing the best you can still creates uncertainty
30:25
because you don't know. But if you work with someone
30:27
who's like, hey, this is actually the best that you can
30:30
do and you're doing the best you can with what you have, Whoa,
30:32
are you serious? That's amazing.
30:34
Now, it might not be what you want, right?
30:36
It might not be the trajectory that you had.
30:37
And we're all going to wish we made more money and had more
30:39
money in the bank. But all that we can do is make
30:44
the best decisions we can with what's coming in right now.
30:46
And if we have confident that confidence that that's
30:48
happening, you know, those two pieces of the puzzle I found
30:52
have been huge, hugely important for people to understand and
30:57
trust. And it's not, it's not an
30:58
instant thing, Jennifer. It's not like we have one
31:01
meeting and then they go. It tends to happen over the
31:04
course of six months or seven, you know, or 12 months where
31:07
it's like, OK, wow. There are a lot of things.
31:10
It's gonna take time to address these and eventually they do.
31:13
And a year later, you don't realize it, but you have Peace
31:16
of Mind. You didn't like, wake up 1
31:18
moment. I have Peace of Mind now.
31:19
It's like, I just realized I haven't thought about money in
31:21
three months. That's an amazing feeling.
31:24
That's that tends to be how it goes.
31:25
I think the trust for me, having a trust, like all those things,
31:29
all yes, yes, important. But like when I was a mom and we
31:34
had the kids, you know, we blended families 12 years ago
31:37
and had kids and stuff together, The trust was the single
31:41
biggest, most important. It was less important when I was
31:43
married, although it shouldn't have been, But when I was in a
31:46
blended family and I thought, Oh my gosh, what?
31:50
What do I? If something happens to you,
31:52
Ryan, what do I need to do? What are the steps I need to do
31:57
to make sure your kids are protected, taken care of, all of
32:01
the things? And that was absolutely because
32:03
my my husband's wife had died. And so I was like, I, I don't
32:09
know who to call. I don't have the legal ability.
32:12
Like I these kids are going to end up in foster care with
32:16
someone who loves them. And that made me absolutely
32:19
panic. And when we got our trust done a
32:22
decade ago, I cannot even tell you how much peace.
32:26
So that like that is a very real thing for people.
32:29
And all of them are important. The estate planning, having the
32:32
trust, the will, the whole thing.
32:33
But yeah, those are tough conversations.
32:35
And I always think you're prepare, preparing for the worst
32:38
so that you don't have to worry about it anymore.
32:40
You don't fuss. About it anymore.
32:43
No, I couldn't agree more. And I tend, you know, I, I can't
32:46
step into making legal recommendations, but I can say,
32:49
hey, speak with an attorney about getting a trust because of
32:54
all of these other reasons, like the moment young kids enter the
32:56
picture, especially because you have these investments and you
32:59
have this life insurance. And if you do both pass away and
33:03
they go to live with your sister or your mom, if there isn't some
33:09
sort of trust provision that has the money on their behalf,
33:13
they'll just get it all when they turn 18, you know, or 19,
33:16
depending on the state you live in.
33:17
And it's like, I know I don't know about you, but I would have
33:20
made some bad decisions without having had parents when I have
33:24
all this money. And so having some kind of
33:27
insight to do that is so important.
33:30
So I I tend to play more of the role of accountability partner.
33:34
Actually had this happen recently where someone was like,
33:36
hey, we finally did the estate plan with the attorney even
33:39
though I didn't want to. I just got sick of you asking
33:41
and I was like music to my ears. Perfect.
33:45
It doesn't matter. It's just about.
33:47
Exactly. It sounds like I'm doing my job
33:50
right. Yeah, you're right.
33:51
It does feel. It does feel good to have it
33:53
done so. Well, yeah.
33:54
And that's the thing. Is there like a number one, you
33:57
went over like the top five things that you talked to them
33:59
about making sure that they have.
34:01
Is there kind of a Are there a couple themes that these younger
34:05
couples with young kids have when they come in to your?
34:12
Yeah, the biggest one is they say, oh, I'm covered on life
34:15
insurance. I have something through my
34:16
work, but they haven't run the numbers at all.
34:18
A lot of times it's like $50,000, which don't get me
34:21
wrong, that's like a good chunk of change, but that's gone in
34:24
two months or three months. Like, they don't realize two
34:31
things, like, A, how expensive it is to do things by yourself
34:36
or B, how you're going to respond to losing, like your
34:42
life partner with kids present, you know, And so a lot of people
34:46
are like, oh, no, it's fine. I'll just work.
34:48
And it's like, maybe like, what if you get depressed and you get
34:52
fired and you can't work because you are unable to emotionally,
34:57
you know, resolve? And I actually had a friend of
35:00
mine, close friend who lost his wife to breast cancer.
35:02
They were in the early 30s. They have three young kids.
35:06
There was life insurance on the equation.
35:08
And he hated the money when she died because it represented her.
35:12
And it was, there's no amount of money that could replace his
35:14
wife, right? But after a year of going
35:16
through the grieving process, he was so glad it was there,
35:21
allowed him to pay off his student loans and allowed him to
35:23
pay off the house and even had a little bit of extra money.
35:25
He's like, I'm not going to use this for me, but this can now be
35:28
like money that can be invested for our daughters to go to
35:30
college down the road. And again, he'd give it all up
35:33
to have his wife back. But those are the kind of things
35:37
where like, they made the right decision before.
35:39
And that's never going to happen to me.
35:41
We're young, healthy. People.
35:43
And then all of a sudden, you know, third pregnancy, she's
35:45
diagnosed with breast cancer while she's pregnant.
35:48
And it's like a huge life decision.
35:51
And so they're actually not going to do chemotherapy while
35:53
she's pregnant. So it's like, it was just wild
35:57
to see them. I mean, heartbreaking to see
35:59
them go through that. But that's the most chronic one,
36:03
to answer your question. Like most people are chronically
36:04
underinsured majority of the time, even if you can get a lot,
36:08
but let's say you can get $500,000 to your work, it tends
36:12
to be a lot more expensive relative to having your own
36:14
policy. And like, you leave that job,
36:17
it's it's gone. And so like, if you just keep
36:20
hopping from job to job rather than just owning your own
36:24
policy, you know, for the next 20 or 30 years, it it tends to
36:29
be a better decision that people should explore.
36:32
That being said, that assumes you have you're healthy, like
36:34
you do stuff to go on through underwriting if you have health
36:38
conditions that would prevent you from getting covered, group
36:40
policies can be great, but it is going to be really hard for you
36:43
to get a lot of coverage if that's the case.
36:45
So yeah. What piece of well, wait, no,
36:49
you know how I want to end. I want to end by talking about
36:51
your business, how people can find you.
36:53
I have the link in the bio and IA blog, like the blog that you
36:58
said, can I afford to stay home with the kids?
36:59
I added that to the show notes because that's probably one of
37:02
the number one questions. So we have the link to your
37:07
website, but what's the best way for people to contact you?
37:11
And you're in Michigan, so where?
37:13
I'm in Nevada. So what do we do now?
37:16
Yeah, it's, thank you so much for the, the time and the space
37:19
to share. Yeah, I, I try to be pretty
37:23
active on my website. I'm very active on LinkedIn,
37:25
which is like a cheesy business mess.
37:28
So if that's not your cup of tea, don't worry about it.
37:32
I serve clients all across the country and don't currently have
37:37
any clients in Nevada, but California did.
37:39
Colorado, Missouri, you know, Texas, Florida, North Carolina,
37:44
Minnesota, Illinois, you know, the list goes on and on.
37:46
I don't have to do it, but I'm able to serve anyone virtually
37:50
across the country. And The funny thing is like some
37:53
people are like, I don't want to work with someone virtually.
37:55
I'd rather work with someone local.
37:58
Most of the time you'd rather connect with that person over
38:00
Zoom anyway. I've got a lot of local clients
38:03
and they're all like, well, I don't want to drive 20 minutes
38:05
to come to your office and then drive 20 minutes home.
38:08
I'd rather just like, oh, I called calling from work and my
38:10
wife can call in from her work and it's easy.
38:12
And so it's been a great, it's been a great system for me.
38:16
But yeah, again, my firm is called 100 Financial Planning.
38:21
I serve primarily hiring young families.
38:26
Again, most of their income somewhere between 200 to
38:29
$500,000 a year, really just in a place of life where they're
38:33
sick of wondering if they're doing enough and just wish they
38:35
had a plan to make the most of it.
38:37
So. Ryan, thank you so much for
38:39
being on and sharing. I appreciate you.
38:42
Absolutely, Jennifer. I'm grateful for the opportunity
38:45
to do so. Thank you.