Latest / Marci talks money (and life) / The Emotional Side of Leadership: A Conversation with Jenna Heath
Transcript
- Marci Grossman (00:06) Hello, welcome to Marci Talks Money and Life. I'm Money Marci. I appreciate this opportunity to meet interesting people who are able and willing to share their stories about their financial journeys. My guest today is Jenna Heath. Jenna is a talented communicator, educator, and professional connector of people. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Communication and Political Science from San Diego State University and her Master's in education from University of Nevada, Las Vegas. After graduating, she meandered through many different career fields such as startups, fitness, nonprofits, fundraising, food and beverage before landing in higher education. She is deeply committed to training the next generation of leaders utilizing a wide variety of Her leadership extends to teaching and she is an adjunct faculty member at University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Nevada State University, and the University of Denver, where she instructs courses on leadership development and career readiness. She launched her podcast, Tearin' Up My Heart, Emotional Leadership Lessons in 2024 with the goal of helping listeners to understand the emotional side of leadership and making education accessible to those that might not be able to afford traditional schooling. I could go on and on, but let's welcome Jenna. Jenna (01:26) Thanks for having me, Marci. I'm excited to chat with you today. Marci Grossman (01:29) Well, I'm so excited to chat with you. I have people fill out a form when they're going to be my guests and tell me areas they'd like to talk about. And Jenna's was to debt by choice, which I think is fascinating. And I can't wait to hear the stories behind it. And as someone with the background that you have, I know there's so much stories and information to share, and I'm really excited about it. Jenna (01:53) Well, thanks so much. Yeah, I feel like I have a really kind of a hot take on debt freedom living. So I'm really excited for the opportunity to share a little bit more, especially just all the great information that you're sharing on your podcast and your career. Like you are definitely an expert in this space. So I figure I can learn a little bit from you as well. Marci Grossman (02:11) Thank you. So I guess from your story what I got was that you and your husband some reason decided to go debt free and that lasted for seven years. So I guess I'm going to back up a little bit and before you got married, obviously for both of you, you had financial lessons you learned I assume at home growing up. the or lack thereof. Fair enough . the the Were both of you in same situation? Did you come from Jenna (02:30) lack thereof. Marci Grossman (02:37) relatively similar backgrounds and information or did you come from different places and had to find a way to meet? Jenna (02:43) That's such a good question. Totally different spaces. So we were both, for the most part, raised by single parents who were in really different spaces of their life. My dad adopted me when he was 40, so he was very well established in his career and definitely, I would say, had a comfortable middle class lifestyle. But I also was raised in a home where we didn't talk about money. I knew my dad did well in his career. He was an air traffic controller. He worked for the federal government. He was in the military first. And so I knew my dad. you know, was gonna be able to take care of me and I never questioned that. My husband, on the other hand, was raised by a single mom who was working her way up in food and bev, was not making a lot of money. They cohabitated a lot with his grandparents and there was a lot of shared living spaces and he was always taken care of. There was never any question about that, but he definitely didn't live, I guess, in the state of comfortability that I grew up in. And so we got married really young. I was 23 when we got married. , so we were definitely still figuring it out. We had just graduated from college and, we graduated from college right after the 08 recession, so not exactly the best time to be launching a career, I would say. And it was weird, you know, it's so weird for couples to start merging finances in general. That's such an odd thing that no one really teaches you how to do, let alone how to do it well, or if you want to, right? Now I think a lot more couples are not merging finances, which, more power to them. husband and I didn't really, we didn't come from the same background, we didn't have the same knowledge on financial literacy. I would actually say neither of us had knowledge on financial literacy. But the way our families talked about money was really different and I think it was really difficult for us. So when we got married, bought a house, like we did everything the world tells you you're supposed to. We went to college, we graduated from college, we bought a house immediately, we got married, and we just literally were kind of like figuring it out as we go. And there I was, I was, about 25 when we started our debt-free journey. And it really was in essence, like a necessity in our life at that point that I had finished my master's. We had no school debt, so kudos to us. Like we had a bunch of scholarships and grant aids, so we don't have any student loans, anything like that. So that's one thing we did right, I guess. But after that, when I finished my master's, we started accumulating just a ton of consumer debt. Like we bought a car that was way too expensive that we couldn't afford. We had just bought a house, so we were trying to fix everything in the house and buy furniture and all these things. And again, no one really taught us about saving money, so we didn't have any money saved up. So we were just literally throwing everything on credit cards. And then all of a sudden, one day we were just, I guess, kind of sitting down and being like, oh, we should pay our bills. And we had $62,000 in consumer debt. And I realized that month, I was like, oh, dang, we don't actually have enough money to make the bare minimum payments on all of these things right now. And I think that started a really big conversation for us of like, how did we get here? What are we doing? It honestly, from the outside looking in, everything was beautiful. We traveled all the time. We were young, we bought a house. Like we did everything people tell you. This is what, you know, American success looks like. But that led us into such a horrible financial situation. And we were so, I don't know if either of us would use these words, but we were really ashamed. So we didn't even feel comfortable talking to our parents about it or other people in our life who did have financial success and we were just kind of like, ugh, what do we do now? Marci Grossman (06:01) So at that point in time, you had the mortgage on the house, you had the car loan, and $62,000 of consumer debt on top of that. and not enough to make the minimum payment. So yeah, that would be a significant wake-up call. ⁓ Jenna (06:17) Yeah, And we had only been married about two years, right? And the research is very clear that most marriages end because of financial strain. Like it's not affairs, it's not personality issues. Most relationships end because they cannot, there's too much pressure on the financial side of things which influences every area of your life. Marci Grossman (06:35) But it sounds like you made the next right decision, which is it's not just the financial strain, it's about communicating and working together on it. And you guys managed to figure out how to do that. How did that first conversation go? Jenna (06:49) Oh my God, Marci, it was awful. It was so awful. And I think mostly me, right? So I think in a lot of relationships, men are the one with the ego and the pride. In our marriage, that's not the case. My husband is a very humble person. He's very kind. I am also kind, I think. But I am way more stubborn and I was raised by a single dad, so I was raised to really hyper independent. And I wasn't raised around like, Emotions that wasn't something my dad and I talked about ever and so my husband I had only been together I mean we'd been dating a while But we'd only been married a couple years at this time and we were you know trying to have this really difficult conversation without any of the basic skills of even how to have a difficult conversation. Both of our parents had been divorced multiple times over so we had never seen successful relationships. We didn't even know how to have a hard conversation at all let alone one about money. And so when we were sitting there, you know, I think he was was really willing, and I saw it in his face, he had so much panic. And I think partially because he, my husband works in broadcast journalism, so he was running TV shows at the time, and he had honestly gotten really lucky after college, I would say. He met a lot of the right people, got brought in on a lot of really good TV shows, and kind of overnight, one of his larger TV shows got canceled. And so, know, I mean, full transparency. Our problem was not making money. We were making a lot of money. That month that we had this conversation, he made over $20,000 that month in TV income. So money was not the problem. Our relationship around money, our communication around money, how we spent money, those were the problems, right? Which I think is true for most people. And so we were sitting there and he's, you know, kind of panicking in panic mode and I am a very stoic person. So mine was more like... we just have to figure this out. We have to figure out the solutions. I don't believe I'm the smartest person in the world, but I believe I can find the smartest person in the world. And so I was like, let's figure this out. Let's use the internet. Let's find the solution. I don't know if we actually did or not. I think we just stumbled across enough people who had gone on a debt freedom journey, were willing to share some of their information. In full transparency, looking back, I don't necessarily know if I would duplicate exactly what we did before, but I am appreciative of the information out there, like the snowball effect, Dave Ramsey. I don't fully agree with all of those things at this point in my life now, but I'm grateful I had access to that information then. So we just kind of started finding these little bits and pieces of info. and we were like, okay, well, like, what's the worst case scenario, right? Like, we were in such a bad situation that we were like, well, it can't get worse. Like, unless we take out a second mortgage or we decide to buy another car, like, this cannot get worse. So all these tools, in theory, can only help us. Marci Grossman (09:27) That makes sense. That's got to be hard when he's coming from, as you said, his mom was divorced multiple times. So he wouldn't know you have hard conversations. His experience might be, okay, things are bad. See you bye, let's start over. And if your dad was always single, then you wouldn't have seen relationships where those deep conversations would have even been a consideration. So at that point in time, I mean, you could have looked into filing for bankruptcy, but with the income you were making, that may or may not have even been an option. With not being able to make the minimums, was it as bad as that or were you able to actually pay the minimums but not much more initially? Jenna (10:06) Yeah, that's a good question. So I think once we actually looked at how much money we were making, because I think before that conversation, we had no idea. We had started merging our finances, but not entirely. So we both knew kind of how much money we were bringing in, but not really. And especially the way that my husband was getting paid with mostly 1099 work, that's a whole different world compared to what I was used to living in my employee W-2 world. So I would say at that point, when we were actually started looking at the income, that's kind of when our light went off that we were like, we do not have an income problem. Which I don't think we actually knew before Marci, it was crazy. Like we literally had no understanding of how much money we were bringing in because we were just spending it left and right. And we were never looking at our checking account either. We were literally just always using credit cards. I think a lot of people in my generation got kind of stuck in this like point mentality that like, you know, we started getting credit cards at such a young age and everyone was like, you get the points and then you get to use the points for other things and you just don't make logical choices because it's so emotional. So I think after that when we realized, okay, we don't have an income problem, so let's figure it out where is the problem. And then we kind of started looking at just like our calendar and we were like, wow, like we went abroad like four times this year. That's not super normal for like a 23 year old the year you buy a house and the year that you get a car and all those things. And so we're like, okay, well like, Marci Grossman (11:22) Hehehehehe Jenna (11:31) how much did that cost? then, you know, this is a silly story, but the day before that, I mean, this is before all the horrible things happened with this particular artist, but this artist was going on tour and we spent like $1,000 on concert tickets to go see him. And I was like, we have that amount of money, but we don't, you know, like if you're going to go abroad four times, you can't also spend $1,000 on concert tickets unless you're like a millionaire. And so I think once we started realizing like, oh, this is where our money is going, we were able to move the money to different paces. So we were like, okay, maybe this next month since we're bringing in this much money, maybe we don't go to concerts and we don't travel and maybe we pay down our debt. Crazy idea. Marci Grossman (12:12) With a lot of people, and not even necessarily at the higher level income that the two of you are bringing in, but with a lot of people it's not necessarily the income, it's the choices of expenses. Because there are people, as I've said multiple times, with strong six-digit income, that are living paycheck to paycheck because they're not mindful of their expenses and their lifestyle and I have no idea where you live since you said he works with with tv and whatever else I'm assuming it's probably in California Las Vegas Jenna (12:41) Las Vegas, but we did live in California before this, Marci Grossman (12:43) Okay, and I don't know how expensive Las Vegas is comparatively, but obviously California is significantly more expensive. It shows in the income, making a few hundred thousand there is not the same as a few hundred thousand I'm in Metro Detroit. It would go much further here and still take those vacations. So those are all, it's all part of a balance. Jenna (13:03) Yeah, I think one of the things, one of the worksheets we went through that we had just kind of found on the internet and through some other folks that were on a debt-free journey was this idea of perceived luxuries versus necessities, right? So I think there's luxuries of life, which I think most people can understand, know, those are Louis Vuittons. Those are the things that are truly like, you don't need $700 shoes. Like that's a want in any situation, right? So that's a luxury. And then a perceived luxury, that was an interesting conversation. Marci Grossman (13:25) You Jenna (13:31) for us because that was defined as like Netflix. Wi-Fi, getting my nails done, like things that I really at that point in my life, I kid you not, I thought these were necessities. Like I did not understand a world where I could live without Netflix or getting my nails done every two weeks because that was the lifestyle I had become accustomed to. But when I really broke it down and the thing on the worksheet that really got me Marci was Wi-Fi. This really killed me because I was reading through all these things and I was like I could logically understand how Netflix is a luxury, right? I understand there's know, third world countries and people don't have access to entertainment like that and Americans are spoiled, period. So that one made a little more sense to me. But the idea of Wi-Fi was so challenging for me because I worked in a setting where I'm like, I need Wi-Fi. And like I said, my husband was working mostly 1099, so he worked from home a lot. And I was like, he needs Wi-Fi to do his work. But then I really thought about it and I was like, does he? Could he go to Starbucks and use free Wi-Fi? Could he go to a public library? That would be some pretty big adjustments in our lifestyle, I would say. But was it possible? Yeah. And when we really started breaking down our budget, yeah, our wifi bill wasn't a lot of money, but I mean, it was close to a hundred bucks at the time. And I'm like, that is kind of a lot of money when you're trying to figure out how to dig yourself out of such a big hole. And so when I was thinking about perceived luxuries, that's what really kind of got, I think both of us, but definitely for myself, really got us to start thinking about like, what are our actual necessities in life? Food, water, shelter. That's it. Those are your necessities of life. And once we started thinking about it that way, I was like, whoa, we have a lot of stuff in our life that are perceived luxuries that we don't need these things. Marci Grossman (15:08) Okay and so what was the hardest part about going through that list and seeing all the perceived luxuries and seeing all the luxuries? So here you are, you've made this decision, you're going through everything, you say you know what we're going to go debt free so we're not going to put more on the credit cards, we're going to focus on paying off the debt, not adding new debt, not picking up much beyond the necessities. What was that like and what was the hardest part of it? Jenna (15:34) I think both of us would have different answers, but since I'm speaking for myself today, so I had to go down a really intense rabbit hole about some of my lived trauma, to be honest with you. I think a lot of people would not correlate those things together, money and financial literacy and potential childhood trauma, but for me, they were really closely tied together. And I stumbled across this podcast when this woman was talking about shopping addiction and how it had led her down this really crazy debt snowball situation and it all stemmed from her feeling like she needed control of something in her life and I really really identified with that and they so then I and I was working with a therapist already at the time so I kind of went to my therapist and I was like hey like you know my husband they're trying to do this debt-free thing and you know I don't know if that's gonna work or whatever but like I stumbled upon this thing and I'm I don't understand my relationship with money I don't understand why I'm spending so much money because my husband was spending money on stupid things I was spending money on everything. Like my husband would go out to eat three times a day, you know? But like I was spending money on everything. I was like, I bought a brand new purse yesterday. I definitely need a brand new purse today. Like we just got back from Cabo. We definitely need to go to Costa Rica next week. Like I was just anything. It literally was money was like flying out of my hands. And so Once I kind of made that realization, I realized that like, to answer your question, shopping was the hardest thing for me. My husband literally took all of my credit cards, he locked them in a drawer where I couldn't get them. I think some people might misinterpret that. He wasn't controlling my life, this was a choice we made together. But as we made that decision, I was like I literally cannot trust myself with even having the credit cards in my wallet. I mean we did the full blown thing, you know, we went to cash envelopes, I had to pay cash when I was getting gas which was so freaking difficult like nowhere takes cash anymore let alone... no no and I mean in ten years ago was a little bit better right but it was... Marci Grossman (17:20) Yeah, they're not set up for that anymore. Jenna (17:26) still rough. so I think that was the hardest thing for me was really starting to understand why I was making really stupid choices. And being okay with going down that kind of that mental health journey of realizing like, I wasn't just stupid, I wasn't making bad choice, I mean, I was making bad choices, but it wasn't for just willy nilly. It was because I needed to really work through some things that had happened in my life and why I was craving this sense of control so badly in my life and why I was choosing to do it in this particular manner. Marci Grossman (17:53) You did that for seven years, where your credit cards were virtually locked up unless you, I assume, made a decision together, this is a necessity and we don't have cash on hand for a new furnace or for a car repair or whatever that might have been. And then you switched. How did that come about and what was the hardest part of that? Jenna (18:11) So we paid off our consumer debt and our car in a little under two years. And we were really vicious about it. It was a lot of money and we were just really intensive. You know, I joke that we just ate like rice and beans and college students for a couple of years. that, hey, hey, not eating out. That's a lot of money right there for most people. Starbucks was another really hard one for me. I love Starbucks. I'm a big coffee girl. So yeah. Marci Grossman (18:30) You Jenna (18:33) So we did that so after two years then we still had our mortgage, but we had already made the decision we weren't going to aggressively pay off our mortgage. We had a good interest you know we really we had talked to some people that had more information than we did which I think was a key to our success is we had to be talked to people who were smarter in this area than we were and we decided we didn't want to try to pay off our mortgage just yet. So then we were like okay, so we can have a little bit more of luxury in our life but we really wanted to save money that was our next goal and so we had already made the decision we were going to try to save about $60,000 cash, which felt like insane. That felt like impossible. So then after a few years, we did. And so then we were like, well, what now? Now we're just saving money for the sake of saving money. And that, honestly to me, that kind of felt irresponsible. I was like, I feel like maybe we should be investing this. I don't know. And so then we kind of went on this journey again of trying to find people that could help us figure out what is the next logical thing? Do we really just keep stacking up money in our savings account, or do we invest this in different ways, what do we do? And so while we were going on that journey, I was going through some pretty intense health challenges and I had some great doctors and stuff like that, but I really, I was really frustrated with the medical system and I was like, you know what, I want to seek out other solutions that my doctor might not be the one to suggest. Nothing super crazy, but I was like, I do want other options. And I decided, we decided as a couple, we were gonna take some of our income and put it towards that. So I would say that was like kind of our first decision to like go to debt by choice. And it wasn't. We were still paying cash for things at that point. But that kind of led us one thing after another after another. We were like, well, you know, we have the money now. So like maybe we both want to go to therapy. Maybe we both want to seek out some holistic options for our health. Maybe we want to redo our backyard to kind of increase the value of our home. And so, and we paid cash for all those things, but then we kind of hit a moment. where our savings were starting to dwindle faster than we could put it in. And that's when we had to make a choice where we were like, do we continue at the rate we were at where we keep saving money, saving money, saving money, or do we change our relationship with debt? And so that was kind of the conversation we started in the last year or so, which was honestly, I think that was actually harder than our decision to go debt free in the first place. Because we had basically like completely trained our brain. that debt was so bad and that debt could not be good. Which knowing what I know about finances now, I'm like, that's not entirely true. I think it, to your point, it goes about like, how do you communicate with each other? How do you communicate with yourself about money? And so we really had to rewire our brains. We kind of joke a lot that we had like brainwashed ourselves that debt was such a bad thing and we had to re-brainwash ourselves that debt was okay at a manageable rate and for good things. So for example, we decided we were going to invest in a business this year. And so we had to take out a pretty big business loan. And that is debt, know, however people want to say that is debt. But we were like, that's to us, everyone's different. But to us, we're like, that's good debt. Like we want to have this other option in our future. We wanted to invest in a business. We already knew that we did all this research. So we're like, that's good debt to us. That's okay. And then I think the harder things kind of came in is when we started to talk about the value of our life is how we word it. So it's like traveling or my dad is gonna be 75 in the next couple of years and we wanna take him on a big trip. And could we pay cash? We could, but is that the right choice? I'm not sure. Where the economy is right now cash is king. It's good to have some savings. But also, I don't want to stop living my life. I felt like on our debt-free journey, we really did stop living our life because we were in such a rush to pay off our debt, which is good and it is valuable. But that wasn't how I wanted to live my life long term. Marci Grossman (22:25) That makes sense, Jenna. So you talked about having this money and having debt. If it's not too personal, I assume you guys have retirement savings that you are investing in that that's just not talked about because that's paying yourself first, it's off to the side, it's doing its work for retirement, and so it's not part of the debt or debt conversation. Jenna (22:48) That's a good, that's a really good question. So yes, all that is correct. I'm also grateful that I work for an employer that has a really aggressive 401k matching. I've also been with my employer for a long time, but this is also something that we had to make the decision is I started getting job offers at other places that the salaries were way better, but the benefits, including the 401k and the retirement were not. And so I had to make some hard choices in my career where I chose to stay where I'm at partially because of the retirement and the 401k matching. And I think that's something that a lot of people my age don't actually even understand, let alone make choices around. And again, I think education a lot. I really do. And I mean all forms of education, not just obviously I'm a professor at a university, but like I value all forms of education. I think you can learn from anyone that has more experience in something than you do. And so throughout every part of our financial literacy journey, I was reaching out to people being like, what do you know that I don't know? How can you help me? And so when I was making decisions around my career, my cousin is a CPA actually for a big organization. And I had reached out to him because I trust him and I respect him and he has made a lot of really good financial decisions in his life. And I was like, hey, what do you think? Do you think I should leave for this other job? He actually, he is so smart. But he walked me through this process of putting a dollar value on everything my employer was giving me, everything from my sick days to my PTO to my 401k and he had me put an hourly dollar value on it and then add that up in comparison to the offer letter I was getting and he was like, there's no comparison. He was like, you're making so much more in your current job if you add up everything in comparison to what this other offer is giving you. And so I think that helped as well. I'm humble enough to understand that I do not know everything. And I'm also smart enough to be able to ask someone that I know knows more than me and be like, please help me because I don't know what I'm doing. Marci Grossman (24:42) You Jenna, that is so smart. I'm continually advising people, find someone, whether it's an educated mentor or a financial professional who can help you get more information to make the decision that's right for you. I think my podcast and the other things that I put out there are great for general information, but I'm not looking at your checkbook, your tax return, your credit card debt, your anything. So everything that I give is just a starting point. Jenna (25:14) Well, and I think that's, I love that you said that too because money is so personal, right? I obviously I work with college age students and I'm very open obviously about my debt free journey. People ask me a lot about like how I made those choices and what process did I use and who did I follow? And I'm very honest about the process that worked well for us but I'm also honest with people that it worked for us. That doesn't mean it's gonna work for them. My husband and I also have a super unique relationship. I mean, we really are like best friends and we've kind of grown up together. We started dating when I was 19. And so like our relationship is really different than other people's. And so I'm really honest with folks that, you know, this is what's worked for us, but like, yeah, I think you're spot on. And I, I always get nervous sometimes when people ask about, like who do they listen to when it comes to financial advice? And I'm like, honestly, like you, like yourself, like, yeah, you need to find some information. that's gonna help you in that journey, unless you're willing to actually open up your bank account in front of another human being, which I do think that's kind of the level of openness you have to have in order to really be honest about your finances, but you have to be willing to be that vulnerable with someone, and it is, it's hard. I mean, our world teaches us that like, money is such a really secretive thing that no one talks about, and I mean, even when I was going on this journey, I would ask a lot of my friends like, hey, you and your partner talk about this? Or do you and your spouse share financial information or do you guys have a shared savings account and most of them were like no like we don't talk about money like his this is this this is this and I'm like Okay, and to each their own. mean everyone's allowed to do whatever they want in their relationships But I was like that's not how my husband and I wanted our relationship with each other and money We wanted to make sure there was honesty clarity And that we both knew like the road we were going down that you know these were our goals for our life like we were always honest with each other that This is my opinion, but I don't think you know one singular 401k for a person is going to be enough in the next 40 or 50 years. You could have a really aggressive one I still don't think it's going to be enough money the way that inflation is going It's it's a gonna be difficult for my generation to have enough money to retire and so I do think you need to diversify in a lot of ways and my husband and I were really open with each other about what that could look like and looking into different options and I think that helped us a lot too is just being open to trying to figure out other choices that would work for our future, knowing that that was our end result, that we did want to be able to retire one day. Marci Grossman (27:40) Right, and I have mentioned this before, whether you are going to have a joint checking account and joint credit cards or you're each going to have your own, if you are in a marriage, if you are in a partnership relationship, you still have to communicate. You have to know where each other's goals are, what it is you're working for, because if you've got two people in a boat rowing in their own directions, the boat's not going anywhere. And the goal is that you have a common goal, that you're working toward it together in whatever way works best for you. Jenna (28:12) Yeah, I mean I think that's really, really wise advice. Marci Grossman (28:15) Well, thank you. I Your husband is a 1099 worker still? Jenna (28:22) You're tagging a lot of interesting comments here. So yeah, but this was one of our decisions, right? Is that he could make a lot more money in the longterm staying in 1099, but we decided we wanted the stability of normal employment, at least for a little while. We did this when we were going debt free. He's now kind of dabbling back into 1099, but he still has a full-time normal job right now. And I think that... was a big decision for us because I think a lot of times, especially early in our lives, we were chasing money. We really were. I mean, we were doing things we loved and careers that we really enjoyed, but if someone offered us more money or a bigger salary or bigger commission bonus, we were like, oh, let's look at that option. And I think we came to a place where we realized most of the time if they're offering you that kind of money, there's a reason. And so one of the decisions my husband and I made is that a lot of people in his industry travel a lot for their jobs. And he had the opportunity really early in his career working for a man who is... arguably one of the biggest names in his industry, but he traveled all the time and he never saw his family and I remember one day my husband was like, I just don't want that to be our life. was like, mean kudos to them that they make that work, but. He was like, I don't want to miss you all the time. And he was like, I want to be with you. And so he turned down a lot of jobs and a lot of really cool gigs and a lot of things that I think would have excelled him in his career exponentially so that he didn't have to travel all the time for work. And very similar, it's not uncommon in my industry for people to move universities often to be able to move up the ladder. And I chose not to do that so that we could build a life in Las Vegas. And I think that we're both really grateful for that. That was a hard choice for us though, because the money sure did look appealing. Marci Grossman (30:06) It does. And what people aren't always aware of with 1099 income is you typically have zero benefits. You have zero commitment of stability and continued, I can't say employment, but continued financial relationship. You have to pay your own taxes. So either you're making quarterly estimates or you're figuring out some other way to pay it timely so you don't end up with penalties and interest from the IRS when you file your tax returns. and in addition to the penalty and interest, finding that money for the cash at that point in time when the taxes are due. So yeah, you have to... Well, yeah, you learned a hard lesson or a good lesson because for a lot of people that is the right way to do things. ⁓ Jenna (30:43) Marci, you are preaching to the choir here. Yeah, I do I just love what you're doing here, because I wish there was more open, honest conversation about those things. Even that seems like a tiny decision to me now, but I know in the moment it didn't feel that way, of the decision between a W-2 and a 1099. That's a hard choice for a lot of people. think especially nowadays, I think the younger generation has really pitched this idea that 1099 equals freedom, that you get to be wherever you want and do whatever you want. And that's kind of true, but it's also not. And it comes with all those other things you talked about. But I think even when he even when he got his first big contract. We had no idea about the taxes thing. We had no idea that they weren't taking money out for taxes. And so the first year when our tax bill came around, and thankfully we always did our taxes early, so we always did them in like January. So we had a couple months buffer, but our first tax bill was like, I don't even want to say the number, it was so big. And I just remember us staring at it and being like, wait, we have to come up with this much money? Like, how is that possible? And we did, but it was, I mean, it really did feel impossible, and I'm grateful we had that like three months instead of some people to do their taxes in April, I think I would have had an actual panic attack. But that was one of the things that after that, I remember we were like Googling it we were like, why do we owe so much money? And then like very obviously first thing was like, because 1099 don't take out taxes, you have to do it yourself. And we were like, why did no one tell us that? And then it kind of, you know, just the way my logical brain works, I'm like, well, is that really your employer's job to tell you like, hey, this is how we're paying you and you need to pay attention to your your taxes. Like that's not their job. Like they're not my mom. Like that's my job to be an adult. Marci Grossman (32:26) Well, yeah, but it's not something you necessarily learn and if no one tells you, don't know. I've had clients throughout the years that have had both W-2 and 1099 income and at the end of the year they have a large tax bill and they're like, why is this? Well, you either have to pay estimates or you have to increase the withholding on your W-2 job. I can do that? Yes. Well, how much? Well, I don't know. Based on this amount and this income, this is the target number you want to hit with your withholding. go to your human resources or your payroll department, whatever it is for your company and say, figure it out so that I've got this much paid in at the end of the year. And they're typically very happy to work with you. Human resources, payroll, accounting departments, whatever they are at the company you work for. If your withholding is too high or too low or too whatever, talk to them and they'll help you figure it out so that your money is going where you want it to go. Because one, that's their job and two, it doesn't cost them anything extra. to help you do this. The company does not lose out on anything based on how much of your money you use for taxes and how much goes in your pocket. So talk to these people. This goes back, I think, Jenna, to you saying, find the people to talk to, find your expert who can help you figure stuff out because that's what they're there for. Jenna (33:40) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that really was something. really important, really vital for me when we were making our decision to go debt by choice was my therapist. At that time, my husband and were seeing the same therapist, but individually. And I think that she was so helpful for us because she lived her life in such an authentic way that she was always traveling and doing fun things and very fiscally responsible as well and was willing to kind of talk about that with us. But that was one of the things that I found to be really valuable is that she Continuously was talking about how she was using money to fund the life that she wanted to live and I felt like that was so valuable to me that I really did feel like I was kind of in these golden handcuffs at that time that I had kind of given myself this stamp of like I am a debt-free person and I have to live that way for the rest of my life even though that didn't feel like it was serving me anymore like I won't lie to anyone like when I was getting debt-free that did feel like it was serving me because I felt like at that point I feel like the debt was me alive. Like it was terrifying to owe that much money and not know where you're paying it and it was awful. To the flip side, I think living in a way where you are making income and you are making smart choices, but you're not doing anything that you deem to be fun, that's not really healthy either. And so once I kind of started changing that narrative in my head of like, like you can, and I'm not saying like I'm not taking on massive amounts of debt now, I'm trying to be smart about it, but also being like, well, what is gonna add value to my life this year? Like, you know, my husband's grandpa's turning 90, this year he lives in Peru and it's a big expense for us to go to Peru for his birthday. But I was like... Well, that's kind of a one in a lifetime experience. mean, like, I don't know how much longer his grandpa has left. mean, 90 is pretty good, I would say. And we've never been to Peru, and well, I mean, my husband did when he was young, but it was so long ago. And so was like, you know, that feels like that's one of those life moments that I'm like, that's worth it to me, and still have a plan of how we're gonna pay it off and be smart about it. But also like, yeah, that feels like that's a good choice. Marci Grossman (35:45) It's so important to be intentional. I'm not a fan of the financial advisors, financial literacy advisors, speakers, whatever, who say, you know, no more Starbucks ever. You can't have a Starbucks. You can't have a this. You can't have a that. Every dollar must go into savings, must go into investing, must go into whatever. You have to find that balance and for every person it's going to be different just like there is no magic number I can't say well if you're 40 years old you need this much for retirement and if you're 50 years old you should plan to have this much for retirement because it's not that easy Everyone has a different lifestyle if your plan in retirement is that you're gonna travel a lot your number for retirement is going to be bigger than someone who is going to stay at home and take care of their grandchildren or you know volunteer work or whatever else and that's fine there is nothing wrong with it it's just this is what you need to retire and this is what they need to retire if these are the things in life that truly are your necessities and maybe that's a once a month manicure as opposed to a weekly manicure or a once a week Starbucks instead of a twice a day Starbucks whatever it is we need to find those joy things in life because otherwise what are we working for? What's the point? Jenna (37:01) 100%. Yeah. And I think that that is, I think that there's so much that now that I've gone through my debt-free journey that I am, don't know, maybe I truly, I kind of disagree with it. Like I agree with the idea of living debt-free. I think it is a very peaceful way to live. I will be honest with folks about that. But I also believe that there is a lot of narrative in the debt-free community around making hard choices and living a really minimalistic lifestyle, which there's nothing wrong with that if that's your cup of tea. That is definitely not my cup of tea, Marci. It really is not. I don't actually even like tea. That is not my cup of coffee. It really isn't. And that was one of the things that when we had gotten debt free, was like, one of very first things I was like, I want to get my dang manicures back in my life because I, and it sounds so silly, but to me, that was like a really important confidence statement for me. You know, that was an important moment. I don't love the word self-care, I think it's overused, but that was my version of that. It was my space where I could go and I could sit and be taken care of in a life where I take care of a lot of things and a lot of people. So it's nice to have that time for me. And so although I understand why I made that choice when I was getting debt-free not to get my manicures for two years, I also don't know if I'd actually do that again. Like I think if I could go back, I would maybe be okay with it taking two and a half or three years to pay off my debt and still being able to have that one thing that was so valuable to me. And even now, like I don't get Starbucks every day. I try to limit it to at least once a week, I try. But you know, I've also created this little like mini Starbucks in my own house where I make my own little iced coffee and I have my bougie little creamers and my little stir stick. And it's so fun for me though. And I love it so much. Marci Grossman (38:42) You Jenna (38:46) it probably is the same amount of money as going to Starbucks at this point in time, but whatever. I have found so much joy in those things that it's worth the money that I exchange for the amount of happiness it brings me. And I think that's something that the debt-free community really loses, is that they don't think about exactly what you said. It's like, what is the point of working if not to spend some of the money? Like, yes, we need to be smart and take care of ourselves, but part of it is to be able to enjoy your life in whatever way that means to you. So I think that that's something that I really learned with our debt-free by choice lifestyle as well. Is that I'm not gonna be stupid about my money, I'm not gonna spend it willy nilly on everything, but I'm also not gonna not spend it either. If I want a cup of coffee, I'm gonna buy a damn cup of coffee. I work hard and I work a lot and that makes me happy. And if that makes me happy, amazing. Marci Grossman (39:37) I think it's wonderful that you and your husband found the balance that you guys needed for your financial journey to make sense. You you learned a lot of lessons the hard way, but you learned them. And that just means continuing to go forward that you get this intentionality as just part of your lifestyle. You have these conversations. Okay, we want to do this. Is this something that we say, okay, we'll take the debt and make a plan to pay it off? Is this something that we say, okay, we're going to cut back on X, Y, Z so that we can do this and move forward? Those conversations are so important to the relationship. And as we said before about relationships, relationships and money. don't think it's always about the money. It's about the lack of communication about whatever the money situation is. Oh, yeah. Jenna (40:24) Yeah. And the emotions that go with it, right? That I think some people are actually okay being like, hey, like I see this a lot and actually some of my peers that, know, they're okay with being like, hey, we're not allowed to spend any more money this month because we're saving up for Hawaii. But then they don't share like, hey, that makes me feel that, you know, we're... not living our life in alignment with our values, or that makes me feel like you're telling me what to do with my money, or that makes me feel like my input into our household is not valued because I'm not bringing in income, or whatever it is. I feel like the emotional side of money, and in relationships in general, mean, my podcast is on emotional leadership, so I think about emotions a lot, but that's something I think about, is that we need to do better about being able to express how something makes us feel. What is the emotion behind it? So I think that's something that my husband and I really learned through this journey is that yeah, it's important for us to say like, hey, I'm feeling stressed out because we don't have enough money this month or, or, you know, I just had a really big moment in my career and I did this cool keynote speaking thing and I told him, I was like, I really want to go celebrate. Like I feel like this was a moment in my career and I want to celebrate this moment. And he was like, awesome. What do you want? Like, do you want an expensive dinner on the strip? Like, what do you want to do? And I was like, I want Taco Bell. And he was like, okay, let's get you some Taco Bell. But you know, it's that thing, because I think most people equate success and celebration with expensive. And we really changed that relationship that I was feeling like I wanted to celebrate because I did something that excited me. That doesn't mean I need a $500 dinner. That means I want to do something that values the hard work I put in and I want to spend some time with my husband while I do it. To me, on that moment, that meant $29 Taco Bell meal. Marci Grossman (42:10) Okay, that's a lot of Taco Bell. In Vegas, do they have alcohol? okay. That must be a Vegas thing. I don't know. What goes well with a Dorito Loco Taco? Jenna (42:13) my husband can eat so much. There actually is alcohol in our Taco Bells. It is, it so is. a Baja blast with tequila. Marci Grossman (42:29) Okay, good to know. Jenna, I have so much appreciated this time with you. Have you got anything you'd like to share before we end? Jenna (42:37) I just wanna say thank you for letting me share a little bit of my journey and the important work I think you're doing. I do think these are important conversations and I'm grateful that you're having them, especially someone with such incredible experience in your own career. So I really appreciate that. And maybe as people are listening to this podcast, if they feel like they also need some advice in leadership and they're like, hey, now I'm making the money and I need to figure out how to move up in my career, then head over to my podcast, Tearin' Up My Heart, and I can help you with the other side of that. Marci Grossman (43:06) I will be sharing a link to Jenna's podcast in the show notes and I believe I am guesting on your podcast in the near future. I am too. I have no idea where the conversation will go, but I know it's going to be fun. Jenna (43:13) You are, I'm so excited. It will be. Marci Grossman (43:21) Okay, well thank you so much Jenna for being my guest. Listeners, thank you so much for coming by and sharing your time with us. This is Money Marci and thank you for listening to Marci Talks, Money and Life. You got this. See ya.