Latest / WTF! Women Talk Finance / EP 24: Why Making More Money Won’t Fix Your Financial Stress with Aimee Railton

Transcript

EP 24: Why Making More Money Won’t Fix Your Financial Stress with Aimee Railton · WTF! Women Talk Finance

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Jackie.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Candace.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: And this is WTF.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_02: Grab your coffee, wine, water bottle, emotional support snack, no judgment.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: And let's get into it.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to WTF Women Talk Finance.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: We are here today with Amy Railton.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: She is an owner, a founder, an entrepreneur.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: She's got actually multiple businesses that we're gonna learn about today, one of them being Railton Co.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: You can see behind her on video.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Amy is a new friend to us in the show, so we're gonna spend some time today just getting to know each other.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: Amy, thank you for joining us.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um dive in.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, when we asked you, are you an owner, a founder, an entrepreneur?
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: Your immediate response was yes.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Tell us about your journey and like where you're at currently in with those identifiers being your labels right now.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so my journey into this whole world of entrepreneurship started five years ago.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: I was working in a corporate office in the insurance industry and didn't really see a way up or anything else from there.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: So I kind of just dove into entrepreneurship.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: I started as a virtual assistant, and that's when I founded Railton Co.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: And that business has evolved over the last five years.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's now an online bits, online business management business.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: And we specialize in HR and helping trade industries with their back-end operations.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: And it's kind of been like my baby my passion project for the last five years.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: And then recently I had a conversation with my financial planner and we was kind of just talking about the different financial systems that I have and that I've used over the few years to organize our household finances.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: And she kind of came back to me and said, I have clients that need to know more about this.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's not often that people come to me with these sorts of systems.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: Can you talk to them?
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: And that's when I created the Cashflow Queen.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: And it's a cash flow coaching business where I help female entrepreneurs with their finances and creating systems and ways of organizing their bank accounts so that it's stress-free.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_02: I want to dive in a little bit more into Cash Flow Queen if we can, because I love your journey into entrepreneurship.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_02: It started as you being somebody who was working in more of a corporate environment and wanting a different situation and designing a different situation for yourself.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_02: And you so you had Relton and Co., but you built cash flow queen out of a couple of other reasons, right?
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_02: One, seeing a need in the space, having somebody validate that there's a need in the space.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um you reached out to us actually, because there were other reasons behind you creating this second business.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_02: Do you mind diving a little bit more into that?
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: So it really started off as like just a system to run our household finances.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: So I'd say probably like my first six months into entrepreneurship, I was thought I had it all under control and was doing great and loved what I was doing.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: I had replaced my corporate income, which I mean in the insurance industry isn't much, but I had I was able to replace it.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: And then things kind of just started to snowball.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: I like I'm not really sure where how it happened, but it started to get to a point where our weekly spending, I couldn't pay the credit card off every single week.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I didn't really want to admit that to my husband either because he's always trusted me with the finances.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: So I didn't want to like admit to him that like maybe I made a mistake, maybe I let us like spent a little too much.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: And he worked so hard in his job that I didn't want to have to like punish him for like maybe my decision of going into entrepreneurship and feeling like I maybe wasn't doing as well as we should have.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so I kind of just I'm like, I got this.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: No big deal.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: I can figure this out on my own, which in a relationship you can't when it comes to money, especially when it's both of you with like one bank account.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: Like you need to have conversations about that.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: And it wasn't until a few months later that my anxiety had completely peaked.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: I was an anxious person already.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: We had gone through some traumatic weather-related events in our area that had increased my anxiety.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: So then this whole like financial thing on top of it just like sent me over the edge.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I had a full body reaction.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: I woke up one morning, not have slept, being able to sleep the whole night before.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I was in this like complete sweat.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: I had uh what's I've now figured out is a psychogenic fever.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: Whoa.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: And never heard of that.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: No, so if you've been terrifying, terrifying, because you don't have words for this, you don't have anything to like compare it to or name it.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I just like I woke up that morning, I was like, I have a fever, I don't know why.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: I felt awful and like I wasn't sick.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm like, I don't understand what's going on.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: And it wasn't until I started doing some research behind it that I realized that like it was when my anxiety got to this certain level that there was no other way for my body to cope with it.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: And that's also when I just like broke down to my husband.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: I was like in tears.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, I've screwed up.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: Like we have, and it wasn't a lot of money on the credit card, but we grew up with like you pay them off, you don't have debt.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: Like it was only a couple thousand dollars.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: So like it was feels like a personal failure.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: And like yeah, once I talked to him, it was easy to fix, but it felt like I did something wrong.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's so funny, Candace and I talk a lot about like the wiring from our childhoods and how it governs us to this day, even with like intentional work around it, it can still be so like subconscious.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: And it's interesting because before, when you said this is even before you talked to your husband about it, in your mind, you're like, I don't want to punish him.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: You use the word punish, right?
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: Like, like I've got to carry this all myself.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: Cause if I don't, like without even talking to him, like he doesn't even know about this.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: But in your mind, you decided it was a punishment.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like because when we first like got married and were together, like we discussed about how like we wanted to run our finances that I would take care of it all.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: Cause at one point we both tried to take care of it, and that doesn't work either.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but like have the right conversations around it.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: And we discussed that like we lit within our means, we pay off the credit cards all the time, and we don't overextend ourselves.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, it's like one week of oh, it's just a little bit more.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like, that's okay, we'll get it next week.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: But when that happens every single week for six months, it like adds up.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I kept just thinking, like, I can figure this out myself until my body said, absolutely not.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_02: I'm picking up on like two, Jackie and I've had a lot of conversations about the shame we carry as women, especially when, like, as you said, core philosophy for you, core financial philosophy was to live within your means, pay off your credit cards every month.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_02: And so having a period of time, even though it was in the interest of uh building a business and expanding potentially your earning potential, and the whole concept of you leaving this uh stable-ish position to risk it a little bit more and to grow potentially into something much bigger, which you have, but still that like deep down core philosophy was getting you.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_02: And instead of being able to look at it as like, okay, right now I'm having to use what I can to leverage to be able to get to this next phase of uh earnings potential, you took it as like this personal failure, which I think keeps so many of us from swinging for the fences, not just the risk of it, but our own personal guilt and shame around it.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, absolutely.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I think like we all take our finances like so personally that like it's hard to one admit when there's an issue and to ask for help about it.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: You so you are on this entrepreneur journey, which on a good day, you need so much extra, like I think like mental space and mental capacity.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: Like you've you're wearing a whole nother hat, right?
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like you're you're someone in your role in your partnership.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know like what your family dynamics are, but you've got you know, some sort of family to maintain, family relationships, you've got friendships, it's all the whole take care of yourself, you know, that's almost a job at different points.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: Make sure you're eating, working out, you know, do drinking all the water.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: And then now you've got like you're building a business and your body literally says, like, I I've got nothing left to give to all of these categories.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: How did you how did you like take the first step beyond that?
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: It was when I like I just broke down.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, I can't do this anymore.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: And like my husband walked into the house and I just like burst into tears.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, I can't do this on my own anymore.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, okay, we need to like find a solution to this.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: And he's like the most amazing person ever.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: He's always been super supportive, and he's like, we'll it's always the we'll figure it out mentality.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's nothing is ever detrimental to anything going on.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so it was like just a simple, okay, we'll figure it out.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: And from there, that's when I started creating our cat flow of systems, which is what has led to the cat flow queen.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's these systems that I've been using that helped us get out of that little bit of debt that we had and then create a system so that it doesn't happen again.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_02: I love that not only because I I can feel what you felt.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_02: I've I've been there too building um a few of my businesses.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_02: We've gotten into financial signs where it always costs more, takes longer, and doesn't go as you plan.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um and in in our last one of our last ventures, we were also remodeling our house, which also does costs way more.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, takes way longer.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_02: Takes way longer, does not go as planned.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_02: And so I remember the feeling, and I've talked about it on the show, of various moments of like truly crippling anxiety.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um so I I like my past anxiety queen feels for your past anxiety queen because it feels the weight feels so heavy and it feels like this this boulder on you that you you can't you you feel like you're never going to get out of it.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_02: You feel like there's no potential future where you're you're out of this situation.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_02: It just feels dark and lonely.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_02: And so not only do I love that you crafted a way to get out of it, like you, you figured out a way, you worked through it, but classic entrepreneur, you're like, this is also something somebody else needs.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_02: Let me make this into a product.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_02: Did that, was it at the time that you realized, like, I'm not alone in this journey.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_02: Somebody else is going through this.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_02: How can I build this for somebody else?
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_02: Or was this after kind of the cloud had lifted that you were able to see, like, ooh, I've got something here?
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: So it wasn't until I started like using these systems like five years ago for myself.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: And it wasn't until about three months ago when I had a meeting with my financial planner, and it was it was a new financial planner to me.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: And she's talking about her different systems.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, okay, but like I have like all of these organizational things within my bank.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I can't lose out on that.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: Like mentally, I need these systems.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: And that's when she's like, you have something.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: And it was one of those, like, it's so simple to me.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: And it's something that like if I talk to somebody about like all of it, like I'm so passionate about it that I didn't even realize that it's something that could actually like help other people.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_02: So it was somebody else validating that this is like not only someone else, but somebody else in a profession that sees this a lot.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_02: Can you talk to us a little bit?
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, go ahead.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, no, no.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: You go, you go, boo-boo.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: You go.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: You go.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: You go.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I was just gonna ask, like, yeah, like what are you seeing?
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: Have you had any really big surprises or aha moments with other women?
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you you know the tool works, you've used it for yourself.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it's important now to educate others.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: Have you had any surprises or anything where it's like, whoa, that that one shocks me a little bit.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: Women really need this more than I would have guessed.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: I think what surprises me the most is like the lack of financial knowledge that it's not even women, just people have.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like we go through high school, even university, you get taught how to calculate a triangle and all of this stuff, but nobody actually tells you like how to pay bills, how to pay taxes, how to make sure that like your books are balanced, everything like that.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm always surprised by the amount of people that just don't have like a basic understanding of these things.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: It is wild when you said like calculate the angle of a triangle, that just brought me back, and I was thinking about I know a young woman who could do like calculus in high school, but saw an apartment, it was a condo actually, for six thousand dollars in Laguna Beach and was like, Oh, we should get that.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: And it was like, she thought you could buy a condo in Laguna Beach for six thousand dollars.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, no boo-boo, that's rent per month.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like there's yeah, like super smart and yes, super smart and there's not there's no modern curriculum that teaches young adults how to go like navigate basic finances in the world.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_02: My husband and I joke every tax season we go, don't worry, we still know the Pythagorean theorem.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_02: Like we don't know this nonsense, but we can we can still like still do this useless not that too.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_02: It's great, but it would be wonderful if we integrated more actual life skills.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_02: Uh how to adult would be awesome.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_02: That'd be a great course.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_02: That would be a great course.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_02: How to adult.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um, because I feel like I still need an adultier adult to help me navigate the things that still I'm trying to figure out.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_02: For sure.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_02: Can we talk a little bit about you just just kind of high level what some of these systems are?
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_02: Because there's somebody listening right now who they have the rock on their chest.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_02: The rock is there, the boulder is there.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe they're not at the full fledged multiple panic attacks during the day, having the full break, but it's sitting, maybe they are.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_02: I hope not.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, but um, but it's sitting there and they they they want to hear one, that there's solutions, that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_02: And can you give kind of high-level what those systems look like that help solve this?
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so my favorite system is my like bill management system.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: So along with like all this entrepreneurial stuff, my husband works in construction, and that means sometimes in the winter he's off for a couple weeks.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I was also getting frustrated with that of like, okay, so he doesn't get paid if he doesn't work.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: So he's off for a couple weeks, the bills still come out, and then when he goes back to work, we're playing catch up on all of these bills.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: So one of the systems that I created around that aspect, and it's my favorite system, is a way to divide up our bills so that they're even across every single one of his paychecks, and we know exactly how much it's going to be each time.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: So then we're able to create a like slush fund for those couple of weeks that he might be off in the winter that is going to cover like that exact amount.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: And when I was in the thick of like not always being able to pay off everything every single week, it was okay, some weeks were great because my bill was only like my bills that came out of my auto deposit were only$100, but other ones sucked because it was like a thousand dollar car payment.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like, how do you balance that out?
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_01: So I created a system that allows the same amount to be taken off every single paycheck and put away, and then you either add to that account or withdraw from that account in order to cover the difference.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_03: You can have a board, investors, advisors, and still have nobody you can actually talk to about what is really going on.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_03: That is not unusual.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_03: That is the founder reality.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_03: And we step in right there.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_03: I'm Tom Powell, and at the founder's office, we're proud to sponsor Women Talk Finance.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_02: So we talk a lot about uh money is money is just a resource.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_02: Money is just it's it's a tool.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_02: It um and uh with the mindset of like abundance, this kind of leads to that, right?
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_02: It's all about leveling it out so that you know what's left.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_02: You you know what you have to work with.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_02: And so I'm uh I don't know if every power company does it.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_02: Our power company does a similar solution where it'll average out your bill.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_02: So instead of having huge July, August power bills and then lower April, May bills, it'll actually even it out.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: So you're electric or your gas?
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_02: That's the it's the same, the same company.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_02: So they will um well in our area is kind of weird because we only have one.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_02: You don't have choice here.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so but they do this thing where they can they can average it um based on your usage.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's similar because it does there's there have been months where I'm like, whoa, it's double than it was the month before.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and it's because you know it's just the time of year, but that is a bummer to come in and go, well, this month my resources look a little different because this cost a lot more than I was prepared for.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: And that's normally the month too that the dog decides to get sick and the car.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: The dog correct.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_02: And then like a tree falls over in your yard, and you have to get somebody arborist to come.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's always like big things kind of seemingly pile on.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: And like with that system, too, it's also knowing like, because not every single bill is monthly.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: Some are annual, some are quarterly.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's like preparing for those ones as well so that the month when you have all of your monthly bills, the quarterly bill and the annual bill come out that you're prepared for and the amount that you have left over as like your fun spending money doesn't have to change.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_02: I love this.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_02: I love the automation.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_02: We love a good budget conversation in a way that makes it easy and something you can you can digest.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: There's almost excitement with it too.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like if you've had that moment in time where you're like, oh, this is panic, shifting it into this is totally manageable.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: No, I mean, excitement is a big word for budgeting, but it's a little bit of a stretch.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: But still, it's like I feel good, I feel safe.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I feel like I have a plan that gives me more power.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: That can be exciting.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I don't have to panic anymore.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's really exciting.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, what else in your entrepreneur journey?
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: What's been a real pleasure?
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: What have you really enjoyed?
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: Being an owner and a founder and like figuring this out and having something to offer other people, knowing like it worked for you, knowing that you've got a product here that can help people.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like, walk us through the feeling, the ups and downs, all of it, of being an entrepreneur.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I really love like connecting with other entrepreneurs on this and being able to show them that like you can make good money and not feel stressed about it.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: Cause that's a big thing that I see.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: The people that are most stressed about money are typically the ones that make more and the solutions.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's interesting.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: And more money, more problems.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: More money.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_00: Money.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: Mo money, more problems.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I think like as an entrepreneur, we quite often think of if I have this financial problem, oh I'll just like sell another, I'll do another launch, I'll get another client, I'll make more money.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_01: But that's not actually the solution to it because you're still going to be stressed about it because you don't have the systems in place at the end of the day.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_01: So I've really enjoyed like having these conversations with people and getting to see the like light in their eyes when they realize that there can be a solution to this.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_02: I can see that it I think to uh having anxiety ongoing anxiety and working through that, I think oftentimes I don't know about everyone, but my anxiety stems from lack of control.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um and it takes different shapes, right?
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_02: Every time.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_02: So, or feeling out of control or feeling, you know, dysregulated.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_02: This offers you a way, sometimes just even knowing and being in control and measuring it out gives you that sense of control that can help keep that anxiety monster a little bit more at bay.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't necessarily even change the situation, but the feeling of being in control can help so much.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_02: And then your higher executive brain is able to make better decisions, um, able to think more clearly and and creatively.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_02: I know when I am deep in anxiety, my ability to creatively problem solve is very much diminished.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: Even make basic decisions.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: The psychology around this is so huge.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: A little bit of anxiety can be really damaging just for basic functioning, basic decision making, basic communication.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_02: How do feed my body goes out the window when I have any level of anxiety?
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_02: That's like the first tell when I because it's like the basic function of taking care of my human body is the thing that goes.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_02: And it's because like I'm like, I can't, I can't make, I don't know.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I know like when my anxiety spikes, I just I'm I'm a zombie.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like I just sit there, I'm like, I don't know what to do.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_01: I can't focus on anything.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: And then I like hyper focus on whatever is causing the anxiety.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_02: For sure.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the ruminating thoughts then starts.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, we we say a lot of times the first thing, even though it's gonna it's it hurts, it sucks, but like stare the monster down, open up the credit card statements, look at the number, because sometimes just even not even I think a lot of times people go, I don't want to look, I don't want to see it, I don't want to see what my credit score did, I don't want to look.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_02: And just stop taking a look, take some of the demystifies, takes the power away.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, recognizing that you're still a good person, you still have good financial habits, you are still a financially healthy person.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_02: It's okay, you can overcome this.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um there's you you need to get some tools.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_02: Cash Flow Queen is a great place to start and really uh take some ownership and take some of that control back can be a very powerful, you know, move for your mental health.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, avoidance is never going to solve the problem, it's only gonna make it worse.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: I love that when you finally communicated, it was met with really strong support.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm curious how quickly the fever that you had went away once you even just didn't solve everything, but solved that one piece.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: Solved communicating with your husband.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: And then from there you had the ability to like take some action.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like it was gone like by the end of that day.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_02: Which is why our bodies are so yeah, our bodies are so wild, but your your debt wasn't gone by the end of that day.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_02: No, exactly.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_02: Like, yeah, it was you're in control, you now weren't harboring this like weight yourself.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I heard something recently, and I can't remember where I heard it, but it was that like anxious people can't have secrets.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: Oh if they have a secret, that's when like the anxiety like festers and grows and gets like gets bigger.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so most anxious people like just don't keep secrets because they can't.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: That is really interesting.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: So much of this is psychology and how we're wired from young little people.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I don't know uh how much sometimes we talk with like different parents or or young people.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: We've had a very special guest named Starlight on our show that's a young entrepreneur.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: She's nine, she wants to build a business.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: What would your advice be to like young Amy or young Jackie or young Candace if they were receiving wiring?
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like you've got to pay your debt.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if you you can't burden your other people, you can't ask for help.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: All of these narratives that maybe aren't intentional, but society or our family units, somehow this messaging creeps in.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: What would you encourage young people to know, or like even parents, how to like re-message kind of money matters, finances, things like that with their kids?
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_01: So, first I'd say is your finances aren't a direct result of who you are as a person, and how you manage them isn't a direct result of who you are as a person.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, just because you have debt or you haven't made the best financial decision doesn't mean that you're a bad person, or even you're bad with money.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: Because things happen.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um and then one thing that I wish my parents talked to me differently about is like the debt side of it.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_01: Is if you can make money on somebody else's money, you should be doing that.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_01: Especially like if you can get it at like such a low interest rate and you can return at a higher interest rate, like you should be doing that.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: That's how rich people get rich.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_02: Work the margin.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_02: That's exactly it.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_02: And I think people get nervous, just like you were, I mean, you were building a business.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_02: And so, yeah, using some leverage to build a better future and a better, better, you know, uh potential earning for yourself had a short-term sacrifice for a long-term gain.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_02: But a lot of times debt, a lot of the communication we hear about debt, even now, whether it was when we were children or even just kind of societal, is painted as like not a it's not a great thing.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_02: You should, you should be avoiding it at all costs.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_02: And and in a lot of ways, you're right.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_02: Like there are really good ways to approach debt.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_02: Most of us will find ourselves into a financial pickle at some point.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_02: And it is something you can overcome.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_02: It is something you can work through.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't define you.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_02: And if it's to build something for a longer, uh potential, greater future, that may be a worthy sacrifice.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_01: Temporarily.
• 29:25
  unknown: Yeah.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_02: I love that.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I think that messaging is really important to continue to get out there.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_02: I love I love that it, I love that your fever broke that day.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_02: I just love that that the weight of this.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and like looking back, my husband even asks, I had been like at high like fight or flight for like that whole six months leading up to that.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_01: And he's like, part of it was so we went through, um, we're out in the Fraser Valley, and there was in 2021, we had like horrific flooding out here, and like we were, we were fine, but we were evacuated during that time.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_01: So when the one year anniversary came up, like my anxiety like peaked just because of that.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I kept chalking it up to that on what my anxiety was.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, you know what?
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's the anniversary of all of this, like that's why I'm anxious.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: And then when it didn't go away and the finances didn't improve, and then I got this fever and I was talking to him about it, he's like, I bet if you talked to me six months ago, we would like you wouldn't have had all of this anxiety for the last six months.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, yeah, you're right.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: Oops, two over.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: Less than one.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: What's your what's your vision for the next year or two years, especially with Cash Flow Queen?
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: I just want to help as many people as possible.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: I want to educate about the financial industry and like basic finances because I think that's really missing.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_01: We have financial planners that will teach us about like investing and retirement and all of that.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: But like even just talking to some of our close friends, like the basics of like household expenses and how to plan for those.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_01: And just trying to make as big of a big of an impact as I can.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_01: How do people find you?
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_02: They can find me either on Instagram at the cashflowqueen underscore or my website, cashflowqueen.ca, and we'll link those in our in our show notes for this episode.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um I thought this was a really powerful conversation.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_02: I'm so grateful for you to be like come on and be so vulnerable.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_02: One to reach out to us and tell us this, like little bits of this story and be willing to share it because so many people are going through this like you did alone and trying to navigate this alone.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_02: And it's not that you needed your husband to solve it or fix it or even um be like the savior at the end of the day, but sharing and unloading the pressure that you were putting on yourself for this transformed how you were able to address the problem and then look, look at where turning this into a business itself, which is incredible.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um being supportive and being like, you could have talked to me about this months ago.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: There was no like bad girl, no shame.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, which I love that.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: So good.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: I love that for you guys.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_02: Also good in like picking, picking a good partner.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_02: We talk about that because there are we've done a we've done a few episodes on partnerships, and one of the big red flags is not necessarily always how the finances are handled, which it can be, but how you treat each other about the finances is so, so, so telling and so important.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_02: And you're not always going to be perfect in a relationship because we're all people and we're just learning.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_02: But what a good model in how to receive that information and give you grace and support.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_02: And that that says something about like the partner you chose and the communication style you guys have.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we've been together since we were 17.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_01: So, like everything that we have, we've built together.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_01: And it's really always been a partnership.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's never like this is your problem or this is your thing.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's always been like the two of us.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that makes a big difference when you can operate as like one cohesive unit.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_02: I love that.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_02: I love that so much.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's so important, and I love sharing those stories about support and that that it is possible to do that.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_02: So thank you so much.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thank you, Amy.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: For our listeners, if you want to find Amy and potentially use some of these cash flow queen tools, if you're in a similar situation and could use a little budgeting support or some tools that can kind of change your go forward, how you handle debt, um, reach out to her.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_00: We'll have her links in the show notes.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: And you can download this episode, share it with other women that or men, whoever, share it with others that can benefit from this message.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: And like and subscribe and follow, and I don't know, come back for come back for more.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_02: And don't feel alone.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_02: Know that you are not alone in this.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_02: There's light at the end of the tunnel.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_02: There's light, there is light, and the only way to go is just to keep keep going.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_00: And if you wake up with a fever that has no underlying explanation, maybe Google this uh and maybe psychogenic fever.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: Psychogenic fever.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't have a tough conversation and relieve your fever by the end of the day.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_02: Just give yourself that gift, please.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_00: Be nice to your bodies, honestly.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, be nice to your sweet selves.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_00: We do so much.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_02: Amy, thank you so so much.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much to our listeners, and um, join us next time.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, that was today's episode of WTF.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_02: If you laughed, learned something, or felt a little less alone, make sure you hit follow and send this episode to a friend who might need it.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: Women don't gatekeep, especially not the good stuff.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_02: We'll be back next week with more real talk, more stories, and probably more over sharing.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: See you next time on WTF.