Ep.12 Combining Money Views in Marriage with CFM Julie Orrock

[CFM COACH ASSISTANT AI ]: Hey everybody, this is Madeline from Strasbourg coaching and you are listening to the money is not your problem podcast. I use what I love most, my LDS faith, the common sense of Dave Ramsey's baby steps, and Brooke Castillo's life coaching tools to help you identify and manage the real issues behind your financial problems.

Hey there, everybody. Welcome to the money it's not your problem podcast. We're here for another interview with another one, another chief financial mom.

Her.

Her name is Julia Rock and we met last year for the. What was the name of that class? It was starting a business for the self reliance course in our stake and her and her husband were our facilitators. It was a great experience.

It was a wonderful class. We all got to know each other and enjoyed each other and even partied at the end. Right.

We have a big party at the end. It was great. All right, so Julie, tell us a little bit about you growing up and how did you learn a little bit about finances or how your family look at money.

Sure.

Back then.

So my dad was an Idaho farm boy and he was very, very frugal. He. He didn't. We didn't have frills in our house and everything kind of had a purpose that we had, but it was great. We didn't feel like we were have nots. We just were happy. We. He was a good dad, mom. And he also had an attitude of you can do anything with all his kids. So that combination of frugality and you could do anything pretty much spurred entrepreneurs. All three of his kids became very entrepreneurial, which was also really interesting, including me. My first job that I ever got was a self job. I picked berries because I lived in Oregon. We had lots of berries and then I sold them at the back of a restaurant. Oh, really? I went to the back door, knocked on the restaurant and asked if they wanted some fresh berries. And they did. And so I did that all summer long. That was my very first job. I think I was seven or eight.

Wow, that's fun.

Yeah. And it was just kind of fun doing something on my own. And I just continued working throughout my life because I liked it. There was always something kind of fun to do, whether it was doing door to door sales or anything. You could do a lot more back in the 60s. It was a little bit safer. And when I finally did get a job in my teenage years, I liked that too.

And what was your first job as a teenager?

A fast food restaurant.

Okay.

Yeah. And it was fun.

Right. And what did you learn from that experience?

That's a good question. I learned that it's just as important to be clean and organized as it is to be fast, so.

Right.

And they. They were. It was a good restaurant where they actually prized those qualities in you. So we had good workers and people that were the best workers were the ones that we all looked up to. So that was kind of nice. Even though it was a bunch of teenagers at a fast food restaurant, we really learned the value of work there together.

So you have a good team.

We did.

Awesome. So what are some of the things that your parents did with money to help you guys other than inspired this entrepreneurship, you know, in you.

They were careful. They were. They were wise. My mom was the bill payer and she. She took on that burden. She called it. She was, you know, that was a little bit hard for her, but she did a really good job with it. I think her just her ability to clearly see was important for our family. She was good at that. She was. As kids, we all felt pretty responsible for ourselves. And I think that was a really great way to grow up. I'm glad that we had that. I learned how to sew. I learned how to make sure and budget for the things that I wanted. And I think it taught me great lessons. So I appreciate being refugal with us.

Right. Did you guys ever had any kind of some kind of experience or you specifically anything that you remember from that time that made a big impact on your financial journey?

When I was a child.

Yeah. Growing up.

I do remember my dad. I told. I said he was frugal and wise, but I do remember that. That he also had dreams. And one day he came home into the house and he said, mom, for Joyce. He said, joyce bought a house on the lake. We lived in a. We lived in a town. And it. It wasn't a glamorous house or a glamorous lake. And my mom was kind of horrified. She handled the bills and so he was very excited. We had this house on the lake and this house in. In town. So we moved to the lake because you couldn't have two houses. So we got renters. We moved to the lake. It was one of the most exciting experiences of my life. The. The house was not. There was no road to the house. So you had to get in a boat and drive from the boat to the lake. It was about a 10 or 15 minute drive.

Wow.

It was in Oregon, which spends a lot of inclement weather, a lot of rain, a lot of fog. I learned how to drive a boat at a very Young age. And I would drive myself to and fro. 10, 12 years old.

That's exciting.

But the really neat thing, I know at first it was shocking, and mom was distressed, but we just learned how to handle things like that and make them turn them into adventures.

Right. So it creates a problem, then you guys got to solve it, Right?

Yeah. And. And it solved in a beautiful way.

Right.

Some of my best years. I loved those years.

So did they talk about this purchase before or it was just a surprise to her?

They did not talk about it at all. So it was a surprise and a shock. And I'm sure they probably had conversations behind doors that we didn't know about. But I just remember that mom was shocked and that we did have to do something about it. We could not two houses.

Right. So. Yeah. At least she made that known.

Right?

Yeah. So it sounds like it was more caught than taught. So you guys were not taught financial literacy at home?

It's a good term that.

Right?

Definitely more caught than taught. Yeah.

Okay.

So watched it, modeled, and that is so fun.

So do you see any kind of spirituality? Did that play any part in your development in terms of finances?

I think that it did in the way that my mom and dad were both converts to the church, so they were. It was very important to them to diligently live the gospel, and they taught that to all of us kids. So it was just a normal way of life in our house. And financially, tithing was first, and we all knew it. It was never hardship. It was never something you consider. It was just first. So I learned at a young age. And we had the little many banks, and they put your one, you know, one penny out of a dime in there. So it taught me that it was just an automatic. And I think that there's something interesting about having tithing be automatic. It can be so that you actually don't appreciate the fact tithing is going for something really wonderful. It's just kind of a, yeah, here's my 10%. And there it goes. And I think I just recently learned something very beautiful about tithing. When my mom died, he had a little bit of money that she left. It wasn't a whole lot, but. But I got a little bit of money from my mom, and it was a gift to me. And I felt like I should pay tithing because it was an increase. And I kind of battled that in my mind a little bit. And I thought, well, how, you know, how much do I pay tithing on this? You know, what. What's the. What does the 10% figure come out to be? And boy, this was a gift for me. This is going to give this gift away. And at that time, there was a bunch of stuff going on in Afghanistan and we were doing about things, hardships that were going on there. And I was watching the news one day and I realized that my mom's gift to me could become a gift to someone else when it became more beautiful to me. In all my life, I've just been kind of an automatic kind of a bill. And I got excited about writing that check and sitting it and thinking about what it could really do. You probably should have learned that a lot younger, but I did at the point.

Exactly. Yeah. That's beautiful because it does make such a difference. Especially nowadays if you go to. If you go online to pay tithing, it takes you less than three seconds.

So easy.

It is so easy.

Right.

And sometimes you miss that, seeing that connection.

Yeah. It was fun to hand your envelopes to the bishop and teach our kids to put their stuff and hand their envelopes to the bishop. That was just kind of a neat thing to learn yourself and to teach your kids. And so it is different now.

Yeah. It can be more than automatic. You're just like, boom, just go.

Yeah.

But it has that impact when you make that choice. Yeah, right. And it's too. Even if you just do it that way, because that's how I do a nice too. It's too great, but so good. All right, so are there other than your mom and your dad, are there any other people in your life that impact you financially? Like in learning about finances, someone that you observe, someone. Some example that you're like, hey, that person. Or. Or a lesson that someone gave you that comes to mind.

I think I admired a lot of people in my lifetime for their financial acumen and had people that I admired. I can't really think of any particular names, but I was always one to admire people that were wise as much as anything. And a lot of times people that are wise end up doing well financially, which was really rewarding to see. But I think I have to go back to my dad again and a lesson I learned from him. David and I were in college here at byu and there was a friend of ours that his parents were selling a house and they were going to sell it at kind of a distressed amount. And he talked to us and said, they would work with you, they would give you a loan, they would work with you. And we started thinking, wow, a house. Wouldn't that be so great?

House.

And so I called mom and dad and I said, mom and Dallin, we have this opportunity to buy this house. We could do it. I mean, we're college students and we could do this. And my dad said, the nicest of houses will become a prison if you can't afford it. And wow. That was all it took. I realized there are dreams and they'll come someday in my life.

Yes.

They have to come at the right time. So again, my dad.

So is there anything else that you carry with you that you still do it because you got from that influence?

Buy things you need, use the things you buy, practical stuff like that. Because a lot of it's really old fashioned, but it works. My kids are pretty practical as well. I've got. I've got five kids. Probably four of them are really good about. I mean, not probably four of them are really good about. Do I really need that or not? More. What's the word? When you don't have a lot in your brevity, what's the word? I'm thinking of minimalist. Minimalism? Yeah. Minimalism is comfortable in our family. My husband, he has his own ring. He's driving to Paige right now. I'm driving to Arizona right now.

Do you want to talk to him? I'll pause over here. So let's transition a little bit about you teaching your children. How does that. About finances, how does that say? What does it look like?

Okay, what did it look like? Okay, you have to learn how to do that, for sure. You have to learn what's comfortable for you, what you want to do with your children that you can maintain. We felt like it was important for our children to understand the value of their. The money that they had. And so we had a program. We actually learned this program called James Jones Parenting or something years ago. James Jones and Kids and money or something like that. And he talked about your children earning or taking care of themselves financially. And this concept was they buy their hairbrushes, they buy their toothpaste, they buy their, you know, their. Their school books, you know, and they just take care of themselves at a really young age. But to do that, of course, they have to have income. So we would have charts where they would have certain things that they could be required to do, and they would get X amount of money for that. And then optional things that they could do. And they would keep track of their own charts. They would figure out how much money they. They had made or earned in their week or two week period, whatever it was, and we would pay Them, and then they would use their money for their own things. School clothes that they would save up for. And they got to be very smart about their own money because it was important to them. I remember one of them saying to me at Christmas time, in their stocking, they got toothpaste. And she thought it was so great because she didn't have to buy toothpaste for herself for however long that toothpaste would last. So it's interesting because they. We really did pay for all those things and the fact that we gave them that money, but they never felt like that. They always felt like they were earning their way. Three out of my five kids are very good with money.

Yes.

Two others not as good.

Well, but you. You did where you guys, you know, knew what was best and passed that information because we cannot guarantee how the other person is going to learn something. Right. All we can do as parents is just to teach and love them. And they're going to have to get those. Those skills and run with it or not. But.

Yeah.

And it doesn't have a reflection on us as parents, but we usually do that. We always think that because they didn't turn out one way, there were failures or not, which is not true.

It's hard not to go there. But I think that the more kids you have, the more you realize, okay, they're all going to figure out their own way and do their own thing. And your responsibility, like you said, is exactly that. My love is to love them and teach them. And.

Yeah. Because there's so other parts that we kind of have that hope that they're going to do this, that they're going to, I don't know, go to school, that they're going to stay in the church or they're going to do all these things, but we cannot control those.

Yeah.

And that can be tough in terms of money, because then sometimes those kids come back to us and ask for money and they put themselves in trouble. And then we. It's complicated. Yeah.

We've been fortunate. We haven't had too many hardships as far as that. But. But on the other hand, we have helped our kids. We've helped our kids when they needed it, and we've had a plan and they've been really good about. We've said this is what we can do and this is what we expect because of what we're going to do to help you. When you have with your kids, you have to be fair. And so if you're going to do that, for one, you have to Realize that the other two, three, four, whatever you've got, might ask for the same thing. You have to be ready to help.

Them all or don't have anybody ready. You cannot do sometimes.

And both David and I had parents who didn't help us. They had. David came from a family of 11. They really couldn't. My parents taught take care of yourself. But it was great. We both did. We both, ourselves, through college. We. You know, we've. We've done okay in our lives.

Right. Right. And it's interesting to see that the two of you got together and now that you have the same upbringing, but you kind of have the same outlook about money. Yeah. Is that correct?

I think so.

Yeah. That helps, right?

It really helps Y.

Both of us.

Neither one of us were too spendy and not overly frugal either. I think we both were wise about it.

Yeah. Because that can be hard, too. Yeah. If one person's super strict on not spending and the other person's spending, like there's no tomorrow. Right. That can be really hard, too. Yep. So was there anything in the past that a mistake, a financial mistake that you made that you had to reconcile?

Yeah.

And how do you do that?

We had again, when we were in college and young and naive, we had a family member this time come to us and said, great investment opportunity in Utah in the 80s. There was a lot of fraud that was going around. It was very prevalent. A lot of it was because we are a trusting community. And it wasn't just in Utah. It was all over. There were. That's when a lot of things were going on nationwide, but it definitely hit Utah. So our family member came and said, this is a great thing. You guys could get, you know, if you could get all the money, you can do whatever. And we were still in school. I think we had gotten a grant for school, and we took that grant and put it in this investment, which was a bad investment. So it turned out that we lost it. It was a good lesson. And I think one of the biggest lessons was you need to trust yourself. You need to count on yourself, and nothing comes easy. So the value of hard work, which neither David or I had problems with hard work, it just continued on from that. You know, we learned it. We learned a mistake from it. Learned from our stay.

Right. You took the lesson. Because sometimes people just defeat. They just feel defeated, and they don't move fast.

Yeah.

And that's important. It's one of the characteristics I talk about in my program to have women, you know, make peace with Their past. And, you know, if you think of the analogy of the. The gps. Right. A lot of times, most of the time, when we want to go somewhere with the gps all the time, you just put where you are and where you go next.

Yeah.

It doesn't matter where you came from. Right. You just need that point that you start and where you going now.

It's a great way to look at it.

Yeah. So don't. Don't let the past define you. Right.

Start where you are now. I like that a lot. Of course, you do have to learn those lessons, Right?

Yeah. Using those lessons is really important because then it's not a failure. You're just like, okay, it was a lesson I learned. It hurt. Let's get up and keep moving. So that brings back us to. To the kids. So you taught all of them those lessons. And how do you guys deal with the fact when they don't do what you guys told them to do or, like, you know, that that's not the wise path? How do you do that?

We recently had that experience with one of our children that bought a house that during the height of houses are going up fast, and they were so eager to get into the house market, and they had what it took to actually get the house, but it wasn't the best idea for them. We counseled with them about it. They didn't decide to go our way. I think we feel a little bit bad about our council in the fact that we got kind of emotional with that. And I think that was a big takeaway for me is like, when I said my dad gave us the advice on. He was not emotional. He just told us something very, very practical.

He dropped. He. He dropped something that was very.

Truth.

Yeah, he just dropped the truth.

I need to get better at that. It was a little bit of a strain between us for a while, and the lesson got learned not very long later that their eagerness outdid what their. Their decision making, basically. So still learning as a mom, especially a mom of adult children.

Right. And so I guess it's so difficult because when we look at them, we're like, you're making a mistake. Right. You know so much. You. You have that. And again, they. Some things that have to learn on their own. Right. But I'm glad that you were able to see that you came with emotions. So I'm like, okay, next time, I'm not gonna let the emotion come in.

Right. Yeah.

Awesome. So how do you continue to grow in your finance, financial understanding your journey?

Well, finances change all the time. So you do have to be aware of how things are going in your nation with your investments, with your decision making. So a lot of it is just good book. Being aware, making decisions based on practical realities of now and today. I think another thing is came to me is the fact that you can't predict everything. And so there is going to be some loss in your life and it could even be loss at an age where it's harder to have loss. So it all comes back to priorities and maybe we come back to that spiritual element now, which is really the important things are making sure that you love others and you're working towards your own and their eternal salvation. And then you just weather those financial storms when they come.

Right. I like the. The idea of looking for opportunities. If you set yourself in a way financially, that you have some savings that you are, you know, you're prepared, then you can see some opportunities when other people are really stressed. And it seems that you and David do this really well, that you guys have your things in order and that helps to see those opportunities around. Do you, do you guys have this perspective?

Yeah, I think we have been able to do that in different ways. We have looked at opportunities and been able to move forward, forward on them based on the fact that we've been smart with what we've. We've done.

Right. Right. Those are some blessings from also, of course, paying tithing, but also learning how to manage your money. Right. And how to work. Yeah, that's perfect. It's so amazing when you align yourself with God and you're doing the right, you know, you're trying your best to do the right thing, that some things come to fruition. Yeah, they do come.

It's pretty beautiful.

All right, so think about what was one of the hardest part of your life in terms of financials, financially.

I came to BYU in my early 20s as a single mom. That was the hardest, the hardest part of my life because there was. It was just a lot to do with trying to be a student. I had some savings that I came with, but really managing everything and a child and babysitting and all the things that came my way was tough. So I think in the hardest times, you have to look at the opportunities, you have to look at who you are, what skills you have and what really you can do and what you can do without. One of the things that I did was I did. Couldn't afford textbooks. You know how expensive textbooks are? Well, back in that day, they had a little part of the library where you could go and check out the textbooks, but you couldn't take them out of the library. You could go into this area through like a gates that beep when you take books out. You'd go in that part, you check out your book and then you'd sit at the desk and read. And that was how I got my reading done for my. In my textbooks that semester or two or three semesters because they're expensive. So.

Yeah, that was not phones that you could take pictures then.

Not like that. You had to read and take notes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So sometimes opportunities might seem like they're hard or inconvenient, but they are opportunities. So look for those and take advantage of them. And I think that's the way I made it through those few years when I was a single mom and a student.

Right. So that's. That's good advice. Is there anything else that if you knew someone was going through that same hard part, what would you tell this.

This girl, this girl in college with the little kids.

It doesn't have to be necessarily you, but like someone that's going through something like that.

Yeah. I don't know.

But that was good. Just. Just look at it. The perspective that not all the struggle is the struggle.

It could be opportunity. Yeah.

Right. All right, so I have some rapid fire questions to finish our interview. Okay. Are you ready? I hope. Okay. Did I share those with you?

Nope.

Okay, good. Because that's what I want. I want the answer right here. All right, first one. What was the worst financial decision you ever made?

We bought a newspaper business. We are. We bought a few businesses, but we bought a newspaper business that was failing in a small town and it was a money suck for six months and then we got out. That was the worst decision we ever made. We worked so hard to keep that thing going. And it was. We didn't do our due diligence in research. We should have been a lot smarter.

And you learned that way.

We learned. We learned. We paid. We got out.

They ran. Calls it stupid tax when you end up having to pay extra hands.

Stupid tax.

All right, what was the most useless thing that you ever bought? Oh, wow.

I could probably think of. There's probably 10 useless things that we bought. But I. Is okay if I think for a minute.

Yes, absolutely.

I was in a hotel traveling on business once. It was kind of late and an infomercial came on and it had a exercise thing that looked so really great. And I'm not big on exercising. And I thought if I bought that, I would do My. Whatever. It was walking, jogging, running, biking, whatever. And I bought it and I probably used it once. That was the dumbest thing I ever bought. It took up room in our house for. It's not for years.

It wasn't even big enough to help, you know, like when we use the treadmill to hang the coats. That wasn't that.

No, I don't think we even hung coats on it because. Yeah, it was just. That was an impulse. Dumb impulse. By trying to answer a question that I. Or, you know, problem I had with not being very athletic or exercising much. Yeah.

Was crazy. All right, so last one. What was something that you bought that turned out to be better than you expected?

We bought a house in Arizona. We had businesses down there. We went there so often that hotels were expensive. So we bought a little small home down there so that when we went there that we could work for a place to live. And then after a while we thought, how is that a little bit exorbitant because we're not in there all the time. And so we ended up renting it out for a while, which was also good. And then we ended up having to go back and work in that business for a while. And so we lived in it for another couple of years. And now we use it as a vacation home. We've had it since 2004, and it's been probably one of the best things we ever bought.

So you had no idea that was going to be so used. And now. Awesome.

Yeah.

Yes. So those are. Those are good things when you buy something. Like, why am I buying this? We use it all the time.

Right.

It's so good. All right, Julie, is there anything else that you would like to share? Anything that comes up to mind before we end here?

I think one of the best things David and I ever learned and did throughout because we. We did have businesses, was we learned the concept of reinvesting in ourselves. We did trust ourselves in our business, and we reinvested in ourselves. Meaning we didn't spend our money for a new exercise bike, except that one time. Other things that were really fun when we could have spent a lot of. For a lot more trappings of life.

Right.

When the choices came up and we had something excess, we almost always decided on what could we do with that, some of money so that we could make our lives even more comfortable or successful. And we loved doing that. And we did it many times throughout our lifetime. We reinvested in ourselves. And I think that was something that's helped us still today.

That's Great. I shouldn't ask another question, but how does generosity place in you guys life?

When we were working for when for years, David and I both worked our job, our companies and when we got to the point where I didn't have to spend time working on a day to day basis, I realized that all my life I'd worked for the man, which basically the man was David and I. But still that is what I had done. And it was time to take a change of tactic. And we had just moved here to Provo. So I started to find out what kind of humanitarian things I could do. And that sent me on a journey of giving back in a beautiful way. And I have had the opportunities to be involved in some small humanitarian organizations or just volunteer time. Currently working at, can I say, I currently work at Operation Underground Railroad, which is a anti sex trafficking organization where we, we exist to rescue children from sex trafficking. It's a beautiful thing. It's really a beautiful thing. I love the fact that we can, you can use your time, talents and energy in giving back.

So that's amazing. That's what financial freedom gives to you. You get to do what you love to do also. Right. As another part of your life. It's not like I cannot do this because I have to do this. I have to cover these things. So when you have that financial freedom, it gives you more than just financial freedom.

Yeah.

All right, Julie, thank you so much for spending this time.

Thank you for coming.

Yes, of course. You guys have so much to. You shared so much with us during those, those classes that we had together and I knew I had to get you here. All right.

Thank you.

Absolutely. All right, you guys, this is the end of our podcast today. And remember, money's not your problem. All right.

[CFM COACH ASSISTANT AI ]: I hope you've enjoyed today's episode. Remember to subscribe, rate and review. And if you're ready, ready to invest in yourself, check out my website, StrasbourgCoaching.com to schedule a consultation or try my membership group for free. I'll be back next week for another profitable episode of the Money's not yout Problem podcast. A te brevi yo Brigada.