“We Made Good Money… So Why Were We Always Broke?”

Hey guys, it's Penny with PennyWise Coaching, and I'm here with some awesome clients, Kim and Ben, and they have graciously agreed to share a little bit of their experience with financial coaching with me and kind of what that journey has been like for them. And everybody I work with is a little bit different. Some people have a lot of debt, some people have no debt, and these folks didn't particularly have debt, but they somehow decided it might be helpful to, to to get some support around this. So thank you guys so much for coming and chatting with me. I just like to hear from you about where did you start? Where are you now? What did you gain? What were your fears? So I'll just let you riff a little bit about what— maybe start with what brought you here. That would be a great kind of what somebody might be thinking or feeling.

I think when we started working with you, we were at a place where we felt like our income was adequate, but at the end of every month found ourselves in a place where we were out of money and we couldn't quite understand how that was happening over and over again. I think working with you helped us really figure out how to track our money better and to allocate our money. And, and so we went from a place of we're at zero every month to a place where we actually are actively saving money and not just saving in a lump sum, but actually saving it for specific needs and goals. And I think for the first time in a long time, really feel like we have control over that.

Yeah.

It feels to me like a sort of act of mindfulness, right? That it was just, it would come in and then it would go out and we never really knew where it was going. And just like working with you and with you, I think asking some really good questions. It gave us the ability and the skills to actually pay attention to it.

Yeah. I remember when we got started, it's easy for people to go, oh yeah, we don't buy anything extra. We're just living like normal, whatever. And then all of a sudden, the first month or two, you ran some numbers. You're like, ooh, we had some insight.

We ate out a lot more than we thought we did. Yeah. Yeah.

And I would say that's 90% of the people I work with is because it's kind of like that death by a thousand cuts. Right. We don't feel the first one and it's, oh, we need to do this and we have to do that and we're busy and we can justify all day long why we're spending. But then when you started setting a boundary and saying, okay, here's the amount we're okay eating out, let's say for that one category, that made a shift.

I think that was a big part of this. Another one too. This is a behavior that working with you changed for us is that we are a married couple. We communicate about all kinds of things, but I think around money, there were a lot of places where we were making assumptions about the other person's expenditures. And so by beginning to communicate more about how we are spending independently, as well as how we are planning for needed expenses and allocating money, that was a significant change.

And there was some— It was a big deal. It was a big deal. We sat down at least, at least every payday, and we'll say to each other now, like, how many times this week is the dog going to doggy daycare? And how many times?

Yeah. It makes a really big difference.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think when you're busy and you guys have a younger child still and you're like, it's easy to miss that part and just go on autopilot.

It's also easy to make very passive decisions, you know, like that we're going to stop at McDonald's on the way home because there's an immediate need. And we don't do that nearly as often as we used to.

Yeah.

So how, what have you changed to be able to avoid that? What's a little tip you would have that's helped you cut that?

That is good.

I think it's part of it is planning and part of it is knowing in advance that we're just not going to do this thing. That's just not going to be the option.

Yeah. It's like, you know, it used to be just like a gut response and now we stop ourselves and like, that's not where we want to spend the money this time.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

Because I know you guys went and you've had, you've had some little getaways and stuff like that. And It's when you can do that, it seems like you enjoy that more than the 10 times through the drive-through or whatever.

Sure. Sure. I think the other thing is if you were spending money without thinking about what that is taking away from, right? It's easy to spend until all of a sudden you don't have any money, or you're in the hole. You've racked up credit card debt or whatever it may be.

Yep.

If you've made the plan ahead that this month, and this is what we're, where we are now, I think we're going to spend X number of dollars on eating out, and that can be spent any number of ways. It doesn't matter. But we know that if we're going to go out on like a Friday night date night, and that's an expense we want to have. We know that's against an amount that we've set aside versus just sort of spending profligately.

Yeah. Kim, what would you say is one of the biggest things that you've taken away from— we've worked together 6 months at this point now. What's changed for you?

Well, I think that we now feel like we have control over our money instead of the other way around. Penny, I think that you've been It's been really wonderful to work with you because I think you are, you're very just pragmatic and practical and you really ask a lot of the right questions in terms of like, okay, so is that where your values are? Is that where you really want to spend your money? So I do think that just in terms of the way that you prod, are you really doing the thing that you want to be doing and for the right reasons? Like that, that's been really helpful for us, I think, to go from a place where we felt helpless to a place where we felt like we were in control, you know?

Yeah, yeah.

There's an empowerment there that's come directly from working with you.

Yeah. What was your fear when you came to financial coaching? Did you have any preconceived ideas or worries about working with a financial coach?

Well, I will step in to say we were initially pretty concerned about your fee.

Yeah.

And honestly, like, we This is really no exaggeration. We went from like, um, at the, you know, the day before payday, we would have essentially zero in the bank. And now we have like $13,000. So we've come a long way in a short amount of time.

Months.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And you paid me.

And I paid you.

Yes. And I appreciate you saying that because people say that to me all the time. Like, oh, it's going to be a lot of money, and how can I afford that? I don't have any money. Yeah. And I don't fully understand it except for that when you focus on something and you want it and you do the work, it comes and it pays you back in spades.

That's absolutely correct.

Yeah, we can say that definitively on this side of the situation.

I think my fear going into this was that without knowing you and who you were, that we were going to be put on some kind of financial starvation diet.

Yes.

And right. And that, you know, it was going to be all pain for the gain. And that hasn't been the case. That has not been the case. And so that's actually been really heartwarming.

Yeah, that's huge.

It's huge. We still go out to dinner. We have taken a couple of little weekend jaunts. We've got some things planned for some longer vacations. And so it certainly has not been a deprivation. Yeah. Right.

I think I realized that and it, and probably still I should be better at that, that some people think I'm going to come tell them how to spend their money and that you can't have any fun and you need to cut off all the things that bring you joy. And I really believe that this is a marathon, not a sprint. And we have to have some joy along the way to keep doing it. You know, sure, you could have, you maybe you could have doubled that in savings at this point if you would have done nothing. But I know my personality is one that if I go hard really fast, I won't sustain it. And my goal for people is to create a process and a rhythm that is sustainable for the long haul, because I really believe that you now do this until you die, or I guess until you have so much money you never have to look at it again. But yeah, the average middle-class American, that's not where we're starting. We've talked about a lot with you guys, a lot of kind of holistic type stuff and big picture because we didn't have to micromanage the budgeting. So that was cool. We've also talked about big picture stuff, like everything from raising kids and retirement and jobs and those pieces that I suspect most people wouldn't necessarily know you might get from working with a financial coach. Do you have any feedback about that?

I think, you know, going back to what you just said a moment ago about it being a marathon and not a sprint for us, I think it's, you easy to sort of get bogged down in those kind of short-term expenses and those things that are right in front of us.

Yeah.

And being able to really think about those longer-term things, those expenses that maybe we're not going to be needing to spend that money now, but we need to start thinking about how we're going to have that money when we need to spend it in the future is a significant part.

I think that your style is far more about sort of personal relationships, if you will. It's counseling in the way of like, what is your behavior and what is your relationship with each other? And yeah, there's much more to the sort of softer skills, I think, that are part of working with you rather than just like, where do you invest your money? Yeah.

Thank you. I appreciate that because I think my social work background leans that way, right? And that it's not just about the numbers to me. It is about your relationship with each other, with money, with kids, with friends. It should not be about do it my way. It's about finding your way that's going to work for you.

I mean, it strikes me, but certainly you are completely nonjudgmental.

Good. That's my goal.

Yeah.

I mean, that helps a lot when you're talking about money and it's like, you know, It's a very vulnerable place, right?

Oh, it absolutely is. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I think our society has shaped us up to be like, we don't talk about money, you don't ask people what they make, and you don't ask them how old they are or whatever, you know. And you just think, where did those rules come from? I think that is a big fear for people, is that I'm going to come in on this high horse and tell you what all you've done wrong or something. And not productive, I don't think. And that's not what people need when they finally get brave enough to ask for some help.

Yeah. No, it felt like we were in this together.

Yeah. Good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Anything else that you would tell a friend or colleague or somebody about whether this is a good fit for them or what they might want to consider doing?

I would recommend you highly. I think like we were talking about, it certainly ended up being worth the money for us. I think we needed it. We needed a sort of kick in the pants in terms of like paying more attention to this. And you certainly helped us do that. So I would— it did it.

I think for anybody who is struggling and feeling like they don't have the tools available to them to really understand how to control their finances, you were very helpful in that regard. And certainly got us in the right direction really quickly.

That's great. Well, I appreciate you sharing and working with me, and I hope that our friendship continues, that it doesn't just stop here. You have great insight to what you're doing and you guys have done great work. And so kudos to you for doing it.

Thank you.

Excited to see what, you know, the next journey is for you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.