Practical Millionaire Moves: 10 Ways to Stay in Overflow Without Blowing Your Cash

What's up, you guys? Welcome back to the podcast. A little bit of a different episode this week, but I'm going to be talking about how to not blow all of your money once you start making it. And I want to start by saying that I am definitely not the most frugal money-saving person. My fiancé sometimes thinks that I spend too much too freely. And to be honest, I'm not even really someone who checks the prices on most things. So I definitely have an open flowing relationship with money, you could say. So you might be like, mm, okay, so why are you gonna talk about like how to not blow all of your money? But here's the backstory for how this episode came to be. Okay, so I have several entrepreneur friends who also make really good money, but they also individually in their own ways have had some times where they've been either deep in debt or they're like, oh my gosh, like I don't have any savings. Or maybe they're doing a launch because they're like, I need to make sure that I can afford my rent. Like I have to make money right now. Or they've severely overspent on something that later they end up regretting. So we've had a lot of conversations about this, and one of my friends was telling me about the time that she made her first $10,000 off of a course that she created. It was like one of her first offers she ever put out there. She made $10,000 right away, and within a very short period of time, she basically blew it all on massages and self-care and shopping and just random things. Like, before she knew it, it was all gone, and she was like, holy shit. So So we were talking about that and she was like, you should do a podcast on this, Sam, because I would love to hear your experiences and how you've managed to kind of stay grounded while also making 7 figures and never having any of those big like, oh my gosh, I fucked up moments of feeling like you blew all of the cash. And so initially I was like, okay, like me? I mean, I don't know if I have like the most valuable things to say on this in terms of like managing or like saving money. Like, yes, I have my own ways of doing things, but I never really thought of it as like something that, I don't know, that you guys would be interested in. And then it's also kind of like, is this a conversation that people are gonna resonate with when it's like, what to do when you've made a bunch of money and how to not like blow it all? It's like, that's also not the most relatable topic ever. But we were talking about it more and she was like, no, I really think that your audience would find it super interesting whether they're at that place with their finances or they're just ambitious and they're on their way and they're building up to that level, just to hear your experiences of how you've done things and the ways that you stay practical and stay grounded etc. So after some brainstorming, kind of fleshing the idea out, I thought, okay, like, maybe this actually could be interesting, right? And maybe it could help even just one person to not spend beyond their means even though they're making great money. So just to be really clear, like, this is not going to be financial advice by any means. This is not me positioning myself as an expert in any way, but it's more so just my own honest reflections around how I was able to not blow all of my money once started making it. If you're kind of intrigued at this point and you're like, I don't know, let's see where this goes, then stick around. Let's dive in.

Welcome to the Makeshift Happen podcast. I'm your host, Samantha Daly, entrepreneur, life coach, and your no BS bestie, here to bring you all things mindset, manifestation, and personal development. This podcast is designed to help you expand your mind and uplevel your life. So turn the volume up and roll the windows down if you're coming along for the ride. Let's go makeshift happen.

So my mantra is generally this, and it's quite simple. It's nothing too deep. It's definitely not profound, but it's simply YOLO. But don't be dumb. YOLO, but don't be dumb, right? You only live once, and if you've worked really hard to make really great money, you definitely want to be able to enjoy the fruits of your labor. You want to be living in overflow. You want to enjoy the abundance. And I think there's different ways that we can do this, even when it comes to things that don't directly relate to spending money. But it's even how people will have like a super nice perfume and they refuse to put it on unless it's a— they're going to a wedding, or it's a special date night, or it's something significant. And it's like, because they have this mindset of lack and preservation and, oh, I can only use that for the special occasions. It's like, why don't you wear your beautiful expensive perfume every day so that you— that it elevates your frequency? I think you move through the world differently when you allow yourself to experience the abundance that you've worked hard for rather than trying to like keep it and shove it into these little corners of your life where it's like, oh, it can only be for this or it can only be for that. So for those of you who have listened to the podcast for a while, you already know that this is the way that I kind of live my life is with that YOLO mantra when it comes to travel and like a bunch of other things. I'm just like, we are going to die. We are so young and capable and we have so much life and energy inside of us, like, we might as well use that. I'm very aware that how I feel now at 31 is not the way I'm going to feel at 61 or 71 or 81. And so I don't want to wait until that time in my life to do the things that I really want to do, even if it means that I have to sacrifice other things in order to do them. And I think I would feel the same way, or I know that I would feel the way, even if I wasn't making really great money or, or hadn't become a successful entrepreneur, because I lived that way even when I was poor. Like, I lived that way even when I had $5 left in my bank account. I was still finding a way to take the trips and go to the places. And I moved abroad, for Christ's sake, when I had— I owned nothing, I had nothing. I worked a nannying job while I was in college to save up money. I was putting cash in little envelopes and hiding them in places in my room and then using all of that to get my visas and my flights. So I know that regardless of what my financial situation would be. Like, I definitely am a person who, who values the life that I've been given and wants to see the world and experience it and have this kind of juicy, decadent experience of life. And so that's where like the YOLO element comes from. But when you start making really great money, like, there has to be some sort of limitation or caveat to that. Because if it's always just you only live once, then you might find yourself in a scary situation where you've overspent or you have nothing left or you're in a really, really tough spot. And so my mantra is YOLO, but don't be dumb. I want to go back a little bit just to give some context to this. So like in the first few years of my business, I had made multiple six figures, but I was still living in Spain, so the cost of living was really, really low. I guess a lot lower objectively than in America, let's say. I was living in Madrid, which is one of the more expensive cities in Spain, but you know, compared to— it's just apples and oranges when you compare that to the cost of living and rent and things in America. So cost of living was still relatively, you know, low, but I was starting to make more money. Because mind you, before that I had been assistant teaching in Spain in the schools, and I was making around €1,000 a month. And now in my business, I was making $5K months, $10K months. Sometimes when I was launching, it would get up to $15K, $20K, $30K. So there was a lot— there was— it was very new, this like feeling of, wow, there's an overflow. There's actually so much more of an abundance of financial resources than what I actually have to spend, like what my expenses are. And so that was a really really interesting and fun feeling. But I also didn't just start like balling out and buying everything and living a lavish lifestyle and taking Uber Luxes or Uber Blacks like everywhere. Like, I was still doing public transportation, you know. I just kept saving and investing in solid long-term mentorship containers so that I could keep the learning and the earning going. I wanted to just keep doubling down, learning more skills, getting better, staying in mentorship. So that was really my mindset at the I didn't change my lifestyle very much at all. Of course, I could buy myself a couple more clothes here and there, and instead of going to Zara and having to decide what 2 things I was gonna buy, I could go to Abercrombie and buy like 7 things. And, and that was a, a lot of money. It was a couple hundred dollars. So there was like little luxuries that I would let myself have, but I also wasn't like going all the way out and feeling like I was super rich. And I think that's like a theme in my life generally, is that it's been very difficult for me to allow myself to feel rich. And if we want to go really deep, I think it's because when I was growing up, like, my parents would talk about rich people because we lived in a very nice area and I went to a really good school. But there was a lot of, like, actual rich kids around us. There was a lot of neighborhoods with multi, multi-million dollar homes, and I went to school with those kids and I danced with those kids, and I was surrounded by that kind of wealth. There was a lot of country club people and— like a lot of my friends growing up, their families belong to country clubs. And that's very— if you're not in America, maybe you don't know like the kind of culture of country clubs, but it's very preppy, it's very expensive, you know, you spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to be a member at this, you know, golf course, and they have their private pool and their tennis lessons and their dinners at their whatever. So it's very, it's very Francia. And so I grew up with a lot of those people, and I was— we were not those people. So it was like there was always a distinction, there was always a separation between between who we were and what we had. Even though my parents did really well, lived a beautiful life, had a super nice home, like went to a great school, all the things, there were still like the different levels, you know, like people say there's levels to the game. And it was always very visible in my immediate surroundings that there was much higher levels. And so I think that creates this kind of outsider experience where you feel like, okay, they are rich but I am not rich. And so once I started making more and more money, like it was always this feeling of 'Wow, like, I'm doing really well. I'm super grateful. This is amazing.' It was harder for me at the start to be like, 'I am rich.' And even once I did more mindset work on that and started using that word more and speaking it more and trying to get comfortable with it— because you don't want the word rich to feel like a dirty word in your mouth, let's just be honest. You don't want saying 'I am wealthy' or 'I am rich'— you don't want that to feel repulsive or disgusting when you say it, because that means physically and subconsciously are like rejecting that as a possible reality for yourself. So I did a lot of work around like starting to say those things and embody it, and that's a lot of like what I teach in Wealth Calibration and like really becoming the energy and the frequency of wealth and embodying that on a feminine level through somatic practices and so many other things. But even at different milestones, which we'll talk about, of like getting my Porsche or buying a house, like there was many different levels where I kept revisiting that theme of like, am I rich enough to be able to do this? Or even like flying first class or buying my first business class ticket, it was like, it felt like it was something that like other people did that like I wasn't allowed to do. And so it almost felt like this crazy rebellion to be like, wait, no, like I have the money for this, why can I not do it? Why am I not allowing myself to do it? And it's been beautiful for at every new level for me to find ways to overcome that. But I do think it's also been a really significant protection for me in the sense that I never was the type of person to suddenly make a bunch of money and then just like hot potato it and ball out and spend it on ridiculous things that I didn't necessarily need or that were like beyond my means in a way. So I do think that there's positives to it and there's challenges to it, but that kind of has been an experience for me at least. So in the first couple years of my business, I start making multi-six figures. It's feeling like totally crazy compared to especially what I was making as an English teaching assistant, but I didn't start just balling out and buying everything. I kept saving. I was investing in mentorship. And just to show like where my priorities were, it was like I would spend $20,000 on a mastermind, but I still wouldn't fly first class anywhere. And I also think that's because like, one, like I just said, it felt like something that like I wasn't allowed to do maybe, or like I hadn't earned it yet. But also I wasn't really trying to prove anything. Like I wasn't— I didn't feel this pressure to be like, I need to post on my social media me flying like business class, or like— it just wasn't— I never felt like that. I never thought like that. And so I just didn't really need to. I didn't really care. At one point, like, I had around $35,000, I think, if from memory. That's 30— maybe it was 32. It was 30-something. I think it was around $35,000 in student loan debt after college. But at that time, right, I was living in Spain. I started my business. I wasn't paying any of the debt off. It was, it was just sitting there. And initially it was accruing interest for several years, but then COVID happened. And when the pandemic happened, they stopped the interest rates from accruing on student loans. And so I had all this student loan debt, but I hadn't been paying any of it off prior because I couldn't frickin afford to because I was living paycheck to paycheck and barely had money left in my account at the end of every month when I was teaching. Then I start my business, I start making more money.

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Side, but they stopped the interest. And I'm like, okay, well, I'm not going to waste my time trying to, you know, put my precious resources that I've just worked so hard for towards this $35,000 in student loan debt. Like, especially since it's not accruing interest anymore. Like, I'm going to keep— I'm not going to pay that off right now. Fuck it. Like, let's just leave it there. And so I actually invested around $40,000 in business mentorship in 2021 and still paid $0 towards my debt. Now let me tell you why I feel like this was strategic instead of stupid, because investing that $40,000 into a couple different forms of mentorship actually ended up helping me make over $250,000 that year. So it was kind of like a spend money to make money sort of game, and I really was doubling down on my skills and building the business. And So later, once the federal government had said, you know, we're going to resume interest rates on these loans now— I think it was in like 2022 or 2023 maybe— I was just like, okay, cool, well, I have more than enough money in my account now to just pay this all off completely in one transaction. And so I would do things like that, right, where I wasn't buying business class tickets, but I was investing heavily in mentorship. I wasn't paying off my student loan debt, which might be in some people's eyes like that's the most important thing, like pay your debt before anything else. But for me, I knew that I needed to leverage the money that I so that I could make more of it before I worried about paying that debt off. So that's where it's kind of like being practical is so subjective, because there's some things that I've said that I was doing where people would be like, yeah, that's really great, you didn't change your lifestyle, you didn't spend above your means, you didn't start trying to buy luxury cars or fly first class, like you were very grounded, level-headed. But then other things that I was doing, like spending $40K on mentorship in a year and not paying any of my debt, like other people would be like, bad, irresponsible, not smart, dumb. And so it's just the idea of being practical with your money, I think, is very subjective, and it really depends on the circumstances and what you value, right? And so there's this concept which I think has always grounded me a lot in terms of what I'm going to spend my money on versus where I'm going to kind of like save it or invest it, is making sure that you are spending on what you value. And Ramit Sethi talks about this a lot. He has the book I Can Teach You to Be Rich. He also has a great podcast. Some of my friends really like it, and he talks a lot about this concept of like your rich life. And everyone's rich life is going to look differently. Someone's rich life is them getting to travel 8 weeks out of the year. Another person's rich life is them only having to work 10 hours a week because they wanna spend more time with their kids. Someone else's rich life is being able to buy a round of drinks at the bar for their friends. Like there's all these different versions of what it means to you to feel rich and have this sense of richness in your life. And that really revolves around around spending on what you value, like splurging, indulging on what you really value, and then ruthlessly cutting back and saving on the things that you don't care about as much. And so that's really a lot of like Ramit's philosophy and what he talks about. And for me, it's kind of like, okay, well, I'm always going to value travel over something like designer bags. I have a few designer things, but I can count them on one hand, and I don't buy them often. I'm not looking for them. I don't even really— I'm not the person who like knows what the new designer things are. Like, there'll be a new, like, designer trend, and I'm like, what is that? I don't even know what brand that is. Like, I'm, I'm not that girl. I also feel like I value wellness over my wardrobe, which is interesting because I want to look nice, and I do love having cute clothes, cute outfits. But when I look at, like, what I actually spend things on, I definitely spend more money every month on my wellness, whether it's, like, coaches, nutritionists, supplements, facials, I spend more on my wellness than I do on clothes. Like, I'll shop for clothes occasionally, but for the most part, like, I live in activewear. And most of the time, if I have an event or something to go to, I have to go buy something or rent something because I'm like, I literally don't have any clothes. Like, and the clothes that I do have, because of where I live and how freaking hot it is, it's like, it's not appropriate because it's like a crop top or it's like super summery and it's like fall somewhere else. And so yeah, I definitely like travel and wellness are— go far above wardrobe, designer bags, and other things that other people might really value. And it's not to say that those things, like, it's bad if you spend money on them. It's just like, we all have to spend on what we value so that we can save on the things that don't matter as much to us. Another driving principle that I think has really helped me not blow my money, even when I started making more and more and more, is that I don't spend money that I don't have. The only time really in my business journey that I borrowed money was when I borrowed $5,000 to hire my first business coach. I've told this story many times. I did like a Shark Tank presentation because I needed money. I was asking my dad if he would invest in my business, believe in my vision, and he's like, well, you're gonna have to pitch me. So I was over FaceTime because I lived in Spain at the time. He shows up to the call in a suit with like a Shark Tank sign, like handmade, He's like ready to go to like grill me on stuff. And I present like my stats, the people I've helped, how much money I had made up to that point. It was like a couple thousand dollars, it wasn't anything crazy, but I was like, oh my God, I made a couple thousand dollars doing something like from myself, like working for myself. So anyways, I pitched because I knew I needed a business coach to really help like get the skills to scale this thing. And I didn't know anywhere in the world where I was gonna find $5,000. Like that amount of money to me seemed like so freaking much. I'd never seen $5,000 $5,000 in my life at that point. I was in my early 20s, like, and all I had done at that point was decline my corporate job offers and move to Spain and like live on a poverty-level wage. Like, I was like, where would people even find $5,000? That was the first time that I ever really like borrowed money, but I knew that I needed to because I had to again get the skills to spend the money to make the money so that I could double down and turn it into something. And so I did that, borrowed that money. Within a year from then, I made $100,000. $1,000, and then it just kept growing from there. So after that, I never spent money that wasn't already mine. Like, I didn't use credit cards, I didn't have any loans, like either personal or small business loans, like nothing. I only ever spent money that I actually physically had in the bank. And that's, again, not to brag, it's just to be fully transparent about how I was able to avoid ever getting myself into a hole or going into debt. And I actually— this is like not a flex at fucking all, do not do this, was so dumb of me— but like, I only got my first business credit card in 2025, you guys. I had to get approved to buy my Porsche, and I had no business credit history because it was going to be a business expense, it was a business purchase. And they're like, okay, we need like the credit history of the business. And I'm like, oh, the business has no credit.

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The business has no credit because it's never had a credit card connected to it. Luckily based on the healthiness of my accounts, they were able to approve me without any credit history and based on my personal credit history, because I do have personal credit history, but it was just like the business didn't have credit. And that was my like point where I was like, because I had been for so many months and months and months being like, we need to get a credit card for the business. We need to get a credit card for the business. And it was just one of those things where like you have so many things going on all the time. It's one of those admin things that's, it's, it's annoying. It's like you have to do research. And so I would just keep putting it off and off and off and off. And so I didn't get my first business credit card until 2024. 'Cause I didn't get it before in time for them to evaluate anything. And even if I had gotten it before, I'd be like, there's no credit history on it. Cause I would've had it for like literally a few weeks before buying the car. So luckily I was approved for the car without any business credit, but that was the moment where I was like, I really need to get this in gear because it is not okay that the business is at this level after this many years making this much money. And we don't have a fucking credit report for the business. Business. So funnily enough, the credit card that I ended up getting for the business— to my point of like not spending money that I don't have— the credit card that I ended up getting for the business is one that you have to pay off in full every single month. There's like crazy travel rewards and points and all the things, but you can't even really— it's not even like you're really borrowing money that much because you have to pay the full balance every single month. So I guess again, that just like goes into my point of like not spending money I don't have. Now, I'm fully aware that this is not realistic for most people, and almost all small businesses will require some form of outside funding at some point, and leveraging of loans and credit cards, like, those things are very, very common. They're often necessary, and sometimes they can actually be a really great way for you to get ahead so that you can gain the skills or the team or the inventory that's necessary for you to actually be able to earn more in the future, right? The same way that I borrowed $5,000 to be able to hire a business coach, I doubled down on it, I learned the skills, I made $100K. Like, in a lot of ways, it really is true, this idea of you have to spend money to make money. So it's not to say that leveraging credit cards or loans or whatever is bad and you shouldn't do it. Again, this is just my personal reflections of like my honest, like, what I've done and how it's kind of created this reality for me. So I'm saying it not because I'm saying that other people should do it that way. I'm saying it so that I can give a full, honest, transparent reflection of what I actually did. And to be fair, like, even to this day, like I said, I don't really buy things that I don't have the money for. And I do think that once you have money, once you've made really good money, this is a great way to keep yourself within your means. When you're at the start and you're an entrepreneur and you need that, like, outside funding and you need that borrowing or credit or whatever to like get you going, that's a different game than once you've started to make really great money. One way to kind of keep yourself more in check is because now you have the means, you can actually say, all right, well, I'm going to live within these means and I'm not going to spend a bunch of money that I don't actually have. Like, if it's not in the bank, then I'm not going to spend it. So an example of this is actually when I bought my beach condo, I made sure that I was looking for a home home that was within a price range of money that I physically had in the bank. And like, if I had to essentially pay for the whole house in cash, I would be able to, and I would still have a significant cushion of money left over in the bank account. Obviously I did not like pay for my home outright in cash. Well, I don't know why I said obviously. People do that all the time. Not anyone I know personally, but a lot of investors buy things in cash. And that was actually really hard when we were buying our house. We we put in a couple of offers before this one and we kept getting beat by people, cash buyers. They just take the money out of the, out of their bank account and they pay for it all in one day. The whole thing paid for, done. And those deals always close the fastest and those buyers usually win. And so that was definitely a challenge when we were buying our, our beach condo, especially because down here there's a lot of investors and people want, you know, rental properties and, and all the things, especially in this area, super close to beach. So that was challenging. So we still got a mortgage, we didn't pay for the house in cash, but just when I was looking for places, I was kind of thinking in that mindset of like, if I don't have this money in my account, then I don't necessarily want to stretch myself so much outside of that range because that feels like a little bit too far beyond for me. Which again, I know is not realistic. It is— for most people, it is not common. And it also depends a ton on like where you live because I have friends, mentors, clients in Canada, and the housing market is so different there, and the houses are much more expensive. It also depends like what state you live in. If you live in California, totally different ballgame, right? Versus if you live in, in some of the middle states of America where you might have a lot more affordable like housing prices. And, and don't even get me started on Europe. I mean, Spain is really interesting in terms of housing because it's so, so expensive, so overpriced, it's crazy. But like, they don't even— the average salary there is so low, like they don't even make the amount of money that these crazy home prices are. I mean, it's insane. Like, even more than here in Florida, like, basically almost on the beach, an apartment in the, like, the outskirts of Madrid would be more expensive than this beach condo. So it's kind of crazy. So it really does depend. But anyway, that was just like my mindset when I was going into buying the house, and that made me feel a little bit better. Please just like remember, as you're listening to this, this is not an episode about what to do if you're in the early phases of trying to make good money as an entrepreneur. It's about once you've done it and you have the 6 figures, 7 figures, how do you stay grounded and somewhat practical while still living in abundance and allowing yourself to enjoy the fruits of your labor? I can totally appreciate the fact that some of these things might seem out of touch to some, but for my ambitious girlies who are making big bucks or they're on their way to, and that's their vision of what they're moving towards. I just want to be as transparent as possible about how I've approached my spending in various different areas of life and business to avoid going too far overboard while still allowing myself to enjoy the overflow that I have cultivated. So this is going to be like my version of being a quote-unquote practical millionaire. I broke this down into 10 different areas. We're going to talk about flights, cars, groceries, home, clothes, tech, entertainment, fitness, business, and investments. And I'm going to kind of go through in all of those different areas some of the things that I do that I think are like, I don't know, just kind of practical and allow me to not overspend or blow my money on everything. Let's start with flights. So transparently, I think that flying business class most of the time is not worth it unless it's an international long-haul flight. Like, if you're doing domestic flights, I, I think the price for what you actually get is just kind of stupid. I think it's almost never worth it on a domestic flight, to be honest. I would rather save that money or those travel points or whatever for international long-haul flights where when you actually upgrade to business or first class, you do get like the full experience— the lay-down bed, the delicious food. Like, all of that means so much more when you're actually on a long-haul flight. But I think that's— I think most people would agree with that. Like, that should be kind of common sense. But I know there's some people, they start making money and they're just like, I'm never not flying business class, and they just do it on every single flight ever, almost just to like prove a point. And I'm just kind of like, I think that's dumb. And then obviously when it comes to flights, now that I have my business credit card— like, my personal credit card always got me— it was travel rewards. If you're someone who likes to travel, you definitely should have credit cards that give you amazing travel rewards. But obviously like leveraging your points and your credit card to get better flights and upgrades and all sorts of things. And when you book your hotels through your credit card, sometimes you get additional perks and things like that. So that's just another way that I kind of like to, I guess, be practical with flights. Okay, let's talk about cars. I didn't have a car for years, right? Because I graduated university. I declined my job offers, moved to Spain, and lived there for 6 and a half years where I never had a car, didn't need one. And then after that, when we moved back to the States, initially we were living with my parents for a couple months while we were house hunting and looking for our beach condo. And so they had an extra vehicle, and I would drive in that car. So for like a long time, like a lot of my adult life, I didn't have car before we moved out of my parents' house. Once we like bought our beach condo and it was time for us to move to Florida, right before that I was like, I'm gonna need a car. Like, once we move down Florida, we have our own house, like we've got to, we've got to get around there. And so rather than buying a new car or going to lease like a pre-owned or whatever, I actually just ended up buying my mom's pre-owned BMW off of her because she wanted to upgrade. She wanted a nicer car. She had had that one for a little while already, and so she was like, it'll be great for me, it'll be great for you. Of course my mom was like, oh, you could have my car because then I can get a new one. So it ended up working out. I just bought my mom's pre-owned BMW from her for around— I think it was around $15,000. I like paid my parents in, in cash for it. And we've had that car for 4 years. And again, it was like my mom owned it, so it was pre-owned from that, but it was pre-owned before she bought it. It has a lot of miles on it. It's a well-loved, a well-loved car. We've had to do a lot of like repairs on it this year. And Jaime and I shared one car. We didn't buy a second car. Like, we maneuvered the, the first several years, like 2 and a half years of living here, with just sharing one car. And like, of course I work from home, but there's places that I want to be able to go. I want to be able to go to the gym. I want to be able to work from a cafe. But he, like, for his job, he now has to go to the office several times a week. And so that started to make it this kind of— I was just getting over it, basically. I was like, I'm over us having to like always talk about who has the car and share, and I can't go to the gym on this day because you're at the office. And it was just getting annoying. So that's when I was like, I really want to get a car. And that's when I ended up deciding that I wanted to get the Porsche. So at first I was thinking about, you know, a kind of nice but like practical car that I could get. But I, again, I went through that like threshold feeling like, I have the money for this. Like, why do I— why is there some sort of like level of resistance of not allowing myself to have it? And so I had to kind of like work through that. And I remember talking to my dad about this on the phone, and I thought that he— because he's a very practical person and he's someone who I think would tell me a lot to, you know, not live beyond my means or do stupid stuff— and so I remember telling him that I really wanted to get a Porsche, and he was like, you should do you should do it. And I was shocked. I was shocked. I was like, like, no hesitation, no, no conversation about it. Like, he was like, you should do it, you deserve it. And that was the biggest permission slip for me because I was like, oh my God, like, oh, I do deserve it. I work so hard. I've spent so many years like building this business and this brand and being consistent all the time and showing up day in and day out for my clients and over-delivering and always being on content and podcasts. And I'm like, I've been working hard. Like, wait, I do deserve this, and other people see that I deserve it before I see that I deserve it, and that's a problem. So I was like, oh my God, no, like, I'm doing this. I need to do this for myself. I want the identity upgrade. I want the experience of it. I want the feeling of freedom of being able to go wherever, when I want to, because we're not trying to share a car. And so getting the Porsche this year was like a very big— I think it was a big moment for me. It took me so long to allow myself to even have, you know, a nice car that was just mine. Fine. And the car was also a business expense, right? So it would have actually been probably a worse money move to not get the car because it's going to give me a really big tax advantage, and now I get to have a nice car, right? So it's like, if I'm gonna spend the money, I'd rather spend it on something that gives me daily joy and satisfaction rather than sending that money to the government. And so yeah, that's kind of my experience when it comes to cars and just the practicality of things. Things like living within my means when it made sense to, but then also allowing myself to be in the overflow once I looked around and was like, wait, I actually can do this. Why am I not allowing myself to? Okay, with groceries. So I don't do my full grocery shop at Whole Foods or Fresh Market or any of these like really, really expensive bougie grocery stores because it honestly, when you, when you look at it, it really is kind of silly how expensive it is, and it just doesn't make sense to do like a whole grocery shop there. Yes, they have so many amazing things and healthy alternatives and more organic stuff and, and whatever than, than other stores. But what I'll do is I'll basically do my main shopping at Trader Joe's because it's so economic, like it's very affordable. When we first moved to Florida, we were doing our grocery shopping at Publix because it's the main kind of grocery store around here in the South, and it was just the only thing that we knew. And then I realized that there was a Trader Joe's that was quite close, so I was like, let's go to Trader Joe's and see. And the price was like literally half of what our weekly grocery bill used to be at Publix. And I was like, damn, I didn't realize Publix was freaking expensive, but it is. This just seems like a regular— it's a very regular schmegular grocery store. It's not like fancy, it's not like organic, it's nothing. It's just a regular ass grocery store, but it was expensive. So we started doing our main shop at Trader Joe's, and that's basically where we get like almost everything. But I'll go in to Whole Foods and grab like a couple of the things that Trader Joe's doesn't have, or to get, you know, some staples or things. And so I just kind of do it like that, and that helps keep our grocery bill like a lot more reasonable. And then the other thing when it comes to like groceries and food is that we cook at home, and we almost never do food delivery. Like, I think I can count on my two hands how many times in my life I've Uber Eats. Like, I really— I'm not really like a food delivery person, I think. So we'll eat out at a restaurant or do takeout like maybe once a week, like usually once on the weekend we'll eat outside of the house or have a takeout or something from a Thai place that we like. But we cook all of our own food and we really basically just eat at home. So, and it's— I guess like you could say yes, it helps you save money on the, on the food front, but I don't think that that's the main reason why we do it. It. It's more of just like, that's our habit, and it also helps us be healthier. But we've just, again, we've never really been like food delivery people. So I think because we didn't get into that habit, it's not like hard to get ourselves out of it. Okay, let's talk about house and furniture. So when we got our house, we, Jaime and I together, were like, we have to decide what our splurge items are going to be. There's going to be, you know, our main priorities of things that we know we want to spend a lot of money on, and then other stuff we can just be more realistic with, we can be more practical So an example of this is we ended up spending like $8,000 on our bed, which I know sounds absolutely insane. And to be fair, it was the first thing, it was the first piece of furniture that we bought for our house. And I look back on it now and I'm like, I think if I— I think I was just very, very excited. I don't think we needed to spend that much on the bed. And actually, if you include like the headboard and like the base frame and, and whatever that we added to it after that, there was like another $2,000 to $3,000. Like It's just, it's, it's unnecessary. It truly is. Like, we got a Tempur-Pedic mattress, which I think is so worth it, and I'm so glad we did that. But we got the base frame that you can like lift the feet up and lift the head up, and like it has this like remote control. And like sometimes we do use it, but I don't think we use it enough for it to be like that we needed to buy that necessarily. But again, it was the first thing that we bought for our house. I think we were a little overzealous, we're a little decided, but we had decided that the bed was something that we really wanted to splurge on because we wanted to have a super, super nice bed that we were just obsessed with. And I do love our bed. I sleep amazing in it. It is the best thing on the earth, so I love it. And then when it came to getting a couch, like, couches can be really expensive, especially because we wanted like a big sectional. And I looked at the Restoration Hardware Cloud Couch, you know, the, the couch that all the influencers have. It's very famous. It's, you know, very like white neutral aesthetic, very cute. But I was like, this couch is $20,000. That was just crazy to me. So we found something that was like so cute and similar enough in style, and I love it, and it was only $3,000, and we got it from Rooms To Go. So there's that. Another thing that was a splurge was definitely the dining table. It's like this circular table. It looks like a piece of artwork. Like it's just, it's beautiful. So the dining table is definitely a splurge. It was from Anthropologie. But then my work desk, for example, is from Walmart. Like, it's just a basic, basic desk from Walmart. I literally went to Walmart when I was living at my parents' house because I was like, I need a desk here now that we're going to live here. I have to work from something. And I just bought like one of the desks that they have, and I still have it years later. I, I'm, I am going to upgrade this desk, I think, because I kind of want to get one that will stand up so I can do a walking pad, which I don't know if you can see see that in the back if you're watching on video. There's my walking pad. So I have the walking pad, I just need the desk for it and I need to set it up. So the point is there's always going to be certain things that you are going to care to like go all out for, and then there's other things where you're like, actually the cheaper version is completely fine and I don't really care, right? And since we moved in and bought all of our furniture, we haven't really bought any new furniture or done any upgrades at all to the house in the past like 3 of living here. So in the future, I'd love to renovate and modernize the bathrooms, but it's just not a priority right now. I think the wedding is currently taking center stage, and yeah, it just is not a necessity. Like, they're fine the way that they are. So I don't know, I guess to each his own. Some people really, really love— that's like their passion is like home projects and renovations and doing that type of stuff. So if that's you, like, spend on what you value, right? Pop off. I'm like way too busy as is to even think about renovating anything in my house. Okay, let's talk about clothes. So one of my hacks for being really practical with clothes is actually renting clothes instead of buying new ones all the time, especially because I have to be on video so often, whether it's with like content, stories, recording the podcast. I will rent tops and dresses and things like that every month just for content and podcasting, and then you send it back and then you can rent new. I'll also rent a bunch of things when we're gonna do a photo shoot. So the recent photo shoot that I did for The Room, everything that I'm wearing for that photo shoot besides the shoes— I bought the shoes, love those shoes by the way, oh my God, those red pumps, wow— but everything else was rented and then I just sent it back. So amazing, right? And I'll also do that for like vacations, especially if we're going somewhere where they're going to have different weather, because I don't have a lot of cold weather stuff anymore since living in Florida. And so yeah, I'll use like my items that I'm able to rent every month through these rental services. I do two of them so that I can get more, but it's a couple hundred dollars a month because I have multiple services of them. I get to keep getting new things all the time and exchanging, and it, and it helps a lot, honestly, especially if you're filming and for content and travel and just, and photo shoots and all of it. So that's my, that's my hack for like the clothing is renting rather than feeling like you have to go out and like buy new stuff all the time. Also, if you're going to a wedding, like rent a dress. I've used it for so many things where it's just so, so helpful. Rather than spending like $300 on a dress to go to someone's wedding that you're gonna wear one time, maybe repeat for another wedding, but then after that you're like, I've already worn this to weddings, I can't wait to wear it to another, like just rent a dress. When I do certain like events or retreats or anything like that and I need certain outfits rent. Like, it's just so helpful. Okay, with technology, this is our next category. I will say I definitely need a new phone right now, but generally I am not like a new iPhone every year kind of gal. I'm not every September like, oh my God, new iPhone, I need it. No, I use things until the wheels fall off when it comes to technology, mostly because I think I cannot be bothered to be like transferring things and like the admin of getting a new phone or getting a new computer is actually more overwhelming to me. That it's more like of an avoidance of the negative parts of it than being like, no, I can't have it, or I don't want to spend money on it. But it helps me out in the long run because I end up saving money. Like, I still have— we're recording right now on my 5, 6-year-old laptop that I got in Spain that still has a Spanish keyboard. And you might be like, what's a Spanish keyboard? Well, obviously there's some different letters in, in the alphabet in different languages. And so the keyboard has to be different. And that means a lot of like the symbols and the slashes and whatever are in different places. And the keys are set up to be like the Spanish keyboard, but when you actually hit them, they're reflected in the American keyboard. So it's like, I'll click this button on my keyboard that looks like the ñ symbol, which is like the letter N that has a little tilde over the top in Spanish. I'll click that and it doesn't actually give me an N with a tilde. It gives me like a symbol because it's giving me what, what it would give me if this was an American keyboard. But what I see with my eyes physically in front of me is a Spanish keyboard. So I've memorized, I've had to memorize where like the dash and the slash and the whatever is because the button that I'm actually pressing says something different on it than what's actually going to appear when I press it. It's such a— it's such a clusterfuck. The fact that I have not gotten a new computer, like, after moving to the US— I don't know, it's so— it's helping me save money, but that's just how I am, I think, with technology. Because I would rather— I'd rather, like, stick a pin in my eye than have to go to the Apple Store and, like, do the whole thing, like, transfer everything just feels really annoying to me. So anyway, that's my quote-unquote hack on saving money on tech, is basically just use it till the wheels fall off. And the only thing that I will probably be spending extra money on is paying like $39.99 a month for extra cloud storage, because again, too lazy, too overwhelming to have to clear my storage and go through all my photos and videos and apps and constantly delete things. Like, when I run out of storage, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna pay more for more cloud storage. I'm not going to be going through and deleting things and eliminating and whatever. So two opposite ends of the spectrum— saving versus you're like, just throw money at it because I cannot be bothered. Okay, for entertainment, I don't drink alcohol, I don't go out, I don't really use any kind of substances, and that saves you a lot of money, right? So it's not necessarily why I do it, but it is just something that I do that I think helps me. It's like, I again, save money. People who regularly smoke marijuana, think about how much money they have to spend on that. People who like regularly drink alcohol every night of the week in their homes, or they're going out and drinking and buying a bunch of drinks at the bars every weekend, or they regularly smoke or vape or whatever, like think about how much money they're spending on those things. So that's one thing that like I just don't have that expense in my life, and I think it does save me quite a bit of money. No drinks at the bar, no drunk food, no hungover Uber Eats, like nothing. Like I said, we only go out to eat one time a week, and that's basically our entertainment is travel and living at the beach. And yeah, I don't know, family time with our dog, like going for walks. Like, I don't know, we're just not people that like are spending a bunch of money going out and doing crazy things. Just travel really is the only one version of that. With fitness, I I just have never— I don't think I've ever had a really expensive fitness membership of any kind. I don't have any like really expensive yoga studio memberships or Pilates, Pilates studio memberships or anything like that. I have a basic gym membership that's like $48 a month, I think. And then I just recently got ClassPass that I can start doing little like yoga or Pilates classes here and there and kind of switching things up. And that, like, I was on the free trial for it, but it'll go to I think $55 a month after that. So yeah, I mean, I just kind of keep fitness simple. It's like walking the dog, walking outside, like getting those steps in. I have a regular gym membership, and then the ClassPass is honestly just a more recent, like, cherry on top. But I hadn't— I haven't had that ever before, so that was just kind of my main setup when it comes to fitness. But I know people that have like 5 different memberships to all these places. And again, if that's your life, if that's your lifestyle, if that's your livelihood, if you are a fitness influencer or you're a trainer, or that's just something you care about so much, it makes a lot of sense. And while I care about wellness and fitness, I just feel like me with kind of like the basics is more than enough. So, okay, last two categories are business and investments. So when it comes to business, I think that it's a really good idea to run a super lean business for as long as possible. Like, one of the biggest things I could say to people who are more so starting out is like, you don't need a team to feel cool. What's actually cool is profit. Having a profitable business. That is cool. You don't need to be able to say, oh, my assistant, my team, contact my whoever. Like, doing stuff just because you think that you need to or to make yourself feel more legitimate when it honestly doesn't make sense for you financially is a dumb idea. And so, you know, I was just very, I think, realistic in that when I was first starting out. I, I did everything myself. I was a one-woman team for 1.5, maybe 2 years. I didn't hire my first assistant until after I made multiple six figures, I'm pretty sure. I started out using really cheap softwares, so I didn't go right to the Kajabi, and that's like $300 a month. I started using Teachable to host my courses because it was $39 a month, and I was using MailChimp for my email list because it was totally free. And like, I was, I was doing— I had the free version of Canva. Like, I was doing, I was doing as much as I could to make sure that my business was really lean and that I was really just prioritizing profit. So I think when you're first starting out, especially now that people's businesses are becoming more sophisticated and, you know, social media is changing and there's a lot more high-quality video and production and all that stuff, it is a very different landscape. And it's not to say that quality doesn't matter, I think it absolutely does, but it's like there's a time and a place for when it makes the most sense. And I think there's too many early entrepreneurs who are spending way more than they need to be on, you know, team and business managers and so many things where it's like, you don't need that yet. You, you really don't need that. Or like a high production, you know, video team or really high overhead for retreats or events. Like, I didn't do any of that when I was first starting out. And while the scene is different and the expectations are different now, I still think there's ways for you to kind of pick and choose and be really smart with what your business expenses are going to and keep prioritizing the profit and deciding to run a lean business for as long as possible until you have the money where it makes sense. And it's like, I would be dumb to not outsource, get support, have team, have all these other things. And when I started paying myself a salary, it was really low, like even from the beginning. And I, I would say I still pay myself a very moderate salary considering what the business is doing in revenue. And that's also part of like the tax strategy, right, and what my CPA has recommended. But those are just kind of different ways that for me in my journey, it's been helpful to not overspend or blow all of my money because I didn't right away go, oh my God, I need an OBM, I need a VA, I need a, a content person, I need a social media manager, I need— I, I didn't do that. I did most of everything by myself, and when it made the most sense, I leveraged the most high-value tasks that I could offboard and did that with like one assistant who was very versatile and could do multiple things for me, and that just really helped me in the long run save a lot of money. And lastly is investments, because if we're talking about how to not blow all of your money once you start making a bunch of money, you're going to want to do something with it, right? You're going to want to put it somewhere. You're going to want to make it work for you in multiple ways. So these are a couple of the things that I've done throughout my journey. One of them is high-yield savings accounts so that they can grow— your money can grow while it's in a savings account. Then I have a personal investment portfolio, which like index funds and stock market investments via my financial advisor who kind of like runs and operates that for me and does the investments. So I have a personal one and then I also have a business investment portfolio. So same thing, financial advisor is running those, doing the investments, and that money is put away. And the idea with it is that it's, you know, long-term gonna accrue over time. It's nothing that I'm planning to like take out. I don't need it urgently. It's like extra money that I have that I can put away so that it can grow in the market. I think in the future I would love to have real estate investments aside from, you know, my one primary residence, which is the only piece of real estate that I currently own. But yeah, I'd love to have more properties, and I think that that will happen. It's also like Jaime and I have talked about it a lot. We've looked at different things. It is just one of those things that I think keeps getting pushed to the side because it's, it's a, one, it's a huge decision. Two, like, it's a, it's a bigger investment. Investment, it's pretty serious. And 3, like, it requires a lot of time and research to make sure that you're, you know, buying the right kind of property and, and all the things. And so because of that, it's like very time intensive. And I think that's the main reason why I haven't gone into real estate investments yet, is because I already feel— I feel sufficiently overwhelmed with everything else that I have going on. So that's always kind of like, oh my God, I can't even think about it, I can't even do that right now. But I do hope, I do hope that I'll get the chance to do that in the future. So we'll see. All right, you guys, that concludes this episode. I hope you enjoyed it. Again, just like my honest experiences, reflections, transparency around my journey, the things that I've valued spending money on versus where I choose to save and, and what that looks like in a lot of different areas of my life. I hope you found this episode valuable, or at least even like interesting in some way. If you did, let me know. I'd love to hear from you guys. I'm enjoying doing these solo episodes more where I'm just kind of sharing my reflections and like talking to you guys about things that are happening behind the scenes and telling stories and all of that. So I hope you're enjoying them as well. If you are, please leave a comment below anywhere that you're listening, whether it's on Spotify or YouTube, or send me a DM. And as always, don't forget, we are giving away cash prizes every single month to listeners who are leaving reviews. So on Apple Podcasts, if you leave a review, every single month we go through the new reviews, we pick someone, and we send them money. We send them cash. So just to thank you guys for being loyal supporters of the show, if you've already left a review, you can repeat, you can win again. Yeah, we're not like looking at it too in depth, so we just randomly pick a winner. It's fair game. So thank you guys so much for your reviews. Thank you for listening. I love you all so much, and I'll talk to you next week. Bye! If you loved this episode, make sure to check out the show notes where I've linked a few similar episodes I know you're also going to love.

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