Spending Without The Panic Button with Kadeem

We sit down with coach and author Kadeem McLean to demystify budgets, debt, and investing while unpacking the silence many of us grew up with around money. Real stories, plain language, and practical steps to build discipline, protect credit, and outpace inflation.

• budget as a financial map and mindset shift
• saving versus investing and beating inflation
• minimum payments, credit score factors, and payoff methods
• monthly money reviews, discretionary income, and automation
• emergency funds, small cuts that compound, and habit building
• how to start honest money talks with partners and family
• audience for the book and the life lessons behind it

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Chapters

• 0:00 Meet Khadeem And The Money Map
• 2:00 Budget As Your Starting Point
• 5:20 Credit Lessons We Never Learned
• 11:30 Why Mindset Shapes Your Money
• 17:40 Saving Versus Investing Explained
• 24:30 Inflation In Real Life
• 30:00 Khadeem’s Story And Motivation
• 38:10 Audience: Who The Book Helps
• 46:00 Practical Steps For Women In Their 40s

Transcript

Speaker: 0:00

You're listening to Diva Tonight with Carlene Humphrey, a relationship podcast with a focus on life, love, and friendship. This is the space where real conversations happen, stories are shared, and women in their 40s feel seen, heard, and inspired. Welcome to Diva Tonight.

Carlene: 0:21

Hi, I'm Carlene, and this is Diva Tonight. I'm thrilled to have with me on Zoom Kadeem, the coach McLean. He is the author of Wings of Abundance, your strategic guide to uplift and empower you to financial overflow. And he is a financial advisor, a coach. She's also helped me with trying to be accountable. Hi Kadeem.

Speaker 3: 0:48

How's it going, Carlene

Carlene: 0:50

It's going well. You know, I was reading, I've read some of the book. And I think what's interesting that you say in it is, you know, the word budget, I think we all have a hard time with. Like it's a bad word or something. I think the term budget, like it's not like it's we know what it is, but I think you said a best in the book that it's something that a lot of people have a hard time working with, right? Just working. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 1:17

Further to that point. Again, coming up in a household where you know money was a concern, is how I'll put it. And in the community, really, where money is a concern, and mostly a taboo topic, speaking about, excuse my language, this thing called budget. A lot of people, again, they they kind of have a negative connotation towards it. They see it in a negative light. When we hear budget, like, oh, well, I don't I don't got the time to do that, or so on and so forth. But really, the way I always look at it is a financial map, right? On any map, you need to know two points. One is where you want to go. But if you don't know where you are, then you cannot get to where you want to go. You don't know which route to take. Everyone has dreams and aspirations when it comes to finances and their life and so on. Things we want to accomplish, the house we want to live in, the area, but and that's great. That's the destination. But how do you know where you're starting? That's why we need that budget, right? And it doesn't have to be anything serious. There's many different ways to do it, but it's the picture of where you currently are, is how I look at it. And everyone, not everyone, but some people think they're above a budget, unfortunately. Oh, I don't need to do a budget, and it's how are you gonna help me? And it absolutely will. Big corporations, Amazon, Google, Walmart, they do quarterly, annual budgets, right? They look at their finances regularly. So if we really have these dreams and aspirations we want to achieve, but we're not looking at where we are, we don't know which route to take. We can't course correct. We don't know if we're on track, if we're off track, or if we're heading in the wrong direction. That's why a budget is so important.

Carlene: 2:42

Yeah. Like I feel like the thing is because we weren't taught it at a young age, like it's something that you learn later on in life. I think, well, for me, I learned about a budget like in school, but we didn't go in too much depth. Like I think I remember economics in high school. And then I didn't get my first credit card till university. I had no idea what a credit card would do, what it establishes until I was like, couldn't pay my minimum payments. I had to go on a payment plan, and that affected my credit. You know, like they have those people in university like standing, recruiting, like you know what I mean, like they have those salespeople working there. And like you get a credit card and you're like, you know, I'll use it to buy books and like you spend all this money, but it wasn't until like I spent too much, but you know what I mean? And and then it's like the aftermath of it. So it's never been a discussion, I find. And I and I think a lot of people can relate with that because I don't think it's a thing that is taught in every household. I can't say I can't talk for many other people, but I know from my own personal experience and like from my friends that yeah.

Speaker 3: 3:52

Yeah, I again I come up in, like I said, my community, my area, the area I lived in, my family, friends, the whole nine yards. We didn't really talk about it, right? And it's also a thing where having, I don't even know if it's just Caribbean parents, to be honest, but having or a Caribbean mother, but that's maybe immigrants, partially or mostly. You know, you can look at certain cultures, let's say, without going too far into it, and have an idea to say, okay, finances is not taught in every household or in most households based off of, you know, being from a Caribbean background or whatever the case is, right? And part of that is for anybody who has Caribbean parents, a Caribbean mother, especially, because that's who raised me, the the strong face is on 24-7. And to a degree, I'm not saying it should or shouldn't be, but to a degree it it needed to be in a lot of situations. So we're not going to talk about the things that are holding us back per se in terms of finances, the mistakes that have been made, the errors, the most I heard about money growing up was don't credit was important. Don't let anybody mess up your credit. That's all that was said about credit. I wasn't taught what a credit card is, I wasn't taught what credit is, why it's important, the different lines of credit, how I can utilize credit to grow a business or to achieve these goals of again, the house, the car, the wife, whatever the case might be. Um and I was told to save money. I wasn't told where to save money. I wasn't told about this thing called investing. I wasn't told anything about inflation, right? The thing that eats away at our dollars. I wasn't told about the rule of 72, dollar cost averaging, nothing along these lines. Again, I I sympathize with that. But these are all reasons why I wrote the book. Some of the reasons, right? My personal upbringing, things that I saw my mother go through, things that I went through financially, and I know if there's single mothers out there, and even not even couples, husband and wives who are together and still struggling, not knowing necessarily what to do with their finances. I know somebody like me, with my level of knowledge and finances and entrepreneurship and everything at this point, if someone like me sat with my mother back then, we wouldn't have lost the house. The car wouldn't have been repo's. Things would have been different. Right. So these are some of the reasons why I wrote the book to get it into the hands of people who are in those situations to get their mind right when it comes to finances, when it comes to budgets, to understand the importance of these things so we could put things in place where money may be an issue right now, but it doesn't have to be two or five years down the road. So, and to come full circle, sorry, one of the things you talked about was not really being taught credit or what to do with credit and so on. That's why I think it's so important we need to have these conversations and take off the strong face that say in front of our children and the younger generation so that they can avoid the mistakes we made and learn from our mistakes.

Carlene: 6:37

Yeah, it's true. Cause I I mean, you know, like we could start off with like just debt alone, like getting a student loan and like, you know, just planning for that, like not really thinking about, okay, so when I get this loan, it's gonna have this amount of much of interest after I graduate, then after maybe six months, like, you know, the things, all the things that come up that you really don't plan for. And I think it's like you said, I'm just saying, like, in terms of do you know anyone who does not have a budget and whose discipline who's good with money, like that?

Speaker 3: 7:11

No, I do not because anybody who is good with money will have a budget, right? There's listen, there are millionaires. Yeah, and I said that with good emphasis.

Carlene: 7:20

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3: 7:21

Who are spending a lot more than they should be. If you make a hundred thousand dollars this month, Carlene, but you spend a hundred thousand dollars, what do you have left?

Speaker 2: 7:32

Zero.

Speaker 3: 7:32

Zero. Why do you have zero left? Because you didn't have a budget. So without the budget, you're not disciplined to anything. If you're disciplined with finances, you know what's coming in, you know what's going out. You you review your finances. Because if you're not reviewing your finances, you have no idea. Money is slipping through the hole in your pocket and you don't realize it. Think of it this way. And I think I gave this example in the book or maybe on one of my podcast episodes. But if you have a boat and you go out to sea without checking if this boat has holes in it, but there are holes in this boat, you're gonna sink, right? But if you go out in this boat and before you set sail, you check your boat to see if there's holes in it, and you make sure you're all good, then you can set out to sail and you will go a lot further than you would have otherwise. But guess what? While you're still on that journey, you continually check for holes in the boat. The holes in your boat, the only way you can see if they are there is if you inspect it. The only way you know there if there's holes in your financial game plan is if you inspect it and you do your budget regularly, right?

Carlene: 8:33

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3: 8:34

Again, I don't know anyone personally. Literally just thinking about it as you asked me. You're racking your brain. Yeah, like, do I know anyone that's disciplined with and good with money but doesn't have a budget? And no, I do not.

Carlene: 8:45

Yeah, no, I know. I mean, even if even if they're not doing it, they've hired someone to do it, right? Because I mean, right, yeah, you have to be accountable for expenses for a business, right? So, yeah.

Speaker 3: 8:58

Yeah, and that that's another piece too, is somebody who just saves money, depending on where they're so let me preface this. Investing and saving are two different things.

Carlene: 9:07

Okay, explain.

Speaker 3: 9:08

Investing and saving are two different things. Saving means you're just putting money away into a quote unquote savings account, right? It might be with your bank. I'm not recommending you put money with your bank in your bank account and just leave it there, right? Because this thing called inflation is eating away at your money. Inflation is the cost of goods and services rising over time. I'm sure you've all heard this before. Cup of coffee is not what it used to be five years ago, three years ago, ten years ago. I remember going into Walmart or Tim Horton, sorry, and paying maybe what, 50 cents for a donut, 75 cents for a donut, and then getting a French vanilla, let's say for a dollar fifty, some along those lines. Now I don't even know what it is. It's like what three dollars and a donut is a dollar twenty-five, or those specialty donuts one fifty, whatever the case is. Goods and services rising over time. Your grocery bill. It's not what it used to be, especially since the pandemic, right? In 2020. It's different. Things keep going up. But guess what? Your dollars are not going up if you're just saving. That's where the issue comes in. Because if inflation has been, let's say, 3.75% for the last 60 years on average, has your money grown above 3.65, 3.75%. That's not even the real number for inflation. It's more like six to eight percent, to be honest. But is your money growing above that every year? Because if it's not, when you put money in that bank account, you put a hundred dollars in there. If your money's going down eight percent because of this inflation thing every year, you no longer have a hundred dollars when the new year comes. You have ninety-two dollars. It shows as a hundred, but you only be able to buy a ninety-two dollars worth of goods and services because everything else went up in price, right? So saving again is one thing.

Carlene: 10:49

Even when you're saving, in order to get the typical interest rate that the bank will give you, I think you need like with some bank accounts, like you need at least ten thousand dollars in the account. Like it has to stay there.

Speaker 3: 11:02

Some of them, some of them, yes. They won't give you certain, let's say, in investments if unless you have a certain amount of money to put away.

Speaker 2: 11:10

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 11:10

Right. And that's why it's important to have certain people in your circle, I guess. Because, for example, for you, I've given you access, and some of my other clients, access to investments where typically you don't get access to that unless you have over six figures, right? But the last point I think I was gonna make there is I try to remember and it comes back to me, is investing now. Because savings we talked about. Right. Right? You're putting money away, ideally, not under your mattress. Don't listen to what people used to say because that's making you lose money. And put it into your savings account with your bank is pretty much equivalent to putting it under your mattress. But now investing, that's where you go and you put it into an account where it's going to grow for you. You are investing in companies, you are investing in the stock market, right? You're investing in Walmart, Amazon, Tesla, these other companies, technology companies, whichever companies I personally say invest with what you use, right? If you go to Walmart typically, you can invest with some Walmart, or I guess some Walmart stocks in your portfolio. If you know, use Apple products and devices, get Apple, Amazon, Tesla, like whatever it might be. And start small. But investing is where your money will grow for you, and you can beat this thing called inflation. So again, there's a difference. Saving versus investing.

Carlene: 12:22

I feel like when they keep saying, okay, inflation is going up, and then you're like, okay, well, the banks are gonna be charging more, more for what? Are we talking about the mortgage? Are we talking about like just explain it in layman's term? Because I I understand how inflation works, but I still, yeah.

Speaker 3: 12:38

Yeah, no problem. So again, I I remember this is probably a good example. So inflation, right? Pre-pandemic, I was buying grapes, right? I buy my fruits and green grapes specifically. I like green grapes. Some people kind of cringe at that. They say, What the heck? Green grapes? It's purple. I like green grapes, right? And I was getting grapes, and it may have cost what three, four dollars maybe for a bag at the time. And then I think it was during the pandemic, somewhere in the middle, towards the tail end, maybe. I went and I attempted to buy groceries as I typically would, and I bought a bag of grapes. And remember, I said it was about four dollars before this. I put this thing on the scale and it said twelve dollars. And I was like, absolutely not. That is the last time I bought grapes to this day. $12 for what used to cost four dollars. The point is, every year, what you're buying, you consistently go and buy coffee, you consistently go and buy grapes, you consist gas prices, Carly. I remember paying $50 or sorry, $50 a liter, $70 a liter. Now I remember seeing a dollar forty in recent years, a dollar fifty at one point, if I'm not mistaken.

Speaker 2: 13:50

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 13:51

So again, inflation is the things that you're regularly buying, these goods and services, your grocery bill, the pizza you buy, the McDonald's, whatever else it might be, const constantly going up in price against you over the years. So that's why I come back to if the goods and services you're using your money to purchase are going up in price, is your money going up in value to meet or beat that? Because if it's not, you're losing money every single day. And that's where investing comes in to help hedge against that and beat that thing called inflation so you can really grow your money. And your $100 today is still $100 tomorrow or $112. Okay.

Carlene: 14:29

Yeah. So, you know, we're talking about like, you know, wings of abundance and then just understanding, I guess what we say, financial literacy. But in order to start from the beginning, I say this is my signature saying, it's it's not where you're going, it's where you came from. And so there's more to the book than meets the eye. Obviously, there's the person who wrote the book, right? And so for those who don't know who you are, where did you grow up?

Speaker 3: 14:59

Good question. So I grew up in Mississauga, Ontario, right? Yeah. Jamaican background, Jamaican mother raised me. And it was a it was an interesting life so far, is what I'll say, right? An interesting upbringing. I realized the apartment that we were in in towards the end of my high school days, let's say, was not too far from the first house where I was actually born. And I only realized that in the past like seven years, maybe. So I was like, oh, I never knew we lived so close. So I was always in the same pocket, let's say, throughout my whole life. I didn't realize it until I went to Niagara College for school, studied uh computer systems technician, IT. Yeah, so I was born and raised Mississauga, kind of lived in that area for a while, and just recently actually moved to Alberta.

Carlene: 15:44

Yeah. And so all through high out high school, were you a A plus student?

Speaker 3: 15:50

Yes. Yeah, so throughout high school, yes. There was a turning point in my elementary school days for my grades, and I guess how serious I took myself. So I played football for nine years, if I'm not mistaken.

Speaker 2: 16:04

Oh, okay.

Speaker 3: 16:05

Like organized football, played basketball regularly, not ever organized, except for when I was on the elementary school team. You name a sport, I played it for the most part. Soccer when I was a kid, still regularly throughout elementary school, played soccer, tennis here and there. But in grade, I want to say it was grade five, I was being made fun of, let's say, for my grades. And it's ironic because the kid who was making fun of me had actually had worse grades than me. So I was like, I'm confused here.

Speaker 2: 16:32

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 16:33

But anyhow, he was making fun of me. I got tired of it, and I said, you know what, man? I'm gonna prove to myself, most importantly, and then prove to you that I'm smart enough to get good grades. So I turned around and just complete all my schoolwork, homework in school before I went home for the day, because I knew I wanted to play and chill, chill out, relax, watch some shows, play basketball, whatever after school. Let me just finish my homework in school so I don't have homework. And so from then on, grade six onward, I did that. Because grade six actually, I was told I was one of the most improved students in the school, thanks to that encounter. And I actually got a chance to go to Tim Horton's camp. The principal nominated me to go to Tim Horton's camps, and from then I went through they invited me back for leadership program, which is a whole other conversation. Um but I went through their whole program, worked with them as a counselor, as a facilitator, giving back to the youth. So to answer your question about my grades, yes, high school, definitely my A, let's say.

Carlene: 17:27

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 17:27

And then college, same thing.

Carlene: 17:29

So, you know, it's interesting, you don't really mention your mom in that whole turnaround with school. So I I find it interesting that it was a student that said something to you that changed your whole outlook on like, you know, school and grades and just changing your life around, right?

Speaker 2: 17:46

Right.

Carlene: 17:47

But was your mom like typical Caribbean mom? Was she like, you know, you need to do better in school, or did she did she, you know, she I got you.

Speaker 3: 17:56

Yeah. Well, she not so much to be honest, because I stayed out of trouble. I was never a kid in trouble. Regardless of what my grades were, I was doing enough to pass. So I wasn't necessarily applying myself, don't get me wrong, but I was doing enough to pass, right? 60, 65, whatever the case, maybe the occasional 70, if I'm remembering correctly. But I stayed out of trouble. I was a good kid, never had any issues, got along with everybody, but my mother was too busy to really have a concern with my grades. Never mind that. Three of my older brothers, they dropped out of out of school, right? So they yeah, so grades.

Carlene: 18:34

You're the youngest, I forgot.

Speaker 3: 18:36

I'm the youngest boy. Yeah, there's 11 of us, I'm the youngest boy. My mom's side, there's six of us. Right? So I have a younger sister. But my mother working two, three jobs at a time, couldn't really pay too much attention to my grades. However, I do specifically remember remember times where my mother would sit down and help me with my math. And then she bought me, she subscribed to I I don't remember the name of it, but monthly, no, not scholastic. I think it was from Scholastics. It was something we found in Scholastics, if I'm not mistaken, but there was different things in there, like where is Waldo, but some a lot of math questions to have my brain work and whatnot. So she subscribed me to that, and then monthly I would get these magazines or whatever they were, and I could work through the problems in there, which absolutely helped me with my grades. So I don't think I remember, I don't remember a time where she told me to do better with my grades, but subliminally she told me because she got me those classics.

Carlene: 19:26

Yeah, you didn't have like the strict like parents like I did, like even when I was very studious, I love school. School was like my happy place, you know. I did a lot of extracurricular activities, I was on the sports teams and that. But even when I did do well, like I think when I finally picked up, like pulled up my socks or whatever you want to call it, because grade nine and ten, I didn't make it on the honor roll. And then I think it was grade 11 when they were saying that, oh, you need to have a certain GPA because if you're gonna go to college or university and that kind of thing, right? But I had like a mom who was just like, I would get the 85 and she's like, Well, why can't you get the 90? You know? And she worked a lot too. But I would, I'm just like, I worked my butt off to get this 85. Like it wasn't, you know what I mean? And so, yeah, it's one of those things, but I feel like it's something that's very common in Korean families for sure. If they're not saying it, they're implicitly saying it. Like your mom got you those books. My mom got me books too. I remember like all the books I had, like from Groller, I think. Like I had Arthur, like all the books that my mom got. So yeah, like it's it's like both hand in hand. So they're not saying they're making it, you know what I mean? Or like if you're playing, like you know how you said you did your homework at school, so you can hang out after. When I was hanging out with the kids playing after school, my mom would come and get me. Or like if I'm home watching hours of TV, because I could watch hours to DM, and then she'd be like, turn off the TV and read a book all the time.

Speaker 3: 21:00

I heard that one too many times. Go read a book.

Carlene: 21:05

It's so true.

Speaker: 21:06

Season four of Diva Tonight brings you incredible guests, honest conversations, real experiences, and lessons we can all take with us. Diva Tonight, glamour for your ears.

Carlene: 21:20

It's it's obviously those those those are the things that help you get to where you are now. And you know, you have lots of books in the back there, you know. So the one thing I didn't ask you um is was it hard to write the book? Like to focus on it, like you know, the plan to implement it.

Speaker 3: 21:37

There was a lot of work that went into it for sure. I don't like the I struggle to answer that question directly because everything has a level of difficulty to it, but I don't necessarily like looking at my life and saying it's hard, right? There was definitely difficulty to it. And me being the person who I am, a perfectionist for anybody who does not know, a I will go back to it and I will tweak it, I will rewrite. It, I will reword it. I was like, oh shoot, but I should add this in there. Oh no, I didn't add this or that. And then at one point I sat down and I looked at every chapter, and I'm like, wait, there is so much information in this book. So it's good. Let me let me step away and stop with the tweaking. Let me get it out there. And what I did actually was I released it on my mother's birthday, November 19th, just as a tribute to her, let's say. And setting that deadline is what helped me to push to get it out there. Because if I didn't do that, I would have continued to tweak it and add to it, add stories to it and the whole nine yards. The process was definitely interesting and enlightening, I'll say. Because from one perspective, I'll say no, it wasn't hard or difficult, let's say, because I have the information. I've been studying finances for 12 plus years, entrepreneurship for 12 plus years. It's it's not the information is in me. I just need to get it down and organize it, right? There's a lot more information that I have than what's in the book, but what's in the book will help people to elevate their finances and put them in a different situation, right? I didn't want to make it too expansive or too long or anything like that because people get daunted by a long book. So I purposely made it shorter so that people could sit down, read it, and take the information. You apply the principles in this book, you will change your life.

Carlene: 23:14

Yeah, no, I think so. You've covered everything in the book budgeting, debt, you know. I guess what I can ask you in terms of the book, who's your target audience? Do you feel like when you wrote the book? I know you said your mom was the inspiration behind it. And I think growing up in with a single parent household, that makes it a little bit more challenging. And and seeing that change, but was she like your main audience? Like in terms of the yeah.

Speaker 3: 23:41

Yeah, a younger, definitely a younger version of her is my target audience, right? So I'd say a 30 to 45 year old, right? Because at that point, you're either considering having kids typically, or you already have your kids and they're they're starting to age and you're contemplating certain information you should or shouldn't share with them, right? And like we talked about earlier, I believe sharing some of the mistakes that people have made in life can kind of show your kids where the minds are in the mindfield and help them to navigate it, right? Helping them put certain things in place, setting up investments for them from when they're young with a small amount of money every month or every couple of weeks, every paycheck that will compound over time and allow time to do its thing with your compound interest, and that'll set them up where they don't have to go and get OSAP or a student loan like I did, like you did, right? So a 45-year-old definitely. And even if you don't have kids, I share some of my personal experiences in the book, let's say, because let me backtrack. I wrote this book specifically from the perspective of again, things that I went through in life, some debt that I had, having twenty thousand dollars in debt plus at one point, similar to you when I went to college. I got a I think was a Canadian tire credit card or something like that. Same one from the gas station, right? Yeah, they got you two.

Carlene: 24:57

That was the one. The Canadian with the Canadian tire money, like wow. I got yeah, I got that's the one that, yeah, twelve hundred dollars. Like, I don't know how much I racked up on. I think that's how much it was, but yeah.

Speaker 3: 25:09

But my issue with that was I couldn't go online or anything like that or call in to see how much I had of balance, like how much my balance was. And as a matter of fact, I may have had to call in, but I couldn't just go online and check it. Um, I ended up having to go to the store and check it. I don't even think I could call. And so I thought I paid it all off because they told me what the balance was. I went through, I paid it, and guess what? It wasn't paid off. So it accumulated interest and continued to build over time. So I was like, you know what? No, how do I have $500 on this card when I pay it off? That when I paid it, I close it, right? Which I don't recommend you close your cards. But I wrote this book from the perspective of things that I personally went through, right? 20-something year old with $20,000 and dad's student loan on their head. Actually, that $20,000 was not even including the student loan, but I paid it off, right? Seeing my mother go through certain things, like I said, seeing the car drive off the lot when all my family members were inside the house. Car drove off the lot one night, and I was like, What's going on here? And my mother just said they came to take the car, and then she went to her room. Again, strong face. She didn't show us any tears or anything along those lines. I'm not saying that's good or not good, but I'm sure she probably went to her room and dropped some tears, right? And I knew it was a money thing because throughout my whole life, at that point, money was always an issue, money was always a concern, right? I'm sure you probably heard this before, Carly, but God will provide.

Speaker 2: 26:28

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 26:28

My mother's famous line, right? And he always does it and he always will. But seeing certain and my mother worked two or three jobs, right, raising the six of us in the household, she got the car got not the car, sorry, the house. We had to sell the house. We went from one house to a bigger house. That house had to get sold in a short time frame because my mother couldn't keep up behind on mortgage payments. We moved into an apartment, a two-bedroom apartment for five of us because one of my brothers moved out, right? So it again, seeing how much money has an effect on a family emotionally, of course, with things that we can do or unable to do. My mother was never able to come with me to, let's say, school trips. There's school trips I couldn't go on because the money wasn't there to pay for it. Certain sports I couldn't play or try out because the money wasn't there for it. And again, seeing and knowing, because I felt it, the effect of not having money on a household, I said, okay, this doesn't make any sense. I know what my mother's gone through, I know what I've gone through, and I know the stress that debt has on can can put on people. Let me do something to help people get this, get rid of this stress and get the monkey off their back. And then that's where the book came from.

Carlene: 27:35

Yeah. No, I hear you. Because I mean, I I can identify with so many things. Like, I mean, I can't, like, there's certain things you said that you have in your experience, but like I remember, like you said, certain trips. I remember not being able to go on a trip, but somehow I got my guidance counselor because I wanted to go on the school trip and then I got them to help me because I don't think we had the money. Like you said, there were certain things that like we have the house. My my mom worked two jobs as well. And like certain things just have a struggle. Like, even when I would when I would take care of my siblings as the oldest, like finding stuff for them to do, I'm like, mom, can't you just give me some more money to take them out? Like I would have to do like stuff at like go to the community center to take them swimming or go to the library, anything that was free, I have to figure it out. Or like if we're going somewhere, my sisters like complain about like I would we would walk there because I don't think I have the money. Like sometimes my mom would give me give me some money, but it wasn't an a lot, you know what I mean? So I I understand when you say that. So it's just like the struggle, like you know what I mean, and not having all the cool things that other kids have. Like I think there's kind of like that that mindset where I just got used to not having the name brand or having the coolest thing. But I think when you think back to those times, like like you wanted certain things, but you just couldn't have them, right?

Speaker 3: 28:59

And and at one point, definitely it is that, but hearing you say that reminded me of a couple of things. One of them is pizza day. I remember many times where everyone else is getting pizza, and I'm like just sitting there with whatever little sandwich or whatever I have. But I also remember many times where I didn't have a lunch, right? Even as I don't know if this was grade two or four. No, I think it was like grade, maybe grade two, and then maybe grade three, where at one point the teacher basically asked others in the class for little bits of their lunch that they weren't gonna eat. Like if they didn't like grapes, they had a bunch of grapes, and maybe the teacher will take a couple of grapes and she gave some, like collected and then gave it to me a bit basically. Because she noticed I wasn't having lunch pretty often. Um, you know, days with one meal easily. And uh, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I had a rough life. Like I told you about hardship, I don't consider my life to be hard. I had some difficulty, sure. Other people have it quote unquote worse. I don't like to compare, but they have their own struggle to go through. So, but hearing you say that just reminded me. So, yes, at one point it is the cool things, but even before that, it's the necessities, right?

Carlene: 30:02

Yeah, and it just made me think of that one time. I think it was it wasn't pizza day. What did I I don't know if I'm gonna say this in story, but they used to have patties at Research, and I don't think I had the money to buy a patty. I think I stole the money. I don't remember from her, but I did so that I could have a patty. Because I felt like, like you said, you're always missing out on those opportunities, just having even like a dollar fifty. It wasn't even that much money at that time for a patty, but not even having the money for a recess snack. Yeah, those those those things, yeah.

Speaker 3: 30:37

Like just but they they affect you, right?

Carlene: 30:40

Especially as a kid, and then you carry that without realizing you talking about not having lunch just made me think of that. And I I think I remember one side of the story, but not the other side. Like, you know, yeah. But yeah, we hide that in the in the back of our minds, but yeah, like it's it's what do I say to the it's just the struggle. If it does like, you know, this cliche saying, if it doesn't make you make you doesn't kill you, makes you stronger. But sometimes you I think you want to be better so that if you have kids or if you're living a life that you don't want to live it in that way, because it was hard, right? You know, like and and like you said, I I don't think of it as a struggle. I just think of like this is how my life was, and like you try to think of like the positive things, you know, like the things I did get to do and those things, not to focus on that so much. Because I I think once you do, then you get into that state of mind, you know what I mean? And I don't know, as a kid, I think when you're younger, you're supposed to be enjoying life, right? Not really thinking, oh no, I don't have this, or I don't, yeah.

Speaker 3: 31:45

And I'm a very observant individual, so I always noticed when things were happening or well, who's doing what, and the repercussion of those things, and we couldn't do X, Y, and Z because of finances and didn't complain about it. I understood because my mother's working two or three jobs at a time. Yeah, definitely. So it's interesting where we come from.

Carlene: 32:03

For sure. So I mean, this series, this episode is we're talking about finances, but and the demographic that you're talking to. So I I think what I want to get back to is the series is devoted for women in their 40s and like life in your 40s, I feel like you're supposed to be at that stage in life where you're supposed to be making better decisions financially and like getting better at life, right? And so what is your advice to women in their 40s right now? Like if they are trying to get back in the green, you know what I mean, as opposed to the red, right? Well, get back in the black is the proper saying.

Speaker 3: 32:40

Yes. I understood it when you said green, but I yes.

Carlene: 32:43

I know. I was and then I was like, uh, that's not the proper term.

Speaker 3: 32:48

Okay, I got you. So one piece of advice that comes to mind automatically is don't discount the small. Do not discount the small. One of my I'll use this because one of my friends, he always says, if you see a penny, pick it up. 99 more, you got a dollar, right? And so when I say don't discount the small, I talked about compounding. And compounding is your little bits adding up over time. We often think I don't have money to invest. This comes back to the budget piece. Did you even do a budget to see if you have money to invest, or is that just your mindset? Because our mindset, I understand situations may be tough. Don't get me wrong, I completely understand that. I'm not saying I'm in your situation. I don't dare to try to say that, but I know times can be tough. However, there are people who have done more with less, right? So shaping our mind, I think, is one of the first steps, really. Reshaping our mind to say, okay, let's not get stuck on you said it, Carlene, where we are or where we were. Yeah. But how can we get to that next step? And again, with that reframing of the mind, realize that if you say you don't have money, you'll never have money. You don't have money to invest. Okay, you'll never have money if that's the mindset, if that's what you keep telling yourself. Because there's power in the tongue. The words you use, you're hearing those words. And when you say them out loud, you keep repeating them to yourselves, you build a certain conditioning in your mind. So careful with the language you use, reframe that mindset. And that's why mindset, I think, is the first chapter in my book. Reframe that mindset. If we don't reframe it, nothing else matters, right? And then again, once you realize, okay, my mindset is reframed. What do I do next? With that reframe of the mind, one piece of that is don't discount the small. You say you don't have money to invest, but Warren Buffett, and we all know that name, has said many times over, pay yourself first. That's not splurge first, that's pay yourself first, meaning pay your future self. Meaning take a certain percentage of every dollar you earn, and I say 10%. If you don't, if you're unable to start with 10, start with five, but aim to get up to at least 10% and put that into an investment where you leave it and you let it compound for you over years. I want to make sure I say years. I was gonna say time, emphasis, it has to be years because that's where your money can work for you, right? So again, make sure you're taking care of your regular bills. Again, those who think they don't have money, I'll give you this here. You say you don't have money to invest, but you're buying coffee on the road, you're buying maybe chips, gum, or candy on the road, you're you're buying a bunch of things on the road regularly, right? Let's say, and you're spending more than this, but let's say you're just spending seven dollars a day. Seven dollars a day. If you saved that money instead or invested that money instead and didn't put it out to buy these things, you bought less or you bought coffee at like in bulk at Walmart or wherever, and you made it at home, you got yourself a little travel mug, don't have to buy the Starbucks. Don't get me starting about Starbucks. If you're buying Starbucks, you're spending way more than $7 a day, because that's your one vente or grande coffee, and you save that seven dollars a day. Seven times thirty is two hundred and ten. Yeah. That means you are you have two hundred and ten dollars a month that you can invest, but again, you don't know if you have that two hundred and ten dollars if you don't know where your money's going. That's why doing that budget is so important, which leads into number two. We need to do that budget to see where our money is going. Once we do our budget and see where our money is going, we will see how much we can really put aside for investments. And if you feel like you, after looking at all these numbers, you don't necessarily know that you have money to put aside for investing. Look at what you're spending, right? Look at what you're getting on these miscellaneous items. And again, that $7 a day rule, you can save at least $210 a month. Invest at least $210 a month. But start small is what I'm gonna say, right? Start small, $25, $50, however much you feel like you can muster up. Look at that budget to see how much you really can and invest, right? And if it comes up when it comes to paying down debt as well, sorry, when you look at that budget, you will see how much you really can use to pay down these debts. And uh a point of emphasis here, because when I was in my debt situation, no one told me this. So I'm gonna share it with you, right? And hopefully this is of value to your listeners. Make sure you pay at the very least, the minimum on all of your credit lines, meaning your line of credit, meaning your car payment, meaning your your credit card payment, all of them across the board. You want to at least pay the minimum because there's different factors. I don't want to go too deep into it and confuse you, but there's different factors that make up your credit score. Payment history, I believe, is 35% of that. So if you miss payments, your score is gonna drop because that makes up 35% of your credit score, right? So make sure you pay at the very least the minimum across the board, and then there's different strategies you can apply the snowball method, the avalanche method, whichever there's many methods out there to pay down that debt, right? But at least pay the minimum across the board. Hopefully that answers your question and helps a little bit.

Carlene: 37:48

Yeah, it does. I do have one more question to ask you though. You know, just having conversations with money. I've talked to someone else about this, and I think talking about money is probably the hardest thing to do. So, for my audience, how can women have more open and honest conversations about money with their partners, friends, and family members?

Speaker 3: 38:10

I've heard this before and I don't know necessarily how true it is. So please take this with a grain of salt and don't ridicule me in comments or anything like that. Women are typically better with money than men, right? That's what I've heard. I don't know how true it is. I think it's true, but I don't know how true it is, right? Look at Carlyle advocated for all. I know. You know why?

Carlene: 38:29

Because I I you know what? When I go through my hurdles with money, you know, up and down, like staying on track and disciplined. But um, I remember one of my boyfriends, I he wasn't transparent. I I think it was me just being like just looking through stuff and I'm like, you have student loan debt? I'm like, they're gonna come after you. And like exactly what I said to him happened. They went into his account and they took, I'm like, you can't just leave it like that. Like, you know what I mean? I I know you were struggling before, but like in those situations, like just being transparent about money, like, yeah, it's it's hard, you know, in relationships because it's just yeah.

Speaker 3: 39:08

Absolutely, right? And and to that point, that's exactly where I was kind of going with it. Where because women are, I think, technically, I've heard better than men with money. Oftentimes it might be that where it's just opening the conversation between you and your partner, right? How you open that conversation, you know your partner best, right? But open it in a way where it's not like you're drilling them, right?

Carlene: 39:31

That's the hard part, right? I think that's like the like we're always nagging. Like we don't mean to nag, but it's I'm talking from personal experience when I would get mad and I'm like, well, why didn't you know what I mean? And I'm like nagging, and maybe it might not have been the best way to talk to him about those things, but I was just like, Lord, like I, you know what I mean? It's just the reaction in the moment, but like my cousin said it to me like there's certain ways that you talk to people, and you're not gonna get across by being so aggressive.

Speaker 3: 40:03

Exactly. Right. So just open up the conversation in a nice way, you know, right setting, right time, let's say, right way to start the conversation is the most important thing because it's not necessarily what you say, it's how you say it. So not drilling them, let's say, with a level of I'm better than you with money, Khadim said so. So let's have this conversation, right? We're not doing that. But open it up the right way, of course, and make sure, again, just as you want them to be transparent, you are also transparent. Because and I think ultimately what helps with this is having a common goal because again, it's a partnership, right? You having a common goal to say, and even having a goal if you're not if you're single or yourself that you want to aim to achieve. I want we we need to save $100,000 for this down payment on a house, whatever it might be, right? And in order for us to do that, we need to make sure we understand exactly where we both are financially. Here's what I have. Let's see what you have, right? Good way to start the conversation. And again, even if it's for yourself, you need to save $100,000, $75,000. Take that number and reverse engineer it. You want to save that money in two years because you plan to buy a house in two years. How much do you need to save every year, right? Cut that in half. How much you need to save every month? Divide that by 12. How much you need to pay every paycheck? If you get paid twice a month, divide that by two. That'll give you an idea of how much you need to save every month. And again, we're not saving, we're investing for this goal. So ideally, you put it in, there's calculators online, investment calculators, you can put into an investment calculator to say, okay, I got $500 a month I can save towards it. You put it in, you're getting 6% a year, it can calculate that for you, right? So I think that again, how you open that conversation and having a common goal will definitely help.

Carlene: 41:45

Yeah. That is some great advice. And hopefully we've started the ball rolling. If someone is interested in reading the book, because it's it's not a long read, it's a few chapters. Like you said, it's not a heavy read. So where can they get the book? Wings of abundance.

Speaker 3: 42:00

So they can get it on Amazon. Rings of Abundance on Amazon. You can purchase it. And of course, Amazon is going to ship that to you, right?

Carlene: 42:08

Is it anywhere else?

Speaker 3: 42:09

It is just on Amazon right now. Yeah, just on Amazon right now. I appreciate anybody who does go ahead and read it. And if you do, you like it, go ahead and leave a review on Amazon because that does help to put it in front of more people who can also benefit from the information. Because I know I'm biased, but there's good information, great information in there that again, if you follow it, you will make a difference in your life. Just getting it to read it, just like any of these books here. Just read these books, I didn't do anything with the information, I will not be in a situation I'm in now.

Carlene: 42:39

But I think repetition is key. Because I've read this one book, and my mentor said to me, You need to read it again and then read it again. So even if you read it once in order to change the habit, right? I think it takes how long does it take to form a new habit? Like, I mean, just even budgeting, you know what I mean? Like that's a new habit.

Speaker 3: 42:58

Yep. So there's different research on it that it's not quite specified or determined. Um, but the common thing is 21 days, right? So 21 days to form a new habit is what they say.

Carlene: 43:10

Okay. On average. Oh, I didn't know that. I learned something new. All right.

Speaker 3: 43:14

Sorry, yeah. One last thing I'll say there is for the budget piece, because people might just say, okay, I gotta do a budget. They'll do a budget, they'll never do it again. But the point of the budget is continually to do. That's why I said when your boat sets sail, you still need to investigate over time to see if the boat has holes in it, even as you're on the water. Now, at the very minimum, I would say once a month, do your budget. The very minimum. Check your numbers. And what does that mean? Do a budget. Okay, great. I've heard this before. Look at your statements, right? Your bank, your bank statements, wherever you spent money, wherever money came out of whichever accounts, print those out or look at them online and open up, let's say, an Excel spreadsheet or write down on paper whatever's best for you to say, okay, this is how much I spent here. For groceries, I spent $200 for the month, or $500 for the month. Gas for the car, I spent $300 for. The month, so on. And so write all of that down. And what you really want to look for is your income minus your expenses. Because once you take your income from all sources and all of your expenses, don't lie to yourself, then you will see something called your discretionary income. What your discretionary income is, is what you have left over after all of your bills are paid. Now that is the amount where we need to, I say, aim to get that number to zero. The reason why I say that, not because you're increasing your expenses, but because you're increasing your investments. So if you have $200 left over, you can put that, you can just disperse that money, some towards investment, some towards savings if you don't have any savings right now. Because you mentioned this earlier, Carlene, and thank you for just reminding me. If an emergency pops up, we know that emergencies happen. We know that if we have a phone, our phone could crack. We know if we have a car, the tire could pop. Why do we not have money set aside where we can cover these expenses or emergency situations when they come up? We know they're going to happen. My car just got hit the other day. I'm not worried about it because one, I have the money to cover it. And two, I've got insurance. So either way, I'm good. But that's because I took care of the emergency fund. So again, if you have $200, it depends on your situation and how you want to disperse that. But an example could be put $100 into my emergency fund because I don't currently have one, put $100 into investment for my future self and my future family.

Carlene: 45:24

So, like that emergency with a car. Do you always get the car right away? Because sometimes it depends on if it's your fault, their fault. In most cases, do you get a car as quickly as you would want to get a car?

Speaker 3: 45:37

Like so let me clarify that. I don't have to replace my car if that's what you're asking.

Carlene: 45:41

Okay.

Speaker 3: 45:42

Yeah, my bumper got hit and I need to repaint the bumper and then they can attach the bumper again, put it back on, we're good to go.

Speaker 2: 45:49

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 45:49

Right? So it's like maybe $1,500 to 200 to $2,000. I have the money put away. I'm not worried about it. But at the same time, my insurance covers it. So even if the insurance didn't cover it, because I have that emergency fund, I'm good. I don't I don't need to worry about it. Oh, that's stress off of my back.

Carlene: 46:02

So if the insurance didn't so you're saying having the emergency money in the event that your insurance does not cover it.

Speaker 3: 46:10

Well, yes. And that was an example, the car. But let's say your phone breaks. Right. How many of you listening to this right now are going to go a month or a few weeks without a new phone? It's not gonna happen. Right? A lot of you are gonna run straight to Rogers, straight to Bell Tell us, wherever, to get a new phone as soon as you can. Do you have the money put aside for that new phone? And if you don't, you can start building it up today. It's not a matter of what you did in the past. Today's a new day. Do your budget, figure your money, your numbers out, and then set that emergency fund up. Or even if you're good with money, here's another thing, and discipline, like Carlene was saying earlier, you can have the money and investments that you're not going to touch. So you don't necessarily have to set up an emergency fund in savings, but you have your investments and you can utilize your credit card that's going to give you rewards to buy that thing, but then make sure you pay it off before that interest kicks in. Because at minimum you have 21 days, right? Because your statement doesn't get released until 21 days after, or sorry, it doesn't get released until whichever date of the month it gets released, and you have 21 days from that day to pay it off before interest kicks in. All right. So that's where the disciplined one.

Carlene: 47:26

Wow. Like that's so true. Because now your phone is everything. It's it's yeah, no more home phone, but yeah, lots to think about. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 47:35

Some of you have your phone as your Bitcoin wallet. I hope you have the three phrase backed up somewhere. Thanks. If you don't, your phone's gone. Here goes your Bitcoin.

Carlene: 47:43

Wow, I didn't even know that was a thing. Lots to learn, right? Oh my goodness, that's crazy.

Speaker 2: 47:48

Absolutely.

Carlene: 47:49

Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Kadeem, for your time. I'm Carlene. And this is Diva Tonight. With Kadeem, you can get his book on Amazon, Wings of Abundance. I think I have my work cut out for me, right? I'll definitely have to finish it. But yeah, thank you again.

Speaker 3: 48:06

Oh Rob, thank you for having me. Appreciate it. Hopefully, listeners got something.

Speaker: 48:09

Thanks for listening to Diva Tonight. Follow us on Instagram at @DiivaOntheRadio. That's DIVA with two eyes. And don't forget to follow us on TikTok at Diva on the radio. For more clips and conversations, you'll love. Want to share your thoughts or send us a message? Text us anytime at divatonight.buzzprout.com. Until next time, stay fabulous.