How do you divine?

FREEDOM| Money, Mindset, and the Path to Independence with Walli Miller

• How do you divine? • Season 3 • Episode 18

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In this episode of Sanika sits down with financial coach and early retiree Walli Miller to explore the concept of freedom and financial independence. Walli shares her journey of achieving financial freedom by making intentional money decisions and participating in the FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) movement. Born and raised in the Bronx, Walli discusses the financial challenges she faced and how she shifted her spending habits to build wealth. She emphasizes the importance of understanding one's finances, setting financial goals, and using money as a tool to design a life of freedom. Walli also provides practical advice on managing money, setting boundaries, and building wealth through various investment vehicles like real estate, entrepreneurship, and the stock market. Join Walli  and Sanika as they dive deep into the keys to financial freedom and how you can start your journey today.

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Thank you for listening and for adding new dimensions to your definitions. Keep growing, keep exploring, and keep defining life on your terms.


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Sanika is a storyteller, vibe architect, and crowd igniter—passionate about self-discovery, culture, and the power of words. With a background in technology and marketing communications, she’s built a platform rooted in authenticity and resonance. Whether commanding the stage or leading deep conversations, Sanika doesn’t just hold space—she transforms it. Her work inspires growth, challenges perspectives, and amplifies the voices that need to be heard most

As the host of How Do You Divine?, she invites listeners to redefine meaning, embrace transformation, and navigate life—one word at a time. Her mi...

Speaker:

Welcome to this episode of How Do You Divine, and today we are here with Wally Miller to explore the word freedom. Hi, Wally. How are you? Hi Scott. I'm doing so well. How are you? I'm doing good. I'm so excited that we had the opportunity to sit down and have this conversation, right? We had previous conversations, but I felt like this topic was so important and honestly a little rough. A little bit rough, right? I'm not gonna lie, I think it, but it adds so much color to truth in how we see freedom. Money in our lives. So tell us a little bit about who is

Speaker 3:

Wally. Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you so much for having me. Um, I am excited to be here and I am a first generation college graduate. I'm an early retiree. Um, so I was able to walk away from my job at the age of 39. I worked in public service, not in engineering or software, but just made some really great decisions with money and was able to buy my financial freedom and buy my time freedom as well.

Speaker:

Oh, I love that. And I love that it's your la you did that your last year before you turned 40. We don't hear about that story like retiring yourself early. Like did you eat ramen your entire life? How did you do that,

Speaker 3:

especially living here in New York City? Yeah, so I love this question because I think that one of the first misconceptions that there are, or that there is, is that, you know, in order to have a good life, in order to retire early. I'm part of this movement called Financial Independence, retire Early. So it's the fire community and it's really about a bunch of people who really want to take full control of what retirement means, and some people actually remove the re So rather than retire early, it's about relaxing early or it's about refocusing energy. I think a lot of people, um, my age or. Millennials in particular. Yes. This whole sense of wanting to sit by a beach and do nothing for the rest of their lives is not really the goal. Yes. The goal is really about having more control over your time and making smart money moves around there. And one thing that you said is, did you eat ramen the entire time? Listen, I'm going to be honest, that frugal in your way to financial independence or financial freedom is a way.

Speaker 4:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

But that definitely was not my way. Oh

Speaker:

girl, I, that eased my heart a little bit. Just so we clear.'cause I hate

Speaker 3:

ramen. There you go. But it is about making intentional decisions. I was a very impulsive shopper, a mindless spender, and I just switched my focus from, you know, sort of mindless spending to more intentional shopping and intentional spending. And that really helped me, um, set some financial goals and meet them. That

Speaker:

is interesting. So, but when did you have the first thought of, I wanna be free, and what does freedom look like to me? Like was that in high school? Was that early days? College? When did Wally say like, I just wanna be

Speaker 3:

free. I wish that was the case. I wish I had financial literacy. I wish that someone ha would've taught me what it meant to be good with money. Yeah, because I'm gonna sort of rewind a little bit. Um, as I mentioned, I'm a first generation college graduate. I'm born and raised in New York City, in the Bronx. So I was raised, yes,

Speaker:

big up

Speaker 3:

there, up, um, the boogie down, you know, um, but. Really, um, you know, when we think about New York City, a lot of people think about Manhattan, but I was raised in the poorest borough of New York City, and so everyone was kind of in the same socioeconomic status, which tended to be low income. Yeah. And so we didn't really have conversations around money growing up, but there were things that I observed and absorbed. Yeah. Right. So even though my parents didn't sit down and tell me how to balance a checkbook or what savings was, I did know that sometimes the lights got caught off. I knew that sometimes we were, uh, late paying rent. Yeah. So those were sort of the observations that I made with money. And I knew that when money was there, it felt really good. And when money wasn't there, sort of like, I don't think at the time I would've described it as stress level. Yeah.'cause as kids, you don't really, you don't realize it's stress. You just realize

Speaker:

that there's limitations.

Speaker 3:

There's limitations or there's like 10, like a tension. Yeah. Right. So I knew that there were times in our lives that that happened, but. Really conversations around money and healthy relationship with money hap like healthy money habits really didn't develop at that time. So fast forward when I started making my own money, right? Yay. So I went to college and I got my big girl job, and I felt really good because I was in a position that I said, okay, I know that I need to pay my bills. That's all I need to do. And guess what? I was able to pay my bills. And so that felt really nice. What no one told me, or what I didn't really have a full grasp on is if you have money left over, what do you do with that money?

Speaker:

Spend it. That's what you do with it. Like, but that's what you know when you come from humble beginnings, that's all you know. It's like, yeah. The bills are paid check. Right. It's moving from survival to thriving. Right. I've survived all the bills are checked, this extra, I'm going to the mall.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. So that's exactly what it is. So my definition of being good with money was that I paid my bills on time and then I spent what was left over. I was like, wow, this is not,

Speaker 5:

we live in the life, Wally.

Speaker 3:

Yes, exactly. And that was sort of what I thought. I was like, oh, I'm good with money. I, some of the personal finance gurus talked a lot about staying out of debt and credit cards were bad. Mm-hmm. And so I said, okay, I just need to make sure that I stay out of debt, pay my bills, and then I get to spend the money. And that really was my entire sort of financial knowledge and my definition of being good with money. In my twenties. I was like, I'm paying my bills. The debt that I had was student loan debt and a car payment. Mm-hmm. And I was able to pay those on time. And so I was like, okay, all I'm gonna do is be able, you know, I'm gonna. Have this extra money, I'm gonna spend it. I can live good now. I can live good. And that really was sort of the, the entire length of my twenties. And I was really fortunate that I had a career that I loved and a job that I really enjoyed. Of

Speaker:

course, you know, there's always those little things. You always have those moments, you'll always have those moments'cause you, you are operating under someone else's environment.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. But for the most part, like I didn't have the Sunday Blues or the Monday Blues as people talked about. I enjoyed the people that I worked with. The, the work that we were doing was incredibly fulfilling. And so that I, I really felt blessed and I really felt lucky to be in that situation. Yeah. Now fast forward. When things changed? Yes. When the environment changed. And what happened was that my, uh, boss, who I really loved, he went to another position. He went to another office, and the entire atmosphere and the culture of the office shifted and changed shift. Mm-hmm. And so what was an ideal work situation? Began to become extremely toxic and heavy. I know it all

Speaker:

too well. Yeah. I know it all too well when the culture changed and mm-hmm. It's weird to sit in one seat that you basket in, you are like, oh my God, I'm thriving, I'm learning, I'm growing. And in that exact same seat, it's just like. This may be a waste of my time.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. I mean the work was still fulfilling, but doing work that you are passionate about under extreme circumstances really makes you question a lot.

Speaker 4:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

And so that's sort of what happened and I really was like, okay, I just need to duke this out. I was in public service and federal service, so I was like, okay, I just need to like stay until the pension.

Speaker 4:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

And so I knew that I didn't have to work until 65, that as soon as I hit 55 that I was gonna be good. So I was like, I just have to do this until the age of 55. Yes. And I was like, oh my gosh, just a long time. That is a long time. I'm 30, what in the world? So I have to do this for another 25 years? And the idea that I didn't have control over that really was. It felt hopeless. Right? It felt disempowering and I was like, I'm, I feel like I'm missing something there. There has to be a different way. And so I did try to look for jobs in other places.'cause I was like, okay, all I need to do is switch my environment. Yes. Then you start to think like, I have great skills here. I'm just gonna take these skills and go somewhere else. But then the sort of intent, the, the reality hit me that what would happen is that I could find a really great place to work and no, it was out of my control. There was nothing that I could do if the management changed, if culture changed, if policies changed, if the company went under, if still someone else's environment. That's exactly right. And so I was like, wow, like this really feels like a lose lose. Like is this what people sort of do? Right? Yeah. Like it's just, you just stay at a job that you hate for years and years. It's just feels like we're sort of set up to like fail or

Speaker:

so stifling, right? Coming from humble beginnings, after you hit those benchmarks of My bills are paid. Wow. Okay. My car is paid. Now what? Right now that you've met the threshold of survival I'm making, my bills are paid. Yeah. I have some extra, I could do a little shopping, but it's like how much of this is enough for how long?

Speaker 3:

It's sort of the first level of like wanting to feel financially safe, right? And then you feel that financial safety and then it's like comfort and then it's, you know, sort of like that thriving, right? So you go beyond sort of financially surviving to actually fin financially thriving. And I was there, but I realized that I had, I was making decent money and I really didn't have anything to show for it. Mm-hmm.

Speaker 6:

I was like,

Speaker 3:

okay, if I missed one paycheck, I might be okay, but if I missed two paychecks, I'm gonna lose everything that I worked so hard to gain. And this was when these were sort of the seeds that began to get planted that maybe there might be something more. And then very serendipitously, um, sort of a very Click Beatty article popped up on my screen during a very intense time at work. And it was like couple in their thirties travels the world retires to travel the world. I was like, couple in their thirties, that looks sounding a lot like me. I was like, what is happening? And so I sent that article to my then fiance, my now husband, and I was like, check this out. Read this article. He was like, yeah, that's pretty cool. But it kind of stayed there. Mm-hmm. And I didn't really do anything with it. And fast forward a couple months with the same sort of toxic work environment, I had a really rough week at work. I dug that article up, I had sent it to my husband and um, I went through my sent mailbox. Yes. And I was like, what did they do? Like what am I missing? How do they do this in their thirties? Because again, I was like, I'm making decent money, but I feel like I'm missing something. And I read the article and they talked about something called Building Wealth. Building Wealth. And I was like, wealth, what does that even mean? What does that even mean? How do you do it? Right. Because my definition of wealth was like an. Old man with white hair in a velvet robe, smoking cigars, or maybe like a hip hop artist or maybe like a basketball player. Artist. Yes,

Speaker:

a artist. That's the thing about being, a kid from the city, like growing up in the city. Mm-hmm. You're in proximity to wealth, but you only see it in these like fame driven ways, right? Yeah. In a celebrity, like you're either like old money, you're either a celebrity or you're an athlete. Like, you know, there's no actual wealth trajectory until now when you hear people really talking about what is wealth and what does wealth mean to you.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. And that really was what I sort of had to sort of like understand and really define for myself was, okay, so they're doing something called building wealth. Like what is that? Because they have like a picture of them they're wearing like in a suit and tie and like, and I was like. So wealth means freedom. Yeah, wealth is freedom. How do you get it? And that was sort of the start of like learning this whole other side to finances that I didn't know that went beyond from paying your bills on time. It went beyond just setting a little bit of money aside for savings.'cause that I did do that, but for the amount of money that I was making and the amount of money that I was spending, I was definitely putting way more money into spending thing, you know, spending money, um, versus putting money aside. And also saving money is not the same as building wealth. And that was sort of the, the key aspect. Yeah. That I was missing

Speaker:

That is so difficult, right? To know that while I'm paying my bills, I'm spending quite a bit, but I'm saving, kind of, you know. And while you're also dealing with the emotional strain of your corporate situation and at work, how did you sit down and have a honest conversation with Wally and go, do you wanna be free? Do you want instant gratification? Because that's what, trust me, I'm a compulsive shopper. You know, AA meeting, I'm coming like, um, I know myself, right? You want that. You wanna be like, Ugh, I had a week. I just need a shirt. I just need a bag. You know what I mean? How did you sit down with yourself and go, Wally, do you wanna be

Speaker 3:

free? So once I started learning about building wealth, I like Googled this couple that they had mentioned, and I read, you know, how much they were making, you know, in the year. And I was like, oh, they're not like. Making that much more money than was in millions of dollars. Right. Exactly. They were like six figure earners. But living in, um, they were living in Seattle, Washington, so it was still a high cost of living area. But I started to see some of the decisions that they were making, including they lived in a more expensive apartment, but that allowed them to work close or to live closer to work so they got rid of their cars. Right. And so I saw those little steps that they were making. Now, some of those things I was like, okay, I cannot do, but what can I do? And um, I came across this concept of a no spend challenge. Have you ever heard of a no spend challenge? No. It already makes me nervous.

Speaker:

Oh, yeah. I told you I'm trying to be better.

Speaker 3:

Okay. So the idea of a no spend challenge, and you can do this for any period of time. You can do this for 24 hours. You can do this for seven days. You can do this for 30 days. And the idea is that you only spend money on the absolute necessities, right. In order to reach a goal. So you spend money on food, you make sure you pay your rent. Gas is in the car, but you try to not spend any money outside of the most essential things for 24 hours or for seven days. So my idea was, okay, I wanna do a seven day no spend challenge, and I was only gonna spend money on the things on this list. And so it was like rent, dog food, our food, you know, like, yes, light bill, rent, you know, all these things. So I just really wanted to focus on that. And I tried to complete a seven day no spend challenge multiple times and continuously failed. And it wasn't like I went three or four days and then failed. It was like. Every day. What were you buying? Tell us. And so where were you? Yeah. So sometimes it was picking up medication at the pharmacy, and then I was grabbing a candy bar. Mm-hmm. Or a book. Okay. Or a magazine I was going to target to buy toilet paper or paper towels, and I would leave with candles. Yes. Or toss pillows. Yes. Right. So every time that I went to spend money on something that I needed, I also realized that I was having these sort of wallet leaks and there weren't. Big. They're not

Speaker:

big leaks, but they're still leaks. That's me and TJ Maxx,

Speaker 3:

babe.

Speaker:

There you go. TJ Maxx hate to see me come in. I just, or maybe they love to see me. They do love to see me come like, but I should not. I will go in there for one thing for my daughters come out two, three bags later. It's like, how

Speaker 3:

did we end up here? I was the same way. I would be on my way to go put gas in the car. And I'm like, Ross Marshalls Nordstrom's rap. Right? And it was again, like listen to the names of the store. I'm not talking about Sax Fifth Avenue. Yes. Or Bloomingdale's. I was in my mind, I was like, oh, I know how to spend. Well

Speaker:

girl, me too. Because I the same thing. I'm just like, I'm not gonna be in nobody's Bloomingdale's spending the hundreds of thousands dollars on no shirt. Why would I do that?

Speaker 3:

But, and then those 30, 40, 50,$60 purchases. They add up.

Speaker 5:

They add up.

Speaker 3:

And that was sure, while you even talking to my husband, I'm just saying, yeah, that was the realization that I had. So when you ask, it's like, that's exactly what happened to me. Like I realized, wow, I'm not spending money, like huge amounts, amounts of money on, on big purchases, but it was all of these small little leaks that literally were happening, happening every day. And so when you think about$10 here,$30 here,$40 here every single day, multiply that by seven days a week, multiply that, you know, by four weeks in a month. And I was like, that's where all my money is going. And so I, for me, I really needed to understand where is my money going?

Speaker:

That's So when you sat back and realized you couldn't do the no spend for even 24 hours, 48 hours.'cause to be honest, I've had a similar, like, you have enough, you don't need. For this month. We're not buying anything. I'm not even gonna lie to you. Something it always, but it's not an intentional thing. I love the way you said that. Like you'll go to a pharmacy and buy a candy or you'll end up buying because it's not intentional. Like I don't get up and be like the mall here I come. Right. That's usually not what happens. It's usually that you're kind of going along life. Mm-hmm. And you need to pick up a thing for the kids like,'cause I have two daughters pick up something for my daughter and then it turns into a$300 bill later.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker:

So how did you regulate yourself to hold yourself accountable to, if you want freedom and you can't go 48 hours, what is the cost? Like? Did you calculate what the cost of that was?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so the first thing that I did was I really got to know what my numbers were. So I calculated the things that I absolutely, absolutely needed to spend money on. So this was, you know, paying the mortgage, paying the light bill, the fuel car payment, all of those things. And when I added up those numbers and I subtracted it to the amount of money that I was bringing in each month, I was like, I'm supposed to have this much money left over. I never have that much money left over. So that was sort of number one, is really understanding what my most essential expenses are. Now, I wanna stop here for a second, because this is not about only spending money, making money to pay bills, right? We wanna add those things that bring us joy and that we value. But really understanding your most essential expenses is really important. And once you go from there, it's like, okay, what is it that I truly valued? If somebody were to look at my bank account, my credit card statements, my bank statements, it would say that I valued clothes, shoes, hand backs, belts, accessories. I didn't care about those things. I wasn't a fashionista. Mm-hmm. But that was where my money was going. It was going to all of these clothes. And when I looked in my closet, I had clothes that I had only worn once or never worn at all. Tags on them,

Speaker 6:

tags on

Speaker 3:

them. And I was like, I'm spending money on things that I don't even care about. Can I minimize? Or eliminate those things. And that was sort of like the first sort of aha moment. And then I sat down and was like, where do I wanna spend money on? And by this time, so I mentioned that I had seen that article, I passed it on to my fiance by this time now it's me and my husband. And now he's not a spender. But I really sort of took a look at where do we wanna spend money on and I value travel. And I said, I don't wanna give up traveling. I wanna continue to travel everything from, you know, our one or two week vacations to, you know, our. Random weekend getaway trips. Yeah. And my husband was like, I value food. Exactly. He's like, I wanna, I wanna go into a nice restaurant. Yes. So he valued, uh, food and dining experiences. He was like, I don't wanna like not be able to go out to a nice restaurant. I said, okay, great. This is where we are going spend our money. Anything that is not that we are really going to question. And so that was sort of how it started. And one of the things that's really interesting is that we didn't. Reduce the amount of money that we spend out on food, but we became more intentional. And so instead of taking, you know, ordering takeout or DoorDash or Uber Eats, one of the things that we did was say, okay, we are going to go out to a nice restaurant.'cause again, he valued dining, dining experiences,

Speaker:

not DoorDash. That's. At your door.

Speaker 3:

Exactly. So you know, or having a meal that you're like, I don't even know what we ate last week. Right? Yeah. So it was like, okay. So we began to really have our date nights and make them really intentional. And so in that, we realized that when we did that, we didn't spend money on like these random eating out experiences.'cause we were so looking forward to like having that meal right. At that really nice restaurant. And what came from that was that we then slowly started spending less on money or spending less money on food because we were spending more money intentionally on food.

Speaker:

Wow. I think, but that's a huge, huge mind shift. We have to pause and talk about that, right? Mm-hmm. Because growing up in humble beginnings, when you first make money, you want, you know, you wanna look good, you wanna feel good, right? I'm Jamaican, my grandma used to say that you don't wanna die and just leave your children cloth on boot. Ah, mm-hmm. Right? Because we have tons of closets, full of things. They're like nice things, right? But it's still just things, right? Yeah. It's still stuff. But for you to sit back and say, this is what I need, right? I love my home, I need my car, I need the groceries. This is my number. That activity has so much accountability and honesty in it that I don't, I don't think anyone does that. Like I know I've done and to be quite frank, my husband thinks very much like you do. So he knows the number off the top of his head. Like for us to live the way we live every single day, this is a number, right? When you're living in survival. Some people will say, I don't have the time to sit here and write. Like, yes, it's rent. If it's not rent, it's mortgage, it's my, my monthly metro card. They're like, I don't have the time to do that. And if I do do it, it brings me heartache to go, Ooh, I need that number to be good next month. How do I even make it to that number? Right? But part of that mindset change that we're talking about is one, knowing the number, becoming familiar with it, and it helps you dissect is this the number for me? Because if, let's just say your monthly expenses is$5,000 right now, but you really don't even like your house.

Speaker 4:

Mm-hmm. You

Speaker:

don't like your apartment, you want a better car. So then once you know that you're like, oh, in order to get more and what I want, it actually needs to get to like$7,000

Speaker 4:

a month. Mm-hmm. It

Speaker:

needs to get to 10. Do like, you know, we live in New York, so. That number can triple very quickly. Yep. Right? So to sit down and have that level of intentionality about your own life, is really hard. There's so much emotional strain there. So how did you get there? Was it your job just really irritating you where you're just like, I need to know how to be free and exploring that to go, I'm here for money and if I need money, what is the number to be free? How did you emotionally get to the place where you're just like, Wally, let's do some math.

Speaker 3:

I think one of the things that I needed to sort of like, uh, take a look at is what was the type of life that I really wanted? What were the things that I valued? What were the things that brought me joy and I wanted to add more of that. Right. When I talk about sort of like the leaky bucket, we think about our jobs as the faucet, right? We turn on the faucet. Or if you have a business, you turn on the faucet, money comes outta that faucet and it goes into a bucket. One thing we wanna understand is do we have leaks? Do we have holes in those buckets, right where the money is leaking out that we are not really being intentional about? And then the second thing is that money is there to be used as a tool to design the life you want. So when you think about the type of life that you want, are you using money as that resource? As that tool? I will say one thing for especially, um, New York City has a sort of different culture, but I was living in California at the time, another high cost of living area. And one of the things that I really valued was spending time with people. And so I had a home. We would have like people come over. Yes. Um, or well, back in the day, what we would do was go out to brunches. Yes. Right. Love a good brunch. And so one of the things that we did was say, you know what, why don't we just have people over? Right. Even if we paid for the food, it was still gonna be cheaper. Yeah. Than going out and grabbing food or grabbing, you know, having, doing an activity outside. So one of the things that we did, we were like, let's just have people over. And then, you know, people would either bring things or they would have a potluck sort of situation if what we valued was relationships. We didn't have to sacrifice the relationship in order to spend time with those people. Right? Mm-hmm. Could we go on a hike? Could we go to, you know? Yeah. Like, yeah.

Speaker:

It, it makes you really see money and time very differently.'cause to me that's what freedom is, right? Yeah. Freedom is allowing me to spend my time the way I desire. Right. Right. And I love how you say that. Although money is deeply tied to that, what we value are those experiences in those relationships, and if you can't meet your friend at brunch twice a month, you can actually make some brunch and still maintain that relationship and nurture it.

Speaker 3:

And it's not about not being able to afford it, right? Because there's some people who cannot afford those things. But it's about saying, I can't afford it, but I also wanna buy my freedom, right? Because that was always what was in the back of my mind. It was like, I can either spend$50 on Saturday, or I can add$50 to buy an hour or two of work that I don't have to do anymore. And I began to sort of equate, um, anything that I purchased. So if I went to, uh, if I went to, to, you know, Marshall's or Ross or you know, TJ Maxx and I saw an outfit that I wanted, I'm like, is 1, 2, 3, 4 hours worth of work? Worth that outfit. Right? When I went to Target, when I went to Home Goods,'cause that was another store that I loved, oh, when I went to Home Goods, I'm like, okay, is buying this thing worth an hour, 2, 3, 4 worth of my work of, of working, of being at a place that I don't wanna work at anymore? And when I just took that two seconds to just ask myself the question, like, not what is just the cost of this, but what is the true price of it? Right? And if the price is that I'm gonna have to be working until 60, 65, 55, is that something that I am willing to spend the money on? Right. And just that caused a little bit of friction and I was like, nah, it's not worth it. Or sometimes I was like, yes, I'm willing to work. Pay a week's worth of work in order to pay for this vacation or to pay for this thing, right? And so I began making those type of decisions and it's, again, it's not about not spending money because I have worked, you know, as a financial coach, I have worked with clients who bring home a hundred grand a month. Okay? Not a year, a hundred grand a month. And they have really little to show for the amount of money that they are making. Um, and it's because they're not spending money in the ways that really align with them. Right? A lot of it is like convenience and it's like, how can we. Balance because for them it's for them it's like they can spend the money. Yeah. Right. They really could spend the money. They're not at risk of losing the roof over their head, but how can they spend the money so that it aligns with what they value most? Right. Or whether or not I'm working with a single mom who makes$60,000 a year, it's like, well, she also wants to be able to, um, have experiences with her child. Right. Like, how can you balance those things? And it's about, okay, money is a tool. It's a limited resource right now. How can I make sure that I'm spending it and using it in the ways that I want? Um, and I think asking myself that question, and again, my husband's really not the big spender, but for me it was like, okay, do I value this enough to exchange my energy to ex exchange my time Yeah. For that amount of money? And when I began to equate everything that I purchased with that it really sort of helped me, um, spend money much more intentionally.

Speaker:

Yeah. No, that, that makes sense. And it also forces you to ask yourself the question, what does freedom mean to you?

Speaker 4:

Mm-hmm.

Speaker:

Right. Because I would say freedom to me is freedom of my time. My resources. I wanna be able to build and create conversations and create great experiences, but freedom to someone else could mean something completely different. And looking at how we define freedom and how we use money as a tool to support that freedom. Is a game changer. Mm-hmm. Because to stand there and be like, is this outfit actually worth a week? Sometimes a week worth week of a vacation. Mm-hmm. Right. Because let's be for real, when you, when we talk about them good bags, like, you know, yeah, it is. It is two weeks on a beach somewhere and it's like, is this bag worth that? You know? Or am I okay committing my time to work or, you know, doing things that I don't necessarily want to do anymore. How do you navigate that when some of your clients come to you and they're like, I need to be better with money. Because I think online there's so much conversation happening right now about money and wealth building and everyone should be buying real estate and you know, buy stocks. How do you start on the ground floor?

Speaker 3:

Okay, so first get to know your numbers. You really need to understand how much money you are making, how much money you're bringing home. Um, a lot of times people say, oh, I make$150,000 a year. Well, you're not living off of$150,000 a year because after insurance and federal taxes and city taxes and state taxes, and, mm-hmm. Medicare and Social Security after all those expenses you really want, or after all those deductions, you really wanna know how much are you actually bringing home and how much do you have to use, right? And it's a simple equation. It's your income minus your expenses and whatever's left over is what you can use to reach financial goals, to save money, and to invest money and to build wealth. Now when we're thinking about investments. There's so many different ways to invest. You can invest in real estate. That's a great wealth builder. You can invest in entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship has no cap to the amount of money that you can make in entrepreneurship. Right? Yep. It does take time. Yes. But it is, um, it is a great wealth builder. And then the stock market, and for me, I really, because I had a nine to five job and I didn't have this entrepreneurial spirit at the time, I was like, okay, I don't really wanna do real estate. It's too much of a barrier to entry, right? You have to have a down payment. You have to be, you know, sort of decide what, be willing to be a landlord in New York City, right? Yeah. It's not an easy task. Right? And so, but, but for some people, that's what they really enjoy, right? Yeah. So those are sort of like the three main ways of building wealth and sort of figuring out what they mean to you and which one aligns more with where your stage in life is. So at the time for me was like, okay. What is this stock market thing? I thought the stock market was nothing more than gambling. I was like, when people leave the casinos, they cry. And when people are at Wall Street, they cry. So I equated the stock market and stock market investing as gambling and I really needed to understand what it was. And it was something as simple as someone saying, you are an investor. If you have a workplace retirement account, if you have a 401k or a 4 0 3 B or a IRA, you can be investing and you should, that money should be invested. And that was sort of like an aha moment for me. I was like, oh yeah, I think I have one of those things. Yeah, I think I have a workplace retirement account. And when I began to understand the power of compounding interests, right? This is literally the definition of money, making money for you. We all hear. Passive income. Entrepreneurship is not passive. It is very active. It is very active. Real estate is not passive. Right. When we think of really, you make the money one time and then that money grows for you. Yeah. When we're thinking about passive, um, uh, income. Investing in the stock market is passive income. You make it one time and then you let that money grow for you and you start off by putting money in. So 401k, it is not sexy. The thing is that people think, oh, you need to have four. I love that.

Speaker:

It's not sexy. It's, it's not, it's not, it's not, they're not making music videos about the stock market. Like

Speaker 3:

they're, you know, people think about the stock market. When I thought about it, I thought about someone sitting in front of like four computer screens looking at red and green lines, and I didn't understand that. Like no one I knew in my family was investing in the stock market, but when it was broken down so easily that the money that you put inside of your 401k is money that can and should be invested. We wanna take a look at that. But I'm gonna take a pause. I'm gonna look at this camera right here.

Speaker 6:

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 3:

Because the biggest mistake that I see is that people will put money into their 401k or their workplace retirement account, and they don't realize that investing is a two step process. Number one is making the contribution. Number two is choosing the investments. And this was the mistake that I was making. I was putting money or having money deducted from my paycheck and going to A TSP, which is a thrift savings plan for, um, people who work in federal service. And I was putting money in there. I did not know that you had to actually make the decision to invest money. And so when I work with my clients now, this is one of the biggest mistakes that I see. People who have been putting money into their 401k having money deduct. They're like, okay, check Wally. I'm putting money aside into my retirement account. And they don't realize that it's literally sitting in nothing more than a glorified savings

Speaker:

account, savings account.

Speaker 3:

Girl. Yes. So say what now? So seriously, yes. If you have not looked into this, this is one of the biggest things that you want to be doing is to make sure that that money is being invested and sort of like the next level is to make sure that those investments are doing what you want it to be doing. Yeah. You don't have to be super risky. You don't need to be, uh, a, you know, stockbroker or have a finance degree, but you just wanna make sure that that money is doing what you need to be doing. And I'm gonna. Plug a book here. Mm-hmm. There's a book called, um, uh, the Simple Path to Wealth. Mm-hmm. It was written by, um, someone named JL Collins. It is a great book. And this book was a collection of letters that he wrote to his, uh, teenage and young adult daughter Aw.

Speaker 6:

About

Speaker 3:

how to build wealth. She wasn't listening to him.

Speaker 6:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

Um, and he was in the finance industry and he really simplifies what it means to build wealth and how to do it and how you begin, how do you learn to look at different type of investments? It was the book, it is the book that I have given out the most, and it is the book that really sort of helped me to understand how to begin investing and how to use those in simple, in simple terms.'cause even when I have clients who work with me, they might even have more knowledge than I did when I first started. And they still feel overwhelmed or they feel confused or they feel scared. Yeah. Right. They're like, as I mentioned, they're like, I don't know. I hear people lose money.

Speaker:

Listen, that's why I, if I'm honest, that's why my husband takes care of that. Like, the 401k thing. He made me aware of that like years ago. Darling, you're just saving the money. Yeah. The, the money's doing nothing. You need to, but I think. Some people have interest mm-hmm. In finance, other people were raised to somewhat ignore it. Like you said in your household, no one was balancing the checkbook at the table, right? Mm-hmm. And that's happens a lot in let alone investing li let alone investing. Mm-hmm. And that happens a lot in a Caribbean household. No one's sitting there saying, listen, I'm, I have a hundred and this is how I'm breaking it down. This is how you can manage a checkbook at the, I feel like at the most, if I think about my family in a wide, in terms of my cousins and all at the most, they would sit down and be like, okay, the ConEd bill is X. Go get a check. This is how you pay it a money order. Like, and go get a money order. Like this is how you actually execute, dispersing the money. Right. No one I, I feel like in the Caribbean community sits down and go, this is our monthly expenses. This is like our discretionary fund. You know, I call it the fun money, right? This is, this is what we put aside for a rainy day. This is our emergency fund. This is what we invest. While I have friends that are from other ethnicities and other race where I have literally sat in their kitchen on a random Tuesday, and they're talking to their child about the stock market, they're talking to their child about why entrepreneurship is important regardless of what you do in corporate.

Speaker 4:

Mm-hmm.

Speaker:

And this was me in my twenties, like, how is is this table conversation? Yeah. And they're like, absolutely. I want my son to know that he should be doing X, Y, and Z. You need to have a business checking account soon as you finish high school. Separate those monies. You need to separate those monies. I want you to have an LLC. And once it starts, and this is me in my twenties. Like listening to older friend have a conversation with his like 10-year-old son in the kitchen. Right? So it's like how do you help bridge the gap to now have. Those conversations flow through our communities in a more open and honest way without shame. Right. Because I think often what happens when, you know you're an immigrant in this country, there's some shame around not knowing, which is weird'cause no one knows everything. Right. But there's some shame around, well I should have known this, or I should have taught you this, or, and I could. And sometimes your parents don't even know their parents never taught them. Right. So how do you flatten the, the, the playing field when you're having conversations with people who have extreme wealth from people who just made. Their first big girl job, how do you help them be comfortable with, the

Speaker 3:

shame of not knowing? So there, these are really good questions. There's a couple of things, right? First is, um, you know, as I mentioned, my, my dad is an immigrant. I'm a daughter of an immigrant, and in his country, they did not trust banks. So there is this distrust of financial institutions where you put money, your life savings in a bank and it really may not be there next week. And so I think that sometimes that is also that some of the things that happened. So we hear, you know, putting money under, under the

Speaker:

mattress,

Speaker 3:

putting money under the mattress. Right. My dad, he had money, um, literally money sitting in a, um, safe deposit box. Not even it was in the bank, but like, not in a bank, bank account, you know, and he said they didn't know what was in there. Yeah. He knew what was in there, so he had like money in a safe deposit box. And so there is a little bit of like this distrust, right? What they know about finances or what they know about their financial institutions can really sort of rattle and shape the way they. Interact with money and with the systems that we have here. And even here, we have heard, you know, of banks failing, right? Yes. But we don't necessarily understand you don't lose your money, right? Yeah. Because we have things like FDIC insured, right? Yeah. You wanna make sure that the bank that you are banking with does have, um, is FDIC insured. Um, so it's not like even if the bank fails, it's not like your money is not there. It's not

Speaker:

gonna disappear.

Speaker 3:

It's not gonna disappear. Exactly. But um, when we hear that, like there were people who were like, oh, I gotta go get my money out, right? Because they don't have this understanding. And that comes from the lack of knowledge even and the lineage of that distrust. Right? Exactly. Um, or I remember when I was, uh, maybe I was maybe in high school or maybe 18, 19 years old, that I had a friend who was like, don't bank with this bank. Every time I put money in there, they take money out. And it wasn't until like later that I realized what was happening was that they were overdrafting. Mm. And they were so the bank was taking money money out outta their account. Exactly. But they were like, oh, they was hitting them with the fees. There was all of those fees, right? Yes. So, and then now you're, you become like someone who's like, oh yeah, what my parents said about not trusting the bank is true. Um, also, you know, here in the United States we have gotten better, but we have a long way to go with financial literacy, right? Understanding what is a checking account? What is a savings account? How do you shop, how do you use your debit card? How do you tap your phone, right? Like, how do you make sure that you avoid fees? There's so many banks now that don't even have fees, and I work with clients that still are paying for their checking account. You know,$10 a month,$12 a month, and it's like, okay. Again, we don't know what we don't know.

Speaker 5:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

So it's okay not to know these things, but to really surround yourself with people who do know. Yeah. Right. If you want your, you wanna treat your, if your, if you want your money to work for you, you have to take the time to understand it and to care for it. Something that you said a, a little while ago was, you know, like, what about if you don't have the time for it? If you don't take care of money, it's not gonna be there to take care of you. Right. When we're thinking about managing finances, I teach my clients to have weekly 15 minute money dates. In the beginning, I tell them, set a timer for 15 minutes. One of the reasons why this is really important is because if we sit down to manage our money. We think it's gonna take 45 minutes, or we think it's gonna take an hour and a half, we're never gonna do it. Or we do it once and then never again do it again. I'm like, when you're having your 15 minute money date, ask yourself these two questions. What's happened in the last seven days that I didn't plan for that? Now I need to adjust. Right? Maybe you got a parking ticket. Yeah, maybe you got a hospital bill. And it's like, oh, I didn't plan on doing this. This is an expense. And if you're driving in the

Speaker:

city, you'd most definitely got a ticket.

Speaker 3:

Like, and it's like, okay, so what are some of the expenses that, some of those unexpected expenses that I hadn't really anticipated, how can I um, adjust for it? Adjust for it, and then. Ask yourself. So that's question number one. And question number two is what's coming up in the next seven days? That when I was planning how I was gonna use my money, now I need to make adjustments because I forgot so-and-so's birthday is coming up, or I have a baby shower to attend to, or my kid has a field trip and I have to pay, you know,$40 for X, Y, Z. So it's really when you're having your money date, ask yourself those two questions. And it's really important to, I think a lot of people equate managing their money with tracking. So it's like holding onto the receipts, looking at all the transactions. Listen, tracking is helpful. It gives you information, but I don't teach my clients to track because what happens when you're tracking your money is that. All it's telling you, it's what's already happened.

Speaker:

Yeah. It's not making you plan moving forward and it can also overwhelm you. Yeah. I think that's one thing that people don't talk about, like about the tracking system. The whole point of having the self conversation about freedom and what it means to have your money work with you is because you desire better. Yeah. Right? Yeah. And sometimes you can get stuck in the what has already happened. Mm-hmm. Like, dammit, like what if you would've done that? What if you would've been like, I couldn't even go 48 hours without no spending. Mm-hmm. You know what? Forget it. Mm-hmm. You know what I mean? So that's, I also don't encourage tracking because it's too, it's too past. It's too much of the rear view mirror. It doesn't help you see where you wanna go. Yes, I did that. It sucked. How do I move forward? So I don't, I don't track. I'm more of like, last week was a crazy week. How are we

Speaker 3:

gonna make next week better? Yes. I love that. I actually use that rear view mirror analogy. I'm like, listen, when you're driving in a car. You have a small rear view mirror to sort of see what's happening in the back. As I mentioned, it is helpful information for some people they can track. It's not overwhelming, go for it. Mm-hmm. If that is helpful to you. But when you're driving in the car, the biggest piece of glass that's in that car is that front windshield to help you see what's coming up ahead. Yeah. To help you see what detours, to help you see the speed bumps, what exits you need to take, and to really have that, uh, that forward, um, looking perspective. Yeah. And it's also like when people are on a diet or when people are trying to minimize the amount that they're drinking, trying to decide at the bar how much you're gonna drink is a little too late. Not, it's not really a good time. Right. It's not really a good time. You wanna make that decision before you go out. What am I going to eat today? Am I gonna have dessert? Am I not gonna have dessert? How much am I gonna drink? Is it gonna be one glass of wine or is it gonna be two? And it's the same thing with your money before you get that income. Make a decision about where you want that money to go.

Speaker:

One thing why I love this discussion, and I just wanted to stop and highlight this, is, this is the premise of this podcast, right? How we come to define the words that drive us is really important and that definition can change and now that we're talking about freedom and finance and financial literacy, I think in our communities we often don't give ourselves grace, right? That's my short and sweet. We don't give ourselves grace from what we didn't know. We just, we get stuck and we, we kinda hold ourselves in this place of, well, yeah, I blew a hundred dollars or$5,000 and I made this bad decision, or I co-signed a car. Like, you know, all of these crazy stories you hear. But if you don't give yourself the grace to say, I know what I know today. How am I gonna define who I wanna be tomorrow? Then you're just gonna be stuck. So you either have to pick what view you wanna be, look out of, do you're gonna constantly squint and be looking in that rear view mirror or are you gonna like open up your car, get in that shit'cause it belongs to you and drive forward in life.

Speaker 3:

I think also shame is such a powerful emotion. Um, we really want to give, think about our past selves with a lot of compassion, right? You can only make decisions based on what you knew at the time. Like young Wally made a lot of spending decisions that I'm like, oh, she was so cute. She just bought, oh my gosh, save, she just bought all those shoes, but she just didn't know. Right? But I also decided that I didn't know and I wanted to learn. Right? And one of the things that I, I think is important to define as well is what is financial freedom? Or what is financial independence? Financial independence at its simplest sort of terminology, is becoming good stewards of your money so that you build enough. Of a nest egg, that it generates passive income so that you could live off of it, right? Mm-hmm. So financial independence is when you have enough that you don't need to work anymore because you have enough to pay your bills, and that you have to build that. Yeah. Right? You have to steward that money correctly, and you have to build that. And so yes, you're putting money on essential things. You're putting money for fun money. This is not about, um, you know, again, frugally your way to financial independence. Yeah. It's about, okay, what is it that I value? I'm gonna spend money on the things that I value, on the things that I bring that brings me joy. But I'm also gonna take care of future Wally. I'm also gonna take care of future Sika. Yeah. I'm gonna take care of the future self. And, and again, it's not about never working again. It's about becoming work optional, where working becomes optional. Right. Where you can work on projects that you really value. Yes. Even if the pay is low. Yeah. Because you're like, I'm good. Yeah.

Speaker:

My, my lifestyle is good. Right. My lifestyle is good. And something that you said to me the first time we talked months ago that really stuck with me, and I love that you use the term again, is being a good steward over money. I always say that some people are religious, some people are spiritual, sometimes the people are not believers. And that doesn't necessarily define if you have a good life or not. But something you said to me that really stuck out to me is that financial. Resources are blessings.

Speaker 4:

Mm-hmm.

Speaker:

And you have to be a good steward over that blessing. Mm-hmm. Because then how do you get more? Right? Yeah. And it made me think about all the things that happen in our lives from kids to friends, to relationships that God aligns in our path. And it's like, are you gonna be a good steward over that relationship? Mm-hmm. Are you gonna pour into it? Like how, how do we operate in those spaces? To be a good steward and to be just good humans. And I love that you help us reframe money in that way.

Speaker 3:

I think it's also important for our communities, because many of us are first generation college graduates. We are first gen professionals, and we're first gen wealth builders. And one of the mistakes that I also see is that. Okay. You might be the oldest or you might be the one. Right? Like you made it out. Mm-hmm. And so now it's like bringing everybody up with you. And one of the things that I want to sort of have everybody reflect on is that when you do that, you're actually doing a disservice.'cause you are not setting the next generation up for success. And so it's not about saying, oh, this is mine. No. Like, make sure you set those parameters about, you know, when you get that phone call about somebody needing something and making sure it comes from a place of wanting to not needing to, Hmm. Right. So many times we give out of guilt and it doesn't feel good. Guilt. And obligation. And obligation. Yeah. Yeah. And so we really wanna understand, okay, how can I make sure that I take care of the things, the people, the situations that I really care about without foregoing what I need in my own life.

Speaker 6:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

Right. And. When, and not only about the past generation, but also taking care of the next generation. You and I had talked about, you know, for many of us, we are our parents' retirement plans. Yes. Right. My parent, my dad got his first access to his 401k, to an access to a 401k when he was 60. Geez. He never had a job where he had a 401k and so they've never said it. Yeah. They were never like, oh, you are my retirement plan. But there is that. Oh, you take care. It's a

Speaker:

subconscious expectation in the com in the community. Yeah. It really is, and we talk about it now that it's a sense of obligation, like they took care of me, so now I have to take care of them. But then I always say, then, you know, you're limiting your growth with that perspective.

Speaker 3:

Yes. And also the next generation. Yes. Then we're do, we're really sort of redoing the same cycle. Cycle and it's just like, okay. How can we make sure that the money, that we work hard for, the money that does come into our hands, even if it comes easy. Right? Even whatever money that it comes, how can we make sure that we're good stewards of it by making sure that it aligns with all of the things that we value? And my sort of, um, challenge for you is to make sure that you're not just valuing the today, but you're also valuing the tomorrow. Yeah. Right? How do we make sure that our kids don't have to take care of us? Yes. Right? So how and

Speaker:

how and ensure that they live their full lives without the burden. Because I think while again, it's that underlying shame, while we all know it's a burden, it's like, well, you're supposed to do it, but it, no one wants to do anything that makes them feel guilt and hardship while doing it. Mm-hmm. Like, how well would that be? Like, you know what I mean? Both experiences are horrible. Yeah. So I agree with you. I'm always like, I wanna ensure that my daughters and then my daughter's, daughters are not worried about what's happening with mom.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. Yeah, that's really important. Also, I think it's about making sure you are setting boundaries. Mm. Right. Boundaries with yourself. So for me, it was like, no, if you are going for that toilet paper and laundry detergent, make sure you only buy the, so I had to set boundaries with myself first, girl,

Speaker:

facts. And

Speaker 3:

then I had to set boundaries with the people that I did care about. Right. Because it wasn't like, oh, I'm never going to help them. It was like, no, I'm going to help them after I have helped myself first. And for me, that was like, how do I make sure that I take care of the things that I need today? How do I make sure that I set those financial goals right. Um, buying the new car, saving for the vacation, and also taking care of future Wally when she wanted to retire. Yes. And also making sure that I take care of my parents if I wanted to. Yeah. And it's not just parents, right? Siblings, cousins. Cousins,

Speaker:

aunts. Listen, the person on the block that you call your aunt, that's not really your aunt that you grew up with, right? It's true. But I also always say that. In order to properly help you.'cause everyone I feel like has had that conversation when you're perceived as making it right. That where it's like, girl, you got the money iCal and listen, I'm from the Caribbean. It's like I'm making a every month. Like, you know what I mean? Yeah. It's like whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I can't be wasteful of money.'cause then me and you is gonna be sitting underneath that coconut tree, right? Like I have to be mindful not only of my current life, but my life for tomorrow, then my daughter's lives.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker:

Like I cannot essentially take food out of my one plate to give you then how do I eat? How does my children eat? Because ultimately they're the people That's who I'm above all, you know, responsible for.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. There. There's one thing that I wanted to touch on too, because I think this can also. Um, deter or de uh, derail. There we go. Yeah. I can, uh, derail Our financial success is this idea of lifestyle inflation. Mm. Right. And it's the more money you make, you begin to spend a little bit more money. Yes. You upgrade the car, you upgrade the house. How you stop telling the people my business, you upgrade, you know how you vacation. Yeah. You upgrade those things. And it's really important also to, to think about, okay, as I make more money, am I also setting money aside? Or not even setting money aside, but you know, are, are allowances being upgraded?

Speaker 6:

Yes.

Speaker 3:

You know, allowances for how people ask me for money. One of the things that I set up when I realized that I was getting those calls, I said, okay, I don't wanna get a call. My light is being turned off today.'cause you knew your light was being turned off months ago On this day. A week ago ago. At least months ago. Okay. And so I said, okay, I, I need to transfer it from my savings account to here and it's gonna take two to three days.

Speaker 4:

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 3:

And it was amazing how all of a sudden they were able to access that money. And so that was just a boundary that I set up. Right, right. There's sometimes it's like a last minute thing. You got a flat tire or tow truck or something like that. But when I was getting those phone calls of like those last minute.

Speaker:

I need, I need a thousand dollars today. And it's like, what is wrong with you?

Speaker 3:

And it was like, okay, hold on a second. I was like, okay, well I don't have access to that money today, so you're gonna have to wait two to three days. And it was really interesting how those things happened, right? Like all of a sudden they knew. But if they did call me the week before, I'm like, okay, how can I help them help themselves? Right? Yeah. Now sometimes there's nothing that they could do or little that they could do, or they could only do it halfway. But I want to also in. Encourage them and empower them to problem solve. Yeah. Right. It's like, okay, so you know that you, you're not gonna have enough money for rent that's coming up in a week. Okay. What could we do? Yeah. Right. And, and I was just having this conversation with my mom'cause I said, you know, things are so different today. You can really make money so much easier today. Right. You can hop on Uber Eats and start making deliveries. Yeah. You can go on Facebook marketplace and sell things that you know you haven't used. You know that while

Speaker:

that's sitting in your house collecting dust. Yeah. There is, there is efforts and ways that you can go about making money, but I think the majority of it, especially in our community, is removing that shame. Right. Because I also feel in order for you to make that call, to call me for money mm-hmm. There was so much internal fighting that was going on.

Speaker 4:

Mm-hmm.

Speaker:

I know you didn't even wanna make that call. Listen, Jamaicans is pro, pro people enough, like they don't wanna make that call. So it, it hurts me to have to tell you No too.'cause I don't, I knew you. Fought with yourself to make the call. Mm-hmm. And I'm sad for you that this call is not gonna end in the way that you need it to end, but I want to also encourage you to. Let's figure out how this can never happen again. Yes. Where you never feel this way, and I never feel this way because if I could, I would, but if I can, I can't and I cannot. I have, like you said, those boundaries. I have to have strong boundaries around me and my lifestyle and the lifestyle of my children. Or then we all up under the coconut tree.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker:

Like

Speaker 3:

one of the things that I did was actually set up an emergency fund that was specifically for family. Oh. Because I was like, I know that this is gonna happen. And so if you find yourself to be the person that gets that phone call often. Mm-hmm. I set up a fund and I was like, okay, I'm not gonna pull for my vacation fund. I'm not gonna pull for my retirement fund. I'm not gonna pull for my emergency fund, but I have a fund or I have, um, a family fund. Yeah. That, that's where I pull from. When that money has been exhausted, then I don't have anymore to give. Yeah, right. Because I also don't do loan lending money. I'm like, right. Just give it away. Yeah, just give it like, just give it away. Yeah. And so that's always the question that I ask myself, like, I'm not gonna get this money back. Can I afford to give it away? Right. Because if not, then you become the debt collector. Mm-hmm. And there's resentment and it's just like when that person who owes you money is now vacationing, you're like, oh no. Now you see OIG,

Speaker:

and then you're like, oh yeah, must

Speaker 3:

be nice. And so I think it's really important to also figure out when is it that you can give, how, what are the parameters and the um, uh, yeah, the parameters that you wanna set. Mm-hmm. Um, the guardrails. The guardrails that you wanna set to make sure that you protect yourself as well. Um, and you know, when we're talking about shame, a lot of the shame when it comes to making bad money decisions, right? Or, um, mistakes that we've made or regret, um, it can really stop us from making better decisions in the future.

Speaker 6:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

And this is where the compassion for your. Past self really comes into play. Like I didn't know how to invest when I was 18. Yeah. Right. Or when I got my first job when I was 20. Right. I didn't know how to do those things, but I know now. Yeah. Right. I'm going to ask for the help. We have so much information. There's so many books, podcasts, YouTube, videos that will show us and teach us, but also check those things, right? Because not something that works for you may not work for me. Mm-hmm. Something that works for somebody else may not work for me, but it's really understanding what is it that. I align with. And if you walk away from a conversation not really understanding, you're like, I'm gonna just trust'em because, uh, they seem to know what they're doing. Maybe'cause they have the title of like, financial advisor. No, no, no. You wanna make sure that when you walk away, you know exactly mm-hmm. What's happening. If there's any questions. Right. Don't pull the trigger on making a decision with your money if you don't understand how it works. Um. And you don't need to know everything. You just need to know again, what is your income, what are your expenses? Yeah. How much money am I saving for a rainy day, but also how much money am I saving to spend?

Speaker 6:

Yeah. There's

Speaker 3:

some money that is meant for you to spend, right? You're saving for a vacation, you're saving for a down payment, you're saving, you know, to remodel the house or the kitchen. Right. And it's like sometimes people say, oh, I'm the type of person that I save money, but, and then I spend it. I'm like, well, was that the purpose of it? Yeah. And don't feel guilty about that. Yes. And is there some money where it's do not touch unless you're dying fund. Right. That emergency fund. It's like, okay, set those parameters today. Yes. Right. When am I gonna be able to use this emergency and how do I even define an emergency? Is it a phone call? Is it if I lose my job? Is it if I see a, you know, something that I've been wanting that's on sale? Is that an emergency? Right. Really define what an emergency is. Yeah. So that when you're saving money in an emergency fund, you know when exactly to use it.

Speaker:

And what does freedom mean to you? Right. Yeah. Because I think we all desire freedom. Freedom of our time, freedom of our resources. Mm-hmm. Freedom of our minds. Yeah. Right. And, and giving yourself that space. Like I always say, make space to be, well make space to identify what freedom is to you. Because sometimes, and I know this'cause I've lived it, while you're running on the survival mode, you know. Train of just like, I need to make this, get, this needs to be done, and I just need to get this amount, and I just need, you're just often always thinking about, how do I just get past this one thing?

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker:

Give yourself time and freedom to identify what does it look like for me tomorrow? What is that number and how do I get there?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, absolutely. I, I think that is really important because for some people it's, I never wanna have to work again. Okay, good. Go for you. You know? Right. The thing is that you can reach it.

Speaker 6:

Yeah. Right.

Speaker 3:

So what are the steps that I need to make today? What are the decisions that I need to make today so that I can reach financial freedom? Right. Is it that I just wanna have more control over my time? I wanna have more freedom of my time. I don't wanna have to work 50 hours, 60 hours a week. Yeah. I wanna work 20 hours a week. Right. Really defining what that is. But financial independence is super. Um, accessible if you just make decisions about how you want your money to function for you. And it's not gonna happen by only saving money. It's going to happen by using a wealth building vehicle. And as we talked about, that could be real estate, that could be entrepreneurship, that could be the stock market use. Um, any one of those vehicles. And even when we are thinking about real estate, there's so many different ways to use

Speaker:

real estate, right? This real estate is such a, a broad

Speaker 3:

space, right? Investing is the same way, and so is entrepreneurship, right? Yeah. So there's so many different branches off of those three investing vehicles, but choose one, right? You wanna buy things and spend money on things that are going to appreciate in value. And what does appreciate in value mean just means that it's gonna, it's gonna, um, grow in value. Mm-hmm. Right? So if you buy a stock. At$10, it's gonna go to$12 and maybe 13 and maybe 40, right? If you buy a real estate property today for$200,000, you're hoping that it's gonna go up to 250 to 300,000, right? Or maybe that it's cash flowing, right? When we think about entrepreneurship, right? So it's really important to sort of think about an investment vehicle that is gonna help you build wealth, um, so that um, you can reach financial freedom and so that you can reach financial independence.

Speaker:

I love this. Wally, you have come and preached to us today, right? I just want you to know so much about our conversation is Yes. About freedom and how we find it and how financial literacy can help you get there. But I love how you ensure people's hearts are also treated well, right? I think you nurture people through the difficulties of financial freedom. So tell the audience how they can stay in contact with you, where they can find you and access your services.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, absolutely. So, um, as I mentioned, I retired at 39 and became work optional. I'm exercising the work optional. Mm-hmm. Now, because now I do have my own financial coaching business where I help people who are interested in learning how to. Spend money, how to save money and how to build wealth through it. Um, and you can find me in all my socials through financially thriving.com. Um, and I'm most active on Instagram, so you can see like financial tips and things like that, um, which is financially underscore thriving. Nice.

Speaker:

Wally, thank you so much for being here. This has been amazing. I'm truly blessed to have you and I hope the audience have found so much value in your conversations, just growing through what freedom is to you. And thank you so much. This is how do you divine freedom. See you on the next one.