Women & Money: The Shit We Don't Talk About!
Women & Money: The Shit We Don't Talk About!
$220K Debt to Financial Freedom with Haley Brown-Woods
What would you do if $600,000 landed in your lap at 23? If your first thought is to pay off debt or buy a house, Haley Brown-Woods and her husband came into that exact windfall and just three and a half years later, they were $220K in debt.
In this episode, Haley Brown-Woods, a financial coach and founder of Price of Avocado Toast takes us behind the scenes of how they went from living large (wine tastings on Wednesdays with $400 bottles) to arguing over a $7 box of pumpkin muffins. That moment became the wake-up call that changed their entire financial future.
00:00 Facing Financial Realities
00:42 Introducing Haley Brown-Woods
01:20 The $600,000 Windfall
03:39 Debt and the Muffin Incident
05:13 The Turning Point
08:19 Starting the Debt-Free Journey
14:10 Launching Price of Avocado Toast
19:14 Empowering Financial Freedom
28:34 Defining Financial Freedom
Haley is a living, breathing example that you can make massive money mistakes, and still come out stronger. This one is part financial reality check, part permission slip to start again. Join us on September 25 to talk through the red flags we ignore, the mistakes we make, and how to reset your financial journey without guilt. Click here to register for FREE and bring your questions!
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Barb: [00:00:00] You know, Maggie, I was thinking about
how much debt people have and how much angst and pressure and anxiety and shame it puts on them, especially women. I know, you know, kind of the media shames us. However, you know, it's important for us to take on debt as we've talked about before. There's good debt and there's bad debt.
For instance, you have a job and you need transportation. There's no public transportation to get you there. You need a car. I needed a car when I was very young to get to work, and also I was going back to school. I bought a new car, but it was the cheapest car on the lot. I remember it was.
$6,000, which I financed for three years and it had nothing, no air conditioning. It was back in the day when you rolled your windows down. The only thing I got on it was, a cassette player. 'cause you know, I love my music and it was even a five speed. So, I took on debt, right? And I was making a pittance, but I needed to take [00:01:00] on that debt because I needed to go to work and I needed to go to school.
so that's good debt. And some might say, oh, you should have bought a used car whatever, Well, I'm not a car person. I just needed a reliable car to get me where I needed to go. But there's also the debt where you unconsciously are spending money where you're not really quite certain where it's going.
And before you know it, boom, Diddy boom, you've got tens, $20,000 worth of credit card debt, And it happens.
maggie: it's not hard to do either. I mean, spent some money that was like, well, I know I'm gonna get this job soon, which is gonna pay me more. you should not spend money that you don't have life advice.
Barb: Well, on future, we're gonna get, I'm gonna get, that might not happen. And then, you know. Credit card debt, 27% interest. It's so expensive and ultimately you're just paying the interest. That's how banks make so much money and they make it so easy for you too. So that is something that we talk a lot about at purse strings.
We don't want anyone to feel shame about it. [00:02:00] We know why this happens and we have ways to work it.
maggie: yeah, I mean, it's hard. I know there are times where like people just like literally can't sleep at night. It wakes 'em up in the middle of the night and it's hard to like swallow that frog and just get started, like I'm gonna do this thing. It's kinda like going to the gym, like, all right, now we're gonna commit and do the thing.
But that's hard to get started. You spend a lot of time just thinking about it, pondering it, trying to make different plans of how to do it. But it's just getting started and actually doing it, that is the hardest part, but makes all the difference.
Barb: Yeah, just getting started, it's like with anything, just getting started is such a positive step. Like we say, you know, getting started at purse strings, downloading a guide or meeting with a financial professional. But on our podcast today, we have someone who not only got started on her debt, but her story's incredible.
I don't wanna spill the beans, but she got started and paid down an incredible amount of debt. Incredible. And it just shows that it is [00:03:00] doable. It's doable. And she's talked about how she got into debt. how she realized they needed to put the brakes on. How she learned what she needed to know to start changing her behaviors, put some things into place and paid down an enormous amount of debt.
And what I love about it is she showed how it's possible.
maggie: Paying off the debt is only just the first stop. That's not, life is, I'm a debt payoff person. It's alright. Now, what do I wanna do with this money? How am I gonna stay out of debt? What dreams do I wanna fulfill now that this is done? Because that's not your identity as a debt.
I pay down debt. It's so much bigger than that, and I think that's one of the best things that she shared, is that now helping people pay down their debt and just accomplishing the things that they wanna do, whether that's leave relationships, build families, travel, you name it, you can do it.
Barb: great point. Yeah. Paying down the debt, getting through that step one big, step one, step two. Okay. Now that you are a debt free person, how are you gonna live your life? What is [00:04:00] it that you want out of your life? What do you wanna do with your money? How do you wanna live financially free?
So let's listen to Haley Brown Woods. And how she helps people get outta debt and live a life that is full of choices.
maggie: Let's get started.
Gloria Steinem once said, we will never solve the feminization of power until we solve the masculinity of wealth. Barbara Provost and Maggie Nielsen are the team at purse strings that will help you navigate the ins and outs of financial independence so that you can be financially fearless. This is women in money, the shit we don't talk about.
maggie: Haley, welcome to Women and Money, the shit we don't Talk about. We are excited to have you on today. Before we dive into this episode, could you give us a little bit about who you are and what you do?
Haley: Yes, of course. First [00:05:00] off, thank you so much for having me, and I love the name of your podcast. It's just very to the point, everything we need, things we weren't taught. I love it. Love it. Okay, so a little bit about me. My name is Hailey Brownwoods and I am an accredited financial counselor, which sounds super legit and awesome.
And I help people pay off debt and do all of that. But my story actually started with my own debt-free journey that led me to doing what I'm doing today. I'm actually a former elementary school teacher and my husband and I. When we first met, we met online and hit it off really fast, and my husband received $600,000 from a wrongful death lawsuit payout after his grandma died of mesothelioma. So if you think of the commercials that are like called one 800 whatever, if you know someone who has meso basically that's the situation.
And his grandma had contracted mesothelioma. She passed away and the family filed wrongful death lawsuits against like how she got it and one millions of dollars. And my [00:06:00] husband's father. Had passed away. So whatever would've gone to his dad went to his heirs. So my husband, my brother-in-law and sister-in-law each got a million dollars.
But after the lawyers took their cut. Yeah. It was $600,000 a piece. So let's just talk about how we're all in the wrong field. That's 40%. I'm like, that's a lot of money. But he got $600,000 and I met this guy and we were like, cool.
We're madly in love. We have all this money. Let's go shopping. And he was 24 at the time, and I was 23, so we were super young and a little context into how we were raised. We were both raised by single moms, low income situations. They did the best they could, given the situations and the knowledge that they had at the time, but we didn't have a financial foundation, so we got lottery sized.
Winnings just plopped into our laps in our early twenties, and we spent a lot of money very quickly. [00:07:00] We blew through the $600,000 and then got into over $220,000 within a three and a half year period
Barb: Wait, wait,
wait. Stop right there. What. Did you spend this money on? I just have to know.
maggie: It has to be something good, right?
Haley: well. I mean, we did buy a house, but like we live in the San Francisco Bay area. We could have just purchased a whole entire house at the time but we didn't. And we put down a major, like 50% down payment on the house. So that's, 250, $300,000 of it. But then when we really look at where did this money go, it just kind of slipped through our hands little by little.
Lifestyle inflation. We were just spending money. We were traveling, we were going on wine tasting dates on a Wednesday and dropping $400 on wine little things like that weren't little, but that compounded over time very quickly and we got into a lot of debt, and [00:08:00] the beginning part of our story, but we dug our way out of $132,000 of debt in a year and a half as teachers, and that led us here.
I decided I didn't wanna be a teacher anymore and I wanted to help people get out of debt.
Barb: But at what point did you say whoa. Wait a minute. Let's put the brakes on this. Like we need to just halt. Like at what point was it
Haley: Well, I was pregnant with our first child and we were both done with grad school making the most money we'd ever made. We were a public school teacher, so we weren't making a ton of money, but it was the first time we had salaried incomes, and in California teachers get paid once a month, so we got paid on the 30th and by the eighth of the month we had no money.
So I went to Costco. I went shopping, got some groceries, and I came home with some pumpkin muffins. 'cause that sounded good 'cause I was pregnant. And then my husband and I got in an argument over having. Purchase the muffins, and it really wasn't about the muffins. We didn't have [00:09:00] $7 to be spending on muffins.
We were out of money. Everything was going on credit cards, and so that was our wake up aha moment of like, what is happening here? We need to fix this quickly because it's going down the wrong path
Barb: Got it. The muffins every time.
Haley: Yeah.
maggie: And so looking back, what was the hardest part of facing this money situation and how did you find that courage to take that first step? 'cause I know it's not easy.
Haley: The hardest part was looking at the reality of the situation and looking in the mirror head on to say, what the hell happened here? How did we have $600,000 and now we're drowning in debt? Just having that really uncomfortable conversation with myself and with my husband to figure out what is going on was really the hardest part.
'cause once we got going and we saw how bad it was, we were pretty motivated to get out of debt. But facing the reality was very difficult in the beginning.
Barb: Was there a lot of resentment around the situation or like what was your [00:10:00] emotional state on that at that time?
Haley: I wouldn't say resentment, but there was a lot of guilt and shame associated with it. You don't know what you don't know, and at the time I was just looking at the facts and the numbers. There were $600,000 and now we're negative 220. That means we spent $800,000 in three and a half years. How did that happen?
And when we took a step back and we started doing our own research and talking to other people. We realized that this is very common. When people get windfall money that they are unprepared to manage, they're not going to manage it. They will mismanage the money, they'll spend it, and windfall money can look like a $5,000 tax refund that's gone the next month.
Or it could look like an inheritance from a parent or grandparent, it could be $10,000 or it could be a hundred thousand dollars or a million dollars. Right. But if you're not ready to spend the money or to manage it [00:11:00] the right way, it will be spent. And when I started doing research that looked into the people that win the lottery and the music artists and the sports people, football players, basketball players.
70% of people that get windfall money like that will end up filing bankruptcy at some point. That is a lot. That is a lot. So once I realized we were not alone with the behaviors and the things that we did, that helped me really move through the guilt and the shame and. Realize, okay, I am not stupid. I'm not bad with money.
I did what majority of people would've done. We always ask people, what would you have done if you got $600,000 at 23? And people wanna say they would've bought a house or paid off their student loan. And I'm like, what would you really have done? Like, let's be real here.
maggie: It is hard. And I think about those times where I did get like a tax refund and all of a sudden, I thought I was gonna do all these great things with the money and then it was just gone. And I was like, wait, I thought I was [00:12:00] gonna use it to pay down debt or build that emergency fund or invest, but all of a sudden it's like disappeared.
And that's, it's true. You don't always know what you spent it on. It doesn't always add up. I've seen that with so many athletes, especially those young ones who are like 20 out of college, playing for their first sports team, and all of a sudden it's like, no money to hundreds of thousands and poof, it's gone.
It's like a magic trick.
Barb: All right, so you put the brakes on, you ate the great muffins, you had conversations with your husband. Then what?
Haley: The muffins were really good. We did what most people do when they are in a situation where they're trying to get out of debt. We did a little research and we said, how Google, how do I pay off my debt? Dave Ramsey pops up. This was 2019, one of the biggest names in the personal finance debt community pops up.
So we started listening to his podcast. We listened to his audio book and we realized, okay, there are other [00:13:00] people paying off a lot of debt. We can do this too. So that was the first boost of motivation and then we went. Full speed into paying off our consumer debt. We do still have student loans, but that's a whole nother, we just don't care about them at this point.
But we paid off a lot of our debt very quickly by doing our own journey. We did things that kind of don't really recommend for a lot of people. We cashed out some retirement. We sold everything. Everything that we possibly could. We sold a car, we downsized. We did a lot very quickly. And also it was during the pandemic, so it was really easy to not spend money when you're locked in your house.
And we also got second and third jobs and just put every single penny towards our debt as fast as we could.
maggie: I like that you made some of those bigger moves as sometimes it's always like, cut the coffee or, these like $5, $10, $20 switches, but [00:14:00] like selling a car, that's a nice big move that can move you, forward. Same with the house. Those are big things where sometimes people say like, are you kind of drastic, but like.
If you want to move ahead quickly, these are the things that need to be done. It's not, oh, I mean, calling your phone bill and saving $20 a month is great. I encourage you to still do that if you can, but that's not gonna get you, that $200,000 paid off. And so I love how you guys made those big leaps and not just the, picking apart the minuscule things and taking, all the muffins outta life.
And then, somehow all the debt is paid off.
Haley: Yeah and we sold our house and moved to a lower cost of living area after we paid off $132,000 of debt. After we did that, that was like the final move for us to really get things going. And then we were able to fortunately, take a ton of equity because we put a lot of money down on the house.
We were able to take the money and then fund our savings and put money into sinking funds and our emergency fund and fund getting my business off the ground running [00:15:00] looking back at that. I'm thankful that at least we bought a house originally because we were able to get some of the money out when we sold stuff, including the brand new car that we got. We had a brand new 2018 runner that we were, that we bought, were able to just sell and liquidate $30,000 very quickly, even though we lost a lot of money on that. That was a big move when you're looking at getting things done quickly.
Barb: But that's it. Like Maggie said, it's not the little things, it's really committing. Right? It's committing and I remember years ago before we had so much access to lots of different resources and paying down debt. The book. Popular book was The Millionaire Next Door. And the way the Millionaire Next Door was, is they never bought a new car.
They lived below their means. They weren't building the McMansions at the time, the big houses. They were just living in a house that was, just fine for them. And so a lot of it is that, and it sounds like you went to that place where you didn't need that [00:16:00] car, you didn't need those bigger houses.
And when you downsized. It was fine and it was more manageable and you were able to pay down that debt, which I think makes so much sense.
Haley: Yeah, and now we drive a 2007 Honda CRV. I mean, that car is about to be 20 years old, but it's great. It's so sturdy. You guys, I gotta tell you, we went through a generational snowstorm where we live that had trees falling all over, like on houses and on cars.
This 2007 Honda CRV survived massive trees falling on it. Like USAA totaled all of our other stuff. They didn't total this car. They were like that thing's good to go. They just replaced the hood and it got the most boom.
Barb: Wow.
Haley: It had the weight of the tree on it.
That's
Barb: We are not sponsored by Honda CRV, but if they would like to sponsor us, they certainly can. Thank you.
maggie: So for other listeners who are stuck in debt, like what are some ways to help them [00:17:00] feel less shame about where they are or start moving forward from where they are?
Haley: When trying to focus on healing the shame and the guilt that you feel with your debt, the biggest thing that I recommend is naming the feeling that you're feeling name it to tame it. How are you feeling? Why is this happening? Where are you at?
When you can do that's where you take the look in the mirror and you can kind of work through it because this is. For the most part, not really a numbers problem. When you're feeling the shame, that's the mindset in your relationship with money, and that's the hard part when it comes to healing all of it.
You can pay off debt as fast as you can. Cool. But. It's gonna be kind of worthless at the end if you feel terrible about yourself, you're not able to enjoy your money, and then you just binge spend because you have so much resentment about the process. We can't do that. So we really need to work on healing the shame while we're paying off our debt so [00:18:00] that when you get to the other side of being debt free, you can actually enjoy your money and do it without guilt because the guilt leads to shame.
maggie: Yeah, I love that name at detainment. That's awesome. And so let's dive into then you kind of creating your business price of avocado toast, what, encouraged you to do this and tell me a bit more about the name as well.
Haley: Price of avocado toast is, it was named from an Instagram poll during COVID. We were paying off our jet with. So much vengeance. We were doing it as fast as we could and we were talking about it all the time to all of our friends and family, and they were like, could you just stop talking about this?
We don't really wanna hear about it anymore. We were like, this is so fun. Look at us. We paid off an extra $500 where we paid off this one little student loan go team, and people just couldn't care. They were so over it. So we decided to start a podcast during [00:19:00] the pandemic, during the original shutdown when people were literally at home doing nothing.
And we wanted to talk about our own journey and just kind of normalize conversations about money because we were getting so excited about this journey we were on. We could see the future and the ending, and we had this, we were dreaming big together and everyone else was like, why are you guys talking about this?
This is so awkward. Why are we talking about debt and money? And we shouldn't talk about this. This is something that stays in the house. You don't publicly do this.
Barb: The shit we don't talk about right.
Haley: Exactly. You don't talk about it, and when you do, it's inappropriate. That's what we've all been told, right. And so we decided to launch our podcast and I went on an Instagram poll and said, Hey, what do we call this?
We wanna talk to millennials about debt and price of avocado toast was born that way. That's kind of how it originally started. We started with just a podcast and zero intentions of [00:20:00] starting an actual business or anything else. We just wanted to document our own journey. So we started that in June of 2020, and then we continued our own journey.
The early stages of our podcast are really just us talking about our journey, how we're paying off debt and everything, and then. We get momentum going. We started working with our own financial coach. We decided to sell our house. I decided I didn't want to go back to teaching. I was on maternity leave at the time and I said, maybe I will do this financial coaching thing someday.
That'd be cool. It'd be cool if I could teach people about how to pay off debt and do this in a one-to-one space. And then I kind of just left it there and. On our season one finale, my husband announced Haley's gonna start her financial coaching business at the beginning of season two.
And I was like, okay, cool. I guess we're doing this. And we had sold our house and we had a little bit of extra money to kind of supplement my income while we got things [00:21:00] going. And I was like, we're doing this. We're just gonna start my business. I mean, why not? Right? So we had a year.
Under our belts with the podcast of, creating a community and having some listeners and followers on social media. It was nothing big or anything at the time that we started, but we got going pretty quickly. Because of the trust that people already had, they had already heard me talking about my journey.
I have yet to hear a story that's worse than mine. So people can easily come to me and say, Hey, I'm in $50,000 of credit card debt, and I'm feeling really bad about it, and I can say, great. Let me help you through that. I blew $600,000, so there's zero judgment coming from me, and I think that they trusted me much faster because of that.
They knew my story, they knew the things that I talked about where I said, Hey, I messed up here and here. Let's try to do it better. And I started my business in August of 2021, like a year after we started our podcast. And here we are. My husband now does [00:22:00] this full-time with He has since left teaching as well.
Barb: Wow. I love that. So it shows that's an issue, right? Guilt, shame, all of this is an issue. I think it stems from what you said at the very beginning of the broadcast. No one taught us about how to manage money. Financial literacy is not taught in schools. It's a tool like driving a car. It's like someone gave us the keys and didn't give us the rules of the road.
And there's a lot of shame, especially at women around money. And we, like you said, also, no one wants to talk about it, right? It's taboo. It's culturally not okay. To have conversations like that, but that's why we're having these conversations today. Exactly. Because we need to start talking about money.
If we're not talking about it, we're not learning about it. Haley, I love your story. And I think you went through that for a reason because you can say to people, you're in debt $50,000. I respect that. And [00:23:00] your shame and your guilt that comes with it. Happened to me, 600,000, we can do this. Ah, we got this right.
And people probably go, phew. Thank goodness I'm with somebody who's been in my shoes, multiple times over and can help me and has strategies. So what are some of the first things you do to help people work through this?
Haley: The first thing, the very first thing that we do is we do a whole entire session about how you grew up. Tell me about your mom. Tell me about your dad. Were they married? Were they divorced? Are they still alive? Do you have siblings? Are your siblings still alive? And that all leads to, oh, no, my dad left when I was five, or my mom passed away last year of cancer and I got a $5,000 thing.
Okay, cool. Let's talk about that. Because every single thing leading up to where we are today has created our relationship with money. And kind of going back to our own journey, we started with Dave Ramsey. We got really good at paying off debt. That was cool. There was a [00:24:00] massive disconnect between life after debt.
Anybody can pay off debt, but how do you stay out of debt? That's the hard part. And you stay outta debt by looking at how you got into debt. And I wanted to create my program. I wanted to create everything with the lens of sustainability, like sustainably paying off debt. You have, chunk of time, maybe six months or five years, where you're hammering this out, but then you have 50 years after this how do we sustain this so you can enjoy your money?
And have it be something that doesn't feel bad, and that has to come from the initial reflection. So the very first thing we do is look at how you were raised in sections like childhood and then your first job and then the college years, and then were you married once or twice before? How was that? And then your current marriage, if you're married all the way up until today, really helps people say, okay, wow.
[00:25:00] That makes a lot of sense. I can kind of start to see where this stems from.
maggie: And I'm sure people sit down right away and they're like, why is Hailey not asking me for all my numbers and all my accounts and all my things? And you start it kind of, not as like a therapy session, but like, tell me about your family. It's like, why are we talking about my mom? I'm $50,000 in debt, but it is so interesting how much that is correlate and the more that you dive in, it's like, ah, I see. I'm doing just the exact same things I was like Sublimely taught, you know what I mean? And so I know a lot on your social media, you talk about guilt-free spending. So like what does that mean and how can women start doing that today?
Haley: Guilt free spending to me means that you don't work this damn hard to not spend your like you're allowed to spend money. So how do we do that in a way that feels empowering and not. Guilt ridden. That's not fun. And the way we do that is by being intentional with our budget and our planning. I talk a lot about the different stages of budgeting.
You have to make the [00:26:00] plan that the original. Budget part, and then we have to actually track our spending to make sure we're, are we on track with phase one? The first thing we did, we made a plan. Are we even on track with that? And then the third piece is reflection. And if you get to the third piece and you're reflecting, oh wow, I went to Chipotle and I got a pedicure with my friend and I.
I got a massage and I didn't plan for this all during stage one. Why did I do that? Where did my money go? That is where the guilt and the shame starts. So if we can intentionally put those things that you are just quite frankly, gonna spend money on anyway, let's be real. We have to be very realistic.
You're gonna spend money on it anyway. Put it in the plan, and then when you get to the reflection stage, it's like, ah. I planned for this and that feels good. I had the money for it, and it feels awesome and it feels empowering, and that has to come from also this lens of value-based spending and what's important to you and how you're going to prioritize those things.
Everything can't be a value. If everything's a value, [00:27:00] nothing's a value, but if you can intentionally put the things you value into your spending plan, you will feel so much better about it, and then the guilt just won't be there.
maggie: Yeah, definitely. And I think that's the biggest thing is so often we try to create these budgets that are like, not realistic to who we're gonna to, I'm never gonna go out to eat. Okay, well, we know that's false because I go out to eat three times a week. So like, we're not going to, a hundred to zero real fast.
Like, you've gotta be realistic. And so, I think that's even the harder part to accept is right if the beginning it's like, I am gonna spend this money. It is the way it is. It's just, you can't, don't lie to yourself.
Barb: Yeah. So I'm curious about some of your success stories and what are some big money moves people have made through your coaching?
Haley: So paying off debt is super cool. Love that. I love to brag about how my clients have paid off over three and a half million dollars of non-mortgage debt. That's really awesome. But I think the bigger things are beyond money. So I've helped [00:28:00] clients exit abusive marriages and relationships and make a plan that is terrifying to do, but a financial plan to get them out of that situation.
Or same thing with a toxic job. Being able to leave that situation and say that this is no longer serving me. I'm out of here. That is always very rewarding. And then anyone who's planning to have children through fertility struggles of some sort. That is the most rewarding work to be able to help someone be able to do that from a place that feels empowering, whether it's IVF or surrogacy or adoption or anything like that, that all costs a lot of money and I've helped a lot of clients go through that.
And at the end of the day, I get to look at them and be like, that kid is here You don't have a bunch of debt because of that, because no one wants to feel the pressure. Anyone who goes through fertility struggles, they usually are not feeling [00:29:00] resentment of that debt. If it is debt that they acquired through IVF, but it is kind of this pressure on them.
It's still there, right? If you can do that and do it from a place of, oh, I have the money. I plan for this feels good, then everything just feels so much lighter now. You got your family, you got your baby, everything is here, and the financial stress is not there. Now we can make the plan for you to afford to have the child and childcare and move forward or maybe have more kids in the future.
And those are my favorite success stories because money is cool all day long, but those are transformative life things. You can make money and spend money and pay off debt, but. When I see people doing truly life changing stuff like that, it just feels so good to be a part of it.
Barb: Well, I would like to ask, what's one habit or mindset shift that really makes a difference for someone trying to get out of debt?
Haley: That's a good question. I feel like we need [00:30:00] 5,000 habits in mindset session, okay. I believe that a necessary mindset shift for everybody is to step into doing this like fully embracing. I am going to. Pay off my debt. I'm going to start this journey and it might be hard, but I'm going to do it.
When you're kind of half-assed, like, oh, maybe I'm dipping my toes in it, you're going to, you're gonna move at half-ass speed and for some people, that's totally the speed that they wanna move at. You don't get a reward for doing it as fast as you can. I'm still waiting for. Forbes to call me and give me a front page and say, Hey, we wanna reward you for paying off $132,000 of debt.
It doesn't work like that, but when you fully step into it, and if you're in a relationship with a partner, if you guys do it together, you are unstoppable. That is the mindset shift, and it happens in your brain. All of the behaviors will follow, the habits will follow. You have to really embody, I am someone who pays off [00:31:00] debt.
I am doing this.
maggie: I feel like I hear so many of these stories and it's so interesting of so many of their couples, their partnerships, and it's like you really needed each other to lean on for those days that are hard to encourage each other to move forward. And like, yes, we got into this together, we'll get out of it together.
But it's really just this teamwork. And so I think it's great. Even if someone's, single and doesn't have that partner to lean on, they can lean on you to kind of have that support as well.
Haley: Yeah, and I actually see that most common with my long-term financial coaching clients. The single women will hang out much longer. I do a six month coaching program and a 12 month coaching program, and my single ladies will stay with me for like two or three years, and it's because they don't have a partner to also hold them accountable.
It's them on their own, and we all know how hard it is to have that. just do it. Just show up and do it mentality and the motivation and the accountability. That's not easy [00:32:00] on hard days, but when you have someone else in your corner, I can hold your hand to say, Hey, we're gonna do this together. Or at least you can have someone to talk.
Through the hard things with, whereas people who are in a relationship, they have that in their house every single day and it's really hard. People don't talk a lot about the single tax, and it is very difficult to do this as a single person. It's doable, very doable, but it's hard.
maggie: Yeah, being single is expensive as well. So it's nice that they have you to lean on or to have that community because anything we do days get long. There's hard times, there's times where we need that compassion and there's times when we need to kick in the butt just to keep it in gear.
So it's nice to have that team right there as well. And so Haley, we like to ask all of our guests this question, and that is, what is your own definition of financial freedom?
Haley: Ooh. Financial freedom. I feel like it could mean so many different things. Okay. For me, it's being able to spend my time and my energy, my money with my young [00:33:00] kids. We had three kids in three and a half years, and now that we work from home, finally, we're only gonna have one in at home.
Two of 'em are now gonna be in school, but up until recently we've had all of these kids at home. I'm working running a business with them is the hardest, coolest thing I've ever done. But then I also think of for other people and what I see every single day, I think financial freedom is being able to choose to exit situations you don't want to be in.
Whether that's divorce, leave your person 'cause they are terrible to you and you deserve so much better. Or a job because you're just another person. To them, you are replaceable and those things are really hard. But when someone has the financial freedom to be able to do that, then you get to choose your situation.
You have so much more control and that Is it. I'm not advocating for everyone to get a divorce and leave their jobs, but I think that a lot of people just settle for really shitty situations [00:34:00] that they don't realize that they can get out of, and they're deserving of so much more.
maggie: Yeah, it's true.
Barb: Amen.
maggie: And so Hailey, of course we'll have everything in the show notes, but what's the best way for people to connect with you, continue to follow you and work with you?
Haley: We are at price of avocado toast.com or price of avocado toast podcast or price of avocado toast social media. We try to keep the same name across the board for everything and simplicity reasons, but we are at price of avocado toast. And you can just send us a message and say, Hey, I love when people send messages saying that they heard an interview on another podcast.
I think that's really cool. So if you're listening, please say hi. .
maggie: Well, thank you Haley, so much for coming on today for sharing your story and your expertise. I can't wait for the community to hear this and to reach out to you and just tell you about how great you were on this episode. Be sure to check out Haley. All her information is in the show notes and we'll talk to everyone again soon.
Until then, be financially fearless.
Outro: [00:35:00] You've been listening to Women Money, the shit we don't talk about. Now it's time to take what you've learned and make bold moves towards financial independence. Stay in the know by joining our newsletter for exclusive tools, resources, and updates that keep you financially fearless. Head to PurseStrings. co and sign up today. Need a financial professional who gets it? Turn to PurseStrings Curated Directory, your go to resource for financial experts who know how to put you first. Love this episode? Leave us a review and help us empower even more women to own their financial power. Until next time, be financially fearless.
