EP 05: The $5,000 Decisions That Changed Our Lives

What if the best investment you could make wasn’t in things… but in yourself?

In this episode, Candace Powell and Jackie explore the real ROI of bold decisions, self-care, and life-changing experiences. From leaving toxic work environments to investing in unforgettable adventures, they unpack how intentional choices can completely transform your happiness, resilience, and sense of purpose.

Candace shares her journey of walking away from a high-pressure law firm job that was impacting her health, and how rebuilding her well-being through therapy, energy work, and healthier routines changed her life. Jackie reflects on spending $5,000 on a sailboat trip during ankle surgery recovery, proving that meaningful experiences often leave a deeper impact than material possessions.

This conversation challenges the constant pressure to stay productive, busy, and externally successful, inviting you instead to redefine success through fulfillment, boundaries, mental health, and personal growth.

✨ If you’ve been feeling burned out, stuck, or disconnected from yourself, this episode is your reminder that investing in your well-being is never wasted.

🎧 Tune in now and ask yourself: what’s truly worth investing in?

Follow us on Instagram: @wtf_womentalkfinance | Spotify, YouTube & Apple Podcasts: WTF! Women Talk Finance | The Founders Office: foundersoffice.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I'm Jackie. I'm Kid. And this is WTF.

SPEAKER_02 0:05

Grab your coffee, wine, water bottle, emotional support snack, no judgment, and let's get into it.

SPEAKER_01 0:12

Okay, so what are we talking about today?

SPEAKER_02 0:16

Okay, so today we are talking about $5,000 decisions that changed our lives. Now, $5,000 is not just a number we picked out of thin air. Okay. The average American spends $5,400 a year on impulse purchases, most of which they can't remember. So we want to talk about the ones that we do remember. The ones because $5,000 does feel like a lot. It's one of those you stop, you know, you stop before you make a $5,000 purchase. Yeah. We just frivolously spend $5,000 a year on things we don't remember. So what are the ones that really had an impact?

SPEAKER_01 1:11

You go first. I quite like yours. You do? Yeah. And the the tagline here is small bets that create massive life leverage. Small bets is relative, right? Yeah. And putting the word bet on it is also kind of that's interesting to me. Yeah. You're making a bet on something if you're spending five grand, I guess. Yeah, you are. I want to hear about how it changed your life. I want to hear what it was. I know what it was, but I can't wait for you to share. And I want to hear how it changed your life and how it created massive life leverage. I think that's key too. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:49

So I had just had my oldest child, I guess, backstep a little bit. When I was pregnant with my oldest, we we decided to sell our house. So we sold our house. And uh as good expectant parents, we were like kind of squatters. Um, we had a condo downtown, but I didn't want to be in a condo downtown with my baby. So it was just, I was like, I don't know. And we planned this whole thing. That's the best part of all of it. Um, we were staying with uh family and super lucky to do that, had our oldest, and then I had to be at a meeting when she was about three weeks old. And I didn't want to fly with her. I was like, I don't really want to fly with this fresh baby. I'm still sitting on a donut. Like, I can't be can't be going in American Airlines with my like, you know, pad to sit on. Um, so my husband and I talked about it, and I was like, let's rent an RB and we'll drive. Because that also seemed like a great idea. And so he goes down to the lot, um, like one of those used lots, and because it was gonna be several grand for us to rent an RB for that long. And he was like, I can buy this camper for $5,000. Like, what do you think? And I I very postpartum went, that's a great idea. So now we we had a decent chunk of cash because we had sold a house, we had all these other things going on. So we we were in a spot that I realize most people aren't in. So I'm I'm seeing that with some like awareness around it. Uh, and also I had no business making $5,000 decisions.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

So no sleep. And I can't believe you're like, like this was this is a meeting I can't miss. This is an in-person.

SPEAKER_02 3:58

Yeah, this was before I had really good boundaries, right? So yeah, can't miss this one. Gotta be. I don't know. I because I still was like, I can do it all. And I think it was like, I was my first kid, and I was like, this isn't gonna change me. I'm still that boss queen that shows up and God, all of it bad. I've learned so much, I've learned so much in those nine years, officially. Um uh so we go, we buy this camper. We didn't know how to tow, we'd never towed anything. We had a truck, we had like this this truck that could tow, probably shouldn't have towed. We're like, well, I guess we're learning how to be campers. We had been backpackers before kids, but we we didn't know how to have a camper. We had no clue. We just loaded up, literally threw everything in, and then just were like, all right, well, we'll be back when we're back. We're gonna go to this meeting and drove from Nevada to Texas, which is actually a pretty far way. Um, and it was so hard those first couple days. It was so absolutely stupid. And everybody around me was like, you're an idiot. And I was like, I know. And then our last couple days on that trip, our last couple days, we were heading home and still things hadn't been going great. Like we had kind of gotten the hang of it, but we still didn't really know what we were doing as far as being camping people in a camper. Um, we got to like the second to last day, and we both kind of looked at each other and we're like, we don't really want this to end. We like love this. We loved being the three of us. We loved being in new places every day. We liked that like all of our things, like our house was with everything we needed was with us, but we were in a new spot and we like, but really, I think what we liked was being in that cocoon of new family and like away, you know. And so we um we had just an incredible, incredible time. We got home, sold that camper for what we paid for it. So that was actually a pretty decent decision because had we had rented one, it just was money out the door. Um, sold our truck, bought an F350, bought a 42-foot fifth wheel. Um, so we graduated ourselves right on up. There's no program you go through all the way up. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 6:38

Do they make them bigger than 42 feet? I don't know much about RVs, but that seems on the long end.

SPEAKER_02 6:45

You're like the size of a semi when you have a F350 and then a fifth wheel that size. It is your big rig at that point. I learned how to read Chuckers Atlases. Um, again, keeping in mind we still didn't have a house because we sold our house. Um, we got home, we were like, let's sell all of our stuff. And so we sold all of our things. We were already working on the road anyway and living like on airplanes. We were like, what's the difference? And we ended up deciding to live in our in a camper and become these camping people, become camp people for like over a year. Um and it was amazing. It was so cool to do. Uh I learned a lot about myself because I had always kind of had a little bit of rigidity to me, and I still do. I I'm a pretty I like things pretty very clean and organized, and I I really like to know a plan. And a lot of times you just don't totally have a plan. And um so I learned to be like flexible and uh it was just a great decision. It was one of those decisions that every single person around me was like, are you okay? Is this a good call? What are we what are we doing? What are we going through? And it was amazing. It was so great. And um uh we actually when we decided to come back and like kind of settle in, it felt like we got to have that experience that always felt like a maybe. And now it's not a question mark for us. Like now we know what that life is like, we loved it, we lived it, it was amazing. And um the waiting for it to maybe come someday isn't isn't on the list anymore because we did it.

SPEAKER_01 9:02

So we've talked about like um anxiety, panic, our nervous systems being in like really bad states. Was there I would only imagine that there were like a series of just terrible but manageable things that happened that year on the road. Like I could I couldn't imagine some of the things that happened, right? Wow, but I would hope that it gets you to this spot where you're like, whatever it's like self-confidence. Yeah, like I've got self-agency, we can do hard things. Whatever comes, like we'll troubleshoot it.

SPEAKER_02 9:40

Yeah. You don't get to build resilience by sitting still. Like you have to have some adversity to build resilience. So I'll tell you, second day on the road in this giant, no, maybe third day, in this giant fifth wheel, no clue what we're doing. We're in the middle of nowhere. Middle of nowhere. Um, I think we were, I think we had made it to Wyoming because we had boogied up pretty quick. Uh, we had a blowout on the fifth wheel. Blowout meaning like a tire blew out.

SPEAKER_01 10:16

Um, like the tire blew out. You're like driving on a rim then?

SPEAKER_02 10:21

Well, yeah, you had to like get off and because does it start going like this? Yep, yep, it does, sure does. Especially when you're going fast on like an old street highway. And it's third day. Um third day out. We didn't have a jack that could lift our fifth wheel. Um, we had like one bar of cell reception because again, we're in the middle of nowhere. We're gonna call, and it was gonna be, it was like three hours till somebody could get to us because we're in the middle of nowhere, and it's a specific type of like uh jack that can like, it's not just like triple A who could come out. I mean, maybe it was, but um, and one of my favorite pictures of my husband and my my daughter is actually from that moment because you know what? There's nothing to do in that crisis, like we were all safe. So prior me fight like loves to, and and I think my natural state is to find a reason to like woo! And um really I just kind of needed to chill out and and wait and sit. And you know what, we're all fine. The problem resolved itself, and I'm just such a more competent handler of those mini moments of like what feel like they could be a crisis. And I think a lot of it was because of living that way. But yeah, one of my favorite photos that I have, and it just he just was holding her, and they were like the sun's sun was setting, and I just took this picture, and it was like it's like just the way they lit up, and um, you know, it's something that was like kind of like a ooh, it was a great three hours. We just came out and there was nothing else to do. There was no no wife, there's no cell reception. How often do you get those moments anymore?

SPEAKER_01 12:18

Yeah, you don't.

SPEAKER_02 12:20

You don't very calm. Okay, so that's my story, which I realize is probably a bit extreme. What?

SPEAKER_01 12:33

Well, that's it's it is, and in some sense, it's very like universally applicable, right? Because it was $5,000. You spent it on a thing, but really, you spent it on it, you you spent it on a thing that allowed you an experience. Yeah. So if someone handed you $10,000 today, would you go invest it? Would you spend it? And if you spent it, would you spend it on experience? Like what would you do with $10,000? That could change your life in the same way that this $5,000 bet changed your life.

SPEAKER_02 13:11

We still haven't lived on a boat. So that could I will visit you if you're not. I know, actually, truly, I think um, you know, obviously, we're women in finance. My natural instinct is to go, you invested, of course you do. Uh and investing in life experiences is just as important to me. And so, yeah, I mean, truly, we're looking at because of our experience on the road, we try to duplicate that in like micro doses over summer. So this summer is living in our van for a month, but next summer our goal is to rent a houseboat in Amsterdam and stay on a boat, a houseboat or in in Amsterdam and and just experience a different like way of life for a month. That's probably what we would do. I mean, we're planning on it, so so definitive, yeah. Definitive.

SPEAKER_01 14:07

It's worked. Already done. All right, I will be visiting.

SPEAKER_02 14:13

I yeah, I hope so. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 14:15

Oh, I just I just self-invited in case you missed that. Like I will be visiting any of the date. It's needed.

unknown 14:22

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 14:24

Whereas you uninvite yourself to things, I do love that, and I also love inviting myself to randomly.

SPEAKER_02 14:32

I will invite myself to things too, but it's few. I've invited myself to your house.

SPEAKER_01 14:38

No, you didn't. I invited you.

SPEAKER_02 14:40

I I invited myself and then you uninvited me.

SPEAKER_01 14:44

I don't remember that. With your foot.

SPEAKER_00 14:48

You can have a board, investors, advisors, and still have nobody you can actually talk to about what is really going on. That is not unusual. That is the founder reality. And we step in right there. I'm Tom Powell, and at the founder's office, we're proud to sponsor Women Talk Finance.

SPEAKER_02 15:07

Okay, what's your $5,000 unhinged financial decision?

SPEAKER_01 15:12

Are we calling it unhinged? I don't know. Um, I'm thinking this this was very hinged, but a lot of people, including my therapist, they were like, You're you don't want to do this. So this was actually recent. This was backstory is a couple of years ago, um, my good friend Alicia is part of this like sale club, like this where you it's a membership where you get to do multiple sales around the world. And she was having a big birthday and she rented out a whole boat, like a six-bedroom catamaran, and she was like, I'm gonna fill it with my friends. We're going. So I said yes to that trip, went with her. So that was kind of like phase one. And then at the end of that trip, I went ahead and became a member myself and booked the next sale. And it was booked for this past October of 2025. So we booked it like a year in advance. In July of 2025, I broke my heel bone. You know, if this injury had surgery, had like the screws put in. I went non-weight bearing for three months. And then, right, so July to August to September to October, mid-October was 90 days, and the sale was set for like October 19th. So literally, like October 17th would have been the three-month mark of my surgery. I was in a boot. I was just learning how to walk again, and it was, it did not look pretty.

SPEAKER_02 16:46

Like baby gazelle.

SPEAKER_01 16:50

Yeah, yeah. With like more tears than a baby gazelle. Um, a little more like feeling sorry for myself, a little more okay. So as we're leading up to this, I'm talking with my friend. I'm like, I don't think I can go. I'll talk to my surgeon, I'll talk to whatever. My therapist is like, no, if something bad happens, like you ruin that trip for everyone else. And the sale trip was to Belize. And she's like, and if you have an issue, like this, like, where are you gonna get to a hospital that can take care of this foot that's got hardware in it now that you're not walking on really well? So I said yes, actually. And I was like, I'm I'm gonna go. Lined up like wheelchair assistance at all the airports, packed my boot, okay, this like orthopedic boot to go on a sale trip. And it was about, yeah, we'll call it it was about a $5,000 investment. But it was really an investment again in like my sense of self-agency, like um something different. There's a word I can't quite put on it. Like being proud of myself and trusting that whatever was going on, I was working through it, right? I was still healing, I would walk again. Nothing about my life was gonna be significantly impacted or impaired or slowed down or shifted because of this injury. That's what it was. I wasn't gonna have like a life-changing injury where then the other side of this my life looked really different. It was like an investment in proving to myself that my life's the same. I still have to like recover and heal a little bit, but my life's the same. So I went on that sail trip. It was difficult getting around the boat. It was not that great getting into a dinghy. It was terrible walking on land. There was a day I had to walk up to dinner on land, and I had to like turn the boat. You go have dinner on land. I had my boot, but it was it was tough. And the upside was so, so, so worth it. It wasn't unhinged. It was very hinged.

SPEAKER_02 19:01

What was because you're like, everybody was saying no, and then you're like, so I said yes. What was the thing that made you go, like, yeah, I need to do this?

SPEAKER_01 19:12

Maybe a little bit of fear. Like, I don't, I don't like living my life that way. Um, not to like disregard sage advice and good wisdom, but a lot of people saying, no, you can't, you shouldn't. We don't like we don't like the you shouldn't do that. Um, we don't like shoulding people, we don't like should nodding people hold my hold my beer. Yeah. There was something about um, and I guess I've always been that way. Like, tell me I can't do something, and I think I probably will. That's probably the best way to make sure I do. So those negative voices, I appreciated them because they were coming from a place of love and people looking out for me. And so while there were those voices, um, my own voice was like, I I can do this and I'm going to. So that's you think that's my $5,000 investment.

SPEAKER_02 20:09

Do you think that was part of your physical and mental healing from your from your injury?

SPEAKER_01 20:17

Great question, and a hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. Because your limitations so often are mental and emotional. My the the bone was healed, right? And the soft tissues and everything else, the physicality was still healing and recovering and continues to. Everything else is just like your mental wiring, fear, thoughts, like what could go wrong. And it takes practice to not live in that mindset.

SPEAKER_02 20:47

So I think it's no surprise that both of our $5,000 purchases are really in that like experience category because experience purchases produce longer lasting happiness than material purchases. Uh, and then the satisfaction increases over time rather than decreases. So I go back to that photo that I have of my like I my memory of it gets fonder every year. And I'm curious, like, you're like, do you feel a better relationship with that $5,000 you spent than even in the time that you spent it?

SPEAKER_01 21:33

Yes, and that I I'm proud of myself. Like you said, I get f it gets fonder. I'm really I'm proud of myself that I said yes and did that. I'm proud that I was like brave, I think is maybe the feeling. Yeah. Um, not that I like spent the money, so to speak, but yeah, I'm proud that I was brave.

SPEAKER_02 21:49

Yeah. I'm proud of you too. I know I remember, and it was a really, really big deal. And obviously, I saw you, I didn't see you that soon after, but I saw you not far after that. And seeing you walk, and then I'm trying to visualize you walking on a boat. It that that had to be so hard. And you can do it. And look at like look at how far you have come. Both of us. Both of us. Yeah. Well, and so we're all spending about $5,000, some more, some less. Okay, that's an average. We're all spending that much money on garbage or crap or whatever we don't even know anyway. So I think the moral of this is be proud and intentional on a $5,000 purchase that you make for you, that maybe nobody around you is going to say yes to or understand. Also, both of ours are things that people around us were like, is this a good idea? Is this something we really and like look at the connection we have to those decisions?

SPEAKER_01 23:01

And the the outcomes, it's so important to like have a little conversation with somebody about it and reflect on it and like ask these same questions. Like I spent X amount of dollars. What did it add to my life? Yeah. And and sometimes you can also look at your spending. And if you're if you don't remember, if it didn't really, yeah if you don't have a memory, maybe it didn't add something to your life. And so it's an opportunity to be like, am I spending in line with what I really value and what adds to my life? I would love to hear from our listeners um like what $5,000 decision they would make again, or what $5,000 decision changed their life.

SPEAKER_02 23:45

And I think changing the even like the narrative from spending $5,000 to deploying capital toward an identity expansion. Yeah. That's like think of that. Like this is um you're investing and growing yourself. Um I just yeah, I think we can change the narrative on that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:14

And it doesn't, 5,000 was an arbitrary amount. Um, it could be something like 1,000, 2,000. We're still sizable. You still pause before you go spend. But um, yeah, think about how it's changing your life.

SPEAKER_02 24:28

5,000 came about because that's about what we're all spending on things that we aren't. That's mindless purchases, which is insane.

SPEAKER_01 24:39

Yeah. It's not insane to me. That adds up so quick.

SPEAKER_02 24:43

It does. It really does. Um I mean, how many of us get a package in and you're like, what did I order? It it happens. It yeah, for sure. I think, especially this day and age, I think we're all very guilty of that. So um, all right. Well, we can't wait to hear about your five thousand dollar decisions that changed your life. Thank you so much for tuning into this episode. Yeah, thanks for joining us. I was like, hear that whole story. I hadn't like heard the whole thing yet. So that was pretty exciting.

SPEAKER_01 25:19

Same. I've I don't think I'll ever get tired of anything RV related for you, including your um nickname on the road, which that's not mine to share, but there was a nickname. That's all I'm gonna say. Yeah. So when you are there was a CB radio.

SPEAKER_02 25:36

When you're driving a rig that big, you're on the trucker channels and you have to have a handle. And as a nursing mom, I decided to be the milkmaid. Breaker breaker.

SPEAKER_01 25:51

Milkmaider. Well, 220. I come I come from a family with a grandfather that was two grandfathers that were truckers. So I I am C B, what do you call it?

SPEAKER_02 26:03

C B savvy? Yes. I have a trucker grandfather as well.

SPEAKER_01 26:07

Like we are, I feel like it's like I'm I'm in the community. This is our co-heritage. This is maybe what makes us kin, even before we knew we'd be good friends.

SPEAKER_02 26:18

And you and I send each other the occasional like C B message just out of the blue.

SPEAKER_01 26:26

Not often enough. Not often enough, but definitely like to pick that up.

SPEAKER_02 26:31

Yes, for sure, for sure. Um, yeah, so uh, but also truckers know where the good food is. I will tell you that right now. They know which truck stop diner has the best like biscuits and gravy. And so you need to be in the trucker channel. Absolutely. I'm still in because I need to know which truck stop diner on our family road trips has the best food. They're not gonna steer you wrong.

SPEAKER_01 27:04

Now I know I also am missing out on like leveraging this friendship for multi-purposes.

SPEAKER_02 27:12

For sure. For sure. I've got you.

SPEAKER_01 27:14

I will hook you up. Sweet. Okay, thank you guys for listening. Okay, that was today's episode of WTF.

SPEAKER_02 27:22

If you laughed, learned something, or felt a little left alone, make sure you hit follow.

SPEAKER_01 27:28

And send this episode to a friend who might need it. Women don't gatekeep, especially not the good stuff.

SPEAKER_02 27:33

We'll be back next week with more real talk, more stories, and probably more over sharing.

SPEAKER_01 27:39

See you next time on WTF.