Only Fee-Only
This podcast interviews fee-only financial planners to learn about how they are helping their clients and serving their specific niches.
Only Fee-Only
#163 - The Me Money Method: Behavioral Budgeting Without the Guilt — with Linda Grizely
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Money advice tends to break down in one predictable place: the messy middle between knowing what you should do and actually doing it this week. That's where Linda Grizely shines.
Linda is a financial coach, speaker, and podcast host who took a winding path into financial services. She brings a rare mix of empathy and practicality for people who feel behind, ashamed, or priced out of traditional financial planning.
We talk about what she learned in sales-driven environments, why advice-only and coaching can better serve everyday households, and how meeting people where they are changes everything. Linda shares how her own life experiences shaped her mission to help the people many advisors overlook, especially clients without the assets for an AUM relationship or the budget for a full fee-only plan. The through-line is simple: clear education, no jargon, and systems that make progress feel possible.
Then we get into her Me Money Method, a behavioral approach to budgeting and cash flow that turns gray-area spending into an intentional container. You will hear the story that inspired it, how it reduces guilt, improves communication between couples, and creates better choices without shaming lattes, shoes, golf trips, or vacations. Linda also breaks down five money personality types and how advisors can listen for cues to tailor strategies people will actually follow.
If you want a realistic way to track spending, build money habits, and lower money stress, hit play. Subscribe, share this with a friend who feels stuck, and leave a review so more listeners can find the show.
Linda's Website: https://www.lindagriz.com/
Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/linda-grizely/?skipRedirect=true
Music in this episode was obtained from Bensound.
Welcome And Guest Introduction
SPEAKER_00How's it going everyone? Welcome back to the OnlyFe-only podcast. And as always, thanks for being here. Today we're excited to welcome Linda Grizzly to the show. Linda is a financial coach, speaker, and podcast host who took a winding road into this career, career changing later in life after wearing a lot of hats, single teenage mom, married mom of three, and a divorced woman starting over. Those experiences shaped her whole mission. She focuses on helping the people most financial advisors overlook, meeting them where they are with compassion instead of jargon. She's also the creator of the me money method, and we get into all of it today. So without further ado, here is Linda Grizzly on the OnlyFee Only Podcast.
SPEAKER_01How's it going, everyone? Welcome to another episode of the Only Fee Only Podcast. I'm Peter Travolo. I'm here with my co-host Brock Buckles, and today we're very excited to have Linda Grizzly on. Really excited to have her share her experience as a financial planner, coach, speaker, and podcast host. Um and I'm sure there's a few other items I left out too. But Linda, welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_02Thanks so much for having me.
SPEAKER_01Yes, you bet. So for those who don't know who you are, where are you located? And uh what's the name of your business?
SPEAKER_02I am located in Carey, Illinois, which is a little suburb northwest
A Late Career Change Into Finance
SPEAKER_02of Chicago. And my name of my business is Linda Grizzly Ventures, but I don't really call my business. I just say it's me.
SPEAKER_01That's awesome. Um so let's talk about you know how you even got into financial planning or had an interest in finance. Did it start at a young age or how did you get into it?
SPEAKER_02I actually career changed late in life. Um, I was looking for a position when I was going through a life change. I was looking for a position at a non-for-profit. I wanted to make a big impact. I wanted to help people. And I long story short, I signed up for the Chartered Advisor and Philanthropy program at the American College of Financial Services, which is a huge mouthful. But basically, it's a program that teaches you all about like lifetime giving, legacy giving, and how to use philanthropy and uh charity to, you know, do estate planning. And once I started diving into that and I saw all the other things that you could do in financial services, it made sense that I could help people through financial planning.
SPEAKER_00Very cool. So, I mean, you've had a few different experiences. You were at some different financial planning firms. Like, how did you kind of get to where you are now?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so now I'm I do uh advice-only advising under a different name. Um, and I'm gonna talk today, though, about my coaching company. So I do uh financial coaching. And I so I worked, I when I first started in financial services, I didn't know that there were all different kinds of financial advisors. I was like the general public, and I thought a financial advisor is a financial advisor and I want to be one. Just like a lot of people think I want to find a financial advisor, but they don't understand that there's so many different types. So the first job I had, I worked under a broker dealer that was owned by a life insurance company. And, you know, knowing your background, you know what that means. I was selling annuities, I was selling life insurance, and it was really a sales position. And I left there and I worked at one of the big brokerage houses and was in the machine and doing like, you know, just grinding through appointments all day long. And again, I felt like just a sales machine. You know, my pay was based on how many things I put into a managed account and how many annuities I sold. It wasn't based on actual helping people and I wasn't establishing relationships. Um, and then I then I started my own RIA. So I've been around the block a little bit. I started my own RIA and was doing advice only, so not even any AUM, not even just fee only, but advice only.
Leaving Sales Driven Advisor Models
SPEAKER_02People pay me for my time, the plan. And then I was recruited away to this big wonderful opportunity that also did not work out. So when I left there, I started thinking about like, how do I, how do I set up the rest of my life, right? Do I want to open my own RA again? Do I want to plug in somewhere? And what I decided was that I really wanted to help all the versions of me that I once was. So I was a single teenage mom, I was a young married mom of three, um, I was a divorced woman starting over. And in all of those instances, I didn't, I wouldn't have had enough assets to work with a financial advisor that does AUM, and I wouldn't have been able to pay them a fee-only fee. So I started thinking, how do I help them? Other than becoming a nonprofit myself, how do I help them? So my answer was coaching. I can charge less and do coaching and set up coaching programs that also are like a combination of bringing money and life together and work on that behavioral part a lot. And at the same time, I do public speaking and I get also paid to speak. And so that supplements my income there. And that's how I'm able to serve that um demographic that's traditionally underserved by financial advisors.
SPEAKER_01So, how are you meeting them with your services and with your coaching, right? Um, kind of what's the strategy behind it and how are you helping people along their way?
SPEAKER_02The the strategy behind it is um I mostly work with people who feel like they're behind, like they should know more by now. Originally thought I thought that was Gen X women, but I found it's really anybody. It can be a lot of different people. Um, but I meet them where they are. And the idea is I meet them with compassion, meaning that like I you're the fact that you're coming to me and talking to me is a huge step. So it doesn't really matter what happened for. Yes, we need to figure out what behaviors got you where you are, or maybe you're in a good place, you just don't know that you are. But the idea that I meet them where they are, I lead with education. So teaching them, understanding that, letting, you know, helping them understand, and, you know, not talking over them, not talking with jargon, but really just helping them get in touch with their finances, with what's going on, understanding, you know, where they want to go. Same in that sense, it's kind of the same as planning, but I don't do the planning part, right? I just help them understand and teach them. But I bring in their personality into the conversation. Because, you know, if someone would have told me as a single teenage mom, you know, oh, invest early, you know, you know, financial independence, retire early. If someone would have said that to me a long time ago, I would have been like, I am just trying to keep my lights on. I'm just trying to buy diapers, you know, I wouldn't have been in my in my wheelhouse. But if someone would have
Coaching People Advisors Often Miss
SPEAKER_02said to me, you know what, can you just save, you know, $50 and put it into an account and promise me you'll never touch it again until, you know, until you're 60 years old, I probably would have been like, fine, I can do that. You know, I'll make that happen somehow. Um, but it's like everybody thinks it's like this all or nothing, like you have to tackle it all. And so I break it down into littler pieces for people too.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. No, that's really cool. I mean, the thing that I like that you said there was that you really focus on meeting people where they're at because it can be intimidating, right? Like a lot of people have this idea that because they're not doing as well as they might be hoping to be to be doing, or they're not able to save as much, or able to afford um a financial advisor on a more formal level that they can't be doing anything. So I like that that what you're talking about makes that, you know, accessible to basically anybody. You know, start small and then you can eventually get there, right? Yeah. Yeah. So um I know before we got on here, you were talking about something pretty cool. You're gonna be talking at the Garrett Planning Network. You're gonna be speaking there about the me money method. Is that what it's called?
SPEAKER_02It is called the me money method, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so I I want to dive into that and hear a little bit more about it because for the our advisors that are gonna be there, I'm sure you're gonna go more in depth. But I'm really excited for the people that are listening to the podcast to be able to understand a little bit more about that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so it's a behavioral-based approach to financial strategy, right? Um, actually, it is a financial strategy, but it becomes behavioral. And the idea behind it is that you set aside an amount of money to spend on yourself. Now, if you're a financial planner, which I think most people listening are planners or advisors of some sort, but when you talk to your clients, you go through their cash flow. You talk about what's coming in and what's going out. And you might put on there like, oh, we spend this going out to eat, we spend this on vacations, we spend this on, you know, I, you know, I'm a golfer, I have a golf, whatever. But a lot of times there's this gray area
The Me Money Method Explained
SPEAKER_02where you don't know where the money's going. It's the void, right? It's just the, the, the fog zone. Where is this going? And a lot of times that's the money that you spend on yourself. It's the impulse buys, the things that you don't really track that add up over time. So the me money method takes that and it puts that gray piece plus anything that you spend on yourself that you might have already listed into its own budget, so to speak. So I hate to use the word budget, but it's a container for it. And what it does is it gives intention to how you're spending that particular portion of your money. So uh with clients that aren't doing financial planning and they're they just need somewhere to start, this is a great place to start. Um, it's good for financial planning clients too, but it it gives them a way to track something that's super easy. And let me just go backward in time a minute and tell you how this came about. So it started because I put my husband on a budget. So long before it was called me money, it was, honey, you have no idea how much money you're spending. And I just want you to be aware. So I put him on a budget and I said, I'm gonna give you this much money every time you get paid, every paycheck, this much money is gonna go into a separate account that's just for you. And then you have to live within the means of this money, right? Live within your means. Anything that you're gonna do has to come out of this. So when you want to go on golf trips and fishing trips, like you have to save up from your money and then spend it then. And here's the thing I track everything. So I already knew how much money he was spending. So
A Budget Test That Changed Everything
SPEAKER_02I wasn't putting him in a restrictive place where he would, where he would be struggling, right? I knew what he was spending, I knew that he'd be able to do this. Okay. But my whole point was is that I would say things like, you know, like I would say something, he'd be like, oh, it doesn't cost much. Like the fishing trip, like we the guys split a cabin, it's like whatever. But the difference was is that when we would go on a vacation together, we would plop down a big amount of money, like say for an all-inclusive trip, and be like, bam, there's the money. And wow, that's a lot of money. But when he's doing it with the guys fishing, you know, he's got a boat, he's got a trailer, he's got licenses, fishing and and and the trailer and the boat and gas and all these fishing poles and lures and whatever, like all these things like add up, but they're not like one big lump. So he's not seeing like all how all they all add up. Anyway, so uh give him this budget, and I say, This is what you're getting. And he says, Are you gonna give yourself the same budget? And I say, Absolutely, sure, same house, same lifestyle, doesn't matter who makes more money, um, whether it's me or him, and same amount. So I come back to him a couple months later, and I'm actually concerned that he's gonna feel like it's restrictive or that I'm controlling, right? I don't, that's not what I wanted. And I said, How's it going? And he said, It's going fine, of course. And I'm like, Okay, tell me more. What does fine mean? And so he says, I'm just making better choices. And I was like, Oh, hold on, tell me more. What do you mean? Because this wasn't my goal. But like you said, it's you know, there's more thought going into it. So he says, Well, for instance, I saw this golf shirt that I wanted, and I had to think, like, if I buy this golf shirt now, I won't have that money to spend on my golf trip later. So he was recognizing that if he says yes now to something, he might be saying no to something later. And if he says um no now, he might be able to say yes to something later. So he's recognizing that and he's having more thought go into the things. So I said, Do you feel bad that you didn't buy the shirt? And he said, No, I don't need the shirt. I've got hundreds of golf shirts in my closet. Um, and I said, Would you go back and buy it now if if if I said go ahead and go buy it? He's like, Yeah, I don't need it. So he really didn't. And then I said, Would you have bought the shirt and gone on the trip if you didn't have the money set aside? And he said, Yes, I would have done both. So it is reeling him back a little bit, but that wasn't the purpose of the the project, right? The project was just to have him realize how much money he was spending. Okay, so we've got great success on his side. He's making better choices and he's understanding. Now we flip over to me. I am the person who always said I can't go on that girl's trip, I can't afford that. Because I would feel guilty if I spent money on myself. Now I have this little packet of face cream, and I'm like, you know, it's a sample, and I'm like putting it on my face. I'm like, this stuff is awesome. I wish I could afford this. I would never it all this stuff is going through my head, and I'm like, wait a minute. I have the money, it's already set aside for me. And I'm like, I'm gonna buy this. And I did it. I bought like the whole entire thing, and maybe you're guys, maybe you don't know what I'm talking about, but I bought like the whole nighttime, the daytime, like the whole entire thing.
SPEAKER_00I know it could get expensive. I know that for my wife. I know it could get expensive.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. But here's the thing I could do it, and I didn't have to answer to myself because my husband was not the one telling me. A lot of people's husbands are the ones telling them, oh my God, don't spend that much on that stuff. But for me, it was me that I was answering to. And now I didn't even have to answer to myself. So it gave me freedom. And so it was equally as mind-blowing for me as it was for my husband, right? Now here's the third layer. The third layer is this. What I didn't realize is him going on um fishing trips and golf trips. Remember how I said I would never go on the girls' trip because I was always like, I can't afford that. I didn't realize that I had like some sort of, I don't know, animosity or like uh whatever you call it, resistance like in our relationship over it. But now that we each had the same aside money set aside, I was like, if he chooses to do that with it, he chooses to do that with it. If I choose whatever I choose to do with mine, I choose with mine, we have the same amount. So it leveled our playing field and it made me feel more content in the idea that we were we were spending the same amount of money on ourselves. Sure. Okay. So the idea is anything that's just for you that doesn't apply to your partner goes from your me money and you have a separate account, or you whether you just give yourself cash and you live off of that, either way. That's the idea behind me money. It wasn't called me money then. It was just like I'm putting you on a budget, right? He says I was giving him an allowance. I'm like, well, there's chores, chores that come with an allowance. So do you want the chores too? He said, No, I'll take the budget. Yeah, no, I'll take the budget. So I said, okay, so now I'm like, wow. So I started implementing this with having clients do this, and I found that it works no matter what your money personality. So I identified five, I identified five different money personality types that I talk about. There's lots of different ones that you can go out there and look for. And I'm not a psychologist or anything, I just identified it by working with different types of clients. So I have um a security seeker, a saver, an avoider, a spender, and a risk taker. And the idea is if you listen to your clients and you hear the things that they're saying, you should be able to figure out which category they fit in. And the idea behind it is by understanding that money personality, it helps you work with them and set up plans and strategies that can work with their personality. Me money works with any of them,
Five Money Personalities To Listen For
SPEAKER_02but it's just a place to start. So I'm gonna stop talking now because I've been talking a lot and let you guys talk.
SPEAKER_00No, no, that's really good. That's fascinating too. So I I guess I have a question too about that. There's gotta be like combinations of different personality types, right? Like you can be a security person that's also a spender that consistently makes you want to be more secure, but then you spend so it's like cyclical. Like, is that part of it as well?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it can be. And people can have separate money personalities. Like, for instance, me personally, I call myself a saver. Like that's where I fit into the money personality. Um, and with my personal finances, but with my business, I'm like a risk taker because I want to do all the things. And I'm sure I feel like I can justify it because it's an investment in my business. So, you know, I have a whole different mindset around it that way. But you can also have a different money personality at different times in your life based on what's happening.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's true.
SPEAKER_01So, on top of the five categories of people, I mean, what else is kind of in the curriculum or in your speech when you're trying to, you know, have advisors identify this or bring it into a conversation? Because every advisor, I feel like they probably have their own kind of style or their own way they like to onboard clients. So, how are you kind of teaching them this through your curriculum?
SPEAKER_02So I teach them what to listen for and what to look for and what the idea of it is. But I always go back to, I remember as a young advisor, not young, I wasn't young, as a newer advisor. I was never a young advisor because I started late in life. But as a new advisor, I remember being in the room with someone who who was met with a client and told them all these things about what they were supposed to do. And then when the client left, they said she's never gonna do that. She's never gonna do what I just told her. And I was like, wait a minute, there's there's something wrong here. Like you have to, you have to go back and you have to like talk to her about what to do. And she was just like, no. And it was like my that part was like there's something wrong with this picture here. So to put it in like an easy sense, if you have someone who's a security seeker and they really want everything planned out to the minute detail, okay. This happens to a lot of people in retirement because they're worried about spending money, right? So they want everything planned out so they know exactly what's gonna happen. Um, not everybody, but just, you know, the security seeker person would. They're someone who you can put on a strict budget and say, okay, you're only gonna spend money on this, this, and this, and you're gonna do this, this, and this, and they're gonna be okay with that. They're also a person who can benefit from having that meme money set aside that's gonna allow them to do the things that they wanna do that they keep telling themselves they can't do. Because having it identified as a line item makes them know it's part of the plan and it's they're secure in it. Now, if you go over to somebody who's a risk taker or a spender who loves to spend freely, and being a spender or risk taker is not a bad thing. There's no wrong money personality. It just means that you're more free-flowing with your money and maybe you like to spend it on other people. Maybe you're a giver spender, not just on yourself. So there's nothing wrong with that. But if you try to put those people on a strict budget and you say you got to do all these things, it's not gonna work because that is not who they are. So you have to find ways to bring that person, reel them back in, right? Reel them back in and get some, get some clarity around it that's not gonna overwhelm them and be something that they're they're just destined to fail at.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's almost like you're tricking your brain at first to realize that there's another way, right? Because what your husband said is like, absolutely would have gone on the fishing chip trip or the golf trip and bought the golf shirt. Like he's absolutely doing both of those. And then by the end of it, he's like, actually, no, I don't actually really need it. So he came to the realization on his own, which for him it's golf. For other people, it might be makeup, for other people, it might be all-inclusive vacations. But I really like that because it's an easy way to structure something that a lot of people make so complicated, right? Yeah. I think that's really I think that's a really good way to put it because so many people are like, well, we gotta, and they try to go too fast too. They're like, okay, we can't eat out anymore, we can't do this, like we can't spend any money, and then that becomes so frustrating that they hate their lives, and then they just go back to doing exactly what they did before. And so there's no progress ever made.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. Yeah. And it it's it can work different ways for different things. For instance, I had a couple that I met with recently who uh who the wife said, the husband said, Oh my god, I can't we spent believe we spent this much money on vacations last year. And she was like, Well, you didn't seem to have a problem with it when we were having fun on vacation. Like, how much is a good amount to spend on vacations? And he's like, I don't know. So I gave them the assignment, like, okay, you guys decide together what is a reasonable amount to spend on vacation per year. And then if you need to set up a completely separate account for it, set up a separate account for it or track it however you want, but come to that agreement because this is their their item of contention right now is the vacation money.
Vacations, Shoes, Lattes, And No Shame
SPEAKER_02So let's let's make an agreement, and then we won't have that. Um, and going back to the me money, for instance, there's different people have different things that they like to do. So I like to talk about shoes because nowadays it's it's it used to be just women, but now it's guys too, because it's all the sneakers, right? The fancy sneakers.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, the sneaker, sneaker heads.
SPEAKER_02So you can talk about like heels and stuff for women, like expensive ones, and then the sneakers too. So a lot of times in relationships, you know, there's like, I can't believe you spent that much money on a pair of shoes, right? But here's the thing if it's your money and it's set aside for you, and that's what you choose and you're saying no to other stuff, then fine. And if you talk about like the latte factor um and the idea that, like, oh, you're spending so much money on coffee, but you know what? If that's what makes you get through your day and makes you feel all warm and good inside, and you want to spend, choose to spend your money on that and saying yes to that, you're saying no to something else, then that's fine. Let's stop shaming people for the things that they want and the things that they love, because if they really want them, they can have them. They just have to say no to other things.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01That's interesting for sure. And obviously, opposites attract, right? So two spouses might have different categories or different languages. What's it like maybe when both of them have the same spending habits, right? Um, how's that dynamic a little bit different when you have to kind of train both of them? Um, and then maybe once when you're out of the room, right? Um, conversations might change because they're the same personality.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I mean, there's all different kinds of dynamics, right? And sometimes it's not just the money part that comes in, there's a lot of other stuff that comes in too. But really, it's just, you know, finding that place to start, figure, figuring out what their money personalities are, what their items of contention are, and trying to solve just those little pieces. Because I think, especially as planners, when you go in, you're, you're like, you want to do the whole big plan and you want to get them all set up for everything. But a lot of times there's all these littler pieces that are emotionally charged that you really need to solve for first. Because it's like when that woman closed the door, um, the client left and said she's never gonna do that. And I was like, this is not okay.
SPEAKER_00True.
SPEAKER_02We need to fix this.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Feels like this solution is just the all-inclusive. You know how much it's gonna cost so you can have unlimited pina coladas and be happy. Right. Like that's that's what we're gonna um uh no, I really like that. I think it's I think it's a really cool system, and I'm looking forward to hearing a lot more about it um at Garing Garrett Planning Network. Hopefully, our booth is close to where you're gonna be speaking or we can dip away and and come listen to it. Um, but yeah, anything else that kind of you wanted to make sure that we got out there as you knew you were coming on the podcast, Linda?
SPEAKER_02Oh gosh, um, I don't know. Really, I there wasn't anything I had intentionally to come. I just like to come and and share my my wisdom and my me money method because I feel like it's a it's something that people can implement too without without even um you know going taking a course or coming to my class. It's something people can just do. Planners can do it and people can do it for themselves. So I love to just share that message because I think it helps a lot of people.
SPEAKER_01I love it. Um, what's the best way people
Where To Find Linda And The Quiz
SPEAKER_01can kind of follow along or maybe learn more?
SPEAKER_02Oh, sure. So I'm active on LinkedIn mostly. I'm also on Instagram and all the other things, but really just go to my website lindagriz.com, l-in d a g-r-i-z dot com, and you can find everything you need there. There's also a money personality quiz, which you are welcome to take to see what your money personality is.
SPEAKER_01Very cool. Linda, thank you so much for your time today. We really appreciate it.
SPEAKER_02Thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_00Thanks, Linda.