Money Mistakes Hurt | Sarah Brady | Growing Money with Sean Trace

In this episode, I sit down with financial educator Sarah Brady to break down one of the biggest questions people face with money: should you pay off debt or start investing? What we uncover goes way deeper than numbers. 

We talk about how most people never learn basic financial principles, why high-interest debt quietly destroys your wealth, and how emotional habits like guilt, fear, and avoidance keep people stuck financially. Sarah shares real stories from her time as a credit counselor, including how people make decisions based on inherited beliefs rather than facts, and how something as simple as understanding interest rates can completely change your financial future. We also get into the psychological side of money, why your upbringing shapes your financial behavior, and how small habit shifts can help you build stability, reduce chaos, and actually take control of your money over time.

If you had extra money right now, would you pay off your debt or invest it—and what’s really driving that decision for you?

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

I have nephews who, you know, one of them is in his early 20s, and I'm like, I just want to shake him and tell him, like, take all the money that you're earning and start investing, get away from the credit cards, you know. Um, sorry for shouting you out, Brendan. Um, but because I I think one of the things that we're failing at is especially letting young people know if you start out on the right foot, you can really set yourself up in a very different way that I can as a 40-something, you know, that my mother can as a 60-something. Um, you have uh it's not to say that it's too late, right? If you're if you're a little bit more up there in years, but you have a lot more options available to you.

SPEAKER_01 0:50

Uh welcome everybody back to the Growing Money with Sean Trace podcast. At least I think it's the one we're doing today. Uh, I have an awesome guest uh with me today. And can you tell people who you are and a little bit about what you do?

SPEAKER_03 1:02

Yeah, well, thanks for having me. First of all, Sean, my name is Sarah Brady, and I am a money and credit expert. I've been working in financial education since 2013. Had to look at the calendar. It's been a while. Um, I can't believe. And I've been um doing freelance work in that area for the last 10 years. But I got my start as a uh credit counselor. I was working for the NFCC for one of their uh member agencies. And I was also a HUD certified housing counselor. And so my background is working in a call center, talking to dozens of people every day about their biggest financial problems and trying to help them work through what was going on. Um I've also taught workshops about really every aspect of personal finance, as well as some business finance all around the San Francisco Bay Area. And then for the last 10 years as a self-employed financial educator, my main focus has been writing educational content. So I write a lot of articles for different sites. I've written for Experian, Credit Karma, Forbes Advisor, Investopedia, and on and on. Um, just advice pieces about how to manage your money. Uh, you can find stuff I've written all over the internet, and I also love teaching webinars and workshops.

unknown 2:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:35

There's so many levels of that that are awesome, and I'm gonna kind of dive into them one by one. Um, the first one is something that pops up for me that I I'm interested in. It's like I I don't think that there's enough good advice out there. I think that people are at times trying to piece it together and try to figure it out as they go. Yeah. And, you know, one of the things, and it's nice that you're not a I talk to a lot of CFPs, and I want to throw all of them under a bus for a second. And uh here's the thing, and I don't hate me for CFP certification people, but one of the problems that I see, and it's not the profession as a whole, it's the fact that they're trying to make money and that everyone needs to make money in a business. I uh I had uh a CFP that I worked with that just recently had to stop their business because they were in a hugely competitive field, and he's like, I had to join someone else's business, and it's good for him. You know, you gotta, we all gotta do what we gotta do. But the problem is, is like um when you have this, these challenges, right, you get two things that happen. First of all, the CFPs that I know, most of them focus on the A, ultra wealth wealthy, and B, the other problem is that the CFPs I meet focus on um how do I say it? Uh older generations, people that are close to retirement because they have the assets that that can be uh, you know, that help these guys get paid, which is totally great and wonderful. But one of the problems is, and I think this is why I I meet so many CFPs that are like, oh, they can't stand Dave Ramsey and stuff. But I'm like, one of the reasons I think he's so popular is because he speaks to a different, different demographic. You know, like it's like the the CFPs out there are like, I'm gonna talk to you if you've got money. And I was like, well, what about the people that are trying to figure out money? And then maybe not wealthy yet. Maybe you don't have a bunch of assets under management, you know, like under your belt, but you you need this information. So when I hear about people writing in the financial sphere, and for me, this is why I created a financial podcast. I created a financial podcast, not for this side, not for this side, so that I can talk to everyone on the whole sphere, on the whole spectrum. You know, what I am noticing is that there's a huge neglect on one side versus the other, if that makes any sense.

SPEAKER_03 5:13

No, I I mean, I I think I agree with everything you just said. I don't want to throw anybody under the bus, but um Right.

SPEAKER_01 5:20

Don't want to and I'm not trying to throw anyone under the bus at all.

SPEAKER_03 5:23

Yeah, yeah. I I think, you know, there's sort of these two extremes when it comes to a certified financial planner. Um, they're gonna be working with you on things like tax planning, invest investing strategies, retirement planning, things like that, right? Which not everyone is there, you know, if I can put it that way. Some people have more immediate issues that they're, you know, financial crisis that they're in today, struggling to make a car payment, you know, the everyday folks who are dealing with all the stuff that's going on. Um, I was just talking with a group of financial writers the other day about how CFPs, um, there's kind of a hole in the market for services that address blue-collar people who maybe are making good money and don't really know what to do with it, for example.

SPEAKER_02 6:14

Right.

SPEAKER_03 6:14

Um, and I come from the extreme opposite end of that spectrum. You know, given my background as a credit counselor, most of my experience has been working with people who are in crisis, right? So I've counseled people who are living in their car. Um, I've counseled people who are facing foreclosure on their homes. You know, that that I'm giving some of the more extreme examples, but that's really the foundation for me. That's where I come from, the perspective that I come from. And there aren't a lot of people who do what I do that have that perspective. In fact, most of the people who write about money are actually journalists. They don't have a background in financial education, they don't really have any credentials related to finance. So I could go on and on about this too. There's a lot of missing pieces. I will say, fortunately, I think, you know, there's there's good and bad sides to this, but because of the popularity of things like FinTalk, you know, it's kind of dangerous to get into. But there are more people who are trying to speak to the middle. Um, not all of them are qualified to do it, but there are more voices, and a few of them are, you know, folks that I like and I would point people to, but but not that many.

SPEAKER_01 7:34

Right. Well, it's interesting too because it's uh there's just people need guidance. And I think that that's the thing to me that whether you're wealthy or you know, whether you are wanting to become wealthy, and I think that the the spectrum is is is very broad and wide, but yet everyone can benefit. And this is one of the things I focused on in this podcast because uh whether you are wherever you're at, uh financial principles are applying across the board. You know what I mean? It's like how how to get to where your goals, how to get to a more financially healthy place, you know, everyone's working on that. Everyone. I mean, and certainly there are some people out there that are just like absolutely stoic and don't ever make any mistakes. But, you know, I think the most of us are gonna see that thing and be like, hey, I like that thing, you know, and it and how to figure out the ways to to balance some of those. And, you know, when we were talking, I was thinking about different topics um that were interesting, and we had been bouncing some ideas back and forth. But one of the things that I I think is interesting for a, you know, um for people that are getting going, you know, especially millennials and now Gen Z that are getting some student loan debt or have gotten some consumer debt. And the question that people are asking is like, do you pay off your debt or do you invest? And this is something that's a really, you know, a highly debated topic. I'd love to hear your initial ideas as I as I dropped this topic on you, you know?

SPEAKER_03 9:18

Yeah. No, it's a big topic, but it is very pertinent. I mean, um, and I I sympathize with people who are in that place right now where they want to set themselves up for the future, but they're looking at student loan debt. Maybe they're looking at growing credit card debt, and they just don't really know where to start. And of course, for most people, uh, funds are limited. So you only have so much money each month that you kind of get to decide what you want to do with to improve your finances. Um, I think, you know, this kind of brings up a principle about money management that I wish more people knew about, you know, because some of us, so many of us don't have financial education in our background, we just don't know. And it's the issue of being able to compare interest rates. You know, I think if the general public was more aware of how to compare interest rates and to interpret what that means, just in a really simple way about where their money should go, they would have a lot more clarity. So, what I would say for somebody who, let's say, has a little bit of extra money each month and is wondering, do I put that extra money towards student loans or do I put that money towards credit card debt or investments? What you really want to start thinking about is what are the interest rates that you're being charged on that debt? And how does that compare to the returns that you can expect for your investments? Generally speaking, you know, with student loans, you'll want to look at what are your interest rates on your loans. But, you know, as a general principle, if the debt has interest rates of about 7% or higher, you're gonna want to make that your priority, starting with the debt that has the highest rate. And so for most people, that's gonna be credit card debt. Right now, the average interest rate on credit cards in the US is a mind-boggling 21%. And you're just not gonna get returns on your investments, you know, if you're putting money into a 401k, you're not going to earn returns that compete with that, right? So the way I like to think of it is if you're putting money into your retirement account, but you have high interest debt like credit cards, I always play with the analogies about this, but the one I like right now is it's kind of like pouring water into a cup that has a hole in the bottom. Right? Those interest rates, it's like they're leaching your money away from you faster than what you're earning from your investments. So you really want to look at what are the interest rates on my debt? You know, usually if we're talking about federal student loan debt, where, you know, those rates may be lower, right? Maybe you're talking about 6% right now. I think uh what is it, direct loans are around 6 to 7% from the federal government, but you might have private loans, right? So we don't know. But look at what your interest rates are, and that's gonna help you drive those decisions.

SPEAKER_01 12:20

I I love that image too. I there was the other day I saw this video. It was a stupid Instagram post, but it was a joke of this guy. It's like how I deal with problems. And I had a guy and he was standing at the beach and he was trying to mop the ocean, bringing it out, trying to mop the ocean. Yeah, and when he were describing like trying to invest, but also have debt that's hanging over you with a high interest rate, it reminded me of that, you know. And I mean, there's also the the psychological side too. Like sometimes having that that that weight or the emotional side, I should say, it's like when you have that weight hanging over you, you know, the debt of having the the weight of having that debt can be really heavy, you know. Um and the other thing too is like I wanted to ask this question. What emotional or psychological patterns do you see around debt that you know that often hold people back from building wealth? Because I mean, I had to retrain last year, I paid off my consumer debt, I paid off my credit cards, and now I'm trying to thank you. I was very happy about that. I'm trying to use um my cards in a and I I switched over to cards with points and companies that were really easy and transparent to use. And one of the things that was helpful for me was to, you know, just immediately I had to view it as I had to be using them as a debit. So I pay something that was only there in my in my debit account, and then I pay it over just to get the points, just because it's stuff I was already buying for my company, and not buying, like it was subscriptions I had to run my company. That was it, because not just oh, I need this, because I did notice that I was like, Oh, I started like, yeah, I've got this money. And I was like, it that that meant and I was like, but I caught myself and I said, Hey, yeah, that was what got me into the trouble in the first place. And so it was just this whole reframing that I had to do because I saw money in my account. I was like, hang on, hold on. So there's that emotional side that people aren't always ready for, you know?

SPEAKER_03 14:30

Yeah. Well, I think what happens is because so many of us, I keep going back to this, you know, we don't really get any financial education in school. At all. Um, at all. Uh, you know, there's more I could say about that, but um, it's a it's a topic I'm passionate about, uh changing. But because most of us don't have any education and our financial literacy is just so low, like we just have so such minimal understanding of basic financial concepts that would help us navigate everyday life that a lot of us are leaning on instead emotions, right?

SPEAKER_02 15:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:13

Um, and you kind of said that it may be, you know, I can make general generalities or generalizations, but it's a little bit different for everybody. But some of the most common things I see are guilt, shame, you know, avoidance is a big one for people. And a lot of what people do with their money when they haven't had access to education about finances, is they're really reactive to what they saw their parents or their family do. Um, that's one. It took me a while as a credit counselor to realize that when I was talking to people, often I was talking to people who weren't in the room, right? It was like these stories that we have about, you know, what our parents did and the mistakes they made with money, or what a cousin has been telling you about how money works and maybe they're well intended, but they don't really know what they're what they're talking about, right? And so, um, and I don't mean to say that that's what got you into the position that you were in or whatever, but um, but it a lot of folks that I worked with were coming in with that kind of story. And so we have to a lot of us have to make a conscious effort to move through those stories and be able to kind of let the facts start to sink in. You know, here's what happens when you use a credit card and you don't have a plan to pay it off within 30 days and you start getting into a high interest debt trap. You know, here's what happens when you start investing in your retirement when you don't have emergency savings. You set yourself up to need to make really expensive withdrawals from those retirement accounts, right? So there's just some really basic facts. I think for a lot of us, the emotions are so big and so strong that it's hard to sort of push through them and get to what's just kind of the cold hard information about how we should really be managing money.

SPEAKER_01 17:01

I love that because it hits it, it hits it right on the head. Like at the end of the day, this is about financial education. I mean, we could have picked any topic to go into. And the reality is is that we're still gonna be looking at some of the same principles. And it's like the principles of really developing a healthier relationship with money. Uh, because at the end of the day, you know, we are, I mean, the closest thing that you can think of is it's probably sex. And I mean, and not to dive down that topic, but like we, I think people at least talk more about sex than they do about money, which is nuts, you know. No, I'm just remember going through high school and such, and my friends were like, hey, we're gonna teach you about this stuff, you know? And teachers were like, we're gonna talk about this topic that's gonna affect your whole life. You know, and then we had the sex ed classes, but I didn't ever have a friend come up and be like, Hey, Sean, man, I gotta talk to you about this thing. It's called money. You know, and there was no teacher at the front of the class going, hey, you know what? This is an important topic. You know, you make choices now that are gonna affect your whole life. And they should have, because man, I could have started investing at that age, and compounding interest would have been my best friend.

SPEAKER_03 18:11

Mm-hmm. Yeah, I mean, you know, I envy people when I hear that they started a business or started investing when they were kids. It was, it's like, man, you had a great start. You know, I want to know you know what your what your net worth is like now. I have nephews who, you know, one of them is in his early 20s, and I'm like, I just want to shake him and tell him, like, take all the money that you're earning and start investing, get away from the credit cards, you know. Um, sorry for shouting you out, Brendan. Um, but because I I think one of the things that we're failing at is especially letting young people know if you start out on the right foot, you can really set yourself up in a very different way that I can as a 40-something, you know, that my mother can as a 60-something. Um, you have uh it's not to say that it's too late, right? If you're if you're a little bit more up there in years, but you have a lot more options available to you.

SPEAKER_01 19:13

I love that too, because it's like not to say that those other generations, other other people can't, but like like you said, like the earlier start. I um I met I met my friend's kid the other day, and uh and my daughter as well. Like I got my daughter into Muay Thai. And one of the cool things about the Muay Thai class is that they're just they exercise most of the class. It's great cardio, they're doing sit-ups, they're doing push-ups, and then she's doing some self-defense there as well, of course. But one of the things that's interesting is um she's learning to be like her PE classes are horribly subpar, you know. But here she's actually learning to train and to to have some cardio and to stay in shape and her cousins as well. And you know, one of the things that's interesting is it's not about being perfect on the first days, but it is about establishing those habits because yeah, you know, if you I'm I'm 40 something years old right now, and I'm trying to get back in shape. And man, it's I might like I'm if you see me moving around right now, I started back into yoga and something slipped at my back, and I'm just like, my back is hurting right now. And I'm like, dude, I'm not that old, and my workers are all calling me uncle, it and I'm just like, damn. Um that's so funny.

SPEAKER_03 20:36

I just did a yoga class yesterday for the first time, and I don't know, six months or more, and my back was hurting afterwards. Well, I think it's a great thing, right? Yeah, it is. You made the the sex comparison, but I think one of the comparisons I fall back on a lot, and I've tried to get away from it uh more lately, but is thinking about what you're eating and your health as it's tied to food habits and um, you know, physical activity. Because like financial wellness, it's a part of life that we can't really get away from, right? The longer we neglect it, the harder it gets to maybe fix the errors of the past. And yet that doesn't mean that we, you know, it's ever too late. I get really inspired by stories of people who, you know, in their 60s and 70s, start getting into weightlifting and um get really healthy and stop taking all of their prescriptions and all of that fun stuff. But um I think it's similar, you know, I don't want to only focus on people who are in high school or college age, but at any age, it's really important to think about what are just some basic financial habits I can build that I can I can eventually even automate so that I don't really have to be worried about this all the time. You know, I found when it comes To physical activity, if I just make a decision and I work out a couple of times a week, there's so much less noise up here about I'm guilt, I feel guilty, I'm neglecting, I'm not, you know, just the kind of the judgment about myself. And I think it's the same thing with financial wellness. For some people, if you've neglected uh your financial situation for a while, there may be some messes to clean up to start with, but you can eventually get to a place where you automate what's happening with your money. You're practicing good habits, and you don't have to be carrying all this sort of guilt or self-criticism about it, you know, feeling like maybe you're not keeping up with your peers or whatever it is. Um, it doesn't have to be this thing that you're wrestling with all the time.

SPEAKER_01 22:45

I love that. And again, like the fitness example I use a lot too, and I feel it's super cliche. Like you're working out your muscles to get back in financial shape. But it's it works so damn much because the principles of like of fitness are you know, you gotta keep showing up. Like, that's what is important at the gym is to show up. I booked too many podcasts the last couple weeks and I I booked them into my gym time. And I'm I'm not liking life, you know? And so I have to make sure that I I you find that balance, but that's not really on topic right now.

SPEAKER_03 23:25

It is what I will say to people who hear that and they're like, well, I don't really like, you know, physical fitness stuff or whatever. That's scary. I don't like you know, it's turn it's a turn-off, is that managing your money can actually be easier than that because you don't have to break a sweat, right? I can just sit here and do this and make some decisions about where my surplus is going that really improve my financial situation and then shut my laptop and move on, right?

SPEAKER_01 23:57

Yeah. Um now I know I do break a sweat sometimes though when I'm I do break a sweat sometimes when I'm like oh damn. That would look wonderful. I don't know what I bought a cape the other day. A cape. A cape? I gotta tell you. I wore it in my podcast. So, first of all, can I give context? And then I'd love to let you continue because I did catch you off. Um this is why I have to be careful with my spending. It wasn't expensive, luckily, and it was something I budgeted for, but still I bought a cape. My wife sent me this thing that was a celebrity event, and she's like, this is the dress code, and she sent it to me, and it was like a bunch of Zen Gen Z type suits, like these really baggy, like K-pop looking suits. And every single suit had half a cape hanging off the left side, and I was like, God damn. Sounds funny. I was like, Do I get to go to the party that everyone's wearing a cape? And I was like, Is this for real right now? Like, do I actually get to wear a cape? And she's like, Sean, be cool. And I was like, Oh, I'm gonna be cool. Oh, you know it. So I ordered three capes off of like the cheap shopping service here. And um, all right, the first one came and it had it was this horribly god-awful thing. It was like straight up out of the Halloween commercials hangover, and it had these cables that connected from here to here, and these fake like little discs with fake pearls embroidered onto them and around the edges. And I was just like, dear God, I wore it in front of my team, and they're like, Mr. Sean, burn that burn it. And then the second one was a um like a cosplaying, like how like the leather thing. I don't even know what you call that. It's like this fake leather thing that wrapped around that you laced like this, and it had this half half cape where it's down, and like there was like for for sword fighting that you you block their sword with the cape. And the third one was just this full cape that buttoned, and I was just like, and I kept walking in, and I was like, and so needless to say, my wife banned me from going to the event, and she's like, no, no, Sean. And I was like, but I get to wear a cape, and then she got to the event, and she's like, I should she got to the event, she's like, actually, you would have fit in. And I was like, I knew it.

SPEAKER_02 26:22

I knew it.

SPEAKER_00 26:24

But my point being, that caused me to sweat a little bit. Luckily, I budgeted for it. But you know, if it's not a cape, it's something else.

SPEAKER_01 26:34

And I'm I'm making fun of myself here, but the reality is that people do some stupid stuff with money.

SPEAKER_03 26:38

So yeah, you know, it's I've heard probably the dumbest things that, you know, I've got a lot of fun stories from my credit counseling days and from budgeting with people. And I've made some really big mistakes too. So that's that could be a whole podcast. Yeah, one of the biggest mistakes I can think of uh when it comes to finance is one that I made myself when I was in my early 20s. And I, you know, I didn't realize it when I got into credit counseling, but I really think that's part of what motivated me is I realized how simple it would have been for me to avoid that mistake if I had just a little bit of good information. Um, every once in a while I think about it and I kind of kick myself because I really could have set myself up for life if I had made this decision, you know, and whatever. High tight is 2020, but um I can tell you about what it was if you're curious, but I want to know. Come on, don't do that to me. Okay, all right. So this is getting into actually one of the questions you had um shared with me anyway. So I'm kind of jumping ahead. Um it it doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_01 27:50

I was just prepping for our interest rate versus human behavior question. So I don't know if it's that one, but we'll get there.

SPEAKER_03 27:56

Well, it's a it's a little bit about my story, and I think I I maybe just shared kind of a high-level overview with you. So some of this isn't a very happy story, but um but I I believe I shared with you that when I was a teenager, I was in a car accident with my dad, and my dad, uh my dad died in the in the accident. And um, yeah, that was kind of a hard left turn from what we were talking about, but it does connect back. Um so that that's a whole big story that um we probably don't want to get into today, but there was some kind of scandalous stuff that happened related to one of the drivers involved who had a fake license. And there were 72 cars involved in the pileup. It was very dense fog. And so um after that, you know, there was okay, I'm gonna switch to talking about money, which I know for some people kind of feels like a crass switch, but I was involved in a lawsuit for about a year afterwards. Um, and as a result, I ended up with more money than, you know, a 17 or 18-year-old knows what to do with. I had, I think between life insurance and all of the settlements and everything, I had about$120,000. And this was in around 2000. Okay. So that money goes a little farther back then than it does today, right? But at the time, I lived in a uh small city in Central California. Maybe you've heard of Fresno. I don't know. It has a reputation. But at the time, you know, it's wild to think about this, but in a decent neighborhood, you could buy a nice, you know, two or three bedroom single-family home for around$30,000, which is wild compared to what housing prices are now. You know, those homes in that same area are going for more than$300,000. So when I think about the fact that I don't remember who it was, but somebody did encourage me to buy a couple of homes with that money, and I didn't do it.

SPEAKER_02 30:05

Right.

SPEAKER_03 30:05

And when when you think about what that would have done for me financially, I just couldn't conceive of, you know, how will this change the forecast of my financial situation? Right. Today I would have, I could have purchased a couple of homes in cash. I would be generating rent from them, you know, and my financial situation would look a lot different than it does right now. Um, but what happened is uh my mom, who was very well-meaning and didn't quite know how to help me, but wanted to set up an appointment with some um some financial advisors. And I just didn't trust them. You know, they were middle-aged white guys who were wearing suits, sitting behind desks and talking to me about the stock market. And I was like, ugh, I hate, you know, I was very um anti-money, you know. Uh, I don't want to, you know. And so I just, I didn't just like piss it all away. I lived off of it for a long time. I put myself through grad school without any debt. I had jobs, you know, so I didn't do the worst I could have done. Yeah. But, you know, it really goes to show that I especially think about people who come into a financial windfall. If you know already, if you if you understand basic principles of money management, you can really set yourself up for life, potentially. And if you don't, you can just piss it all away, which some of my family members did. So that's my story.

SPEAKER_01 31:40

I have a very similar story. My family had a loss of came into a certain amount of money, a substantial amount of money. It was not as much, but pretty, pretty close. And I went through graduate school, I lived life, and I could have as well invested, and I just didn't know. I had no idea, you know, and one of the interesting things is I find that when I look back on that, I I I beat myself up, you know. But it's like, you know, hindsight is 2020. But I, you know, it's interesting because you see these little things and we sit there and go, well, you know, that couldn't become a good thing, or that's this or that. But one of the things that was interesting is when my family moved up to the Napa Valley in the 90s, my parents were looking at the option of buying a house in the Napa Valley. And at that time it was affordable, like affordable. They were looking at this house, and it was a$300 house, and they had just sold a house and they had some cash. And I don't know which of my parents it was, I think I know who was like, you know, that's so expensive. I don't think we should be spending that much money on a house here. Um, and I know exactly where that house is at, and I know how much that house, you know, now that house is worth probably four or five mil. Easy. And they were they were stressed about spending 300,000 on it, you know? And wow, you know, it's nuts that you their indecision, and I know for a fact that the parent that chose not to go down that path has a not good relationship with money, thinks money is the root of all evil, and their personal beliefs have limited them their entire life financially. And now it's a tough time. And you know, love them to death, but it is what it is. And I think that the that hesitancy, that that worry, that fear, you know, can and a poor relationship with money can set people up. But like that, that looks at the next thing because you know what you said earlier about the interest rate math makes logical sense. You know, you're looking at which one is the more logical thing. Well, this could get you here. But then we have human behavior, you know, and uh the mental stuff. Like on paper, the math sometimes says invest, but real life doesn't always follow the spreadsheet. You know, we get the, you know, like that logical thing would have been to buy that house. And if my parents had had a financial planner worth anything, you know, I don't think they had anyone, you know, if they had any type of advice, a person would have said, you know what, um, in this region, it's only gonna go up. They would have been sitting quite well right now and been in a much better place financially because it would have, they would have paid it off by now with mortgage this long ago, because it was at least 30 years now, would have been completely owned the house outright, you know. But how do you balance the numbers with human behavior in your approach?

SPEAKER_03 34:43

Well, you know, I can speak to the part about doing like one-on-one coaching or counseling with people. And I hope I'm not repeating myself. I may have kind of touched on this earlier. But what I have learned is that in order for people to really kind of make progress in their in their mindset about money, we first have to talk about what that story is that's in your head. You know, you mentioned it, I think it was I I love that you mentioned this about your parents, that one of them had a lot of fear about spending money, right? And maybe they had like a debt is bad. And that was like the bell went off in my head. That that's that was me. And I think that some of us have, you know, I call them money personalities. There's some people out there who have really developed this concept a lot more about these different um personalities when it comes to money. Um, I call myself a hoarder personality. So I'm afraid of spending. Um, when I have money, I really want to hold on to it. And there are pros and cons there, right? So for me, I'm great at saving. I'm really great at saving money, but I'm super risk averse. So when it comes to, you know, um pulling the trigger and purchasing a home or, you know, making a big decision, I tend to sit on it longer than I need to. And I'm a financial expert. So these things still come up for me, right? Um, so I think that when we're trying to reach people with financial information that's gonna help them improve their finances, you know, it's the touchy-feely side of things, but it's important to understand that first and foremost, people have big feelings. They have um maybe their value systems are tied to how they feel about money. You know, I used to be uh very religious. Um, in fact, I was a missionary at one point. And um, the sort of religious group that I was part of was very anti-money, very anti-debt. And it was like any money you have should be shared with a community. Some of those values are really cool, right?

SPEAKER_02 36:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 36:59

But now in this different version of my life, um, you know, it took me a while to realize like money is not inherently bad, which is uh, you know, I believe I think it's a belief that a lot of people have. And that keeps us from going, oh, how do I learn more? Where do I go to? What if I start listening to some podcasts from some people I can trust? Right. Um, you know, if I believe that money is inherently bad and that maybe I'll never be good at it, or that it is wrong or evil for me to be focused on money, that is going to stop me from using it as what it really is, which is just a tool to have well-being in my life, right? And and maybe to to take care of other people in my life as well. Um, I kind of lost my train of thought there. I hope I'm still still. No, you're great.

SPEAKER_01 37:55

Well, you were losing your train of thought. I just knocked out my headset, so I'm naughty at the same time. But I I'm with you. I I mean, I love it though, because one of the things too is I it it it comes full circle. Like, we are highly developed apes that run around thinking that we evolved far beyond our our chimpanzee and gorilla cousins. But the reality is that we still deal with impulses. I remember going to the zoo and I watched a group of chimps like get in a confrontation over a banana. And when I watched that, I was like, Yeah. I was just like, I was like, dude, that was my high school class right there. Like that was every single class that I had with a bunch of guys that were just like, that's my banana. You know, it's like it we sit there and we think that we the the one thing that we have is the ability, the one thing that makes humans special is our ability to have long-term planning, though. Like one of the things in arts and other actually, there's a ton of stuff that makes us special, but you know, I think that that ability to kind of look toward the future and plan ahead. And we have this highly developed ability to kind of forecast and to think ahead and to think about how to protect ourselves from future storms, you know. And I mean, I think if you think about that, that's kind of what we're doing is we're trying to prepare for the inevitable challenges that we face. And I think that it's a great thing, but we have to fight that that monkey mind that, you know, is what a lot of the Buddhists you know will call it. That monkey mind is that it's just like, ooh, I want, I want that robe, I want this, you know. I had to pull the robe back in at some point in time. Um, you know, and I think as well go ahead. I grew up one last thing, I grew up with a very similar religious background of like really the that same parent that uh that was the one who didn't want to buy. And I mean, this was one of the challenges, has a very strong belief that the world will soon end and that we shouldn't have any like, you know, we just gotta be ready for that. And why do we need to invest? Why do we need to think about the future? Because this world's ended. And that really creates horrible financial habits, and you know, and money was always the root of all evil. And it was just like I had to sit there and go, wow. You know, this is this is not so conducive with helping prepare my daughters for college or prepare for retirement and such, you know.

SPEAKER_03 40:27

Well, one of the things that I feel I consider really an asset for me as a financial educator, and maybe you can relate to this, is that I understand where a lot of those beliefs come from, um, from that religious group. And so when I've worked with people who have similar beliefs, I can talk to them about um in a in a non-judgmental way, I would like to think, about how to maybe adjust that view so that you can still have stability, so that you can. A lot of it for me with folks who think that way is about minimizing chaos. Um, because when you're when you don't really believe in tomorrow or preparing for tomorrow, you're really setting yourself up for a lot of financial chaos. You know, your car breaks down, you haven't really prepared for what to do about it. But it's the inevitable cars break down, right? You get sick, you need to take time off work, or maybe you get laid off. It happens, you know, who hasn't been laid off at some point in their career? Um, but if you're not prepared for it, you are inviting chaos, right? And so for me, the way I like to think about it is planning, setting myself up with a really um firm safety net, right? It's not about my goal personally isn't to be wealthy and have nice cars and the flash and the prestige. That's not, I know that's what drives some people, right? But for me, it's like, okay, like let's work within your value system, but also help you get to a place where chaos isn't reigning your finances. Um, you know, you have stability and you don't have to be in this constant worrying about what's gonna happen with money or how you're gonna cover a bill or, you know, taking care of the people you're responsible for.

SPEAKER_01 42:27

Yeah, I love that. I want to ask you one last question. We went all over the place, but I love it. I love this this topic thread.

SPEAKER_03 42:35

I know I have my notes here. I'm like, I don't know how many of these questions we went over, but we talked about some stuff.

SPEAKER_01 42:40

We talked about some stuff, and I love it. But if you could go back, and you kind of touched on this, but if you could go back and give your younger self one bit of financial advice, what would it be?

SPEAKER_03 42:52

Man, that is a good question. Um I would give myself the same financial advice I would give a lot of people. I'm gonna, I'm gonna kind of preface this. Um, what I've learned over the years, in particular for women and even for women who are very well educated, you mentioned having a similar mindset. I'm lumping you into this group of, you know, being well educated, um, but who haven't learned anything about managing money, is I find again and again um what people will say to me is, I can never be good at it with money. Like when I tell them what I do. Oh, I'll never be good at that. And I'm talking, you know, I have a lot of women in my life who have master's degrees, doctorates, you know, they're on top of their stuff. Like they're managing really complex lives, they're sharp, you know. And for whatever reason, they just firmly believe that they will never uh whatever that was. Um, they firmly believe that they'll just never be good at managing money, right? And so now That I've given you a really big preface to my answer, what I would tell myself is, Sarah, you are smart. You're a lifelong learner, you're somebody who enjoys learning about new things. You absolutely can learn how to manage money. And it's not that hard to do.

SPEAKER_01 44:20

I love that.

SPEAKER_03 44:21

You know, if you take an hour, maybe a couple of hours a month to read a book about money from somebody who has credentials, right? I'm giving a lot of people out there on the internet the side eye because for me, the first question is always, what are your credentials? Um by the way, I'm working on getting my CFEI right now. And I'll share an announcement with you because I don't think this will come out until we announce it, which is next week, that I just joined the advisory board for the National Financial Educators Council.

SPEAKER_01 44:56

So that's rad. That's rad.

SPEAKER_03 44:59

But uh going, you know, keeping it in the theme of financial education. Um, it's not your fault that you don't know how to manage money. We have a system that does not give students that education and that praise on our lack of knowledge about how money works and how to control um spending impulses. And there are some really basic things that anybody can learn to do to manage money. Um, you know, almost anybody I talk to, I'm gonna be giving them the same handful of pieces of advice over and over and over again. And if you've got that information down, you're gonna be doing pretty well.

SPEAKER_01 45:40

I 100% agree. And it's like simplifying. Um, you know, you can focus on the basic principles. And if you can start hammering those principles in. Uh, as a second ago, I have an extremely ADD child, and she was on my computer last night and left some tabs open. And as I was sitting here trying to find my questions to see if there was anything else I really wanted to get to, I was like, I need to close some of these tabs, and it loud noises popped up. So apologies for that. But one of the things that um with her, I've been looking at, I'm working on a book and it's about personal finance and the zombie apocalypse. And I talk about this a lot because fun, right? You know, and so I've been framing it as like a kid's story where this kid, my daughter is like living in the zombie world and she's having to survive. And, you know, what are the principles that she has to learn? And one of the things that I realized is as I'm writing this book, money's not difficult. It's like, and you're not bad with it. It's just basic principles you haven't learned. And if you can learn those, you know, I was teaching compounding interest, and I I talk about this story a lot. I couldn't explain that to my daughter except through chickens and an egg. And like if you have, you know, if I have two eggs and I eat them, I will feel happy, you know, in the zombie world. But if I hatch those eggs and it's it's two chickens and a chicken and rooster, and then I still don't eat them, I'm like, I'm just gonna wait, I'm gonna be hungry and scavenge for a little bit and keep the belt tight while I'm trying to find more food. And they grow into a chicken and rooster, and suddenly they lay two eggs. And I'm like, oh, I've got two more eggs, you know, and then I'm I can eat one and one of them I let grow. And then I keep doing that, setting aside some eggs, and I keep eating one. It's not so fun in the beginning, but after a little bit, suddenly I've got, you know, a bunch of chickens and roosters. And I'm just like, now I can start eating more eggs, and it's still okay because all over here I've got these eggs and these roosters that are growing. And so I actually can eat four eggs a day, you know, and five eggs a day. But over here, and like after 20 years, I've got a whole chicken farm. And it and like what I love to talk about this, and my daughter and I love this because it's something that I never got. It was a reframing of that relationship with money. I said, You're living in that zombie world and suddenly you have this whole farm of chickens. Let's imagine that you've created a safe place for them and you've kept the walkers out, right? Um, but like she was and this is this is stuff we talk about. Um, you know, but and and she I said, What if happens when you have all those chickens? And she's like, I can help other people. And I said, Exactly. And I said, You can build a place where you know you can create a chicken farm, create a chicken business, and you can start selling that food. You can start selling it. And, you know, and at that point in time, you're making the world a better place with all of that chicken. And I said, and the same thing is true with money. So you just gotta think about it.

SPEAKER_03 48:43

That's a great lesson. I think tied into that lesson too, you know, for those of us who are dealing with budgets and debt and all of this fun stuff, is that uh the comparison I would make is that it takes something a little different to get started with survival financially than it does to grow. And so it's something a lot of people don't realize is that you've got to eventually switch gears. You know, maybe right now you're trying to get stable and so you're paying off your high interest credit card debt, right? Once that's done, now we're switching gears to the next priority. Okay, once a few of your chickens hatch eggs, okay, now maybe I can um eat a few more eggs here or there, meaning I can go out to dinner or I can take a vacation, right? Right. But then once I've got my emergency savings built up, okay, you know, now I've got a little bit more freedom or what, you know. So there's a process that you go through and you're sort of shifting gears as you go through it, but it's not that complicated.

SPEAKER_01 49:48

100%. And that's our mic drop moment. But where can people go to find out more information about you?

SPEAKER_03 49:55

Yeah, so um I am mostly on LinkedIn because I I mostly provide services for businesses for publications and things like that. But if you would like to connect with me on LinkedIn, that would be great. I'm Sarah C. Brady. And I always tell people this, and folks are usually too shy to take me up on it. But if you have a question about managing money, send it to me on LinkedIn. I will chat with you about it. Um, I might not spend an hour talking with you about it, you know, but I will share resources with you. I will point you in the direction of other um services. You know, I don't like leaving people empty-handed. I love what I do, so talk to me about it. Um, I'm also on Instagram, it's Sarah C. Brady. I'm not there as much because social media makes me feel like I'm losing my mind sometimes. But uh, but you can you can also find me there or send me a message there if you'd like. Um, you know, reach out. There's a lot of resources available, and I'm happy to help you figure out if you're not sure where to go, um, how to find some good information and get things on track.