Money Mom Podcast
Welcome to The Money Mom Podcast—the ultimate guide for moms who want to take control of their finances, crush debt, and create a life of financial freedom and abundance. Hosted by Rachel Coons, a budgeting expert and mom of three, this podcast is your go-to resource for practical tips, mindset shifts, and empowering strategies to help you manage your money with confidence.
Whether you’re navigating grocery budgets, tackling debt, or dreaming of building wealth for your family, each episode offers bite-sized, actionable advice to make money management simple, stress-free, and even enjoyable. With relatable stories, expert insights, and a dose of mom-to-mom encouragement, you'll learn how to transform your finances—one small step at a time.
Tune in every week to discover how to save more, spend smarter, and feel empowered to create the financial life you deserve. Because when moms thrive financially, families flourish.
Money Mom Podcast
59: The Side Hustle That Changed Everyrthing
This episode is different. No notes. No script. Just me, a mic, and the story I’ve never fully shared before—how I went from a stay-at-home mom trying to save $500 on groceries… to building an online business that changed our family’s entire financial future.
If you’ve ever felt stuck in survival mode, tired of budgeting without getting ahead, or dreamed of contributing financially without sacrificing time with your kids—this is the episode for you.
I share:
- Why I left my career in health insurance
- How I cut our grocery bill by $500/month—and why that wasn’t enough
- The real turning point (and the failed investment that taught me everything)
- How I made my first $1,500 online—and why that lit a fire in me
- The free training that helped me turn a creative side hustle into a thriving business
Whether you’re already running a business or just have a whisper of a dream, I want you to know this: you don’t have to choose between motherhood and money. You can do both.
🎧 Tune in now—and if this resonates, make sure to register for the free training that changed everything for me: https://www.jameswedmoretraining.com/a/2148113050/LcoDSfh7
Mentioned in this episode:
💻 [Free Training] Rise of the Digital CEO with James Wedmore: https://www.jameswedmoretraining.com/a/2148113050/LcoDSfh7
📲 Connect with me on Instagram @heyrachelcoons
xoxo,
Rachel
Where to find me:
Instagram: @heyrachelcoons
TikTok: @heyrachelcoons
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Welcome to the Money Mom podcast, the show where we empower moms to take control of their finances, break free from money stress and build a life of freedom, confidence and abundance for their families. I'm your host, rachel Koons, mom money mentor and your personal cheerleader on this journey. Whether you're here to save money, pay off debt or dream bigger for your family's future to save money, pay off debt or dream bigger for your family's future, you're in the right place here. We believe that being a mom is already a full-time job, but your role in shaping your family's financial success is just as important. And the best part, you don't need to sacrifice everything to start winning with money let's get started. This is the Money Mom Podcast. Money let's get started. This is the Money Mom Podcast. Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Money Mom Podcast, this episode. Well, I'll just say this Normally, when I record an episode, I just kind of like jot down the points that I want to make and how I want the episode to go and flow and what I want to share this episode.
Speaker 1:I did not do that Intentionally. I decided to just hit record without any prior thought because I really want what I share today to come from my heart, not from my head, and I believe that if I share everything that I'm going to share, it will get into the ears of the people that need to hear it and it'll change the lives of the people that it needs to change. The reason I believe that is because, when I look back at my story and my journey in life, it was always the little tiny decisions that I made that changed the trajectory of everything, and I firmly believe, with everything in who I am, that we are meant for something in this life and we are meant to impact the lives of the people that we impact. We're meant to do the things that we do and, just you know, all of the domino pieces that have to fall and and fall into place for me to be where I am today didn't happen because of some random thing. It was all put together for my good and has led me to where I am today. So that's a little bit about. What I want to share is my story and how I have come to where I am financially, emotionally, physically, all of the things Because I think most women out there are looking for something more. They are looking for a deeper sense of purpose, a deeper sense of belonging and alignment with who they are. And if I can share my story and what's happened for me and how everything has changed in the past five years, if I can share that and have someone else be inspired or feel like they could take the one action that could change everything, then this episode will have been worth it and my story, hopefully, will resonate with you if you turned on this episode in one way or another. So let me share a little bit of background so this isn't so elusive. And like, what is she even talking about? Back in 2020, well, okay, we're gonna start before that.
Speaker 1:Back in 2014, I left my job as a health insurance agent. I sold health insurance. I was one of the best insurance agents in my office, in fact, if not the best, I had the best numbers out of everybody in my office. But I got pregnant and decided that when I had my son, caleb in May of 2014, that I was going to leave work and stay home with my son, and in doing that, I decided that I wanted to live a different life, one that did not include me bringing home a paycheck so that I could then be home with my children. That was more important to me at the time and, in doing so, left a little bit of what I felt like was my financial contribution to the family, and not that I just like turned off that switch, but it was like no, something is more important to me and that is raising my children than helping us be able to hit financial goals and create this life that we had dreamed of. That was put on Brad. That was Brad's now. It was his burden to deal with. So he went through professional school, graduated from professional school, started working and making pretty good money. And it wasn't until 2020, and I've shared this before in probably other podcasts, but it wasn't until 2020 after I had had my fourth child. I have four kids.
Speaker 1:After I'd had Rocky, my youngest son did something change within me where I finally felt like I had a little bit more capacity and energy and emotional stamina to be able to help us out financially. And it looked very simple at the time. Again, I just had my fourth baby. It was COVID. So my oldest was home from school. I was homeschooling him, trying to run the family and keep everyone happy.
Speaker 1:But I at that point was like, hey, if we want to be able to pay off the debt that we're in, if we want to be able to buy a house. We live in Northern California where the cost of living is very expensive. If we want to be able to do all of these things, then just solely relying on Brad's income might we could get there. But it's going to take us longer and there's just a lot of burden on him for our goals. And so I decided at that time hey, I'm going to try and help us out financially, and not in the fact that I'm going to go out and get a job, but I'm going to do the most with the money coming in. I'm going to step into this role of an empowered financial CEO for our family and that normally means for a stay-at-home mom someone who isn't working that means they're budgeting day at home mom, someone who isn't working, that means they're budgeting, they're doing the most with the money coming in.
Speaker 1:But budgeting felt really overwhelming to me. If you know me, I do not like numbers, I do not like crunching numbers, I do not. I'm not really that great at attention to detail. I'm pretty good at math, but like the thought of budgeting and having to like track all my spending just felt super restrictive and overwhelming and I didn't want to do it. But when I looked at our spending and all the different categories we spent in, you know, rent was like $2,200 a month, health insurance, I think, was like $1,600 a month and the next highest expense was groceries. We were spending $1,200 a month on groceries for a family of six and again, if I'm going to just cut out all budgeting and just focus on that one budget, it felt like I could actually make a difference in our financial trajectory and so, through a lot of trial and error, I was able to cut our grocery spending down by $500 a month. Now, for someone who wasn't bringing in an income in and didn't work out of the home and wasn't able to help us that way, the saving money on groceries adding in $500 extra a month kind of lit my fire and got me really excited about. Well, I don't actually have to have a job to help my family financially. I can, you know, really, really crunch numbers and make sure that our spending is in control Every budget is in control and I started to share that online. This, again back in 2021, was when I started sharing the grocery savings on my Instagram. I had started an Instagram in 2020.
Speaker 1:Again, I was home with four kids and I was like I need some creative outlet. I need to do something more than just being home with my children and posting like easy, fun dinner recipes for other moms going through the same thing. I was felt like really fun. I did not start posting on Instagram because I wanted to create a business and make money from it. It was literally just a creative outlet and I thought, well, maybe on down the road, later on down the road, if this does something, if I get followers, we'll see what happens from there. But it was really just something fun for me to do, and so I started posting on Instagram and I started posting about our grocery savings. I started sharing about how we were saving $500 a month, and these are the things that we're doing. This is how we're saving money, I'm saving time, I'm saving energy. I feel like feeding my family is easier than ever before, and that caught on like wildfire. Obviously, so many people struggle with this issue, and so I was getting messages all the time.
Speaker 1:My reels were taking off and going viral and started to build this following and through this process, you know, fast forward maybe two years later in 2022, we kind of hit a culminating event with our finances in our family, where we had just put a down payment on a home that was very expensive and my husband, brad, had just purchased a dental practice in our town. So not only do we have student loan debt, we now have house debt, which is not considered bad debt, which is not it's not considered bad debt, but it is debt. We have house debt. We also have now a practice debt that we purchased. So you're looking at millions of dollars of debt that we are now sitting in and it just felt like the money was leaving our bank account like crazy every single month and again back in that same position.
Speaker 1:Stay at home, mom don't want to have to go out and get a job. I'm doing the most with the money coming in. I'm really focusing on saving the money where we can. We're really frugal in every area that we could. I was driving like a 2011 Toyota Sienna. That was literally the biggest POS you will ever see. It smelt bad. It was cloth seats and you know I owned it because I didn't have a car payment. My Brad didn't have a car payment.
Speaker 1:We kept our monthly expenses really low, but there was something wrong, and that thing was that we could not save our way to financial independence. We could not cut any more money from the budget. Yeah, we probably could like take out, go on less date nights, do less takeout runs, that kind of thing, but it didn't feel like the $50 or $100 we would save every month. That's actually not going to help us get out of a million dollars of debt. Right, that's not going to actually change our financial trajectory. You cannot budget your way to wealth.
Speaker 1:I really, really firmly believe that there's another shoe that has to drop, and at the end of 2022, I realized like, okay, I have a little bit of a social media following, I have this skill that I've been able to accomplish and help lots of families be able to save money on groceries. And so there's another thing I need to integrate into our life and that is a side hustle for me something that I can go out and do from home, still working from home, still being with my children, still being a present mom. But also could I bring in some income, because, again, brad's income, like it was kind of like he was making what he was going to make, but could I help us financially now by adding in income. So I've saved $500 a month on groceries. I'm budgeting as much as I can, but if I could bring in $500, $1,000 extra dollars every month that we could then turn around and help pay off debt or help invest into our retirement, that could change everything. And so, in 2022, I went out and I hired a business coach because I had no idea what I was doing right.
Speaker 1:Owning an online business or starting a side hustle is kind of like one of those things where you're like, yeah, I could waste time and energy and spend thousands of dollars trying to figure this out, and then it could leave me making no extra money every month. Or I could, you know, take the fast route, invest in myself, invest in some type of exterior coaching that could then teach me. You know, success leaves clues, and if other people are successful doing this, then why couldn't I as well? So I hired a business coach. That business coach didn't really pan out. It was one of those investments where I wish I wouldn't have invested in the money that I did, but I still believed in myself and I still believed that I could create something that could make us some extra money every month. And I had no idea what that looked like or what that meant. But again, like you know, if I could make a couple hundred dollars from my Instagram or sell something simple on Instagram and make some extra money, that sounded really, really fun. Something simple on Instagram and make some extra money that sounded really, really fun.
Speaker 1:And after hiring that business coach and falling flat with that and felt like I had invested all this money and not made anything back, I decided to go back to the drawing board for myself and I started selling really basic meal plan guides. In fact, I still sell those same meal plan guides today. It takes my shop method and it breaks down how to feed your family, what meals to feed your family, what ingredients you need to purchase, so you could save money within one month of following these meal plan guides. And I sold that first round of meal plan guides online and I think I made I can't remember how much it cost, but the great thing about these meal plan guides were that I did it all online. So I think I paid like $100 for Canva for the year. I created the download. I put it into some easy software online where I could sell, so I probably invested $200, $300 in software, but then I came out and I made. I think I made like $1,500 the first time I sold these meal plan guides, the first time I sold these meal plan guides.
Speaker 1:So for the first time I was now budgeting, being really smart with our money, and I was making money. So I was doing both of those things, pulling both those levers, and something clicked within me where I was like I don't have to just be a stay-at-home mom, I can be a stay-at-home mom. I can be a stay-at-home mom and I can also help us bring in income. And with so many moms that I see who are stuck in this budgeting world, again, nothing wrong with budgeting. It's a beautiful place to be, but it's not the only place to be, only place to be Like. There are so many ways that moms who stay home can bring in money and income and we teach a lot of those ways inside Money Mom Club, because I really do believe when we can add these two together, that's where we really can move the needle on our finances. That's where we can really start to pay off debt in bigger quantities.
Speaker 1:So things start to happen faster and for the first time I felt like, oh my gosh, I get to be the mom I want to be. I don't have to pay for daycare, I don't have to leave my house in order to bring money in, and that was just like complete flip of the switch. In fact, we just had a member in the Money Mom Club post in the Facebook group where she had made I think she made $1,000 after learning about our side hustle gigs and things that she could do, and she, at the end of it, she said this is amazing because it changed my mindset, where I believe, now that I can actually find money, that there's money to be had, that if I just put in a little bit of effort, change the way that I view the things in my house or my time, I can bring in a thousand dollars in one month, and so that's what happened to me. That's exactly what happened to me, and that's one of the reasons we teach it in the Money Mom Club is because I this is the journey that I went on right. It started with grocery budgeting and then it turned into intentional spending and then it turned into how can I bring in some extra income and at the same time? So now we're looking at 2023, early 2023,.
Speaker 1:I was introduced to a podcast, an online business coaching podcast, and the name of the guy who runs this is named James Wedmore. If you follow me on Instagram, you might have seen some of his stuff, because listening to his podcast changed my life. It's one of those like again, synchronicities, those one tiny decisions that changes everything, because once I was involved in James's world and one of the things that James coaches on so heavily is that you get to create the business that you want that works with your life and with your own goal. This isn't a hustle culture. This isn't something where you know you're going to lock yourself in working more, seeing your family less. It's creating a vision of a, of a life that you want to live, and this idea that I could build something that made us good income but also stay home with my children at the same time felt like it was.
Speaker 1:I'd never heard this before. I'd never heard this idea that we can do you can do both, that you don't have to give up one or the other. And I'm not saying this is for everyone. This isn't. This isn't for somebody who has no extra time. This isn't for somebody who doesn't want to show up and work, because there's definitely work involved, but the payout of what is possible is so much bigger and grander than I'd ever expected, and so James invited us at the time to join one of his trainings that he does.
Speaker 1:He does it every year and it's called the Rise of the Digital CEO, and it is a three-day event full day and it's not full day, it's like three hours for three days where he talks about how to build this business machine. And I was like what the heck? It was free, so why wouldn't I join this free event to learn about business? Because, again, I had no idea what I was doing. I had no idea. I wanted to be able to make money from home, but I didn't know what that actually looked like or how to build something where I wasn't wasting thousands of dollars every month in investments that didn't give me money back. I wanted to be really smart with my money because, again, we didn't have a lot of extra money every month that I could just throw around.
Speaker 1:With this dream and this vision that I had right, and so I joined the Rise of the Digital CEO Again another synchronicity moment where it was like that training changed my life forever, because, fast forward three years. Two years from there, I have now built a business that is bigger and better than I had ever dreamed of, and the whole experience along the way of learning about myself and building something for myself is so empowering to me, whereas before I wanted something more. I wanted to be able to help our family financially, and I pulled a lot of different levers, but it wasn't until I pulled this little side hustle lever of bringing in extra money that things really started to change for us, and and so I want to speak to you. If you are someone who has had this same thought, has felt like you don't even need to know what that business looks like, you don't even need to know what you would do, but if you've had the thought that I could create something that brings me in money to help my family, and I have some type of talent, some type of knowledge that other people don't have, that other people would pay for I mean, we're looking at weird. Like I literally tell I literally sold. Weird. Like I literally tell I literally sold.
Speaker 1:I literally sold an online community to help people save money on groceries. Like, have you ever heard of that before? It's like when I would tell people that they would be like whoa, yeah, I mean, that makes sense, right? Because so many people spend more than they want to on groceries, and I built a business and an online side hustle from that idea. It could be anything. If you're a mom and you're cooking dinner for your family every night, why not help other moms do that same thing? If you have a niche in the market, you could create something that makes you money every single month.
Speaker 1:And joining that one. Training in 2023, june of 2023, I still remember sitting at my kitchen table listening to this training, listening to James talk about how I can have a good, solid family and show up for my kids, and I could also bring in money. It felt like something in my soul opened up and it ignited me and it excited me and it gave me a deeper sense of purpose. I love being a mom, but it doesn't fill every single cup that I have, and owning an online business and being able to do this from home filled a different cup that I didn't know was empty, and if you are someone who has this desire, wants to be able to do something like this and it can look completely different than how I do it. There are so many different types of ways to do this and it can look completely different than how I do it. There are so many different types of ways to do this. Come join this training. I'm going to invite you to register for the training that he is doing this week. It starts on May 29th and, if anything, just come and listen and see what he has to say and see if it resonates with you and what you could potentially have as well.
Speaker 1:Because, like I said, there's only so much we can do in the budgeting space to help us financially. We have to also think about how to bring money in as well, and that's why one of the reasons why I transitioned the Shop Society to the Money Mom Club at the beginning of the year because the Shop Society was all about saving money on groceries. It was all about this budgeting aspect in with the side hustle, the investing the money growth aspect. You know, if you think about a bucket and your finances, the water pouring in every single month is the income, but everybody's bucket has holes in it and those holes are your expenses. So if we fork and then water pours out of that bucket right through the holes, so we've got water coming in, water leaving in the holes, and when we budget, we're purely just focusing on closing up the holes in the bucket so that we keep water in the bucket. But if you can also clog holes but also increase the amount of water coming in, your bucket can then overflow with water, overflow with money, and that's why those two things are so, so important Increasing income budgeting as well and so this is an opportunity for you.
Speaker 1:If it's something that you've thought about or something that you've watched me do and you've said I want to do what she does, I want to. I want to create something for myself. This is where it starts. I've seen a lot of business coaches. I've been a part of a lot of different. I've listened to a lot of different podcasts, been a part of a lot of different masterclasses, and James by far I would back him 100% and what he does and how he coaches and how he helps people in the online space is better than any other coach I've ever seen. And it all starts at this training, but he only does it once a year, and the reason I don't talk about it very often and talk about my own business and what I do very often is because this only happens once a year and I don't want you going out and paying for a different business coach or signing up for a different training, because this is the one that I think will get you there faster and easier than any other opportunity. And so I share it once a year, I talk about it once a year, I share my experience, my personal growth and business growth, and it all started at this one training. So I'm going to put the link below that you can go register for this training. I'm going to be there, I watch it every single year because, again, I learn so much every time I join this training. I'm going to be there, I watch it every single year because, again, I learn so much every time I join this training and I always want to learn more and see if there's blind spots that I have that I don't know. And even if you're just starting from scratch, even if you don't have anything you don't even have an Instagram following, you don't even have an idea to somebody who maybe even has a business that's running, but you want it to run better and you want to be able to make more money in that business anywhere in between. Of that this is the training for you and I'm going to put the link below register for it. I will see you there If you have questions for me.
Speaker 1:One of the reasons I like to talk about side hustles and bringing in money is because I'm really passionate about it, because I get really excited about it. You can ask my members of the Money Mom Club the month that we talked about side hustles like there was so much freaking energy on those calls, because I get so excited about this opportunity where most moms don't think that they can do this. But when you start bringing in extra money every month and it doesn't take more time and energy and it doesn't feel exhausting and it doesn't feel like you have to give up time with your children, like you're unstoppable baby, and that's why I wanted to share this opportunity. So if you have questions, reach out to me, happy to answer any questions that you have and I hope I see you at the Rise later this week. Okay, we'll see you guys later. Have a wonderful week. I'll see you in the next episode.
Speaker 1:Thanks so much for tuning into this episode of the Money Mom podcast. I hope you're walking away feeling inspired, empowered and ready to take the next step toward financial confidence and freedom for your family. If you've loved today's episode, it would mean so much to me if you'd subscribe, leave a review and share this podcast with another mom who could use a little extra encouragement on her money journey. And don't forget to connect with me on Instagram at HeyRachelCoons, or you can join our thriving money mom club for even more tips, support and resources to help you save, spend and build wealth intentionally. You've got this, mama, and I'm here to cheer you on every step of the way. Until next time. Remember, every dollar you manage with purpose is another step toward the life you've been dreaming of. I'll see you back here soon on our next episode.
