I have a very, very so if you've been listening to the podcast for a while, you know that I don't do a lot of things. I just don't feel like it adds a lot of value for you. And that's my point. That's why we are here because I'm served, but I want to add and give you what you have heard from many of you over the past 130 episodes. And it's clear that you enjoy my fellow episodes. And once in a while, you also enjoy hearing from other people, but not necessarily a interview guy. So today is one of those times, one of those rare occasions where I do have technically she's a guest, but uh we're just having a conversation, and it's a very meaningful conversation. I'm replaying one of the lives that my colleague Shannon from the board and I did a couple of weeks ago. And Shannon is a financial mindset coach and educator, and what we talked about, we've heard so many, so many, we've gotten so many comments from people around the value of it. And our topic was how to make your money work for you rather than you just working for your money. Because the problem that both myself and Ken see when we work with high-earning professional women is that we're so focused on getting and having a good salary that we wind up working for our money and not necessarily thinking about and being strategic about how do we retain some of that money, how do we use that money to build generational wealth, and how do we make sure that our money is earning money? Not just us working for it every day, but how can we make sure our money is working for us? That's the gist of today's conversation. So grab your cup of tea or your cup of coffee or an alcoholic beverage or two. And let's get into it.
Shannon and I have been so excited as we were ramping up to have this conversation. Um, and that's exactly what it's going to be today. It's going to be a conversation, both from our personal experiences as well as our professional experiences. Now, let me just be 100% transparent before we introduce ourselves. Shannon is my BFF, well, close to my BFF. So Shannon and I know each other off of any of these platforms. We are in a group program together and have been getting to know each other for the last several months. So we may have an insider joke or two that we'll let you guys into, but just in full transparency, we are colleagues as well as friends. And so it is my unique pleasure to be able to collaborate with Shannon on today's topic. And today's topic is actually one that is near and dear to both of our hearts. Today we are talking about how to make your money start working for you rather than you working for your money. And the reason why we both thought this would be really, really interesting to our uh colleagues out there is that we have all spent a great deal of time and effort and investment, financial and otherwise, to position ourselves to be able to earn a decent salary, a decent income. And we've had dreams. Our parents had dreams for us. We've had our own dreams to land good jobs, to be able to, you know, uh out earn our parents, to be able to give back to our family members who they, for whatever reason, they themselves have not been as fortunate as some of us. And we've been able to do that for the most part, right? There's always an opportunity to earn more, but for the most part, we've been able to do that. And what I have experienced personally, and I've seen so many of my clients do, is we start earning good money on paper, but when it comes to whether that money is working for us, it's not doing, it's it's not doing its job, right? We we we will earn money and we will start purchasing nice things, but not necessarily nice things that pay a return in some way, shape, form, or fashion. So Shannon and I thought, hey, why don't we have that conversation? Why don't we call that moment, first of all? But then second of all, why don't we talk about some of the ways in which mindset about money, how we feel about money, our background, our history around money has influences who we are today, as well as what are some of the things that those of us who are employed or who are earning a good income, how can we reposition ourselves and make sure that our money is also working for us? So I'll stop there. That's that's my little intro. Um, and if you are here, say hello in the chat. Let me know where you're from. Hi, Christy from uh Florida. Nice to have you here, where you are, who you are, and where you are dialing in from in the chat so we can say hi to you. And while we're doing that, I'll turn it over to Shannon if you want to just do an introduction, Shannon, of yourself.
SPEAKER_00Sure, sure. Thank you, Dr. Nicole. I want to reiterate something that Dr. Nicole said that this is strictly going to be a conversation. I think it's really important for folks to understand that we're gonna be talking about our personal stories. We're gonna be talking about money. And I know money is funny in our society, right? We don't like to talk about it openly. We barely talk about it openly in many of our families, let alone amongst complete strangers, even friends. So be very mindful of what you're feeling, what's coming up for you when you hear some of the stories that Dr. Nicole and I are going to share about our personal experiences. And of course, be really respectful of anything that you hear from anybody else in the comments. I think it's very brave to bring this up, but the reason why we have so many struggles with money is because we don't talk about it, right? We don't talk about it openly. So we're trying to extinguish that stigma, open up the channels for conversation, and share what we've learned over the years with our personal experiences. So my name is Shannon Burrmord. I'm a financial educator and money mindset coach. I was born and raised in Canada, but I now live here in the United States and New Jersey. I've been here for more than half my life, let's put it like that. So I don't even know the math, but I've been here for more than half my life. One of the key things that I want to share with you guys is that my parents were immigrated to Canada. And they grew up poor and immigrated to Canada. I did not grow up poor, but I grew up under the auspices of people who grew up poor. And I'll explain how that impacted me and what I learned about money, their values around money, and what they imparted upon me and what I had to unlearn as well as what I had to learn. Okay. And so I want to share that with you. And then, of course, I'm also an immigrant because I immigrated to the United States when I went to grad school, and I've been here ever since. So all of those experiences and money comes into play. And I think that we can start off by sharing our experiences, how I came to learn about money. Um, and Dr. Nicole, I think that you want to share your experiences as well, and I think we can go ahead and start. So I I want to uh turn it over to you and feel free to to start sharing whatever you feel comfortable with, and we can go from there. Okay.
SPEAKER_01All
right. I didn't introduce myself. I jumped right into the conversation. So let me introduce myself really quickly. Let me introduce myself really quickly and then I will um share my background as well. So my name is Dr. Nicole Bryan, and I am an executive leadership psychologist and coach. I help black introverted women land their executive roles, their senior leader and executive roles, and be successful. So I always call it I let you slay, slay from the executive suite. Um that's me. And similar to Shannon, my parents were also immigrants to the United States. They both came come from Barbados. I was born here. I was the first in my family. I'm the youngest of my of my siblings, but I was the first born here. So I always say that Bajan blood, Bajan blood runs through my veins, but Brooklyn runs my heart. So I'm I was raised in Brooklyn, New York. Right? Um, but you know, when I think it's a common experience, particularly when you are from an immigrant family, that there's a lot of a lot of feelings, a lot of thoughts, a lot of practices around money. I will say that in my family, um, we were, I guess, you know, by by the United States standards, we were blue-collar workers. So both my parents worked, they were hourly employees at, like my mom worked at Woolworth, for example. My dad worked in a factory. So combined, I would say we we earned like one set, one decent salary with with both of them, both of their salaries combined. So I I came from a household where we didn't have a lot of excess, right? But um, and you know, you had like one special gift, for example, on Christmas. We had like 10 gifts, like some of my stepchildren, we gave them like many gifts, but we had one special gift. And so that's just, you know, we had enough to stretch, not enough to live in excess, let's just say. And because of that, I was always aware of what things cost because that's what was talked about in my household, you know, when it was time to go on a school trip. Well, how much does it cost? Because that mattered, because it was outside of the budget that we had in our household for that week or that month. So that that's the type of environment that I grew up in. I wouldn't say that there was shame around money. It was just very always front of mind. There was always a discussion about how much things cost, not necessarily about what we can do with the money, right? It was more about budgeting versus how we can have this money grow. And I want to be clear, my parents, they had already been successful. Just being here in the United States, leaving Barbados, coming to the United States and raising their family, they already surpassed the dreams that they had for themselves and that you know their parents had for them. So they were already successful, but things were always very, very tight. Um, and um we we were constantly having to stretch, uh, stretch money. What that meant for me was I always wanted to earn a lot, right? Like I was like, I don't want to think about a damn budget. I don't want to have to worry about if I can buy, you know, 10 packets of potatoes versus, you know, have to wait for things to go on sale. Like I just wanted to be able to spend, be able to spend without having to budget all the time. Which, for example, when it came for me choosing a career, the very first career I wanted to be was a teacher. Then I found out what teachers earned, and I was like, hell no, that's not for me because it's not make enough money, right? I'm gonna keep going until I can, right? So the you can see the pattern of how my experiences as a young person kind of informed my beliefs about money or my, you know, um, my experiences with money, and then informed what career that I ultimately chose. Ultimately, I became a human resources executive and I wanted to go all the way to the top, not necessarily because I wanted to help more people. That came, but the original, you know, impetus for me wanting to take my career all the way to the top was because I knew that the top people were earning the most money, just being honest, right? And so that's kind of how it has played out with me. I I have more to share in terms of decisions that I made along the way, but that's kind of how my mindset came to be. I will say that I eventually, one of the reasons why we're having this conversation today is when I got exposure to money and I started to understand not the power of earning a lot, but the power of that that money could give me in terms of making decision making, like options, choices, my mindset started to shift about money. It wasn't necessarily about how could I earn more, was more, it started to shift to, okay, what can I do with it? What can I impact? Can I make with it? How can I stop earning and start building wealth? Like it's my my um the way I thought about it and what I wanted to use. I thought of thought about money as more of a tool that I had access to versus the end all and be all for, you know, my my identity as a as a black woman.
SPEAKER_00So there was a shift there when you realize, okay, it's not solely about how much income you could generate, but your net worth that could and the wealth that you could create that could allow you the options. I'm not sure if you had the similar experience, but I too realized that, okay, I needed to make money because the way that my parents looked at money really hindered my experience, right? Because they they valued education, great. They valued, you know, the idea was to get a high-paying job. That's what they thought I should do. And I was like, yeah, that makes sense. I agreed with that. But they didn't necessarily understand or were able to impart upon me that just receiving a high income, a high salary, didn't mean that I was going to have the freedom and the optionality that building wealth actually allows. They just needed, and you know, no fault of their own, but they just thought, well, if you made a lot of money, you would be okay, right? It would be fun. And it was like, okay, but I got to a point where I made a lot of money and I wasn't okay. I was also in debt. I didn't understand how money worked. I was tied to my salary and didn't realize that because I was tied to my salary, I wasn't able to make certain decisions, right? Once I got an understanding of how money operated that I could actually make and allow myself the freedom that the wealth provides, not that the salary provides.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Did you have a similar, similar, absolutely? And the only thing I will say to that is so yes, absolutely, that came with a little bit of time and experience versus right, like yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, because I had a whole period where yeah, I was making money and I had to, I was spending money too, which is great. I have no problem with spending money. I think money is meant to be spent as well. But I wasn't putting my money in all of the buckets. So, you know, I believe that you could be generous with your money and donate or tithe. You can save money, you should invest money, but you should also spend money. But my spending bucket was overflowing. The other buckets as much as I believe they should have. And I didn't realize part of that was because of my upbringing. I was like, it was always so tight, and you know, you can spend money on anything frivolous. And I wanted some stuff that they would have deemed frivolous, but I really enjoyed. So I had to figure out that balance, right? And people have a great opportunity when they're working, right? And I worked in corporate pharma for 20, 20 years, and there's an opportunity there for people to take advantage of what not only their paycheck provides, but all the benefits that you get in these high-paying positions in these corporate environments that I don't believe a lot of people are taking advantage of either because they, you know, this these are the dinner conversations, dinner table conversations that you may have had in your home. Um, you know, you you like my children have a very different experience, right? When it comes to investing. We weren't talking about investing, growth. We were not talking about investing. If anything, you may save for a rainy day, but that was the extent of it. And there's so many benefits that are provided to you in these corporate environments that folks aren't taking advantage of that can help them create wealth, that can help them create options for themselves and their families, and can even enable you to maybe shave off a few years and retire early if that's your desire. But there's a lot that you get as a W-2 earner in corporate that far surpasses your salary that you need to look at and consider.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so can we talk? Can we talk a little bit about what that looks like? Like what some examples of those things. I would say that my shift from I want to be a high earner, right, to I want to build wealth, like I said, happened over time. But I recognize that earning a lot, the more I earned, the for me, I felt like the more options I had and um the more opportunities I could create for myself outside of my W-2. And one of the things I'm gonna do a quick plug here because I do believe that I want to make sure people are not walking away thinking, oh, I don't necessarily have to earn a lot of money, uh earn in my W-2 a lot of money.
I am saying earn as much as you can in your W-2 so you can leverage that in whatever way that you want to for yourself and your family. I am hosting a workshop on June 6th and June 7th. And that workshop is all about how the different components of executive compensation, not just your salary and your bonus, but all the other pieces of executive compensation that you should know about to make sure that you are you have access to those other components of executive compensation and how to negotiate a higher salary for yourself. So that's June 6th and June 7th. Okay. With that said, there's a few ways that I can think of to maximize the benefits that you have available to you as a W-2. Do you want to talk about one or two of them? And then I'll jump on and jump on board, Shannon.
SPEAKER_00Sure, sure, sure.
So, I mean, there's the first one that's usually the most obvious one that you're directed to as soon as you start, which is your 4K, right? That's your retirement savings account. The reason why this is so important, there are multiple reasons, but one of them is we understand that many of these corporations no longer provide pensions for you. So now you are responsible for your retirement savings. Gone are the days of you've worked here for 20, 40 years, you get the gold watch, and we're gonna take care of you until you die with a pension. No, you are responsible for your own retirement savings, and you that comes in the form of a 401k. Now, if you are contributing to your 401k and you're putting it in as tax pre-tax money, you are reducing your taxable income, which means you're not paying the IRS as much money in taxes. That means that money that you would be paying the IRS, you're investing in yourself, right? This is for your future. This is for when you retire. You don't necessarily have to wait until 59 and a half. There are ways that you can access this money long before 59 and a half without penalty. I'm not going to get into all of those, but there are ways in which you can do that. Now, one of the benefits that many employers offer you is a company match. I strongly advise everyone, even if you're just starting to think about investing, please invest up to the company match at the very minimum. That is, I don't call it free money because you're showing up and you're working. It is part of your benefits package, right? So it's like you turning down medication time, it's turning down healthcare, it's turning down any of those benefits that are afforded to you in your package. Get that money. I will clearly, and this is across the board, I my 4K match amounted to $250,000 over the years. Do not leave that money on the table. Right off the bat, make sure you're investing at least up to the match. So that's the first one right off the bat, where people can really start putting upwards. I think this year, if you're under. 50, 500. If you're over 50, there's some catch-up contributions that you can add to that. That's a considerable amount of money right off the top that you can be investing through your employer that can lead go towards your retirement benefits. So that's number one.
SPEAKER_01The second one that I would say, um, before we move on to number two, what I would say there is again, full transparency, I have taken a number of career breaks throughout my 30 years, right? And in the workforce. And some of those career breaks have been self-selected. So I've self-selected, some of them not so much. I got laid off a couple of times and that just extended for a long time. But I will say that I am one of those people who had to dip into my 1K uh right. And I did not, I did not take a loan out on the 401k. Could we talk about the pros and cons on that? I did not take a loan out. I actually went to into my 401k dollars and used that money. Damn near depleted it. Okay. Um, and I remember thinking I remember recognizing that I don't know if I would be able to replenish it, but I had to use the money because I didn't have access to anything else. One of the benefits of earning a lot, like negotiating higher salaries for me, was that I got to double down on my 4K later in life, right? So that was I started back building up my 4K when I was in my late 30s, early 40s. And because I was already at that time, I was earning triple what I was earning when I had to dip into it, I was able to replenish it, right? I was able to not only replenish it, but I got access to other vehicles as well, as a high 457B, et cetera. Like think things that the average U2 employee does not necessarily have access to, right? So I say that because there might be some people here who who don't necessarily have a big K account right now, and you might be thinking, oh, it's too late for me. And I will say to that, it is never too late, because that money starts, it will compound. Whatever you put in it, it will compound, it will grow, it will start working for you. Like you work for it, but it will start working for you as well. And that to me is what we want. We want the money that we have worked for to give back to us more than a dollar for dollar, essentially. Okay.
SPEAKER_00And Dr. Cole, that's so important because this is the two-pronged approach. Earn as much as you possibly can, because that money will then contribute to your investments that will then work for you. But also you can control your expenses. So not only are you controlling the income, earn as much as possible. The more you earn, the more you can put aside if you're also controlling for your expenses. Because we all know, at least I know, you can earn a lot and still spend as much as you're earning and then some. And that's how we end up in debt. So if we control both ends, earn as much as possible. Yes, by all means. But make sure you're controlling for the expenses so that you can put some more money aside.
SPEAKER_01So we have one LinkedIn user. I'm gonna ask you to tell tell us what you're talking about. One one LinkedIn user who we can't see her name, but she's she's like, uh, this hits too close to home. I'm hoping it's hitting closer home in a good way, but tell us what you're talking about, and we'll come back to to see what you mean. Okay, so number number one was um invest in your forward as to the max, if it's at all possible. Okay, what's number two? What's the second one, Shannon?
SPEAKER_00Right. And there's a caveat to I just want to add, I never invested. Not saying that you shouldn't. I never invested to the max. I'm still okay. Okay. So I don't want you to feel like, oh my gosh, how am I supposed to do this? There were other things, other responsibilities that I had to like couldn't invest in the max, but I if you can, and be honest with yourself, okay. If you truly can, max out those retirement accounts, absolutely. The second
account that I think a lot of people sleep on that's through their employer is their health savings account. If you have a high, sorry, a high deductible health plan, then your health savings account is another way to save money. There's triple tax compounding. I'm not gonna go into all the details about it right now, but this is another investment account. A lot of people have their high health savings account where they're putting money in it and then they're using the money for their appointments. No, this is money you can invest that you could be using for retirement much later as well. Okay. If you can pay your health saving your health uh expenses out of pocket now, great. Take this money, it's pre-tax money, and invest it in the market just like you're investing for your 40K. So it's like you're getting a bonus retirement account that your employer is also funding. Okay. So please know that that is a really important account that you know maybe you haven't learned about, maybe you don't know about, maybe you're using it for cash. No, invest that money as you can and pay your health expenses out of pocket. Second one that I would say, because you get another tax benefit from that. It's another account that's there that you can use for retirement much later on. And it actually can grow to quite amount, a big amount as well if you're using it properly. Excellent. All of your benefits from work, they're little things, and I know that people don't really think about these.
SPEAKER_01Oh, I love this one.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, these little cost savings that people don't think about, whether it's you know, your gym memberships, uh, your commuting money. I I was actually just talking to somebody the other day who mentioned they're like, oh yeah, you know, they give you money for your train pass and they're not using it. And I'm like, what? You know, you know, I always joke and say, you don't like money? Like, why are you letting this money just hang out there? You're leaving it on the table. This is a part of your benefits package. If they're gonna pay for your gym membership or a portion of it, take it. If they're gonna pay for your um commuting costs, take it. If they're going to pay for your therapy, take it. Your physical therapy, your mental health therapy, anything that your employer is willing to contribute as a part of your benefits package, I want you to take that. I want you to utilize that because the money that you're not spending is money that you could be investing.
SPEAKER_01So, okay, sidebar. A little illegal. It probably was illegal, but let me let me tell my story anyway. Okay, so here's a here's a um decades ago. I used to work for Philip Morris, right? I was head of head of recruiting for for Philip Morris uh management corps in New York City. At that time, smoking was banned in all New York uh place, New York um buildings. But because we were Philip Morris, we didn't have to go by, we didn't have to abide by the ban. We our building was we could we could smoke. But one of the things, I first of all, I hate smoke, can't stand it, can't be around it. I'm asthmatic, so I can't, I can't, right? But um one of the benefits, one of the perks of as being a Philip Morris employee was that you got a carton of cigarettes a week, a carton. Now, I don't know if there's any smokers on here, but if you know the value of a carton of cigarettes, even 20, 30 years ago, it's significant, okay? Week you were getting it. I didn't smoke, and you weren't supposed to resell them, but that was a perk. And on the streets, that that that actual carton was worth some some cash, okay? The point is, even the things that you may not think of in terms of being having monetary value, sometimes it doesn't necessarily have monetary value, but they have time value. Maybe it doesn't have time value, but it has some other type of value. All of that adds up. And I would say, even for example, um, a lot of organizations have discounts to mental health benefits. That also can be of value to you. Um, and these are benefits that many companies don't, they don't publicize or they don't talk about it enough, but they exist. So if you're someone who has a W-2, I would highly encourage you, don't wait until open enrollment comes. I would highly encourage you to log on to your internal portal, look at your benefits, ask people around you, hey, what what benefits are you guys using? I'm trying to use everything I got. Like, what are you using that I should know about? Because, like I said, even if it's not monetary value or direct cash value, there's there is a value to it. And if you can take advantage of it, tuition reimbursement, certification reimbursement, all of those things, we should be taking advantage of every last one of those things so that we don't have to come out of pocket. The company can come out of pocket for us.
SPEAKER_00Legal services, a lot of the times outside the attorney, and it's like, why don't you use the legal services?
SPEAKER_01On the legal services, yeah, and the legal account.
SPEAKER_00There you go, and they're flexible spending accounts. Folks aren't looking at all of the things that can go under your flexible spending accounts. So sometimes feminine hygiene products, sometimes your contact lens solution, all of this stuff that you're paying for out of pocket, your employer sometimes has cell phone service discounts that you're not aware of. So really dive deep into what the available benefits are so that you can keep more money in your pocket. And that money you can use to invest for yourself, for your future, not solely just for retirement, but even for the near future as well. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Okay.
Let's talk about investing. Again, we are we are talking about our personal stories. We're, you know, we're talking about some cautionary tales or, you know, things to think about that you can think about. We're not giving out any advice around that. But one of the, I will share that one of the things that I, again, because of my parents, because of the background, I will say that my blue-collar uh parents did, they were able to together purchase a home. We eventually lost that home, unfortunately, right? Uh, because we didn't, we didn't manage our money well as a family. So we lost the home. But because of that, I always had, I want a home. Now, I'll tell you right now, as a grown adult, I don't like home ownership. I don't like the responsibility around it. I'm like, that adulting is like, I'm not for me. Like, I do not like it. But because I never had it as a child, I was like, the first major purchase I'm going to make. I didn't want a car, I wanted a home. So I bought a home, right? But the type of home I purchased, I knew I wasn't gonna live there forever, and I wanted it to be rentable in such a way that's kind of minimum, minimal upkeep for me. I wanted to give that to somebody else. They take care of it. I just kind of reap the rewards. So in my mid-20s, I purchased my first home, was a condo, and I got a great deal on it. And to this day, that's probably the highest value single asset that I have in my portfolio, right? And I actually have a friend of mine who's on here, and she's she's always told me, you better never, never sell that piece of property because it's such a it's like the it's a plum property. But I say that because all of us don't know some of us are not built for home ownership. And maybe it's not home ownership that you want to invest in, but investing in something that you know can pay you rewards or pay you back, that's important. Doesn't I don't care what the vehicle is, honestly. For me, it was home that at that time it was home ownership. But thinking about how you can use your money to make a purchase or invest in something that over time can continue to pay you, that's part of what we're talking about today. So that that's one example of how you might be able to invest if you haven't already. Some of us invest in homes that we live in, right? But that may not necessarily be paying you back, right? Or unless you invest in a multifamily. You live in one unit and other people live in other units, and then that's kind of starting to pay you back or paying your mortgage, et cetera. So that's one way, that's one way to invest.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I think that, you know, culturally, we're so ingrained in this whole idea of buying a home and owning a home. And I'm with you, Dr. Nicole. Homeownership is a pain in the neck, honestly. It is a lot of work. I didn't think that 20 years ago, but now I'm like, I'm over it. Like I don't really care. But I understand why people want to own a home. Now I never think of your primary residence unless it's a multifamily, like you said, as your primary residence as an investment. You got to live somewhere, right? Yeah. So that's not if you're in a single family home or you're in a condo and you're living in it, I don't think of it as an investment. I can't get that money out. And when I do need to get that money out, am I using it to go buy something else that I'm gonna live in? So it doesn't really, I don't like to count that as one of my primary assets. Now, if you have an investment property, absolutely, absolutely, if that's providing you with income, if it has equity that you can utilize to then invest in other things, absolutely that makes sense. But there's a lot of work that is not passive income. Investing in the stock market is the most passive way for you to generate income, dividends, interest, you know, capital gains for yourself. It really is the most passive way. You're going to work, you create a salary, you generate income, you take some of that income, you put it in the market, all goes well. You know, it averages out eight to 10 to 11% returns. There you go. Passively making money for you. All the other investments that I've invested in, and that whether it be real estate, whether it be vending machines, whether it be in other people's businesses where I'm, you know, overseeing what's going on, that's not passive. It's not passive. It requires additional work. Now, I'm not saying that those things don't generate revenue and that it may not it will benefit you. Absolutely. But if you want the simplest, most passive way to invest, I push people towards the stock market. But if you want to be a landlord, if you want to, you know, go and stop those vending machines, own that car wash, laundromat, whatever the case may be, yes, by all means go ahead and do so. But I now at this stage of the game, my personal experience, I was like, I gotta save myself a lot of time and energy and have just put all that money into the market from the very beginning. So that's what I would encourage folks to do if they're like, hey, I don't have the time or the energy. This is the simplest path as well.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. Love it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, again, if you have, if you do have a 41K or some type of retirement vehicle, most retirement vehicles are give you the opportunity to invest in the market. Like it's right, like that's how it earns money over time with you without you having to do anything, right? Except, you know, make your regular contributions to it. So yeah, I I am a huge, um, I'm a huge stock market. And I am a lazy investor. I don't want to look you up. I don't want to know anything about right. I give me, give me a market fund, a fund, uh, index fund or the the whatever. Like I that's all I care about. I do not want to have to cherry pick certain, right? Like, because to me that feels like work. So I am a lazy, lazy investor when it comes to this to excuse me, to the stock market. But yeah, I agree with you. It's the I can count on the stock market to move up and down, but I could over over time the average return for the history, the hundred plus years of the stock market. We know that it's going to do that, that eight to eleven percent for sure.
SPEAKER_00And it's always trending upwards, right? Yes, there are dips, there are times when it goes down. If we think about it was probably a month ago when it plummeted, and now look at it, right back up and beyond, it's still at its highest level. The SP 500 is at the highest level it's been at ever. So it's reaching the highs every single time. So it's consistently, as long as this market, the US economy, is the strongest economy, then I would recommend that people do that.
Now I know we talked a lot about retirement accounts because we're talking about things that accounts that you can invest in through work, but you can also invest outside of work, where you're again, it's so imperative for you to get that maximum salary, right? To ensure that you're making as much money as possible, but you can invest in accounts in the stock market that are not strictly for retirement. So you do not have to wait until 59 and a half to take out this money. You do not have to invest just for someday. You can invest for the next three years, five years, something like that through your brokerage account. So those aren't in uh retirement accounts, those are accounts that as long as you keep the money in there for over a year, which is the long-term capital gains, then you can invest in those accounts and you can access that money readily, right? So you don't only have to invest in retirement accounts. I want people to understand that. So even though those retirement accounts tend to be tied to your work, not IRAs, but 401ks and all of those, the impetus is for you to make the money at work, control that income, make as much as possible so that you can invest in many different arenas.
SPEAKER_01Okay, let me pause and say if you guys have any questions for us that we can answer while we are here, let us know. Drop it in the chat, and we will spend some time answering that, answering your questions, and while you guys think of what those questions might be. Are there any other Shannon? We talked about the ones that I had on my mind, like the company benefits, the stock market, um, investing in other businesses, et cetera, uh real estate, weeks, same thing uh for me. Anything else you can think of in terms of anything else we want to share in terms of how to make your money work for you versus you only working for your money?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I
think it's important to be able to manage your expenses. A lot of folks don't know where their money's going. So you may know you have this salary, this six-figure, multiple six-figure salary, and that's great, but you don't feel wealthy. You're making good money, you know that, you know that by any means, by any measure, but you don't feel wealthy. And that's because you don't have full transparency and awareness in terms of where your money's going. And so I think it's really important to track for a period of time where your money is going, because then you can actually make decisions about where you want it to go. There's a lot of unconscious spending that we do, and we're not aware that, oh, wow, I didn't realize this amount of money was going in this direction, which you can redirect to investments, to high yield ceilings accounts for things that you think you may not be able to get right now, or you may have to wait five years. If you start tracking and looking at your money, you may be surprised that you will amass that savings a lot sooner than you had initially thought, because now you can redirect your money. Most of these folks, I believe in your audience, they're making enough money to do pretty much what it is that they, whatever it is that they want to do. So you have to really hone in on what you value, where that money's going, and then redirect it to where you want it to go so you can actually live the life that you want to live.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So the managing expenses is a, I'm glad that you brought that up. And I will say for myself, again, being using myself as the guinea pig here, there was a time where I didn't, I don't want to know what my expenses were, right? Like that whole purpose of being able to earn a lot of money is that I didn't want to have a budget. I didn't want to track. I didn't want to, right? Like I just just didn't want. I just want to be able to spend what I wanted to spend. And luckily, I've never been, I'm not a um uh not material, I don't like material things per se, right? Like I I'd rather spend my money on a trip than, you know, buy a designer bag or something like that. Like that's where my money would go on on trips and um eating out, dining out and you know, things like that. But there have been um, I think I've I've struck a balance where I don't necessarily even today, I don't live on a budget, but I have my bucket of money that I allow myself to spend freely. Like I'm I'm not, I'm not right. So I do my investments, I I I pay my bills, put my money in the investments, I do whatever I need to be doing for that month. And then I have a bucket, and it's still a sizable bucket that I just can spend however I want to, but I I can do that knowing that I've taken care of everything else. I'm sure that's one way to manage money. And there's probably ways that are more proactive than that. But I'm glad that you talked about managing expenses because I've definitely fell into the trap of not looking at anything and then wondering at the end of the month or, you know, at the end of the quarter, like, where'd all my money go?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And that oftentimes brings up, you know, feelings of shame later on for folks when they're like, oh, when you see those investment charts, and if you're 40, you should have this much and 45, this much, and 50. And then people start freaking out because they're like, why don't I have that? Right? And I want you to know that once you start managing these expenses, once you start tracking and you have an understanding of how much money there is and where it's going, then you can realize, oh, I can actually hit those targets, even if I feel or believe that I'm behind. It doesn't take very long, especially when you're making good money and you have the awareness of where it's going for you to get caught up. Yeah, it really doesn't. And to get ahead, actually, not just caught up, but ahead.
SPEAKER_01Yep. Okay, so Wotiqua, hey girl, how
are you? Okay, she's a former colleague of mine, but she basically is uh didn't have a question, but she was sharing with with everyone that she uses a CPA to help her make sure she's leveraging all the deductions that she possibly can, right? Um, on any from on her taxes from charitable donations, tithing, getting a new HVAC that she had to do recently, right? So basically she's using the tax return to invest in other things or to add to her IRA, which is a it's a right.
SPEAKER_00That's a good, very good point. Now, I wanna I wanna raise a couple things about that. I love this comment because yes, your CPA, there's tax paying time and tax saving time. You should be talking to your CPA outside of tax paying time, right? So what you're doing here with leveraging all these deductions, brilliant, right? That's what your CPA should help you do. You can set up time to talk to them in like August, July, August. I love it when people are talking to their CPA at that time. What can I still do to close out this year so that I can leverage all these deductions? So what you're doing there is fantastic. The other thing is I don't love to hear that people are getting these huge tax returns. If you are getting a huge tax return, that means that you are lending the IRS money tax-free throughout the whole year. I want you to have that money. So if you're getting these 3,000, 5,000, 8,000 I've had clients' tax returns, I'm like, what? You are lending the IRS $8,000 over the course of the year when you could use that money to invest, right? And make money on that $8,000. So I want you to just revisit with your CPA what's going on there. Are there more pre-tax um investment strategies that you can use? Are there other places where you can put that money to lower your taxable income so that you're not lending the IRS that much money every single year? I love a tax return that's $500 or less. That should be the goal. Now, again, because my parents, they would like that windfall tax return. And I was like, you're doing it all wrong. You're doing it all wrong. But that's when they saw that, oh, okay, they're getting this money. Yes, because money was tight. But we're looking at money very differently. So talk to your CPA, go back again and say, hey, how can I reduce some of this refund that I'm getting in February or whenever you do your taxes?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Okay. It was a good one. All right. Any final thoughts before we wrap up, Shannon, that you want to share?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I think that one of the things that I want people to understand that it's not too late. Okay. It is never too late. You're still working, you're still here. It's not too late. You need a strategy, though. You need a strategy to figure out, okay, how can I position myself in such a way so that my money that I'm going out there every day to work so hard for will work for me. Okay. We can't be passive about this. You're not unintentionally going to be rich unless you win the lottery. You have to be really intentional about it. And so doing that means having a strategy and figuring out how you can increase your income if need be. You may not need to, but if need be, go ahead and increase your income and how to manage your expenses so that you can put more money aside so that it can grow.
You know, we didn't talk about fire. I don't know if it's yeah. Um, I don't know if we if there's any quick thing we can say about that. Uh fire of the acronym um financial independence, retire early, right? Um I mean I fired.
SPEAKER_00I fired fire fired.
SPEAKER_01Yes, I fired. I fired at um 48, but I didn't leave my leave my full-time job until I was 50. Um yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Fired. So, well, let me just say this. So fire fired, I just said the acronym, financially independent, retire early. It's a whole kind of movement. There's community, but the mentality behind it or the thinking behind it is, you know, no longer are we in our parents' generation where we have to work until well, we should be working until we're to the age where we don't have the flexibility to enjoy, um, enjoy life the way we want to. The earlier that you can position yourself to not have to work, not not work, but not have to work, right? That gives you what we talked about at the beginning, more options. You can choose to work, you can choose to travel, you can choose to not do anything, like whatever, right? You have more options available to yourself. Um, that and so you will hear people talk about they have fired. And across the ages, you have people in their 20s who have fired. You have people in their 60s who have fired. But the whole point of it is that you are trying to do it as early as possible in your lifespan so that you can have the more flexibility at your at your disposal. For me, like I said, I've I reached fire, and and fire is um there's a certain number uh that you would, in terms of your uh savings and or assets and the mix of you know all the things. You reduce your expenses as manageably as possible, but you have your money working for you. And most people will put it in the stock market so that it continues to give you returns. But people will fire so that they can live, right? Live, live more comfortably, let's just say. That's my take on it. I don't know if you have a different definition for it, Shannon, but yeah.
SPEAKER_00So I I did fire as well. I didn't leave my job uh when I fired, but I I fired in my early 40s, and then I left my job around 50, 2020. So 450, the 450. But basically the idea here is what you're yeah, it was before long before 50. I know what I'm telling you. Are you are you are are we the same age? I will be 55 in the So the idea behind becoming financially independent. Financially independent really just means that your portfolio will take care of all of your expenses every year and pretty much in perpetuity without you having to work. Okay, so that's full fire. Okay. So if you have enough money that you're you can withdraw from your portfolio all of your assets that can support you without working, you're financially independent. That's why we talk about optionality. Imagine if you don't have to work, you just choose to work. But if you don't want to be there anymore, you can walk away. Great. That is what being financially independent means. Now, how do you calculate that number? What size does your portfolio have to be? Well, that's based on your expenses. That's why I want everybody to know what their monthly or annual expenses are. Because if you take those expenses, you multiply that number by 25, that's going to give you an amount. So, for example, say your expenses are $40,000 a year. You multiply that by $25, you need a million-dollar portfolio because you can safely withdraw 4% of that, which would be $40,000 a year, and be able to live without any problems. But most people don't know what their expenses are. They think their expenses are their salary. They think that their expenses may be beyond their salary, right? You have to really know what you're spending your money on. Okay. And that fine number is specific to you, right? So no two people will necessarily have the same fine number. So if you like travel, if you like expensive cars, if you like expensive luxury handbags, things like that, your fine number is going to be different than somebody else who's like, I like a simple life. I'm going to live in a cabin. I just want to be able to go and get local coffee and go on, you know, a small trip once a year, something like that. You've got to really determine what your expenses are, what your lifestyle is now, and if you want to keep it or change it. That's how you determine your fine number. Okay. So that will tell you what your portfolio needs to be. I have folks who have to have a $5 million portfolio, $1 million, $1 million. You've got to determine what that is. But know that a $1 million portfolio doesn't mean that you now have to invest a million dollars. It means that you have to start investing and the compound interest effect will enable it to grow to a million dollars. And, you know, that's something that we can talk about in greater detail, maybe another time, but that's what Phi is. So when you reach that number in your portfolio, then you can make different decisions about how you live your life. You may decide you want to pivot, do something entirely different. You may decide you keep working. But imagine going into work every day, knowing that you're choosing to be there because you want to be there, not because you have to be there. That's yeah.
SPEAKER_01Options, that's what I'm all about. Okay, so um, let's wrap up.
Do you want to share quickly um like how people can work with you or or get in contact with you if they want to learn more about what we talked about today?
SPEAKER_00Sure. So I'm Shannon Bro More on all the socials, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok. That's where you can find me. I work with folks one-on-one for six months. And I also work with folks in a group. I have a group right now, how to get to your first 100K. Those folks are beginning to understand how they can start investing. Or for the folks who are already investing in the 4Ks, let's say, for example, but they're not quite sure what's going on, um, and they want to learn more about how they can self-manage because they may have a financial advisor and they don't know what the hell that person's talking about. It's learning the language and becoming financially fluent and setting yourself up so that you can eventually be financially independent.
SPEAKER_01Excellent. Okay. And I'm Dr. Nicole, and I am on all the socials as well, although LinkedIn is my uh primary home, LinkedIn and Facebook. Um, like I mentioned before, I help black introverted women land their senior leader and executive positions. I basically hope you've earn as much as you can at your W-2. Um, and sidebar get as much power and influence on the way. And so if you're interested in working with me, you can catch me on LinkedIn or Facebook, or I'm hosting a um how to negotiate your executive compensation. I'm hoping hosting a two-day workshop on June and 7th. So if you're interested in that, then you can find the link to it on my LinkedIn page.
SPEAKER_00That's okay. Okay, we're talking about now.
SPEAKER_01All right, thank you everyone for joining us, and we'll see you next time. Thank you.