Breaking the Debt Cycle: Jordan Sims on Building Sustainable Financial Health

Meet Jordan Sims, the founder of Her Financial Help and a passionate advocate for financial clarity, confidence, and long-term stability. Jordan knows what it’s like to feel overwhelmed by numbers, stuck in debt, and unsure where to start. That’s why she’s made it her mission to help women get out of survival mode and into financial peace one intentional step at a time.

Through personal coaching, practical tools, and real talk, Jordan empowers everyday people to take control of their income, confront unhealthy habits, and shift the way they think about money. Her approach is simple, relatable, and built to create real results.

She’s not here to shame you for the shopping sprees or stress you out with spreadsheets. She’s here to help you create a life with more margin, more freedom, and more confidence.

We’re honored to have Jordan on The Wealth Blueprint this week as we unpack some of the most common money myths and the practical steps you can take to move forward with clarity.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Financial Coach Jordan Sims
• 1:49 Financial Professionals: Advisors vs Coaches
• 10:22 Common Financial Bad Habits
• 24:29 Creating Sustainable Financial Habits
• 34:25 Building Wealth From Small Beginnings
• 50:13 Women and Financial Literacy
• 1:09:12 Good Debt vs Bad Debt
• 1:17:42 Conclusion and Contact Information

Transcript

Addison Thom: 0:20

Welcome back to another episode of the Wealth Blueprint. I'm excited to introduce Jordan Sims from Her Financial Help. Jordan really specializes in getting with families and helping put them on a budget that is meaningful and useful to their financial life, helping them save, and today she's gonna share a lot on best practices, how to avoid some financial pitfalls and how to really put yourself in a position to grow financially and invest money for the long term and for the financial health of your family. So, with that being said, I hope you guys enjoy this episode. Here is Jordan Sims. Jordan, thank you for coming in today.

Jordan Sims: 1:14

Yeah, of course.

Addison Thom: 1:16

So I'll be a little bit descriptive here. But what's the difference between a financial advisor, financial coach and a bookkeeper? How do you define that?

Jordan Sims: 1:29

Yeah. So starting at the bottom, I would say a bookkeeper is just going to go over transactions and give you a report.

Addison Thom: 1:38

You put them at the bottom. I did say that and I didn't mean to say that All you bookkeepers out there you're at the bottom of the totem pole. I would say the least involved.

Jordan Sims: 1:48

Yeah, which is also silly, because they literally do daily transactions. Yeah it's more transactions, yeah they're going to categorize your transactions. They're going to give you a report. Most bookkeeper groups will give you like a month report that just says here's your income.

Addison Thom: 2:02

Here's your expenses, here's your categories.

Speaker 3: 2:05

We're done.

Jordan Sims: 2:13

Some will give you some feedback, especially if they're also helping you with taxes. They'll say like, hey, you can spend more here or you need to spend less here, et cetera, but it's usually all revolving around taxes. Then the other end of the spectrum, I would say, is the financial advisors. Those are the people that have securities, they have licenses, they've taken exams. They manage your money in a way that makes you hands off. There's also fees involved. Um, typically they take a percentage of a portfolio. Um, they are not helping in the day to day. They're helping with the large chunk of money that you've given them as a portfolio, as a pile for them to manage. They're going to grow it, but they don't care what you're spending monthly, as long as they're getting their deposit or they're just managing what's already in a portfolio.

Addison Thom: 2:57

You're being very gracious towards financial advisors.

Jordan Sims: 2:59

I told you.

Addison Thom: 3:01

I think they're useless. I think they sell you funds that are front loaded with fees and then they collect a percentage of your balance under management for the rest of your life, and I think it's kind of ridiculous. So I mean, you know, it's like attorneys and real estate agents. It's like there's, you know, less than 1% of them are worth their salt. Um, and so I wouldn't say that the whole industry in general needs to be thrown out but, just be very careful who you follow and if it's like a fidelity, or an edward norton or somebody, or edward yes, what is it called ed jones?

Addison Thom: 3:34

edward jones yeah, they'll sell you just like funds that they're sponsored and that they have like higher higher commissions, yeah, higher commission rates off it's typically like an etf or a mutual fund or, you know, a bond fund or something like that. In my opinion, you'd be better off just buying the s&p 500 and letting your funds sit there, and you don't have to pay any commission for that. You can also do it yourself.

Jordan Sims: 3:55

And if you're gonna do like the, set it and forget it way, um, where you just you're depositing money like monthly, weekly, however you want to do it. You're depositing a chunk of money and it's just going to grow, but you're not actually like in, like you're not actually picking stocks. You're investing in a fund that's already set for you and then it's going to grow over time, but you're not going to be paying fees for someone to open the account and look at it or not.

Speaker 3: 4:19

Yeah.

Jordan Sims: 4:20

And then, when it's down, they go.

Addison Thom: 4:22

Well, that's just how the market goes Right, and most people don't understand that and we talked a little bit about this when we were talking before we started the podcast. But financial advisors have no advantage in the market. They are not day trading your funds.

Speaker 3: 4:37

No.

Addison Thom: 4:37

They're not calling up Tim Cook at Apple and reading their financial reports and making a bet on their next fiscal quarter, which is why they're selling you mutual funds, etfs, bond funds because that takes as much risk out of it as possible. Those funds are put together by larger conglomerates and then they attach a fee schedule to it, so your financial advisor is literally a salesperson for that fund.

Jordan Sims: 5:02

Yeah, or worse, they're selling you annuities and life insurance.

Addison Thom: 5:06

Oh, yeah, don't get me started.

Jordan Sims: 5:08

Yeah, we're not going to open that box.

Addison Thom: 5:10

So define, because I think what you do is fascinating. I think there's a tremendous amount of value added to people. As a financial coach, I also love that the way that you work and you can expand on this a little bit more is your goal is not to be in their life for the rest of their life charging them money as a fee?

Speaker 3: 5:33

Yeah Right, so not unless they want me to yeah so explain.

Addison Thom: 5:36

Explain what you do and how. The financial coaching is a little bit different.

Jordan Sims: 5:39

Yeah, so financial coaching, uh, the way I've set up my business and I modeled my business after several other financial coaches that I follow, um way I've set up my business and I modeled my business after several other financial coaches that I follow, that I've gotten to know over the years from what they, you know, learning from other people's failures. The way that I start out is I want to look at your daily finances.

Jordan Sims: 5:57

We're not going to get too deep in the beginning as far as like looking too far. We're not like I want to know your goals, but like I want to know what are we doing today?

Addison Thom: 6:07

just an assessment yes what are your current habits? Yes, how? What do we need to clean up?

Jordan Sims: 6:13

yeah, our first past the discovery meeting. Once we're actually working together, our first assignment is I make you go pull three months back. You're gonna pull all of your like literally, money comes in, money goes out, wherever it is, I want to know about it. And then I come through it. And then I we have a meeting that's like, hey, here's where you're spending money and I give you the good and the bad, like, hey, here's great things that you're doing right now, and then here's the not so good things. And then we make a list of like okay, we're now, we're gonna go review. So one of the big things I do is an insurance review I think everyone to review all of your insurance at least once a year. I do car insurance twice a year because it's six months.

Addison Thom: 6:50

And why is that? Just because premiums change so often or there's new companies?

Jordan Sims: 6:54

coming out of the market. Unfortunately, we're out of the air of I don't want to call it necessarily brand loyalty, but that, basically, is what it is. Um, I also have a strong issue with captive agents. Um, there's a market and you should be in it and captive agents.

Addison Thom: 7:14

You mean like an agent that only sells like state farm insurance.

Jordan Sims: 7:17

Yes, yeah, versus state farm, texas, uh farm bureau. Um, I feel like there's another one that I can't think of. Those guys are captive. They can only sell you State Farm. So when you ask them to review your insurance every year, they reviewed it against themselves. Right, they're not shopping it to find the best marketplace, if you go to a broker that has the word agency after their name, which you can see.

Jordan Sims: 7:43

State Farm will use the same thing, but State Farm agency when really that's not what they are, but a broker is going to be able to shop multiple places, so like, for instance, my parents have an insurance agency and they can shop, I think, like almost 20 different companies. Their website is like a scrolling logo system with all the places they can quote, but when they run your insurance, they're not running one, they're running it against eight to 10 different companies for any one given line item.

Addison Thom: 8:15

And people don't understand. We do that in my mortgage company too. We're a mortgage broker, so I can shop your loan to 200 different lenders, depending on if it's commercial or residential, and then your credit score and your debt service coverage ratio and all those things. People don't understand. The change in daily delta is so significant in payment premium Like a quarter percent on an interest rate or a quarter percent on your premium that you commit to over the next 12 months is a huge payment difference. So creating that competition between providers is huge. I mean. I think that's a great way.

Jordan Sims: 8:51

And it should be that way for just about anything. I mean even your health insurance. You can shop, especially if you're self-employed and you're shopping the marketplace, or you're shopping private, like PPOs or anything like that. We can shop multiple different places and get you the best bang for your buck, whether that's you're paying more for more coverage or you're trying to, you know, skate by and get the premium as low as possible.

Jordan Sims: 9:14

Because, the other thing is is that you want to know what you're covered for, like you want to know your deductible. You want to know your out of pockets, like what are you actually spending money on? And know what you're spending money on. I'm fine if you want to pay more for a lower deductible. Just know that's what you're doing and know that you can also do the opposite. You can raise your deductible and lower your premium if that helps you out.

Addison Thom: 9:37

Totally so. Okay, so you're doing the assessment. You go back through three months of their finances or credit card statements where they're spending money right. Yep, what are, like some of the most common bad habits that you see when you're looking through people's finances? That are like just kind of like everyday oopsies, but also like this is repeating itself.

Jordan Sims: 9:58

Yeah, I would say I could sum it up in probably two to three. The biggest number one is overspending generally, Just spending more than you're bringing in.

Addison Thom: 10:08

Yes, deficit spending.

Jordan Sims: 10:10

Yes, people don't know how much they're making and they oftentimes have an inflated idea of what they're actually making. You can see that in W-2 employees You'll have people that are like, oh well, I make $1,900 a week. It's like okay, but then there's taxes, and then there's premiums that got taken out, and then there's this other thing that was withheld, and so okay, now you're only bringing home $1,300. And then when the $1,300 comes in, now what are you doing with that cash-wise?

Jordan Sims: 10:39

But, in your mind you made $1,900. Opposite is true for 1099. You'll have a big number come in and you'll be like, hey, I've got. You know, I had this client place invoice. Say it's two thousand dollars. Ok, whatever invoice company you used is taking a subscription fee. So now what actually got deposited in your account is maybe nineteen hundred. And then now you have to save taxes because you don't have an employer saving taxes for you. There's also expenses, like all of your subscriptions that you're just using for your business. So that number gets smaller and smaller. But in your mind you had a $2,000 invoice paid Sure. And so just pretty much across the board, people think they make more than they make.

Addison Thom: 11:20

I used to call that like the doctor problem. Yeah, like when I was in private banking, we had so many investors that were doctors and attorneys that made really good money. I mean, you're talking like you know, 700, 1.2 million, right, but it's all through billing, right. The the attorneys doing it through billing, the doctors doing it through billing. They all thought that they were financially invincible and had zero discipline in spending. And so when we'd go to do their loan or they would come to me for investment advice and we'd be looking at where to place their funds, I'm like you realize that you have $120,000 going out every month and you're bringing in 95 and they don't yeah, and we can't find it, and they're like well, I make this much and I'm like well, you're upset.

Addison Thom: 12:12

Your debt service coverage ratio is negative.

Jordan Sims: 12:15

You can find um and there's several books out there now about millionaire, like millionaire studies, but you can find millionaires at any income level, because it has to do with spending habits, not income. Income is going to get you there faster, but if you spend a million dollars, you're still at net zero.

Addison Thom: 12:32

Right, and you're not building any wealth if you're spending more. Okay, so that seems like how much of that's like a psychological thing you have to solve when you're talking to them 80%, yeah, 80%, if it was a math problem we wouldn't be in it.

Speaker 3: 12:46

Right.

Jordan Sims: 12:46

There would be fewer people with money problems if money was really a math problem.

Addison Thom: 12:51

So how do you address that with the client? Is it different with everybody?

Jordan Sims: 12:54

It is it depends on your emotional relationship with money. If you have a positive relationship with money growing up, you may or may not have a positive relationship with money in your adulthood, because it may be it might have been too easy for you as a child. So the idea that, like money grows on trees, I can always just make more like dad's always paid my credit card bill the opposite is true for um broke or poor individuals that grew up in a in a poor or broke household.

Jordan Sims: 13:23

When they come into money, they're used to spending everything they had. So now they continue to spend everything they had because they've never had enough to save. So they never have the habits of saving.

Addison Thom: 13:34

It's like a famine mentality of like. I have bread, I have to eat the whole loaf instead of like parsing it out over the next 30 days.

Jordan Sims: 13:41

So the balance is finding. Why are you spending money?

Speaker 3: 14:07

What do you feel like you need to have? Some of it is a posture thing.

Jordan Sims: 14:07

Um, you know, the fancy car, the bigger house, the keeping up with the Joneses, that's a very real thing. Um, it's. We live in a world that's instant gratification, so we finance everything. You can finance things on karma for like $ dollars a month for the next six months why, yeah? And then you do that month over month over month, and now you're playing Klarma or whatever PayPal, a three hundred dollar bill every month and you don't even know what it's for at this point.

Addison Thom: 14:17

right, it's like that saying like, how you do anything is how you do everything. Yes, so you're like if you take out the Klarma, is it called Klarma? I think it is something like that. If you're financing stuff you can't afford, you're not doing that one time, no, you're doing it several times over several years, and then you don't even know. Yeah, so, and I also think that there's like a um, like mental connection with spending money. That releases endorphins.

Speaker 3: 14:49

Absolutely Right, and so that could be the problem too.

Addison Thom: 14:51

It's like I don't even need anything, but I'm awake at 2am. I'm not taking care of my body, I'm not sleeping, but I think if I buy this thing through HGTV, that's going to make me feel a little bit better tonight.

Jordan Sims: 15:02

Unfortunately, it's a double edged problem, because there are also psychological studies that show that the less attached you are to the actual representation of paying for something with real money, the less it's a negative feedback in your brain.

Addison Thom: 15:20

Right, so it's a double win right.

Jordan Sims: 15:26

So it's a double win you're you're not getting the negative. I spent money because you did it on a card that you didn't even pull from your wallet, because you've saved them on your apple pay, google pay, whatever on your phone.

Addison Thom: 15:31

It's never been easier to do that. Yes, like you, you get an ad on instagram. You click on buy. Now it's checking you out with your wallet that's saved to your iphone.

Jordan Sims: 15:39

You're not, and then it's scanning your face and authorizing the payment in like two and a half seconds and two days later a package shows up and then you get more endorphins, for, oh look, I put my new thing.

Speaker 3: 15:48

Yeah.

Jordan Sims: 15:49

So it is a double whammy. So that's why I encourage everyone. I don't mind budgeting tools at all. I use an online budgeting tool myself that pulls my bank into one place and I categorize it quickly. But in the beginning I want you to see it as much on pen and paper as possible. I do spreadsheets, but I want you to go through. We're physically going to look at every transaction.

Addison Thom: 16:15

Yeah, make them connect to how it's real that you guys are spending Something else that companies are doing now, like Google, like Apple.

Jordan Sims: 16:24

I go through people's transactions. I'm like do you realize? You have 12 Apple payments coming out? That means you have, like subscriptions inside apps or something that you have authorized that you don't even like half the time. I'm like do you know what that is? And they're like no.

Addison Thom: 16:37

Yeah, and it's not a one big thing, but it's like 10, $12 monthly subscriptions. I mean that's groceries for a week.

Speaker 3: 16:44

It is, yeah, it is.

Addison Thom: 16:46

So okay. So that's the number one habit you have to solve. Obviously, that's probably the most glaring right. Yeah, like you're spending more than you're bringing in. What's a couple of other habits.

Jordan Sims: 16:58

Spending in categories that may or may not be unnecessary, so a lot of times that ends up being self-care is really big right now, and so it's like the Starbucks, the get your hair and your nails done, having a tanning subscription. Even I'll go so far as to say the gym membership, like yes, if you're an actual gym person who's going two to three times a week, you can it, but a lot of times people just have it on there because they're gonna go right but they're not going they hit like new year's eve, january, first like I'm signing up right, and then it's six months later.

Jordan Sims: 17:36

They are not using the gym membership um some other ones again, financing things that you should not be financing, um, and that ends up happening because that adds over time. Again you've got the gratification of you've gotten the item, but you're still paying on it, and so you're still in debt to yourself. You still and and that's another thing is like having having a clear picture of your debt people, once they have the item, a lot of times forget about the debt that's still attached to it. So, for instance, the car.

Jordan Sims: 18:08

It's like oh, that's my car, nope, that's the bank's car until you pay it off and if you don't pay it, they will come get it because it's theirs and not yours. Same thing with house, same thing with even like your phone. I mean, nowadays we don't buy our phone, we finance it for 36 months right and so people, it's very common for you to just forget how big your debt bill is, and so then they look at oh, I have this discretionary income, I can go do something else with it.

Addison Thom: 18:36

And then they finance something else right or um yeah, because they're still, like, net positive in cash flow, for instance but they're accumulating debt. Yes, and they haven't paid off the things that they're enjoying six months prior right I would say you don't need, if you don't need the inflatable uh outdoor swimming pool right now. Why'd you buy it in november?

Jordan Sims: 18:57

right, nobody's gonna swim in that thing until june or july, so the other thing is looking forward like right, yeah I have a lot of people and we were talking about this before but like you get someone that gets a bonus, you get someone that gets their tax refund super big. Everyone gets their tax refund, right? Uh, what do they go do with it? There's a reason car sales are the highest in april right because they take that money, they go put it on a down payment and they buy a new car. They trade in their, their old car.

Speaker 3: 19:24

Right.

Jordan Sims: 19:24

But when you have that influx of cash, some people are digging themselves out of a hole. Some people are counting on that to get back to positive. But then also, if they have it, they're like, oh, that's all extra gravy, but they're not looking.

Addison Thom: 19:37

six months a year, four years, ten years down the road and they bought the new truck with a higher monthly payment.

Jordan Sims: 19:44

Yes, and it the road. And they bought the new truck with a higher monthly payment. Yes, and all of that. One of my favorite things to do is to take a calculator and show them what, like a hundred dollar investment looks like in 10 years yeah 20 years yeah versus the art of compounding your hundred dollars compounded for what?

Addison Thom: 20:01

20 years it's like 1.3 million or some some version of that. Yeah, I, I play, it's 10 billion dollars yeah but I also think seriously, because they go, oh, I have 100, I'll just go get a bigger truck payment right I'll go get a bigger.

Jordan Sims: 20:14

You know I'll finance a.

Addison Thom: 20:16

You know I don't know a camper whatever right you're gonna camper sits next to your house or in your storage and you're just slowly.

Jordan Sims: 20:23

It's the keeping up with the jones, but it's also lifestyle. Creep is another word we talk about. You're gonna upgrade your wardrobe, you're gonna upgrade your house, you're gonna upgrade the decor, you're gonna you know whatever. I just bought a new rug, but yeah, you know it's like this.

Addison Thom: 20:35

You financed the rugs. I did not.

Jordan Sims: 20:36

Okay, good cash and I also sold my entertainment center to buy the rug there you go so I it's zero. I zero dollar transaction.

Addison Thom: 20:45

I have a rule in my household. I actually got this from Donald Trump. This is not a political statement at all, but when he first got elected he was talking about regulation and financial markets and he said we have so many regulations and so many of them overlap. He's like for every new regulation that we adopt, we need to get rid of two old ones.

Jordan Sims: 21:05

Do you have a one in two out policy at your house? I have a one in two out of my policy.

Addison Thom: 21:09

We're not as good about it as we are other times, but for the most part it's like okay, you want a new pair of shoes, you have to get rid of two other pieces.

Jordan Sims: 21:17

I have a one in one out. Maybe I should up my game.

Addison Thom: 21:19

Well, I have three little kids with grandparents that send in lots of toys and stuff to our house. They like to spoil my kids and so I won't allow my kids to get new things unless they like. Even this weekend my six-year-old went through our toy toy bin and she put filled a whole garbage bag of it so we could donate it. And now like I'll take you to the store and get you one new barbie because you got rid of all those things how fun and that's just like a little fun.

Addison Thom: 21:48

But so, like when we're talking about, like, creating good habits, so you've identified bad habits, right then, your, your goal is to put them on a path for success.

Addison Thom: 21:59

Yeah, right what are and I'm assuming most of this we talked about this a little bit. Like most people graduate high school and don't know how to balance a checkbook. They've no one's hot finances and unless your parents. I think you benefited from that. I've been in from that like being in a household. My dad was an engineer, so we talked about financing. He was very like OCD and all of that. Yeah, Um, what spreadsheet?

Jordan Sims: 22:22

dad.

Addison Thom: 22:22

I had a spreadsheet that I had a whiteboard dad.

Jordan Sims: 22:25

Oh, I had a spreadsheet. Dad, I had a spreadsheet that I had a whiteboard, dad, oh, I had a whiteboard dad, he has a very large whiteboard.

Addison Thom: 22:29

Yeah, yeah, my chores were on whiteboards. It's like I know if our chores were on.

Jordan Sims: 22:32

Actually, there was a time that that there were literal dollar bills, uh like magnet clipped to the chore yep, that's exactly I yeah, I remember that mine was a little bit different.

Addison Thom: 22:43

I had a whiteboard, and then here's all the chores, and then next to that was the, the, the privilege that I would lose if I didn't complete the chore, so it was like cell phone bill or you know, can't drive your car for a week or whatever. So a little bit different. He was more stick than carrot, but it it worked and you know it makes you.

Addison Thom: 23:04

It gives you like a mental connection to the responsibilities that you have, and then the the money that you're spending for the lifestyle after you've taken care of the things at your house, right? So what are habits that everyone can adopt now? Or maybe you're talking to someone that's 16 or 25 or 35 and no one's gotten this education yet. What are good habits you can start today to put you on a better pace?

Jordan Sims: 23:57

The number one thing is understanding the value of a dollar, and I'm not talking about it from an economic standpoint. I'm talking about your time equals making money from an economic standpoint. I'm talking about your time equals making money. That money that you go and spend is equal to a certain amount of material things, and you can't just make more material things without making more money, which means you have to turn time into more money at a basic level. So knowing where money comes from, I think is very important to teach children. They have to understand that. No, we're not going to go get all of these new toys because all of these new toys. There's many reasons why you don't need them, but one of them is they cost money, right, and we're not just going to spend all of our money all of the time to do all of the you know, to just spend money. We're not doing that.

Addison Thom: 24:48

And there's no connection with like they didn't earn the money to do it. It's just, it just shows up the doll shows up the you know whatever.

Jordan Sims: 24:56

And same thing with, like, taking care of things. Like we're teaching our children to take care of their toys right now, because taking care of their toys is going to lead to taking care of their car, which is going to lead to taking care of their um schoolwork, which is going to lead to taking care of their clothes and their home later in life. But it's starting right now with taking care of the toys. When a toy breaks, unfortunately it's broken and we can't always fix it. And if we were going to fix it or replace it, that again costs money. But understanding that at a fundamental level is big. When you're an adult, when you realize, oh, this stuff costs money and.

Jordan Sims: 25:30

I have to make money to have the life that I have and I need to take care of my things. We have to be stewards of what we have and take care of it for it to last. A part of being a good steward is also the number one thing is always spending less than you make.

Jordan Sims: 25:47

If you are spending more than you're making ways, spending less than you make if you are spending more than you're making, you will never make it out, and money doesn't solve all of the problems, but it solves a lot of them yeah and that's one of the things I I don't know.

Addison Thom: 25:57

I probably say that to my clients like every other call well, I think that's like a real um damnation of our culture in in a of ways. I mean like fast food. You know there's no mind body connection with what you're putting in your body. It's just like what's quick, what's easy, what tastes good, you know, that's why drive throughs I mean the fact that you can just like drive through a building and eat three times your daily caloric intake and it costs $20, that's the problem, right, it's like you don't have a connection to that, Whereas if you go to the grocery store, you pick out, you know, high value protein and vegetables and fruits, and then you have to go home and you have to cook those things. That's the connection. It's like very similar with finance. I think you said something, too in the pre-interview that I thought was really great about, like going to the gym. What did you say? You said debt culture.

Jordan Sims: 27:01

Oh, I was talking about that. Having good financial health is similar to having like, like health and wellness, just like in the fitness world, that we can go crazy and make a diet that's uncomfortable.

Addison Thom: 27:15

Crash dieting. That's what you're talking about. Yeah, and you're going to drop it.

Jordan Sims: 27:18

The same with a budget If I make, if I make your budget or you make your budget uncomfortable to the point that I'm not saying that you're not going to hurt for a little bit, cause sometimes you have to have a slap on the face. That's like not we got to cut the spending. No, we have to pay off the debt. No, we have to. You know we have to do these things that are uncomfortable, but it's always for a season. The a problem that you see in in the diet culture is like the crash dieting my sodas, I'm not. I'm not doing sugar, I'm not doing taking someone who has all of those things on a regular basis and then tomorrow switching with, like turning it off. The same with finances.

Jordan Sims: 27:58

If I strip all of your fun things. You're not going to last six months and you're not going to actually learn anything that's going to change any type of habit that's going to make a year or five years from now look any different than it does today, and that's I think that's really important to understand that, like, obviously, finances are a journey. We're not going to know everything from day one, and also, most people I'm not saying there's not people who get windfalls of money, but most people don't ever get a windfall. If you're, if you don't wake up one day and have $10,000 dropped in your bank or a hundred thousand dollars you know from a grandmother who passed away, then you, like, you're never gonna. You're the only one that's gonna be able to change what's happening in your day-to-day life to make tomorrow look different right and it starts with just little habits like that, like nope, I'm not gonna go get a drink today.

Jordan Sims: 28:40

No, I'm not. Um, I had a wake-up call, you know, for myself when I was doing daily transactions and I added up how many times I got my 32-ounce Dr Pepper.

Speaker 3: 28:49

Yeah.

Jordan Sims: 28:50

I was like you know, that's like $60 to $100 a month that I'm spending on just random snacks.

Addison Thom: 28:56

It's crazy when you think about that. I kind of went through that, I mean, when we're talking about the culture and like avoidance culture and like instant gratification. That is part of the problem, because how easy it is to finance like high interest rate credit cards and finance things that you purchase but and then also food, and you know, saying this again, how you do anything is how you do everything.

Addison Thom: 29:17

when you sit down and you look at how much money you're spending on drinks yeah you go out to a bar, even if you go out once a week on Friday nights with your friends, that's hundreds of dollars a month. Daily Starbucks, you know? $10 a pop every day of the month for 30 days. Right, if you just cut those, like you don't have to live in a shanty and not spend any of your money. To be a little bit more disciplined. It's like you know, if you go back to health and wellness, it's like if you go to the gym seven days a week but then you eat like trash afterwards, you know it's not going to give you the results that you want. You can make all the money, you can go, do all the work, but if you don't like discipline yourself, to compliment that, it's like a path for destruction and it doesn't happen overnight.

Addison Thom: 30:08

I think what you're talking about also is this is years of bad habits that build up and then it's like man, I need to pull the ripcord and get out of this. It didn't happen overnight, you're not going to get out of it overnight, and the only way to be fit and healthy is to have a lifestyle and a discipline that you can do for 30 years. That's. That's manageable if you want to go out and have a cocktail every once in a while, go do it. If you want to have a steak and you know french fries and a hamburger, that's fine, do that once a month, whatever. If you try to crash diet that person or put them on, hey, don't go spend any money. You can't get your nails done for six months or whatever.

Addison Thom: 30:47

The thing is the mental association with that and I think the beautiful thing about what your philosophy is and what you're building is like I want to build a healthy habit for your home that you can execute reliably and consistently over the next 30 years, and if you can do that, then we're talking. Now we're building a plan. And so what is that switch that you see with people? So you've treated the patient, you're understanding where their mental connection is with money, some of the bad habits that they have. You're showing them a couple of small tweaks that they can make to get back on on track. Pay off their debt yeah, where? What is that?

Jordan Sims: 31:33

moment, like for you, when, like, the light bulb comes on for them, um, it's probably the best part, uh, when they, when they, when they see something that's like, oh, like that, like I get it now, um, I think one of the biggest misconceptions with budgeting and with with a plan is that it's restrictive when it's actually the opposite. A budget and a plan give you freedom to spend. So, like you're talking about, like, not getting your nails done for six months, I didn't say you couldn't get your nails done for six months. I said you have to choose, that you're going to spend that money on your nails.

Addison Thom: 32:05

This next six months instead. Of something else.

Jordan Sims: 32:08

But that's okay. If you want to do that, it really is okay. But you're going to know that you're making that choice to spend that money on your nails, to go out to eat, to do whatever, but it's going to be in the budget. What we're not going to do is say I'm going to spend $500 on eating out this month and then you spend $800.

Speaker 3: 32:27

Right.

Jordan Sims: 32:27

Because then that was $300 that was supposed to go somewhere else. That now can't because you chose to go eat out more than you said you were.

Speaker 3: 32:33

Right.

Jordan Sims: 32:33

But I didn't say you couldn't go eat out at all.

Speaker 3: 32:36

Right.

Jordan Sims: 32:36

Because, again.

Addison Thom: 32:36

That's not fun.

Jordan Sims: 32:37

Yep, and if we're not having fun, if we're not enjoying life, then what's the point? Right?

Addison Thom: 32:42

What's the point? That's the same thing with, like health and wellness too, right, like you don't like that Brian Johnson guy, you know that's like anti-aging have you seen him?

Speaker 3: 32:50

Yes, yes, yes.

Addison Thom: 32:51

What is the point of living to your 120 if you're the most boring human on the planet?

Jordan Sims: 32:56

and you're not doing anything.

Addison Thom: 32:57

You're living in a bubble, just like what's the point of me being so financially restrictive on myself that I'm not like enjoying, like you want to enjoy, the fruits of your labor?

Speaker 3: 33:06

right.

Addison Thom: 33:13

Yeah, but you're enjoying them too much right now. Okay, you're financially obese and we just have to get you back in better shape and then you're going to be happier for longer. So, you, you, you, you get that light bulb moment. I can't talk. You get that light bulb moment and they're they've agreed. Okay, I'm on track. I want to do what you're telling me to do, right? So six months later, let's say, they're in a better financial position. You know a lot of their debts paid down. They're living those daily habits and those monthly habits that you've introduced to them. What's next? What do you do after that?

Jordan Sims: 33:49

So I have two programs. One is a shortened version. A lot of just personal finance ends up doing the shorter version where we're just looking at budget savings, debt and savings can be short-term and long-term goals. If you do the six-month version, where we dig a little deeper, a little longer, then we start looking at what investments do you have or what do you want to get into? What does retirement look like? What does investing into your children's life as they grow past college? What does that look like? And then, what does estate planning look like? What are you planning on leaving? Who are you wanting to leave it to? How do you want to? You know what, what's left over at the end, where does it go and what? What would make you happy at that point? Um, while also trying to reach a goal that you can retire? Um, or work less? Um, cause a lot of people don't want to stop working, cause I was like what am I doing with my time?

Jordan Sims: 34:51

But you don't want to be working like you're working now, you know, necessarily, and so a lot of it is actually sitting down and getting to look at what does life look like in 20 years. A lot of it is dreaming, a lot of it is the goal planning. But I think what happened to a lot of our parents is they there was a lot less planning. It was a lot less living in the day, less planning for the future. Um, because our parents are kind of the first generation that doesn't have the securities of a larger social security, a pension um, a company that they worked for for 40 years. It's going to take care of them. I mean, they had multiple careers um along the way, and so if they didn't save for retirement, then a lot of them are still working.

Jordan Sims: 35:31

And so if we want to do something different, we have to do something different now, and so part of not working in the future means you have to be saving for today. So what does that look like? What part of your budget, what part of your life do you want to maybe scale back, or do you want to scale up your income, to have extra disposable income to put towards saving in different aspects, whether that's investments, whether that's just putting it, like I said, into a kid's fund that's funding their college or helping. I love the 529s now that get to roll over into a Roth which, if it's been open for 10 years, they can actually withdraw up to $10,000 for a down payment on a home.

Jordan Sims: 36:15

I think that's fantastic.

Addison Thom: 36:16

Yeah, and the way that Roth works, that's post-tax dollars.

Speaker 3: 36:22

Yes.

Addison Thom: 36:22

That you can put into an account. So the 529 plan is also post-tax right, yes. That can be used towards education expenses?

Jordan Sims: 36:32

Yes, but the rules have been expanded because we have a culture that's trying to go back towards the blue collar, like we pushed everyone to college and now we have a bunch of college graduates who can't do anything, like they can't work in their fields because there's not enough jobs, but they're also not skilled enough to go do something else.

Jordan Sims: 36:51

They also got like political science degrees or like women's studies or whatever right um, so you have all these college graduates that now you know, like I said, that don't have jobs in their fields and now they had to go learn a trade. So one of the things, like you can go to trade school, you can get certificates, you can, yeah, you can do, uh, like your insurance license, yeah, but like the real estate broker, um, anything, that is a course that also, like you know, that gives you like a certificate or a certification or securities license or something like that. All of that can be funded with a 529 and no penalty. Also your living expenses during that time, so you can pay rent with it, you can buy gas, you can buy food with that 529 money without penalty when it's used during that time of like education and then also the education.

Addison Thom: 37:37

That's powerful too, because, like if you start a 529 plan when your kid's born the benefit of the 529 is that it's post-tax dollars, but you don't pay taxes on the gains while it's in the 529.

Jordan Sims: 37:51

And you don't ever, yeah, and you don't pay, you can withdraw. Another misconception you can withdraw any money at any point that you put in penalty-free. So like, for example, we have a set amount each month that we pay for our kid, for each child, if something were to happen to them that we needed to withdraw a large sum of money. Any money that I put in I can get out at any point and I can use it for anything. At the point that they are then using it for educational purposes, which a lot of private schools also are eligible. So when you put that money into a 529 and you're using it to pay for a K through 12, private education then, or education at all, it can also be used for that.

Jordan Sims: 38:35

It's just sometimes that doesn't really work, unless a grandparent set it up or it's a rollover because you can also pass them down, so like if a parent has one you can pass it down to a child, or a grandparent can set it up for a child. But then, at the point that anything's left over after you know you use it for college or say they didn't go to a four year college, they just do like a two year associates, or they get like a, like an electrician. You know they go get their.

Jordan Sims: 38:58

Yeah, some sort of trade school, and it doesn't use all of the money. Then, like I said, they can roll the rest of that into a Roth IRA and, as long as the account's been open longer than 10 years, they can withdraw up to $10,000 and use it as a down payment on a first home. And that's powerful, because we were talking about it before. But, like stepping into the real estate market, the sooner you can do that, the sooner you can get your first home, the better you are going to set yourself up financially, because that was the point get your first home the better you are going to set yourself up financially, because that was the point Buying our first home was the point where we went from negative to positive net worth.

Addison Thom: 39:35

Yeah, in an instant Right, and that's not always possible because sometimes it doesn't, you know, appreciate that fast. That's also where most of like Americans' net worth is. Yeah, it's like 90% of your net worth is in your primary residence, and we were talking about that a little bit too, because, depending on where you are, you, I think, do this very well as you're assessing the person, like meeting them where they are. If they're 25 or 55, your plan has to be different If you were like a one size fits all financial advisors.

Addison Thom: 40:04

They do this all the time. If you were like a one-size-fits-all financial advisor, they do this all the time. Your plan and your risk tolerance at 55 is way different than when you're 25. And so you shouldn't be doing the exact same thing?

Jordan Sims: 40:15

You shouldn't be buying the same fund. You don't need a mutual fund when you're 25.

Addison Thom: 40:20

But if you have millions of dollars in net worth or cash or whatever, your plan is going to be completely different. I think one thing that's really important like you said on buying your primary home, what do you do, how do you generate wealth and build your net worth up when you're only? You've saved $25,000,. You've saved $50,000. What's your coaching to them? How does that? How do you help accelerate?

Jordan Sims: 40:51

So my a lot of it has to do with the clients a risk management like how comfortable are they age? Like we're talking about what, what are their goals? Where did they want to go? Um, cause, some people. I have some clients that are like I want to put money somewhere, I want to close my eyes and I want to open it when I'm 65 and have a surprise yeah.

Jordan Sims: 41:15

Um, and that's great. I love that for them. I tend to fall into a camp where I just I want to set it and forget it. I want to to just do autopilot. Um, I love auto pay. But there are other people who want to be a little bit more involved. They want to take a little bit more risk. They may have more cash, especially the disposable income, monthly. It might ramp up to a point where they're like, okay, I have too much. Because my number one thing especially for W-2, is, if you have an employer match, I want you to go grab it.

Addison Thom: 41:46

Yeah, max that out. It's free money.

Jordan Sims: 41:48

Yeah, we are maxing out employer matches every day, all day, and I never want you to pause that. As long as you're working at an employer, you can lower it. If you're putting more in than you need to and we need to allocate those funds somewhere else for a time, that's fine. But always go get the free money, like you're saying, um, and then my next step is usually a Roth IRA. I want you to go put your seven thousand dollars of seven, seventy five hundred, depending on your age of um, your tax free growth. Go grab that, go take that. You know, have that sitting there. But again, those are retirement funds that you can't use until you're 65 or plus, you know, depending on when you can withdraw those funds without penalty and then past that.

Jordan Sims: 42:33

Again, it has to do with, like your goals when do you want to put that and what do you want to do with it? Obviously, if I meet a young person who doesn't have a home, that's going to be our first goal, whether that's working with an investor or not an investor, but working with an agent that we can work on. Like the first time home buyer, we can get a reduced down payment, whether that's like a USDA loan or their VA loan, but also just educating them on what do loans look like, what do house loans, and then also what like? What does your credit look like? What is your credit history, um, look like, so that we can get you eligible to buy a home, um, and then having a down payment like over by.

Addison Thom: 43:16

Like your mortgage lender, we'll try to approve you for like the max amount.

Jordan Sims: 43:19

Oh, the amount that we were approved for was a joke no-transcript. Huge misconceptions with even just the down payment. People think that they have a 0% down payment. That means they don't have to bring anything to closing.

Jordan Sims: 43:57

And it's like there are other closing costs that you have to still have. It's just the down payment gets to be reduced, whether it's 3.5 for a FHA or zero for you know special types of loans but there's other money that you need. And then we're going to turn around and you're going to be a homeowner, so like, let's not deplete every single penny you have and throw it at your closing costs. And then also we're not going to max out your budget, because another huge thing that I feel like is has a lack of education around is like insurance goes up every year, right, your homeowner's insurance your taxes your um, all of that, yeah, it goes up, and so people that could afford the home three years ago barely right

Addison Thom: 44:39

are now pressed because their income hasn't adjusted to the level of inflation of those other people Exactly.

Jordan Sims: 44:45

And their tax bill or whatever the escrow account is asking them for $400 more a month and they're like, well, no, I can't afford it. Right? It's like, well, yeah, because you have too much house.

Addison Thom: 44:55

I tell people that I mean, I get asked that question a lot Like if I only have $25,000 or $50,000, what should I do with it? What should I do with it 100%? If you can qualify, you should use the FHA first-time homebuyer program to buy a duplex.

Addison Thom: 45:11

If I could go back to being 22 again, I would do that. I bought a single family home instead. It was fine. But the power of 3.5% down to buy that asset, so you can spend 25 grand. You're going to have a $350,000 property, right With closing costs and all that good stuff, if you're qualified for the mortgage. Let's say your mortgage is $2,500 a month. You're paying the $2,500 a month every month. Then you rent out the other side of that duplex and charge them $1,400 a month to live there. If you apply that money to principal on time with your mortgage payment after your expenses right, if you have any expenses or maintenance costs or anything like that that duplex will be paid off in less than 15 years.

Addison Thom: 46:02

So now your $25,000 owns a $350,000 asset that has appreciated over the 15. Let's just say conservatively it's worth $450,000 at the end of 15 years. That sets you up for everything you ever wanted to do. It's paid off. You can sell it, you can keep cash flow in it, you can refinance it, which is tax-free. So you can pull money back out of that property and use that to buy another property or invest in your business or pay off other debt or whatever it is. It gives like.

Addison Thom: 46:34

I don't think people quite like when you were saying the connection between where they're spending money and how they're spending money, I don't think people understand that on the value of that compounding return, that with $25,000, you can get so much closer to being a millionaire starting with $25,000.

Addison Thom: 46:56

Yeah, and if you'd never bought anything ever, ever again, that nest egg is there, right? And the other thing is that I would really tell people to do is we have a relationship with a company called Connect Invest where you can actually get leverage in real estate and earn a higher level of return. Right, and you get to act as the bank. You can lend the money out, your money is secured against real property in a diversified portfolio and that company is going to pay you seven and a half to 9% return on your money every year. You can invest in that with as little as $500. So you don't have to have $50,000 to start doing something. 9% is going to beat the S&P 500. It's going to beat your high yield savings accounts. It's going to. You know, for the most part, unless you know what you're doing, it's going to beat any day trader you know across the US on a 30 year basis.

Jordan Sims: 47:53

With less time, less risk and less expertise, Like I don't have, like we were talking about not sitting there watching portfolio or like reports of what's's going up, what's going down. I'm not watching the news as to who's making what policy change or this or that, or what company is going under like I don't have to watch any of that yep um, yeah, no, I definitely love that.

Jordan Sims: 48:16

What like? We're talking about a lot there. There's a hole where we're, like I said, like we get out of debt, we have this discretionary income and then people just start saving it Once you're past your first home. What are we saving for?

Speaker 3: 48:30

Right.

Jordan Sims: 48:30

And then a lot of times and again this is going back to the advisors. But talking with advisors, there's a minimum limit and I joke you know, if I've saved $50,000 on my own, I probably don't need your help like as an advisor. Right, that might be a little cocky but that's just the way.

Addison Thom: 48:54

I think I think that's so right though I think that's so right. I think that most people have this association with that Like. I think more people should have that sense of confidence. I saved this $50,000 on my own. What I run into a lot is I hear people like, well, I only have $25,000 or I only have $50,000. And they have this like sense of hopelessness, like what does it matter if I invest the $50,000? I should just go buy the new truck.

Addison Thom: 49:18

The real truth is the difference between me. That was broke, that was living in an apartment with four other people trying to build my business when I was in my 20s. The difference between me and you is I saw the value in the long-term benefit of investing and being disciplined with my money. I had no reason to think at 22 years old, sleeping on a couch, that I was going to have millions of dollars one day. It was just dedication to that daily discipline and not just being like this sense of hopelessness like I only saved 25 grand. I only saved 15. Yeah, I bought my first house. That turned into 65. Then that goes into the next property. You know like just doing those daily habits every day. I think that's the mental connection that everyone needs to make. It's like I did this this is my $50,000. Like, don't be hopeless with it or think that like the world is just going to keep pressing you down because Literally any amount.

Addison Thom: 50:19

Right.

Jordan Sims: 50:19

You and you may not, since you are in real estate, but you would be shocked at the amount of people that I meet that have little to nothing in any type of savings. Um, people give you know, dave ramsey, a bad name for saying, like you need a thousand dollar emergency fund. That's not big enough for anything. I'm like, do you know the amount of people that don't?

Addison Thom: 50:39

even have a thousand zero. Yeah, I think there was something like 70, 60 something or 70. You% of the fact, check mailers don't have enough money in their checking or savings account to handle any kind of emergency up to like $1,200. Yeah, anything, yeah.

Jordan Sims: 50:54

So the idea of just having $1,000 sitting somewhere, like yes, he gets a lot of heat for that, but, like he says, it's not to fix everything, it's just to fix most things, or to fix some things or to alleviate you know some kind of issue. But things, yeah, things come up all the time and you, if you don't have any money saved, there is stress. But at the point that you are saving anything, you 5,000, 10,000, make the goal smaller. I was joking with somebody the other day my watch suggested I lower my step count because I never hit the step counter that it set for me and I was like that's kind of deflating, but I did it anyway, I moved it down, but guess, what?

Jordan Sims: 51:44

Now, five days out of the week, I'm hitting my step counts. Now I'm trying to get to it because it's more attainable. So lower your goal. If you can't get to a thousand, make it 500. Once you do 500, you can do it again.

Addison Thom: 51:59

Once you do it again, you can do it again and then you're going to wake up and you're going to have 10,000 banks somewhere. Yeah, that's absolutely right and the right. And one thing you said that I love that so much is like when you're in that position. Okay, let's say you have no money saved and you're living paycheck to paycheck and maybe you have some debt, right? The difference between being in the bottom 25% financially and the top 25% is just that you turned that situation around a little bit and you put $1,000 in savings in your bank. That's all it took for you to get into the top 25%. That's a superpower Because, like I was saying, most people have this hopelessness.

Addison Thom: 52:38

But if you can just turn that around a little bit and you can get the $1,000 and then it turns into $5,000, and then it turns into $10,000 and you've get the thousand and then it turns into five, and then it turns into 10. And you've built those habits. You'll be in the top 10% and then you're in the top 1% because you've invested wisely, you've watched your spending. It's like watching an Olympic track meet right. It's like the guy in first only won by like fractions of a second. Yeah, the guy in last also extremely accomplished, but didn't get anything. He didn't get a medal, nothing. All you have to do is make those little tiny adjustments yeah right and get on track you're, uh, I heard you say you have little girls, so you probably know this.

Jordan Sims: 53:20

But uh, I think often of the quote from frozen 2 where she's uh coming out of the cave and she's distraught and she's like I just have to do the next right thing. And it's like it really does come down to the little decision, like for me, with my, my dr pepper, choosing to go past the uh drive-through to get the dr pepper, to go home to get the can of dr pepper, or taking the can in the morning and putting it in my car, because when I know that I want the Dr Pepper I'll do the can instead of going to the drive-thru. It's like that $2.50 added up and, yes, it's not astronomical, but it's a decision that I chose to make. The next right move. So the next right move that I make will be a little bigger and we just keep moving the needle. That's life, yeah, in general, right, it is you.

Addison Thom: 54:10

The mountain is built by one small boulder at a time, being stacked upon itself.

Jordan Sims: 54:16

That's where you which is the same way. The hole was dug Right Exactly Again, we did not get into the problem overnight.

Addison Thom: 54:23

You're either building a mountain or digging yourself a hole right, yeah, yeah.

Addison Thom: 54:27

So one thing I wanted to touch on too is like you really connect with women in financial literacy and helping with planning and things like that, right, and I don't necessarily think it's like a gender divide, but I do think that men are much more prone to acquiring wealth because it's like attractive to their female counterpart, right, it shows stability and I can be a provider. So they're a little bit more like in the daily. You know the bills, the investments, investments, stuff like that. But one thing you said to me which is so true, and it's even in my household, is like the stay-at-home mom is the one for the most part managing the business of the home, the daily expenses, the utility bills. Um, you know camps for the kids or sporting events like those?

Addison Thom: 55:23

are all things that add up to, how can you introduce financial literacy at a younger, more obtainable level? And what is it about your connection with women to really help them like come along of, like taking ownership of this process?

Jordan Sims: 55:42

So I think it starts a little bit from past generations. This is like the male dominancy in being the provider. You can be a provider and be a leader, and a part of that is also delegating where your weak points are. Sometimes that just comes down to like we're talking about time.

Jordan Sims: 56:04

If the husband is outside the home working and bringing in, you know, the money, while the mother is a stay at home mom, yeah, she may have a side hustle, yeah, she may, um, you know, work part time. If the kids are at, you know a PDO or say they're school age kids. But outside of that mom being primary parent is going to be, even if not in the daily. Um, looking at finances, necessarily like on a spreadsheet, like balancing just the accounting of of a house. She's the one that is in charge of every single variable category in the home and she's's the one logging onto the website to sign up for the school program or whatever it's not you're not stopping your day as the full-time employee to go do that, right, so she's at the grocery store.

Jordan Sims: 56:58

Um, she's, like you said, signing up for camps. She's the one going out and buying the clothes. Um, and I'm and I'm not saying that there's not opportunities where the other spouse gets to do that, where the husband goes out and buys the groceries, or he picks up the clothes or buys clothes or whatever. I'm not saying that there has to be such gender divide, but in the case where you have a husband who's working and then a stay-at-home mom, that just is the nature. That's the whole reason she's a stay-at-home mom is because she has the ability to do those things, because the home is a business, whether or not we like to think of it that way or not.

Addison Thom: 57:32

I think if you don't think of it that way, you're just like you're a fool.

Jordan Sims: 57:36

I mean it has all the same bills that a business has.

Addison Thom: 57:40

And it's 24-7. And it's 24-7. It does not shut down. There's no lunch break. There's no days off.

Jordan Sims: 57:46

Yeah. So I think a woman in the home, even if she's working, has to be in her finances. I believe that all married couples should have combined finances. There should be transparency between the spouses. That doesn't mean that my husband knows every time I go to Sonic Now he sees my Sonic cup at home but he doesn't know every single time I spend every single dime. We do have spending money that he spends what he wants with his money. I spend what I want on my money, but our combined finances. We have transparency on every single level of what our money is coming in, coming out.

Jordan Sims: 58:28

Another thing for accountability is we have a spending limit that I can make decisions outside the budget. Up to a certain point we set a dollar amount. It's like, okay, if we're, if we're making a purchase over this, we have to, we have to talk. We have to say, hey, this is what's happening, this is what I want to do, Is this okay? But that doesn't mean from our larger budget meeting, from the month of just hey, we have a budget. That doesn't mean that, like, I have to approve the $250 I spent at United because that's already accounted for in the amount of money we've decided we're spending on groceries.

Addison Thom: 59:00

You don't want to feel like you guys are like being dictators over each other.

Addison Thom: 59:03

Yeah, and we're not trying to nitpick dude, I can't, you know, I've never understood that, with people keeping their finances separate for so many different reasons. But one of the reasons really, like I, I have like 30 different business accounts, right, my wife doesn't have access to all of my llcs or corporate corporations, just I have partnerships and things like that. But I discuss it with her and, like our household finances, we discuss and go through together. But I think one of the most important things like the disconnect too and I want to hear your opinion on this with married couples. They have never sat down and put together their financial goals and plans as a couple. You have two individuals and that it's even more exaggerated if you're keeping your finances separate. It's like that's like risk mitigation that you guys aren't going to stay together, right, that's such a transformational process, like just to sit down and talk with your wife or talk with your husband about what is our goal when we're 65?.

Speaker 3: 1:00:12

Yeah.

Addison Thom: 1:00:13

What's our dream together that you both need to buy into, because two individuals traveling their own path without any inner intersection is is recipe for disaster. At some point that's going to blow up right. How do you manage that with them when you go into a husband and wife situation? How do you bring that congruence in place and what are some of the hurdles? Not that you're giving marriage advice, but what are some ways that couples can like do a lot of this stuff on their own and preparation for sitting down with you or, like you know, building that relationship together. Cause that's really what it is it's a commitment to like we're in this together.

Speaker 3: 1:00:58

Yeah.

Addison Thom: 1:00:59

We're going to decide on our budget. We're going to build a plan together, build our dreams together, because we're in it, you know, for the long haul. So what are some things that married couples can do? And then what are some like stories you can tell about going into that situation and being like we got to adjust this.

Jordan Sims: 1:01:15

Yeah, so I I strongly advise the one in, one out, like we have one account that comes in and one account that goes out, and then together you decide you allocate what your spending money looks like on a monthly basis. It kind of looks like an allowance, but at the same time it's like nope, here's your money. At the beginning of the month. You spend it as you wish, spend it, save it, do whatever you want. It's yours, you can go, make whatever decision you want with it, but the rest of the money stays in the household accounts to be used for the family goals. That can look like saving for a vacation. That can look like saving for a renovation to a house. That can look like buying a toy. It can look like whatever you want it to look like.

Jordan Sims: 1:02:01

That's part of the beauty of having a personal finance. Personal finance is personal, but it needs to be like. That's part of the beauty of having a personal finance. Personal finance is personal but it needs to be together. Because if you're not together and you're only paying the household budget, like, for example you meet a couple and they have completely separate finances. I've seen it two ways Either she pays some of the bills and he pays some of the bills and generally it's split down the middle, or they literally split, like the water bill was $100, you pay $50, I pay $50. Every single time I've seen it both ways. Some people find it easier to do one over the other. Some find it more fair to do one over the other.

Addison Thom: 1:02:36

What's the most effective way? All some find it more fair to do one or the other. What's the most effective way? All of it, One in one out.

Jordan Sims: 1:02:41

Yeah, all of it goes in. All of it, like the money, like personally, the way that we do it. All of our money comes into one account. We have a different account that all of the money exits but all of the, the household bills, literally every bill, gets paid out of joint money. It's not my money, his money, it's our money, it's our family's money to do what we do. We've allocated each month out of our budget money to spend. That's literally my money, that I can, you know, go buy this, go buy that, whatever, and he has the same. But the rest of the money. I'm not splitting hairs over what the electric bill each month and how much that's coming out of mine versus his, especially when you have spouses who don't make similar amounts, like if you have a high earner and a lower earner.

Jordan Sims: 1:03:28

splitting 50-50 is not fair because one person's getting a better end of the deal. Same way with doing like well, she pays the bill, like she pays the water bill and I pay the mortgage and she pays the whatever.

Addison Thom: 1:03:38

It's just a foolish endeavor.

Jordan Sims: 1:03:40

And it's also a selfish endeavor.

Addison Thom: 1:03:41

I think you know when you first get married to there's like this like you, you're clinging to the things that are yours, like even when you're talking about furniture it's like it's like, that's my couch for my couch, that's my yeah.

Addison Thom: 1:03:54

God, faster you get over that especially men out there I'm talking to you guys like the quicker you just decide this is my family's money. We need to build this plan together. Everyone needs to be on board and you stop hoarding that and like clutching your pearls of like this is I earned this money, or using that as like leverage over your wife. That's so silly.

Jordan Sims: 1:04:18

At the point that you got married, whether it was a big ceremony, no ceremony, whether it was $500.

Addison Thom: 1:04:26

Justice of the peace. I saved a big company. I did not do that. You bought a house instead of a paper bag.

Jordan Sims: 1:04:33

I did the big wedding. But it doesn't matter if you're religious or not. If you are, you've made a vow and a covenant even before God that you are one. If you're not religious, you still have chosen that.

Addison Thom: 1:04:46

One person out of literally everyone in the world, you still made that vow, actually, whether you're religious or not.

Jordan Sims: 1:04:54

But you've made that vow that you've picked that one person to be more important than any other person in the world, that you've picked that one person to be more important than any other person in the world. Yeah, why would we not join everything that we have? Because the idea that two are better than one and we're going to go farther better together.

Addison Thom: 1:05:12

Absolutely Than we are as individuals.

Jordan Sims: 1:05:14

Why are we still I mean I think Dave Ramsey called it roommates Like you're living at your roommates, like if we're, if we're living together? That's what I did with my roommate in college.

Speaker 3: 1:05:21

Yeah.

Jordan Sims: 1:05:22

We had the bill. Our rent was like $1,100. We split it.

Speaker 3: 1:05:25

Yeah $550.

Jordan Sims: 1:05:27

You pay $550, I pay $550. Yeah, why would I do that with my husband, right? Why would I split my finances down to like literal penny?

Addison Thom: 1:05:35

you're missing the forest and the trees, You're missing the life and you're you're idolizing money instead of the life that you should be building together as a family, as a husband and wife.

Jordan Sims: 1:05:46

And then when you're looking at savings and goals, where is that going? Who has it? Who's managing?

Speaker 3: 1:05:53

it, she's making sure the other person isn't?

Jordan Sims: 1:05:55

Yeah, exactly so who's making sure the other person is still holding up their end of the deal? Yeah, exactly so. Who's making sure the other person is still holding up their end of the deal, Like I have?

Jordan Sims: 1:06:09

met some people that put you know they open up a third account and they're like well, we're safe, we both add money over there and I'm like, okay, but do that in reverse and do it. Your money is like literally sitting in a giant pile together, is so much greater. It's, it makes more sense and it there's. There's unity in that, Like there's unity in being able to sit down and go hey, we can go do this fun thing.

Jordan Sims: 1:06:31

We can go save for this thing or no. That's what we want to go do. What does that look like today? What does that look like tomorrow? What do we? What could we sell? What could we um like? What extra hour? You know, some people can pick up extra hours. Some people can like for me, I can. How many more clients can I go get? How many more policies could I sell to to make these things happen, make these things a reality?

Jordan Sims: 1:06:54

Um, I found out a long time ago I'm not money motivated, which seems so weird considering I have this like honestly obsession with, like personal finance. I'm not money motivated, I'm goal motivated. And so you can dangle all the money in the world in front of me, but if I don't have a purpose for it, I don't go chase it. But you tell me that my kid needs blank, or my car needs blank, or we want to go on a blank trip. I will take that. I will divide it by how many hours or how many policies or whatever the math is. I will figure out a way to fund that thing so fast.

Addison Thom: 1:07:33

I think anything that's money-motivated is a fool's errand. I think that if you're focused on adding value and you're service first and purpose driven, the money will come.

Jordan Sims: 1:07:46

if you're really doing what you do, the money will follow, you know.

Addison Thom: 1:07:50

And I've made this mistake before too. Like done a deal because of the profit return, even though I was uneasy about who I was doing the deal with, or whatever. Right Never ends well and if it does end well, it's a blessing from God, because you never should like. You should have trusted yourself of like. This doesn't feel right. I don't want to go into that right, I've signed clients.

Jordan Sims: 1:08:09

Before that I was like I was chasing you know. Chasing, not chasing the money to be greedy, but chasing the money because I needed it. Like, oh, I have an open spot, I need to fill it. Oh, I need you know, I need you know, we're low this month.

Addison Thom: 1:08:20

Whatever, like I'm going to go do this client just because I mean that's natural when you're an entrepreneur, starting yeah 100%.

Jordan Sims: 1:08:26

If you don't work well, you're not giving your best and they're not getting your best, yeah, and that's wasting your time. Passion for what's going on in the job Um, things get really exciting and it's a lot more fun Um so it does take a certain point in your business where you get to be choosy um, where you don't have to take every offer on the table.

Addison Thom: 1:08:59

So one thing it sounds like you get a lot of inspiration from Dave Ramsey. I mean, he's like probably the biggest personality in the space.

Speaker 3: 1:09:05

Yeah.

Addison Thom: 1:09:07

I think fundamentally net positive uh, from the value that he's providing to the public.

Speaker 3: 1:09:12

Yeah.

Addison Thom: 1:09:13

On the other side of that, there are some things that I disagree with him on. What's your position on just like good debt versus bad debt?

Speaker 3: 1:09:20

Yeah.

Addison Thom: 1:09:26

Like credit cards with you know rewards programs, things like that.

Jordan Sims: 1:09:28

Where do you sit with all that? All of it comes down to responsibility. Um, if you are a person who can handle and manage your money responsibly, then you get privileges. Um's just like a child with a toy. I mean it honestly is If you're misusing the opportunities, then we have to take those privileges away. So you know we were talking about before, like Dave Ramsey has to draw a hard line and say all debt is bad debt, which I don't actually know if they 100% say that, but debt is bad to them.

Addison Thom: 1:09:57

They say all debt's bad.

Jordan Sims: 1:09:58

Yeah, so they're like, even I think they make the exception of the house. I, literally I think I heard Dave Ramsey say one time he was like, yeah, I couldn't motivate people to save a hundred grand before they tried to buy a house. He's like I could only get them to save you know whatever three, six months. And so it was a joke that, like, even if he could make like mortgages bad, he would, um, you know, in in people's eyes. But when you're talking about good debt, bad debt, I don't have no problem with you using credit cards. We use credit cards. I. I chase rewards, I chase the, the sign-on bonuses. Um, that's how we travel. Um, I have never paid for a hotel, except when we went to alaska and they didn't have places for me to use my rewards because alaska has like three non-hotels.

Addison Thom: 1:10:40

They have dial-up internet still.

Jordan Sims: 1:10:42

Yeah, in places I was worried about having internet and cell phone service, so they definitely didn't have a Marriott. But you know, like I have, like I said, we use credit cards, we use credit card points. The difference is my like credit card statement is set to pay off in full every single month. I don't carry debt on my credit cards month over month. At the point that you do, you've lost every single reward that you gained.

Addison Thom: 1:11:14

You lose all your credit.

Jordan Sims: 1:11:15

And, yes, at that point you lose your privileges. You have to freeze the card, you have to take it away. You go literally put it in the freezer, cut it up, put it in a safe, I don't care. Cancel it if you have to, but it's because you misused it, not because it in itself was innately bad. I mean, I feel like it's just like any particularly good bad thing. It's like, well, it wasn't the thing that was the problem. It's your misuse of it.

Addison Thom: 1:11:41

I think the valuable point there is the surplus that you can benefit from, so you go back to health and wellness. If you're 100 pounds overweight, you don't get a cheat meal.

Speaker 3: 1:11:55

No.

Addison Thom: 1:11:55

You have to hit your goal weight and then, if you want to have a burger and fries every once in a while, you can't. Once you get the habits in line with what you're saying and you can trust yourself to be responsible with the daily finances, go get a credit card. Go use leverage to your advantage.

Speaker 3: 1:12:19

Yeah.

Addison Thom: 1:12:23

Like one of the most powerful things to building wealth is actually using leverage, whether you're using it by, you know, leveraging stocks or real estate or whatever. It is yeah, if you have the rest of your house in order.

Speaker 3: 1:12:32

Yeah.

Addison Thom: 1:12:33

You can take the risk on the leverage.

Speaker 3: 1:12:35

Yeah.

Addison Thom: 1:12:35

But until then, you know, hit your goal weight, and then we can talk.

Jordan Sims: 1:12:40

But until then, you know, hit your goal weight and then we can talk. And it's the idea too of like, when you're in debt, like in the quote unquote bad debt, like if you have payday loans, if you have unsecured loans that are that were bailing you out, like a personal loan, say, maybe you've got a car loan of some sort.

Jordan Sims: 1:12:56

That was like getting out of negative debt on your car. Car loans I would consider past one really, even not even the one I still err on the side of. That's bad debt. Your good debt are things that can grow your net worth faster than you're losing the money and the interest. And again that comes with a little bit of math but it's not bad. I mean, we can count to 10 and we know which one's bigger and so like, if I have an asset that's growing faster than the interest it's costing me, then that gets to go in a good debt pile, even when especially when it has a whole asset like real estate that you can look at and go.

Jordan Sims: 1:13:37

I have a house, I have two houses, I have four houses and even though they might all have loans on them, they're still the net positive versus if I have five truck loans. I don't have enough to pay off the five truck loans because my trucks are worth less than I've financed.

Addison Thom: 1:13:54

Is the debt producing cashflow and income? And is that cashflow and income high enough to cover those and put money in your pocket and help? And is that cashflow and income high enough to cover those and put money in your pocket and help you pay for that asset should anything go wrong? If you're buying a property and it's at break even, that's not positive cashflow, that's anytime a water heater goes out. You're losing cashflow, right? So you want to be at a certain level and that's what we do with our company. We can walk people through that and we spend, you know, probably 20 hours with our clients before we even allow them to buy property, going through what their goals are Like.

Addison Thom: 1:14:33

That's the thing that attracted me to your company was you're treating the patient instead of just being like, hey, this is one size fits all for everybody. You're treating the patient instead of just being like, hey, this is one size fits all for everybody. You're treating the patient in the sense that everyone else has their own reasons for why they want to do something, and we're big on that. What is your why? Why do you want to make money, more money? Is it early retirement? Is it whatever right?

Addison Thom: 1:14:56

You have to understand that first, then walk them through what the options are that you can add value to, and then present that we don't charge anything for our services. It's like this is what we do. I will share it with you for free. If you decide it's a good, you know step for you to take, I'm happy to help you do that. If not great, because, like you said, you don't want the client that is resistant to learning from you and buying into. Hey, this is the goal I want to be on, and I'm not saying that this is the only way to do it.

Speaker 3: 1:15:26

Right.

Addison Thom: 1:15:27

You can make millions of dollars doing something else too, but this is the value that I add. You buy into that, we're going to have a really good relationship. If not, you can go try it To another avenue?

Jordan Sims: 1:15:37

Yeah exactly, Jordan, you can go, you know, try it To whatever else. Another avenue yeah exactly.

Addison Thom: 1:15:39

But, jordan, I really appreciate your time.

Jordan Sims: 1:15:43

I think that was awesome I might have to sign up for your services.

Addison Thom: 1:15:49

That would be fun. Drag my wife in here. No, she's great, she's so good. She gives me a line. Well, I think one thing too, that is, I try I was thinking about this earlier. If you're in the median income or lower income, or whatever you might be thinking, this is a great option for you to have.

Addison Thom: 1:16:11

I want to get my finances in order and build my savings and then eventually build wealth. I'm thinking of it as someone that's like I could not work tomorrow and never have to work again. I feel like I need this more than anyone because you reach a certain level of success, a certain level of income where man, like the first time that I sat down for dinner and I didn't even have to look at the bill and I could just like give them my credit card and pay the bill and I knew everything was going to be okay that's what real financial freedom felt like to me. Every dollar above that that I made was like it doesn't matter, literal gravy Just knowing that you're just okay.

Speaker 3: 1:16:50

Yeah.

Addison Thom: 1:16:51

Right. But then you like the the creep lifestyle right. So you buy a bigger house, you get more cars, you do all this and you can lose track of the importance of the discipline that got you there, and I think that anyone in my tax bracket or income bracket could really benefit from that too, even if everything's okay. Just have a looky-loo like looky-loo.

Jordan Sims: 1:17:20

If you're not looking at your personal finances I mean, sure, a certain level of income you could look at it once a year, but if you're not looking at it quarterly at least, you're going to have things that you don't even know you're spending. I have high. The thing about money problems is it's just like any other thing in life the same problems that broke people have, rich people have too.

Jordan Sims: 1:17:44

they're just different yeah so, like you were saying, like a someone who has to look at their bank account to make sure that they can pay for that meal, the, the, you know rich person, high income or whatever may not have to look at that, but they're going to have something else yeah around the corner that is going to be a similar problem.

Jordan Sims: 1:18:07

But also if I looked at their you know bank statement and then I showed them how much they're actually spending every time they go out to eat, they might go. Oh, I didn't realize it was that high I didn't realize I was doing that, I didn't realize.

Jordan Sims: 1:18:19

And then the cool thing is is when you do get to take someone's um income which I had this happen recently but we, I got to take a family and I got to go. You know you're not as bad as you think. You are like like it's really gonna be okay. And also, if you make this adjustment and this adjustment, you can do everything on your goals list. Yeah, but they were living in a mindset of such scarcity that they didn't even want to look because they Right, which could have been to their fault. I mean to the fault, it could also be the thing that got them where they were, because they're like oh no, we're broke, we're broke, we're broke and it's like okay, but you can breathe now.

Speaker 3: 1:18:58

Yeah.

Jordan Sims: 1:18:58

But at the same time don't take such a deep breath that then we forget, Yep.

Addison Thom: 1:19:03

Like, I mean that's just as harmful to write like your stress and cortisol and anxiety is what's going to put you in an early grave too. So it's all it's all combined. Yeah, Um, I love that and thank you. We're going to have to have you back on too. That was fantastic, Jordan. What's the name of your company?

Jordan Sims: 1:19:20

So my company's name is Her Financial Health. Okay, it is not exclusive to women, although I am a woman, and that's kind of how I came up with it. I also believe in financial literacy for women. It's statistically proven that women know less about money upon graduation from high school and college, and so that's part of my mission, I guess you would say is, uh, helping women learn about money. Um, so yeah, I think my tagline is her place to learn about money, which is really fun, um where can people find you?

Jordan Sims: 1:19:54

So typically, uh, you can find me on Facebook and Instagram it's at Her Financial Help on both places and then I have a website, wwwherfinancialhelpcom. There's a contact me form.

Addison Thom: 1:20:10

You can also just reach out to me.

Jordan Sims: 1:20:11

Facebook Messenger. Most people message me on Facebook if they don't have my personal contact.

Addison Thom: 1:20:16

Awesome. Well, thank you so much. I appreciate you coming. We'll have to get you back on.

Speaker 3: 1:20:20

Yeah, awesome. Well, thank you so much. I appreciate you coming. We'll have to get you back on. Yeah, you, you.