Tax Strategist Barbara Schreihans: The Tax Code Was Written For You | Ep 45

What if the tax code was actually written to HELP you, not punish you?

In this episode, Aimee Rickabus talks with Barbara Schreihans, founder of Your Tax Coach and nationally recognized tax strategist, about why understanding taxes is one of the most powerful things women entrepreneurs can do for their businesses and their families.

Barbara shares:

- Why only 12 pages of the 7,000-page tax code tell you what to pay
- The entity structure mistake costing business owners 15.3% in unnecessary taxes
- How to write off travel, meals, your car, and more — legally
- Why S-Corps make you 35x less likely to be audited
- The retirement accounts that can save you hundreds of thousands
- How to have "money dates" that actually bring you closer as a couple
- Why women outperform men when they invest — but don't invest enough
- Simple ways to start investing with just $5/week

Whether you're just starting out or scaling a successful business, this conversation will change how you see money forever. The tax code was written for you — it's time to use it.

🔗 CONNECT WITH BARBARA SCHREIHANS:
Instagram: @yourtaxcoach
Website: https://barbaraschreihans.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/your-tax-coach/

🔗 CONNECT WITH THE MANAGE HER:
Website: https://www.themanageher.com
Instagram: @themanageher
Full show notes and resources available at themanageher.com

———

The Manage Her® Podcast — hosted by Aimee Rickabus. Honest conversations on leadership, financial empowerment, motherhood, wellness, and career reinvention for ambitious women.

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Transcript

0:10

If money is power, then understanding your taxes is a form of leadership. Welcome back to the Manager Podcast, the show where we turn invisible work into visible leadership and help women reclaim their time, power, and potential. I'm your host, Amy Riccobus. Today's conversation is one I wish every entrepreneur could sit in on, because if you've ever felt confused, intimidated, or behind when it comes to taxes, this episode will change the way you see money forever. I'm joined by Barbara Shreehans, founder of yourtaxcoach.com, a nationally recognized tax strategist who helps entrepreneurs and business owners stop overpaying the IRS and start using the tax code as a tool, not a punishment. I just finished one of Barbara's incredible end of the year Zoom sessions, and I walked away with pages of notes, real usable strategies that immediately shifted how I think about write-offs, entity structure, and long-term wealth planning. This is not about loopholes or cutting corners. This is about education, intention, and empowerment. If you want to move from reacting at tax time to leading your money year round, you're going to love this conversation. Welcome, Barbara. I am so happy to have you on the show. Thank you so much for having me. Yay. Amazing. I actually found Barbara on Instagram and saw her work and thought, I have to have her on the show. So I just reached out to her and she graciously said she would come on. I'm so thrilled you're here. Thank you so much. Your work online looks just amazing. And I think the work that you do for women is very empowering and very so important for the way we move forward. It is so important, especially as women in business and making money like we already have so much on our shoulders. And then as a woman in business, it's we all have to be smarter with our investments and our decisions with money. And so I love sharing the word. It's amazing. Yeah. So, Barbara, most women I know dread taxes. Why do you think taxes feel so overwhelming, especially for women business owners? I mean, we're not taught about it in school. We have sex ed, but why do we not have like tax ed? I say it all the time. And even one of my company's names is tax ed because I'm like, It needs to be talked about. We have and deal with money all day, every day. And taxes are the number one expense in anyone's life. Studies show that in anyone's lifetime, they will pay 51 percent in taxes and not just like income taxes like we all pay. It's property tax. It's sales tax. Every time you are at the checkout counter, there's use tax. There's tariffs like there's so many other things as well. And so. I'm like, why not just decrease our number one expense? That's the easiest way to make more money. Yes, yes. I've been having this conversation with my husband and he thinks he can like, let's just make more money. We'll just make more money. And I'm like, or we could get really smart about it and work on strategies for tax savings. Because I realized how much money we've been paying out in taxes, especially over the last, I'd say the last 10 years of our life. And every year I'm like, okay, we need to get better with tax strategies. We need to get better with tax strategies. So having my podcast as one of my tools that I use to increase my own knowledge, that has been a big focus on the last few months of my podcasting has been, let's get into money. All the things I'm afraid of, all the things that I feel a little bit weak on, I'm just gonna go out and learn. I'm gonna learn from the best people I can learn from. So I'm just so thrilled you're here. So you often say that the tax code is actually a roadmap and not a rule book. What do you mean by that? Well, why would the government take so much time and energy to write these 7,000 pages if they didn't want you to use it? So really, if you've read the Internal Revenue Code, which you probably haven't, and I hope you haven't, honestly, but I have. And there's only 12 pages that tell you what taxes you need to pay. And the other 6,988 pages tell you how to lower those taxes. And so it's really there for you. It's for the business owners. It's for the real estate investors. And it's really to stimulate the economy because without business owners and without real estate investors, the government can't hold up the U.S. economy. Wow. I love that. I definitely, when I was a real estate professional in my 20s, I was so much better at knowing the rules and there were so many better, it was amazing. I really rarely ever had to pay anything in taxes because there were just so many allowable things that, you know, for everything from depreciation to, you know, everything improvement that was done on the properties and just all of these expenses that you could write off when you had real estate. But when we moved into the IT space, I found myself a fish out of water. I didn't know how to avoid the taxes in this vertical, in this model. I didn't know. So this has been a learning process for me. So very glad to have you here. Yeah. And real estate's a great way. I've studied economics a lot and economics in multiple different countries, but Most countries have the same goals for their government, and that's to have enough food for their people, to have enough housing for their people, and to employ everyone. And if you look at that, that's why the Internal Revenue Code was written. So if you have a farm, no farmer I've ever met has ever paid anything in taxes, and that's because they need enough food to give to everyone. if you're a business owner and you employ enough employees and you make sure you have a good tax strategist and they're getting all the credits for you, you shouldn't have to pay anything in taxes because they need people employed because they don't want people on government subsidies and they need enough government housing. So that's why they provide it for the landlords and the real estate investors, because they know that they need enough people owning real estate to support the economy. So when you look at it that way, it's like, that's why there are these incentives. It's not this like, oh, I'm going to be greedy and not pay my fair share. It's no, like the government actually needs this stuff. What a better perspective. What a beautiful way to look at it and make that mindset shift with taxes. Like I'm doing work that the government needs me to do. So they're going to reward me with these, you know, basically tax code that rewards this behavior that we're engaging in because it is hard work and it is a risk. We do take risk as business owners. Even as landlords, you take risk. Yeah. Yeah. You're willing to do that. So at what point should an entrepreneur stop thinking, I'll just ask my CPA at tax time and start thinking strategically about taxes year round? Well, I wish more people would do that from the get go and every single year. But unfortunately, us as humans, we need pain in order to change our behavior. So for the most part, it isn't until someone gets a relief big tax bill that they were not expecting. And that's when they're like, Oh, maybe I should think about this during the year. So as a business owner, you really have to think like December 31st at midnight, your tax bill starts completely over. So it's like as much as you can do until December to lower your taxes. Cause once one, one happens, which just happened, I don't know when this episode's coming out, but you know, we're recording this at the beginning of the year and It's like everyone's tax bill just started all the way over, which could be a good thing because now we have a long runway. We have 12 months to plan these things. And actually, my COO and I just met this entire first half of the week of like, what's our own tax plan for the year? Because we do need the 12 months to start thinking about these things and where to invest and where to put the money and which tax credits do we want to have. And I wish every business owner would do that because there is a way for business owners to pay nothing in tax. Yes, totally. But as far as like incoming revenue, like as soon as you start making, how much money should you look at really taking it seriously? Well, it completely depends because we have some clients where maybe one spouse is like a really high income W-2 earner. So a lot of their taxes are just taken out every couple of weeks when they get paid, you know? And so the second spouse ends up starting kind of like a side business or a hobby, or maybe it's a full-fledged business, but- Maybe in the beginning, it's just making a couple thousand dollars a year. That is still great. And you should have a tax strategist because we can use that business to have a lot of losses. And those losses will offset your spouse's W-2 income that they already paid taxes on so that next year you get a huge refund. So to me, I'm always like, I don't care how much your business is making. How much are you paying in total in tax? Yes, I love that. That's a beautiful and strategic way to look at it. That, you know, I think from a female perspective, we can all really understand. That's amazing. So after attending the end of the year session, I realized how many allowable write-offs women simply don't take because they don't know they can. What are some of the most commonly missed dissections that you see? Well, one I see missed a lot is just business owners in general being the wrong structure. So a lot of times, like I mentioned, maybe you start a business as a side hustle. And so maybe you don't even have an LLC yet, but first step is make sure you have an LLC. That's not going to save you in taxes at all. You'll pay the same amount, but it will protect your butt in case you're ever sued. But what an LLC can do is it allows us to switch you to an S corporation and when it's the right time. And that's so important because if you're not an S corporation, you're paying an additional 15.3% in taxes every single year when you don't have to, like you just switched to an S corp and think of like, if you're just making a hundred grand and you switched to an S corp, you just got 15 K back in your pocket. So times it by 200 K, 300 K. It's a huge tax savings just for how you're structured. So that would be like number one. But then number two, which is what I'm like so passionate about as well, is like using your business to write off your life. Like most of the things in your life could be tied to business if you knew how to tie it and you knew the documentation to support it. And so this could be like writing off every single trip you take or every time you go out to eat or a designer handbag or hair and makeup. Like there's so many ways and things you can tie to business, but you have to know how and when. That's amazing. And you know how. So it's like all about having the right people around us that can allow us to do those things that we're allowed to do, but we have to do them the right way because you don't want to do them the wrong way. So don't DIY it. Yeah. And a lot of people still even they'll be like, oh, well, my accountant said no to that. And I'm like, well, your accountant just doesn't know how and they're afraid to tell you they don't know how. So they just tell you no, instead of actually reading the code and the court cases. And I always say like, stop letting your accountant say no. There is a way to deduct literally everything. So they should always be telling you how. Maybe it's still a no in the end. Like maybe that doesn't apply to you, but there's always a way how. So if someone wanted to deduct clothing, Most accountants will say no. And it's like, no, there is a way. Maybe that's not the way you want to do it and it doesn't apply to you. So then you don't. But there is still a way. I love it. Yeah. Tell me about you. I know you were talking recently about how you're going to get a new, you got a new car at the end of this, at the end of 2025, because you've, you know, your car was about 10 years old. So it's time to get a new one. So instead of waiting until January 1st or 2nd to buy your car, you want to go ahead and tell us your story. I think the best time to buy a car is in December because the car deduction is based on the percentage that you use it business versus personal. And most of us out there, like most people don't have just a personal car and just a business car. Most of us have a car that we use for both. And you really want the percentage of business use to be as high as you can. So that way you get the biggest deduction. So if you buy a car in December, then... as much as you can, only drive it for business in December and you could still get the entire write-off for that year. So 2025, I bought a new car mid-December. I only drove it for business between mid-December and December 31st. So I got 100% deduction on a $250,000 car. Yes. Because it's over 6,000 pounds. That's the car, right? Yes. Yeah. So it has to be over 6,000 pounds. But not the actual weight of the car. It's super weird. It's called GVWR. So when you are going to a car dealership, you can Google now the VIN number of the car and put in GVWR and see what it is. If it's over 6,000 pounds, then it counts. But a lot of times it'll be like the actual weight of the car is like 4,500, but the GVWR is 6,200. So it does count. But a lot of times people are looking at the wrong numbers or the opposite. The salesperson at the car dealership a lot of times will tell you that a car qualifies. And let me tell you, they're not a tax professional. So don't just take their advice. I learned this almost the hard way. I was at a Porsche dealership two years ago. I typically buy a car like every year because we already do all the tax strategies that we want to and we invest a ton. And like, I just like loud and fast cars. So that the Porsche dealership And I was going to buy a car at the end of the year. And he's like, yeah, the Porsche Macan qualifies. And I almost trusted him. And then at the very end, I like Googled. And the 2025 Porsche Macan was 5,990 pounds. But the 24 was over 6,000 pounds. They changed the weight of the car. And I was like, that was kind of dumb from a business perspective, knowing that businesses want 6,000 pound cars. Right. So that was kind of silly of Porsche. But then Tesla... Specifically, Elon specifically, and he's said this in interviews, built a car that was 6,001 pounds just to be like, F you to the IRS. I love it when people know how to play the game. Elon's really good at playing the game. He definitely knows how to play the game. That is amazing. For me, one of the biggest things that I didn't know about was the inventory to expenses column on companies that are under 25 million because we have another company that that is under $25 million that does hardware, computer hardware. And we do carry a massive amount of inventory. And I looked at my husband after I watched your Zoom, and I said, guess what, babe? That whole inventory, we can move to the expense column. And he goes, seriously? I'm like, yeah, since 2018, now I can quote the tax law on it, right? Yes. Yeah, thanks for that. On your taxes, it's a change of accounting method. So we'll just need to make sure your accountant's doing that right. But on the P&L, right? I mean, how cool that you went to like a free masterclass and you got a million dollar deduction. That's what I thought. I was like, okay, get the value. I'm going to use value in my promos. Seriously. Seriously. I thought, okay, well, I'll learn something. I always learn something. But, you know, sometimes you can learn a little something that can save you a whole lot of money. But we as women love to learn things. And so I think that as we expand ourselves, as we kind of delve into the things that we're afraid of or that we feel like we're not that good at, as we kind of intentionally make the choices to surround ourselves with the content that will help us to fill those knowledge gaps, I mean, I feel like women are going to be totally unstoppable in the information age. Yes, I can go on and on about women. Statistics show women make more money when they invest it. The problem is we don't invest as much as men. But when we do, we have a higher ROI. And female-backed VCs also perform better. And there's just like so many reasons why women need to be in business. I'm so excited. That's my whole, the Apple box I stand on is, yeah, let's go, girls. We've got this. We manage things. We've been managing the households for millennia. And it's nice to see us be able to get an ROI on the invisible labor of running our households for all those, you know, all of that DNA that went into us that helped us to become incredible multitaskers and incredible managers with very high EQ and to take that and to be able to use that in the real world outside of our homes is definitely something that I'm super passionate about, so. Back to taxes. Can you explain the difference between a write-off and a true tax strategy? Because they're not the same thing, right? No, not really. Like a write-off is something that you can deduct in your business. So somehow you pay for something and then you tie it to your business, you get to deduct it. So like a car, for example, you buy a$100,000 car, you can deduct it in your business, but you're only saving your tax rate. So like if you're in a 40% tax bracket on a$100,000 car, you're saving $40,000 in tax, but you're still out $60,000. I think that's what people really need to understand is a deduction doesn't just mean it's free. It just means you're getting it at a discount and the discount is your tax rate. We still like discounts and I like getting loud and fast cars at discounts. I do. Yeah. But then there are strategies and those are like it sounds more strategic than just go out and buy something. So, you know, we will tell our clients if they've done all of the strategies we've told them, like, yeah, sure. If you need a new car, go buy a new car or you need a new computer or a new camera or, you know, whatever. Go for go for that. But really, like the strategies to me are things that make you money. Right. Cost you money at a discount. And strategies should like increase your net worth. So a lot of times our strategies that we use with our clients, they're investments that can grow their net worth or it's shifting income around. So it's at a lower tax bracket. So they're getting more money for free or switching it to tax free income, which is the best type of income. Or it could be tax credits, which are way better than a tax deduction or because they're dollar for dollar money in your bank account. So they're just like more high level things that you can do as a business owner. Typically, we can do some strategies for W-2 earners, but like it's so much easier when you own a business. That's amazing. And it's one of those things, you know, as we become better business women, it's so, we get so, we're so passionate about what we do. You know, we're so passionate about IT. We're so passionate about My husband knows a ton about networking hardware and, you know, that's his world. But we also, as we're growing our businesses, if we want to be really good business people, we also need to focus on these things like tax strategies so that we can retain the money for the company that the company has made. Because the lifeblood of the company is the capital behind the company. And if we're giving the capital back to the government, we're not able to grow the company into the robust company it really needs to be. You know, so that's... that's another way to look at this. And I've seen companies like a $2 million company versus a $10 million company. I've seen it where the $2 million company actually takes home more money than the$10 million company because they had no tax plan. One that has to do with profitability, of course, but then also just the tax rates, you could make less than a $2 million company. So imagine if they paid nothing in tax, they would have millions more. Exactly. Yeah. And it's strategy is everything. So when does entity structure really matter? How do women know when it's time to move beyond that sole prop or the single member LLC? I was just having this conversation. I really think like the very beginning of business, you should really think about Cause also like you're starting a business. If you think it's going to fail from the beginning, it's probably going to fail. So why not start it and be like, this thing is going to be successful. And I know I'm going to need to be an S corporation. So why not be an S corporation from the beginning? So one, I think it's a mindset thing, but also even in the beginning, like let's say you make 40 grand your first year, just by switching to an S corp, you're saving$6,000. Like that's not nothing. That's a great family vacation somewhere or a week at Disney or, And $6,000 to someone that's only making 40K means a whole heck of a lot. So stop letting your accountants tell you like you're not ready yet. Oh, you need to be at 100,000, 200,000. I hear it all the time from other people's accountants. I'm like, you're costing your clients money. And when you're not a sole prop, well, I'll reword it. When you're an S corporation, you're 35 times less likely to be audited than when you're a sole prop or single member LLC. So even if you're making no money, to me, I'm like, is it worth being 35 times less likely to be audited? Yes. Because just the time and money and expense and paying an attorney, a tax attorney, or a CPA to go to tax court for you is going to cost you tens of thousands of dollars. So just be an S-corp from the beginning. Or a C-corp. Yeah. Interesting. Well, maybe not a C. I think S is the best. We did the C-Corp thing for a while and it was very expensive. C-Corps are really great in a few scenarios. And I do have a C-Corp. One is to change the timing on your income. So if you ever have a big year and you want to shift income to like not pay taxes on it for another two years, C-Corps are really good. I love that strategy. We do that for a lot of clients just to give them more runway to like buy investment properties or something to lower their taxes. They're really great if you're going to sell your company later because of the qualified small business stock election. So if you are a company that qualifies, you could exclude up to $15 million in gain, which is huge and per shareholder. So even more huge. They're really great if you want to donate a lot of money or if you just know that you don't need all the money out of your business. So we have one client who is so successful. She like makes $7 million in And she needs like 200K to live off of. So she's very simple and that's all she needs. And the rest just stays in her C-Corp and she doesn't get taxed on it because she doesn't take it out. So there are instances where C-Corps make sense. Interesting. Nice. And is there any downside of an S-Corp? Because I was having this convo with a friend of mine who's in operations and she was saying how she really wants to stay in LLC and... not become an S-Corp, what's the downside of becoming an S-Corp? Is there any? Maybe, I don't think it's a downside, but just more like admin stuff. You need a separate tax return now. Okay. Because S-Corps are a separate return, whereas a single member LLC is just on your personal. But again, you're way more likely to be audited when it's on your personal. So is the admin work worth it? And you're going to pay someone else to do the return anyway. So like, whatever. And you do have to pay a payroll company. Because now you have to be on payroll. But like we use Gusto. It's like $59 a month. I mean, those are like the hiccups. But I wouldn't say they're downsides. There's really no downside. Nice. Well, that's good to know. I love talking through the things, you know, especially because these are conversations I'm so glad that women are starting to have with each other. Yeah. Yes. So tell me, what's one tax move you wish women would make before they cross into higher income tax brackets, not after? Using really big retirement accounts, because I think a lot of us rely on the men in our life to handle the finances, to deal with the investments. And we all need to think about retiring now and retirement now, not later, because of the time value of money. And when you're a business owner, why not have it be a business deduction? So there's really great retirement accounts just depending on where you're at in business. If you don't have employees, a solo 401k is so good. You can put $72,000 in it this year and it's all a business deduction. If you have employees, then a safe harbor 401k with profit sharing. And then you could even add on cash balance plans or defined benefit plan where you can put up to like 400K a person into. And so now you're getting like hundreds of thousands of dollars in deductions in your business, but that money is just going into your own retirement account and making you money instead of the IRS. Amazing. That's one of the tax strategies I need to adopt in 2026 for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. We have not, we, I think my husband and I both as entrepreneurs have always been like, oh, we'll just, when we're ready to retire, we'll just sell the companies, you know? And we, so we really haven't been doing the whole saving for your retirement thing in the traditional sense, but it is such a great tax strategy to do it that way. It's a tax strategy. It grows your net worth. And if you offer it to employees and It's a really great retention tool as well because it makes them very sticky. Nice. That's amazing. I love that. That's a fantastic, fantastic thing. Let's see. At The Manager, we talk a lot about invisible labor. How do you see that show up financially for women, especially in businesses that blur the lines between home and work? Oh, yeah. We see this a lot where like one spouse, and I'll just give myself as an example, like a lot of people will follow me on Instagram and But it'll be like one spouse. So then they're very excited and they're like, we have to work with her. We have to work with your tax coach. She's so amazing. Listen to all these strategies. But the other spouse hasn't listened to that or seen it on social or anything. And so I would say like we offer those free masterclasses, like you were saying, a few times a year. So it's like have them sign up for the masterclass as well. So that when you're watching and you're like next to each other and then you like look at each other and you're like, oh, yeah, we can do that strategy. just to get the other spouse more on board. But I do think like no matter what in relationships, people's money mindset is always going to be different. And the way people spend money is always going to be different. So it's also not just on them. It's also on us to articulate to them in different ways how it can be beneficial to them. And also people's risk tolerances are different. Like some people might think, oh, a tax strategist is risky. That's not inherently true. Our audit rate is actually 10 times less than the national average because the IRS doesn't want to go up against someone that knows what they're talking about. But we still have to address that and be like, listen, these are our audit rates. This is what happens if you are audited. We got your back. We'll go to bat for you. Would your accountant right now go to bat for you? So It's on them, but also on us. I don't know if that answers your question. No, I like it. I think that is how we can show up, you know, and bring make the visible work visible when it comes to making sure that we're contributing to because taxes are the biggest thing that we have. It's our biggest expense in our lifetime. We as women need to be more proactive about it and saying, hey, let's let's do this better. Let's save some money for our family. If there's a way we can like my husband and I do, and I, I tell people to do this all the time, is to have a monthly money date. And I will say when you first start having it, at least for us, our experience, it was very like we would get in these like little fights when we'd have these like money dates because we each approach money and investing differently and have different mindsets. But if you don't talk about it, you're not going to work through those things. And when money is the number one reason for divorce, you're you have to work through it. And so it makes you, these money dates, like make you talk about it, make you work through it and get you aligned to the same goals that you have. So that way, when you are going through business or life or work, you can be like, okay, North Star, is this like in alignment to our goals and what we want as a family? So I think also just getting more comfortable talking about money with your spouses in general. We make it a money date and we like go to somewhere fancy and we drink champagne and have caviar because that like helps me get in a better mood about it. And it's a write-off. So like, why not? But yeah, have a money date. I love that. So what is your agenda look like? Do you have an agenda for a money date? Yeah, we look over revenue and expenses for that month in the companies. We look over our real estate properties, like which ones are vacant, which ones need to be remodeled, which ones, you know, how is the marketing going? How's market rents? We go through our investments in terms of like, Um, you know, we like to invest in gold, crypto, the stock market, real estate. So like, how is all of that going? And what do we, what percentages do we want to do that with? Um, and we're always traveling. So a portion of the money date as well as like, how much do we want to spend on this next trip? How do we want to fly? Do we want lay flat seats or do we want to fly economy? Do we want a fancier hotel or not? Um, so it can be not just like boring. We're Um, but it's really dependent on you, but yeah, I have tons of outlines and questions that I give to like my mastermind members too. Cause I'm like, you have to be comfortable talking about these things. You're so right. And it's one of the biggest parts. It is the biggest cause of divorce. And yet it's one of the biggest fears that women have is talking about money with their partner. I mean, it was for me for a long time. It's like, oh, we'll just keep, we'll make money. We'll make money. We won't really talk about money. We'll just keep making it. But then we've never invested in anything because. Yeah. And like everyone has money secrets. I do this at, I host a big event once a year with like 250 business owners. And one of the things they don't know that they're going to do when they, when they go is like tell a money secret to everyone at the table. So, and we all have it. So like I tell them mine first, it's like, oh, I used to go shopping and hide the bags in the trunk, you know, and not bring them inside until my spouse would see it, right? Or you tell your spouse like, oh, I have a doctor's appointment today, but really you just spent money on Botox. Okay, like we all have those things. And so like then the money dates too will be like, what'd you do this month? What do you need to confess? And it just kind of makes it funny and fun, hopefully in like less of a, like, I don't know, money doesn't need to be a fight, right? But then that turned into like, oh, my gosh, I learned so much about my spouse that I had no idea about. So everyone's been asking me for a couples retreat. I've only ever done like female retreats. And everyone's like, we need a couples retreat, couples retreat. So this year, finally, in October, we're going to do a Get Rich With Me couples retreat, which will be super fun. Oh, I'm in. Yeah. Sign me up. Wine country. It'll be like so amazing. Oh, my gosh. That's awesome. And do tell me, tell us, tell the girls about it. Minted Live, right? Yeah, Minted Wealth Live. That's our big event for all business owners or real estate investors. And it's at a Michelin rated hotel. So it's like oozing wealth and luxury. It's typically like $1,500 a night there at this like beautiful hotel. We get the rate like less than $500. And just the event is all things tax, finance, wealth, investing. And it's all the stuff we don't really want to talk about. Like this whole episode that we've been talking about You know, it's all those things, but we make it fun and like easier to talk about and with others, because I think what's really cool is seeing what other people are doing as well. And we always like to have like topics that are relevant for them. So like this year in 25, we talked a lot about crypto because that was a big topic and AI because like everyone's talking about AI stuff. And this year, 2026, the theme is riches and relationships. So we have not announced our big speaker yet, but I'm so excited because she does not speak normally. She just refuses all speaking contracts, but I talked her into it. And she's like the money queen, if anyone knows who that is, I'll hint. But it'll be really fun. Oh my gosh. So I'm so excited about your events this year. I really am. I'm like, I didn't get the chance to go to your event in... 25, but I really wanted to be there. It was on my daughter's fifth birthday this year, so I just couldn't make it, but I cannot wait to go next year. It looks like it's over three days, so I'll be able to do it. The dates are, I can make it work. Yeah, I love what you're doing. What mindset shifts do women need to make to stop feeling bad with money and start seeing themselves as financial leaders? I don't think anyone is stupid with money or bad with money. I think that it's all just knowledge and information. So just test it and try it out. Like what's the worst thing that can happen? And that's with taxes, with investments, with retirement accounts. Like everyone loses money. The richest people in the world lose money. Warren Buffett will lose millions and millions of dollars to make billions. So maybe we're not at that level yet, but just know that nobody's perfect and you will lose money at some point, but it's all just information and knowledge and just keep learning little tidbits here and there, whether it's about tax or it's about the stock market or it's about cryptocurrency. And like, don't feel bad about it. We're not taught this stuff in school and we're kind of expected for men to know it and not us, but it really is important as like the matriarchs in our family to keep our legacies going. And part of that is with wealth and finance. So I mean, obviously people can follow on my Instagram. I put so much free content out there, but I also love just if people like to read books, I love the book, Happy Money. It's really great for a money mindset. And Rich AF by Amanda Francis is is an amazing book, changed my life. And so that's just like some places to start if you're looking to just like stop feeling shame and guilt around money. That's amazing. That's such good advice. Yeah. Read these, both of those books i'll tag both of those in the description, but we can also see you at your tax coach on instagram just so the girls can hear if they're driving. And then for the woman listening who feels behind or intimidated, what's the very first step she should take to regain control of her financial picture? Oh my gosh, look at your bank accounts. Yes. It's so hard. Like even to this day, I have a hard time like opening up the app. And I think it's like, oh, if we don't look at it, then we won't know if it's bad news. But I think just like getting so comfortable seeing all your numbers and And then once you've seen all your numbers, then really know your numbers. So like, it's not just about what's the cash in your accounts. It's like, what are we doing with that money? Are you being a good steward of that money? And how can you use your money to make more money? That's really what it is. So start there for sure. I see so many women that are just like, oh, I have no idea what's in my bank account or what's my credit card statement. And I'm like, what? What do you mean? You have to look at your stuff. So start there. Start small. And then you can like slowly invest from there. Like when I started, I invested five dollars a week because that's like one. That was all I had. But also my like risk and education level and like all of that. That's all I was like willing to do. But then, you know, you'll get to tens of thousands of dollars a week. Where do you invest? Like where where did you start investing? Like what did you, were you using an app like Robinhood or what were you doing? My $5 a week when I started was Acorns. It's an app. And actually Acorns did me like really well. I had like a 20% return for like the first five years. And, you know, slowly I went from like $5 a week to $20 a week to $100 a week to$1,000 a week. And then I was like, okay, I should probably have like a financial advisor manage this. But I thought Acorns was great. And The minimum, I think, is five dollars a week. So it's very user friendly. I like the projections on it. Like it'll show you and it's cute because it's like acorns, like like a squirrel stashes acorns, you know. So it'll like show you your like acorn pile and be like, it's going to be worth this much in this many years. So that and then for like cryptocurrency, Coinbase is great. And, you know, I don't know what Bitcoin's at today, but let's say one hundred thousand dollars a Bitcoin. You're not buying a whole Bitcoin. You can buy $5 worth of Bitcoin. So like start small. Don't invest in things you don't know about. So like definitely read the Bitcoin manifesto if you haven't. It's a 21 page thing written by the anonymous Bitcoin. Nobody knows who created it. But if you have studied economics, I know I've mentioned this before, but like if you've studied economics, you would know that the market cap on Bitcoin will be so high that if you invested in it today, you can very easily be a millionaire or, I mean, the numbers will say billionaire. I'm not a financial advisor. It's not financial or investment advice, but just supply and demand of it and the market cap of gold, which is what a lot of people compare it to, Bitcoin could be worth millions and millions and millions of dollars. That's what my 16-year-old has been saying for the last six years. He told me to buy Bitcoin when it was$11,000. Yeah. I was a late adopter as well. Like, I don't think I started buying it until it was like 20 something thousand. And I'm like, dang it. What if I was the pizza guy that, you know, traded it for a pizza? I wanted to be in on it then. Yeah, absolutely. It's so interesting. But the only way we as women are going to learn how to do this stuff is if we talk about it with each other. Because we have to share the knowledge. Like, I don't know how to do any of this stuff. I'm curious about it, but it's not something that my girlfriends know how to do. So it's surrounding ourselves with other women that can do things that we would love to be able to do, but don't know how to do yet. My homework for your listeners would be like the next time you're at like an all girls, like brunch or get together or bunco or whatever, like stop shaming your husbands. I hate when you're at an event and like everyone talks crap about their husbands and start talking about what you all are investing in because it could be one little piece of advice or one little, um, I'm doing this that you change your behavior in that can change your life. So just start talking about money more. I love it. And I think it's so sad that money is one of the topics that women were not allowed to talk about for many, many decades. It was not a polite topic for polite conversation. And I think that it has done a huge disservice to our gender. And I think that makes me want to talk about money all the time. Yeah. Yeah. Fight the power. As we look ahead to the next few years, what tax or financial trends should women entrepreneurs be paying attention to right now? Well, you always have to look at tax incentives because that's how they're shifting behavior. So right now, this presidency is really focused on manufacturing and American businesses. And so really like investing in those things. But, you know, the last presidency was maybe more solar and green energy. And so it's just looking at what the trends are right now and how you can save the most with your taxes. But probably a lot upcoming will be things related to technology, AI. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. And then we have all the changes in the tax code that happened in 25 too with the big beautiful bill, which kind of can shift some of the ways we approach things too. Yeah. And 95% of them were so great for business owners, which I'm so happy about. Like 100% bonus depreciation was back. Qualified small business stock election became even better and easier. Qualified opportunity zones were made permanent. Like there were so many great things. from that bill for business owners, but you have to know it in order to take advantage of it. So definitely read up on it. I've put out so much content about the One Big Beautiful Tax Bill. So if you want to just like binge our newsletters or our free guides, everyone is welcome to do that. Nice. And people can sign up for your newsletter on your website? Yeah, yourtaxcoach.com. Nice. Awesome. So if you could leave our audience with one truth about taxes that would instantly reduce fear and increase confidence, what would it be? The tax code was written for you, not against you. I love it. I love it. Because I see so many young female entrepreneurs that, you know, taxes are like the scariest part of running a business. They really are. I remember back in the day too. And then I see, you know, my younger friends and it is, it feels very overwhelming it feels because we don't, you're right, we don't get tax ed in school. Yeah. It'd be so nice if we did. I would love to create that curriculum. You should create that curriculum we will use we will use that we will totally use that. We homeschool. So I think the homeschool population would definitely use tax ed if you would write it, Barb. Okay, fine. After I write my book, though. Okay, you got it. I can help you with both. Great. You definitely need to write your book. I encourage that. I know. You've got this. It's not that hard. I just finished my second book. Everyone says it's not that hard. I just don't know where to start. I think once I start typing, it would be great. But it's like the... Wait, what am I typing about? Don't type it. I talked everything. Get an app. What's it called? WhisperNotes? And you can talk. I actually talked it all into my notes in my phone. So anytime I have an idea, I talk it into the notes in my phone. And that way I don't lose the ideas. Then I have all of my ideas. And when I have time, I can go and work through them. That way you're not sitting with a blank page in front of you. You'll always have something to work from. Oh, sorry. My do not disturb must have fallen off. Yeah. But yeah, I think that that's one of my, if I was going to give you advice, it's write your, talk your ideas into your notes, wherever you want to talk them into. But you'll be surprised how fast a book will actually come together. If you just write down the ideas when you're driving, that's what I usually write is when I'm driving or in the bathtub. Oh, yeah. There's actually something scientific about being in water as well. I thought everyone always gets like shower downloads. You get the best idea when you're in the shower. Always. Anytime that people are like, oh, really need me to do some heavy mental lifting. I'm like, I'll get back to you after I take a shower. Let me go take a shower. I'll get right back to you on that. Well, Barb, this conversation is exactly why financial education is feminine power in action. You've shown us that taxes aren't something to fear. There's something to understand about plan for, and use strategically to support life and business. Thank you so much for being on the show today. And girls, keep managing you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thanks, Barb. I loved, loved, loved having you here. Good. You're awesome.