spk_0:   0:00
welcome to the prosperity gap where we discuss the financial gap that exists between where we are and where we should be. It's time to bridge that gap.

spk_1:   0:15
Hey, Prosperity Nation. Dave Hall Here again. I am your host today. Very excited to be back with you for another edition of the prosperity. Yeah, if you had taken the opportunity to sign up for the show so you can get weekly reminders of our Friday release, please make sure you do that so we can let you know of everything that's going on. Connect with us on social media. We have lots of post going out. Lots of good information today. Show is, like all of our shows is a very exciting show for me because I continue to get to meet new people and introduce you to new people as well as having the opportunity to better understand finance myself. Yeah, I do it for a living and coach people for a number of years. But anytime I meet someone new, I come away with great ideas and new things that I have not thought about before. So today shows no different I have with me Clarisse Amore. She is the budget queen. She has her own blawg bunch of queen block dot com Claressa. Welcome to the show.

spk_0:   1:07
I was so glad to be here.

spk_1:   1:11
I'm very excited. Talks fun because I get a little sneak peek of what we're going to talk about, obviously from the notes that cr since to me telling us what we're gonna talk about, some of the things will cover. It was very exciting to me to see kind of your background and what's led you to this point in your life. So sure with listeners a little bit about your journey and what brought you here?

spk_0:   1:30
Well, I have been helping people with their finances since about 2005. That's when I went off to college, and I really just had a knack for it. So I was really gonna budget and really gonna save any money up, been working since I was 16 years old and just saving everything I could really helping out my mom fine by my own clothes and pay my phone bill and things like that. So I was really, really good with budgeting and that my friends would see that I was doing such a great job and they would ask for help, so that started out very, very early. But then I came into the finance world about 2008 actually, where I started working for a bank, and then I worked in there credit card departments. I learned all about credit cards. How things work, really got a lot of knowledge about. That's help my family members and my friends. That's where I got into it. But I've recently started my block and my instagram of March 2019 so it's really early. But it became official Marshall 2019. But I've been doing this for, like, really all the time,

spk_1:   2:30
and you can tell looking at your block, there's you've made a lot of progress, your websites obviously very cool. A lot of information on there. And so good job, good job in a nine month period of time. Putting all that together, Yeah. Where did this all start? I mean, obviously said you started a very young age. Was your mom or your parents financially wise, or was this something that was just bread inside of you?

spk_0:   2:52
My mom was really good with money. She worked two jobs because she didn't have enough money. So she worked two jobs myself. How far as she worked. And she was always able to pay the bills and just do what she needed to do financially for me in my system. So I really learned some her. She didn't sit me down and teach me anything, but I really learned by just watching the things that she did with her money and how she was able to just take care of me and my sister all by herself. So I really learned from her

spk_1:   3:17
school. It's nice to know we have parents that can teach us that. I know for my mom. She was very good at it, like yours. There was never enough there, you know. She had very limited resource is to budget, but we never went without. She always made sure that we had the basics, and I think that's a lot of why I became who I am is because I saw that I saw how frugality could bring a lot of happiness in life, that I didn't feel like I was missing out on a lot, and it's really helped me and my wife in a situation that's been much different than our family was that you took a little different college path than most. I think you were in college about 10 years. Is that correct?

spk_0:   3:52
Yes, It

spk_1:   3:53
was a long talk about that journey. That's not something everyone does what took so long and why was it such a challenge?

spk_0:   4:02
When I went into college, I wasn't sure what we wanted to do. I went into school thinking I wanted to be a nurse, and then I was valedictorian of my high school class. So one of my teachers said you could be a doctor. You don't need to go for nursing. You could be a doctor and I'm like, Yes, I could be a doctor So they gotta change past a little bit taking a lot of class and some things that I really didn't need because then I changed my major again. I changed it to I think at that time was psychology. I really liked psychology. So then I started taking classes, psychology, and then I changed it again and I wanted to be a lawyer. So then I started taking classes in law, and then I wanted to do social work. So I changed it again and I just kept changing majors. So I was taking a lot of time, kind of testing everything out. And also I got to a really, really bad car accident with my daughter in New Jersey, where where I grew up, and that's what caused me to move down to Pennsylvania on when I moved. I was in the last few stages of my college career. I think I had about a semester left and once you transferred, and I didn't know this once you transfer, the school would like for you to get most of your credits from there, so they want you to start at like of sophomore status. So I only had a semester left, and when I transferred down here, they keep me back two years, and then it got really type of my husband, and I and I really needed to go back to work. So then I found a job really great job that I love, and they kicked me back again because I went to a different school. So they keep me back another two years, so all of that kind of made it into this long 10 year things going to school. It was horrible.

spk_1:   5:44
Two questions for you. Two questions. If you could do it over, what would you do differently? Question number one.

spk_0:   5:50
If I could do it all over again, I really would try to figure out what I want it sooner. Although it was amazing to kind of dabble in a lot of different things, I think it would have been beneficial to just figure out what I wanted before I got to school and just going ahead and did that. It took a lot of time and a lot of money, so I have a lot of it won't get because of that.

spk_1:   6:11
This is fun. It is to learn. It definitely is tough if you go backwards where you take the time to get the education versus getting the right education, getting a job and then continuing to educate yourself when you got substantially more money coming in. Number two. Do you ever wish you would have continued on the path to be a nurse or doctor?

spk_0:   6:29
Uh, no. Hey, what? I noticed that I felt like I was really smart and I had everything. What? I took some of those science classes. I was like, I don't think this is for May So I'm really glad with the past that I took it. I have my bachelors in psychology, my master's in business administration. So I really love the kind of mix that I have. I think it really helps me and what I'm doing with helping people with their finances because you learn a lot about, you know, different behaviors on my people do the things that they dio and in the business aspect, really helping lead with my business and reaching as many people as I can.

spk_1:   7:02
It's so critical the process. You've taken a wish more people would because I completely agree with you that one of the biggest issues that we have out there is a lot of money. Management is a mental issue. People have got to get past certain things, the other things that happen to him when they were younger, current things that are happening maybe in their marriage. Maybe it's just want to spend money that it's their spouse off, and whatever it may be that underlying there's a lot of hurt. There's a lot of anger. There's a lot of feelings, and there's people out there like you that Condell with those. I think what you get is a lot more progress much quicker than people that ignore all the emotions that come on. You got to figure out how to budget, get things together.

spk_0:   7:37
Absolutely, absolutely. A lot of my clients I have walked them through the psychological aspect of it, the mental part of it getting over roadblocks and things, you know, like you said that you probably learned as a child, or what you didn't want it as a child is giving over. That really opens up the floodgates to being able to understand the plight of the information that you need. I have a better my financially.

spk_1:   7:59
It's been very interesting. Our family's been watching one of the big weight loss shows where people are morbidly obese. The way overweight has been very interesting for me as I wash that the biggest issue. Most of them really have the psychological. Once they can deal with psychological issue that well, then they can start changing their eating. They can start managing their exercise and again it applies so well here because if you want to get yourself out of debt. You want to get yourself on a budget. If you can build those psychological things pretty soon you can start making that progress. All sudden. Getting on dead doesn't seem that hard. It's like, OK, but now this makes sense. I can make the progress and take the steps so I think it is again super cool what you're doing there. So tell me a little bit about why you started the block. What was it you really wanted to accomplish by doing this in your own life?

spk_0:   8:43
I really wanted to just help women figure out their finances, so that's where it started. I was helping him. Like I said, a lot of people in my family and a lot of my friends do this. And then a lot of people refer me to other people, their friends and family members that they knew, and I help this woman. I was really in a bad situation with her husband, her kids, and she really just had to get out. She really didn't have the means to be able to do that. Her husband was mostly the breadwinner. She didn't have her finances in order. Anything like that, and I'm really helped her get things together. Figure out a budget, help her fix her credit and her credit and matter of months. Just sky locket. 100 points. And she was able to kind of get approved for a loan and to get a house to move her kids out of that situation. And she was just so happy and so grateful. And it really just showed me how much of a difference that I could make in the lives of women who really don't know what to do with their money or how to manage it at all. So that really was the turning point for me. I realized that I really wanted to reach as many women as I can, and I know the best way to do it is to do it on my on the Internet. So that's really that was the turning point. Criminy,

spk_1:   9:53
that's cool. And I think it shows a lot of who you are. I would have guessed it by you saying you want to be a nurse, that you're a very servant oriented person. You love serving other people you love helping other people on to me those were the best consultants of the best leaders. They're the best people, that guy D'oh! Because what you're doing is out of your heart. You're not doing it because you want make a ton of money, although that's important for all of us. But deep down inside, it's like, Look, I just really want to make your life better so you can find more joy and happiness,

spk_0:   10:20
right? The passion comes. First check comes back, and so we all love money. But I really drives me. Is the passion to help people So you're absolutely right.

spk_1:   10:29
So there I know there's two main things you folks on or two things that I'd like to talk about in detail. The focus on number one is getting people's credit score right there. There's some tips, anything you could give our listeners to help them. If they're struggling with this credit score process and things that they could do,

spk_0:   10:45
I think it all boils down to their budget. That's why I'm known as the budget quick that think it all stems from there. If you understand what money is coming into your house holding what money is going out, you'll be better prepared to deal with the five components off your your credit score. So the the biggest component of your credit score is your payment history. So if you can't pay your bills on, time is going to bring down your credit score tremendously. So having a budget helps you max out what those are do when they're doing how much is due and making sure that you have enough to be able to afford that. So I basically my foundation is in budgeting. But I basically help people with their budget to do other things that kind of give them tips and tricks on how they can either get out of debt or increase their credit score or get a homeowner. What have you? Another thing is like your lift of credit history, which is a big part of your credit score, just showing people how it works and what those equations are and how to figure out what to do with the lines of credit that you have, how long you should keep them open. Ah, lot of people think that once they paid off a credit card, you should just cut it up and they were using again But what they don't realize is that that really impacting credit utilization and you're lifting credit history and your credit utilization is 30% of your score. So they're really damaging their credit score by just saying, Okay, I hate it off. I'm never gonna use it again. And I'm like, Don't do that. So I really give people the information that they need to be able to figure out what's going on with their with their credit and and with their finances.

spk_1:   12:16
Prosperity Nation. I hope you're listening here and you understand the importance of, especially if you need to get some type alone because it is a critical part of your budget. If you've got to get a loan, you're going to be able to get a 3% interest rate versus a 10 or 12% interest rate. It's gonna help you substantially in your monthly budget because you're gonna pay, be paying substantially less, and I can attest to what she's talking about. It I had that situation acts in my own life. It's been years since I borrowed money, so you need to understand. I'm not worried necessarily about my credit score because I don't borrow money. I'm not looking to borrow money, but I do follow it just to make sure there's nothing going on my credit score that shouldn't. Well, I had a credit card they haven't used in years, and it had, like, a $30,000 amount that I could use. So I thought, Look, I need to get rid of this because it's 30 grand. If somebody got it, obviously they could go charge it up to $30,000 I'm stock, so I closed it. But the men die closed on my credit score went from, like 8 40 under 600. I'm going. Okay. This this socks for me if I've got to go get alone right now, which I don't. But if I did now said I'm getting subprime loan, I've never missed a payment in my life. I had over $50,000 of credit card availability that I wasn't using, and all of a sudden this stuff happened so, so important that you get with someone if you're especially and beginning alone, you're having issues with the credit. Make sure you get with some to understand what they're doing. Because one small act of what you think you're doing right could be the absolute wrong thing when it comes to credit. Would agree with that.

spk_0:   13:40
I absolutely agree with that. What I tell a lot of my clients is, if you don't want to use the card anymore, just set up a re occurring bill. So let's say your net place all of your Netflix, you're Julia does B pluses. A 1,000,000,000 of them out there now set up those things on your credit card, and then that way it is. It tells the credit card company that you're still using it so they don't close it. If you don't defend it on the credit, the credit card company. They can close your card out if you don't use it over a certain period of time. But you have that re occurring bill on there. You can set it up for auto pay so that you don't forget to pay it, and then that way it looks like you're using your card, and you also keep your utilization down. So if you have a credit limit $1000 you have Netflix on there, which is by $15 a month, that will really help you with not putting too much debt on your credit cards and also with showing that your pain you're going long time as well. It is a good way to also change your due dates, so a lot of my highest times, but they struggle with pain than bills on time. Because it do, they is just at a really inconvenient time. So if you put it on your credit card automatically and set it up for what, okay, you basically change your bill date to your credit card due date, which will help you out as well. So those are some tips that I give my clients a lot when they're trying to kind of get out of debt or to try to move on from that credit card debt.

spk_1:   14:57
I would assume to that it's a great way to build initial credit like I've got college students that we talked about that before we started the show that I have three college students. They have no credit whatsoever that they've all have cars. But I financed everyone of myself because I hate paperwork the rather and have to go deal with paperwork with them. I just had, like here takes the money and you can display your dad as time comes and they are on set payments, auto payments to me. But obviously I'm not reporting to the credit reporting agencies. I assume for them a great advice would be for them to get a card and not max it out. But to just use it for their small, re occurring bills that they're gonna have every month. It just show that they do have some type of credit, agree or disagree with that.

spk_0:   15:37
I definitely agree. I have two small Children saw my dollars 11 and my son is seven. So I'm really getting him into understanding credit cards now so that they don't get to a place in their teens were there like I give him a credit card and they're going to max it out. I'm just showing them and how to use it and what it means to use a credit card. And some companies also let you put your Children on his optimize uses so you can allow them to use the credit card, and they can also build their credit score. If they report to the credit bureau, I can help them build a score as well. So you can start them off very young with Understand how the uses of that way When you when they get older, you're not paying for their mistakes because they're now in a bunch of dead. Maybe Mama that help. So I'm really a big advocate on teaching kids how to use money from a lot of schools. Don't do that. So I really, really what you're saying

spk_1:   16:26
That's great cause and that you're doing that and your kids are gonna be so much better off because of it. And I think I do a fairly good job teaching my kids, but we're living a little different world sometimes. Then I was definitely raised in his results. Sometimes they don't have to have some of the struggles that I did. And I don't know that's good. You know, I'm still trying to figure that out in my own life that I think back my struggles and out they do. I have. I worry that maybe I'm taking some of that away from my Children. But I am not having it go through some of the challenges that I didn't figure it out because they always know Dad's gonna be there and yeah, he'll figure it out for him. They don't know. The last thing that I want to spend some time talking about here, that I know you do is side hustles. I know that that's very important. It's one of our three main principles that we teach people is that increasing your income can be every bit as important to your finances, is staying on a budget and trying to limit your spending. So talk a little bit about what got you into side hustles. Maybe you know we'll talk about some various aspects of some of that you're doing and using and promoting as well.

spk_0:   17:28
So psy humps. And there was a really great thing to do when you're trying to fix your finances and things of that. Nature is just struggling with your finances. This wanted two reasons. You either don't make enough money or you have too many expenses or too much debt. So so I also really helped with the income part of that. So if you make more money, then have more money to be a payoff, your your lungs of your student loans, your credit cards or whatever. What have you So I am a really big advocate of a side hustle. They say that the millionaire needs about seven streams of income. But us regular people I say we get about like floor is really important that you have other money coming in because anything can happen. What I would say is you can do things like uber, you know, you could do over eat, you could do lift. There's so many things out there now that you can do on the side and don't really take up that much time. You could do it at your own time and you can kind of turn it on, Turn it off when you want. So if you're like, oh, this month is gonna be a little bit tight I could do a side hustle, bro. Quick with over to get a little extra catch, You can even start your own business. So this has started as a side hustle that I'm kind of making into my primary source of income, Hopefully soon. So that's something that you could do to you can being influencer. There's a lot of people on this diagram where influences that people literally pay them to promote their stuff online just because they haven't been following. You convey, basically, do anything to make extra money. Facebook is used now, allowing people to sell things on their market clips. So just earlier today, like I was telling you earlier, I was cleaning up my house. I'm getting all of my son's old bottles out. He has hands that he wore one time that I bought and they were so much money. So I'm going to take this is of them and put them on Facebook itself for about five bucks so you can make money doing almost anything. Now the Internet is just so amazing that you could just do about you could do it, be to make a little extra catch

spk_1:   19:23
to be the cool thing about it is it opens your mind. You know, maybe that first one's not gonna make you a millionaire. I look back. I actually started my journey doing aside us. I've been calling Dad, obviously, back in the eighties, when it started or against late seventies was when it actually started. But back then, they used to advertise selling Christmas and holiday cards to your friends and neighbors, and basically, they had advertised in, like, a magazine or something, saying, hey, ordered all the supplies will give it to you for free. And then you go door to door and what you sold them all send us the money will send, uh, the cards out, you know, for the various families have sold them to. And then we'll give you some type of prize. You earn credits. There was no money being exchanged on my side. Coming back to me be allowed me to get stuff. Well, I was in a situation where we had absolutely no money. And so I used it as a way to buy my mom something. She was going through a battle with cancer at the time, and I used it is my way to get some money. But what it did is opened my mind said, Look, I I can do this, you know? Yeah, it was a little tough, but first is eight or nine year old going door to door to my neighbors and asking them if they buy cars from his little embarrassing. I didn't know what to do, but once they started buying, I'm like, Hey, This is amazing, and I'm only getting credits right now, but it's solving a problem I have. And that led into then other businesses and trying to other things that throughout college, eh? Details cars. They did other things. Doubt myself, earn money so I could just work for myself. Then, obviously now is the CPS. We do a lot of things, so I think it's just great because it does open that mindset. Even if that 1st 1 isn't a successful is, maybe hoped it would be you. Hope is, it will make you a millionaire. But sometimes it doesn't just like you're saying. One of the great things is, Is there so many of now you can do without a big investment. Think that I got into, you know, when my wife and I got married and we're now we're talking mid nineties early two thousands. It was much harder by that point to earn money, you almost had it be willing to spend and best quite a bit. Well, not so much anymore. You jump onto a car, you can go start making money, you can do various things on the Internet, start writing a block that so many have now Just take your time and acts, um, commitment to continue to do the things that you're interested in, the passion. So you have

spk_0:   21:34
right. And I think it's good to just learn other skills and just keep to keep your mind active and just to do something different. It keeps it really exciting. As a kid, I babysat. I did a lot of things help playing people houses. I did it everything. I think it's really, but it's really important. Just tow. Have to try to figure out what you're good at and take those skills to help you make some cement your money. We don't know what it was gonna happen in the economy way. Don't know. So if you have some extra skills and some other ways that you could make money, it's less stressful because if something happens, you will always have a backup plan. And I'm always

spk_1:   22:11
and it doesn't take a ton to change your life. I mean, not that obviously we don't all want to make thousands of dollars, but if you're coming up short two or $300 a month and you can go do a side hustle make $100 a week and not only pay for that shortage but also have some excess again. That's not a ton of money. But if it relieved the burden that you were under and that's a great thing now it's gotten to the point that say, Okay, now we're not stressing and going backwards. At least we're staying even. And now we'll figure out some other things to get us to where we're heading in the right direction. So I think you do some coaching with this as well. Is that correct that in addition to the blogged, you will help introduce people, the various side hustles and some of the things that they could potentially do themselves.

spk_0:   22:53
Yes, I get a lot of questions because I just started my business in March of 2019. There's only been a few months. I get a lot of questions about how I'm building it so fast, and you know what I'm doing. So I am gonna be helping people with, you know, starting their own business on the Internet, whether it is with finance or not, just kind of how to do that and market yourself on lie I also do coaching one of my signature programs is my budget coaching program that I d'oh where I teach you for four weeks how to create a budget. We've gotten so much success out of that program. I've had women quit some of their second jobs that they had because they found so much extra money in their budget that they didn't even need it. I had somebody fine over $1000 in their budget just by figuring out where their money is going. So really, really great things that's happening in the budget coaching program. I'm gonna be doing it quarterly. The next one is March 2020. So we basically just meet on Zoom once a week, and I also do personal one on one cause every week as well. And they have access to me via e mail if they have questions that pop up and I get the homework and they do the homework and we discuss it and go on to the next part of alert about the budget but is an amazing program and I'm helping so many women because I would like to do the one on one thing with the people in the program. I only allow about 10 to 15 people in there because I don't want to get too overwhelmed that I can't meet with everybody. But it's a really great program, and I'm really proud of the success that the women are having thus far. This will be my second time actually doing that. I'm just really excited

spk_1:   24:26
and it should be super cool that you're really making an impact on people's lives were really helping them to improve the situation they're in. And it's something that what you're doing changes people's lives forever. I mean, that's the other great thing is if you can fix the way they spend today, 10 20 even the next generation is going to be better off because of what you've taught these people and how you've been able to help him out,

spk_0:   24:49
right? I'm really I really wanna help women to understand just everything about their finances and about the budget so that they can take this information and be able to figure out any situation we have. Things always change your income. I go up on my go down, but I teach them the skills and techniques on that so they could do it on your own so that they can take that with them, no matter what they're doing or where they go

spk_1:   25:14
and it is the skills that is the critical part. I mean, if I look in my own life, we've had. Luckily, we've had pretty stable, increased income throughout my career, but we've lived very poor at times, even though we made really great money. We've lived in a one bedroom apartment with six of us, six of us. I guess that we had at the time we've lived in bigger homes, Yeah, but it's what's been cool about it is our family's been so used to just say, Look, we will do with what we have, really Doesn't matter if we have a one bedroom apartment or at 6000 square foot home. We are super happy to just be with our family. The material things aren't important. We can live this way, no matter what our income status is, and and we've been able to do that because we taught our kids the importance of the principles say Hey, it doesn't matter. You have to have designer jeans. You don't have to drive the nicest car. You just need to have a family that loves and supports you or other people that are there in your life and be willing to cover your basics and you can find all the happiness you're really looking for. But you need to remember these basic principle.

spk_0:   26:10
Absolutely, absolutely.

spk_1:   26:12
So let's give the listeners it's been great. Show love, talking to use, very excited about your serving heart out. Will your help other people? Let's give our listeners information on how they can get a hold of you and maybe some of the things that you can continue to do to help them improve their own situation.

spk_0:   26:29
Well, I have my block, which is the leader of the view that budget queen block dot com. You can find me mostly on Instagram at Budget Queen, Underscore Block or Facebook budget. Please love. I have a lot of freebies and things, and I just give out for free. You have three webinars where I teach you women all types of thing. I also have courses for help women to teach their Children how to do things with their budget and their finances. I have a lot of different things that touch on you like your credit savings, investment and things like that where you can reach out to me and get help.

spk_1:   27:02
We'll Carisa, Thank you so much for being on our show today.

spk_0:   27:05
Thank you so much for having me.

spk_1:   27:08
Prosperity Nation. You have been listening to Prosperity Gap. My name's Dave Hall. I've been here with Clarence Amore. She is the budget queen and you confined her budget queen blawg dot com Please go see what she has to offer again. We realized that the world we're in could use all the education that we can possibly put out there. They're gonna be people. They're going to connect better with her than may. With me, it's my goal, Justus hers to help people improve their lives. So if she gives you an opportunity to do that, police take advantage of it. So I will talk to you on our next show.