RPF0213-Lauren_Bowling_Interview
00:00:00.000 | Today on the show, I have an interview for you with personal finance blogger Lauren Bolling
00:00:06.520 | from the website LB and the Money Tree.
00:00:26.720 | Welcome to the Radical Personal Finance Podcast.
00:00:28.400 | My name is Joshua Sheets and I'm your host.
00:00:29.960 | Thank you so much for being here.
00:00:31.600 | Today I bring you an interview with a young lady named Lauren Bolling.
00:00:34.720 | We're going to talk about finance in your 20s and 30s and various decisions related
00:00:42.000 | to establishing yourself as an adult, including how to set up a house so that it makes you
00:00:47.800 | money instead of costs you money.
00:00:58.560 | My guest today again is Lauren Bolling.
00:01:00.480 | She writes for a website called LB and the Money Tree.
00:01:02.560 | Lauren reached out to me or actually her publicist reached out to me and mentioned a little bit
00:01:05.440 | about her story.
00:01:07.160 | Her story piqued my interest.
00:01:08.280 | I went over and checked out her website and decided to invite her on the show.
00:01:11.920 | You'll hear in the content of today's interview a little bit of background, a little bit of
00:01:14.680 | information on who she is, but also some of the various ups and downs of her financial
00:01:20.000 | journey.
00:01:21.000 | She was a delight to talk to and it was really interesting to hear some of the impact of
00:01:24.640 | different steps that she took in her life regarding different aspects of her financial
00:01:28.920 | journey.
00:01:30.920 | I was particularly attracted to bring you this interview simply because it talks about
00:01:35.040 | the more normal day-to-day aspects of finance.
00:01:39.080 | It talks about the things that most of us have faced, young people going out, getting
00:01:42.960 | their start in the world, moving to a new city without any money.
00:01:45.800 | Lauren's got a really fun story.
00:01:47.840 | Some of the ups and downs and the lessons learned in her growth as a personal finance
00:01:54.400 | writer.
00:01:55.400 | Especially, I also love to bring you the impact of this.
00:01:59.600 | I want to share with you a little bit about the story of the impact that her personal
00:02:02.800 | finance blog opened up to her from a career perspective.
00:02:06.760 | Enjoy this interview with Lauren.
00:02:08.960 | Lauren, welcome to the Radical Personal Finance Podcast.
00:02:13.080 | I appreciate you being with me today.
00:02:14.240 | Lauren Ruffin, PhD
00:02:15.240 | Hi.
00:02:16.240 | Thanks for having me.
00:02:17.240 | I've been looking forward to hearing a little bit about your story because you have, in
00:02:21.520 | the same way that I guess we all have, you have a unique financial journey.
00:02:27.800 | You've shared a good bit of that on your blog, but I'd love it if you would start
00:02:32.280 | and share with me a little bit about your journey as it relates to personal finance
00:02:36.640 | and the lessons that you've learned along the way.
00:02:39.760 | Sure.
00:02:40.760 | I think it all started when I went off to college.
00:02:45.920 | I didn't have any type of money talk with my parents.
00:02:48.840 | I had no idea about good things to do.
00:02:52.160 | I got my first credit card.
00:02:55.080 | Being away from home for the first time, I think I was dealing with a lot of self-esteem
00:02:59.160 | issues which manifested itself in a huge shopping problem.
00:03:03.160 | I went through college battling that.
00:03:06.720 | Finally, my junior year, my parents suggested I go see a therapist to help me cope with
00:03:12.120 | this why I felt the need to shop when I was feeling so poorly.
00:03:16.680 | That helped.
00:03:17.680 | I no longer had a shopping addiction, but I had $10,000 worth of credit card debt.
00:03:22.760 | A fun reminder of a past life.
00:03:26.720 | Absolutely.
00:03:27.720 | People think, "Oh, I graduated college with $10,000 in debt."
00:03:32.160 | They don't think that's a big deal, but that's just credit cards.
00:03:35.360 | That was just extra spending.
00:03:37.120 | I had a job all four years.
00:03:38.640 | I was blowing through that.
00:03:40.760 | My parents paid for my education, which I'm very thankful and I see now as a huge gift
00:03:46.600 | and blessing.
00:03:47.600 | So $10,000, that was just my bad habits.
00:03:52.720 | I wanted to move to New York to become an actress.
00:03:55.400 | I have a theater degree that I'm no longer using.
00:04:00.440 | I got up there.
00:04:01.440 | I famously moved with $300 and a prayer.
00:04:04.440 | I slept on a lot of people's couches for weeks until I found a job and got on my feet.
00:04:10.120 | It was right around the time that I was sitting at my desk job and all my friends were out
00:04:17.600 | auditioning and taking great classes and meeting fun people that I realized that my bad choices
00:04:24.920 | had consequences.
00:04:25.920 | I knew that the shopping was bad and I wanted to get a grip on it, but when you spend on
00:04:30.680 | a credit card, it feels like a present because it's not actually coming from your bank account.
00:04:35.600 | That really hit hard for me.
00:04:38.760 | I had to work for about a year and a half in order to pay off all the credit card debt
00:04:43.640 | and get into a good place.
00:04:45.160 | By that time, I felt like maybe the acting thing had passed me by.
00:04:52.000 | I vowed then and there that I was never going to let my bad financial choices keep me from
00:04:56.560 | doing something that I really, really wanted to do.
00:04:59.040 | So I moved home.
00:05:00.640 | It was a 25-quarter-life crisis, whatever.
00:05:03.640 | I decided I'd worked at a hedge fund and I wanted to write and learn a bit more about
00:05:08.880 | money, so I decided to start a blog, just documenting my money choices and what I'd
00:05:13.920 | learned and my thoughts and feelings.
00:05:17.480 | At first, it just started out as a fun project and hobby.
00:05:21.280 | Then people started reading and it took off and it became more of a structure and a tool
00:05:26.320 | I used to start the next chapter of my life.
00:05:29.880 | So that was about three years ago now?
00:05:32.240 | Yes, it was.
00:05:33.240 | I've been blogging for three years.
00:05:34.240 | You're almost 30 then?
00:05:35.240 | I'm 28.
00:05:36.240 | Yeah, don't say it like that.
00:05:37.240 | Awesome.
00:05:38.240 | I'm turning 30 in a week or two and I'm excited about it.
00:05:42.880 | It's a great – don't give in to what our culture tells you about age.
00:05:46.120 | There's nothing better than growing in maturity and learning from your past day by day.
00:05:53.120 | So obviously then you're financially independent and you make millions of dollars from telling
00:05:56.620 | people what to do with their money based purely on your blog and you live on a beach and you
00:06:00.600 | type some stuff into a computer and you're a millionaire now, right?
00:06:03.800 | No.
00:06:04.800 | No.
00:06:05.800 | What did I get wrong?
00:06:08.040 | I am not a millionaire.
00:06:09.880 | I actually just had a feature come out in the June issue of Redbook Magazine called
00:06:14.320 | Happy at Any Income and I was profiled as a woman who lives happily on her income, which
00:06:19.080 | I'm fine with telling you is $75,000 a year.
00:06:22.480 | I was working full time and doing the blog on the side and then I bought my house and
00:06:26.640 | I rent out rooms so that was sort of the total income pie.
00:06:32.120 | The great thing about the blog was that in April I was able to build up my freelance
00:06:36.360 | writing enough to leave my full time job.
00:06:40.000 | Now I do work for myself full time, which has been really fantastic.
00:06:43.560 | But I don't make a million dollars but I do live sort of a location independent lifestyle,
00:06:47.000 | which is incredible.
00:06:48.000 | You're primarily writing financial content for other publications or in various fields?
00:06:53.840 | It's in various fields.
00:06:56.220 | When I started my blog three years ago, my only talents were acting in theater, which
00:07:01.200 | I didn't want to do anymore, and then I worked as an administrative assistant, which isn't
00:07:06.080 | the best, most glamorous job.
00:07:07.280 | I thought I was going to have to go back to school but I went into an interview for an
00:07:11.280 | administrative assistant position at a technology startup here in Atlanta where I live.
00:07:17.240 | The CEO is one of those big picture thinkers and he wanted to hear about all my passions
00:07:21.360 | and my hopes and my dreams.
00:07:22.360 | I was telling him about this blog that I just started and how that was really an area of
00:07:27.680 | passion for me and social media and learning all about it.
00:07:31.480 | He thought that was really cool and I didn't get that job.
00:07:33.840 | But then three weeks later, they created a position for me to come and run their blog
00:07:39.000 | and social media.
00:07:40.000 | From there, I entered this career in marketing that I never had to go back to school for.
00:07:44.560 | I feel incredibly fortunate that the blog was a springboard for me to enter a new career
00:07:50.520 | path.
00:07:51.520 | Lewis: Did you want to be a freelance writer when you started the blog?
00:07:56.280 | Lauren: No, absolutely not.
00:07:58.440 | I wanted to be a writer but I didn't think I wanted to write about finance.
00:08:04.280 | I just wanted to write something every day, something that mattered that wasn't just a
00:08:07.920 | diary of my thoughts and feelings and what I had for breakfast and what I was doing.
00:08:13.640 | So I knew I wanted to write but I never had the intention of, "Oh, I'm going to start
00:08:16.680 | this and use it as my portfolio to have this big career."
00:08:20.560 | It was literally something I just fell into.
00:08:23.360 | Lewis: It's interesting and the reason I'm just emphasizing it is I've seen this story
00:08:28.560 | play out time after time after time and I've encouraged, frankly, everyone to start sharing
00:08:35.480 | in some format, whether through a blog, through a podcast, through a YouTube channel, just
00:08:41.160 | to start sharing a little bit of their story and encouraging other people in some way that's
00:08:44.820 | unique to them.
00:08:47.440 | It seems as though many people have the idea that the major benefit of doing that is going
00:08:52.640 | to be that I'm going to become financially independent off of my YouTube channel and
00:08:55.680 | I'm going to make all this money from YouTube content fees.
00:09:00.840 | But the reality is it may just simply serve to focus your thoughts and when you have an
00:09:06.320 | opportunity to sit down and write and express yourself or when you have the opportunity
00:09:11.080 | to sit in front of a microphone and speak and just simply share your thoughts, it helps
00:09:15.560 | you to organize and clarify what you think and what you believe.
00:09:19.960 | After a while, you start listening to what you tell other people to do and you start
00:09:23.160 | doing it yourself.
00:09:24.160 | Laeigh: Absolutely.
00:09:25.160 | I couldn't agree with that more.
00:09:29.880 | Not everybody can work for themselves and I think employers especially find it incredibly
00:09:35.480 | encouraging when someone has the hustle to put together something online that they package
00:09:41.880 | and sort of brand and market themselves.
00:09:43.600 | I think those are all really great skills to have.
00:09:47.360 | If you think about it, the only way we really learn things is by sticking our fingers in
00:09:52.440 | them and doing it.
00:09:53.440 | I mean, you can go to school, which is great, but you really only know once you start doing
00:09:56.880 | it.
00:09:57.880 | So I definitely agree with that sentiment.
00:10:00.160 | People should just start doing things.
00:10:01.600 | Anything they want to do, just go do it.
00:10:03.280 | Preston Pysh (00:36:40): Practically speaking, when you moved to New
00:10:05.080 | York City, you were working at pursuing a career in acting.
00:10:11.200 | What way laid that and it sounded like the finances were a challenge.
00:10:16.240 | Was it simply that you needed to work to support yourself and pay your minimum payments?
00:10:21.120 | What specifically happened that that career got set aside, I guess?
00:10:24.840 | Laeigh Nevins (00:37:02): At first, it was the finances.
00:10:28.920 | I moved up there with $300.
00:10:30.400 | I didn't want to sleep on someone's couch for forever.
00:10:33.560 | Unfortunately, I had people who were incredibly kind to me and friends who were very generous,
00:10:38.520 | but it was the finances.
00:10:40.920 | I knew that I moved there with no savings, so something had to give.
00:10:46.320 | My parents had supported me through school, and then my mom bought my plane ticket to
00:10:50.240 | New York and was like, "That's it.
00:10:52.000 | That's all you get.
00:10:53.000 | Your cell phone, your health insurance, you're off the gravy train now."
00:10:57.520 | At first, it was the finances, but then once I got that under control, I stuck my foot
00:11:04.960 | back into the theater thing again, and I realized that I wasn't as passionate about it as I
00:11:10.440 | needed to be in order to be competitive with the other people who I was auditioning against.
00:11:15.160 | You have to get up at five o'clock and go sit outside in the cold for auditions, and
00:11:20.120 | you have to constantly be taking classes that you really can't afford all the time.
00:11:25.480 | It's a hustle, and you have to really love it.
00:11:27.920 | I just realized that wasn't for me.
00:11:30.240 | I hate auditioning.
00:11:31.320 | It makes me really nervous.
00:11:35.520 | You come home and you think, "Oh, I had this passion," but passion isn't what you think
00:11:39.880 | it is.
00:11:40.880 | When I was a little kid, I used to write plays and perform in them for whoever was nearby,
00:11:45.800 | and my parents thought that that meant that I needed to be nurtured as an actor and performer.
00:11:50.480 | But really, I think I always wanted to be a writer, and that was always there.
00:11:54.880 | Now that I have the blog and everything that's happened, I definitely feel like I finally
00:11:58.320 | found my fit.
00:12:00.920 | You mentioned the help of a therapist in connecting with your credit card debt.
00:12:07.680 | What specifically was that process like?
00:12:09.680 | How did that person encourage you?
00:12:12.520 | How did they help you?
00:12:13.520 | What did that actually look like?
00:12:15.800 | It was eight years ago.
00:12:20.440 | It was 2007.
00:12:21.440 | I'm trying to think back.
00:12:23.160 | I know we sat down and we talked a lot about what was bothering me, and then she asked,
00:12:27.960 | "Well, when you're upset, walk me through.
00:12:31.720 | What do you do?
00:12:32.720 | Do you go home and do your journal?
00:12:33.720 | Do you have someone you talk to?"
00:12:34.720 | I said, "No, I go to the mall."
00:12:39.360 | I walk around, and all the shops cheer me up.
00:12:43.920 | I'm walking.
00:12:44.920 | It's exercise.
00:12:45.920 | It's fine.
00:12:46.920 | She's like, "But then what do you do?"
00:12:47.920 | I say, "Well, I go into a store, and I always leave with something."
00:12:52.080 | It was just a lot of Q&A around identifying these patterns that I had.
00:12:57.120 | Then, once we found my pattern, we worked really hard to find out what it was in my
00:13:02.400 | life that was a spending trigger.
00:13:05.520 | For example, I was in college at the time.
00:13:07.200 | Anytime I didn't do well on an assignment, that was a trigger.
00:13:11.120 | I had to work especially hard to not go to the mall after class or when something bad
00:13:16.040 | happened.
00:13:17.040 | I think I was in there for about four months with her, just talking through everything.
00:13:23.680 | Tavis: Did you work to adjust your spending habits on your own?
00:13:28.200 | Were you conscious of a desire to change and simply weren't able to do it, or was it almost
00:13:34.000 | subconscious?
00:13:35.000 | Jessica: I think with any addict, and I use that word lightly because shopping can be
00:13:41.640 | an addiction, but with any type of bad habit, there's a rock bottom.
00:13:47.320 | I think for me, it was at the point when I maxed out all my credit cards, and I had to
00:13:51.680 | move home with my parents for the summer.
00:13:53.800 | They were like, "Where did all your money go?
00:13:55.040 | Where did the money go that we gave you, the money that you worked for all year in your
00:14:00.120 | part-time job?" and having to come clean and see how upset they were when they found out
00:14:07.000 | that they were working really hard to give me something to set me off on the right financial
00:14:11.080 | foot.
00:14:12.080 | Then behind their back, I was undoing it with all of the credit card spending.
00:14:16.000 | Seeing how hurt they were definitely made me get my act together.
00:14:20.920 | Tavis: Have other people talked to you about this topic since you've shared that publicly
00:14:26.160 | and shared experiences with you about their own compulsive spending and how they tackled
00:14:32.960 | that?
00:14:33.960 | Jessica: A few people have reached out and emailed me and said it was something that
00:14:38.680 | they struggle with.
00:14:40.440 | The more surprising reaction has been from people I know, especially back college friends
00:14:46.260 | from that time.
00:14:47.260 | They were like, "Well, we knew you were spending, but we had no idea that it was this thing."
00:14:52.440 | I had one reader email me and tell me she had a problem getting drunk really late at
00:14:57.280 | night and then she'd shop online.
00:15:00.400 | Then she'd wake up the next morning and have all these emails like, "Thank you for shopping
00:15:06.040 | at AmZam.com."
00:15:07.040 | I was like, "What should I do?"
00:15:10.040 | I said, "Well, something's happening.
00:15:12.520 | You're spending triggers that you're home alone at night."
00:15:16.240 | I have to straddle a line to not be careful because I'm not a certified financial planner.
00:15:21.280 | I'm also not a therapist.
00:15:23.840 | I don't ever want to give someone advice because I feel like I'm not qualified to do that or
00:15:30.400 | it makes me a little uncomfortable.
00:15:33.840 | Dave: It's an interesting discussion as far as paying attention.
00:15:37.920 | I sometimes wonder with regard to helping people.
00:15:41.920 | I sometimes wonder if it's possible to learn some of these lessons without making mistakes.
00:15:47.080 | Thankfully, I didn't max out all of my – well, actually, thankfully in college, I wasn't
00:15:55.960 | maxing out all of my credit cards on compulsive spending.
00:15:58.320 | I did go into credit card debt when I was in college.
00:16:00.800 | It was primarily paying for class and things like that.
00:16:05.840 | I remember an experience that really affected me and it was when I was in high school.
00:16:12.320 | At that point in time, I was working during the summer in order to earn a little bit of
00:16:18.800 | spending money and also in order to be able to earn some money to contribute to my high
00:16:23.000 | school tuition.
00:16:24.000 | My parents paid the majority of my high school tuition but they sent me to a private school
00:16:28.880 | and one of the aspects of our deal was for me to contribute a little bit of money to
00:16:32.960 | that.
00:16:33.960 | I don't remember how much it was.
00:16:34.960 | It was fairly negligible, I don't know, $100, $150 a month, something like that, not a big
00:16:37.600 | deal.
00:16:38.840 | I had to work during the summer and I had to make my way through that.
00:16:41.560 | There was one summer I was working on a sod farm and I had a little bit of freedom in
00:16:49.960 | terms of coming and going.
00:16:51.800 | There was a gas station near that sod farm and at some points, I had a fairly boring
00:16:56.520 | job and I would go to the gas station and I would buy food from the convenience store.
00:17:01.080 | They had these amazing chicken wings there and a little fried food thing.
00:17:05.240 | I somehow wound up, I would go there every day and I guess I would wind up going there
00:17:08.720 | at lunchtime and then I would take a mid-afternoon break and I'd drive over there to the gas
00:17:12.120 | station and I'd get some.
00:17:13.120 | I get to the end of the summer and it comes time to pay my tuition bill and I look in
00:17:17.440 | my bank account and instead of the $3,000 or $4,000 that I usually had there with $1,800
00:17:22.840 | for tuition and a couple thousand bucks of spending, I look in there and I have something
00:17:26.520 | like $1,500 in my bank account.
00:17:30.120 | I went and I was very embarrassed.
00:17:31.440 | I went to my dad and I'm like, "I don't have the money.
00:17:34.160 | I don't have any money."
00:17:35.320 | He made me go back through and figure out what I had done with the money.
00:17:39.000 | I went back and did a forensic accounting process of what I'd spent.
00:17:42.960 | I started to figure out how much I had actually spent on chicken wings and soft drinks at
00:17:47.800 | this gas station.
00:17:49.400 | It was a horrifying amount.
00:17:53.880 | It was thousands of dollars because I would go every day and I was like, "Okay, $5.50
00:17:58.040 | here."
00:17:59.040 | It was absurd.
00:18:01.220 | That entire year, I was so broke that I was the cool high school kid.
00:18:07.760 | I wouldn't deign to ride the bus.
00:18:09.480 | I would drive the car and I'd put $3.37 a gas in it because that was all the money I
00:18:13.280 | had and I would beg lunch money from my dad and not buy lunch and just go hungry so I
00:18:18.800 | could put gas in the car.
00:18:20.280 | I just remember how deeply that impacted my life for the good because the mistake was
00:18:26.560 | so deeply imprinted on me and I never wanted to do that again and to this day, every now
00:18:33.480 | and then I'll buy something at a convenience store.
00:18:36.160 | But if I ever look at a convenience store, there's such a deep suspicion in me that
00:18:41.040 | thing's going to come out and get me.
00:18:42.360 | I got to have my guard up, my defenses up, that it really helped me.
00:18:47.360 | It's one way of just sharing my little story but I often wonder if experiences like that,
00:18:54.320 | if they're optional or if they are an important part of growing and learning and if in fact
00:19:00.480 | they don't contribute far more than they take away.
00:19:04.320 | I think that at some point you do have to make a money mistake in order to really sit
00:19:09.440 | up and pay attention.
00:19:10.440 | Something about, and me and my finance blogger friends talk about this all the time, something
00:19:14.880 | about money just isn't super interesting to people as a whole.
00:19:22.100 | So you have fashion bloggers and beauty bloggers and they get tons of traffic day in and day
00:19:28.400 | out and you're like, "Why isn't there a money blog that has that much traffic?"
00:19:35.480 | I think it's because people don't really pay attention to their finances until they
00:19:39.800 | really have to.
00:19:41.800 | Mad Fientist With regard to a philosophy, where did you
00:19:45.800 | go after tackling the spending issues?
00:19:49.640 | Where did you go to start learning about the overall construct of money and personal finance?
00:19:55.560 | Jessica Lange Right around the time I had my desk job in
00:20:00.920 | New York, LearnVest, the financial planning startup had just been founded and they were
00:20:07.600 | kind of making waves.
00:20:09.280 | They had this great library full of tutorials in terms of how to budget and what you need
00:20:14.520 | to be doing with your money.
00:20:16.560 | I looked at Mint and I looked at LearnVest as far as a spending app to track my money
00:20:21.880 | from my checking account.
00:20:23.320 | So I went with LearnVest because I felt like they had such a much more robust library.
00:20:29.800 | From there, that was sort of my first crash course in education.
00:20:33.840 | I can't remember.
00:20:34.840 | I'd have to go back and look.
00:20:35.840 | I think you might have to pay for those courses now, but back four years ago or five years
00:20:40.960 | ago they were free.
00:20:41.960 | So I learned about the 50/30/20 budgeting method where it's like 50% of your take-home
00:20:48.360 | pay to your expenses and then 20% to debt repayment and 30% your spending money.
00:20:54.760 | Having those little buckets really helped me make my first budget and stick to it, which
00:21:00.600 | is how I was able to successfully pay off the $10,000 of credit card debt in about 16
00:21:06.320 | months, I think.
00:21:08.320 | Have you changed your approach since then or do you continue to follow their recommendations?
00:21:12.480 | It's a little bit more lax now, especially since I just started working for myself.
00:21:18.320 | My budget is kind of all over the place because when you have freelance clients, money doesn't
00:21:22.680 | always come in on the first and 15th of the month like you'd like it to.
00:21:26.160 | For the most part, I think I live well within my means, especially being a homeowner and
00:21:31.560 | renting out the rooms.
00:21:32.840 | That really helps create extra income.
00:21:34.880 | But it is a little bit more lax.
00:21:37.320 | I kind of just separate money for my expenses and then money that I want to put away and
00:21:43.720 | then everything else I kind of just spend as I choose.
00:21:45.960 | I used to really ration it out like I can only spend $100 on eating out and now it's
00:21:52.240 | just sort of what comes up because every week is different, especially working for yourself.
00:21:56.800 | One week you may have a lot of meetings and the next week you don't.
00:21:59.200 | So I kind of just spend as I can with what I have.
00:22:02.920 | You've been very focused on your blog and talking about your adventures in the real
00:22:08.200 | estate market.
00:22:10.080 | Share with me some of the background as far as your goal when you got into the real estate
00:22:16.280 | market, some of the things that have been fantastic and worked well and some of the
00:22:20.360 | surprising disadvantages that you found.
00:22:22.920 | That's a loaded bag of questions.
00:22:28.160 | I was a finance blogger in 2013 reading all the financial content.
00:22:33.920 | I was like, "I think it would be a great money move for me to buy a home."
00:22:38.800 | And shortly before I left New York City, I got the last of my Christmas bonus from this
00:22:42.880 | hedge fund I worked for.
00:22:44.600 | And so I had a windfall and I wanted it to mean something.
00:22:50.560 | I wanted it to be money that I could make it grow in some way and I really thought a
00:22:55.400 | house was the way to do that.
00:22:57.760 | So I bought a home.
00:22:59.000 | The story goes I was shopping with my then fiance.
00:23:01.840 | We are no longer together.
00:23:03.120 | We didn't get married.
00:23:04.120 | So I bought a house that was much larger than what I actually needed because I thought we'd
00:23:09.000 | be living here together and having a family and all of that, which was disappointing when
00:23:14.800 | that ended.
00:23:15.800 | But it actually ended up being a blessing because now I have all these extra rooms to
00:23:20.040 | rent and I don't pay anything to live here basically.
00:23:24.400 | My mortgage is completely covered.
00:23:25.400 | Tyler Lenz: Are you willing to share the numbers?
00:23:29.000 | How many rooms, how many renters, that kind of thing?
00:23:30.680 | How much are your mortgage payments?
00:23:31.680 | Shana Grayson Sure, sure.
00:23:32.680 | So my mortgage payment is $900.
00:23:34.400 | That was also in the Red Book article.
00:23:37.000 | And I have two roommates.
00:23:38.880 | I have three bedrooms.
00:23:39.880 | One is like an attic sort of master suite that I live in, which is nice because I have
00:23:44.280 | that separation from them downstairs.
00:23:46.880 | And then I have two tenants.
00:23:49.120 | One is my brother and the other is a friend.
00:23:51.560 | And the third person kind of cycles in and out.
00:23:53.680 | It's been someone different at different points.
00:23:55.640 | But my brother's always been here.
00:23:58.440 | And they pay me $500 a piece, which is really great, especially now that I work for myself.
00:24:03.600 | It's nice to have that extra level of security.
00:24:08.520 | So buying the home and being able to recoup some of the money that way by renting out
00:24:13.240 | has been great.
00:24:14.240 | But I definitely think were I to do it over again, I would have bought a house that fit
00:24:22.640 | who I was at the time and what I needed and not sort of this aspirational dream of where
00:24:26.400 | I thought my life was going.
00:24:28.960 | And I definitely wouldn't have bought a home that needed it was a complete gut job.
00:24:34.160 | I did a massive $60,000 renovation on this home.
00:24:37.960 | It's a huge project for a first time homeowner, but someone who ended up finishing it alone.
00:24:45.040 | It was very overwhelming and stressful.
00:24:48.000 | And I think it's not something I'd ever want to do again.
00:24:52.760 | How did you come up with the $60,000 for the renovations?
00:24:56.360 | So I lumped in the renovation costs with my mortgage via a 203k renovation loan.
00:25:03.560 | So I bought the house and these numbers are all on my blog.
00:25:07.000 | You can find out I bought the house for $65,000.
00:25:10.000 | I took out a $60,000 renovation loan.
00:25:12.680 | So then the total was $125,000 and that's what I pay each month.
00:25:18.960 | So it was well under what I qualified for.
00:25:21.560 | And you can do that.
00:25:22.560 | You know, ask your mortgage broker about it.
00:25:24.520 | Tell me about the incentives that you shared on the blog that were able to help with some
00:25:29.080 | of the initial costs as well.
00:25:31.640 | So there were tax credits for renovating a home in historic neighborhood that I qualified
00:25:37.560 | for.
00:25:38.560 | Also at the time, they're not doing it anymore, but the city of Atlanta was offering grants,
00:25:45.280 | soft loans really, to first-time homebuyers who bought foreclosed properties in zip codes
00:25:50.200 | that were particularly hit hard by the recession.
00:25:53.480 | So I bought a foreclosed home in one of the dodgier neighborhoods of Atlanta.
00:26:00.480 | It's definitely coming around, and I feel safe here, I should say for anyone listening
00:26:04.840 | who knows me.
00:26:07.320 | But I got $15,000 because I did that, and that could go towards my down payment, it
00:26:13.080 | could go towards closing costs, and it's forgiven, $3,000 are forgiven for every year that I
00:26:18.880 | live in the home as my primary residence.
00:26:21.280 | So basically I get three grand a year to live here, which is nice, and I only paid $1,800
00:26:26.920 | at closing, which is unheard of.
00:26:31.040 | So on your blog you said that you get paid about $4,000 a year to be in the house.
00:26:37.600 | What made the renovation, what made it so stressful in the fact that you said you wouldn't
00:26:40.680 | do it again?
00:26:41.680 | It sounds to me like it was a brilliant financial move.
00:26:43.840 | Thank you.
00:26:44.840 | I can see that in hindsight, but at the time it was my first time working with any type
00:26:48.360 | of contractor ever.
00:26:50.240 | I didn't do my homework, I didn't vet him as properly as I should have, I took the word
00:26:55.000 | of somebody who I also did not know super well, and he ended up just charging me out
00:27:02.920 | the butt for everything.
00:27:05.360 | Everything was extra, he was doing things without checking with me first, so then everything
00:27:09.520 | was a battle.
00:27:12.280 | The biggest point of contention was when he put the air conditioning unit in the wrong
00:27:17.280 | place and we couldn't pass inspection.
00:27:20.040 | I said, "Well, you need to move it, it's not my job to know what the building codes are
00:27:24.560 | for the city, that's your job."
00:27:26.520 | We went back and forth and back and forth and my parents had to get involved, which
00:27:30.080 | was embarrassing because I'd been independent for so many years and I thought I was a big
00:27:35.000 | girl and then when stuff hit the fan, I had to get my parents involved.
00:27:38.640 | I'll tell you, I used to think that way.
00:27:42.080 | I don't know, maybe it's because I'm turning 30 these days.
00:27:45.280 | Certainly I am responsible for my own life, but I am thankful for the help of other people
00:27:51.160 | more than I ever was.
00:27:52.160 | Absolutely.
00:27:53.160 | I'm so thankful my parents are so kind and they're always willing to step in.
00:27:57.040 | Especially being a woman, you're like, "I don't need anybody's help.
00:28:01.720 | I'm a strong, independent, Beyonce type."
00:28:06.160 | They helped me out, we finally got it settled.
00:28:10.000 | I racked up more credit card debt, finishing the renovation and overages.
00:28:14.680 | The $60,000 wasn't enough to cover it.
00:28:16.600 | You turned that into a story.
00:28:18.080 | Tell me the story of paying off that credit card debt.
00:28:20.080 | You've done your homework.
00:28:22.120 | You read my blog, I appreciate that.
00:28:25.160 | I had about $8,000 of credit card debt at the start of 2014.
00:28:29.800 | I didn't pay it off like I should have.
00:28:33.120 | I was exhausted emotionally from the broken engagement and the runaway renovation.
00:28:38.040 | I just ignored it for all of 2014.
00:28:41.280 | I was very ashamed to be a personal finance blogger telling everyone what they needed
00:28:46.560 | to do with their money and I still had this debt that I hadn't really told anyone about.
00:28:50.600 | At the start of 2015, my New Year's resolution was that I was going to pay off all of my
00:28:56.040 | credit card debt and I was going to do it in 90 days.
00:29:00.680 | I did and it's gotten a lot of attention.
00:29:03.720 | It was republished on Business Insider and a little bit of it's going to be in Women's
00:29:08.000 | Day magazine in the fall.
00:29:09.640 | It was very exciting.
00:29:12.000 | Why was it such a big deal to you to share that you had credit card debt?
00:29:18.160 | Why was it so tough for you?
00:29:21.760 | Because it's a mistake I've made before and you'd like to think that you know better
00:29:29.760 | or that especially reading and writing about money all day every day that you'd make
00:29:36.120 | better decisions.
00:29:37.120 | But one good thing that came out of it was and how kind and supportive everyone was once
00:29:42.440 | it came clean was that I realized that especially with everything but especially with money,
00:29:47.880 | you shouldn't be so hard on yourself.
00:29:50.400 | The way I look at it now is I'm going to be dealing with money for the rest of my
00:29:54.200 | life and I can't really say what's going to happen.
00:29:57.480 | And so it's completely impossible for me to think that I may never be in credit card
00:30:01.760 | debt again.
00:30:03.580 | What matters is how I rise from those kind of setbacks.
00:30:08.280 | But do you feel that it was a mistake for you to get into credit card debt again?
00:30:14.840 | No, looking back on it now, I had stuff I had to do and I had no money and so credit
00:30:22.960 | cards were the way to do it.
00:30:24.240 | The mistake wasn't using it to sort of finish the project and move on with my life.
00:30:27.640 | The mistake was in letting it hang out for a year and accrue interest and not kind of
00:30:33.760 | stick my head in the sand and not pay attention to it.
00:30:36.120 | I guess what I'm getting at is I'm driving at the point in effort to expose it because
00:30:44.160 | there's a real challenge that we face in the personal finance world in that some people
00:30:52.600 | have an outsized focus on no debt ever.
00:30:55.840 | And yet my experience has been that many people have used debt to establish themselves and
00:31:01.960 | have used debt to establish business.
00:31:03.760 | Most business owners with whom I've interacted, especially in the beginning, they have gotten
00:31:08.880 | themselves into a position of many of them deeply in debt, some of them a little bit
00:31:13.000 | in debt.
00:31:14.000 | A lot of times your credit cards just simply become the way that you get things going while
00:31:19.200 | you're building your idea and while you're working your way through.
00:31:25.400 | For me, what I understand, at least from your writing, was that that credit card debt was
00:31:30.200 | primarily incurred as a result of finishing the renovations on this house.
00:31:33.960 | Was that accurate?
00:31:34.960 | That is accurate, yes.
00:31:35.960 | And I agree with your position on that.
00:31:37.880 | I'm not one of those bloggers that says no debt ever, that you should only pay for things
00:31:42.680 | if you have the cash to funnel them.
00:31:44.400 | I mean, I'm a freelancer now and as I said, I don't always get paid so regularly.
00:31:49.400 | So credit cards are how I fill in those gaps and then I pay it off at the end of the month
00:31:52.920 | or whenever the check I'm waiting for comes in.
00:31:56.040 | So I see your point.
00:31:57.440 | Yeah, and there's a big difference and here's where I think we need to do a better job,
00:32:01.240 | especially those of us in the personal finance discussion side of things.
00:32:05.080 | But there's a big difference between your going out as, or my going out and putting
00:32:09.640 | chicken wings on a credit card or you're going out and putting whatever your drug of
00:32:13.800 | choice was on the credit card.
00:32:14.960 | There's a big difference between consumption spending versus investment spending.
00:32:18.320 | And if you say, "I put $8,000 of credit card debt to finish renovating this house,"
00:32:24.960 | and in essence, let's say if you were in local rents to rent an attic apartment like you
00:32:33.440 | were having a one bedroom apartment in your market, what would that cost you?
00:32:37.000 | In Atlanta?
00:32:38.000 | Yeah, in Atlanta.
00:32:39.000 | About $900-ish?
00:32:40.000 | Yeah, about.
00:32:41.000 | They're in a nicer neighborhood than the one I live in.
00:32:44.600 | Okay, so a little bit less.
00:32:46.480 | You said on the blog that you were spending something like $900 on rent before that.
00:32:50.440 | So if we were just to use $900 a month and then on an annual basis, that means that that's
00:32:57.400 | $10,800 of cost that you're saving for having the house renovated plus $4,000 of net profit
00:33:06.160 | basically in addition to your personal living expenses.
00:33:10.240 | That's $15,000 per year of imputed income and actual income based upon that situation.
00:33:16.200 | $8,000 of credit card debt to get $15,000 per year in place is really not – I mean
00:33:22.320 | that's not such an out of whack scenario.
00:33:25.240 | $8,000 of credit card debt on the latest Manolo Blahnik or whatever your shoot of choice,
00:33:31.120 | that's going to sink you.
00:33:32.120 | But $8,000 on a house that's going to cash flow at the end of the day is not going to
00:33:36.920 | sink you.
00:33:37.920 | It could if it were $80,000 and it could if the market turned and if you hadn't covered
00:33:42.520 | your downside.
00:33:44.400 | But I just don't like the I guess emotional baggage that comes down to credit cards and
00:33:51.040 | I'd like to differentiate a little bit between investment debt and consumption debt and whether
00:33:56.400 | or not you take – in my mind, if you take consumption debt and you put it down and you
00:34:01.000 | put it on a home equity line of credit and it's all consumption, you're destroying
00:34:05.320 | yourself.
00:34:06.320 | If you take investment debt and you put it all on a credit card as you're starting
00:34:08.880 | a business and getting things going, that's probably – if it all works out well, that's
00:34:13.920 | probably going to have a net positive gain on your future.
00:34:17.320 | So I don't like necessarily the fact that oftentimes we feel this emotional pressure
00:34:23.080 | not to talk about things because what can happen is especially in the personal finance
00:34:28.340 | business is we can present an image that is not in line with reality.
00:34:33.320 | Most business people that I've interacted with have borrowed money to get things going
00:34:36.960 | and then when we find ourselves in a situation of needing to do the same thing, then we're
00:34:41.240 | somehow more critical because well, we're not those who do that.
00:34:44.320 | Rebekah: Right.
00:34:45.320 | I'm going to call you the next time my finances go south.
00:34:49.000 | I'm going to call you to get a little ego boost and tell me that everything is going
00:34:54.440 | to be OK.
00:34:55.440 | I think it's brilliant.
00:34:56.440 | I was reading your blog and you're talking about, yeah, I made all these decisions.
00:34:59.820 | But look, I mean you've got this big house that's been renovated.
00:35:02.620 | You got favorable terms.
00:35:03.840 | You took advantage of your mortgage credits.
00:35:06.020 | You had the mortgage credit certificate program.
00:35:08.540 | You took advantage of these special incentive programs and yeah, it was a ton of work.
00:35:13.060 | But you've got yourself in a situation where you can now make a transition from full-time
00:35:17.260 | employment to freelance employment and that from a lifestyle perspective will open up
00:35:21.580 | to you a lot of amazing possibilities.
00:35:24.420 | So in my mind, yeah, perhaps you would go back and do things differently but there are
00:35:29.780 | a lot of benefits to it.
00:35:31.180 | Yeah, absolutely.
00:35:32.180 | Absolutely.
00:35:33.180 | I agree.
00:35:34.180 | Question regarding this new YouTube series that you're doing.
00:35:40.380 | Why?
00:35:41.380 | Awkward Money Chat.
00:35:42.460 | So it's not 100% new.
00:35:43.820 | I actually started it last year.
00:35:47.260 | And I've been blogging for three years and I kind of wanted to do something a little
00:35:52.380 | different and I have a theater background.
00:35:54.860 | I love being on camera.
00:35:56.340 | I'm not afraid to say it.
00:35:57.940 | So I thought let's do a video component as part of the blog where people come in and
00:36:04.580 | – because sometimes I feel like the blog is very much me and my story but I love hearing
00:36:09.780 | about other people's stories and the choices they've made with their finances.
00:36:13.260 | And so I wanted to sort of put together a show that highlighted that, that was both
00:36:17.900 | educational and entertaining.
00:36:20.500 | My friend Kyle Bumpus said that it was like the Funny or Die series between two ferns
00:36:25.740 | but with Zach Galifianakis but for finance, which I thought was so perfect because that's
00:36:29.700 | what I wanted to do.
00:36:30.700 | Unfortunately, I have no idea what he's referring to but it sounds really funny.
00:36:38.260 | He's interviewed Justin Bieber and Barack Obama and all of his castmates from The Hangover.
00:36:43.860 | It's really funny.
00:36:44.860 | You should look at it.
00:36:45.860 | I'm the worst pop culture consumer of all time.
00:36:48.260 | I consume zero pop culture.
00:36:51.220 | Sorry to display my ignorance.
00:36:57.380 | Usually I'm online with things that are online but in this case I guess I'm out
00:37:02.580 | of the bar.
00:37:04.020 | Two last things that I'd like to cover unless you've got other ideas.
00:37:07.060 | I want to talk about your article of the 30 financial milestones before age 30.
00:37:15.420 | Whose idea was that originally?
00:37:17.340 | It was Bridget from a fantastic site called Money After Graduation.
00:37:22.300 | She's from Canada but it was actually her original post and a lot of other bloggers
00:37:27.700 | did it and then I thought, "Hey, my birthday is coming up.
00:37:31.100 | I'm turning 28.
00:37:32.100 | It'd be a fun thing to do."
00:37:33.620 | Do you feel like these are important milestones for people to consider reaching?
00:37:40.340 | I think some of them are really great.
00:37:42.540 | I think she got it from an article that she read but she was the first one to kind of
00:37:46.900 | put pen to paper and sort of track her progress.
00:37:50.420 | Some of the ones like you should merge your finances with a significant other by 30, I'm
00:37:55.500 | like, "Ugh, that's bullshit."
00:37:56.500 | What if you're not married by 30?
00:37:58.540 | What if you don't want to merge your finances with someone that you're living with?
00:38:03.220 | I've done that.
00:38:04.220 | It didn't work out and it was terrible extricating our finances from one another's.
00:38:08.820 | So now when anyone asks me I say, "Do not join your bank accounts until you are legally
00:38:13.980 | married."
00:38:14.980 | Have you purchased your house with your fiancé?
00:38:18.620 | No.
00:38:19.620 | No.
00:38:20.620 | I bought it myself because I was the primary breadwinner but then also with our combined
00:38:27.060 | incomes we probably wouldn't have qualified for some of the programs that I participated
00:38:33.500 | in.
00:38:34.500 | So I bought under my income.
00:38:37.500 | But we did have a joint checking account and we'd paid for a lot of wedding stuff together.
00:38:43.180 | So why was it a disaster to have finances joined?
00:38:47.420 | Because after we split we had some problems with direct deposit, getting that separated
00:38:55.860 | because it was one of the things where a certain portion of both our checks because it was
00:38:59.620 | our bill pay account.
00:39:01.440 | And then having to call someone up and say, "Hey, $700 of mine is in the checking account
00:39:06.380 | that you're still in charge of.
00:39:08.180 | I need to see you.
00:39:09.180 | I need that back."
00:39:10.180 | So having to be broken up and have this big emotional split is not fun.
00:39:15.700 | I wouldn't recommend it to anybody.
00:39:18.100 | Why did you originally join finances?
00:39:19.420 | Well, we thought we were getting married and we thought we were moving in together.
00:39:23.260 | It just kind of seemed like the thing to do.
00:39:26.980 | But that taught me.
00:39:27.980 | I don't know if I just being a financial blogger and I've been in charge of my finances for
00:39:32.820 | myself for so long now.
00:39:34.020 | I don't know if I could do it when I get married.
00:39:36.820 | I imagine it's probably a big deal.
00:39:40.620 | It's one of the people who are very strongly opinionated about it from multiple perspectives.
00:39:46.260 | Some people are very strongly opinionated at why you should never merge financial accounts.
00:39:50.860 | Some people are very strongly opinionated about why you should always merge financial
00:39:55.860 | accounts.
00:39:56.860 | It's one of those extremely hot button issues in finance that if you want to make people
00:39:59.980 | upset just start telling them how they should manage their finance.
00:40:06.060 | I've got my own perspectives on it.
00:40:10.220 | But I'm drawing you out just because it's something that very few people seem to talk
00:40:15.460 | about and I hate seeing couples merge their finances prior to marriage.
00:40:22.820 | It's almost always a disaster in my mind.
00:40:26.580 | But there are people who anecdotally will share that it's not.
00:40:29.160 | So you have to look at that and recognize the impact.
00:40:33.820 | Yeah, no, completely.
00:40:37.140 | Because when you're married you're going to be separating a lot of things legally anyway
00:40:40.420 | so a bank account is just another thing.
00:40:44.060 | But when you're not married and then you have this bank account together it's like, "Ugh,
00:40:48.340 | why can't we just split and be done with this?"
00:40:50.760 | So it feels more like a divorce in that way even though we were just engaged or if you're
00:40:55.140 | just with somebody.
00:40:56.140 | That's what happens even within the context of marriage.
00:40:59.340 | Marriage just becomes a very difficult breakup of a financial partnership.
00:41:04.540 | It's extremely, extremely challenging.
00:41:09.980 | Other benefits of the blog and this was kind of the last perspective.
00:41:15.900 | What stands out to me about your experience is it demonstrates you went to school for
00:41:22.780 | – I mean you had a desire to pursue acting and no desire to pursue writing and yet you've
00:41:29.260 | come up in a perspective where you're creating this web series and in a way that's utilizing
00:41:34.860 | some of your acting ability and you've built a new lifestyle for yourself.
00:41:40.220 | Was any of that accidental?
00:41:41.900 | Was any of it intentional?
00:41:43.880 | What combination of accidental and intentionality was there in that?
00:41:48.300 | That's a toughie.
00:41:52.460 | I would say that it started out accidentally for sure, probably like 95% accidentally.
00:42:03.120 | Maybe there was a glint in my brain that maybe this could be something.
00:42:08.120 | But mostly it was just me starting a blog, throwing stuff at the wall, seeing what stuck
00:42:14.740 | and then when I finally took a step back and said, "Okay, here's what sticks and here's
00:42:18.020 | what doesn't," then I became more intentional with it over time, creating more of a structure
00:42:22.660 | to content, getting more targeted with what I was writing.
00:42:25.860 | It's been a process over time finding out what my audience likes, what it doesn't, but
00:42:31.700 | then more so than just creating content, it's been 80% promoting myself through podcasts
00:42:38.580 | like yours, through press mentions, through guest posting, through SEO.
00:42:42.820 | I mean it's a constant battle to increase traffic.
00:42:47.780 | But the great part is that the more successful I've been with branding myself and growing
00:42:51.740 | my own personal brand, it has demonstrated to my employers that I am very good at marketing
00:42:56.700 | and branding other things.
00:42:58.700 | And now I do that for my freelance clients.
00:43:02.180 | So it started off accidental and then became more intentional over time, if that makes
00:43:06.540 | sense.
00:43:07.540 | Was it difficult for you to promote yourself?
00:43:09.540 | No, but I had kind of a crash course in that being an actor.
00:43:17.060 | It's all about promoting yourself.
00:43:18.500 | You're auditioning, you're constantly putting yourself out there.
00:43:21.140 | A lot of my blog coaching clients have a hard time with getting comfortable with the idea
00:43:26.260 | of promoting themselves to friends and family, which ideally those are your first blog readers
00:43:31.580 | and the people who are going to go on and spread the word about what you're doing first
00:43:37.180 | before you get mentioned by big name sites or really get your name out there.
00:43:40.860 | I'm going to invite you to come and speak to a group of high school graduates gathered
00:43:46.820 | together.
00:43:47.820 | And they're coming together and I'm inviting you to come and speak about finance.
00:43:52.780 | What would you share with them for a few minutes?
00:43:57.060 | I would say definitely don't shop your feelings.
00:44:01.940 | That's bad.
00:44:02.940 | And second of all, just live within your means.
00:44:05.980 | I mean, it's hard, but it's actually so simple.
00:44:11.300 | And it's easier to live within your means before you kind of get into your later 20s
00:44:16.940 | with this lifestyle inflation and you're making more money and you want to enjoy it because
00:44:20.780 | you work so hard.
00:44:23.140 | I think a lot of my troubles just came from me expecting a certain type of lifestyle or
00:44:28.220 | perhaps the lifestyle my parents gave me rather than the one I could actually afford.
00:44:33.180 | And I see this all the time even with some of the people I know in my real life just
00:44:36.500 | not living within their means.
00:44:39.260 | Lauren, I appreciate your coming on the show.
00:44:43.660 | Plug your website and share anything else that you'd like to share as we go.
00:44:48.540 | So I'm Lauren.
00:44:50.740 | My website is lbenthemoneytree.com.
00:44:53.580 | That's L-B-E-E like bumblebee and the moneytree.com.
00:44:57.740 | I have a YouTube series called Awkward Money Chat, which is also on the site.
00:45:02.580 | And if you sign up for my email newsletter, you can get your Grow Your Money Tree Toolkit
00:45:06.420 | for free, which includes tips on how to start a side hustle and grow a personal brand of
00:45:11.820 | your own.
00:45:12.820 | And I forgot to say you are an award winning blogger, a Plutus award winning.
00:45:17.020 | Yeah, for Awkward Money Chat.
00:45:18.780 | Yeah, I won last year.
00:45:20.060 | It was very exciting.
00:45:21.060 | It was a big day.
00:45:22.060 | You'll be in Charlotte this year for FinCon?
00:45:23.500 | Oh, absolutely.
00:45:24.500 | We'll have to meet up.
00:45:25.500 | For sure.
00:45:26.500 | If anyone else wants to come out and meet you, FinCon is the place to be as far as if
00:45:29.940 | you want to meet Lauren and many other personal finance bloggers.
00:45:32.180 | Lauren, thank you so much for coming on.
00:45:33.340 | I really appreciate it.
00:45:34.340 | Thank you.
00:45:35.340 | I hope you all enjoyed that.
00:45:37.260 | I always love personally hearing different people's stories and hearing all of the twists
00:45:41.500 | and turns through which they've gotten, which have brought them through to where they are
00:45:46.500 | today.
00:45:47.500 | And I think it's interesting.
00:45:48.500 | I especially just love hearing people's financial journeys, especially when they chronicle them
00:45:52.300 | written down in the finance blog.
00:45:54.340 | And then I'm always interested to hear the twists and turns in the path of their career,
00:46:00.060 | just listening and understanding how their career changes because of their various activities.
00:46:05.660 | So I hope you all benefited from that.
00:46:07.260 | I hope you learned something and enjoyed, maybe found a few good ideas for yourself.
00:46:11.500 | Check out Lauren's site, lbandthemoneytree.com.
00:46:14.500 | Lbandthemoneytree.com, I think you'll enjoy some of her writing.
00:46:17.780 | She does an excellent job there.
00:46:19.440 | And also make sure to check out her Awkward Money Chats program on YouTube.
00:46:23.820 | You can find that on her site or just search YouTube for Awkward Money Chats.
00:46:27.060 | Oh, in addition to that, FinCon 2015 that we mentioned right at the very end in Charlotte,
00:46:32.780 | North Carolina, that will be coming up this September.
00:46:35.620 | I will be there.
00:46:36.620 | Lauren will be there.
00:46:37.620 | I will be hosting a listener meetup while I am there.
00:46:41.020 | Details on that one, I figured them out myself.
00:46:43.300 | But I will be there for that event.
00:46:45.060 | June 30 is the ending of, I think there's a rate increase on the tickets at June 30.
00:46:51.360 | So if you've been thinking about going and you've kind of been sitting on the fence,
00:46:54.620 | buy your tickets by June 30, 2015.
00:46:57.900 | Otherwise there will be a rate increase.
00:46:58.900 | And I think also June 30 is when the block of rooms that are reserved for FinCon attendees
00:47:03.860 | is being released.
00:47:04.860 | I'm going to buy actually my hotel room before I get that done tonight, get that squared
00:47:11.180 | away.
00:47:12.180 | So if you want details on FinCon, go to FinConExpo.com, link in the show notes.
00:47:16.860 | If you want to buy a ticket, please use my affiliate link and I will get a commission
00:47:20.440 | on the sale of the ticket.
00:47:21.940 | You can find that link at RadicalPersonalFinance.com/FinCon.
00:47:25.060 | RadicalPersonalFinance.com/FinCon.
00:47:26.060 | F-I-N-C-O-N.
00:47:27.060 | I'd be greatly appreciative if you would use that affiliate link.
00:47:34.580 | Also if you've gained and benefited from today's show and you'd like to see the show continue
00:47:38.820 | on, I would be thrilled if you'd become a patron of the show.
00:47:41.460 | For details on that, go to RadicalPersonalFinance.com/patron.
00:47:43.460 | RadicalPersonalFinance.com/patron.
00:47:44.460 | Sign up to support the show there at any level that works for you.
00:47:50.180 | We'll do a bunch of different bribes and benefits for you at different levels, anywhere
00:47:52.620 | from a buck a month to $200 a month.
00:47:54.860 | Thank you to the over 200 of you who do that and I will be back with you soon, very soon.
00:48:00.060 | Thank you for listening to today's show.
00:48:02.060 | Please subscribe to the podcast with our free mobile app so you don't miss a single episode.
00:48:07.700 | Just search the App Store on your device for Radical Personal Finance and you'll find our
00:48:12.000 | free app.
00:48:13.460 | If you have received value from the content of this show, please consider becoming a patron.
00:48:18.000 | Your financial support is how I pay the bills for the show and how I plan to grow our content.
00:48:22.780 | You can support the show with as little as a dollar a month or as much as you feel the
00:48:26.140 | content is worth.
00:48:28.100 | Details are at RadicalPersonalFinance.com/patron.
00:48:32.300 | If you'd like to contact me personally, my email address is Joshua@RadicalPersonalFinance.com
00:48:37.820 | or connect with the show on Twitter @RadicalPF and at Facebook.com/RadicalPersonalFinance.
00:48:44.180 | This show is intended to provide entertainment, education, and financial enlightenment, but
00:48:50.420 | your situation is unique and I cannot deliver any actionable advice without knowing anything
00:48:55.820 | about you.
00:48:57.460 | Please develop a team of professional advisors who you find to be caring, competent, and
00:49:03.020 | trustworthy and consult them because they are the ones who can understand your specific
00:49:08.420 | needs, your specific goals, and provide specific answers to your questions.
00:49:14.260 | I've done my absolute best to be clear and accurate in today's show, but I'm one person
00:49:19.140 | and I make mistakes.
00:49:20.740 | If you spot a mistake in something I've said, please come by the show page and comment so
00:49:24.880 | we can all learn together.
00:49:27.100 | Until tomorrow, thanks for being here.
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