Allison Baggerly 0:00
A detailed budget helps you meet that goal and be very conscious. But if you don’t always need that you don’t always need the detailed budget. It’s okay to think of it in terms of percentages and spending money and having just like, oh, we can’t spend over $1,000 on food or else like there’s a red flag type situation.
Intro 0:22
T-minus 10 seconds. Welcome to the journey to launch podcast with your host jameelah. So frogs as a money expert who rocks her talk, she helps brave juniors like you get out of debt, save, invest and build real Whoa. Join her on the journey to launch to financial freedom 4321.
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Intro 1:11
If you want the episode show notes for this episode, go to journey to launch.com or click the description of wherever you’re listening to this episode. In the show notes. You’ll get the transcribed version of the conversation, the links that we mentioned and so much more. Also, whether you are an OG journeyer, or brand new to the podcast, I’ve created a free jumpstart guide to help you on your financial freedom journey. It includes the top episodes so listen to stages to go through to reach financial freedom, resources and so much more. You can go to journey to launch that comm slash jumpstart to get your guide right now. Okay, let’s hop into the episode.
Jamila Souffrant 1:53
Hey journeyers I’m so excited to bring you this conversation with my friend and fellow personal finance educator podcaster Alison Baggarly. Allison has been on the podcast before in Episode 98. It’s where she talked about paying off over $111,000 of debt on to teacher salaries. And now she’s an author. She’s written her first book, money made easy. We’re going to talk a little bit about that. And what she’s been up to since she has been on the podcast last I believe Alison, you were still working as a teacher. When he came on the podcast you had already started and was growing your brand inspired budget and now you are a full time entrepreneur. So I can’t wait to hear about that transition and to learn what you’ve learned. And have you ever evolved with your money mindset and, and habit. So welcome back to the podcast. Alison.
Allison Baggerly 2:43
Thanks, Jamila, I’m so happy to be here.
Jamila Souffrant 2:45
All right. So, let’s go back just a little bit. So like I said, the first time you were on the podcast, you shared your amazing story about paying off over $100,000 of debt on a teacher’s salary. Well, two teacher salaries and I love teacher stories and success stories because my husband is a teacher. And no one knows that yet, because I feel like I always say it in an interview. But and I know I have so many teachers and educators and people within that space, who listen, and they you know what, maybe the engineers and people who work in corporate America, you can reach financial independence and freedom, but me on a teacher’s salary or working in public service, I cannot and I love that you’ve shown that it can be done. So do you want to go back a little bit? And can you just share a little bit of that backstory not too much, because they can go back and listen to episode 98. If they really want to know all of that detail, but I do want to like talk a little bit about how you started inspired budget and paying off that debt in the beginning years.
Allison Baggerly 3:43
Absolutely. So my husband and I got married, I was 24 years old, I got married, I got pregnant and I had a baby all at the age of 24. We became unexpectedly pregnant and realize we couldn’t afford daycare payments were two teachers. We had six figures worth of debt. And we realized that if we weren’t going to do it for ourselves, we had to do it for our baby for for everyone who was coming into the world. So we learned how to write a budget, we paid off debt. And we did it all in four and a half years on to teacher salaries while growing our family. So we added another kid to the mix. We are paying daycare payments. And really the goal was to just pay off debt to just get it done and never budget again. That was the whole plan for me because I hated budgeting. I hated working on my money I love I love spending money. I still love spending money. And during the process I just became incredibly passionate about personal finances. So after we actually paid off that debt, I continued to want to talk about it and think about it and write about it anything and so I started inspire budget which allowed me to merge my skill set of teaching with my passion for personal finance together to ultimately help people who were basically where I was year. risk before feeling stuck feeling like they’ll never reach where they want to go with their money, they can’t take vacations, they won’t be able to invest because they never learned how to manage their money wisely. So that’s who I tried to help on their own money journey.
Jamila Souffrant 5:17
I love that. And you know the thing about teachers, the talent that you guys have, I really feel like you could take over the world if you wanted to. And it’s such a, it’s such a skill set in terms of being able to teach the patience to break down topics into digestible, easy to understand like that takes that’s a skill that can be transferred to other areas, right? If you want to be an entrepreneur selling lesson plans or talk about finance or talk about plants, like, really, you know, I just feel like not that I want you to work more as a teacher. I know you guys do a lot. But I just like there’s so much opportunity if you did want to earn more money, or evolve your skill sets into something else that you enjoy that will serve you well. So go teachers.
Allison Baggerly 6:00
I love that you said that because Jamila, I remember being in my like fifth year of teaching, we are still paying off debt. And every February I would be up at 2am Googling, like, what can I do with a teaching degree. And I knew there was something different, I could never figure out what it was until I started my business. But I always thought I had to be stuck in this lane that I chose for myself. That’s always what I saw. And so I love that you said that because you’re right, there are so many skills that teachers have. And there is a talent. So I love how you said like gardening or plants, they’re like you could start entire business teaching people how to garden in a specific area of the United States. Like it’s incredible what we can do, and me stepping outside of the classroom. It completely changed our family dynamic, it completely changed really our future as well. But I do want to say that we were investing $1,000 a month into IRAs while we were both teachers. So we were on track in terms of our money and being able to retire well, even though we were two teachers. So if you decide to be a teacher, and stay a teacher, because we need good teachers, there is still a way for you to do that.
Jamila Souffrant 7:16
Yeah, you know, and that’s the thing I know, I can only speak from my experience with my husband. And I think he does pretty well as a teacher. But you know, he does supplement his income he coaches he does other activities that allow him to earn more. And you could speak to maybe as from understanding the degree levels, but I know for New York City teachers, like their certifications, if you have your master’s degree, like if you, you know, you earn as much as what you can like, and there’s a potential to earn six figures, that but you just just have to figure out what it is that you need to do to do that and get to that point.
Allison Baggerly 7:50
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I don’t know if in Texas, there’s a potential to earn six figures unless you really want to go into like superintendent or principal, things like that. But you know, for, I think that depends on where you live. But I would say that regardless, you know, if you do have your masters, you will earn a little bit more, there can be a ceiling, though, with teaching. But just because there’s a ceiling. And just because you don’t make six figures, doesn’t mean that you can’t invest. A lot of teachers have pension plans, which is incredible. My husband’s going to retire in 13 years, with a full pension. Now is it enough for us to both live off of No, but it really supplements what we need. And so it kind of allows us to invest now to just know, like, Okay, we just need, we have half of the money coming in, we just need to be able to supplement. And that’s wonderful. Honestly, it kind of just takes the edge off. So but we were you know, we were making probably we’re making under $100,000. And we had kids in daycare, and we were still investing $1,000 a month into IRAs, which would supplement that future retirement income.
Jamila Souffrant 9:01
Right. That’s a good point. I’m glad you brought up like the cost of living and where you’re located versus as opposed to us in New York City. And so that’s an important point to make. And for just on our end, though, my husband’s been a teacher now for I think, over 18 years. So he’s also been, you know, in the system for a while and also will be able to retire early to have worked his way up the way he has to so I just want to give just a shout out to the teachers because I have a special place of art for you. Yes,
Allison Baggerly 9:29
Yes, we love teachers!
Jamila Souffrant 9:31
Because I couldn’t do it.
Allison Baggerly 9:33
Me too. I did it and I don’t want to go back to it.
Jamila Souffrant 9:37
All right. The other thing you said that I love is that you said I love spending and I still do. And I find that people find that hard to say or believe even though we see like all the consumerism and people spending in the space of personal finance when you’re conscious of it because you know we all have friends I have friends and people that I know love to spend love to shop but they’re not as conscious with their money like they’re not reading personal finance. Books and or listening to blogs about this, or podcast
Allison Baggerly 10:04
Or writing or writing writing about you know, finance books
Jamila Souffrant 10:06
But the people who are very money conscious, you don’t have to be a creator, but just you you’re into money, you count your coins, you know you’re doing your budget, I find that it’s hard for them to say they like spending money or enjoy it, it’s actually, I find that they say it’s hard to enjoy spending money. So let’s talk about that a little bit, how you reconcile and how you’re able to bridge that together? You being such a pleasure, and then you also being such a spender in the way you describe it.
Allison Baggerly 10:33
Absolutely. So in the past, I used to spend money based on my emotions, it was very much an emotional response. If I’m happy, I need to celebrate and go to the mall and buy something, if I’m sad, I need to drown my sorrows in, you know, house decor, I would spend money based on my emotions, if I’m bored, oh, let me scroll on Amazon, once I was able to see those patterns in myself and realize, okay, this is not healthy. It’s not the way I want to be spending money. I don’t want my emotions to control my money, when I was able to see that and kind of really implement other habits to replace that, like journaling therapy, talking with someone about anything I’m going through celebrating in other ways that don’t include spending money. When I was able to do that spending money, it stopped being this reaction. And it started being me taking action. And so I love it, I get the high. Like, when I spend money, I get that high. I’m like, Oh, this is good, feels nice. I like having new things. I like shiny things. But now I look forward to spending money on the things that really truly do bring me joy. And I’m okay with cutting out what doesn’t. So whereas one person might love a new sofa in their house, that’s perfect. And from Pottery Barn and it looks super nice. I’m like, I’ll deal with my old sofa, take me on a trip, let me book a trip. And so when I find that I can plan to spend money on something that really brings me joy. I can enjoy that process and not feel guilty for it. And it’s not me reacting to something else, I have full control.
Jamila Souffrant 12:21
So and I’m hearing a lot of you have to be proactive and intentional in advance, like you said, I think a lot of times what happens is we do things in the moment. And we don’t have a plan of action. So and because also you want to live I know I want to live a life that flows easily. And you can be spontaneous with
Allison Baggerly 12:38
of course.
Jamila Souffrant 12:39
So sometimes I’m not always planning to spend money or I don’t want the thing, but I have to expect that something may come up but you want to be ready for it. So how would you in terms of being prepared to be spontaneous? How do you work that in with knowing what you want, so you can budget for it, but then also being able to live in the moment?
Allison Baggerly 12:56
Oh my gosh, you know what we have Jamila, we have a separate savings account. That’s titled stuff we want. And it’s just something that comes up. You know, it’s money that we can pull from, it’s not coming from an emergency fund. It’s not coming from my kids future Christmas gifts, it’s not coming from my insurance, or HOA dues account is just stuff we want. And it’s in that moment where we can make those decisions and not feel like we have to pull money out of savings. Or maybe we don’t even want to add it to that month’s budget. And what we do is if we ever have any windfalls of money, we stick it there. So we will take windfalls of money to get there. Like for instance, I accidentally overpaid on my taxes, my quarterly taxes last year. So this was the first time in years I got a refund. And I was able to take, I’m going to take that refund and stick it there. And I’m not saying Allison, you need to invest all of it, I’ll invest some of it. Or Allison, you have to spend it on this or this or this. I’m not even telling myself, I have to have a plan for it yet. I’m allowing it to just sit there and say, Okay, it’s there. I’m going to leave it there until I feel the need to spend it. And when I find something that might kind of come up spontaneously, I can say okay, is this really worth spending this money or not?
Jamila Souffrant 14:16
That’s so smart. Because in the moment when things happen, it’s also hard not to especially if you’re so focused on a goal not to want to put it all towards a goal, if your goal driven in that way. So should I invest all of it or save all of it because you never know what happened, but you have to give yourself permission to enjoy and live life now if you are fine with putting it towards a financial goal. And that’s where you are, I think, go ahead but I think so many people are restricting themselves too much when they are on track or are are able to reach their goals. So you do want to make sure you’re living a bit in the moment.
Allison Baggerly 14:51
I agree. I’m very much like a percentage based person we took 50% of it and we put it aside to a money goal and the other 50% We are leaving it there for now, we’re in don’t have this pressure on ourselves to make a decision right now, it can sit in a high yield savings account. And if later on, we decide, okay, you know, we do want to invest it all or we do want to save up for this thing we can or if we do want to take an extra vacation this summer, a little getaway we can. I love having that there. And I don’t feel pressure to make a decision right away, which in the past, I think I would have felt that way.
Jamila Souffrant 15:26
Yeah. Now, you mentioned a few accounts just now you said your HOA account, then you said, do whatever you want to count. So from just a practical day to day way that you handle money? What is what’s your method? I know, everyone is different. Some people prefer, you know, I definitely I recommend having at least a separate savings account, right, where that’s not commingled with your spending money. But some people have a lot of different checking accounts and name them at their different banks. And some don’t. So what how do you and your husband manage money? What is your banking situation look like?
Allison Baggerly 16:00
Oh, I love this, because I think it’s fun to like, hear the true details. Like let’s go talk about like, Well, maybe if or hypotheticals? No, let’s get down into it. So I do talk about this in chapter seven of my book, money made easy, where I talk about sinking funds. But the way my husband and I manage money is we’ve been married since I was 24 years old. So everything is joint for us. I think that if I were to like, got married, I’d rather not have made separate joint accounts. But everything is joint and we have automatic transfers, I’m big on automatically transferring money out because I like to spend money. And if it’s sitting in my checking account, I will spend it, I will find something to spend it on, I have no issues finding things to buy. So we have money immediately sent to ally high yield savings account, where we have the bucket setup. So for us, it’s what emotionally is most stressful for us throughout the year. And for our family that comes out to Christmas, HOA dues because our HOA dues come out every year at January, they’re $1,300 a year, flood insurance comes out every summer because we live in an area that might floods we have extra flood insurance, and then vacations. So what we do is I have an automatic transfer that comes out it sends $175 to Christmas every month $175 to that HOA flood insurance, I don’t have to think about it, it happens two days after I’m paid. So there’s no way I’m gonna spend all that money if gone. So I don’t have it, then we do have a separate emergency fund that has about six months worth of just necessary expenses in it. That’s also most of that’s in a high yield savings account. And we keep about $5,000 in a standard savings account connected to our bank. Because with when you are moving things across different accounts, it could take several business days. So we want to have about five grand that we can grab and touch quickly if something happens. So we have that we try to keep it as simple as we can. Because to me the the more accounts I have, sometimes it just complicates things. And I don’t want to have to think hard about my money. I want to be able to open up my apps look know what I have, and then just say, Okay, if something happens with, we have a plumbing issue that’s just going to come out of our emergency fund, it doesn’t come out of a separate home maintenance account. It just comes out of our emergency fund. Same thing for car maintenance. My husband needs new tires, it just comes out of our emergency fund. And then we refill that.
Jamila Souffrant 18:42
Yeah, I love that you shared that. So thank you the mechanics of how the money flows for you and how you’re saving. I want to talk a little bit about budgeting. Because I know the power of a budget. It’s funny, I didn’t remember this. But what before I changed the name of my blog. So I started journey claunch First as a blog. But do you want to know what the name of it was? First, it wasn’t 32 long journey to budget and that almost, it was called Mrs. Budget fab. So my first blog was called Mrs. Budget fab. And then I changed it to journey to launch because I felt like that more incorporated and encompassed what I wanted to do and what I was doing, but that should tell you that that is how important I knew and saw or budgeting was to my goal of reaching financial independence because when I started it, that wasn’t my goal to reach financial independence. And I was using budgeting as a way to keep me accountable. I was really I was you I was excited about it. But I will admit that as I’ve gotten further along in my financial journey, and I talk about this in my book and how you have to be flexible with budgeting, but I admit now that for me, I do not find budgeting the way I did it in the past enjoyable or I don’t I don’t find it necessary to do it. I as often or as intensely as I did it in the beginning. And yeah, so that’s my big confession of my budget confession.
Allison Baggerly 20:08
No, I love that. But you know what, that’s, that is so amazing to me. Do you know why Jamila, because that tells me that in the past, money was stressful, and you felt like you didn’t have control. And now it’s no longer stressful, you have set yourself up to where there is flexibility and freedom.
Jamila Souffrant 20:26
Yeah, so here’s the thing. So it was my situation that caused me to have Need A Budget because I did not like my job. And my commute. I wanted to get out, I needed to find a way out and, and making sure I knew where my money’s going and investing, it was the way to go. And then to do that I had to budget. And so that’s where I feel. And this is why I feel like I do feel budgets are important and necessary, especially if you’re in the beginning stages. And or if you’re in a situation that you want to change financially, like, the budget is gonna help you get there. But I want to talk for you like you, you’re a tried and true budgeter. So your name of your brand is inspired budget, and you started out budgeting intensely. It sounds like that’s what you do, and you’re still doing it versus me. You know, like, I was able to kind of let off the gas a bit and I’m still looking at my money and, and budgeting in a sense, but talk about I don’t know the different ways that people can look at budgeting because maybe someone’s like a try a tried and true budget or like you and they’re gonna do it no matter if they’re a millionaire, you know, they’re gonna budget, or maybe they’re like me, and they’re like, you know, I can see myself being like a Jamila, one day where I actually don’t like the budget, but I’m doing it to get to this position. And then actually, I won’t do it as much. So can we just talk about budgeting in this way?
Allison Baggerly 21:39
Absolutely. Yes. So I started out very much like you, I was budgeting and I hated it, I remember thinking, I’m going to do this for this period of time until I reach this goal. And then I’m never going to write a budget again, that was my whole plan. Like this whole inspired budget business, writing a finance book doing anything like this. This was not in the cards. For me, this was a shock. This was a pivot that no one saw coming. And I found that budgeting gave me control that I didn’t feel like I had I mean, if you think about it, you started budgeting because you had a lack of control, your lack of control might not have been your income, your lack of control was your job and your time and having ownership over that. And being in a position where you had to commute what like three hours a day, wasn’t it like that crazy, some crazy number. So really, it’s it is a tool to help you find control, whether that’s financial control, time control, control over your house, anything. And once you have really gotten that budget down, and you’re in a place now where you can ease up, you start thinking, Okay, do I really need to have this much control? What if I just have these kind of this flexibility because I’ve set myself up, to have money and savings to cover these things, and you don’t have to think about it as much. That’s fine. Like, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. For me, I still budget and I still like to budget because I’m, I’m weird. I’m weird, but it’s that like, I enjoy the details. And the process of it like that I am a very detailed person. And it brings me joy. So I think that but whereas my husband, it doesn’t, he started out strong. And he’s kind of like you, he’s just like, oh, it’s gonna work out. But why will? Why does he feel like that? It’s because we’ve put ourselves in a different position financially, where you can ease off the brake, it’s not bad. And the key is that Jamil, if something were to change in your life, where you felt like I do have a goal I’m working towards or something did happen, you would go back to probably budgeting more detail oriented, because you know that that’s what’s going to work. That’s the tool that’s going to get you there. So it’s really about using the tool, the plan, the intentional plan that gets you to where you want to be. And a detailed budget helps you meet that goal and be very conscious. But if you don’t always need that you don’t always need the detailed budget. It’s okay to think of it in terms of percentages and spending money and having just like, oh, we can’t spend over $1,000 on food or else like there’s a red flag type situation.
Jamila Souffrant 24:22
Yeah. And that’s why it’s so personal and you have to adapt it to where you are currently and your motivations solid that we were able to talk a little bit about that.
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Jamila Souffrant 25:21
Now, you mentioned your husband’s a teacher he only has I think you said like 13 years left until
Allison Baggerly 25:27
Yeah.
Jamila Souffrant 25:28
so you weren’t teacher, we mentioned this and you now are a full time entrepreneur. So talk about making that decision to leave your pension behind and work on inspired budget full time. How did you prepare yourself financially for that? What were those conversations like with your husband?
Allison Baggerly 25:48
Well, when I started inspire budget, I gave myself this five year goal, it was like five years, I’m kind of maybe out. And I ended up leaving in two years, and I’m not gonna lie to you, I’m gonna be very honest, I probably it was a risk, we took a risk. I had a quit teaching fund, it was a savings account, just quit teaching, and any money I made from inspired budget really got funneled into there. And when we when I left teaching, it was truly because my marriage was on the brink of divorce. If I’m being 100% honest with you, teaching full time raising a family and trying to start this business, I was not present, I was not a present mom, I was not a present wife, I was all in I, we ended up in therapy, it was really hard. And at one point, my husband turned to me and said, We either need to you, you either need to leave one of your jobs, or we need to get a divorce like this is not working. And I was like, Okay, I’m leaving teaching. And so we set out we really put faith in my business. And it was very scary. Because having him making, you know, 6060 $65,000 was not enough for us to continue living the even even honestly modest lifestyle we were living. So I had to make money. And it was Rocky, it was very much a roller coaster that was very difficult for our family to get used to going from this very stable consistent income, you get paid the same amount once a month, we knew exactly down to the penny, how much we would make, it was hard going to having only half of that known. And then the other half, it felt like there were ups and downs and twists and turns. And it wasn’t until years later that there was more of a consistency and my income. And I started paying myself a salary and truly started earning more than my husband, and really truly being the breadwinner of the family, which I don’t know about you Jamila and unlock some serious like nerves and me being like, oh my gosh, I have to provide there’s lots of pressure. And an unlocked some feelings in my husband to have of pride and ego. And so it’s been a beautiful journey of seeing how, as your situation in your life changes. We don’t have to stick by the thoughts we had about money in the past, we can evolve and change with our beliefs, just like our situations evolve and change. So that was a lot.
Jamila Souffrant 28:19
That was a lot. But it was great. Thank you for sharing and being so vulnerable there. Because you just talked about having kind of, to make this decision between leaving a job like he said, you know, because you’re doing too much like we had to in order to be together. Like we have to find a way to have more time energy together. So it sounds like he always supported the business because you were you may know Oh, he did it. Okay, so that I guess that’s where, because if I were him, right, and I’m like, well leave a job. I’m gonna hope that you say leave the side hustle because you’re because your main job is also what helps bring a stability and income.
Allison Baggerly 28:55
Yeah, no, he, he was not always supportive of Inspire budget. I think that if I’m being very honest, and he would come on and say this, I don’t think he would have years ago but he saw me starting a business as a reaction to him not making enough for me to stop teaching in his mind. Now that was not true. But in his mind, the thought process was Alison started inspired budget because I could not provide the life we she wanted. And that’s that’s not true. And one day he told me that and I was like you’re making this all about you and it’s not about you. I started inspired budget because it’s a passion of mine. It’s not a reaction to you and your feelings about yourself and your money. And it’s very normal for us to do that. Because we’re you know, we’re just human beings. We’re self centered. People that’s just natural. And so it was it was a four letter word in our house for a while. He didn’t understand it. There. He has no desire to ever start a business he didn’t understand why and how and how much I loved it and was pouring myself into it. And it wasn’t his to understand. But it was his to have to accept as his wife that that’s what I wanted to do. And so through counseling, we were able to get through that hurdle, massive hurdle in our marriage. And now actually, he, he’s a contractor of my business, he edits my podcast episodes, he’s a 1099. contractor. So, so he is now fully in that supportive role.
Jamila Souffrant 30:33
Yeah, I was so glad that you were able to stand up for yourself and what you want and and stand your ground and have him rise to the occasion to support you, I love that for you. I love that for women are. And so many of us, especially when you’re partnered up with someone, you know, I consider myself very independent, like, I’m gonna do what I want to do. You’re gonna get on board or you’re not right, but I was at so it was my husband’s personality, thank God, this is part of the reason why I married him is because we allow each other autonomy and we respect each other. And he respects me, and trust me, so live my life, just like I trust and respect, that he will make the decisions he needs to make for his life. So we didn’t have that friction, like he and I, and which probably puts a little blinders on for me in terms of, like, I’ve never felt pressure, or angst from him about what I was doing for like a business because he met me and I was always doing the most, I was always doing a lot. Even, you know, we met at 19 years old, and I was just very ambitious and doing a lot. So I think he saw that in me anyway. But sometimes you can forget that for some people, like if their partner is not understanding or comes to has a different mindset about money. Because although my husband also has no desire to be entrepreneur, he’s just like, when I came to him and talked about like financial independence and retiring early, he was like, what, like he doesn’t and like he’s, at first, he didn’t understand it. But he was just like, do what you have to do, because I was the one with the crazy commute. And, you know, even though I was earning more, so that was the conversation we had to have, because it would have impacted us as a family, us, you know, me walking away from my job. But it was an easier decision for me because I didn’t have him to like worry about emotionally. But I can imagine like for you, like you know that and for some people listening, it’s like they’re considering like starting a business and or want to leave their job. But now they have to consider someone else who impacts how they make that decision.
Allison Baggerly 32:28
Exactly. And it was really hard. And I really dove into inspired budget. And to be honest, I didn’t do a good job of taking his feelings into consideration. I own that part. There were mistakes made on both ends, I just dove in headfirst. And I was just like, I’m gonna do it. And I don’t care, kind of like how you mentioned. And what I never did was I never checked in, I never had any check endpoints to say, Oh, by the way, I’m doing this because it’s really important to me, I was just busy and not around, and just working constantly. So there was never that communication. And through therapy and counseling. And unpacking everything that had been pushed down for years, we were able, he was able to realize like, oh, this has nothing to do with me, or our kids are or what I’m providing. And it’s truly is just what she wants. But that took time and effort and energy. And there was pain to unpack. But it can’t be done. And I’m a big proponent in that getting and getting like a third party in there to help with that. Because it was a lot it was a big life change. For us, we massive life change, something we neither of us were ever used to. We don’t have family that are entrepreneurs, we never knew what this world was like. So it was scary and different.
Jamila Souffrant 33:52
And investing in, like you said, the tools like necessarily like budgeting in for counseling and therapy and knowing that I mean, we already have our own stuff to unpack as an individual, like, you know, like, you can just be by yourself and emotionally just going through it. And so add another person to the mix, then add kids to the mix and like navigating like, and bringing people along with you and making sure they also, like you said feel equal. So while I’m very like I had mentioned before, you know I’m gonna do what I want to do, but it’s I also give my husband the space. And it’s not just about me, right and like what I want, I have to give him that same respect too. And so it’s it’s just very important, and it’s not easy. So if maybe if you’re going through a trying time, or it’s like that shaky ground with someone think as long as the other person is willing to work on it whether on on themselves or together, then there’s hope potentially that you know, you’ll get to Common Ground.
Allison Baggerly 34:41
Yes. And I will say that going through therapy and dealing with those things. It costs money. I mean, it was expensive, and we actually paused our extra retirement contributions to help cover the costs of therapy and we are just really struggling so we weren’t making dinners at home. All, we were just picking up food or everything kind of increased in expenses. And so it’s okay to have to pause your goals and make adjustments to your finances, when, like, hits the fan, essentially. That’s okay. I think so often we give ourselves a lot of a lot of guilt and shame. And we beat ourselves up about maybe having to make changes and pivot a little bit, but it’s totally okay to do those things. So during that process, we did that we, I mean, obviously, we were still contributing to our pension, because we didn’t have a choice as teachers. But we weren’t contributing to an IRA for several months, because our marriage, our family’s health, all of that our mental health had to be put first in that time for it to work out. And we saw that and knew it and accepted it and didn’t give either one of us a hard time for having to just stop, really stop everything for a moment to get our lives straight.
Jamila Souffrant 36:02
Yeah, adjust when necessary. That’s what the money is for. Right? Like, this is what we’re working towards, and which is why I’m talking about freedom being unlocked at every level, no matter if, if you have debt or not, or if you’re still just starting investing, but there’s life like you’re living a life. And it’s not black and white, where you know, sometimes you need to pivot and switch your intention. So you can make sure you’re fully healthy, informed at peace, or at least working towards that so you can make better decisions. So you can get to those other goals.
Allison Baggerly 36:34
Yes, I call that a plot twist. We always reserve the right to throw a plot, twist your life, but you can throw a plot twist anytime you want.
Jamila Souffrant 36:43
I love that. So as an entrepreneur now, where you are talking about money, here’s a question I have since I’ve experienced this as I pivoted is, I was so focused on my own finances, I was on it every day, you know, checking the accounts budgeting, and then when I switched to have this be my full time thing. And I talked about it more with other people I was helping other people at when I was coaching and having other programs, you can sometimes forget about like your own stuff, because you’re so focused on everyone else. So does that ever happen for you? Like how did you pivot out to become a full time entrepreneur, talking about budgeting, and then still making sure that your family was okay financially and keeping up with your own financial habits and principles? And then how your money mindset evolved? Like, how did that all work as you were transitioning?
Allison Baggerly 37:30
Well, really, for me, I, I enjoy working on my own finances. And I have found that if I do it the same time every day, I’m more likely to follow through and be consistent with it. So I work on my money every morning before I even work on my business before I help anyone else with their money, and help helping make money easy for them. I have to do my own work.
Jamila Souffrant 37:51
Hold that thought. Because now I have another question. What does that look like for you? When you are checking in with your money every day?
Allison Baggerly 37:57
Oh, oh, let me tell you, it’s my favorite time of the day. So I really and when I say every day, I don’t do it on the weekends. I’m not going to work on this on the weekends, it’s not my jam. What I do is every day I take my kids to school, I come home, I’m usually home by 8am. I sit down with my coffee, I update, I update my spreadsheets, I update everything I get clear, I checked my checking account my credit cards, and really I do this kind of both for my business and myself. Like if there’s a balance on a credit card. I usually like to pay off my credit cards every Friday. So I never carry a balance. So I might pay off a credit card. I might just kind of check. And then it usually takes five minutes. I mean, literally, it’s so quick. It’s so fast. If there’s something that I’m like, oh, I need to have this conversation with Matt. I’ll jot it down on a sticky note so we can talk about it later on. That night at dinner or on the weekend. We have a Sunday date night where we well I call it a date night. It’s a date night for me because we talked about money. He probably is like oh again, but we have our Sunday night meeting so I might just jot something down so I can approach it later on. I’m not texting him in the middle of the day while he’s trying to work. So I do that and then I have my coffee I listened to my music I sit in this pink chair to do it all and then I journal and then I start my day at 830 So I really have this like 20 to 30 minute time period to get my money in the right spot. Get my mindset in the right spot before I start my day and I look forward to that every single day.
Jamila Souffrant 39:29
You know I love that because a lot of people talk about money morning routines. And I know like their whole spiritual and peaceful mornings you know whether that’s like praying and meditating, getting your coffee quiet no social media. But I’d like I’d love to see more of let’s just add like a five minute financial piece of that financial check in like that. That is part. I mean money is so impactful and necessary to everything we do that. It shouldn’t be a part if you have a routine a morning routine is to attack in five minutes. Have what you just said, to just make sure at least you know what’s going on. And I do love the idea of like sticky notes and saving Tabeling conversations for later. Because sometimes you can like find something out and then want to just reach out to your partner or try to fix it right away and you’re not in the headspace or you’re you don’t know what the headspace there and to get that done, and it just may ruin their day and or your day trying to figure it out. So Tabeling it to say, All right, I’m gonna note this and come back to it when I know I have time to figure it out and
Allison Baggerly 40:28
do it. Yeah, because I don’t know what he’s doing. And I don’t want to him to interrupt my workday with some random thing that is not even on my mind and gets me thrown off. So literally just writing it down allows me to just say, I’m closing this loop in my mind, I don’t have to worry about it anymore, I will get back to it. And then if I’m really scared, I’m gonna forget to talk to him about it. It’s really important. I did this today, I set a timer to go off on my phone at 530 When I know he’s going to be home. And it just says Mac conversation or whatever the topic is. So that way I don’t forget. And then only remember it the next day when he’s gone again. And I’m sitting down for five minutes. So I’ll set a little reminder on my phone to just an alarm to go off.
Jamila Souffrant 41:12
I love that now, okay, before I cut you off, you’re explaining just the way you are evolving and talking about money or thinking about money in your as you became a business owner and entrepreneur.
Allison Baggerly 41:21
Yea, I mean, going into this more variable income, it was really stressful, it rocked our world, we did not do a good job, honestly, for probably about the first year of me being a full time entrepreneur, we did not do a good job of giving myself any sort of like consistency. It was just like, Oh, you made a lot of money. Okay, let’s spend it in oh, gosh, you didn’t make enough money. So there was this learning curve. And, and I think that’s okay, just even though I was a money expert, and I talk about this all the time, when you apply it to your life there and you’re doing it in the moment, there’s going to be a learning curve. So we had this learning curve. And once I became truly a salary employee of my business, it became a lot more steady. But then what threw us for a loop. And really what threw my husband for a loop was the fact that I started making a lot more money than him. And it, it was hard on his ego. And then it also put pressure on me that I never had, because we refinance to a 15 year mortgage, which was very exciting, but it increased our monthly payment. And so anytime we take on any more lifestyle creep, we have to be really mindful, because then I have to ask myself, wait a minute, do I want to be on the line to have to do this because my husband makes him same amount every month, and he can’t make more. And I really don’t want him going out and getting a side hustle and making more like to be honest, I’d rather just make more for us. But it has put this really weird pressure on both of us that we’ve had to navigate. And that was very unexpected,
Jamila Souffrant 43:02
you know, for the way that you’re you once had money coming in consistently. And then this, I experienced that too. And then it’s variable, learning how to budget, your business money is different. I mean, it’s very similar to personal money, but it’s a little different to right. And so getting to a place where you could pay yourself consistently, and then now expecting you and no matter how much I make I get paid this. So is there a way that you budget for your business? I, I use like the Profit First method loosely. Do you use that? And maybe if you do know what that is, you can explain a bit or I can explain what that is for anyone who doesn’t know,
Allison Baggerly 43:41
yes, I do use the Profit First method kind of loosely, I change up my own percentages. But it’s essentially where you look at the gross revenue that your business makes. So let’s say $100,000, just for easy numbers. If your business makes $100,000, you’re going to set aside a certain percentage every month into paying yourself giving yourself a profit, which will in turn be like a quarterly bonus for you paying your operating expenses and setting aside money for taxes. So I am a very risk averse person when it comes to money. And so what I was doing Jamila was I was like looking at profit first and being like, I know that you’re an expert in this and I know these are the percentages that you recommend. But I’m afraid I’m going to owe a lot of taxes. And I’m going to I’m just going to I’ll go to jail because I won’t be able to pay my taxes. So I was setting aside probably 10% more into taxes savings than he recommended. So I it’s interesting for me to look at my mindset and money fears and how I’ve adapted that system. But then now that I’ve seen like, oh my gosh, Alison, you’ve really overstayed and you even overpaid, because you’re so scared. It’s kind of like okay, you can ease up a little bit and so even the way that I have managed my money and sigh my business has changed. I also have a full time employee. And I’m like, okay, like me and her were the last to go, I don’t want to do this alone, I rely on her so much. Matt knows if something happens to my business, you’re getting the x first. Like, I have like my, my things like kind of my things, but it’s setting myself up to where if I do have a lower income month that I’m not freaking out and feeling like, Okay, I’m going to have to let go of my amazing team. I don’t want to have to do that. So it’s building up money and savings and making sure I’m just spending less, but it is totally different than working on your personal finances. And it’s been a learning curve, for sure.
Jamila Souffrant 45:41
It is I mean, I’m still learning myself too. And that happens to me, like I overstayed for taxes, but the way I think about it is, whatever, once I pay that quarterly tax, any money that’s left over, I then transfer over to profit or to do whatever I want with it. So that’s the way I consider it. Versus though sometimes it feels like well, if I know that I would have had this money over time, like, then I could have spent it then versus waiting. So I just think it’s a matter of how you prefer if you kind of like your own windfall, creating your own windfall, and realizing it as a windfall, versus easing up and maybe spending or saving it in another way. All right, Alison, let’s talk a little bit more about your book. I’m so excited for you tell everyone when it’s coming out, I believe it’s gonna this, this will release that same week, this episode, so people be able to purchase but I want to hear more about the book more about why it was so important for you to write it, and then where everyone can find it.
Allison Baggerly 46:33
Of course. So it is coming out April 4, you can buy it on Amazon, Barnes and Noble pretty much wherever you get your books. And really, I wrote it because when I was going through my journey, I felt like the only books out there the only content out there was basically if you want to get better with your money. Number one, you suck because you weren’t good with it before What’s wrong with you. And number two, you came enjoy your life. And I always left these books, feeling just kind of crappy about myself and realize that I that’s not how you have to feel when we talk about money. And the more we feel like that the more resistant we are to actually working on our money even when you’re in a healthy place financially. So I wrote this book to really give people options to choose a way to manage their money that is unique to them, personal finances just that it’s personal. So what worked for me will work for you Jamila and will also work for your listener. So it’s less of a here’s exactly what you need to do. And more of a choose your own adventure. Here are some options available to you find what works for you and your family when it comes to writing a budget that works saving money paying off debt dealing with impulse spending and getting started with investing.
Jamila Souffrant 47:50
Love it and what about where they can find you on socials?
Allison Baggerly 47:54
Oh, yes. So I am at Inspire budget on Instagram and Tiktok and then of course if you like listening to podcasts, I have my own podcast as well. Jamila has been on it. The Inspire budget podcast.
Jamila Souffrant 48:05
Love it. Thank you so much, Alison, this was great.
Allison Baggerly 48:08
Thank you.
Jamila Souffrant 48:10
I want to make sure I’ll put all this in the episode show notes if you do enjoy this episode. You got a nugget you laughed. You cried Okay, maybe not cry just tagged. Me and Alison, take that screenshot of you listening at journey to launch is my instagram at inspired budget yet? Right. I’ll send it yours. And we’d love to see that. So thank you so much again, Alison.
Allison Baggerly 48:29
No problem. Talk to you later.
Ad 48:34
Oh, don’t forget we are giving away a copy of this week’s guest book. So if you want your chance to win, go to journey to launch.com/win for more details, and make sure you’re following me at journey to launch on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.
Outro 48:52
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