Take Control of Your Finances with Emily Bowie

This is the Veterinary Life Coach Podcast with Dr. Julie Cappell, episode #403. Hello friends, welcome to the Veterinary Life Coach Podcast. Today I have a wonderful, exciting guest for you. Her name is Emily Bowie. Emily is a CPA co-founder and chief financial officer at Thorn Advisors. Thorn is a modern accounting and advisory firm for high-earning women who want to feel confident about their money not confused by it. Emily is a cash flow strategist with over 15 years of experience, including her time as an audit manager in Big Four Accounting. She's known for bringing calm, clarity and structure to financial conversations that often feel stressful or avoided. Outside of Thorn, Emily leads her church's financial ministry is a mom to three young children and enjoys a good DIY project almost as much as a well-organized set of financials. And Emily, we need you in Veterinary Medicine, so I'm so excited that you're here and I'm so excited that we're going to talk about money. Welcome to the podcast. Thanks for having me. Yeah. Yeah, money's one of my favorite topics. So whenever I can get somebody on here to talk about it, I just think it's such an important part of our life that we don't always concentrate on. And I think it can make your life so much better if you just have a handle on it. So I'm excited to see what you're going to teach us. For sure. Yeah, I feel like kind of to add on to that. That's where I get all my soapbox about education. Like they don't spend a lot of time about financial literacy, even though every person that walks out of high school has to manage their own personal finances. Right. And they don't teach it and they don't teach it in a way that it's practical to be right moving forward. And then you go into college and you get student loans and then you have to make all these big adult decisions and you don't even have the fundamentals down. Yeah, that's absolutely true. It just is crazy to think about. Yeah. Well, start by telling me your story because it's the thing I like to hear about first is how you got to where you are and owning this business. And then we'll go into that. I want you to educate us all on all this financial stuff. Awesome. Yeah. So first and foremost, I started out in big for accounting mainly because I came out of a rather poor family and by choices not necessarily by income. And so there was oftentimes brand new clothes on the porch with our lights turned off and our water turned off. And it was just the environment I lived in. There was a lot of conversation around there's more month than money there. You're never going to have enough. You'll always have a mortgage or a car loan or whatever. And so yeah, just the chaos for sure. And so I being the prudent individual that I am, I was like, I'm going to get me a job that I will always have that will always be high paying. Right. And will protect me from taking this lifestyle on. Oh, I love that. And so that is, you know, the unglamorous side of why I chose accounting because I just knew if I got a job that guaranteed that I would always have a job, it would be fine. So fast forward a little bit. I got introduced to health and fitness and I got introduced to the idea you could have your own business. And it just prior to that, I had never heard of it, thought of it. I came from a family that didn't even really go to college. So it just wasn't available to me in my eye line. And so I did that. And I was like, you know, like this is great. And I love helping people. But like, am I your poster child for like health and fitness, probably not. I feel like I should be doing something more aligned with what my skill set is. And I'd always excelled in the auditing world. And we had just recently got out of debt. So I had that side hustle of a health and fitness business. And I was like, oh, I could just teach people what I did. And funny enough, I'm like scrolling on Facebook. And I see like a Dave Ramsey ad. And I was like, if he's doing this, like I could definitely do this, right? Yeah. Anybody can, it's just common sense, right? Yeah, for sure. And so I put a post up and I said, anybody interested, if I could teach you how to budget and like potentially get a debt, would you want to have a conversation? And like, I don't know, a hundred people responded. And I was like, oh, this is what we're doing. And so that was like pre pandemic. And I will say that because I started doing in person budgeting sessions. So I would give them the worksheet. I would teach them how to fill it out. I would answer their questions. And I would, you know, kind of walk away and say, you know, let me know if you need more help that eventually turned into a legit financial coaching business. And then I realized everyone I was working with really had this ambition to make more income, whether they were doing it currently or not. And so I brought in all that skill set from auditing and was like, hey, I can teach you how to do this well because operational efficiencies may jam understanding numbers is my jam. And so then I quickly kind of shifted into business strategy at the time. And I had one client that was help, I was helping her build systems in her business. And she was like, you should really consider being a CFO. Like you already do this. You already look at numbers, make decisions based on numbers. You should consider doing it. And so I ended up making that transition. And then we decided to partner because when I was helping her build her business, which is Andrea, my business partner, and she did tax prep. And I was like, you really should do tax strategy as like an additional revenue stream. Right? Know how to do it. It would be great for you to do it. And then we went to the next problem we were running into is a lot of people just didn't have the cash to do it. And she's like, hey, you should help them get the cash. And then I will help them save the cash from taxes. And then we can just like create this thing. And then it became this passion of ours to not only help the small business owner reimagine what was available to them with building wealth and legacy because it's really easy in small business to get stuck in the grind. And we really wanted to show them the skills that were available to them to build that long lasting wealth. But then on the flip side of it really show accountants. There's a different way of doing accounting where you can have the work life balance where you can be present at all your kids events and take them to and from school and still work and make an impact and use those skills you've been given to help people. Right. And so that's kind of how we got here. Yeah, that's amazing. And it's it's very well aligned with veterinarians because a lot of them that are listening are either business owners or they work maybe for a corporation, but they still have to manage the hospital finances. And then the big one for a lot of people that I coach are the personal finances. Yeah. Yeah. So I don't know where you want to start with teaching us, but maybe pick something and say this is the place we need to start to because all of it is important. You know, and I've been through the business part of it and I've made all the mistakes and you know, and corrected all the mistakes. So I kind of know the stumbling blocks, but it would help if people didn't have to fumble through all that, right? Right. Like short cut them through all the lessons learned. Well, I was lucky because my my dad was an accountant, my mom was a banker. And so when I bought my business, I had that like built-in security system with them to help me kind of make the right decisions. And not everybody has that. So it'd be great you know, just to just teach us what we should know. Yeah. And so I feel like the reason I have prospered as a CFO is that I always start at the personal level. I think a lot of times business financial people only focus on the business and they don't recognize the person behind it and the person's finances behind it. And now important it is to start there. So I think financial stability is going to be where we could start where we're talking through just why I think most people struggle with their personal finances. It has less to do that with that they don't have enough so much as they don't really know what they have or where it's going. And so what I try and encourage people to do that regardless of where you're at financially awareness is the first skill I want you to learn which is opening the bank app. It is going through the credit card transactions. It is just simply having a date on your calendar for Mondays. I call them money Mondays. and you just sit down and you look at your numbers and just say, oh, oh, yeah, I did buy that. Oh, yeah. I did actually have this income come in. Where did it go? Like those types of things get you over that hump because I think most of the time it's not that the numbers are really as bad as you may anticipate them to be. It's just that you don't know because you haven't looked. Right. And it's intimidating to look number one. And I think it's overwhelming because people think of it as a budget or, you know, and when you say budget, it sounds scary and hard, you know, and so I think in my opinion, and you can tell me how you feel about this, but I think money is such an emotional topic for people that they fear it. Yeah. If you're having it, they fear controlling it. They fear all the things. And so they just don't pay any attention to it because it's easier. Yeah. I think there is such identity that is derived from how much you have or you don't have or where it's gone or how it looks. And, you know, that's probably not a coincidence that it's in the Bible so much talking about how to handle your money. You can't have two masters, right? It's because money really does have a stronghold on some people. And that isn't a shame conversation. It just is knowing kind of what your terrain is and working around it. Right. Right. And I think part of that is nobody really talks about money as frequently as they should. And, you know, I think parents, it's so important for you to educate yourself if you don't have the education or and or have more frequent conversations of choices that are being made and why they're being made so that we bring this next generation into why and how to manage your finances to not be scared of them for it to not be a taboo topic because I do think for many years it was a taboo topic like nobody wanted to know want anyone else to know what they had or didn't have. Right. Or how much debt they were in or how much, you know, behind they were on their bills. And I think it's just there's a lot of fear wrapped around to money. And then I think too, there is an opinion that people that have a lot of money or are good with money. There's something like morally corrupt about them, which isn't necessarily true. You know, I always told my kids like the more you have the more generous you can be that can give away. Yes. That is beautiful. I feel like when you are impact driven as an individual, like you are meant to have money so that you can continue to create impact in the world. Right. Healthy, you know, well grounded people with money are unstoppable in my opinion. So my biggest goal is for me to provide hope and reduce that fear because it can literally change the trajectory of your life if you get a handle on your finances. And they don't even have to be a lot. You just have to be able to know where everything is, you know, coming in and going out. Right. And it is simple as that. And one thing I did, so I'm in the process of developing a curriculum. I'm beta testing it right now. And instead of calling it a budget, I call it a spin plan. And I, you know, ripped it off of business terms, right? But like the idea behind it is really changing the mentality around it. If budget feels constraining to you, which it does to most people, everybody, yeah. But all a budget really is saying, hey, I have a plan for my money. And there's no one that it can tell you right or wrong what that plan should look like. You know, there are plenty of curriculums out there, structures out there that can give you guidance. But the whole goal is to actually just plan. Right. It's not to say, well, you should be paying less for your mortgage or should be doing this or you should be doing that. It's more or less say, hey, I know you haven't had the education of like what works and what doesn't. Here's a structure. But you don't have to follow it exactly as it is. You just need to do something. Right. Right. That feels way less intimidating. Well, yeah. And then just be aware of what's coming in and what's going out. Because if you're not aware or, you know, I've done that before. I've looked at my credit card statement and I'm like, oh, what's this charge? And I look it up and it's some like random app I signed up for that I forgot about. And they're just like nickel and dime and mean 10 bucks every month. And I'm like, oh, I don't even use that app anymore. I gotta cancel that. You know, so I have to like really periodically pay attention because otherwise it's just you're just flush and money down the toilet right and left. And it kind of brings up another topic too, where I'm not at the point my oldest is seven. So, but when you start having other people in your household using your cards and having access to money. But even in your business, when you have employees that have the, you know, availability to use the car and make judgment calls and all of that, it's a lot harder to have a handle on things if you're not actually getting dirty in it, like just looking at it, you know. Yeah, you have to, you have to pick it apart. And I didn't like that because I'm not a detailer. And I hated it in my business. I hated doing the financials. I hated running the books. I hate, you know, and luckily once I ran the books and went through them, I could hand them off to my dad who loves doing that. But I can't tell you the number of times I caught things that either were charged incorrectly to us or that somebody was spending that I didn't realize. Yeah. And I caught it. And I was like, whoa, you know, the money's just flying out over here. And I don't even know about it. So, and it's like there becomes this elevation in business when you no longer have to do all the things and it's such a great feeling. But it can feel a little out of control if you don't have like the proper controls in place where you have that visibility. And because, you know, as a prior auditor, I'm always looking at like, what's the risk here? Right. That I'm constantly assessing that because what could go wrong? And so trying to have some kind of activity. So like being a business owner, I always encourage quarterly, if not quarterly, unreasonable, at least semi annually or annually doing an expense audit where you're just looking through and asking yourself, what is this? Did I get the return? Do I have something else that can do the same thing? You know, asking yourself those questions. And you can do this in your personal finances as well. And I think you should because, you know, I don't know if everyone has seen these rocket money commercials where they have all these people and they're like, I haven't paid for anything other than this. And then the money comes up like, I wish that was just like satire. That's like the reality. Yeah. Yeah. So if somebody is, let's say they're just really overwhelmed by everything, financial, they've got student loans, they've got a good income, but they feel like they're living paycheck to paycheck. Like you said, the beginning is awareness. So sitting down and just like writing it all down on paper or typing it into a spreadsheet or whatever so you can see it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I step one of like my process is usually having people pull statements for the last three months and just look at your ins and outs. Like highlighting your ins a different color than your outs and just kind of getting familiar with the types of things you're buying, what kind of categories they would go in like, is this for groceries? Is this for household supplies? Is this like fun money? Right. This your clothing line, but just looking at it. So, you know, we're not going to plug anything into a structure or spend plan yet. We're just looking at it. Yeah. And that in itself in that way and or you just starting to track your spending every, you know, few days you sit down for five minutes and just line item it out for yourself, handwritten or in an Excel. I think that also builds awareness depending on your personality type. So like some people may be overwhelmed if they have three statements in front of them and they're like, what is happening? Yeah. But then others, the goal for that would just be tracking as you go and then you're like, oh, wow, I did not realize it adds up to being like $1,200 to eat out. Right. Usually, yes, like food is one of those things that most people think they do better at than they actually do. Yeah. And when I say food, I think it is the combo of groceries, groceries eating out. But then it's so funny when I started helping people with their finances, I realized like gas station snacks are like the bane of most people's existence. Because they just tossed a lot too, right? They do. And you know, you have a banana at home, why are you buying it at the dash? $2 instead of, yeah, instead when you can get them for 30 cents. That's exactly. But I realized like again, it was something that didn't, it wasn't applicable in in my life I was not somebody who stopped out of gas. Station. I also had a very corporate office job, but like my friends that were in emergency medicine in some kind of way or first responders, they are always on the road. So they will be like, oh, I don't want to make lunch. So they stop at the gas station or they stop for food. And so the more I saw that, I was like, oh, and then busy people, like people that are running. Yeah, picking your kids up and then you're going to soccer or whatever and you just run through McDonald's or whatever and spend, you know, 50 bucks or whatever. Well, especially now, I hadn't gone to a fast food place and Lord knows how long and we went when we were on the way to the beach now that long ago. And I was like, I could back in the day, I could have eaten out twice for the amount of money we just spent for a couple meals. Yeah, it's gone up a lot. It is wild. It has. Yeah, I remember doing that when I was working, stopping for coffee on the way to work. And I didn't even have Starbucks. It was like 7/11 or something because it was on my way to work. And I'd stop for coffee and I don't know, it was $2 or something. It was way cheaper back then. But then one day I had this epiphany. I'm like, I could probably just make my own coffee and put it in a travel mug and bring it to work. And it'd probably be a lot cheaper than me stopping at 7/11 every day or whatever. And I was just like, oh, I'm going to start doing that. And you know, it doesn't, it's not a huge amount of money. But if I save $2 a day for 10 years, that's a lot of money. It adds up quickly too. And I also think like I am not opposed to convenience, but I want it to be a conscious choice. I don't want it to be out of convenience in the moment. I want it to be like, hey, I have a very busy week this week. I'm only planning three meals. So we're going to eat out one of them. Right. I want that level of intentionality because I do think we are a convenience culture where it's just like press the button. We want the coffee to be done, the microwave does all the cooking for you and stuff like that. And it impacts our health, our wellness, and our finances. And I think sometimes people don't put that all together and realize, oh, wow, like I really have not made an intentional decision in a really long time. Right. Right. And the Amazon shopping. That's one of mine. The one click. Oh, I need something. And instead of like waiting till I go to the store, I'm like, oh, I could just get that on Amazon. And then I have like one thing showing up on my porch. I'm like, this is a huge waste of money. Well, and, and like resources, right, because the guy that dropped it off or the woman that dropped it off, I feel bad for, I always say that I'm like, I feel bad for the delivery driver that has to come to my house every day. Well, and it's interesting to, because I think the conversation around it is more that we are, we try and jam packs so much into our life that we need the convenience because we really don't have much additional time. Because our capacity is so strained. So we start making those decisions. So don't hear this as like a shame issue. Like we don't want to come into this being like, you shouldn't do this and you shouldn't do that. You shouldn't. Yeah. Yeah. Like the shouldn't or I could like all of those things can be so hard on the nervous system to hear constantly. Yeah. I think more of it is look at it like, Oh, I never thought of that. I could just do that. It's like not that big of a deal. And then you're just back to awareness. Like I intentionally want to order this from Amazon. And I also know that it's going to cost me five more dollars than had I bought it at Walmart. But I'm still going to do it. Right. Because I have the five dollars or whatever. Yeah, aware. It's worth it to me. And I think when I kind of say it boils it all down to like that awareness, that intentionality translates so much. It's just like discipline. Like the more you get a handle on something, that discipline translates the intentionality translate. So if you have been so just go, go, go. And you know, it's a priority for you to be like present and intentional with your kids. Like even doing something like this will help that translate where you're like, I want to be where my feet are planted, not in my head thinking about my debt. Right. And you know, so it all relates and it all works together and look at it as like this exciting opportunity that this is one avenue to come in and just like transform your life a little bit and how you live it. Yeah. And even though it's intimidating, it's kind of fun. It's a fun challenge to see, okay, I have this much money coming in. I make a good salary. Where's it all going? For sure. And how can I make it work better? So I can have more at some point in my life. For sure. And like someone like my husband, he's an engineer, like gamifying things is like his jam. And I actually brought that into the financial aspect of business to where, you know, I worked with an insurance agency for a while. And they have, you know, quotas to hit and all of this jazz. And they would like earn monopoly money. And so then they would put it in a fish bowl. That's fun. And then they would not only count it out to just kind of see what the total win was really to do it. But then somebody would get something pulled. And you know what, nobody actually wanted money. They wanted like, you know, I don't know a day off or a couple hours lead or, you know, because even though we may think money is the goal, often it's what money affords us that we're looking for, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Money can buy you time. Yeah. If I can hire somebody to mow my lawn and I can afford that, then I don't have to be out there four hours every week mowing my lawn. Yes, that's a very big lawn. But yeah, well, it probably wouldn't take me four hours, but I wouldn't want to do it. Well, but I mean, the sentiment stands right like at the end of the day. And it kind of goes back to the intentionality of being present with your kids. Like, if you find yourself losing yourself and thought about money struggles or how you're going to make ends meet or the debt that's looming over you, whether or not it's a quote unquote big deal to other people or on paper. It is to you and it's keeping you distracted and like unable to like move forward in things that matter to you. So I think something like that should be looked at as an encouragement of like just really taking control of what you can control and then letting everything else kind of fall into place too. Right. Right. Okay. So once you create that awareness. And let's say you're one of those people that has never really paid much attention and now you're like, whoa, I see how much debt I have, I see how much money I'm making that is going, you know, out the window, I didn't realize where it was going, then what? Like, where do you put your focus and energy? So the next step after you have this awareness and you really have good numbers that come from it. You can then plug it into a spend plan framework or a budget framework. And it's based on your real numbers. So as you were starting to pay attention and awareness, you're like, oh, this is groceries, oh, this is eating out, oh, this is whatever it is household items. And then you build your spend plan or you use somebody else's like, I have a template of wine that kind of tries to think for you. So if just something. Right, which I probably would. Which everybody does like usually I tell people go fill this out and then let me take a sanity check look at it. And then I will tell you what else is real. Yeah, right. Well, because I inevitably parents that pay for Daker, how you forget those because it's so stinking expensive. But most of them forget that they pay that on a weekly monthly basis when they're trying to do the plan. Yeah, yeah, that's much cheaper. So I the reason I think it's important to do the awareness and then use those real numbers in that template, whether it's when you've created or somebody else has created. Is because it's going to give you a more realistic number to start at. And it's also going to show you have you been spending more than you actually have. Right. Or on the flip side, it says you have all this extra money and you're like, but where? And that means you probably miss something in the budget, you know. Right. Or you're you have a blind spot to something that you do every week that you don't think is expensive. Exactly. Yeah. And then from there, it's then diving into each section, right. Planning for expected expenses. So saving in advance for things you know that are coming up like your car maintenance, you know, everybody has to get new tires at some point, get an oil change. You can start saving for that incrementally and plug that into your budget. It's start looking at things that you might be paying for that you're like, I don't need this and start calling to get rid of it or get better rates. And then it's putting money aside for the things you can't expect. So for example, emergency funds, some sort. Yeah. And I think people don't know that always know the difference between an emergency and an expected expense like Christmas comes every year. That's not an emergency or your kids birthdays, you know, yeah, for sure. But that emergency fund is what keeps you out of debt. So before I even help somebody build a debt strategy, I make sure they have. the starter emergency fund there, because if you don't, you will just get back in debt. And usually when people find any extra income, they will just toss it all on the debt with good intention. And usually they spread it out instead of just focusing on one. Right. And that in itself has its own implications. Yes. But I try to re-emphasize to people that emergency fund is the start of your debt strategy. It is not something separate. It's not a luxury. It is a necessity before you start attacking debt because otherwise you'll end back up in debt. Well, right. And your car breaks down or a tire blows or, you know, you get sick and you have to go to the doctor and it costs you 50 bucks for drugs or whatever. Yeah. Anything like that. You know, sink leaks. Yeah. I mean, life happens. It's not an if it's when and the goal here is to set you up with something sustainable. So that's why we start with real numbers in your template. That's why we make sure to focus on the emergency fund first because life does happen and we can't not expect it to. We're still paying minimums on our debts. It's just we're doing this before we start actually focusing on attacking the debt. Yeah. And that should help in the long term to always stay above, you know, the fault. Yeah. And then you're not in a, you're not a victim to life, you know, most people are like, oh, the whole reason I'm in debt is because, you know, I have an old car and it broke down. It cost me $2,000 or or whatever. Like there's always an excuse. And I think if you have that emergency fund, then those things don't take you down. Oh, absolutely. And I also feel like if you have a belief like that, you will find anything to confirm and affirm that belief. So that's why yeah, for sure, that's why I always work with my clients when we do financial coaching. But even in this curriculum is the mindset piece and like really looking at how do you view money? Do you have a good mindset around it? Are you or is it a scarcity mindset or is it that, you know, you are taking other people's mindsets over what you've seen and learned and you just need to sort it all out, you know. And I think that's where life coaching comes in, that's where there's this piece of being a person. And I think a lot of people, when you're a person, they shame themselves for what everybody experiences at some point. Right. Well, because I tell this to a lot of my clients, it's like, we think everybody else has it figured out, you know, like if you had my clients say to me, well, you've got it all figured out. I'm like, I'm still, you know, I still struggle. I still spend more money than I probably need to. And I still, you know, struggle with emotions behind whatever. And I think, you know, just realizing that it's not just you and that everybody has the struggle with income and some of us that have decided to concentrate on it and work on it are, are winning the battle. For sure. And some people are losing it because they're not even fighting it. They're not even trying. Yeah. A lot of people will just kind of lay down and be like, this is what life is like. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to be broke for the rest of my life. And it's so, I've seen so many people work their way out of it. I can't even, I can't even hear that. You know, I'm just like, no, it doesn't matter. You've got to get on it. Well, and I think income is. And I think we just live in a time where it's so difficult because literally at our fingertips we're seeing how great everyone's life is at our fingertips. We're seeing this highlight reel of everything or we are consuming marketing on commercials or ads that say, actually, you need this to be better, smarter, be happy, be happy. And it is a different time than it used to be where you weren't all inundated at all times by these messages that, you know, basically tell you being you and what your experience is, is not good. Yeah. So you kind of have to intentionally meet that. Like, I think some people are very passive in their life. And I tried to encourage them to see, like, not only is there hope in that you now know your life can be changed, but you actually get to be an active participant instead of being like, well, I guess if it will happen, it will happen. Right. Yeah. Hoping for the best or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. So that kind of leads me into thinking about student debt because that is a big victim thing that I hear a lot. And when I graduated from that school, I had student debt. Obviously, it wasn't as much in dollar amount, but it was still a big chunk compared to my starting salary. Right. And it does feel overwhelming when it happens to you and, you know, you do eventually have to pay it off. So what do you like to teach about that? Sure. Because, you know, let's say you have $200, $300,000 in debt when you get out of that school, it just feels like you can never pay it off. Well, and most people are met with that and they have consumer debt and credit cards or a home loan. I won't. The home loan is not really considered consumer debt, but you know what I mean? They have other things in life besides the, yeah, student debt. Yeah. I believe with, there's some nuances with student loans, just in general, that I really recommend still doing something like a debt snowball, which is kind of the most known tactic to pay down debt because we are human at the end of the day. And so a debt snowball, the way that it works is you build out your budget. You pay all your minimums on everything. And then you focus on the lowest amount of money and debt you are, regardless of the interest rate, regardless of how much you have or how many different accounts you have, and you start peeling them off one by one. One thing about student loans, let me add to that, you peel them off one by one. But as you get rid of that first loan, all the money that goes to that and the minimum you were paying before on the next one gets put to that second loan down to the next one here. And then that way your lifestyle doesn't increase and you're actually able to get rid of them quicker and quicker because you have more concentrated money going towards that. Right. But the thing with student loans is I feel like some may feel that they make them intentionally tricky because I have had numerous situations where I've worked with clients that come to me after they put a large sum of money on their student loan, but they didn't apply it to the principal. Yes. And so this is something I want to yell from the rooftops is if you are paying off a loan, student loans specifically, you need to know that you should be paying that lump sum to the principal. So your interest that accumulates isn't as high as if you just make that lump sum and it pays only the interest. Right. And that's how they're defaulted to set up. So sometimes it's clicking me, it, it, it, it, trot, trot, trot, trot, trot, trot. Yeah. Makes me so, like they're so, there's very little things that can fire me up like that. But my mom, a bear mode comes out when I feel like you have just duped somebody. Right. It makes me so mad and that's one thing. So the way you would do it is typically there's a check box that says, do you want this applied to principal or interest if it's an online platform? Sometimes they like to make it really stinking hard and you have to mail in it with, it notated that you want to make a principal payment frustrating. Sometimes you have to get on the phone and talk to them. And if you've consolidated and it's through like a government organization, it can be even more difficult to get a hold of anybody, but government, yes, go into that. Oh, I know. But that does lend into one thing to know from like public service too. If you are in a public service job, you have opportunities when you have student loans to consolidate and sometimes it makes sense. Now if you've been paying on it for a really long time, you want to see and you live in a you work in a public service job, you do want to make sure that that won't reset your clock because it often does because at 10 years, they will forgive your loans and I've walked clients through it before where they actually have forgiven their loans because of it. So there's, you kind of have a duty to yourself to know the nuances of these things. Right. If you don't know, it is seeking the information so you can go find it because I would hate for you to be doing a service like being a vet and caring, such a loving service for people. Right. Well, people in animals, but like people in that have such connection to their animals, it's like another person, you know, yeah, you have such, you're doing such a good thing for the world and then you're getting, you know, I don't know, destroyed on student loans because you just didn't know about this one nuance of the principle versus interest. And yeah, and you didn't pay. attention to it. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's so hard in this day and age because information is everywhere. It's true. You can Google anything, you can chat GPT, but sometimes when something is already hard for you, it's better to hire the expert to go along with you so that they can just say, Hey, ignore all of this. This is all you need to know because I know your situation. Right. Right. You know. Yeah. Yeah. Because we will hire someone to do our hair or our nails, like we hire professionals for things that don't really matter that much, but we don't always think about we need a coach for our mental or our emotional health and we need a financial coach. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. To get through it. The financial coach or even just somebody that like if we're talking on the business side, having somebody to do your books for you so that you don't have to worry about if you did it wrong or that you haven't had time and you're scrambling in the last minute, trying to get it done before taxes are due. Like there's just so many times where it is actually more beneficial for everyone. If you let somebody take care of something which are for you, so that you're available for the thing you do really well. Right. Right. Yeah. I always tell business owners that I'm like, you have to know how to do it, but you don't have to do it all. You know, like I used to run the books and kind of look at them, but then hand them off to the bookkeeper, you know, and then the bookkeeper hands it off to the tax accountant. And you know, I had to know what I was doing and where to look if there were issues. If they called me and said, hey, we're this, you know, 30 bucks ago, we can't find it and I'd have to dig in. And so you have to be aware, but you don't have to sit there and spend all your time doing it. For sure. Really not worthy or a worthwhile part of your of your time. Yeah. And it dilutes your impact at the end of the day. Like if you're spending hours, I'm not saying you're not capable. You could be more than capable to do the thing, but the idea behind it is saying, hey, someone else could do that. And then I could do the thing only I can do. Right. Right. And that's the big part of it. Yeah. I think it's letting go in certain ways and pulling in the reins in other ways, right? Like the intentionality piece and like awareness, but also saying, hey, I don't need to make sure the books are together. I just need to make sure I'm reviewing them on a quarterly basis or I want you to review them monthly, but review your expenses on a quarterly basis. Yeah. Like look at the credit card statements, look at the bank statements, make sure there's not money just like vanishing because people can embezzle from you. I've known so many veterinarians that have embezzled from. And it's just so frustrating. And even in my practice, I caught people doing things that were really ridiculous that if I wasn't paying attention, I wouldn't have caught. Yeah. And I think it happens a lot when anything involves like money, a lot of hard to collect money insurance, different things like that because it's so normal for everybody to be involved in the money that then it becomes a bigger risk because there are more hands in the pocket. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. And employees as much as you trust them, they will steal from you. I've heard so many, so many stories of people that were very highly trusted in a business that ended up embezzling. And it's really sad, but it does happen. So I think that's a place to be aware. Oh, yeah. I mean, I couldn't agree more. And I think part of it is not to have that freak you out to not let it go, but just knowing you have the controls in place. So if it were to happen, you would know right away and not three years, five years down the line, like a lot of people, a lot of people won't even know until they get in trouble somewhere else that it just happened to them. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I had a friend who had a manager that was ordering stuff on their Amazon account, but sending it to her home. And so she was buying her own personal items through the hospital. And the vet, well, I guess wasn't paying attention to the Amazon account or the credit card account, you know, or something, but it's like, oh, how can people do that? It's so weird, but it happens. So yeah. And it's hard because I have even heard where it's like family members who have been it and a lot of people you would never expect who have done it. And so I say heed the warning of like just it is imperative for you to be enough in the weeds that you know what's happening, but not so much that you can't make high level decisions that you make, you know. Right. Yeah. I love that. So how about investing? Okay. Talk a little bit about that because I think that's a big fear for people. And it was a big fear for me. Like when I had I had money to invest and I did like a simple IRA, but I was really intimidated to do it on my own, you know, like the brokerage account kind of investing. And at some point I got smart and started working on it and got good at it. But it is when I talk to other people, when I ask people if they invest, do you have a Roth IRA? Do you contribute to the simple IRA or the 401k in your business? And so many people just don't know what to do. Yeah. And then they just don't do it. And they miss out on so much money. Oh, it's so true. I kind of have a bit of a controversial take on investing. Okay. I think you should start even while you're in debt. I don't think I think it's a strategic way to start because I think it's a skill and a habit to build. Yes. So I don't think you start when you suddenly have a large sum of money to go do it. I think you do it. Five, ten, fifteen, twenty dollars at a time. I love that. I think the best way to start is your employer match. I think genuinely that is your best way because it's free money. Yeah. Every dollar you put in they match up to a certain percentage. Yeah. It's crazy. It's typical. And people don't get it. They don't understand it. It's like, okay, if you put in ten dollars, then the business owner gives you ten dollars and it goes into your account that you get to keep forever. Yeah. Yeah. Like it's so I don't know. I used to argue with my employees and I just used to like get after them. And a few of them listened to me and did it and then some didn't. Well, I get in. Well, I think it kind of goes back to that lack of like financial literacy. Like nobody talks about these things. So they're not as aware, you know, and then they're weary or leery about doing something because they're like, this sounds too good to be true. It feels like gambling when you're in the stock market. Yeah. Even though it really isn't, it's what it feels like. And I think people are afraid to lose it because it does sometimes do that. You know, you put in 20 bucks and the stock market goes down the next day and now you're 18. But what they don't see is that over the years, yeah, it just keeps like growing. It's like, I don't know. It's like planting weeds or something. They might die off, but they eventually all come back and yeah, for sure. A bunch of them at the end. Exactly. Well, and so if you don't have an employer match or even if you do say you meet the employer match, the next thing I would always recommend or the first thing if you don't have one would be a Roth IRA. If you meet the standard IRS always tells you what that is at that time as how much you can contribute what income you can be to contribute all of that jazz. Right. And the reason you will not do a Roth IRA is because the money is after tax dollars. So that means when it grows and does all of that, when you go to take it out, you don't have to pay taxes on it because you already did. Right. And what if you don't know what after tax dollars means, it means when I give you your paycheck and all the taxes have come out of it already that you've paid to the government, then that money is after tax. And then you take that and you put it in your Roth. Exactly. If you're doing before tax like a regular IRA, the money comes out of your paycheck before taxes and goes into the regular IRA. And so then when that money grows and you take it out, you have to pay taxes on the growth. Yeah. I think it's such a like, whenever you say IRA, I think people's eyes go over because they don't get it. And it's it's a very simple concept. And so I want people to really hear that. It's not it's not rocket science. Yeah. And and it's available as an option for you. I think at the end of the day, I think a lot of people also count themselves out because they're not financially where they want to be or should be or they have fear around losing it kind of to your point. Right. And then there's like other options, right? So for me, I love to educate people on, yes, safer retirement. That should be your priority. You should have some trajectory with that. Know how much you should have or will have at the end. Yeah. But also you have the opportunity for brokerages accounts as well as even that Roth IRA. Once it gets there, you then need to invest in something there. Right. Right. Yeah, they go under time. Yeah. Yeah. That's another thing. Like when we're talking about paying extra payments on your student loans and how you have to apply it. Same thing in this instance. Like you fund it with cash, but then it sits in a cash account. And then you have to go tell it where to go. Right. And it's simplest, most easy way. to do that is a target retirement account. And so you can sometimes they're called different things, but a target retirement is usually what it is, and it will be a fund or mutual fund that has it's comprised of like the risk that you should be able to digest if you're going to retire at a certain point. So for example, if you're going to retire in 2055, that would be the fund that you would put your money invested in. And then it just kind of does it for you. And it's just a set it and it just gets investing and growing. And then what you want to do if you're going to make continual payments into it. Sorry, no worries. When you make continual payments into it, you can have it automatically invest at that point. So then once you've already made that one decision and you click the button to say every time I put cash in here invested in the same decision. Right. It's all done. You don't have to do anything crazy. And I think that also feels more available to people because they don't need to know about individual stocks and concerns of having too much invested in this and not the computer and or it can be managed by somebody. You do want to know if it's managed by somebody or if it is, you know, a generated one. Right. The interest that they take off of it or the percentage they take off of it will change. Yeah. Yeah. If you have a managed account, you're paying somebody to manage it for you basically. So they'll take a percentage of your money if you're having it managed. But you don't have to have somebody manage it. You can do it yourself. It's not that difficult. And I think that's what I didn't realize when I was younger until I really started going, oh, I got to get on this bandwagon. I got to figure this out. And I did. And it, you know, it's just not that difficult. Yeah. Stay in mutual funds, which are generally safe, you know, and you kind of learn a little bit about those because all the mutual fund is just a grouping of big grouping of stocks. So it kind of equalizes the risk. And so if you just do that and don't, you know, buy Amazon or Apple or whatever, you don't have to do that because that's going to be more risky than it is. It's generally historically quite safe. Yeah. And I mean, you can expect over a 10 year period to have a return of on average, eight to like 13% is basically what they say. Yeah. So it's that in and of itself, it makes it worth it. I think if you have a short term, you know, goal of saving for something, the thing you could look into and I talk a lot about this is a money market account. And so when I talk your emergency fund, I say I want you to put it in a money market because it's still a bank account. It just has an higher interest rate associated with it. And it's again, very safe. It's usually like three to four percent. And then you can access it as you need. Now there is sometimes where you have to like make a transfer or you have to do something like that, but that's not necessarily bad because if you're only accessing it for emergencies, you should have that opportunity down a little bit. Yeah, exactly. But say you're trying to save for a down payment on a home and you want to buy in the next two years, five years, I would use that avenue of growth where it can grow a little bit for you while you're continuing to stack away the money. And then something like a brokerage is more that long term, I don't need it. I don't need to touch it. And for it, I would say 10 years is your best bet is like it can just go live there for 10 years before I need it. So like if we're talking, you already have a starter home and you're going to need another one once you have four kids, like let it live in the brokerage. If it's like, hey, I haven't bought a house yet, but I would have that live in a money market. Yeah. And that being said, all these things, because the more you talk about all the things, the more people get overwhelmed. But if you're aware of what you have it coming in, then you can purposefully decide this goes in the emergency fund, this goes towards the student loans, this goes in my retirement account, this goes in my brokerage account, this goes, you know, just and eventually you'll be rich. Yeah, like it just that it compounds. So it either compounds against you or it compounds for you, right? Like at the end of the day. And that's all choices in life, if you ask me. But specifically with debt, it compounds against you. And if it is investing, it compounds for you. But even just the habits of working a budget, reworking a budget, tracking your spending, I think that's another thing I want to touch on is it's one thing to have a budget and a spin plan. It's another to actually track against it. And I think a lot of people will take that first step and build something and say, I should be able to do all of this. Right. And then they never actually track and analyze it to see if they actually stuck to it. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Because it's a hard part, right? It's the discipline behind it. Well, for sure. Like my husband and I, we have been consumer debt free for since 2016, we still create a budget every month. We still track it every two to three days to make sure that we're staying within our budget. Now our budget now allows us to be prosperous in different ways. So we're we're putting money to go out to the investment account or savings for whatever the thing is. We're not paying towards debt. But it is a skill and it is a practice and it gets easier the more you do it. So what I try and tell people I work with is like he just listen to this as an encouragement that awareness is better than not progress is better than perfection. Like it is so important to just start even if you feel like I have no business touching any of this. Right. It is a good opportunity to just press forward because what feels hard now will feel simple later and you'll have another thing that feels harder. And again, you will just move through it and be able to do that as well. And before you know it, you have just become a person that manages their finances who has a handle on your finances. Right. And then has money. And then has money. Then you can spend it and give it a way to other people and do all the things that makes money fun. Yeah. I mean, I feel like that's the biggest thing is generosity is a very big encouragement to a lot of people to get a handle on their finances because they'll see a need and they can't help. Right. And so how nice would it be if you see a need or you just have the means to make a choice that you hadn't had the means to make that choice before. Right. Yeah. And it is all about your choices. So I think that when people say I don't know how to manage money or I can't because I'm in debt or I have this or that, I think just that possibility thinking that look, I can get a handle on this. It doesn't matter how deep the hole is. You know, if it's a $200,000 student loan and we have consumer debt and we have all, you know, a too expensive car or whatever, like it's all it's all doable. Like you can dig out of all of it. And I didn't say this, but at the very beginning, when we became consumer debt free, we had paid off $120,000 of debt between the Navy gives you this like starter loan, but then they don't teach you how to pay it back. Of course. The shade, but also thank you very much for that. And just like the student loans. Yeah. And I had student loans. I went to school at a state. It was a bigger university and it caused lots of money. It caused that. And I got all the grants that I could. I got all the stuff and we, I still owed $100,000. Right. And I did not come from an environment where people understood money or prioritize savings or paying down debt or anything like that. And my life is different. Like my kids will not know the life that I grew up in. Right. And they will know what's available impossible for them. And really, we're typically just a couple choices away from changing generational things such as finances. Yeah. Yeah. And I just, I try to encourage people because people have said that to me, oh, I have $200,000 worth of student loan debt. I'm like, I had student loan debt. When I got to school, I think my starting salary was 23,000. And I probably had 40 or 50,000 worth of debt. So it was a lot at that time. But also, I bought a home and paid that off. I bought a hospital and paid that off. Then I bought the building and paid that off. Like, and this was a lot of money. Like when I bought my veterinary practice, it was a heck of a lot of money. And it was super scary. But if I just put my head down and I just like, okay, this is what I have to do. I have to pay this off. And eventually it takes years, you know, it takes time. But eventually it's gone. And then you have something. You have a building and you have a business and you have a home that's paid off and you have money in the bank and you have an retirement account. Like, you don't see it when you're in your 30s, but when you're in your 50s and you have like all this stuff paid off and you have money, it's possible. Oh yeah. I mean, not only is it possible, but it is probable when you take the necessary steps. And I think we need to meet our rational blurring with our irrational thoughts sometimes. Yes, that works for everyone else, but me. Exactly. You don't know how strong my brain is. Yes, it's mine's the same. Right, exactly. And I think I think the cool thing about it is like where I sit now in my life and the things if I really reflect on it, none of that should have been available to me. The way I grew up and what my life really did look like as a child and what I was experiencing and seeing on a consistent basis, I shouldn't be where should have ended up there. Yeah, for sure. I should have just replicated it. And there's plenty of people in my family, you know, extended as well that still are there. And I don't say that to be like pat on my back, but more so like it is available to you. And I really came out of a questionable situation. Right. And I, and you know, I also had the student loans. And I also had all of these things. And I didn't have that extended schooling, which required all of these other expenses. Right. But I had my own things and own humps to get over, right? Yeah, everybody does. Yeah, I think it's one of those things where though our stories might not be exactly the same, they're it's still available to you. We just might have to like tweak it and make it look a little different. And that's okay. And that's why it's so important to choose who walks along alongside you and who you listen to. Yeah. Okay. I gotta let my dog in the room. He's barking. Trent is barking. And if I don't let him in, he will continue. It's okay. I understand. He was sleeping when I came into the office. So he needs to know where he was. He's my old dog. Yeah. Everyone knows Trent on the podcast. Okay. So before we wrap this up, what have we not talked about that you think is important to talk about? And you know, I'll have you back if you want to do this again, because I love this discussion. I think it's so important. It's one of the most important things you'll do in your life. Oh, yeah, for sure. Money. Yeah. For sure. Because it impacts everything. Your future, your children, you know, your choices, your choices, everything. Yeah, for sure. One thing I feel like I didn't hit on is those who are busy who feel like they don't have the time to do it. You do this. Yeah. Yeah. And especially if you are that person who has everything on your schedule, this is going to bring help for you. You put it on your calendar. You set aside 30 minutes an hour, depending on how much you got going on, if you have a business in personal, whatever. Yeah. And you set and you have a money Monday date with yourself. And you just have a list of things that you could be doing. It doesn't all have to be reconciling your budget or looking at your bank accounts or any of that. It could just be like, Hey, today I need to call and cancel some things. Right. That's what you do during your money date with yourself. It could be doing that expense audit that you're like, How am I going to have time to do that? You do it then. And that applies for the personal finances as well. If you look at your your expenses and you're like, Why am I paying for this? Like you have that money date to make that recognition. And then the next one can be you calling to cancel it. Yeah. Yeah. Or to go online and cancel that app that you accidentally bought that you thought you were going to use. That's what I do a lot. I buy an app and then it ends up on my credit card. And I just forget about it. And then I'm like, I mean, you said app in months. And now I'm looking at these charges going, what the heck? Yeah. Well, yeah, you have to you have to pay attention. It's common. And I think there's a lot of subscription models that are like that. And if we're talking business related, I often will see people like software costs. That's one thing. The other thing is like group coaching or different memberships that they sign up into. And then you they have the best of intentions, but they have it onto it. And the one thing I always hear and I talk about this a lot is like, but it was a founders rate. If I cancel it and then I need it, then I'm going to have to pay like $100 instead of $50 or whatever. And I'm like, yeah, have it used it. I just want you to be so honest with yourself right now. You just spend $500 and you haven't used it. And now you're worried about saving 50. Yeah, exactly. And I think usually, you know, my thing is not to tell you what's right or wrong to do with your money, but it's to have you start asking powerful questions about it. And having that time set aside where you have it carved in that it doesn't just become a thing you thought you would you should or could do. Right. It's actually something that is prioritized. It's going to make a huge difference. Yeah. And that goes for your personal finances and your business. Oh, yeah. Your money Monday for both, right? Yeah. Yeah. I think you can do 30 minutes for just one or an hour for two. And everybody can find an hour to work on that because if I looked at everybody's like time on social media, I'm telling you, yeah, that'll suck a lot of your time. And all those people that are giving you financial advice on TikTok, you gotta be careful with them too. Yeah, always ask, like, is this credible? Do they have the life that I desire? Or is it showy? And not actually the life, you know, they're probably writing on the other end because the thing is it's a very real thing that we live in a world where everything is flashy and available to you in two seconds. And so you really have to put your discernment cap on and say, like, is this actually what I think it is? Because a lot of times what you see online is not how people actually live. Right. Yeah. My son used to say that when we would be like in a parking lot at like a store or something and he'd see like a Mercedes or like you'd see in a really expensive car. And he'd be like, wow, those people must be rich. And I would say, well, they're either richer, they're in a lot of debt. Exactly. I said, you either have a crummy car and you're not in debt. So like just that whole putting that in his mind, like just because you have a fancy car doesn't mean you have a lot of money. You could just be in a lot of debt. And those people are just living well beyond their means. And that's not what we want to do. And they're probably stressed out and overwhelmed and like not able to get through the day. And I think that's the thing is do you want that life or do you want one where you feel settled? And you really have control and you can be strategic because you know what you have and what you don't have. Right. Right. And then you can help other people, which the biggest joy in my life and still is is that I, you know, I can help someone else that is in need. Yes. And when I come back, we can talk more about generosity and how that's the driver for me to do what I'm doing and has been what was available to me too. Right. Right. Yeah. That's one of my favorite things is generosity. Okay. Well, I will hold you to that. We'll get you back on. All right. So tell people where they can find out more about Thorn and about you and about what you do or if they want help from you. How do they contact you? Sure. So if you are looking for help in your cash flow or your tax strategy, you can find us at thornadvisors.com. And Thorn has an e at the end. I know that can trip people up. And then if you're looking to just connect with me and have more conversations around personal finance, you can find me at Emily V as in Victoria Buie.com. Oh, I said Bowie when I introduced you. You know what? I got to do that before we got on here. You're totally pronounced. Thanks. Well, it's Bowie. Yes. But also fair because David Bowie and everybody says it that way. Yeah. It doesn't even people call me, um, capel and jemple and things like that too. So I'm kind of used to people mispronouncing my last name. But I should have asked you that before we got on. So I said it correctly. But I'm glad you corrected me. No problem at all. So if you are looking for any kind of support in that way, that's where you can find me. Well, it's been delightful to meet you and talk about money, which I love. And I love all your advice. I think it's very appropriate. And I hope people take to it and use it this week. Thank you for having me. All right. Have a beautiful week, everyone. Thanks for listening. Bye. Bye, Emily. [Music] (upbeat music)