Kelly Blodgett: Paid off $46,514.91 of debt in 20 months
LISTEN TO FULL EPISODE ON:
Before we can experience the freedom of building wealth, many of us have to remove the chains of debt. For Kelly Blodgett, she graduated with 60k in student loan debt. She faithfully made her school loan payment for 8 years. She was astonished at how little she had paid down during that time, so she decided to get aggressive and attack her debt. Over the next 20 months, she paid off the remaining $46,514.91 and now is a financial coach helping others to build a solid financial future through Money Gal Coaching. In this episode, Kelly Bodgett and Mike Swenson discuss getting your house in order and many of the basic principles to give you a solid financial foundation for your future.
In this episode, hosted by Mike Swenson, we discussed:
- How Kelly’s career got started and her background
- Kelly's launch as Owner and coach at Money Gal Coaching
- Her personal financial journey, where she was able to get rid of $46,514.91 of debts in 20 months
- When looking to get out of debt, start by assessing where you are at and make a plan to go from there
- The importance of budgeting to paying off debt and accomplishing your future financial goals
- 60% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. What steps you can take to get out of that hole and move forward
- Money will only make you more of who you already are. You can't accumulate wealth until you take care of the debt of the past
Timestamps: If You Want To Jump Ahead To Your Favorite Part
0:00 - Intro and overview on Kelly’s career
16:44 – How to live a more conscious life with your finances
44:13 – Learn more about Money Gal Coaching
Links In This Episode:
Money Gal Coaching: https://www.moneygalcoaching.com/
Money Gal Coaching Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/moneygalcoaching/
Money Gal Coaching Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/moneygalcoaching
Money Gal Coaching Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWSaCalBdtBEOABm4n_40rw
SUBSCRIBE IF YOU'RE LOOKING TO BUILD WEALTH THROUGH OPPORTUNITIES IN THE REAL ESTATE INDUSTRY
✅ http://relfreedom.tv
GET STARTED INVESTING TODAY AND ACCESS OUR DEAL LIST!
📈 http://investwithelite.com
PARTNER WITH US ON BIG DEALS!
💵 https://eliteadvantagepropertieshq.com
BUILD YOUR REAL ESTATE AGENT CAREER WORKING WITH INVESTORS
👨👩👧👦 http://eliteadvantageagent.com
LEARN ABOUT REL FREEDOM & HEAR MORE REAL LIFE STORIES
🎙️ http://www.relfreedom.com
FREEBIES: DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE FREEDOM FOUNDATION BLUEPRINT
💵 https://www.relfreedom.com/blueprint
LOOKING FOR A REAL ESTATE AGENT ANYWHERE IN THE US? FIND A TOP AGENT IN YOUR COMMUNITY
🏠 http://www.eliteagentreferral.com
JOIN OUR FACEBOOK COMMUNITY
👨👩👧👦 https://www.facebook.com/groups/relfreedom
SUBSCRIBE TO THE REL FREEDOM PODCAST
🎧 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rel-freedom-podcast/id1535281574
🎧 Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5idXp6c3Byb3V0LmNvbS8xNDA3NjIyLnJzcw==
🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5nXA5hLHbDzRwxypc2wLur
LET'S CONNECT
👉 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mswenson13
👉 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/getrelfreedom/
👉 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@relfreedom
🏠 Minnesota Real Estate: https://www.eliteadvantageteam.com
Full transcript here:
Mike Swenson
Hello, Mike Swenson here with a new REL freedom story, and today is going to take a little bit of a different path. So today we have Kelly Blodgett on. And she works with money gal coaching. And you know, when we meet with real estate agents, or we talk with folks and real estate agents, teams, admin investors, you know, as we talk about wealth, it's important to have the conversation about wealth. But it's also important to know the foundations, the basic principles that really allow you to have your house in order so that you can build wealth.
Mike Swenson
And so, you know, we we believe that kind of money makes you more of more money makes you more of who you already are. And so if you're the type of person that is kind of a mess with your finances, when you make more money, you're probably still going to be a mess with your finances. And so that's why we've brought Kelly on, she's going to share her story. She's also going to share stories of some of her clients that she works with. And we're going to cover just a lot of those basic principles that are really important for you to establish a good foundation so that you can really focus on how am I going to grow my net worth over the next 5, 10, 20 years, whatever. So welcome, Kelly. We're so happy to have you on if you want to just take a couple minutes and share a little bit about you.
Kelly Blodgett
Yes, hi, Mike. Hi, everyone. Thanks for having me. This is super exciting. And I think a topic that's very important to everyone, no matter who you are, how old you are, your income, where you're at in life. And so my name is Kelly, as you said, I am the owner and coach at money gal coaching. And what I do is I help people get out of debt budget, create savings and goals and kind of just live their life. And the reason that how I started on this journey and kind of a little bit of my background is I was a normal person, I went to college in Minnesota, I graduated with student loan debt.
Kelly Blodgett
I had zero education as far as what alone was, what debt was how I should only take out what I needed for college and not my living expenses and all that sort of thing. I studied abroad and lived on credit cards while I was there, and I didn't ever have the stress of money because it just kind of wasn't a thing. It was something I paid and i and i managed. But I wasn't digging into it. And I wasn't sort of creating a plan to get out of debt. But I honestly didn't even know I was in debt. If you would have asked me that question I would have, I would have thought debt was someone who was like struggling and couldn't pay their bills and was behind. So I graduated from college with probably over $60,000 in student loans. And I immediately began working after school in the Twin Cities. And I felt like I was kind of living my best life. I was in my early 20s I had a full time job. I was also waitressing.
Kelly Blodgett
So I had like my side hustle back before that was a thing. And the whole reason why I was working so much was so that I could pay off my loans. And of course, I was making my my monthly payments and I was managing my debt quote unquote, and I was going to be paid off and my life was gonna be great. And then I studied, or then I'm moved overseas for the Peace Corps, and I kind of put off my debt for a little bit longer. And when I came back I, I just actually started becoming a little bit older in my 20s and becoming more aware and curious about well wonder where I'm at. And you know, people talk about net worth, and when am I going to get rid of my student loans, because if you ask people a little bit older than I was, they would have said like, yep, three more years. And so I was kind of curious.
Kelly Blodgett
And one day, I logged into all of my student loan accounts, I remember adding up the totals thinking I was gonna be like, so close, because at this point, I've been paying my loans off for eight years. And I still had like $46,000 left to pay. And it was a punch in the face. At the very least I was floored, I had been working all of this time I had been making my payments on time, I was a good citizen, I you know, I wasn't going on these big trips every year, I wasn't living the high life besides just you know, going out and being a normal 27 year old. And so that was kind of my wake up moment it was I need to do better. I'm old enough, I need to get my stuff together. There's no longer an excuse of like, I'm 20 and I'm just trying to find a job. And once I get that job that pays more than I'll be able to make a dent because I had been making relatively good money between all of my jobs that I had at that point.
Kelly Blodgett
So there I was, and I was faced with what am I going to do? What does this even mean? What are my tools and resources and I started educating myself because as I think a lot of us are unfortunately aware we don't get that education in school. We don't get the education from our parents, unfortunately. And so I started digging into what is debt? What does this mean? How do I pay extra on? How do I get rid of it? I didn't even know paying extra was like a thing. I just thought I made my monthly payment, right Mike and then it eventually goes away. That's not supposed to work. And so I stumbled upon Dave Ramsey, who is a name and households, right for being very extreme, but he was exactly what I needed.
Kelly Blodgett
At that time, I was very much Dave-ish, I didn't follow his plan to a tee. And a lot of people don't do his plan, because it's too much. And I think that's where a lot of people fail. They say, Nope, this isn't for me, and they don't do anything versus I somehow had the smarts to do some of it. And I created my own plan on the end of it. And I ended up getting rid of $46,514.91, I believe, in 20 months. And so it is doable, I can attest to it. And I am here to spread the word because I didn't mean to become a personal finance coach, it kind of landed in my lap, as I initially posted about it on Instagram.
Kelly Blodgett
And I just wanted to hold myself accountable that I was going to pay off this debt stuff, whatever that was right. And then, as I was making progress, friends started reaching out to me, random stranger started reaching out to me, people were curious, hey, what is going on up there? What are you doing? How are you doing this? What product did you buy? What service are you selling? And so it kind of just I started telling my friends and family and people that asked what my plan was and how I did it and kind of became a coach out of it. So here we are.
Mike Swenson
Yeah, and that's a great story. And the reason why, you know, going back to wanting to have you on here is it's a story that you know, we are typical audiences, people in real estate. And yet, there's a lot of realtors out there, there's a lot of admin, there's a lot of investors that still have that, that burden of student loan debt, they have credit card debt. And it's something where you can't really kind of get get going in life and really accumulating wealth unless you get rid of that. And so some people, they don't realize how the weight that that carries, and how long it's going to take, like you said, you you paid for eight years and thought you made this huge dent, and didn't make a big dent.
Mike Swenson
And so it's like you have to have an aggressive mentality and attacking debt. And so, you know, wherever you're at, when you're when you're listening to this, first, first off is realizing where you are, and really having, staring at it in the face, and then making a plan to go after it. You know, I would agree with with what you're saying in terms of student loan debt. Just to empathize, empathize with you as well. You know, I remember when when I was in college, and my parents were filling out the FAFSA, FAFSA forms every year, and my mom would tell me, okay, now this is what, you know, this is what you got. And when she told me like, Oh, yeah, you were approved for loans. Like, it was a good thing. Oh, you got you got student loans.
Mike Swenson
Okay, great, that's fantastic. But then it's like, wait a minute, that means I actually have to pay these things back later, you know, and, and my parents were clear with me, you know, what, what they were going to cover for school, and they were clear with me at the beginning, like everything on top of that is on you. And I was okay with that. And yet in some ways, I didn't understand the weight of that. It's kind of like a monopoly number, like, okay, it's another 5000 in debt. Okay. And, you know, I was fortunate to, to be in college at a time just before a lot of the college tuition prices inflated. But you don't realize that when you're that age, and and then you're stuck in it. Now you've you've got to get out of it. And so so I absolutely understand where you're at. And, and, and can see how if you don't attack it in an aggressive way. Yeah, it's just gonna be like walking around with with a big heavy weight on your leg for the next 5, 10, 15 years.
Kelly Blodgett
So that is absolutely correct in the the thought that this debt is going to go away, just because we're making these payments on it is what's actually killing us and what's actually stopping us from moving ahead to the next step. Just from my story alone, think about if all that extra money that I was making, every year I was able to invest that I was able to buy a real estate property, I was able to buy a home at an earlier age, think of how much better off I would have been, versus just throwing money at debt and then thinking I was actually making progress in my life when I probably wasn't. And so that is the whole idea around getting your house in order yourself in order before you go and tackle some of these potentially irresponsible and dangerous financial decisions in your life.
Kelly Blodgett
Because if you can get your finances in order and I'm not saying being debt free, right. You can still move forward in your life and not be completely debt free. But at least manageable and at least you digging in and understanding where your debt is at. And, okay, how much what is my budget? Do you even have that? Do you know how much you can afford to be paying on your own property on other properties? Do you know how much you can afford if a crisis happened, and you lost your job, those are all the types of things that I think are really important too. For all of us to get an order, before we can make the next step.
Mike Swenson
Yeah, and I think, you know, I, I was fortunate to know, the kind of the Debt Snowball piece early on, which was helpful for me, but if you think about it, I want to say I think my student loan payment when I first started was 150 bucks a month. And, and then as I got more aggressive with it, I would take when I would get a pay raise, and I would maybe throw an extra 100 bucks a month at that, or if I paid off my car. So when I when I paid off my car shortly after college, I think that was maybe 200 bucks a month, I just added that on top. And so there was a period there where I was making, you know, 300 400 500 $800 a month payments on my debt, where the minimum payment was maybe 150. And so that's how that started to go down more quickly.
Mike Swenson
Like you said, if you took $800 a month and invested it, fast forward 1020 years, that would be a huge number. And so there's there's that opportunity cost, you know, the the negative is a lot of people think short term, because they think, can I make my payments, and what you're not understanding is the long term implications of that decision, even a difference in a $50 car payment. You know, if I get a little bit nicer car, and it's an extra 50 bucks, there's an opportunity cost serve, what is that extra $50 gonna mean, if you were to be able to save that.
Mike Swenson
So, I mean, I kind of laugh a little bit, you know, at the, the Starbucks thing, where they're, like, you know, three bucks a day, if you invest it, so you're not gonna, you know, some people take that extremely religiously to every single decision, some people are a little bit more lenient. And yet at the same time, you just have to understand the short term cost of that, and the long term cost. And if you were, you know, going back to people in real estate, if you double your income, and you double your expenses, You're no better, you know, you're not putting anything to the bottom line. So you have to take care of your house. First, make sure you've got your finances in order. So as your income grows, you're able to put extra money down towards dat, or extra money into investments, so that you can truly build your net worth from there.
Kelly Blodgett
Exactly. And even if you think of someone that has, I pulled some stats, and of course, 2020 stats aren't out yet. Because as we're filming this, we're in the very beginning of 2021. But 2019 18% of people that make over $100,000 a year are still living paycheck to paycheck like that 18 may not seem like a lot, but they're making more than $100,000 a year. Like that's a lot of money. And even it was saying 41% of Americans would they would have to pull out of savings if they wanted to cover $1,000 emergency, like a car or something. And if you think about those types of things are normal, right, like emergencies happen, your water heater goes out, your car breaks down, and all of a sudden you lose your job or your part time because there's a world pandemic.
Kelly Blodgett
These kind of things happen. And when you can prepare yourself to be okay, when those things happen, you're setting yourself up for the future. And also to your point with just those stats with credit card debt. If you're paying 18% on credit card debt yet you're investing 8% in the stock market, like you're still at a loss. And so this is something that everyone truly needs to be aware of, because that's where it kind of goes my point earlier, you don't need to be debt free. If you have a 2% mortgage like great, keep the mortgage like I'm not asking you to pay off your house. Or if you have a 0% you know, loan on a couch for the first year, just pay it off after that year.
Kelly Blodgett
But it's all about digging in being a little bit more intentional. Knowing what your financial situation is, and setting yourself up. I'm going to be like the budget Queen someday, because it truly is a life of life changer. And if you don't have one, you need to immediately get on one stop right now go and do it. Get the apps get whatever you need, because a budget will clarify. Because the problem when you have just money in checking accounts and savings accounts, right? If we have $5,000 in our checking, we might think like we're good, we got five grand, nothing in my life cost more than that ever life's Good.
Kelly Blodgett
Then your mortgage comes out, then groceries come out and then your car payment comes out and then your student loan payment comes out. All of a sudden you have 100 bucks in your checking account what happens you have no idea. And so by tracking your spending, by having a budget by digging into your debt, how much Where did where does all your debt going? It can get you into a place where you're more able to do the things you want in life and to this audience, invest in real estate advice classes. Who are purchasing a home? all that sort of thing?
Mike Swenson
Yeah. And I know what's missing for probably 99% of people that don't have a budget, it's they really don't want to know the true story. And if you think about it, would you rather be surprised now and be able to go after that and put a plan in place? Or would you rather be surprised later, when you want some time freedom, you want some financial freedom, and you wasted 1020 years of your life, kind of with your eyes closed and your ears, your hands over your ears thinking I don't want to know, I don't want to know. And so the clarity is power. And you know, Erin Torres, who we had on this last episode she had talked about, in some ways, don't worry about what the number is yet, just get the number. And and in some ways, just whether it's good, or it's bad, you got to start somewhere.
Mike Swenson
And so for sure, start starting with a budget is the first way to go, you need to be able to tell your money, what you're going to do with it, versus it telling you. And like you said, so many times, people look up, and it's like, Where did all that money go? You know, like I had $5,000. And now I have 1000 or $100? Where did that go? And then to advocating for putting putting savings into that budget, you know, and well, first of all, paying down the debt, you know, how do we get rid of that debt. And what I did is I kind of did a little bit of a 5050 approach, like the money I had available half of it attack the debt, half of it, I put in savings, I figured I kind of would hedge my bet.
Mike Swenson
So if something came up, I had an emergency fund. And I'm still being aggressive on the debt. So. So that's a big step. Why don't you maybe share? Do you have some examples that come to mind or some clients that you've worked with where you can maybe share? Because Because I want folks to know first that listening to this, you're not alone, the vast vast majority of the population is in the same boat as you. And so we talk about, you know, the there's two, two best times to plant a tree 20 years ago. And today, so if you're not in that spot today, how do you take a step forward to commit to living a more conscious life with your finances, but you want to maybe share some stories of of people that you've worked with have that kind of that first realization?
Kelly Blodgett
Yeah, and prefacing that with exactly what you just said about the tree. I love that analogy, by the way, um, you digging in what Aaron said, and just knowing the number and starting today is the best thing that you can do for your, I would say, future out of everything. That is the thing that's going to make change. That's the thing that's going to get to you to where you want to be. And it's like you said, you don't have to like start doing something with it yet. You don't have to start getting overwhelmed and trying to figure out a plan. And you know, you just figured out what your total debt is, and you're trying to learn a new system and no, just like get the number, figure out where you're at. And then we'll go from there.
Kelly Blodgett
And so I work from anywhere. I have a client that well, we she just graduated from coaching, but she lives in New York, she has an expensive lifestyle. Her she was fortunate enough that her mom gave her a little bit of stipend. She just graduated from college to live in New York to just kind of test it out and try to succeed. Obviously, life is expensive. She has crazy student loan debt as a recent grads do right now. And she's living in New York. And so the only thing that we focused on with her for the first three months was getting on a budget, and it wasn't about paying off her student loans. It wasn't about trying to create a long term, like savings plan and investing in retirement early. All that stuff is great. But if you don't have a budget, we found out week one that she cannot live her life in New York.
Kelly Blodgett
If her mom ever stops giving her money. She's already paycheck to paycheck with her mom's health. Fortunately, she's blessed and she realizes that that her mom is helping her her next step is the find find more income because her debt isn't going away right now. And so by digging in, she was able to even just answer some of those questions that she had for herself. is New York, New York, a long term plan, absolutely not do is can I stick in this job? Or do I need to start job hunting now? Absolutely. Unfortunately, it's COVID. You can't just go get a serving job at the local restaurant because those don't exist right now. I have another client that was trying to just save money for her college or her daughter's college and she wanted to help out. She felt that that was really necessary.
Kelly Blodgett
Her daughter's going to college just yet, but she wanted to kind of get ahead of the game. After digging into it. She has so much consumer debt with credit cards. It wasn't even a responsible option, let alone like about it wasn't something that she should have taken that path at all anyway, just because the and we kind of mentioned this earlier when you are paying 18% on a credit card and she had six figures, almost of credit card debt. It doesn't make sense to start saving for your child's college you really need to get your house in order and previously we mentioned get your house in order I mean, like your family, this one, I need your immediate your person yourself.
Kelly Blodgett
Same thing goes when you merge finances with a partner, if you get married, you need to make sure what you have going on is going to help set up the relationship and the household, right? Just because your house makes good money, but you blow it off, one spouse has a gambling problem and the other spouse is saving every penny that they could find. That's not going to help anyone. And so I think a lot of a lot of people go into my services go into digging into personal finances, because they know in the back of their head, something's going on, but they just haven't dug into it yet. And then it kind of leads towards. Okay, this is really scary, and it's actually becoming a little bit more real. And so then we start unpacking that the emotional the psychological behaviors of why we have this debt. Even though I never had large amounts of credit card debt, there is still something to say that I wasn't fazed by massive amounts of student loan debt.
Kelly Blodgett
It's still a mentality that we have in this society, no matter what kind of debt you have, or the fact that we go out and get car loans, like it's our job, yet. We can't even afford to pay for our $1,000 emergency. Like, there's something wrong in our society with that. And so I always start with clients with that initial looking at our spend our past spending, figuring out where our money is currently going, before we can move forward. And it's all about the psychology of how we think what we think about money is is it a bad thing? Is it something our parents thought about constantly? Is it something that I've stressed over in the past and some of these reasons, or maybe why you never even dig into it, maybe it's why you have poor money management skills like I had, maybe your parents were really good with money, and you're a little bit of a penny pincher yet, you're not stewarding that money to its best because you just hoard it all in your checking account.
Kelly Blodgett
And you're not going after investments, or be it physical real estate properties or investment accounts online, right. And so there's lots of ways that we manage our money and the reasonings behind it. Another client that will always stand out in my mind. And this one was fun, because she was trying to get pregnant. And so all of their money was being saved towards that process, because she was having a hard time getting pregnant. And so it went to all the medical sides of that. And she put her student loans on the backburner. She was of course, still making her payments. But um, and then when they got pregnant, everything became immediately around saving cash so that when you have a baby that can be expensive, right? medical bills, all that kind of stuff.
Kelly Blodgett
So the thing that I'm kind of getting here is you're you're constantly changing your path and what you are doing with your money based off of what your priorities of where you're at in life, it doesn't mean just because you're paying down debt, that you're always going to be fully focused 100% of paying down debt, it means it could be happening, but then other things can also be happening. But by looking and digging into our finances, we're able to figure out what those priorities are, versus almost just reacting to a situation because we all of a sudden have to pay for medical bills, because we just had a baby or we all of a sudden have to start paying extra on this car loan because I didn't realize that I was losing my job.
Kelly Blodgett
And I need to hurry up and maybe pay it off, you know, whatever the case is. And so working with clients, I'm finding that everyone has their issues, right? And it's not because these people are just coming to me because they need personal finance advice, which obviously is the case. But it's because 60% of Americans are paycheck to paycheck. This is a global, if not at least us problem to the severity that it is right. And so by your personal situation, anyone that's listening their situation, whether it's credit card debt, student loan debt, you just don't have enough income, or you're not budgeting it correctly, right? Especially if you have variable income, you're on the good month, you're fine, right? You can pay your student loans and your car payment. But on the bad month, you're like, how am I even going to eat, let alone pay these bills. It's about getting to the surface of all of those different priorities and figuring out how to manage and maintain it so that it's not stressful, so you're not hurting yourself. And so you can just reach some of the goals that you have in life, whatever they are.
Mike Swenson
This year, this year, more than any is highlighted. The What if scenario, you know, I know, especially you know, if you're a young kid, either out of high school or out of college, you you know, you might think you're invincible you might think there might not be life that happens. And this year really just showed the you know, if you think about kind of a what if scenario, that what if scenario could be minor compared to what happened this last year for some people for jobs. I mean, who would have imagined that, you know, you could have a period of months where where you can't work because your industry has shut down. And so it's I think it's it's certainly changed the way that I've thought about reserves.
Mike Swenson
Because you know, it's one thing to be able to get out of debt, it's another thing to accumulate some reserves, but to think about, like, what realistically could happen, a lot of times people think, you know, if I'm out of a job, what if I need a month or two to cover that, I would have never thought six to nine months or 12 months of reserves, if I was out of a job, and there was a global pandemic, you know, so I think in a lot of ways, it's it's shined a light on the what if scenario of what can happen. And so it goes back to taking care of, you know, having the, the knowledge of what's at stake here for my financial future, and then having a plan in place. And in two, we always talk about successes sequential, so don't feel like you have to know it all right away, you just have to start.
Mike Swenson
And I think that's the value of how a financial coach can really help is because it's a, it's a chance to get some education, right? To help put some principles in place, but then also to get some accountability and some guidance and somebody to cheer you on. And to bounce ideas off of like, what should I do about this, and you can really help walk them through the the strategy here and put that plan into place. And then, you know, a big focus for us is talking about freedom, right? And so when you have the plan in place, and you're able to execute on the plan, there's a freedom that happens emotionally and mentally, to where you feel like okay, now, I don't have to wonder it's not this cloud, that that I'm walking around with this unknown cloud that's always raining on me. It's like, okay, at least I know where I'm at. And I can build momentum as we go forward.
Kelly Blodgett
Absolutely. And it's, if I wouldn't have had that moment where I was like, curious how much debt I have, and I background thought I was going to be killing it. If I wouldn't have never had that moment, we wouldn't be talking today, I would have just kept making my regular payments, I would have someday maybe paid them off in it. I, I would still have a negative net worth, which net worth isn't the end game, right? The game is just living my life. And I also think like you said, This pandemic opened our eyes. And unfortunately, it was a global pandemic, in the sense of there was extra unemployment benefits, student loans were paused for a while, what if you just happen to lose your job?
Kelly Blodgett
What if your spouse just got cut hours? What if you had a child that had special needs where you had to be at home or those are things where you wouldn't necessarily qualify for all these additional benefits that we're getting right now. And we would be potentially in a worse job situation. And so I, I'm right there with you, Mike, where this, the whole point of all of this is to just have safety, security. And a sense of, I'm going to be okay, if something happens, it doesn't mean that I'm going to get kicked out of my house, it doesn't mean that my car is going to get towed. It doesn't mean that I'm not gonna be able to buy groceries for my babies anymore, it just means that we're going to be pivoting and we're going to be focusing on something different right now. And so that's the whole point of this personal finance thing that I love is just opening up our eyes, showing people that it is very easy to do this.
Kelly Blodgett
I am not a rocket science by any means. But it's just a matter of like taking that step forward to say, Okay, let's do it. Because a lot of people don't take that step. And they think what I do what you do, Mike, is, Oh, I wish I made that much money. And then I could afford to have an emergency binder. I wish that I didn't have any student loans, like they paid theirs off. And then I could afford to do this other cool thing, right? It's, it takes all of that away, because because we're being intentional, where we're focusing on our goals, we're building a plan, and then we're, it all becomes easy, then once you find the plan, you know what you want to do? Be it pay off your student loans, or just create a emergency savings fund or pay off your car, whatever the plan is, then it's a matter of implementing it and like going through the motions, it's not a day to day thing on the top of your head, because you've already figured it out. It's just a matter of implementing the plan at that point.
Mike Swenson
Yeah. And I think to what I want to highlight for people where you know, money maybe isn't their first level of excitement. It can be exciting and fun when you start to see those dominoes knocked down. So I think about, you know, one of the things that we kind of highlighted was the Debt Snowball, you know, when you pay off a debt, let's just say it's maybe a cell phone, maybe you had a monthly plan on a cell phone, and 50 bucks freeze up. So then you go take that $50 and you put it to your next debt, and you start paying that off. When that debt gets paid off, let's say maybe a car payment, maybe then you attack the student loan payment, and you've got the same dollar amount that you've been paying six months ago to three different debts. Now it's all going on to one debt. And so you build that momentum.
Mike Swenson
One of the things that I did in the past two is When I had a car that was paid off, I then took that same amount. So when when I kind of got debt free outside of the mortgage, I took that same dollar amount, and I put it into a separate savings account. And I called that savings account future car payment, right. And so I, I'm not the one I know, there's a lot of people that have never taken out a car loan, they've always paid for it in cash, I'm not that type of person. And yet at the same time, I've maybe had enough saved up where I've covered half the car payment at the beginning, right, and so then, then I take that car payment, and I accelerate it.
Mike Swenson
And once that car's paid off, then then I go back, and I do the exact same thing. And so that type of thing is exciting. Now, obviously, I like talking about money. And so it's, it's maybe more exciting for me, but I think let's highlight to like, there, once you figure it out, you know, we were talking about starting a new job, right? When you start a new job, it's hard, you don't understand it, there's a lot of mental energy. But once you figure it out, it's a little bit more on autopilot. And that's the same way with understanding money and finances. Don't be intimidated by it. But once you get in it, and you, you start to make some progress, you start to see some excitement, it's not so hard anymore, and it can be fun.
Mike Swenson
And so then you can you can be excited about, you know, getting out of two or three of your five debts, you know, starting your emergency fund, being able to save for your next car versus having to make a payment and be in the hole every month because of that interest rate, you know, those are the things that start to get exciting. And then you can focus on some of the bigger stuff later. You know, what if you had all of your debt paid off except for your mortgage? And then you could start looking at attacking investments, which investment Am I going to choose the one that you know, risk versus reward, the one that averages this percent yield, or this percent yield, or this percent yield? Now, it's you're getting into the fun stuff of accumulating wealth, you really can't get there until you've taken care of the debt in the past.
Kelly Blodgett
Absolutely. And the thing with that, too, that I think you're spot on with is when you can start and when you're making these small wins. It's just like anything else, right? Like, if you wanted to play baseball, and you lost every single game every single season, okay, you probably would not want to play baseball anymore, right? You'd be like, let's just call it today. This wasn't for me, which is what personal finances for a lot of people, unfortunately, personal finances personal, it's up to you to manage it, it's up to you to pay your bills, and for you to invest and be your best self. So there's no one holding you accountable.
Kelly Blodgett
But when you start seeing those small wins of oh my gosh, I can actually see this debt going down or oh my gosh, look how much we have saved for this emergency like, and all we did was like, where we are a little bit more intentional this year about setting money aside or, and when you have those small wins, you build up that confidence that the psychology around, it totally changes and you want to do more you want to do better, you start researching, you start going all in your friend starts asking you to stop talking about your high yield savings account because you're so pumped about it right. And so that's how we've been saying this whole time.
Kelly Blodgett
I guess, dig in, just start step one. See what your situation is. Because as you get those small wins as you start dreaming and figure out what are your goals, and maybe your goal isn't to retire early, maybe your goal isn't to pay off your mortgage, maybe your goal is to just like work whenever you want, or your goal is to be able to quit your job, if it's no longer satisfying you to go work somewhere else. Whatever your goal is, or you want to just go on a trip every year, I work with some clients debt, being debt free is so far out of their realm. Because their debt is so high, they just want to pay their bills every month, not stress about it and have a little bit of an emergency fund. And then they're just like, gonna keep trucking away, right? Like debt payoff isn't the primary goal, but they just want to be happy and have a little bit of money saved up so that when Christmas comes around, they're not broken stress. So yeah, that's Yes.
Mike Swenson
Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, we tend to, you know, I think in our generation, you know, and probably a lot of people in our shoes, we were raised to not talk about money, you know, and, and that's something that I think it's just garbage, it's, it's complete garbage because I think about how much money plays a role in your life, you know, good, bad or otherwise, like, it funds, everything that you do, where you live, what car you drive, what you eat, and all that. So why wouldn't we talk about that with people? Why wouldn't we get help? You know, my wife is a therapist, and, and a lot of times people talk about, you know, mental health, like it's something we don't really want to talk about. Absolutely not. We should be talking about mental health right?
Mike Swenson
Just like we talked about going to the doctor or, you know, Hey, I got a cut. And you you know, text a picture to your nurse friend and ask like, should I go get stitches or not? mental health is the same way you should be talking about it with people because other people can help and financial health is the same way like you should be talking about it with other people because other people can help. And now I will say, people don't always know whether they're giving good advice or not. That's part of it. But But you won't know unless you start having those conversations. You know, when I talk with investors, and they talk about how they got started was they read books. And I said, We don't even know if they were good books or bad books. It wasn't until you read a couple books where you started to see some themes come out.
Mike Swenson
So if you're not, if you're the type of person that's not talking about money, start talking about with people ask questions come from curiosity, read some books on it, there's some great, very great foundational books out there about budgeting. But that's gonna lead to the next thing to the next thing to the next thing, just like a staircase, you're not going to be able to jump from the first step of the stairs to the top level unless you take the first step. And so part of it is just educating yourself a little bit talking with it about Don't be ashamed to ask questions about money. Because otherwise, if you don't, you're just gonna, you're gonna slowly it's like, it's like you're swimming in a pool, and you've got weights around you, you know, like, you can only keep that up for so long. So I would just encourage people, don't be afraid to ask questions about money, it's okay to talk about money, it's okay to celebrate success around money.
Kelly Blodgett
And by talking about money, not only do we normalize it, like, I often joke because the first question that I usually ask people is like, How much money do you make? And like, not my, like normal walking down the street life? But when I have a client, and they're like, oh, we're really like doing it, aren't we? I'm like, yep, I want to know, like everything. And so it also starts to normalize. I'll have clients asked me like, hey, how much do you spend on groceries every month? Or what do you have? Like, does the average person have like Netflix, Spotify, Hulu, Amazon, and Disney plus, like, because people don't know, you're just doing what you're doing. And unless you have a friend that tells you, girl, I only have Netflix and Amazon, I refuse to have like more than two subscriptions at a time, then you're like, oh, and these are thinking about it. Like, oh, I could probably only have two subscriptions.
Kelly Blodgett
Or I only spend 300 a month on groceries or like 150 a person and we are two person households with 300. Oh, shoot, we spend like 800 a month on groceries. Maybe we're like spending way too much like I need to start looking at that. And that starts to normalize things. And that starts putting those little things in the back of your head of questioning, am I doing this, right? Think about it. If it was like weightlifting, right? If you were the only person the entire world that weight lifted, and you were just in your basement every day, and you were lifting like 50 pounds, you'd be like I'm killing it, like 50 pounds is so much or like you're lifting your body weight, maybe and you're like, this is so good.
Kelly Blodgett
And then all of a sudden you find out your neighbor's bench pressing, like 800 pounds, and you're like, well, where have I been this whole time? Like, gosh, darn it. And it's the same with personal finance, when you are just doing your one thing in a in a silo, and you're not asking your friends what they're doing, or if it's normal, or all of these personal finance questions, you have nothing to compare it to, and you have no reason and no mode motivation to get better.
Mike Swenson
Yeah, and then what what we talked about too, is, as an agent, you know, you're, you're not going to necessarily go into everybody's financial situation that you work with. But But you know, a lenders gonna pre approve you for a certain amount, right? And and I feel like as an agent, you know, you you have an obligation to at least just make sure you're asking and making sure like, okay, is this a good price point for you. And I think as agents we sometimes think so sales, right? Like, they're pre approved up to this. And so that means I can sell them a house up to that. And yet, if we're really looking at long term relationships with our clients, if we do do well for them financially on their on their first home purchase, they might have some money to be able to do an investment later on.
Mike Swenson
And when one investment turns out great, it could lead into another investment. And so you know, if we sell somebody's house, and it leaves them house poor, to where they can't buy an investment in the future, they can't afford to move to another house in the future, we've kind of done a disservice. So so there is a fine line there. You know, we're not a financial adviser. And yet, we can just ask a good question like, okay, have you taken a look at this payment that the lenders pre approved for? Have you taken a look at a budget? And if somebody has said, No, I have no idea about that, you can have them talk to somebody, you know, you're not the one giving the financial advice, but you can just say, hey, maybe you should talk to somebody about that. And just get clarity on your budget and make sure that this fits for you.
Kelly Blodgett
And my to add to that, I think it's really responsible of somebody in a real estate agent shoes, or a lender or someone that is helping with this process. Because even if maybe the real estate agent or the lender wasn't responsible for somebody going house poor, that if somebody does go house poor, and they maybe file bankruptcy or whatever it is that they have a big cloud over that whole experience. And so, and you're a part of that experience, unfortunately, and so they think you're a part of the problem even though it was them. They had no mindset around what budgeting is or personal finance or how much they can afford, but you're a part of that process. And so find exactly what you said, just by asking the question like, hey, do you guys have a budget, like, I'd be more than happy to set you up with somebody to just like run quick numbers just to see like what you can afford, because I want to get you guys in like the best house at your range so that you don't like ever regret this purchase.
Kelly Blodgett
And, by doing that, and by recommending, you know, 20% of your take home pay, and all of those sorts of things. If a client doesn't know about any of that stuff, they're gonna see you as the expert, they're gonna see you as like, Oh my gosh, like, Thanks for looking out for me like this is really important. And why didn't I know this? Why didn't anyone Teach me this, and you're just becoming that source for them, which then leads to future transactions, right? Like, if they had a great experience with you, they love their house, they could afford it, their budget wasn't a problem, and they're ready to move on to the next phase. You're top of mind.
Mike Swenson
Yeah, it shows that you care, right. And, and as realtors we have vendors that we refer people to right if you're if you need new carpet, if you need painting, if you need some landscaping. Well, if you if you need somebody to talk to you about finances, you need some financial coaching, why not have a referral for that, where you can say, okay, make sure that this is the right fit for you. because like you said, it's it's going to create, we want clients for life, we want raving fans that are going to love the experience we gave them and refer people to us and want to continue to work with us and stay in relationship with us for years and years and years.
Mike Swenson
So if you do a great job with them, and you refer them to a great person, a great financial coach to get their house in order, they're going to be excited about that they're gonna, they're gonna love that. And you're gonna have a great relationship. It's not going to be this begrudging relationship of like, this is the person that sold me the house and now I'm house poor and you know.
Kelly Blodgett
Every time you see them on the street, you like, run away from them, because you're like, oh, that guy.
Mike Swenson
Right, I sold you a house you couldn't afford. Yeah, so yeah, there is a fine line. But yeah, just like a great referral, you can refer somebody to a financial coach that can help them understand that and, and I go back to the episode that we had with with a medic ball, and he talked about, you know, he he was a Dave Ramsey guy, he did a great job with his finances, and his realtor came to him with an investment property and they ended up doing 10 rental units together. So that's where a realtor working with a client can can really do some some damage in a good way together, because he did have his financial house in order, he could have some investments. And it related to future transactions for that agent because he worked with somebody and did a responsible job with them.
Kelly Blodgett
And that's exactly spot on. And when I say goals, and you're you know, maybe that's maybe that doesn't relate to everyone, but when you have your house in order and an opportunity comes to you, are you financially prepared to take it if all of a sudden the house next door to you is foreclosed on? And it's $20,000? Can you afford to like jump on that property? If all of a sudden girls trip pops up on the calendar, everyone's going to Nashville next week?
Kelly Blodgett
Can you jump on that plane and go because you have your money in order or you know, there's a really good deal on a car, all those type that's like what you want to be ready for. So that or if that's your dream job, someone recruits you on LinkedIn, but it's unfortunately you make $10,000 less a year is that going to be a deal breaker for you. And those are all the types of scenarios where you can get your house in order as we've talked about Mike, you can go after those opportunities and you would just be also a happier person because of those
Mike Swenson
Yeah, you could you can enjoy the experiences of life and you know, we talked about financial freedom and time freedom like you can go reap the benefits of that and live an exciting life and do big things and help others to like if you're a person that likes to give to charity you know if you've got your financial house in order you can give more money to charity you can support more people and so you can do a lot of good when you have your your financial house in order so yeah, that's it. That's exciting. So So thanks so much for for taking the time to chat about those things. For folks listening and watching. You know if Kelly's message resonated with you, Kelly talk a little bit about more more about what you can do and how folks can get ahold of you.
Kelly Blodgett
Yeah, so Kelly here on personal finance coach trying to convince the whole planet to get on a budget one day at a time. You can find me all things money girl coaching, so Instagram, Facebook, moneygirlcoaching.com, I'm happy to connect any way I do free 20 minute consultations, which usually go longer depending on how chatty we get. But um, so just reach out there's no obligation. The last thing I want to do is convince someone to work with me because that just sounds painful. Just like as you would imagine, in the real estate business. You don't want to force someone to buy a house from you because it just might be painful on all sides.
Kelly Blodgett
So truly, I'm just help looking to help people that are ready for this process. If you're not ready for it, you're not going to be able to make as many strides as if you're If you find yourself that Okay, now is the time for me to get my house in order, now's the time for me to figure out what my debt is what my goals are what I want to go after. Those are the people that I'm that I'm trying to find every single data connect with. So yeah, money girl coaching, I do one on one personal finance coaching. I also in the middle of group coaching right now, so periodically, we do group coaching. And then I also just have shorter like little our two hour sessions, if you just want to run kind of a plan by me, and I can help you go through things, and then you can just take it from there.
Mike Swenson
Yeah. And I think the thing to highlight too, is, you know, people, information is out there, right. And so somebody listening to this might be thinking, well, I could just go read this book, or read that workbook and get the same information as what Kelly's sharing with me the differences, though, is you're never gonna take something as serious unless you're paying for it. And and so that's where the the money coaching pain for money coaching is huge, because it's going to take your attention, because it's costing you something, and and you're, you're, you're never going to get to it the same way as if you just is on your own as you would if you're paying for it. And so that's where, you know, why would I pay for coaching when that information is out there?
Mike Swenson
Well, it's the accountability, it's the person cheering you on, it's the person not letting you slip when you make a tough financial decision. And so that's where paying for that coaching will you'll you'll get that money back 2x 3x 5x 10x than if you just said I'll just go watch a YouTube video, I'll just read read an article because you're not going to implement it the same way as if you did is when you had a coach.
Kelly Blodgett
And also I always say like, great, you can learn it on your own. How come you haven't done it? Like what is stopping you?
Mike Swenson
You would have already done it.
Kelly Blodgett
You would have already done it. Also, it's the same as like when you hire a personal trainer or if you go to a gym? Sure you can google how to do free home exercises. But do you? Do you want that person that just tells you what to do? Because then you know what's going to work already? Do you want to have that place that you go to that you're like, this is my zone and this is where I improve my life. And that's exactly what personal finance coaching is.
Kelly Blodgett
It's paying for a service from an expert, so that you can make strides so much quicker than you would on your own and you're also not getting foggy with, there's a million different ways to go about it. Where should I start and that's overwhelming and you don't start at all. So personal coaching is so affordable. I think that's another misconception is people think they can't afford it. But it is and so just reach out and we can happy to chat and make anything work for anyone that is willing to put in the work
Mike Swenson
Great so that the key thing is get started today. Take a step. Figure out what your next step is so that you can really get your your plan in place and get your house in order. So as your income grows, you can grow your net worth, you can grow your savings, you can grow your investments, but you can't get there unless you get started. So thanks so much for coming on. We appreciate it and thanks for your time.
Kelly Blodgett
Thank you. Bye, everyone.
