67: Personalizing Your Financial Plan: Embracing Diverse Personalities and Goals

Carolyn: [00:00:00] You're listening to Elevate Your Paycheck, the podcast that is dedicated to transforming your financial journey. I'm Carolyn, your host and money coach that will guide you out of that paycheck to paycheck cycle and onto a path towards financial independence. Are you ready? Let's do this. Hey there. Welcome back to the show. I'm Carolyn, your money coach. So for the last couple of weeks, we've been really talking about setting 2024 up for success. And we started off by, really looking at creating a financial strategy and I gave you a step by step guide on how to do that. And then we walked into really doing a financial health check and making sure that all the different boxes are checked off when it comes to our financial health.

And then we moved into money mindset and [00:01:00] making sure that the way that we think about money and the way we treat money aligns with our goals. And then last week, we talked about raising financially fit families, right, kind of creating that culture within your family to talk about money, share your experiences, explain to your kids why things are the way they are.

 It really is a full package on what you need as a first step moving into your plan

so if you haven't listened to any of those episodes, head back right to number 63 and work your way up. Today, I really wanted to make this more of a conversation between you and I. Finance is not only about structure, and teaching, and strategies.

It's about people, and stories, and experiences. And to be honest, that is the way we all learn. I don't know if you've ever started a new job, and they've given you a policy to read, or some [00:02:00]instructions, and you read them over, and they're like, okay, you ready to go? It's never really like that, right? You learn by experience, you learn by hands on doing the work.

And so today we're just going to change it up a bit less about instruction and more about experiences and things that I have heard or my own personal experiences that may help to really complete this financial plan. Now to kind of I guess story tell a little bit about how planning and decision making for different people look extremely different.

So I'm going to just take my daughter and my son as an example. You would think that they have, you know, pretty much a lot of similarities and they do, but there are some fundamental differences between the two of them. Now, when it comes to planning and decision making, my daughter, she's the youngest is very methodical.

Everything needs to be thought out, [00:03:00] written down, and kind of planned. This has happened many times in her life, if she's working on a project, or if she's going away to camp, she, would have her list, and make sure everything was packed according to that list, and check it off.

Even when she, was thinking of going to university, we had to visit a million. And, do the pros and cons of each and, you know, really kind of narrowed down where she wanted to be. So, very methodical when it comes to planning, more so than even myself. And and that's how she made educated and wise decision.

Now, did she overthink it a bit? In my opinion, maybe, but you know, you got to appreciate that planning process where you take the time to do your research and and lay it all out. Now, on the other hand, we have my son who, he's kind of a bit of a free spirit, right? So planning is not fun. You just want to kind of go and do it.

Right? So you make a decision, you do it. [00:04:00] And I kind of fall, I think, towards that way a little bit when it comes to certain things. I do like a good plan as well. So I guess maybe I'm a bit of a balance of the both of them. But Decision making, he can really just make that decision really quick and move on.

And sometimes you need that as well, right? You can't overthink things. You kind of just have to do it and go. And so it really kinda shows the polar opposite of how people's personalities can impact the way they plan. And this is exactly what happens in financial planning. And if you are in a relationship or you have a spouse or partner.

This is where sometimes friction can come in because one person has a one way of doing it and another person has another way of doing it. So the key to probably keeping that relationship going is that you have identical goals. You know exactly where you want to go, you just may have a different path of getting there.

So if you're in a similar [00:05:00] boat, then what I would do is really just Begin to share your experiences. You know how we talked about mindset a couple of weeks ago? Well, share your childhood experiences about money. Listen to the stories of how your partner or friend have been raised and develop their mindset around money.

If you have an understanding, you can appreciate why they make certain choices. Like, for example, my husband and I were a bit different as well. You know, I'm a little bit more of a risk taker and he is a little bit more conservative. And so an example of this is where we knew we wanted to invest and I'm a bit of a more risk taker.

So I'm like, Oh, I saw this really good deal. Let's go. Let's jump in. Let's do it. Right. And so he's no, no, no, we got to calculate. We got to look at things from the bigger picture. And I'm just like, Oh, no, no, time's going, we got to go. Right. So I think it was On my birthday, December the 7th, when we [00:06:00] purchased one of our investment properties, and I had seen a deal for a condo.

It hadn't been built yet, and it was in a university district, and so, to me, it's a win win. You know that the universities are always going to have students. They're always going to be a demand, and so why wouldn't you jump on this when things are not built because you know that as it's The soon as the condo is built, the appreciation will occur and you wouldn't even have had to have occupied it at that point.

So for me, it was just like, yeah, let's do this. Well, not so much for my husband. He's like, Oh, well, do you know the area? Do you know the builders and, you know, the quality that they're putting into this building and how long is it going to take and, you know, he had all the questions, right?

And so we had to go out there. It was in a different city. So we had to drive out there, you know, talk with the salespeople, talk with the builders and, and really get a sense of, what the timelines were going to be and what they [00:07:00] promised and all sorts of things we had for them, the questions.

And, you know, Obviously, for me, in hindsight, I probably would have never wanted it any other way, right? You needed to know that information going in because we were so novice, right? We didn't know anything about investment properties. We had one before, but that was a resale. And so, when you're buying brand new, it's different.

And so, This is where the two personalities or the two viewpoints or the two mindsets work in harmony together. One is one way and the other one is another way, but when you put the two of them together, that is when you can develop this beautiful financial plan. And also, when people are trying to think about what their financial plan is and creating goals.

I gave you a strategy earlier about using the SMART method. Right, which is being specific, make it measurable, make it attainable, [00:08:00] make it realistic, and make it time bound. So that's using the SMART system to actually create your goal, but you also need to add clarity to that. And clarity for some means more research, more detail, more Thought out process and some for some not so much right, but you still need clarity at the end of the day I had a client recently Come to me and they had they also had an investment property and their own primary residence And that was one of the biggest things they were struggling with was clarity.

They knew they want the investment They knew that in the long term that it was going to be beneficial for them But it felt like it was draining them of all their money And so what they needed is to understand why, right? And when we sat down and we went through the numbers and we kind of determined whether or not that investment was cash flowing positive.

That is the only time when we could actually see if it was beneficial to keep the property or to sell it. And so the clarity [00:09:00] of opening up the pot of all the information was critical for us to make that decision. And sure enough, the investment property was cashflow positive. And when they came to me, they were on the verge of really selling it because it was just too burdensome.

And this goes to show that the getting financial literacy and education is really important when you go into these major decisions. So. In this case, they weren't told that, the money that you are getting and using for the property should kind of remain in its own entity. And your own personal money can kind of be separate, right?

And so, you know, when things are being blend together, you don't know what is causing the problem in your finances. You really need to separate the two so that you can have a clear picture of what exactly is going wrong. And so when we did that, we separated the two. We kind of took a look at the assets and made sure that the [00:10:00] expenses were being covered, everything was good, and it was positive outcome.

So clarity is really something that is important to build into your financial plan. Once you have your goals, you work together to kind of understand each other, and then you get the clarity around the situation. But you know what happens with best laid plans, right? They don't always go exactly as they should.

I know another friend who bought a pre sale building or condo and they promised that it was going to be built and ready to move in and within two years. And actually, more than five years passed before that condo came to be. And, a lot can change in your life in five years, right? Your job structure, where you want to live, your family situation, like so many things can change in five years.

And so, you couldn't have predicted that, right, when you purchased the property. [00:11:00] And so, Building in some kind of a leeway for a reserve is super important. Now if you just crack open your credit card statement and maybe you just take three months and you kind of take a look at it and the transactions that are going through somewhere along the line I can almost guarantee that something has come up in your life and you didn't maybe have the money set aside for it and you had to throw it on a credit card and That a lot of the time is the trigger that brings up those balances of the credit card.

Now people do overspend and the cost of living now things are more expensive, I get it. But I honestly do think that a lot of the time the reason why we go into debt is because we don't have a reserve. There's nothing there for the what if this happens. Right? You can't predict five years being out of your home and having to rent and all that, but you [00:12:00] can set aside a reserve for a reasonable amount of time and then maybe you'll have to adjust based on the circumstance.

So your financial plan really needs to incorporate some Emergency planning it's the plan B. What are you going to do if something happens? You want to make sure that your financial plan includes that as well. Now planning to build a reserve isn't easy. Because you have the day to day to worry about

and sometimes you don't have much left over, especially if you have added debt, to really actually allocate out for a reserve. One of my clients, they kind of really were inventive on how they could make some additional money to pay off their existing debt. You know, I was just amazed as they kept coming up with idea after idea.

And, you know, they still had their normal jobs to do. But they figured, you know what? This will be added money that I can bring in and that will specifically go towards debt. [00:13:00] And that's something you can do to build a reserve, right? You can try to find a way that is going to bring in some additional income that you can put aside for a reserve.

And again, this doesn't have to be for a long period of time, right? All you may need is six months worth or three months worth or whatever it is. So it's not like something you have to put in place in your life permanently. It just needs to kind of fill the need and be part of your financial plan. Now with any good plan, it really needs to be realistic.

You know, it's kind of part of the SMART goal. Theory is to have realistic goals, but your whole plan needs to be a realistic as well because we can lay this beautiful plan out, but if you can't execute it in a realistic way, then there really is no point of the plan. So there are some indicators that we can use to see, to measure our financial position.

 I talked about cashflow. That is looking at your. income versus [00:14:00] your expenses. There is looking at your net worth, that is assets over liabilities. But then there's also something that everybody knows what this is, and that is your credit score. And the credit score, is, really is a culmination of many, many different things.

And it's the Institution's way of measuring or judging you based on your past history. So if you take a look at your credit score, there's different levels to it they, call you either poor or average or good. That's kind of what the markers are. But a lot of people struggle with how to move the dial.

 How do I get from poor to good? How do I get from good to great? Like, how do you actually move the dial? One of the misconceptions is that, you know, if I make more money, then it'll all work itself out. But there are a lot of people making six and seven figures that don't have a good credit score.

So what does that mean? Well, I [00:15:00] actually decided, because I was getting a lot of questions about this term and what it means and how you can fix it, I created a masterclass. The registration is open now for you guys to be a part of it. It is completely free. It is just my way of getting closer to you guys.

It's going to be live very interactive, and I'm going to teach you a ton of stuff about credit score. So plan to be a part of this. You want to get Everything there is to know about your credit score and how other institutions and banks are looking at you. Because, like I said, the best laid plans are great, but if the outside world is looking at you differently, then there's a problem.

And that is going to just bump up your financial literacy and help you to make better educated decisions. So, the final step in all of this, in doing your financial plan, is really the celebration. And now I think we forget about this part, we're always chasing, right? We're always [00:16:00] chasing the next big thing or the next item on our list.

And we don't stop and take a breath and really appreciate what we've done and what we've accomplished. So one of my previous clients, I reached out to them just to see, you know, how are they doing? How are things coming along? And I asked them, you know, when we first started, what was your credit score at the beginning?

And they said it was 631. And by the end of approximately eight weeks, her score had risen to 707. Now that's quite incredible, considering that's only two months cycle in your credit score, because things take a while to kind of, you know, impact and change. So I was like, what? Really? It went up that much?

And so it really goes to show how much like diligence and sticking to your plan and implementing all the things that we've been talking about and how that can lead into positive results. So make sure you celebrate and it [00:17:00] doesn't have to be with spending money and going on a big trip or, you know, treating yourself to something expensive.

Celebration is joy that you feel within with your partner, and it's something that you add on to your plan. So again, this plan is fluid. It's always changing. It's always evolving. We're getting clarity. We're making room for the what ifs. And then finally, we want to celebrate. And so build that into the financial plan

once we hit this marker, we're going to do X, Y, and Z, or we're going to celebrate in this way. It is going to make the whole process so much better when you have something to strive for. I always think back to the Olympians. I'm so fascinated when it's an Olympics year because I'm like glued to the screen because I love their dedication, the hard work, all for the glimpse that they may reach a gold medal.

You know, they train for four years. And it's grueling. They can't [00:18:00] eat what they want to eat. They have to train for hours upon end. But they do it for the love of the sport, of course, but also for the glimmer of the hope that they are going to get that gold medal. And as you know, only a percentage, a very small percentage, of the Olympic arena walks away with that gold medal.

But they're there giving it their all. And so Having that prize, knowing what it is, and then taking the baby steps to get there is really going to give you the incentive you need to reach all of your financial goals. I've enjoyed this conversation with you, and I hope you've appreciated some of the stories and the wins that I've shared from my own experiences, as well as Some of my clients and there's going to be so much more of that at the live.

I hope you're going to be there at this masterclass to dig in and understand what the credit score is all about. All right, have a wonderful week and I will see you next week. [00:19:00] Same time, same place. 

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