Real Happy Mom

Practical tips and encouragement for moms

Tips for Improving Your Finances With a Budget and a Plan

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The biggest financial lesson I learned in 2020 is how important it is to have healthy emergency savings that you can live off of for at least 3 months.

After seeing many people being furloughed and laid off, it is important to have your finances in order so that you don’t have to take another big hit. But where do you start if you have no idea?

Don’t worry. I have my friend and money coach, Rho, here to help.

Rho has an impressive financial journey and is working to help more women achieve financial independence. In this episode, we talk about:

  • Why having more money is not the answers to financial problems
  • Tips for budgeting so that you can do more with your money
  • Bills that you can negotiate to get a better rate or price on
  • Tips for getting your spouse on board with your financial goals

About

Rho Thomas is an attorney and financial coach who believes that true wealth is having control of your time. She helps lawyers make intentional lifestyle and money decisions to regain control of their time, build wealth, and live the lives of freedom and choice they deserve.

She has been featured in outlets such as Yahoo! Finance, Refinery29, and Mic and hosts the Wealthyesque podcast, which explores how lawyers can achieve lifestyle freedom by reframing their mindset and managing their money to achieve financial independence.

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Transcript of this episode

Real Happy Mom 0:01
Hey there, I’m Tony and I have an overwhelming passion to help moms navigate motherhood without the overwhelm. I went from struggling with motherhood and losing my identity, to be productive and living out my version of being a happy mom. On the Real Happy Mom podcast, I interview real moms and experts to help you navigate raising children self care, time management, and so much more. So if you’re ready to get rid of the overwhelm, and start being a Real Happy Mom, join me inside the Real Happy Mom podcast. Welcome back to another episode of the Real Happy Mom podcast today I have one of my favorite people on and that is road Thomas, my money coach, my yellow pod sister, and she is on here today to help us to get our finances in order because this year, we are going to do better with our money. Because if 2020 hasn’t taught us anything that is that we need to have a savings account. So if you are looking for ways to either pay off debt or to save up more money, this episode is going to help you out because Rowe is going to share with us how we can change our mindset around money and how that is the biggest thing that we actually need to change when it comes to reaching our financial goals. In addition, she talks about some of the basics on things that we can negotiate in order to have more money to save or pay off debt. And then lastly, how we can get our spouses on board when it comes to our financial goals. So if this is something that you need help with, you definitely want to stay tuned. But before we jump into this episode, I want to remind you of the coaching sessions that I have, yes, your girl has started coaching, you know, want to help you. So if you are struggling with time you feel like there’s so much to do, you have these dreams and goals, but it’s just like life keeps happening and you’re not making any progress. Or you are just overwhelmed with all the things that come with motherhood. I am here to help you. I want to hold your hand on a walk with you. I want to keep you accountable. Because this motherhood journey is not one that is meant to be done alone. So send me an email at Hello at Real Happy Mom, if you are ready to start to transform your time and get accountability and actually have someone to help you and work with you so that you can actually start to realize the things that you have planned and dreamed for yourself. Again, send me an email at Hello at Real Happy Mom. And let’s get started girl. Now that we have that other way, let’s go ahead and jump into this week’s episode with roe. All right, Rob, welcome to the podcast.

Rho 2:30
Thank you so much for having me, Tony. And it’s a pleasure to be here.

Real Happy Mom 2:33
Yes, it is so great to finally have you as my guest. I feel like I’ve been the guest in some ways. So it’s good to finally have you on in and talk to you here in on this platform. So welcome, welcome. I wanted to bring you on in particular, just because you’ve helped me out so much. And I know that you can help a lot of other moms out there. But before we jump into our topic for today, I just wanted you to share a little bit about you and what you do.

Rho 3:00
Sure. So my name is ro Thomas, I am a lawyer and financial coach. And I help lawyers regain control of their time, build wealth, and live the lives of freedom and choice they deserve. I also help other similar professionals. And the main thing that I do in my practice is I help people to look at their mindset around money, and then give them strategies for managing their money better. I got into all of that from my own money story. I found myself $670,000 in debt about four years ago, my husband and I had just had our first child, I was headed back to work after my maternity leave and thinking about wanting to cut back, you know, change my schedule, because I had just been home for like three months with my kid. And when we looked at our finances, it was like, Oh, actually, you’re going to be going right back to work. Because we had, as I said, all of that debt. And we had like a negative $342,000 net worth. And so we’ve been working over the last four years to clean up our own money. And in doing that, I found that I have so many more options in my life. And I’ve been able to help others to create those same types of options in their lives.

Real Happy Mom 4:24
Yes, I love your story. And I love how you have been working on this for a few years now. So I just wanted you to give kind of give us a progress report on where you’re at now with your journey.

Rho 4:36
Yes, so we have paid off over $400,000 over the last four years, which I am super excited about. Our last two debts are my husband’s student loan which I used to call my husband’s second mortgage because when we started his student loan balance was larger than our mortgage. But the last two are his student loan and our mortgage and we have gotten hit down to about 120. And it started at 340. And got up to like 370 at its highest. So I am super excited to be in the homestretch with that.

Real Happy Mom 5:12
Yes, I’m super proud of you. I’m super excited for you. Because Oh, yeah, 670 when you said I was like, Oh my goodness, like, and I can only imagine like being at the beginning and filling all of the fillings, because I know, I feel this to where you’re feeling overwhelmed by this big, huge number. But one thing that I’ve learned from another friend is just looking at it as just a number. Because I know at least for me, in particular, a can seem like some big, huge unrealistic number that we won’t be able to actually tackle. And so then I kind of spiral into this, well, I’ll never be able to pay it off, I might as well just do whatever. But that doesn’t help either. And when you talk about looking at mindset around money, that is one thing that I know has been the biggest thing, for me in particular, is really tackling some of the money mindset that really hinders us from actually reaching our goals. So speaking about mindset, I just wanted you to break down like some of the money mindsets that you have seen with some of your clients that have really been a hindrance, and not allowing them to actually reach their goals.

Rho 6:24
So the thing that you just said about your debt being so overwhelming is a huge one, especially when you’ve got the six figures, student loan balances, it can feel like you’re never going to be able to pay it off. Right, it can feel like it’s just so overwhelming. And so when you have thoughts like that, my debt is so overwhelming, and then you feel defeated, or you feel disheartened, you feel hopeless, then the action, as you said, is that you’re not going to take steps to pay it off, you feel like you’ll never be able to do it. And so then you don’t do it, you basically prove that thought that you have, right. Another big one is people will say things like, it would be better if I had more money, oh, this will be better. If I had more money, I could pay it off. If I had more money I could save if I have more money. But it’s almost never about the money. It’s really about the mindset, like we said, and so when you’re thinking that things will be better when you have more money than you are feeling again, that defeated you feel like there’s no use in you taking action now because you don’t have whatever salary you think you should have. And so then you end up not improving your finances. And a really interesting study a few years ago, showed that more people who are millionaires were teachers during their working lives than lawyers and doctors and those kinds of professions. So I think teachers were like in the top three, and lawyers didn’t even make, I think lawyers might have been within the top 10. And doctors didn’t make the top 10 or something like that. So it goes to show you that it’s not about the income that you have. It’s not about the salary.

Real Happy Mom 8:06
Yes, definitely. Because once you’re saying that, I was just thinking like, man, like, I wouldn’t have never thought that. But when I think about a little bit like, you know, the whole principle of you’re able to manage a little you can manage a live kind of thing. So I was wondering if that is one thing that you have seen that has been actually helpful for those who actually want to get to that place of what you call about financial independence and things like that, in particular with budgeting and tracking your spending and expenses.

Rho 8:38
Yeah, I think that is absolutely right. I think about my personal story, right? Like I told you that we had over $670,000 in debt. I’m a lawyer, my husband is a doctor. And when we were researching how to pay it off, we came across a story of this couple, both of whom were teachers, and they had paid their house off within five years or something like that. And so here we are with, you know, the $670,000 thinking, like, oh, like we’re doing okay, because we’re paying our minimums and these people pay off a house, right. So I think that your point about managing a little equipping you to be able to manage more is absolutely spot on. Because when you have more money and you’re not managing it well, like you don’t have those budgeting skills, you’re not paying attention to where you’re spending and that kind of thing. What ends up happening, it’s not that you lose out or you’re unable to pay for necessities, right? It just means that you are spending all of your money and have nothing to show for all of the work that you’re putting in to bring it in. And so when you’re able to manage money on a lower income, then those skills carry over when you do make more money, and then you’re able to do even more with it.

Real Happy Mom 9:59
Yes Now one thing ro, I’ve heard from other people, especially when it comes to budgeting in particular, like budgeting is it feels restrictive or you feel like you can’t, you know, really enjoy things, but but you brought up a really good point, like, you know, you gotta be able to track these things and know like, what we’re spending our money on, and how much. So I wanted you to talk to us a little bit about the importance of budgeting and how to keep track of our expenses so that we actually know where our money is going, because I will be honest and raise my hand, I know that I was like, Oh, yeah, I think I’m doing about this much on, you know, food and this much on, on entertainment. And it was way way off like it was, it was really, really like humbling for me, because I realized like it is under estimating quite a bit. And I think a lot of times that happens to us to eat I know, I heard you speak on one of your podcast episodes about like how much we spend on some of those other expenses, like the hulu’s, and the subscriptions, that’s what it was on subscriptions and just thinking like, Oh, I don’t spend that much. And then when we actually look and see how much it is, it’s like quite a bit. So I just want you to help us out here with with budgeting, especially for those that feel like, you know, oh is too restrictive. And I can’t really do or have fun, because you know, I’m only allotted this amount.

Rho 11:26
Yes, I think that mindset that the budget is restrictive is super common. And it’s funny to me, because you actually make the budget, right? Like you can decide what you put in your budget. No one is telling you what you can or cannot put in the budget. So if you want to put $500 on, you know, shoes, you can do that. But budgeting is very much about trade offs. And I teach value based budgeting. And that means that you are looking at what is actually important to you and allocating money towards those things. But the things that you don’t care about cut it, right, you don’t need to spend money on things you don’t care about. And when you take a look at the things that you value, and you adjust your budget accordingly, then overwhelmingly I’ve seen that people end up spending less, because a lot of time, the things that we value, don’t necessarily cost money. And the things that we don’t care about are the things that we are spending on because that’s what we’re supposed to do, because we have a certain job title or because that’s what our neighbors are doing or our co workers are doing. Those are the things that are costing you the money, right. So when you’re looking at your values and your spending in line with those, you’re naturally going to spend a little bit less. And then I also say when you are creating your budget, I teach a zero based budget. And so we’re creating the budget based on our values, but then we’re making sure that we are assigning every dollar a job. And so that can be you know, going to your $500 shoe budget that we talked about, right? That will also be your necessities like your groceries and your housing and your you know, things for your car, things for your kids, all of that. But then it can also be for those financial goals that you have saving more, or paying off debt or whatever it is. But however much you brought in, in a certain month, that’s how much you are going to, quote spend. And it’s not necessarily spending, as I said, because some of those expenses will be things like savings, or paying off debt or whatever your financial goals are. But when you are making sure that you give every dollar a job, then you won’t be at the end of the month looking for where that money went, if that makes sense.

Real Happy Mom 13:46
Oh, yeah, makes perfect sense. And, and I like the Zero Based budget too, because I know a lot of times when I was first trying to do the whole budgeting it was it wasn’t that great because like, I like how you say given our assigning every dollar a job, I wasn’t given every dollar job, I was leaving, like extra over here. And whenever I leave that little extra open, it’s always gonna get spent. And so just making sure that I know exactly where everything is going is really been helpful to make sure that I’m not overspending, because that is another thing too. Because like I said, I thought I was spending like, let’s just say $100 on entertainment. And I was actually spending like $300. So yeah, of course I’m looking at, like, what what happened. And one thing that I’ve learned from you, too, is negotiating and getting better quotes and things like that on some of the things that like you said, We don’t really care about and we spend a lot more money on. And so I want you to do to help us out with that. If we’re looking at our budget and we’re like, Okay, well, I want to you know, have a little bit more money to do, let’s just stick with the shoes. I want more money to spend on my shoes, but I have all of these other expenses that are A lot more than I would like. So where would you start with negotiating or getting better quotes so that we can tip the scale back so that we can start to have more money for the shoes

Rho 15:11
of our soul? I love shoes, which is why that example came to mind.

Unknown Speaker 15:15
Like, yes,

Rho 15:17
I love it. But the biggest one that I see is cell phone plans. A lot of people still have like the contract plans with these major carriers. But the prepaid plans from a number of different companies are much cheaper, but offer the same level of service. So for instance, my husband has a plan with total wireless, and we pay $35 a month. And that’s I think it’s five gigabytes of data, unlimited talk, unlimited text, whereas a similar plan with, you know, one of the contracts might be $100 a month. So that’s one big one. Another one is with car insurance, we tend to choose the car insurance company, and we just stick with that same company, and they keep raising your rates, you know, each year, and we don’t think anything of it. But car insurance companies make their money on the most loyal customers because they just keep raising the rates. And so every year, every other year, just bid out the quotes and see if you’re still getting the best deal. It might be that you are right, you might go and check for quotes at different companies and find that the company that you’re at is the lowest or is in line with these others. But sometimes you don’t. And you can save a lot of money each month, if you are just making sure that you’re getting a good deal for your car insurance.

Real Happy Mom 16:48
Yes, car insurance is huge, because I think I saved I want to say was like $500 once I switched, and I was like, wait a minute, wait a minute, even I got the idea from my mom, because my mom was with this particular insurance company for like 12 years, 12 years. And I was under her insurance plan. And of course, like once I got married and got out the house, it was time for me to get my own insurance. And but before I was like paying her the money, you know, that I would have probably been paying if I was on my own. And let me tell you when I got on my own. I was like, wait a minute, I was given my massage me for this Carter. It’s like, what kind of car insurance was that? And then she ended up switching. And she saved a ton of money. But I will tell you this Pro. Another one that got me and surprised me was my cable. Because I didn’t realize I was with the same cable company for eight years. Eight years. I didn’t realize I was with them for that long. I don’t know if I told you this. But I called them because we have been working together and figuring out like, okay, where can we negotiate some better rates in the cable was one because it was a bit high. I think it was 100 licious, a 110. For for pretty numbers. It was $110, which is a lot of money, I think for cable. So I call a cable company was like, hey, guess what? I’m leaving you. And I want to cut my service. And they’re like, No, no, no, no, no, no, no, wait, wait, wait, listen, I’m in your account. And I just realized you’ve been with us for eight years. And we have a special discount. We’re gonna give you $40 off every month for the next year. Oh my Wait a minute, sir. Like. So you only want to extend this offer right when I said I was about to leave, but I will tell you, you gotta try it. Like just go to those companies and be like, hey, guess what I’m terminating my service. And watch, they’ll start pulling out all the stops? Well, you know, we have this deal. And we could do this and this and this. And so that’s one thing I’m learning is to pull that I’m about to cancel my service card and see what happens.

Rho 18:43
Oh, no, that is absolutely right. Like they will do what they can to keep you because you’ve already been there, right? Like you’re already in their customer pool. And so they don’t want you to leave, they don’t want to, you know, have to spend more on marketing to try to get another customer in. And I think that everything is negotiable. Like when I moved into our house, we were trying to set up our internet. And the company was going to charge us a fee like an installation fee to come like put their equipment into the house. And then there was something else I can’t recall now because it’s been four or five years. But I told them I wasn’t paying an installation fee for the privilege of paying you for a service. Like I’m not doing that. And I just kept escalating it. I think I was probably on the phone for like 30 minutes or something like that. But they ended up waiving that fee and they gave us our first two months free and that was just like no, I’m not paying this amount. And if you can’t help me, then I think I need to talk to someone else. Like May I speak to your supervisor and just kept speaking to supervisors, I probably got up to like the fourth level up. But I think that everything is negotiable, right like they are offering this price but we don’t have to accept that price. And that’s not to say that you’ll always be able to get a better deal. Like, I was not sure that they were going to waive that installation fee or, you know, whatever. But it doesn’t hurt to ask.

Real Happy Mom 20:09
Yes, definitely. And that was one thing that I learned the hard way is is asking because you, it doesn’t hurt at all, you’re gonna get a phone? No. But asking, you know, hey, like, Can we do something with this? Because when I switched actually, Home Security in this, I switched companies because I was another one on my list of things that I felt like I was paying too much for. Because, yeah, a whole nother story. But I switched to another company. And they were like, Oh, we have this promotion where you get these two things for free. And I was like, Well, I don’t want that because I already have it. But I want a thermostat. I want one of the digital ones. And I was like, I actually need to because I have two thermostats, one on the first floor, one and second floor, and they’re like, oh, man, I don’t know if we can do that. I don’t know. I don’t know. I kept asking, kept, you know, trying to work things and they ended up giving it to me. So it really does work. But you got to know, I know, right? I would have never gotten it if I hadn’t asked like hey, like I want to thermostats instead of just one. So yeah, that was one that I wanted to share with you that I thought was a good one. But I I love how negotiating pricing can actually help our budget. But if we are still trying to get our spouses on board with these financial goals that we have, what are some ways that we can do better with that? Because I know I had some really big goals. And at first my husband’s like, I don’t know about that. But after a while he did come around. But I just want to know if you had any tips on that, before we signed off?

Rho 21:49
Yes. So I think getting the spouse on board is one of the tough parts, right when we have this awakening of what we could do to improve our finances, and we’re super excited about it. And then we come to our spouse, like yes, and we can do this. And we can do that. And we’re going to have to cut this and we’re going to do that right. And I think where we tend to go wrong there is we come to our spouses talking about what we’re going to do, right, we have seen all of these different stories about the things that people have done and the debt that they’ve paid off, and all of that. And we come to them, after having immersed ourselves in all of this information for however long. But the issue is, your spouse has not had the benefit of that same time that you’ve had in researching this information and seeing the stories and seeing the transformations and all of that. And when you are approaching your spouse for the first time, rather than talking about the what that you’re going to do all of the things that you have to cut and the you know, sacrifices and whatever, talk about why you want to do it. And when you have that kind of conversation and you dream together about what you see for your life, what you guys want your life to look like in the future, and how paying off debt or saving more or whatever this goal is, can get you there. That’s how you get them on board. They don’t care about the what until they know the why. And so I think that that is the number one thing. The second thing is don’t come telling your spouse about what Rosa said or what you know, Susie Orman said or what Dave Ramsey said, or you know, whoever they don’t know these people, right? They have not been listening to their podcasts or reading their books or whatever the way that you have. And so if you want to present a new topic, a new idea, don’t make it about what this other person says. Right? Just present the idea and see, you know, have a conversation about it. But you don’t want it to always be this person says this, well, this person says that, well, this person says this because your spouse is going to be tired of hearing about this person.

Real Happy Mom 24:05
Yes. And you reminded me when I first got married to my husband, he used to tell me like, oh, we’re gonna hear the What do you call it the book cord into mom, because I would always be like mom said this, and mom said that, and yet, it didn’t go so well for like the first six months of our marriage. But I finally got the hint. And I started saying what mom said so yes, I like that tip to not talk about what Roe said, but to present the idea and to focus on the why versus the what those are two really, really good ones. So thank you for sharing that one row. And one other thing I wanted you to give us before we go is either a motivational quote or some words of encouragement for us Real Happy Mom.

Rho 24:50
So one of my favorite quotes is by Henry Ford. And he said if you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right, right. That just underscores the importance of our mindset, when we have any sort of goal, whether it’s something related to money, something related to parenting, something related to wifing. You know, whatever it is, when you think that you can do something, then your brain will figure out the ways to make it happen. But when you think you can’t, then you’re going to be discouraged. And you’re not going to take the actions you need to take to get this result that you say that you want.

Real Happy Mom 25:26
Yes, yes. I love that quote. I love it. Love it. And thank you so much for sharing that I wrote, thank you so much for coming on and sharing all this goodness with us. This was really, really good.

Rho 25:36
Thank you again, for having me. It was a lot of fun.

Real Happy Mom 25:39
Yes, in a row. Before we go, let us know where we can connect with you or learn more about you online.

Rho 25:45
Yeah, so you can find me at my website. It’s ro Thomas calm. That’s our h o thomas.com. I also have a podcast called wealthy s. And you can find that at ro Thomas comm slash podcast. And then come connect with me on Instagram. I’m at I am ro Thomas.

Real Happy Mom 26:04
Awesome, awesome. And I will make sure to include all those links in the show notes. Again, thank you guys so much for coming on. This was awesome.

Rho 26:10
Thank you, Tony and take care.

Real Happy Mom 26:15
Now that does it for this episode of the Real Happy Mom podcast, make sure you head over to Real Happy mom.com slash podcast to find the links in the show notes for this episode. And do me a favor and let me know if this has been helpful for you. And I want to actually challenge you to actually take things a step further, because it’s one thing to actually hear us and listen to us. But it’s another thing to actually start to implement things and take action. So one of the things I wrote mentioned was looking at our budget and then negotiating prices for either a B cable, or your health insurance are not health insurance, maybe your car insurance, maybe you could do your health insurance, who knows. But just look at some of the different line items in your budget and see if there is something that you can negotiate a better price for. Because if you’re like me, and with a cable company for eight years, and each year the price goes up. I guarantee you, you can get a better rate. So look and see what it is and see if you can get a better rate and if you’re feeling really boat send me a DM on Instagram at Real Happy Mom and let me know if you’ve actually done this because it is time for us to start making progress and start seeing results when it comes to our financial goals. Now that does it for this episode. Make sure you tune in next week for another episode. Take care and we’ll talk to them

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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