BiggerPockets Money Podcast - 209: Creating Financial Runway to Start a 7-Figure Business w/ Bola Sokunbi

Episode Date: June 28, 2021

Growing up, Bola Sokunbi had some serious financial influence from her parents. Her father would tell her “Don’t be penny wise and pound foolish” while her mom showed her the importance of being an independent woman who could financially stand on her own. They both influenced her to become the financial author, mentor, and teacher she is today with Clever Girl Finance. Bola split her youth between Europe and Africa, and when given the chance to go to college back in Europe, her mom cashed out her retirement savings to give her daughter the gift of education. Bola worked through college and graduated with zero debt! She then went on to live in New York City, making $54,000 a year at her first job, which to her, was like getting a million dollars! As she saved up to buy her first home and later started investing in more growing assets, she saw her friends who made 3x her salary, spend all their money on designer handbags, expensive dinners, and luxury apartments. She knew she didn’t want to be surrounded by financially irresponsible people, so she distanced herself from those friends, and began her journey to FI. Now, Bola has a business pulling in six figures every month! She teaches women how they can start investing, have financial confidence, and live life on their terms.  In This Episode We Cover The importance of education, even in today’s world  The great sacrifices Bola’s parents made for her to be successful Starting side income streams so you can invest and save more Selling the investments you don’t feel comfortable with, and why everyone doesn’t need to be a landlord Saving a massive financial runway before quitting your full-time job Starting Clever Girl Finance and her new book The Side Hustle Guide  And So Much More! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Bigger Pockets Money podcast show number 209, where we interview Bola Socombe from Clever Girl Finance and hear her story of saving and saving and investing and living her best life. When I had friends who were living in Times Square and they had an apartment that cost I think $7,000 a month. They both split it. So $3,500 each not to factor in eating out and all those kinds of things. And some people even lived alone. And of course you have to buy the Louis Vuitt home back. and the Chanel bag to go with your parachute that you got from theory that cost you $600. So it was like, so after a while, I just started to

shy away from those people because I did like all those nice things, but I just, I couldn't afford it. I couldn't, I couldn't keep up. Like, I could barely pay for my dinner when I went out to eat with them because of where they wanted to go to eat. Hello, hello, hello. My name is Mindy Jensen. And with me, as always, is my compulsive reader co-host, Scott Trench.

Word, Mindy, thank you. Scott and I are here to make financial independence less scary, less just for somebody else. To introduce you to every money story, because we truly believe that financial freedom is attainable, no matter when or where you're starting. That's right. Whether you want to retire early and travel the world, go on to make big time investments in assets like real estate, or start your own business. We'll help you reach your financial goals and get money out of the way so you can launch yourself towards your dreams. I am super excited to talk to Bola today because she is just a delightful person. And I love

her story and I was really wanting to get her on the show and then somebody posted in the Facebook group, I am so in love with Bola. So Kambi, can you please get her on the show? I'm like, it's already scheduled. I love what she says in her story. She came over from Europe, from Nigeria, and her story is actually not that dissimilar to the money stories of people who have lived in America their whole lives. Other than having to figure out the way that America, American money works. She came from nothing. Most of us also have no financial background. She didn't really have anybody she could ask, like her parents or, you know, brothers and sisters because they didn't really know how the American system worked. Again, not so different from people who

have been born and raised in America. Unless you're taught how the money system works, you don't know. And there's not a lot of like fallback on your parents because they don't know either. So I just, I really enjoyed talking to her today and hearing her story. Yeah, I think it's a great story. And I think that it's a reflection on her values that she was taught growing up, values that are shared across many different, you know, upbringings, both, you know, from folks that grew up abroad and in the United States. And then a slow journey of slowly kind of accumulating knowledge about how to invest and build

wealth and become an entrepreneur and those types of things. And it's really awesome to see how effectively, and well, she played her hand and to become a very successful entrepreneur ultimately here today. And so I think it's been a really fun journey and hats off to her. That was awesome. Yeah, I think she has an insatiable curiosity and drive. And it comes from, you know, the experiences she had growing up, like you said. But yeah, she is not going to be stopped. And she is like a freight train running down the track. Just I am going to succeed. And I love her, her enthusiasm. season is one of the only times all year when most people actually look at their full financial

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first audiobook free when you sign up for a free 30-day trial at audible.com slash BP Money. Bolus Okunbi from Clever Girl Finance. Welcome to the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. I am so excited to talk to you today. Thank you for having me, Mindy. I'm excited to talk with you as well. I cannot wait to tell your story because I do see a lot of parallels between your money journey and frankly my own money journey.

So I would love to hear where your journey with money begins. So I would say my journey with money begins just with earliest memory. of what my parents would tell me about what to do with money if I had it, right? My dad would always say penny-wise, pound foolish, which is a British saying that basically means if you cannot manage your money when you have a little, doesn't matter how much money you end up having, you're not going to be able to manage it either. And both of my parents will always tell me that I never want to be a financial liability on anybody, not even myself.

And so I always wanted to make sure that I had my own money. And this is something that my parents would tell me all the time. And I think that a really significant part of my money journey or story just comes from observing my parents, observing my mother as a young child. So, you know, my mom got married very young. She was 19 years old. My dad was in his 30s. He had a PhD.

My mom had a high school diploma. And as where the times back then, it was nothing unusual. Women typically got married very young and they get married and they become stay-at-home moms while the husband goes out to be, you know, the breadwinner. And my mom, as she started to get older in her marriage, older and age, she started to see things that she didn't feel comfortable with. She was seeing friends trying to leave bad relationships and they couldn't because they had no idea of the family finances. She was seeing friends who unfortunately would lose a spouse and they would.

have nowhere to go because, again, no idea of the family finances. And there are many times where I would sit in the corner of the living room and listen to my mom, console, a friend of hers, who was in a difficult situation or who had come over with suitcases at her kids because she had nowhere else to go and she was going to be spending the night at our house. So I think those were the, you know, like listening to the advice my parents would give me and just observing my mother, most especially, were the beginnings of my money story. And let's look at high school. And school in college. Did you go to high school in America? No. So I was actually born in Austria. I was born in Europe. I went to part of grade school there. And then I went to part of grade school in Nigeria.

And then I went to high school in Nigeria and then part of college in Austria. And then I came to the U.S. to graduate. Wow. And how is your financial situation? Look, that sounds like a lot of plane trips. I don't know what the cost of college is in any of those countries. I mean, it was really by virtue of what my parents did. So my dad was, you know, working for the government at the time, and he got an assignment to work in Vienna, you know, as an econometrition. It's not a lot of people know, but there is about, there are about eight econometricians at any given time that work for OPEC fund,

and they represent the highest oil-producing countries. and what they do is they are mathematicians and physicists, and they set crude oil prices globally. And so that is what my dad did. And it was on an eight-year tenure, working for the Nigerian government. So I happened to be born there at the time. And then his tenure ended.

We moved back to Nigeria. And then I had the opportunity to go to college abroad. And the opportunity to go to college abroad really came from just economic instability in Nigeria at the time. There was an unstable government. There were a lot of, of strikes by university professors and other workers where sometimes a strike would be nine months and then they would go back to school for three months and they'll be on strike for another 12 months.

And so it was taking a long time. I had cousins who were in university six and seven years later because of all of this instability. And so at the time, my parents were like, okay, you know, do what are the options? Can you go to college here? To give you a bit more backstory, you know, when I was born, my dad was, my dad is someone who, if there's anything he can give to a child, he's going to give you education. Education is something that is valued more so than anything to him because of the opportunity that it gave him. And my dad comes from a background of poverty. He was, both of my parents are first to go to college, first to go to great school, them and their siblings. And that's because my grandparents did not really, they didn't,

have the money, number one and number two, my grandfather and my father said I didn't really trust the whole colonial education, just given the history of, you know, colonialists in Nigerian. So my dad didn't start grade school until he was 13. But going to grade school, going to college, getting scholarships, he was able to create this life for himself and his family. And to him, education was the most important gift that he could give. So my dad spent the bulk of his earnings, sending my brothers to the best schools that he could afford, to the best colleges that he could afford. At the time that, and at the time that it was time for me to go to college, my dad had health issues that caused him to retire about 15 years earlier than planned.

And in the grand scheme of somebody's retirement planning, 15 years is a huge amount of time. And so the question that became, can we afford to send you to college here abroad, I mean, or do you just have to just figure out the strikes and just hang tight and go to school here. And at that time, my mom stepped up, she's like, you know what, I'm going to support you going to college because I've been putting money aside. And sending you to college abroad is at the expense of my retirement, and it's not your right. It's an opportunity that I'm giving to you. And your goal is to seek out whatever scholarships you can get and to do well in school. And so my mom, you know, ended up supporting me through college with me getting a partial

scholarship and she was working her butt off for me to go to school abroad starting out in Austria, which was the easiest place to go to. I went to the college my mom had actually gone to. So after my mom, you know, started to see those things happening with her friends that she didn't like, she decided that she wanted to take her own financial wellness into her own hands, whether or not, you know, my dad was bringing in money. She wanted to be able to contribute to the household finances. So my mom went to school with me as a three or four year old and I went to all her, her college classes with her, and I would sit in the corner and she would tell me to and I ended up going to the university that she went to, and she supported me through that.

So going to college came at a very great expense. People sometimes hear, oh, your mom paid for college, you must have a money tree in the back of your house. But there really was, you know, the option was to stay and see when I would even start college, given the strikes in Nigeria or go abroad, right? And I couldn't qualify for any student loans at the time. At the time, time just because I was not a U.S. citizen, even if I was going to an American university. So I would have liked to have student loans if I could have afforded it to give my mom a break. And so knowing that I couldn't do that, I just went and tried to figure out how to get partial scholarships. And I got a scholarship working at the library and I got a scholarship working at the computer lab.

And those two scholarships combined helped me pay for half of my tuition. And then it got to a point where there was just no money to pay, right, in between leaving Vienna and moving to here in the U.S. And so I took a year out of college, right? So I took for a four-year degree, it took me five and a half years to complete it because there just was not money to pay for college and I couldn't get any loans, right? Even though I wanted to. So that's, that's in a nutshell, the story of college. What did you do for that year in your break? Oh, I got, I was able to get some part-time random work. I sold Avon to my mom's friends.

I went home to visit my parents. It was, you know, I did all kinds of random things. Nice. So what was the position upon graduation? What were your debts? It sounds like you didn't have any debts, but what was your degree in? What were you left with at the end of college? So fortunately,

without really realizing it, I came out of college with no student loans. That was a blessing in disguise. My older brothers are American citizens. They have student loans. And I didn't really understand what it meant, you know, not to have student loans. But I quickly realized that it meant not having a payment and it meant not owing anybody tens of thousands of dollars, right, including my brothers who owed student loans as well. And so I studied computer science and business in school. I came out of college and I went straight into working in consulting. And for me, I just wanted to be able to help my mom. I wanted to make my parents proud. I wanted to make money. And so I got a job in consulting where I was making about $54,000 before

taxes in New York City. And to me, that was like, oh my God, amazing. The most amount of money I had ever made in my entire life, I was rich, basically, with my $40,000 after taxes. It quickly dawned me that if I was going to live, that was not a lot of money. But I somehow made it work because I had just never been exposed to that much money before. So even though to many people, that was not a lot of money, to me, it was like, wow, I've never had this much money before. Yeah. So you studied computer science and business. That is, what year did you graduate? First, let's go back to that. Oh, my gosh. I graduated in 2004. Okay. So I think that right there is forward thinking. And graduating without student loans, I know a lot of Americans graduate with

student loans. That's just the thing. And I love that, I mean, I don't love that you couldn't get student loans, but I do love that you couldn't get student loans because look at what an advantage you have. And yes, it took five years instead of four, but I know a lot of people on a five-year plan, the six-year plan, and they come out with student loans. And they just, like, they squander the opportunity because they don't recognize what a huge opportunity it is to go to college in general. I mean, I did not study computer science and business like an intelligent person would. I studied fashion design, which is not a passion of mine. And I worked in the industry like once.

Your dad started grade school at age 13 and became an econometrition, which is a thing I've never even heard of before. but I don't spend a lot of time with OPEC either. So that's just the value of education is so big. And I think that so many people don't recognize what an honor it is to have an education. It is. For me, it's something that I don't take lately. So like I said, my grandfather was not a fan of anything that had to do with colonial education

or what he would call the white men's education. and in his opinion, he felt that if he was going to send anyone to this school, then he was going to send his male child. So my dad has a twin sister who is not formerly educated. So my aunt, my dad has a PhD. My aunt does not read and write in the traditional sense. Like she can do math in her own way, but it's not the way that it's taught in schools. She doesn't speak any English because she didn't go to school in English.

She didn't go to school at all. And it's just seeing that. contrast between the two of them, twin siblings, who are best friends, but have completely different lives just based on education. And also the fact that just given the time, the female child was not necessarily prioritized. And I think that was something that was just worldwide, right? There is a woman's place. There is a place for the, for the girl. And when you think about it, it's, you know, you look back at even the movies or you look back at, depending on the age of your listener, your, your grandparents generation, even your parents generation, even your parents

generation, the daughters are always taught the recipes from the grandma. It's always something passed down a recipe, some great recipe. And then the boys are always pulled aside to talk about business and money and, you know, things that are more, in today's world, men are more comfortable talking about finances, whereas women, it's more of a struggle because generationally, that was just never our place. Like, even in the States, in order to open a bank account or buy a house, you have to take a man with you at some point. Right. So education is something that gave my family many opportunities. And like I said, Mindy, both of my parents, right, and their siblings were the first to go to college, first to go to

grade school. My mom on the other side, you know, her and all her siblings were formally educated, but her parents were not either, right? They were typically traders or farmers. They had some type of trade that they did that was not tied to a formal education. And so my dad, just based on the opportunities he had with his own education. He wanted to, he doesn't believe in, I give you a million dollars and that's your inheritance because you can blow that money. But once you have your education, you always have it with you and you can use your education to become anything that you want to. And that was his philosophy. And so, you know, and my mom had that. And that's why she was like, you know what, at the expense of my retirement, I'm going to help you go to college so that you can

get this good education. And my mom was working and hustling while I was going to college. Like she would use her saving. She would get paid and it would immediately go to my college tuition. So it wasn't like, oh, there was some tree at the back of her house that we went and pulled down the dollar bills. And keep in mind at the beginning of my college education, they were converting from a lower currency to dollars. So when I was in college in Austria, I was in American University and my tuition was in dollars. You're, wait, you were in college in Austria and your tuition was in American dollars. Was it, so this is where my ignorance shows.

I don't know anything about the cost of European education. Was it the same price as an American education? Like, you can come here and you can pay $30,000, $100,000 a year. Yes, it was an American university in Austria that I went to. And I actually came to the American campus for my last. year to graduate. So it was the same costs. I think it was even more expensive because it was Europe. Okay. So you, your mom was working and paying and were you working during college as well or were you just going to school? So I had that work scholarship where I was working at the library,

the library and the computer lab. And I was just, I couldn't work formally like get a job in the mall or anything like that. But I took advantage of that. Like I would photocopy all of my textbooks. I never bought any textbooks because they were all in the library and I had nothing but time. So I would sit in the library and copy hundreds and hundreds of pages. And I was allowed to do that. That was a perk of me working there. So I always had textbooks. Yeah, because textbooks are very expensive.

They cost $100, $200 for one book. And if you have six classes, that's a lot of money. Yeah, no, that's like half the cost of college right there is the books. And then when you go to sell them back to the library or the bookstore, they can pay. Yeah, it's the last edition. You get $25 for it. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. So fast forward from college. You spent your last year in America at the university. You graduated with no debt. You started your job. And you were making $40,000 a year after taxes, which is, I hear that. And you say you're in New York City. And I'm like, ooh, that's not very much.

Were you living with your mom or your brothers or were you living by yourself? I mean, that right there eats up most of the money is the housing expense. Yeah, so I lived at home for the first six months. And those first six months, my mom was like, listen, you have a job. It's time for you to go. Like, figure out where you're going. Pack up your things. I've helped you pay for college.

Now you are a free bird. Move out. So during those six months, I've saved. about $15,000 to put towards a down payment on a condo. And then I ended up getting, you know, I was during those six months living with my mom, my brother also lived closer to New York City. So I would kind of like flip between both of them and go to work. And I saved a purchase a condo, which I purchased in South Jersey.

And I would make the commute to New York City, which wasn't that bad. It was about an hour. You know, and then eventually, based on my consulting work, I wasn't spending as much time in New York City anymore. So I was able to save to buy my first place within those first six months of coming out of college, getting that job. But I think I got that job about a month out of college. But I was so hungry to work that I went and got a job in CVS as soon as I graduated, even just before graduation, because I finished all my course requirements in March so that I could leave campus so that my parents wouldn't have to pay for tuition for what's it called housing. And

my graduation wasn't until May. So in March, I got a job at CVS and I worked as a cashier and a Photoshop photo technician where I, you know what they do with the pictures when people had film and you would process all of that. So I was making, I don't remember, like $750 or $8 an hour. And so I started saving that as well. And I would walk to the CVS like 20 minutes from my mom's house. So yeah. So you have a condo and you have $15,000 at, you know, with this in a It's a year after graduation. What do you begin doing with your money and begin to, you know, where does your kind of like wealth building journey with money kind of begin moving forward, I guess?

So I put that $15,000 towards the condo. That was my down payment for the condo. I think it cost me like $135,000 or something like that after the down payment. And this is in New York? This is in New Jersey. New Jersey. And I have a mortgage of about $900. My credit was great.

I went and got a car because I needed to drive to New York City and drive all over the whole place to my consulting jobs. So I had a car note for about, I think about with insurance and everything, the car note was about $300. It wasn't any kind of fancy car. And I had my basic utilities. And I told myself, okay, I have this massive amount of money that I'm earning. I want to save. I want to just make my parents proud. You know, my parents, they don't, they're, my parents are not like, you're going to take care of me in return.

retirement. But having them see me do well was it made them very happy. Having them know, them knowing that I was being responsible made them very happy. So I just wanted to save. And I didn't, I didn't know anything about the American system. I knew what my parents had told me about penny wise, pound foolish, save the money you have. But I didn't know what a 401k was. I didn't know about credit. I didn't know any of these things. And I remember sitting at the first HR orientation for my job. And they were talking about this 401 can. I'm like, why would I, why would I, why would you pay me?

Then I pay you back with my money so that you can invest it for me. I don't think so. And so in my mind, I'd already canceled the whole idea of 401K. I was like, what a stupid idea. And then the next day they came back to just talk about it again. And she's like, well, if you contribute, we'll give you. a 100% match up to 6% of your contribution. And I had my pen on my table and I did the math.

And I was like, wait a minute, 6% of this amount, whatever it is, times 100%, whatever it is, that's a lot of money. You know what? Sign me up. I'll take my chances with you this first year. So I signed up for the 401K just to get that match. That was my first step. Second thing I did was I wanted to save cash.

I wanted to put cash in the bank. So I opened up a credit union. My mom had a credit union in Tennessee at the time. And she's like, you know, it's a great way to save money. Credit unions are great. They're customer friendly. At the time, they didn't really have a good online portal. So I had to fill out all this paperwork.

I didn't understand why I was doing it, but I did anyway. And then I had a percentage of my paycheck sent there every paycheck. And my goal was to save at least, if I'm getting my math right, my goal was to save at least $800 to $1,000 a month. to send a paycheck to send to that credit union. So I started saving cash. I started investing my 401K. I started teaching myself how to invest, made all kinds of ridiculous errors.

And initially, when I first started learning how to invest, I thought that I needed to go talk to a financial advisor because they know about investing in America. So I go to this financial advisor's office after I had saved a good amount of cash. I think I had about $10,000 or $12,000. And he said to me, he started asking me all these questions that initially I thought, I thought they were in line with what I told him I wanted to do. I want to retire at 65. That was what they said we were going to retire at in the 401K meeting.

And you walked out with a life insurance policy. No, no, no. He said, I mean he started saying, well, where did you get this money? Who gave it to you? Do you have a boyfriend? Are you married? And I'm like, oh. Oh, that's way worse.

Why do you? He's like, but you're like 22. Why do you have this money? Why do you? And I'm like, what do you? He just wanted to know where I got. Like, I think in his. mind, I had stolen it and I had come there trying to get him to help me invest money that I took

from somewhere. And I was so angry when I left that, um, left that meeting. And you know what? I realized in talking to my friends that I was not alone. I had another friend who went to talk to a financial advisor and she had a lot of student loans. And the guy basically told her, you know, what the solution to your problem is to marry rich. No, it's not. That, that is a viable. path to financial freedom. That is what he told her. We never discussed that strategy here on the money show, Mindy. Yeah. I didn't. I'm married rich. Help herself. You're in New York City. You can find a rich husband. That's basically what I told her. So I left angry and then I just started figuring out how to invest. I made all kinds of ridiculous errors. I bought high and sold a low. I made gains and didn't think about

taxes. And eventually I started to learn. And I started, um, investing more. I ended up maxing up my 401k. And then I started a side hustle. So you just, you just went through, I think this is great, but you said, hey, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, you went your own path. You start at 22, you get this, you get this horrible experience with the financial planner. And then you kind of figure it out. How long is that path of figuring it out? But do we just go through a three year period, a five year period, a 10 year period? How, how, how, how, how, what did that look like? So by the time, so actually not 22, I'm sorry, I think I was 24 years old. I graduate college at 24. So I had that five and a half years. So I started like

18 and a half and I finished at 24. So it's 24. And three and a half years later coming out of college, I had saved over $100,000. So I had saved about $120,000 between my 401k and my cash savings. So that was the window of time from 24 to three and a half years later, 27 and a half, 28 years old. And during that period, you're investing in the 401k and you're investing in the 401k and you're also trying other things experimentally. And your, your opinion is that you're doing a bad job with those investments. But it sounds like it couldn't have been too bad with the $100,000 at 27. Yeah. I did do a bad job. I mean, I mean, there was certain, the 401K was the saving grace, right? Because I was, I started, I didn't max out the first year because I thought it was a scam.

But then when I got together, when I realized that it wasn't, I ended up maxing that out. I got advantage of the free match. There were a lot of gains before that 2008 recession happening in the market. So that was beneficial. I was saving cash. And then I started this side hustle. And I started a wedding and lifestyle photography side hustle, which I had for seven years, right? But those, I had run it for about two, one and a half to two years before hitting that $100,000 mark. On the first year of that side hustle, I made $10,000. The second year of that side hustle, I made about $30,000. The first $10,000, I paid the little taxes that I owed and I spent all the money buying equipment. and then the next year was just really more profits

because I already had my equipment that I needed. And I was very much self-taught, and that was very helpful. But the side hustle was, it was something that I wanted to do to increase my income. And I felt that I was limited by the few percentage raise I was getting, right? So by the time I got to that 28-year age, I think my salary was about 70,000 before taxes, $72,000. And I was like, if I want to try to save as much as possible, I need to think about how to bring in more money. And I stumbled into photography by accident, but I made it a gig because I realized that people would pay me, even if my pictures were not that great. And then I realized,

the better I got, the more I could charge, right? And, you know, well after I had reached that $100,000 milestone, my highest earning year, working full time doing wedding photography was about $70,000, which most of it was profits, because like I said, I already had. the bulk of my equipment. So I was doing that. I was doing that evenings, weekends. I was shooting Friday, Saturday, Sunday, working, sometimes getting in an airplane, traveling all over. I would take my work laptop and my personal laptop and I would be editing on the plane or editing in the hotel, wherever I was editing at home. I was always editing. And I remember at that time, a lot of my friends who I had met working in New York City started to ask me questions like, what is wrong with you?

Like, why are you doing all this? Like, do you have money problems? And it was a lot of pressure for me because these were friends that worked on Wall Street. Their bonus was two, three times my annual salary. And I just couldn't understand why they were making 100 plus at 24, 25, 100K plus getting bonuses of 50 to 100 to $150,000. And they had $60,000 to student loans, but they had not paid it off. And it would just like, oh, my God, I can't believe I have these loans. It's just so expensive.

It's so stressful. I don't know how I'm going to pay it off. But you make like 200 or 250 combined, but their lifestyles, right, were really high. You know, back in 2006, 2007, I had friends who were living in Times Square and they had an apartment that cost, I think, $7,000 a month. They both split it. So $3,500 each not to factor in eating out and all those kinds of things. And some people even lived alone.

And of course you have to buy the Louis Vuitton bag and the Chanel bag to go with your parachute that you got from theory that cost you $600. So it was like, so after a while I just started to shy away from those people because I did like all those nice things, but I just, I couldn't afford it. I couldn't keep up. Like I could barely pay for my dinner when I went out to eat with them because of where they wanted to go to eat. So I just threw myself into my work and saving and investing so that I could, you know, tell

my mom my balance at the end of each month. So, yeah, so what was the why behind it? Why were you, why were you going this, you know, doing this two jobs basically full time, weekends and during the work week to, to save all this money? Was financial freedom the goal? Or was there something else that was driving this? It wasn't financial freedom. Like, for me, I was, I was young. When you're so young, you don't think about, like, financial freedom. I mean, you do, but not to that extent. Like, that was not something on my mind. I didn't have a problem working. But for me, was just like the sacrifices my parents had made. My dad had retired 15 years earlier. The college

tuition my parents had paid could have gone towards my mom not having to work as hard as she had to work. My mom not having to move with me or immigrate to the states, you know, so that she could create like some sort of landing, landing spot for me to come to when I came to that last year of college. Just thinking about my aunts and thinking about, you know, other people. people, my family, who were not as fortunate as me, right? Who, my cousins, who were taking seven years to go to college, just many, there are many circumstances in terms of my background that I just wanted to do well. I wanted to have my own security.

And also, I got to sit and listen to my mom and watch my mom console her friends. And the fair of broke, I think is one of my, the fair of being broke is, is definitely a big mindset challenge for me, just watching. that, like seeing a mother with her children and suitcases crying in your house because she cannot go back to a husband who's beating her, it's something that you don't, as a child, it stays with you. And I just never want to find myself in that position. I never wanted to be in that position. I always wanted to be able to, if my parents said, you know what, we need money for this. I wanted to be able to say, here it is. If I needed to exit a bad relationship, I needed to be

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with that first 100,000 because they say that's the hardest, the first 100,000 is always the hardest. That's what Charlie Munger says. And then after that, it just becomes plain boring. I just continue to save. I continue to invest. I make more money mistakes in real estate. and investing. And then I also, I also relax a little bit, right? I get more comfortable with the fact that I have saved $100,000. And I have spent the last three years eating ramen noodles, which I did actually eat. I remember at work, because I was so aggressive saving every penny, I would get to work early and walk around and talk to the admins to see who was retiring today. Who is having a baby shower today? Who's birthday is it today? So that I knew exactly when to show up at the conference room and be like, happy birthday. happy retirement. Here's your piece of cake. Here's your free lunch. And I would take that so ridiculous that one of the admins at work, she got to know me. And at the end of every night, if there was leftover food, you say, hey, Bola, let's go grab. The leftover put that we could take it home for dinner. I was, I had no shame in my game. So I continued to save. Obviously, you know, I splurged

more. I bought desired handbags. But I just, I never stopped saving. And then obviously I got married, had kids. And when you bring children into the world, the dynamics of your savings change. Start a business, quit my full-time job. But for me, you know, one thing that my parents taught me is that no matter how much money you make, or no matter how little money you make, you always want to save a percentage of everything you earn. It's a dollar, save 10 cents. It's $100, save $10. So that has always just been part of, even though I spend money, even though I've overspent sometimes, I always save. And then I figure out how to figure out my overspending without touching my savings.

Well, so we just skip through a ton of key points there. But like, let's highlight a couple of the big milestones. Where, you know, does your, at some point you flesh out, you said you made investing mistakes. So at some point you flesh out a more holistic investment approach, it sounds like. When was that developed? And it could be over five years. But what is that? And how was that developed?

over this period. So for me, it's, it's just, I can be impatient sometimes, right? And sometimes I like to invest in the companies I like, but may not necessarily be a good fit for my life. And sometimes, you know, when I tie in the impatience to that, it just doesn't work. I remember Bath and I really used to like Gap. And Gap was going through a lot of financial instability. I think their stock was something like $7.

I don't know what it is right now. I don't think it's $7 anymore. And I would buy Gap stock. And then they went through some issues and this is stock fell, fell, and I sold it and I lost all this money. So it's things like that. And then taking stock tips from coworkers who had no idea about investing either and going to buy the Kmart. And Kmart obviously went bankrupt and their stock fell to 32 cents or something like that. It was like 31 cents, 32 cents, something ridiculous, lost all my money.

So I just realized that for me, slow and steady diversification. eventually moved from, you know, a 401k offerings had only mutual funds, eventually moved into index funds to minimize on costs and not try to time the market. And I still do invest in individual stocks, especially now that I'm teaching my kids how to invest. It's a concept that's easier for them to understand

than a big blob of an index fund. But now my investing strategy is just very, very simplified. I had also purchased real estate because I thought that maybe I could be a landlord and they realize I actually hate being a landlord. So I sold those. So, you know, for me, it's more simple. It's more less stress investing.

I'm not a stock picker. I have no interest in doing that. So that's kind of where I'm at now. Okay. And, you know, you start to feel comfortable or at least less pressure for money around the $100,000 mark. You know, what's like a, you know, when you got married and started having kids, how how did you kind of feel about your financial situation there?

And did you make any changes to your career or lifestyle based on that, on those events? So, I mean, obviously I made changes with my kids. Kids cost a lot of money. And I have twins. So it's a lot of money all at once, right? But getting married, I was also the breadwinner in my family because my husband was still in school.

So it was just, I couldn't be as scrappy anymore, right? I couldn't say let's eat ramen noodles for dinner every day. It just didn't seem fair. That's just how I felt because we didn't have to. But I think for me, one of the adjustments was just getting, my husband and I getting on the same page when it came to finances, right? My husband is very confident. He was very confident as a student even though he wasn't making any money just in his capabilities. whereas I'm like, I have to pinch every penny.

He's like, calm down. Just create your plan and work your plan. I'm like, but what am I going to do while I'm working the plan? So just getting on the same page, making so we're aligned with our goals, you know, just talking about money, right? And just the whole idea of joint finances because I'm like, I've worked so hard for this. Why should I tell you how much money I have? But, you know, it was just getting into that space.

My husband is very much an open book. And so we kind of found our money language and have been able to work accordingly. And it also helps that we have similar goals and we're able to work in our goals together now. Did you talk about money before you got married? Did you have the money conversation? Yes. So, and for me, my conversation about money was I was not going to marry someone that had no ambition, even if they had no money. And I would certainly not marry a deadbeat broke ass because I know where I'm coming from.

And I remember when I told you, I saved that $15,000 for my house down payment. I was dating a guy at the time. And I had told him, oh, I want to buy a condo. And I've saved $15,000. And he took that information in. And he came back to me the next day. He's like, oh, you know, I have this amazing business idea. It's only going to cost $15,000.

Can you loan me the money? That's a big coincidence. And that same day, I broke up with him because I was like, oh, no. Hell, good, good. Because he didn't have a business plan. He was not very ambitious. He was all about get rich quick. So my husband and I would definitely have this conversation.

And it was like stuff that sounded stupid at the time. Like, when do you think you'd be a millionaire? When do you think you'd be a millionaire? Where do you see yourself five years from now? What are your long-term goals? What kind of life do you want to live? What kind of card you want to do? What kind of house do you want to do you want to live in?

And it was just stuff that was just so outlandish, like a millionaire. Come on. That's a joke. You know, but we would have those conversations. And he was just very, he's a very hard worker. He was very open. My husband had a lot of student loans, unlike me. You know, so we got on the same page about money very, very easily, although there were,

although there were conflicts, right? Um, but yeah. One of the, um, big milestones in the, the financial freedom journey is kind of that transition to entrepreneurship. So some people, some folks retire and some folks quit their job and become an entrepreneur because, you know, and with the entrepreneurship, you know, the story often goes at the first year, there's not very much money kind of similar to your, your side hustle. And then in out years, you make way more money if things go well, of course.

How did your finance, the work you put in for the many years before you, you started your business or went to work for yourself, how did that financial position contribute to your decision to start a business? Was that a factor? Was that comfort level with your strength of your financial position? Did that come into play? Yes, it was definitely a factor. I mean, just even knowing that I had money in the bank was, it was still difficult

for me to quit my job, right? Because I just didn't want to miss out on an opportunity for consistent income. I didn't want to miss out on this opportunity for a 401 cam. my husband would say, well, if you don't, if you have this entrepreneur streak and you've, you've sold this Avon, you've had this photography business for seven years, you know you have what it takes to build a business. Why not take a chance? And in my head, I was like, that is one year of $120,000 in salary, plus my bonus, plus my 401k match that I'm throwing out the window. He's like, you're not throwing it out the window if you kind of build a business that succeed.

So quitting my job was a big challenge for me, even though I had saved because I didn't want to quit my job. and have to start tapping into the savings I had built. So I acted like my savings did not exist. And I spent 18 months putting money aside to meet my own household financial obligations while I gave myself 12 months to run to get my business into the stride, which is Clever Girl Finance, and to see if I could even make it work. That's what I did. So you had a financial position.

You set 18 months, you continue working the job for another 18 months in preparation. or how'd that work? I put aside 18 months of my household obligation. So I didn't quit my job. I think I had I had been running Clever Girl Finance part time for two and a half years before I quit my job. But I had saved 18 months of runway to give me that mental comfort that I can do this and not touch my savings. And if it doesn't work out, I can go back to work. How much was Clever Girl bringing in in terms of monthly or annual spending before you decided to completely quit your actual job? The real job. So the first year I made $200.

Nice job. I was like, this is a hobby. This is not a business. Do not quit your job. And at the time I quit my salary, my base salary was $120,000. And I had a bonus. So let's just say I was making, let's say, between 120 to 140 if I got the bonus. And the year that I quit, Clevergo Finance was making $60,000.

And I had made $60,000 that year. And I remember talking to a friend of mine. I was like, I'm going to quit my job for a company, a business that's making less than my salary, no 401k, no match, no tax deferred benefits. And she was in the same position. And she's like, I don't know how we're going to do it, but let's just do it. So I had my 18 months. And so I quit my job. And it's really, really interesting because a couple months ago, I was having this conversation with the same friend and we exchange income, like our monthly income accountability partners. And I was like, can you believe that we didn't want to quit our jobs

at that time, even though we had businesses that were making money that we knew we could grow, but we just had this big fear of what if because we're so tied up to our 401k and our income. I mean, it's a big risk. And obviously, I had the comfort of having money in the bank. And I had the comfort of having a working spouse, right? Not everybody has those things. But it's just interesting that that was one of my biggest fairs. And I was so, not willing to take the chance until I forced myself to do it. And then things failed from there, right? That didn't work out.

No. Things did not fail. I mean, it was hard. There were many times I cried. There were many times. I mean, I didn't pay myself a salary for the longest time. I remember that when I was able to pay myself a salary, I chose instead to pay a nanny to help me with my kids.

because I was I was worn to my finest, thinness. And many times I would update my resume. My resume was always updated and I'd apply for a few jobs. I even went on a few interviews and I was like, don't do this. You know, I just knew that I was, I had the opportunity to do something. Like I've done businesses where I've known that this is just a waste of time, end it now or cut your losses now. But for this, I just felt like you have to give this a chance. You have to give it an opportunity to grow.

And so I just would never follow through on the interviews. I even got hired once. And I just went back to my hustle struggle to make it work. I think that's important, though. That's a really great piece of advice. My resume was always updated because you never know when you're going to. Yeah, you do have to take care of people. I was like, I would even look for a part-time job if I could.

If I could find a part-time job, I would have done that. But it was just harder to do with my kids. There are many times I just cried. And my husband was like, what are you crying about? I gave up my salary of my 401k to do this. The 401K that you thought was a scam. My 401. I know.

So. So where is Clever Girl Finance now in terms of your annual spending? It sounds like you're covering your financial obligations to your family. and it has grown even more. Yes. So we've grown, without sharing my income, we've grown. Most months we do six figures.

Most months? Yes. It's very surreal at times. And it's also very stressful because there are, there's people who rely on the company for income to support their family. So I have this massive obligation to make it work no matter what. And it's going well. I sometimes sit back.

I'm like, wow, I can't believe that. We're at this point where, you know, there's this company. But it's going well. I am able to meet my financial obligations. I am able to pay myself a salary. I'm excited about potential growth into the future. And I'm proud of what I've been able to accomplish over the last six years. You left a six figure a year salary to now make six figures a month.

Are you working every minute of the day? Sometimes, not always, sometimes. Sometimes. I think that's something you could trade up. I have expenses. I have salaries to pay. There's a lot of things that go into keeping a business afloat, right? And I don't want people to like, oh, my God, wow.

Because a lot of times there are a lot of smoke and mirrors on social media, right? It does cost money to make money. Yeah. Social media influencers are keeping you broke. So the goal is to increase that revenue and in turn increase those profits. So what's next for Clever Girl? I have a book coming out this month. That's what's next.

My third book called The Side Hustle Guide, which is something that I'm excited about. My mom was a side hustle queen. I have always had some sort of side hustle going, right, as a way to buffer my income to help accelerate my savings goals. So I think, especially now in a world of a pandemic, if people can think about ways to create multiple streams of income, that can be so impactful. I'm super excited about that. That's your third book, you said. Yes. Yeah, that's going to be an awesome book. Okay. Well, we are now at the point of our show. where we go to our famous four questions,

which are the same questions we ask of all of our guests. Bola, are you ready? Yes. What is your favorite finance book? Mine. My first book, and I wrote that, I'll tell you the quick story, my first book,

it's called Clarewell Finance, Stitch Debt, Save Money, Build Real Wealth. This was a book I wrote to my younger self because when I first graduated from college, didn't know anything about money. I went to the bookstore, Borders, which is no longer around, and I went to find a personal finance,

book for women. For some reason, I wanted to find a personal finance book for women. And the number one bestselling book for women was written by a white man. And I did buy that book. And it was my favorite book for the longest, smart women finished rich. And I'm not going to write David Buck. Yes. I read that book to shreds on the bus on the commute to work wherever I was going till it was tattered and then I bought a new one. And I love that book. But I was like, this is from a guy's perspective. And it's the number one, New York. Times bestselling book, it still is for women if you look in that category. I'm going to write my own book to my own self.

So that's what I did. Jeez. That sounds a lot like J.L. Collins' Simple Path to Wealth, he wrote it to his daughter. I really like that. I like that. You wrote it to yourself. These are all the things that I wish I knew.

Yes. was your biggest money mistake? I have so many. But the one I talk about most often, that hurts me the most. So not the biggest, but the one that hurts me the most is my designer handbag collection. So no shame in my game. I love designer handbags. And once I hit that $100,000 mark, I got super, super comfortable.

And I was like, I'm going to buy a Chanel handbag. It cost me $2,850. Ridiculous, I know. But just to make you feel better, they actually cost closer to $7,000 today. So I bought this bag. And I was like, wow, I bought a Chanel bag. I love this bag. And I carried that bag so much.

I got my cost per wear. I didn't buy any other bag. So there was no $100, $25. I got my cost per where I got it down to cents on the dollar. And then I was like, you know what? I need another one. And then I need another one. And then what happened was that I was saving a lot less in order to buy this bag every time

I bought a bag. And I had this huge collection of bags that just didn't make any sense because I was barely using them. I was using that first one I bought. And then to make it worse, my husband. husband, then boyfriend was like, these bags are so ugly. What a waste of your money. This is what he says. He's like, what a waste? He's like, you have thousands of dollars stacked here in your closet rotting away. And that was like my wake-up call. I was like, no, what?

To hell with these bags, I can put this money in my bank account. I remember looking at some math that if I had taken the money I had spent on that first bag, 2850, and I had invested it, I would have something like when I did the math like $40,000. But fortunately for me, I bought a brand that held its value and increased in price. So a lot of those bags I sold for more than I paid a couple thousand for some. But it did not equal the money I could have made if I had invested it in the stock market. Wow. I can't believe you spent $2,800, $850 on a bag.

$850. Oh, my God. $2,850. I sold that bag for $5,000. Well, that's good that you made money on it, but that's, wow. I just, I'm not in that space, like, of, you know, really expensive bags. And it's always shocking to me that purses cost more than like $100. Yes.

I can't even pretend to know what I don't know about this. Don't get involved in that. You don't want to get involved in that. Don'ts. Because once you fall in love, it's hard. Listeners don't do it. Learn from me. What is your best piece of advice for people who are just starting out?

Just start. And I will also tell people to be very mindful about who they share their goals with. I've seen so many dreams be killed because they've shared it with people who have no ambition, no goals, no focus. And they make you feel stupid about wanting to be great, about wanting to succeed, about wanting to do well, about wanting to have financial security. So keep your goals close to your heart, right? And give them time to grow, give them time to establish roots. And then you can share. But don't let anybody kill your dreams because of their issues or their mindset blocks, right? And just start. Like I remember in the early stages of saving on my ramen noodle diet, I had done my budget and I had an extra $1 that I didn't have a purpose

for. And I had opened a local credit union that was 20 minutes away from my job. And I drove 20 minutes to put that $1 in the bank. And it cost me more than a dollar in gas to get there, but I wanted to continue with the habit of saving and the mindset of saving. And the teller looked at me like an idiot. You're going to deposit a dollar. Really? But I deposited it anyway. And that was such a huge confidence and just self-boost for me that I did it. I didn't spend that dollar. I put it in my account. And it sounds stupid, but I did it. But it really helped with my momentum and it really helped with my focus and my consistency. So it doesn't matter where you're starting with. Doesn't matter how small you have. Doesn't matter if you have a ton of debt. Start with

where you are and what you have right now. Oh, so good. Love it. All right. What is your favorite joke to tell at parties? I'm terrible with jokes, but I'll tell you a joke that my kids think is so funny. What is a cat's favorite color? Oh, I've never-purple. I apologize for that terrible joke. No, Scott loves those jokes. Okay, Bula, where can people find out more about you and give us all the places? Yes, you can find out more about me at clevergirlfinance.com. We are on Instagram and YouTube at Clevergall Finance.

You can also get the Clevergo Finance book series, wherever books are sold as a physical book, audiobook and ebook. And we have over 30 plus completely free courses that, We offer with no catches and no charge. You don't have to give us your credit card to help you as you work on improving your financial wellness. And the podcast? Yes.

It's called Clever Girls Note. Oh my gosh. Yes. I have a podcast called Clever Girls Know what I interview women from all kinds of backgrounds on money, life, and business. Awesome. We will link to all of that or as much as we can in the show notes at biggerpockets.com slash money show 210.

We will link to all of that because we have. Unlimited page link, Scott. Thank you. Bola, thank you so much for your time today. This was a fantastic episode, and I was so happy I was able to talk to you. Thank you so much for the opportunity. I appreciate being able to share with you. Okay, we'll talk to you soon.

Okay. Okay, that was Bola. So comfy from Clever Girl Finance. Scott, what do you think of her story? I think it's great. I think that, you know, she had to. invent or reinvent a lot of the basic processes of the financial independence journey. And she, because she's brilliant, she was able to do that with, you know, saving large

amounts of money and then kind of smelling the bad advice when it came across and, you know, being skeptical, but then ultimately taking action after she did the math. And ultimately, she was able to kind of have an opportunity to start a business and become very successful with it. And her instincts, I'm sure, are continuing to serve her really well as she's helping hundreds of thousands of people and, you know, bring it in a sizable income now with their business. So I think it's a fantastic story. And I think it should be encouraging to folks listening because if you can hear stories like this and replicate,

hey, if I just begin investing according to this formula much earlier on or I'm, you know, I'm doing a little less saving, a little more investing or a little more, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to put myself in position to take that opportunity a little sooner. You know, these types of stories you can learn from and then even piggyback on jumpstart and accelerate, you know, by following the playbook and learning from folks like Bola. Yeah, a little less buying Chanel handbags. That's funny, Scott. Oh, I don't know anything about this. Yep.

That's how you buy yourself some bigger pockets. Yeah. Oh, you said I did that. Oh, that's awful. They have $30,000 handbags, Scott. You have to get on a wait list to buy it. You know, I think I did purchase a couple of those little drawstring bags for $7 each. You know, I just carried the gym and all that now that it's opening back up.

But I don't know what I don't know about these handbags. I know what you don't know. It's ridiculous. Yeah, I love the tenacity, tenaciousness with which she pushed herself towards her goals and towards her, I'm going to accomplish this. And even when she didn't have those goals, she knew she had to save. And her parents telling her, save your money, save your money, save your money. There's what are, what are the four ones? The four tenants to financial independence got, spend less. She did that. Say earn more. She did that. Save your money and

invest wisely and start a business. So she did all of them. And now look at her. She runs her own company. She's employing other people and helping people live their best lives. And I'm just so excited that she took all these chances because now she's got her own best life. Yeah, absolutely. One thing I do want to additionally point out is the grind factor here. Bulla is making 100,000 or at least per month from her business nowadays. And my belief is that to have that type of opportunity at her stage in life, in a disproportionate number of cases, there is a period of years where there's a complete all-out grind going on. And she is complete evidence of that, working the two jobs, spending very little, you know, disassociating with certain people that, you know,

didn't resonate with those values, you know, during that period of time. And some friends that didn't understand why she wasn't living in a $3,500 a month apartment and those kinds of things. And that grind, I don't think it's a requirement for FI, but I think that it is disproportionately associated with stories of folks who seem to have gone on to amass a large amount of wealth or become entrepreneurs very early in their journeys here. At least so far to what we've seen on the money show. Yeah, there were, when she was telling her story, she would skip a little bit. And I thought that's the part that was grinding out. It's no fun to talk about. So for the next six months, I spent very little and saved a lot.

And I kept putting it in index funds. Like that's not an exciting, sexy story. Three years, right? Three years for her of ramen noodles and and photographing weddings and working, you know, slogging it out or to day job and seeing consistent raises and dramatic increase in income from her side hustle and stock plying the money. And from there, from that, financial fortress that she established, she's able to begin kind of like reassessing and accelerating her trajectory with that.

Yeah. And that's, you know, the key to financial freedom is not the sexy story. It's not the fun and excitement. It's the slog. It's the grind. It's the, you know, now what? We've spoken with a couple of people who are just starting their journey and they're in a good spot, but they're at the beginning of the slog.

And they're, you know, oh, now what? Well, now you just keep doing it. And it's not, you know, fun. It's not exciting. It's just part of how it keeps going. And that's a good point, Scott. The slog is what gets you there. Yep.

And that's how I'm wired and how I think, too. So I'm looking for that. So take that with a great assault. But, you know, everything to me is a get 1% or a 10th of a percent better every day. And over a long period of time, that compounds into just extraordinary outcomes. And that's what I see in a lot of these stories. Yeah. Okay, Scott, should we get out of here? Let's do it. From episode 210 of the Bigger Pockets Money podcast, he is Scott French and I am Indy Jensen saying

bye-bye, butterfly.