More Money Podcast - 035 Millennials, Money & the Hustle - Stefanie O'Connell, Millennial Money Expert, Author & Blogger

Episode Date: February 3, 2016

Millennial money expert, author and personal finance blogger Stefanie O'Connell and I talk about being an actress during the recession and what inspired her to teach others to be smarter with their money. Long episode description: Stefanie O’Connell is one inspiring millennial. She had aspirations of becoming an actress growing up and even studied acting in New York City. She was well on her way to becoming a broadway star too — until the recession hit. The economic collapse forced her to rethink her plans of being an actress and consider other ways of making a living. She also started getting interested in personal finance, and realized from books like Rich Dad, Poor Dad that she did not want to live like a starving artist for the rest of her life. This new passion for finance soon motivated her to start her own blog initially called The Broke and Beautiful Life. Now just going by her name (like yours truly) at StefanieOConnel.com, she’s not only a popular personal finance blogger, but also an author (she penned her first book The Broke and Beautiful Life in January 2015), and frequent money expert on media outlets like Fox & Friends, Dr. Oz and CBS News. What I love about Stefanie, beyond being such a hustler, is how positive she is. She seriously took those lemons and made some amazing lemonade with them. If there’s one thing you can learn from Stefanie’s story, it’s that life is rarely a straight path. Heck, it might actually be a really good thing. How boring would life be if it was predictable? Just look at my life. I thought I was going to be an award-winning film editor in Vancouver, but instead I moved to Toronto, work in digital marketing during the day and host my own personal finance podcast at night! And I love it! I love that life is so unpredictable and I’ve learned over the years that it’s when you embrace the unknown and divert from your original path, some truly amazing things can happen. Read Stefanie O’Connell’s Book As I mentioned, besides being a personal finance blogger, Stefanie is a full-fledged author! Here’s a glimpse of what her book The Broke and Beautiful Life: Small Town Budget, Big City Dreams is all about: After moving to New York City to become a Broadway actress, Stefanie O’Connell faced one of two inevitabilities when faced with unemployment–spiral into debt or learn how to effectively manage her money. Punctuated with humor, insight, and essential money management lessons, The Broke and Beautiful Life offers practical strategies to make smarter financial decisions today as a means to fulfill the goals and dreams of tomorrow. You can grab your copy of her awesome book on Amazon. Check Out Stefanie on YouTube Not only do I predict Stefanie becoming a YouTube star, or the next Oprah, I want to help her get there! Recently she shared on Facebook that she hopes to attend YouTube’s Bootcamp to up her Youtuber game. She’s a natural already with the acting chops, but in order to get into the bootcamp she needs 500 channel subscribers. Since Stefanie is such an awesome gal, I’m asking you to subscribe to her channel (as well as mine), so she can become famous and credit me for helping her out! Seriously girl, if you ever get a talk show, I definitely expect to be a guest! Shownotes: jessicamoorhouse.com/35 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, hello, and welcome to another episode of the Mo Money Podcast. This is episode 35, and I am your host, Jessica Morehouse. Thank you so much for joining me today. Today on the show, I have a very inspiring guest. Her name is Stephanie O'Connell, and she is a millennial money expert. And I've known her for a little while. She's had a blog, The Broken Beautiful Life. And now she's just going with her name, kind of like myself, stephanieoconnell.com. And she is everywhere. The reason I contacted her is she just kept on popping up on my LinkedIn and on my Facebook and everywhere. And so I'm like, all right, this girl's doing some crazy stuff. I need to sit down and talk with her for the podcast.

And so she said yes, and here we are. So in this episode, we're going to talk about her story, how she started out as an actress and now how she kind of switched gears and is all about personal finance and educating other millennials on how they can pursue their dreams the money smart way. Thank you, Stephanie, for joining me on the show today. Thanks so much for taking some time out of your busy day for chit-chatting with me. Thanks for having me here. No problem. So let's jump in. So did you always want to be an actress? Oh, yeah. I was like that theater geek from the first time I saw a musical I think I was in third

grade and my mom took me to the middle school to see Oklahoma and I became bizarrely obsessed with the state of Oklahoma rather than the art form of musicals um so I looked for any excuse to start singing the song, O-K-L-A-H-O-M-A. And so I did this voluntary report on the state of Oklahoma so I could sing the song in front of my class. That's amazing. I was obsessed. That's amazing. Have you been to Oklahoma? Yeah, now I've been.

And I actually had a job on the national tour of Oklahoma, too. So dreams realized, right? But yeah, it was just very strange. And then it evolved, obviously. And I went to school for theater and I was in professional theater for seven years. Well, actually, my whole adult life. Wow, that's awesome. So where did you go to school?

I went to NYU. I went to the Tisch School of the Arts and their musical theater program. Yeah, that's a good that's a really good program. That's awesome. Well, it was the only one I knew of. So if I hadn't gotten in there, I would have just been a psych major, probably. Like, I was so ill informed when I was applying for school. I was still a psych major, but I was a double major. Yeah. Well, that's like, I think most of us as teenagers, when I was like, what do you want to do for a living? Where do you want to go to school? It's like, I don't know. I didn't do too much research when it came to university either. I went to the one that was closest to my house, basically. So after school, and then you moved to, sorry, you're not from New York City,

are you? I'm from the suburbs. So I'm not too far out. My family's about 45 minutes away from downtown Manhattan. Okay. And then you made the kind of typical movie. You moved to NYC to be an actress on Broadway. Right. Sounds very glamorous. It does. It does. It is really not. Particularly in the year that I graduated, which was 2008 because of the financial collapse. And theater is about the most discretionary expense out there. So that's one of the first things people stopped spending money on.

So it was a really hard time. How long was it from graduation to finding your first gig? Okay. Well, I was ridiculously lucky. So I went to school in New York city. That meant I could start auditioning because I lived here, um, while I was still in school. So I actually had my first gig before graduation and, um, it was on the books. And then about three weeks after the graduation ceremony, I left. It was a tour in Asia of the musical Cinderella. And it was supposed to be for a year and like open ended and running all over the place from China to the Philippines to Singapore to Japan. And we got about seven months through it when financial collapse happened in the middle of it. And then the producers pulled the plug because just like it wasn't financially viable anymore in the world economy.

So I came back to New York in January 2009 and had my moment of, oh, crap, I'm an unemployed theater major. What am I going to do? And I guess kind of at that point, because you were so lucky getting a job so quickly, you didn't really have a plan B at that point. I was very lucky, though, in that I had saved all of my salary during those previous seven months because we got a daily per diem. So I only lived off of my per diem and I didn't touch any of my earnings, even though it's only $450 a week, which isn't much after taxes. Because I wasn't using it for living expenses, I had saved up about $12,000. Wow. So you were kind of naturally good with your money.

Well, my parents were like, it's funny because I come from an upper middle class childhood and home, but my parents were always like very frugal. Like everyone else had, this is a really first world indication of where I come from. Everybody had like a car when they were 16. And like I took the bus to high school as a senior. Like it just wasn't, it just wasn't part of the vocabulary,

even though they could afford to buy us a car. That wasn't the value system that they had. And so it was never the value system I had. And obviously, I'm really grateful for it. Yeah, absolutely. This was some really great life skills. I'm the same way. I'm, you know, glad that my parents didn't kind of spoil me or didn't get everything that I wanted when I was younger. Because as an adult, I'm like, well, now I know how to live without those things. So it's not a big deal. So when you came back and you were unemployed, was that kind of when you started kind of self-educating yourself on finance and eventually started your own blog? Yeah. So I would say it was probably about another year or two

before I became really into personal finance. And over the course of those two years, I was getting job offers that were like $200 a week, $300 a week before taxes. So I was like, this is just like not viable. And as I was doing more and more shows, I was working with colleagues who had been in the business for years. And what I was finding was that even the people who had quote, made it, they only make it for however a period of time the contract is. So like when that ends, they're back to, oh, no, how am I going to make it to the next job? It's a very unsustainable way of living. And like I said, even if you make it, that's not it. That's not the end.

And so it was like a couple years of going through these low-paying gigs myself and working alongside people who had been on this rollercoaster ride that I was like, okay, well, what's the solution? Because I don't want to live my life in this cycle of starving or thriving. I want something better. And that's how I got into personal finance. Actually, one of my mentors in theater was into entrepreneurship and business, and he recommended a bunch of books. He recommended Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Millionaire Mind. And I started reading them. And then that just kind of set off a chain of personal finance reading. I must have read like 20 personal finance books in a row. And I just became totally obsessed. Totally. Yeah. No, that sounds exactly like my situation. You just read one,

you're like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. Yeah. You know what it is? It's like this feeling of control. I'm like a control freak. And in the arts, there is zero control over anything. Like there's so much that's like about how tall you are, what color your hair is, what, I don't know. There's so many other factors that you walk into a room, you do what you do, but it doesn't really matter because there's so many things beyond what you can do. But with your finances, it's like the opposite. It's like, I am choosing to spend this money

or I am choosing to save this money or I'm choosing to invest this money. And for me, that was like, even though I didn't have a lot, it was really empowering to realize that. And whereas, you know, I bet with acting, a lot of, you know, success comes down to luck. Yeah. Whereas with finance, I don't, you know,

I don't believe so. I feel like you can make your own financial future just by the choices you make. Exactly. Yeah. That's awesome. So you started your blog, the broken beautiful life, which I love that name. And, uh, and how long have you had your blog by the way? It's been about two and a half, three years, three years, let's say three. Okay. Sounds good. And eventually you got the idea to write your own book. Yeah. So the blog was doing really well. And a publisher reached out to me and said, would you be interested in turning this into a book? And I said, well, got nothing to lose. Why not? So I did. That's amazing. So is the book kind of a reflection of the content you're writing on your blog or is a bit more a little different perspective?

I like to think of it as my blog in more of a comprehensive narrative format. So telling my story, my perspective, and then the lessons learned that are applicable to anyone who is trying to harness some control over their lives via personal finance. So it's meant to be giving you some basic financial knowledge and while also inspiring and empowering to take that next step. Because information alone, I always say, isn't enough. There has to be a story. There has to be inspiration. And I hope to be able to communicate with younger audiences that may not have identified with the likes of Dave Ramsey, or Suze Orman, or whoever else who, you know, the people that are the go to gurus are aren't really going through the same things that

you and I are. So I wanted to write this book to be a new voice of this generation. And I think that's, you know, very well said, because when I kind of just think of some of the personal finance books out there, none of them are really written by people in our, you know, generation. Right. And it's a very different perspective. I mean, it is. And I don't, you know, I was just reading your website today and there's something that said kind of changing your personal brand where, you know, lots of people consider millennials. They have that kind of bad connotation of being lazy and living with their parents forever and blah, blah, blah. It's like, actually, for most of the millennials that I know, we've actually had a pretty damn tough time. We've spent thousands of dollars going to school to get a good career and then we can't get a good career because there are no jobs. Exactly. I mean, the circumstances were

very abysmal. And it's awesome to me to see how many people have taken those circumstances and turned them into opportunity like you and I have and, you know, in tech and everywhere else. I mean, it's really just fascinating to see. I am blown away by millennials. I think they're awesome, not just because I am one either. Totally agree. And not just because I'm also a millennial. But so let's kind of talk more about your book. What are kind of some of the key takeaways that someone would get if they bought your book and read through it? So it's a lot about how you think about your spending, as well as giving you very practical strategies for, okay, I'm here in the store, and I'm tempted

to buy this right now. What can I do to put this money into a savings account instead? So it's a combination of mindset and, and like implementation, I would say. I like that a lot. Cause I do find, and it's something that lots of people don't really probably just think about is that money management is so psychological. A lot of it has to do with, you know, if you're overspending, well, what are the reasons behind that? And it's, you know, usually pretty damn fixable if you just kind of really get to the core issue. And sometimes it's like, you know, kind of like overeating. Why are you overeating? It's because maybe you're emotional or there's something traumatic that happened to you or you're stressed or something like that. The same thing kind of goes with money management,

I believe. Oh, exactly. I delve into that quite a bit, actually, in the book and like what forms our mindsets, what forms our habits and what can we do to change them to better serve our goals and values and priorities? Absolutely. So, you know, you have this book, which is awesome. And it seems like you've kind of taken off and it could just because I'm following you on social media. I'm like, damn, Stephanie's doing a lot of stuff.

I need to get on it, which is awesome to see. But, you know, you're kind of becoming more of a financial expert out there in the media as well, which is great. Because then you're getting your message across to people that may not, you know, know about you right away. From the director of The Greatest Showman comes the most original musical ever. I want to prove I can make it. Prove to who? Everyone. So the story starts. Better Man, now playing in select theaters. And so I'm kind of wondering, you know, although you started as an actress, but now you've kind of, you know, migrated to this personal finance sphere. What do you kind of see for yourself? Are you still kind of pursuing that actress dream career? Are

you kind of thinking something different for yourself now? Well, I read something recently that that's something you should take your skills and two disparate skills and create something new out of them. And I don't know if you ever watched Glee or anything, but they always did these mashups of two totally different songs, and it created this brand new, really awesome song. So I'm kind of thinking of my career in that way. I'm taking this acting background skill set,

and I'm taking this vast amount of financial knowledge I've gained over the last five years, and I'm kind of making this mashup to create this brand new kind of career that I never thought was even, it wasn't even on my radar before, but I'm so excited about it. Like I love, love, love what I do. And it's different from acting in that I love it every day. With acting, it was very like, I love it when I'm working and I hate it all the rest of the time. And here, I'm genuinely excited about what I'm doing every single day. And it's such a blessing. So yeah, like you said, I am going into that media space. I am trying to

branch out. I've done a lot in the content space as an author and as a blogger. A lot of where I have had experiences is in writing and blogging, copywriting. But I do want to merge the acting skill set to go do more speaking and do some brand partnerships and really bring this message out to people face to face, because I think that's where it makes the biggest impact. Absolutely. One thing I'm wondering, since you do come from an acting background, and you probably talked to a lot of people in acting, is that something that kind of inspired you to also get interested in personal finance? Because you work with all these people that are

so talented, but they don't make a lot of money. And when they do make money, they just don't know how to manage it. And also just for, you know, if anyone's listening and they're thinking about, you know, getting a job in the arts and, you know, I went to art school myself and what kind of pieces of advice would you give to someone who still just wants to pursue a job in the arts? So, yeah, very much so. I am inspired by my own acting background and the, I don't want to say plight of my fellow artists, but yeah, like there is this starving artist stereotype that gets perpetuated and I hate it. I think, I think we just accept that. And I know I did. I like, I, even when I was really into personal finance, I still was like, okay, well,

I'm really good with the money. I do have, I just don't have a lot of it because I'm an artist and that is the way it is. And it really took a long time before I realized, oh, I can leverage my skill set to make a ton of money, but I have to kind of get rid of this mindset. Anyway, I'm going off track here. No, no, no. I love it. I love this. Very much. It has inspired me to, to write about personal finance. Yes. In terms of tips for artists, my biggest thing is that you have to get grounded in the numbers. So I, for artists have what I call the make or break number. And that is like your bare bones cost of living plus funding for, um, your financial goals, which can be split between short and long-term savings and debt payoff.

And you have to know what that number is for yourself on a monthly basis and commit to making at least that amount of money each month. Because if you're not making at least that amount of money each month, either through your art or through survival jobs, then you are taking away your future freedom to continue pursuing your art. art or through survival jobs, then you are taking away your future freedom to continue pursuing your art. Now, if you want to do anything else on top of that, discretionary spending or whatever, then you have a choice to make. You can say, okay, I'm going to work more hours at my survival job or whatever to make more money so I can have these discretionary expenses. Or

you can say, no, I'm going to live on bare bones this month so I can spend more time pursuing my art. So that number, the make or break number, kind of gives you a threshold by which you can really live your life and make those kinds of tradeoffs that you do as an artist while still taking care of your financial goals and your bare bones needs. I like this survival job, like, I love how you said that, because I was just kind of thinking, you know, you know, talking about like millennial money and just people working in arts, even though I didn't, you know, I went to film school eventually reach or be able to afford that lifestyle that you want, you kind of can't have just one job. And I was just thinking, like, I don't think, you know, since I've graduated university, I don't think I've ever had just one job. I've had multiple jobs, and I can't see me ever giving up any of those jobs. Well, I think the narrative of having one job for anybody is over. Like that's done. I agree with that.

Yeah. Millionaires have what, an average of seven income streams. Is that right? So I figure I want to be a millionaire. I'm working on it. Yeah. I think there's just the idea of the hustle, which, you know, me and my husband, both were just, you know, have a lot of different kinds of things going on at the same time. And that's just kind of our new normal. And I think that's just kind of the new normal of our generation. I think it has to be. And I think it's a good thing because I think it forces people to diversify not only their income streams, but their sources of fulfillment. One of the other things that I think artists fall into this trap of like, I can only do this one thing and doing anything else and having joy around anything else is detracting from the art.

And I think that's bullshit. I think diversity of income and diversity of joy and happiness and career and pursuit makes you a fuller person, makes you more able to contribute, makes you more informed about different things that allows you to bring new insights into old things. I was talking about before about this mashup of careers. I'm so valuable now in this industry I never thought I'd be valuable in because I'm bringing this skill set of performance and storytelling that really hasn't existed in the financial services industry, right? So those are two very disparate things, but together, they form something really powerful. And so by pursuing a lot of different income streams, a lot of different passions, like, you just make yourself more valuable. And I think there's something to be said just to have,

I mean, the whole idea of financial security, I mean, you know, back in, you know, my parents' generation, my grandparents, even, there was, you know, a guaranteed pension or, you know, you were able to work for a job for 30 years and not worry about losing your job. Whereas it's like, that's not a thing anymore. I mean, you know, like the job I currently have is my day job. I work in digital marketing. That job didn't exist four or five years ago, but exists now. So what's going to exist in another five years? So I'm kind of constantly evolving to kind of keep up with the changes, which is, I think, why it's so important to have multiple streams of income, a couple different jobs. And also it's great to just always expand your skill set. Because I think there's, yeah, like you said, some people in acting always think they can only do one thing. And I'm sure you, like, I don't know,

but I was just thinking, like, did you face, you know, some criticism for not just sticking to acting, but, you know, pursuing other things? Well, there's always this thing like, oh, well, you're not doing it acting full time, so you're less committed to it. You're less of an actor. Right, right. And I think that's more of like just a rumbling from some minor subset of people, but I don't think so.

I'm also a better actor now because I'm not so freaking insecure every time I walk into a room. I don't need the job to survive. I like that. And I feel free and I feel confident. And that is, I got to tell you, making more money is everything I hoped it would be.

It's always better having more money. And I totally agree with you. The more money that I've saved, been able to invest and just make, the more confident and happy I am. And it's not to say that, you know, money brings happiness, but it does bring a little bit of, yeah, freedom. You know, I feel like if I lose my job, I won't be screwed tomorrow. Exactly. You have options, you have choices. And I think it's that freedom of choice. That's like, that's what everybody wants. Yeah.

And that's what you're saving for. And I think that's the key thing that people need to remember, especially in our generation. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you so much. I really enjoyed talking with you and I'm going to encourage everyone to buy your book. I'm going to read it myself. I'm very excited about that. And I'm really excited to see kind of where you go and where you take off. I definitely can see you being a host or on a reality show. You know what? Last night I actually wrote out my dream bio because I was trying to have a direction. So we'll see.

That was definitely in the dream bio being a host of a talk show. I could see it. We'll see how it goes. You'll have to come on my talk show then. Yeah, just tell me when I'll be there. I'll buy my flight right away. Well, yeah, thanks again for joining me. And I wish you all the best.

Thank you so much. I hope you enjoyed episode 35 of the Mo Money podcast. Remember, if you want to read more about today's show, more about Stephanie, go check out the show notes for this episode at jessicamorehouse.com slash 35. And of course, if you have any questions, you want to get in touch with me, please do so. Just email me jessica at jessicamorehouse.com. Not that tricky. Or tweet me, Facebook me, whatever. I love to chat. So thanks again for joining me and I will see you here next Wednesday. This podcast is distributed by the Women in Media Podcast Network. Find out more at womeninmedia.network.