More Money Podcast - 119 How Not to Self-Sabotage Your Finances - Whitney Hansen, Money Coach & Host of The Money Nerds Podcast

Episode Date: October 11, 2017

Do you feel like you keep sabotaging your chance at financial success? You’re not alone, and money coach and personal finance podcaster Whitney Hansen is here to share how to overcome these common financial barriers. Long description:   For this episode of the podcast, I chat with fellow female podcaster (The Money Nerds Podcast) and money coach Whitney Hansen. I first got to know Whitney over the summer actually when she approached me to speak at her virtual conference called The Money Summit. I had a blast, and as a bit of a humble brag I’m happy to say my session is one of the summit’s most popular (okay, end of brag, I just couldn’t resist). After the summit, I knew I needed to have Whitney on my show so she could share her financial expertise. Not only is she, like me, a millennial money expert, she has hustled to pay off her debt and save up to be able to live the life she’s always wanted. And, like me, she isn’t afraid to share that she worked hard and long hours to get herself there (you go girl!). The main focus of our chat however is what the 4 most common things people do to sabotage their finances. As a full-time money coach, Whitney has seen it all and has noticed that many of the people she’s helped make the same mistakes over and over. If you want to make sure you avoid those mistakes, then check out the list below and listen (or watch) my interview with Whitney! 4 Signs You Might Be Self-Sabotaging Your Financial Life You’re stuck at the same income level for a little while (ie. 3 years) You’re paying off debt, then immediately getting back into of debt You’re comparing your financial life to others You don’t have clarity in terms of your financial goals Helpful Resources Join Whitney’s Facebook group Money Your Money Like a Boss Buy a pass to Whitney’s online Money Summit (that I’m also part of!) Sign up to one of Whitney’s free money workshops Check out Whitney’s award-nominated The Money Nerd Podcast Listen to my interview on Whitney’s podcast about my personal finance journey For full episode show notes visit: https://jessicamoorhouse.com/119 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to episode 119 of the Mo Money Podcast. I am your host, Jessica Morehouse. Thank you so much for joining me for another fabulous episode. And the reason this is fabulous is because I will be talking to a fellow female podcaster, Whitney Hanson. She is the host of the Money Nerds podcast, a show that I've actually been on, which I will include a link to the show notes if you want to hear me on her show. But fun fact, she was actually just nominated for an award for best new podcast at the Plutus Awards, which is the awards show part of FinCon, that big conference I love to talk to you about all the time. And also another fun fact, yours truly has also been nominated for an award for best multimedia and video production. So

looks like I've got some fans of my YouTube videos. So if you didn't even know I had a YouTube channel, well, I do. And you can find it at jessicamorehouse.com slash YouTube. It'll direct you right there. I put out, I try to put out videos every single Monday, but I also actually for lots of the podcasts I'm doing for season five, I recorded the video interview of those shows. So if you're actually curious about what me and the guests look like, what we talk like, what our mannerisms are, definitely go to my YouTube channel and check out the video interview. It's a lot of fun. Anyways, so I wanted to talk to Whitney because she is also a money coach. She actually started money coaching before she even started her own podcast and really got

involved in kind of like the blogging, podcasting, personal finance community. And she has a wealth of knowledge and a super interesting story in terms of how she got to where she is today. And man, she is a hustler. So I'm very excited to share her story with you. But before I get to that interview, here is a few words about this episode's sponsor. So you're racing against the clock to wrap up three projects, prepping for a meeting later in the afternoon, all while trying to tackle a mountain of paperwork. Welcome to life as a freelancer. Challenging? You bet it is, but our friends at FreshBooks believe the rewards are so worth it. Let's be honest, the working world has changed. With the growth of the internet, there's never been more opportunities for the self-employed. To meet this need, FreshBooks is excited to announce the launch of

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Mo Money Podcast in the How Did You Hear About Us section. Once again, that's freshbooks.com slash m o and enter Mo Money Podcast in the how did you hear about us section. Thank you, Whitney, for joining me on the Mo Money Podcast. I'm so excited to chat with you for this episode. I'm glad we connected, I guess, kind of in the summer when you did your money summit, which was so much fun. Thank you. It was a blast and I am so excited to be here. And on the summit piece, your session was still the most popular by far. It was really good. It really was. It was awesome. You did a really good job. That's amazing. Well, I had a blast and I thought it was such an amazing idea that you came up with, like not only creating this virtual summit that was all about, you know, teaching people about

personal finance and all the different aspects of it, but it was, you know, very focused on all the speakers were women. And it's like, we need to have more representation of women in the financial industry. Cause I mean, we're half of the population. We deal with money too. So I thought that was really special. So I'll make sure to, uh, link to that in case, cause even though the live event is over, people can still buy tickets to view every single session, which is awesome. Cause there's like 20 plus presentations, I think. Yeah, 26 is what 26. I know it's a lot. That's a lot. That's a lot. And I really like it just because it was a good spectrum of like very different topics, like talking about freelancing,

money and relationships, insurance, whatever. A lot of cool stuff. But so that was a lot of fun. So thanks for having me for that. So I'm glad I can kind of return the favor, have you on my show, get to know you a little bit more. So first, uh, before we kind of dive into some, uh, fun topics we'll discuss a little later, uh, I want to kind of get to know you a bit more and, uh, you are a money coach. I would love to know what brought you to that point. Why did you decide to kind of get into that line of work? Yeah, it's a great question. So in order to answer that, I'm going to go back a little ways and tell you kind of how I got sparked into this. So when I was in high school, I was always that nerdy kid that was constantly writing my goals out. And I even laminated my goals. This is not

a joke. No, that sounds familiar. Perfect. Okay. I figured. No judgment. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it. So that was the kind of person I was in high school. I was always very interested in personal development. The financial piece didn't actually come until, I guess it would have been 2006 when I graduated high school. And I had to figure out how am I going to pay for college because my family couldn't. They told me, we don't have money. This is on you. And in fact, college wasn't even really talked about in my family. So it was kind of something I had to just figure out, do I want to do this? And thankfully I did. But to get me through college, I went to nail school. So I did toenails and fingernails and pedicures. That was my job to get me through college. So it was really cool because it was a tech trade. So it took me three months to get my license. And it was that three month window of I graduated high

school and now I'm going to be starting college. What do I do? That's what I did to get me through. That's really smart. I would have never thought of doing that after high school. That's really smart. Well, I don't even know how it came, but it worked out. So it was really good, but it was actually a good career where I wasn't just like serving and just making ends meet. I was actually making pretty decent money. So it allowed me to bank up a crap ton of money. And then I was able to buy my first home in October of 2008. So that's when the market crashed. I got very, very lucky and purchased my house, rented a few rooms out to some friends, did all that house hacking stuff and had a really good time. But as I was going through this, I wasn't really paying attention to my student loan

debt, which I think is very common. And so I graduated 2010 bachelor's in accounting and I had $30,000 in debt. And I remember looking at that thinking, Oh geez, that's a lot of money. Like, what am I going to do? I've got to figure out something. And so I had that six month window for the United States. If you, if you graduate from college, you've got six months deferment where you don't have to make a payment yet. And so I knew I'm like, all right, I've got six months that I can make some serious progress. Let's get it done. So I got a job as a staff accountant and I kept working as a Neltech, which is the weirdest combination. That is a weird combo. Yeah. It was always really awkward when people are like, what do you do? I'm a Neltech and a staff accountant.

It was really weird. But the two jobs and then putting together a plan allowed me to pay off the $30,000 in 10 months. Holy geez. Yeah. I was, wow. Like that sounds like a lot of work. Was that just like, you're just like, you had this goal in mind. You're just going to hustle for 10 months and kind of not sleep. Pretty much. So it was like 70, 80 hour work weeks. But you know, it's like, I can do, I think all of us, we can do that for a very short amount of time. Yeah. Until you get burnt out. And then you burn out and you're like, all right, I'm done. And that's very much what happened to me. So that's where I started to coach people for fun and friends and family.

And around that time too, I decided that accounting wasn't for me. The cube life was not the life I wanted. And so I switched gears, went back to school for my master's in business, discovered a program called Venture College where it was like, hey, we can help you start a business while you're still in school. I'm like, interesting. I wonder if I can make a couple thousand dollars a month off of this, like helping people to finance thing. And so that's where I transitioned.

And that's when I realized that, Hey, you could actually make money doing this before. I thought it was just a hobby and I think everybody would actually pay for it. And that's where it all stemmed from. That's cool. Yeah. It's funny that you mentioned that. Cause I even had that, uh, thought too. It's like, would anyone actually pay for money coaching when they're meeting a coach because they have money problems? It's so true, yeah. But it's like, well, yeah, when you have like mental health problems,

you'll pay the money for help. I mean, I've done that. Or, you know, I just hired a coach to help me public speaking because I have no experience in that. I'm an introvert and I get really red and I'm just like, you know, need some help. And it's like, it's one of those things where it's like, I wouldn't have really thought that I'd need to pay for that until you're like, wait, this is a problem. I don't know how to solve

myself. I'll pay for that. So yeah, that's awesome. And, and it seems like business is doing well since you started. How long have you been doing it professionally? Um, the coaching piece I've been doing since 2012-ish. Oh, yeah. Oh, wow. So I started off doing in-person workshops and then started to slowly build it online and started with the blog. And yeah, so it's been good. It's a lot of work, but it's good. It's a lot of work, but fulfilling, right? Because you're helping people. I mean, with like kind of the most basic thing that people just generally aren't very good with is money. Cause you know, as you know, I've talked to, you know, several guests, you know, most of us aren't taught about money. Most of us never talked about money with our families growing up. So it's not until like our twenties that we have, you know, more money

to deal with or a big debt burden. And they were like, wait, what, what are the rules? How do we do this? What's a what? I know. And I feel like the older you get, the harder it is to ask questions because you feel like I should know this right now. I should know this. And so it gets really awkward. Absolutely. Yeah. I thought it was actually really interesting that you started doing the money coaching first and then kind of got into the blogging and you have your own podcast, the Money Nerds podcast, which is interesting because a lot of people maybe kind of do the reverse. But I mean, you kind of like what you did because you have that experience and you kind of know what lots of people's problems are. So you have a lot of stuff to talk about because you

really know on the ground floor, what are people dealing with? So this is kind of a good opportunity to talk about a really cool thing that you've developed, which is you've kind of figured out what are the four signs that people need to be aware of in terms of figuring out whether they're self-sabotaging their financial life, which I think most people have no clue about. So how did you kind of develop this kind of idea? And then we can kind of maybe break down and talk about those four signs that people should really pay attention to. Yeah. So the four signs actually came from working with literally hundreds of clients by now, where I was starting to look at this stuff. I'm like, why do we hold ourselves back in some capacity? It's weird, but we all do it in some way. And so that's really where it came from,

is I started to find those patterns and trends of these are the common things that people are doing or aren't doing. And usually it's that they're not doing these very well. And so that directly impacts your financial life in the future. So that's kind of where they stem from is just directly working with people and finding those trends. Absolutely. So what would be the first sign that people should really pay attention to? This one's a big one. It's when you're stuck at the same income level for a little while. And what would be a little while, I guess? Because I've always, you know, I've had a lot of different jobs. I've written about how I kind of look like a bit of a job hopper on my resume.

And part of the reason was I always felt when I stayed like two or three years at a job and my income level never really rose. And honestly, it rarely did. I definitely picked a lot of terrible companies to work with or terrible industries where there just wasn't any growth. That was my fault. But still, I would feel like I was stagnating personally because I wasn't growing in my income level. And I look at other people that were my age, kind of did the same education. We went similar routes, but then they were getting those promotions and raises all the time and it really kind of does affect not only you know just how you perceive yourself and your success or whatever but your growth like you won't be able to afford lots of things that other people have

so i'd love to yeah kind of talk a little bit about that more in depth so what is like a little while what what time frame should people really be concerned like hey i should i should be making more now i think it depends on the industry you're in first and foremost. So if you're an entrepreneur and you're looking at this and you're like, oh, my income's stuck at this level, very, very different than if somebody that's working a standard nine to five. So let's just put that out there first. But if you are that standard nine to five person and you're looking at your job trajectory and you're not moving up. You might get the standard 3% for inflation raise per year. But if you're not jumping up significantly and you're not taking

on additional roles and you're not being compensated for those additional roles, there's probably something going on that you need to look at. So I would say at least if you're stuck in the same income level for three years straight and it's barely moving, that's not good. That's not great progress. So you either need to volunteer yourself to do different projects, like raise your hand and say, hey, I can take this on. I'm willing to do this different work. Or you need to start looking outside of your industry and see like, okay, what else can I do? How do these skills relate to different jobs? And it's hard. Or maybe it's just a simple thing that you're just not negotiating what you're worth. And that's usually of it is the fear of rejection or, yeah, we just don't know how to even do that.

We weren't told this was something we had to do. And I still remember the first time I had to ask for a raise because I always just assumed if you do a good job and you get recognized, you would get a raise because you deserve it. That's never happened ever to me. Never, never, never. So, yeah, I'm like, okay. So the first job I ever got out of university, first full-time job, I was there for about, I think a year and a half where I was getting a little frustrated because I was definitely taking on a lot more work.

I really didn't enjoy my job, but I was barely making that much. I was living in Vancouver, very expensive city, and I was not making that much money and I was getting frustrated. And so instead of getting, I'm like, you know what? I need to do something about it. Like I was living in Vancouver, very expensive city, and I was not making that much money and I was getting frustrated. And so instead of getting, I'm like, you know what, I need to do something about it. So I like, you know, went to my boss's office, had, you know, kind of a plan, did some research and like, how do I ask for a raise? What are the kind of the talking points or whatever? And I did, and I did get a raise. Of course, I, looking back, I'm like, I wonder, I don't think I asked for enough because when I gave my, basically I asked for $5,000 more and it got 4,500 and that kind of pissed me off. Cause I'm like,

why don't you just $500 less? Like why you can, and I'm like, you know what you're supposed to, you know, what I've learned now is like, you're not supposed to ask for the actual number you want, ask for a little bit higher. So if they negotiate lower, you get to that point that you want. That's exactly right. Yeah. And I think too many times, especially women, we are so afraid to ask for what we want. We feel like it's being aggressive or it's not, you know, we're not worthy or whatever the crap that we tell ourselves. Or we'll get fired or the dynamic. Like who's going to fire you?

You're not going to get fired for asking for a reason. If you're like demanding one and saying, I'm going to quit, then yeah, you better. I mean, which is, I've also done that. Be prepared to quit, which I've done. That's, you're spot on. Yeah. Yeah. Make sure you know the consequences, I guess. Well, and I think too, it's like a lot of times we, we ask for what we want, but then we, we might not get the answer we want. Maybe they come back and they say, Hey, you need to hit these certain metrics before we give you a raise. And immediately you have a choice. Do you hit those metrics and then go back and say, I've hit these. This is why I feel like I'm worth more. That's when you can start to make the progress. But when you internalize that and you say, I am worth more

because I am a good person. I've got a family. I've got that. Those are not good reasons to get a raise. So you have to keep it very professional, but you have to continually keep asking. It's not a one and done kind of thing. That's yeah. That's a really good point too. Cause, uh, I think a lot of people think it's one and done, but especially if you're staying with the same company for a long period of time, it's okay to ask, you know, after, you know, a year or two, or, you know, your role has significantly changed and evolved. Yeah. You need to always make sure to ask for what you're worth. But yeah, again, I think that's just like a very, yeah, people hate confrontation and that's like, and people hate talking about money. So like going to the boss and be like, I want more money. It's like so awkward.

It is totally awkward. But yeah, I'd say that's probably the first sign that people are self sabotage is when they're stuck at that same income level. And sometimes too, it can be a mindset piece where you are subconsciously sabotaging by saying, I'm only worth, let's say it's 50 grand. If you're hovering around 50 grand and that's like your constant benchmark, you need to work on some mindset things. Like there's probably something there that's holding you back. I don't know what it is, but it's time to do some deep digging. Exactly. No, absolutely. And I feel like because one of my first jobs was, you know, fairly low income. I mean, the industry I was in wasn't a very, you know, growing industry at all. I used to kind of internalize and think that that is what I was

worth. But really it's like, that was actually just the job I got. That was the salary that they could offer in an industry. And eventually when I did switch industries completely and made like significantly more, I was like, Oh, it really did shift my mind. I'm like, Oh my gosh, I can make more. You mean people will actually, it's not that like necessarily the job I was doing that was that different, but it's just a different industry. Sometimes different industries offer way more money. So it's something that like necessarily the job I was doing that was that different, but it's just a different industry. Sometimes different industries offer way more money. So it's

something to look into. That's cool though. I'm glad that you were able to do that. Me too. It makes a big difference. Okay. So that is number one. What is number two? Number two is a big one too. This one is paying off debt to immediately go back into debt. I call this the debt yo-yo. Yes. I think that's the thing that a lot of people, you know, there's a lot of people that, you know, blog and talk about debt and all about that kind of initial time where it's like, you're in debt and you know, what method are you going to use to get out of debt? But they rarely talk about maintaining that debt-free life, which is so critical because I know a lot of people that even blog about debt get back into that because they don't have a plan for maintenance, basically.

So what would you say to that? So yeah, that's one of those things that just really drives me crazy when you see people work so hard to pay off this debt and they get the great progress and they feel amazing. They literally are different people and they pay off a lot of debt. And so they go through life and they're like, okay, this is so great. But then they don't do that maintenance. Maybe they don't have an emergency fund or maybe they immediately fall back into that trap of keeping up with the Joneses or whatever they do. And they start to slowly go back into debt or they pay off the debt just so that they can go buy another car. I've had a friend that told me that she's like, we're trying to pay off my car so that we can buy a new car.

Like that is so twisted, but okay. You do you, but it's, it's a really bad cycle. So it takes a long time to get out of debt. It's a lot of hard work and it's a mindset shift. And this is becoming a theme, I guess, but you've really got to work on that. You cannot just pay off debt to go back into it and further that cycle and constantly be struggling with your money. It's just not worth it. Why do you think that a lot of people do that? Is it because they haven't really, they found out a good methodology of getting out of debt, but they just don't understand kind of everything surrounding how to be good with money? Or why do you think people get back into debt after struggling so long to pay it off? I think it's just the instant gratification

society we live in. It's so much easier to say, I want this and I can afford a monthly payment and go buy that new car, that shirt, whatever it is. It's just so much easier to take out debt than it is to actually save and do the hard work now. Because we're looking at this little timeframe of, I want my life to be amazing here. I want my Instagram to be perfect. So it's got to look like this. And because we live in that instant gratification, I think that's why it's just really hard to tell yourself no. So what, in your opinion, would be some things that people should, if they are currently paying off debt and they're nearing that finish line, what should they do once they've crossed that finish line so they don't make the same mistakes twice?

So the best thing I think that we can do is reframe our mindset. And the way we can do that is by getting excited about saving, which sounds so unsexy. I know. And so lame, but I totally, I totally know what you mean, but yeah, it sounds like, it totally sounds like, but like the minute, and it's weird too, because once you start to see, like you, I use Betterment for my investing. So now I'll look at that. I'm like, oh my gosh, I just got this much extra. My investments grade by this much money. That to me is so freaking cool that I start to get more excited about that. So anytime I go to make a decision where I'm like, Oh, I could buy this shirt or take this vacation, which is hard for me, or I can put this money into my

investing. A lot of times I divert that because I've trained my brain to get excited about seeing my money grow. And so I think that's a small thing that you can do is just to really reframe it that way. Another big tip that I think helps people with reframing their mindset so they don't go back into debt is to look at how much money you make per hour. So say it's like 15 bucks an hour and you want to go out to dinner and your dinner is going to cost $30. It takes you literally two hours of your life to pay for that dinner. Yeah. And so then you can start to weigh it out and say, is that actually worth it? And usually it's not. So I think those two things will really help. Definitely. Absolutely. What do you, what do you do? How do you

make sure that you don't go back? Yeah, no, I think you kind of hit the nail on the head in terms of like the mindset of, of getting excited to save. So I don't have a crazy debt story. I had a student loan after university, but it was $5,000. So it wasn't crazy. But still, I had this urge to pay it down. I just hated the idea of basically my future money already being allocated for this money I've already spent. And so I aggressively paid it off in nine months while I was doing a bunch of different hustles. I was still looking for a full-time job, living at my parents. So not glamorous. I hated it. But I was really happy when I finally crushed that debt. And I was, yeah, never wanted to be, I felt, I don't know, I guess not as in control of my life

and just like so broke when I owed money. I never wanted to feel like that again. And so, yeah, I tried to do different things to get myself excited for money or for saving money, which, you know, was me creating certain savings goals and having those goals and starting to invest and see my money grow, tracking my net worth, which is a great motivator. Once you, yeah, see your net worth grow instead of, you know, like fluctuate and oh crap, you know, it's gone down again. That is like pretty much the biggest motivator.

And I think most people can agree. Once they start doing that and seeing the progress, like, oh my gosh, I'm richer this month than last month. Yeah, you'll probably start making different decisions. And like you said, whenever I'm about to, you know to think if I want to buy something, I will be like, well, do I want to spend $20 on this thing that I may forget about in a few minutes? Or would I rather save that money for something bigger like a trip or invest it so it will grow into a way bigger amount in 20, 30, 40 years? Yep. I love it. Yep.

Exactly the same. I'm with you on that. Absolutely. So those are the first two signs. What is number three? Number three, comparing your financial life to others. Well, that is like everyone's biggest problem. I still do it. And it's something that I think it's like you have to constantly work at, don't you? Oh, absolutely. It's one of those things too that I think, again, it's something that I think it's like you have to constantly work at, don't you? Oh, absolutely. It's one of those things too that I think, again, it's a society. Social media definitely emphasizes this and makes it so much bigger than it should be. Yeah. But a lot of times too, it's not even like Jessica's not like, oh, look at this person's life and they look like they've got it going on.

Like sometimes that's not even it. Sometimes you're looking at your family life. So you're thinking, oh, my parents had this type of house. They had this life scenario. And you're not even realizing that you're a completely different person and B it's your life is just, it's unique to you. So you have to do what is working for you. So if your life is one where you constantly want to travel and you're looking, I don't know, on Facebook, Instagram, your friends conversations, and you're seeing, they've got this like amazing house and they've got this family going on and they've got all these things and you're like, oh, that sounds really cool, but

that's not truly something you value. Well, who cares? Like, it's okay. Go do your traveling, go do whatever makes you happy and not compare to other people. But it is such a hard trap to get out of. It is so hard. Yeah. And especially like you mentioned, social media is the biggest culprit. Social media is all about just showing the best version of you or the version of you that you want people to think is true. And a lot of that is showing fancy things like this, like what I'm doing, like what I have. I mean, and when you're constantly seeing that, it will just automatically get into your brain and then you'll be like, oh, maybe I should get that. I do that too. I'm like, I don't really care about shopping or material things or designer

bags or whatever, but I'll get locked in the trap where I'll find myself on Nordstrom.com and looking through. I'm like, wait, what am I freaking doing? I don't want to spend $400 on a purse. That's dumb. It just, it just happens. So, so what would you say would be some of the things that people can kind of do to kind of prevent that from happening? Okay. So first and foremost, write down what do you truly value? So honestly, what are those things that are really important to you? And if it doesn't make the list, it's okay. Like if shopping is not on your list, that's great. You know, but if family is and maybe financial security is on your list and traveling, cool. Those are the things that are important to you. So know what you value. But

then when you start to see these things where you're looking on Pinterest and you see this like dream vacation and you're like, Oh my God, I really want to go there. And you're looking on Pinterest and you see this like dream vacation and you're like, Oh my God, I really want to go there. And you're seeing all these people that are taking really sweet trips, do some digging. I guarantee you that even if that's what they're spending most of their money on, they're not spending in other areas. So I've got a friend that is a little rock star and she builds tiny houses all across the United States and rents them on Airbnb. It's super cool. That is so cool. Yeah. Yeah. It's like the coolest. And so from the outside, you're looking at this, you're like, wow, her stuff's

always booked. Like she's, she's constantly raking in a lot of cash. Like she's doing really, really good. But then you look at the other side too, and you see that she drives $500 cars, drives them till they're like totally done. And then she'll flip them and do it all over again. So she also lives in a tiny house. That's her full-time thing too. So when you're looking at this whole thing, you have to look at their entire scenario. And if you're honest with yourself, you'll see they are usually sacrificing in other areas. And that may not be something that you want to sacrifice then, but you've got to dig further than just that surface level. Everything looks good on the surface. You've got to dig a little bit deeper. Oh, exactly. I think there's one thing that I used to do because going back to the purse story, I got really in this mode. It's like,

I really do want to own a nice purse. I always just owned really junky purses that would last like a year and break down. They're like $30, whatever. I didn't really care. But taking the subway in downtown Toronto twice per day, going to the downtown core, everyone has a nice purse on the subway. So you just start looking. And then I started really thinking, I'm like, some of these people, just based on their dress or where they're going, you kind of have an idea of what is their job, what is their salary. And then you start to think like, how the heck can this person who looks like maybe my level job or whatever, and I have an idea what that salary is, can afford a $1,000 purse? And it's because most people think, wow, they must be doing well. It's like, no, they spent $1,000 on a purse and they probably aren't

investing their money, saving their money. Maybe they can't go on that vacation. Maybe they're drowning in debt. Who knows? So yeah, just like you said, you really need to know the full story. And then also just like make what something actually me and my husband have started doing is just really limiting our time on social media. So I've deleted the, it's harder than there's actually this app. We just both downloaded when we're on vacation. Cause we were like, we want to actually enjoy our time, not be on our phones all the time. and so we downloaded this free app called moments that has been like they talked about it on a couple other podcasts i've been listening to and it basically tracks your uh time that you your screen time on your phone which could be oh yeah you should do it it's scary because it'll be like you spent nine percent of your life on

your phone and that'll definitely change some of your habits. And there's even like a free course involved. So one of the things... I'm texting myself that right now. Yeah, do it, right? It's a really great app and scary. But because of that, I've deleted Facebook off my phone. Because if I really need to...

I mainly use Facebook for my business, rarely for personal stuff anymore. But I used to just like, if I had a free moment or whatever, I'd feel like, oh, I better fill that time with something. So I'd do the scroll. And I never felt good after doing the scroll. Cause I mean, I'd be happy when some people were happy. I'm like, I, you know, that makes me excited. But then other people are doing things and I'd feel kind of crappy about myself. And that's like, I don't want to feel crappy in my day by seeing something on social media. So yeah, I dare everyone listening to delete one of their most popular apps, Twitter, Facebook,

whatever. I mean, if you really need to check it, you can go on your laptop and, you know, or computer and sign in. And it's a lot harder to do that. So you probably won't do it as much. I love that you did that, though. I think that's a very conscious effort to bring positivity into your life and just stay focused. Yeah. But you won't. I think that's real clever. Yeah. But you wouldn't believe how many times I've gone on my phone,

like automatically going to the Facebook app and realizing it's not there anymore. Scary. I'm like, Oh my God, I am addicted. I think we all are. I know. It's terrible. It's terrible. Oh gosh. Anyway. Anyway, so that is awesome. So we've gone through the three signs. What is number four, the last sign? Number four, I think, is one that you and I are both very, very much on the same page with. And that's lack of purpose and clarity with your financial goals. So not knowing what you're going to be doing.

Like if you are, we kind of talked a little bit about paying off debt earlier. Yep. And if that's one of your goals, if your goal is to pay off debt, you need to have a very detailed plan of how you're going to do that. And it better be broken down into, this is what I'm going to be doing this week. This is what I'm going to be doing this week. So you know exactly what's going down and you are not just running around thinking, oh, I'll get, I'll pay off debt eventually. You've got to have laser focus.

And I think that's something that we all struggle with. Even myself, sometimes I catch myself on into that trap a lot too. But getting very, very specific and clear on what exactly you want. Absolutely. Yeah. It's easier said than done for sure. But yeah, something that I feel like, especially this year, just because I am on this new journey of working for myself, it's like, you know, setting goals and action plans and actually,

you know, accomplishing those goals have never been more important in my life. And so, yeah, it really is. I found a matter of, you know, trial and error, seeing what's good for you. For me, I use like the Todoist app on my phone and on my computer. So it's a nice checklist. And one thing, I mean, this isn't necessarily financial, but a little bit. For instance, so me and my husband have owned our townhouse for a year now, and we really haven't done that much to it. There's been a lot of things and we talk about it all the time. And we irritate each other by talking about we need to do this, we need to do this. And eventually like, you know what, we should write these on the little whiteboard

we have in our fridge and actually check them off and have details on what do you need to do to get that. And this weekend we finally painted this room gray. Thank God. Oh, I love the gray too. Thank you. I know. It was this disgusting, dusty rose color.

It was just so faded and ugly. And it literally irritated the crap out of me. And so making that list and then action plan and had a date, we're like, okay, we're going to paint this room. We're going to spend Saturday doing it. It's going to take us a full day to do it. And we're not going to do anything else that day. We have to accomplish that.

And then we did it and we feel so, oh my gosh, it feels so good. It is amazing when you do that too. Exactly. One system that I've been kind of digging for goal setting lately is Todd Herman. I don't know if you've heard of him. I've heard of him. Oh, I love his stuff. So every year he does this free training and he tries to sell you on his course and I haven't bought his course, so be careful there. But the training is incredible. So what he does is he has you think through what's a 90 day goal and it should have a number. Is that the 90 day year? Yeah. Yeah. I've seen that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh my God. I love this training so much. So you take your 90 day goal and that goal is fixed. That is not changing. So maybe it's, I want $5,000 in my emergency fund.

Yeah. So that goal shouldn't change. Then you start to create two-week goals that will support and lead to that, your 90-day goal becoming reality. And so the 90-day goals or the two-week goals, excuse me, those are the ones that can kind of adjust. So you might try something for a couple of weeks and realize, oh, that's really not going anywhere. And then adjust your strategy a little bit more for the next two weeks. But the focus is two weeks at a time to get you to your 90-day goal. And I love that. It's helped with my business tremendously, but I think it's pretty powerful too. And then on top of that, you've got to know your personality type. Are you one of those people that's just a go-getter? You can do it by yourself. You don't need any help. Or are you somebody that needs accountability?

And Jess, I know that you're doing money coaching too. So I think this is where having a money coach can be really beneficial. Absolutely. Where you can say, hey, it's not on me. Like Jessica's going to call me every Sunday and she's going to make sure I'm doing my stuff. Like whatever form of accountability you need,

I think that's where you have to make that decision of do you bring somebody else into helping you achieve your goals too. Exactly. Yeah. Sometimes, yeah, it's hard to keep yourself accountable and motivated as much as we want to. And yes, I know for anything we want to do in life, yeah, that information is out there for free. But the amount of times that I've said, I'm going to learn how to do this and never done it because no one else is keeping me accountable. Well, there you go. It's true. I had to hire a dietitian recently because I was just, I was skipping meals way too much and I would get so busy I'd forget to eat. So now it's like, I know every Monday and Thursday I've got to check in with my dietitian. I'm like, okay,

Paul's going to kick my butt if I don't do this. So I just, I have to make it happen. And it helps. It really does. It works, right? That fear of being like called out, be like, Hey, you didn't do your homework or you didn't do this. And we said, you would do it. Yeah, you'll do it. It's true. You do. So yeah, those are kind of the four signs that I've found that people do to self-sabotage their financial lives. Okay, cool. Do you want to go through them real quick once again, just to kind of recap? Let's do it. Okay, fast and furious round. Ready?

Yeah. Number one, being stuck at the same income level for a little while, three years. Paying off debt to immediately go back into debt. Comparing your financial life to others. And last but not least, lack of purpose and clarity with your financial goals. Yeah. And last but not least, lack of purpose and clarity with your financial goals. Yeah. Oh, those are awesome. That's it. That's it. Just four signs,

four things. Amazing. Well, thank you so much for joining me on the show. I know we talked about a lot of great stuff, but in case someone is listening and they're like, you know what, I do need someone to kind of help me. I need that accountability. How can they learn more about you and get in touch with you? Yeah. The best place to go is WhitneyHansen.com and it's H-A-N-S-E-N, not O-N. And on there, I've got a coaching application where people can fill out an application to see if coaching is a good fit. We can chat it out. That's probably the best place to start. And then check out the podcast. Listen to some people's stories that will probably spark some inspiration in your life. Absolutely. And it's called The Money Nerds Podcast. You can

find it on iTunes and everywhere else, I suppose, where podcasts are. All the places. Yep. All the places. Fabulous. Well, thank you so much, Whitney, for joining me and chatting with me. It was a pleasure and I hope to maybe do this again soon because this was super fun. Thanks, Jess. I appreciate it. And that was episode 119 of the Mo Money Podcast. Make sure to check out her show, The Money Nerds Podcast on iTunes and also check out her website, WhitneyHanson.com. I, of course, will be including all of this info in the show notes for this episode, JessicaMorehouse.com slash 119. Also, I forgot to mention that. So back in the summer, Whitney did the Money Summit, this

virtual summit of women in finance, doing presentations on pretty much everything you can think of in terms of personal finance, whether it's investing, budgeting, taxes, self-employment, all of that stuff. And I was actually one of the speakers. So even though the summit is over, it happened live in the summer, you can still buy a pass to watch all of the presentations that took place. And I think there's over 20 or 25 presentations, if I'm not mistaken. I'm going to include some information on how you can buy an all-access pass to all of those presentations to really get your money nerd on in the show notes.

Again, jessicamorehouse.com slash 119. Also, I just want to share some info about this episode's podcast sponsor. Did you know that one in three Americans are self-employed? Because of the internet, it's now easier than ever to become self-employed or start a small business. That's why I was able to take a huge leap of faith and leave my nine to five almost a year ago. What started as my side hustle is now my full-time job and I can run my entire business out of the comfort of my own home. Now, it has not been a walk in the park.

I will not lie to you about that. Going from employee to entrepreneur is not for the fainthearted, but what has made the transition so much easier in my life is by using software that really fits my needs. That's why I use FreshBooks as my go-to cloud accounting software. It helps me stay organized. I can pull reports within seconds. I can stay on top of payments from clients. And it basically takes a huge weight off my shoulders come tax time.

And what's really cool is FreshBooks just came out with an all new version of their cloud accounting software. And they're offering a 30 day unrestricted free trial to all of my listeners. If you wanna take advantage and try FreshBooks out for yourself, all you have to do is go to freshbooks.com slash mo and enter Momany podcast

in the how did you hear about a section. Once again, to try it out for free, go to freshbooks.com slash mo and enter Momany podcast in the how did you hear about a section. Once again, to try it out for free, go to freshbooks.com slash mo and enter Momany podcast in the how did you hear about a section. I will be back here tomorrow with another episode for you. I will be, of course, doing another listener series episode where I interview listeners of the show for my show so they can share their personal finance journey, tips and tricks and things that they've learned in their life that has helped them in their financial life

that can maybe help you in your life. So make sure to check back here tomorrow for a fresh new episode. Subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, SoundCloud, YouTube, whatever, so you do not miss an episode. And yeah, on that note, I will see you back here tomorrow for another episode and have a good rest of your day.