Financial Conversation Podcast

Have you ever found yourself feeling stuck? Stressed? Inadequate? I think we all have at some point. While there are many reasons you could feel this way, one of the biggest reasons people struggle with feeing stuck in their lives is because they aren't living according to their values. Instead, we tend to get caught up in keeping up with the Joneses, wether that be by buying things we don't want or need, or pursuing things in life that we don't really value. We could be trying to keep up by buying a new car, a big house, going on expensive vacations. But you could be trying to keep up in a lifestyle sense by pursuing what society tells you is important. In this week's episode, we're talking about how we've found ourselves trying to keep up in the past, as well as the steps we've taken to focus on ourselves instead of keeping up with the Joneses. The Problem with Keeping Up If you are keeping up appearances or keeping up with the Joneses, you may be in bigger trouble than you think. Of course, you could be in

Learning what your values are is so important no matter what goals you have or what phase of life you're in. Often times, we're influenced by outside sources like our friends, family members, celebrities, or even the media and we may interpret their beliefs or actions with things we should value when they're not actually our values at all. It can take a lot of experience and soul searching to determine what your values are, but in this week's episode, we're focusing in on how we established our own set of values along with helpful tips to enable you to determine what you truly value in life. The Danger of Not Identifying Your Values Many people confuse values with beliefs and characteristics like morals and ethics but your values simply include things that are most important to you. It sounds like it should be simple to determine your values, but it's harder to narrow them down thanks to things that will deter the process like peer pressure, the imposter syndrome, and social media. However, if you don't get c

Welcome back to the Financial Conversation podcast! We hope you enjoyed your holidays and we are excited to be back on the show! We've made a few changes to the show. For one, we'll be doing the podcast in seasons with each season having an overarching theme that all of the episodes will be related to. We think this will make it easier for you to find information on specific topics, and it will help us organize our thoughts to provide you with more valuable conversations and resources. If you want to catch up on episodes from last season, you can find them here. For season two, the theme is self care and being the best you can be. We kicked off season two this week with our first episode about why we chose NOT to set New Year's Resolutions. Instead, we are all trying to use habits to reach our goals this year. Why We Decided to Use Habits Instead of Resolutions First, we talk about the differences between goals and resolutions, including why goals might be a better way to get things done. We also discuss how

This is a special episode as it’s our 50th and our last for 2016. After this, we will be taking a break to spend time with our friends and family for the holidays. We plan to come back next year with lots of new ideas to make the show even better! To celebrate our 50th episode, we’re talking about something a lot of small business owners and entrepreneurs think about: how to legitimize their business, and what it actually means for you. Because we have a lot of questions on this topic, we decided to bring in a special guest to tell us what we need to know about transforming our businesses into actual legal entities and other ways to legitimize your business. Our special guest today is Eric Nisall from AccountLancer.com and Entrepretunity.com. Eric’s an accountant for freelancers and totally knows his stuff when it comes to all the ins and outs of taxes and business law. He's also an entrepreneur himself, so we knew he'd be the perfect guest to join us in this episode.   In this episode we discuss: 1:50 - Eri

This episode was inspired by a reader question we recently received from a listener and fellow blogger who is interested in leveraging his blog to start making money offering freelance services. Luckily, all of us have experience with this topic as we’ve all taken different approaches to building a freelance business after starting our own blogs. Joining us in our conversation today is Sarah Li Cain from High Fiving Dollars. Sarah started her blog and turned it into freelance writing and content marketing business. In this episode we discuss: 1:30 - Sarah's introduction 2:30 - Why we decided to start blogging 8:45 - How we turned our blogs into freelance work 24:20 - Have you used job boards? Should you use job boards? 45:20 - Sarah's future plans for her blog and business

In this episode we are talking about how our past histories with money, both good and bad, could be affecting our lives today. Negative history with money could be blocking you from achieving financial prosperity even if you don't realize it. This is why working with a financial therapist can help you work past these issues so you can finally achieve financial prosperity. So to help us explain the importance of our money history, we had special guest Kiné Corder on. She's a financial therapist who focuses on helping business owners and couples improve their financial well-being with her company Presidential Lifestyle. She also gained international popularity when she worked as a spokesperson for ABC's Extreme Makeover. We had the privilege of getting to know Kiné in person at FinCon16 a few months ago, and were honored when she reached out about joining us on the show! We had so much fun talking with her and learning from her professional experience as an advisor and therapist.

Today we are talking about how to let go of things you don’t want so you can create more space. In this case, what we mean is creating more mental space so you can really focus on the things you want in life instead of getting wrapped up and wasting time and mental energy on things you don’t truly want. This might one of the most interesting episodes we've had so far on the podcast as we were joined by empath and intuitive, Leisa Peterson from Wealth Clinic. Leisa's empathy means she is quick at identifying the exact issues surrounding why people aren't getting what they want in life and helping them move past these issues. Leisa is a business and money coach who uses her empathy specifically to help entrepreneurs with their money. In this episode we discuss: 2:15 - What is an Empath? 6:20 - Chonce's on-the-spot session with Leisa 21:20 - Is your relationship with money sabotaging your sanity? 28:15 - How does Leisa help clients use their new information to help themselves? 42:30 - People usually don't k

We're discussing our opinions about shopping on Black Friday. Surprisingly, none of us are huge fans of going out and spending money on Black Friday! However, we know it's easy to get sucked into the hype. There are so many enticing ads and sales going on - before and after Black Friday - and you might feel like you're missing out if you don't take part. That's not true, and we're here to tell you why. We also give our tips and insights into how to get the best deals, as not all sales are worthwhile. In this episode we discuss: 2:15 - Do you shop on Black Friday? 6:20 - Stories of false sales 21:20 - Black Friday sales tips Related Links to Check Out: Camelcamelcamel Newegg Slickdeals Everything Finance: How to Avoid Common Sales Traps Year Round Consumer Reports

This week, we are talking about how to balance paying off debt with living your dreams. It’s not easy to pay off debt, especially when you want to use some of your money for fun things and to pursue other dreams. But it can be done with some determination and creativity. We also invited fellow blogger, Liz from Friday Night Shenanigans. Liz is a great person to help us cover this topic as she graduated law school with $198,000 in student loan debt, which she is still working her way out of today. She is also using her money to live her life and will soon be enjoying a trip to Paris! In this episode we discuss: 2:30 - Liz's Financial Background 17:05 - Value Based Spending - Erin's Go-To Strategy for Balance 28:15 - Kayla's Inability to be Frugal and Why It's Ok 32:30 - How You Can Find Balance Between Debt and Your Dreams Related links to check out: Friday Night Shenanigans Friday Night Shenanigans Courses FCP039 – How to Pay Off Massive Amounts of Debt and Live Your Dreams FCP014 – Saving Money on T

With the holidays right around the corner, we decided to talk about some of our best money saving tips for a budget-friendly Thanksgiving feast. A variety of sources say that Thanksgiving dinner costs around $50, which is about a week's worth of groceries (or more) for the three of us. We've all found ways to save on groceries and some unique ways to save on a Thanksgiving feast in particular. We're also talking about our favorite Thanksgiving traditions and how we save money on those too. In this episode we discuss: 1:20 - The crazy high cost of Thanksgiving 6:50 - Our Thanksgiving traditions and how they save us money 8:30 - Should you go low key or traditional for your Thanksgiving feast? 16:30 - Cheap Thanksgiving turkey alternatives Related links to check out: Ep. 22 – How to Save Money on Your Food Budget

This week's episode is about the obsession of earning more money. While the ability to earn more money is one of the nice things about being self-employed, it can also be something that's tough to deal with. When you are self-employed, you have the flexibility of working whenever you want, as much as you want, and you can charge as much as you want for your services. This means the sky's the limit when it comes to how much money you can earn. But that flexibility can also drive some entrepreneurs to work longer hours, harder than ever, which isn't good news for your work-life balance. In our niche, there's also a lot of pressure to hustle, work hard, and earn more money continually, especially if you find yourself trying to "compete" with others who share all of their income information online. This can quickly lead to business burnout. So how can you deal with the obsession of earning more money? Here are some of our tips. In this episode we discuss: 1:10 - Side hustling: What is it? 7:40 - Skipping

In this episode, we are talking about something that is very important for everyone no matter where you live or what you do: self-care.  There’s no doubt that the costs of personal care can be expensive, but there are ways you can reduce your self-care expenses and budget for it so it doesn't take you by surprise. In this episode we discuss: 1:45 – Why is self care important? 6:00 – What gets in the way of self care? 13:45 - What is worth it and what isn't when it comes to self care? 20:20 – Frugal ways to fulfill self care needs 29:15 –  Splurges and guilty pleasures 38:50 - Are self care costs higher for men or women? Related links to check out: How to Handle a Stressful Job Ep.2 – Your Job…Or Your Health? How I Get My Makeup for Free Good Financial Cents Blog Less Makeup, More Confidence: My Frugal Beauty Manifesto - Frugalwoods

We are thrilled to present to you a special episode of Financial Conversation! This one was recorded live at FinCon 2016 - otherwise known as the Financial Blogger's conference.  We finally got the chance to record face-to-face, which made things a lot easier and more interesting. And, what better topic to cover than networking, since we were at a conference to make connections and further our careers.  (Yes, it's kind of meta, and yes, we're totally okay with that.) Since we had an extra chair, and since we were at FinCon, surrounded by many awesome folks, we decided to find Kara, blogger at From Frugal to Free, to come fill our extra spot. Thankfully, she agreed to come on! Besides having been a great guest on the podcast before (you can listen to her episode here), she was a first-time attendee, and we thought that would make for an interesting perspective. Erin has attended 3 times, while Chonce and Kayla have attended twice.  That doesn't mean it's always easy, though. Erin and Chonce are introver

In this episode, we are talking about our views on money and how our they've changed over time. This episode was inspired by a recent blog post on LifeHacker and we wanted to give our opinion on some of the same topics. In this episode we discuss: 2:10 – Our Money Stories (our background with money) 17:20 – Focusing on what you make versus what you spend 19:50 – Using money as a tool so that it's not an enemy Related links to check out: Money Is Not Your Enemy or a Goal, It's a Tool Enjoy!

In this episode, we are going to be talking about a topic we are all passionate about. Debt. And how to most efficiently pay it off. Our guest in this episode, Melanie Lockert from Dear Debt, is an expert at paying off debt. She successfully paid off $81,000 of student loans while living on a low income. We're talking graduating from NYU with little to no job prospects, moving to Portland for better non-profit opportunities that didn't surface, living on food stamps, and taking control of her career and finances by side hustling and eventually becoming self-employed (while making a heck of a lot more!).  Melanie shares some of her biggest struggles, tips for paying off debt, and more in this inspiring episode. In this episode we discuss: 1:20 – Melanie's story 9:50 – Why "Dear Debt" letters? 18:30 – What being debt free feels like 27:40 – Entrepreneurship and things you might miss from a "traditional" job 35:40 –  The emotional toll of debt and reaching out for help Related links to check out: Chonce

In this episode, we’re excited to be talking about one of our favorite seasons of the year - fall! While there are many reasons to celebrate fall, like beautiful foliage, and pumpkin flavored and scented everything, the biggest reason we love fall from a financial stand point is that it tends to be a pretty frugal season. Now that fall is finally here, we are excited to talk about how we save money and make fall the most frugal season of the year. In this episode we discuss: 1:00 – Why We Love Fall 4:10 – Fall: The Season of Frugality 6:00 – Frugal Fall Meals 11:20 – Saving on Utilities 17:10 – How to Save Money on Entertainment During Fall Related links to check out: FCP015 – Spring Spending Temptations FCP028 – New Ways to Enjoy Your City (Even in a Small Town) FCP037 – Unconventional Ways to Save on Your Wedding

In this episode, we’re talking about how to save money on what might be the biggest day of your life: your wedding day. It's no secret that weddings are expensive. Various studies have been done over the past few years showing the a wedding can cost on average anywhere from $19,984 to $32,641. Luckily, there are ways you can save on your wedding. Here are some of our unconventional ideas for saving on your wedding. In this episode we discuss: 1:40 – Average cost of a wedding 11:45 – Trimming your guest list 21:45 – The origin of traditional payments for weddings 26:15 – Negotiating and bartering 31:10 – Erin's contrarian views on weddings 37:20 – Wedding "seasons" - can you save by getting married during a certain time of year? Related links to check out: Chonce's Wedding Guide - Save Thousands on Your Dream Wedding Cost of Wedding CNN Money - Average Wedding Costs Making Sense of Cents - Bartering for Wedding Costs The Knot - Is there a "wedding season" anymore? The Bridal Guide - Who Pays for What?

Feel like it's time to move on from your job? This can be a nervewracking transition for anyone, but it's inevitable, and it's best to prepare so you don't burn bridges. Here's how to quit your job in the nicest way possible. In this episode we discuss: 1:15 – What it takes to be prepared 6:40 – What to do if you're not prepared 9:30 – Chonce's Side Hustle: Origins 18:00 – Fear of the unknown 21:45 – Importance of networking 32:15 – How having many skills helps Enjoy!

Being below the poverty line is a startling reality for 45 million Americans - it's a challenge many are familiar with. Our guest, Femme Frugality, discusses the psychology, solutions, and problems with poverty and government assistance. In this episode we discuss: 2:00 – Femme's backstory, living at the poverty level, and her experience with overcoming poor 5:10 – Remembering where we came from and how we got to where we are today 14:10 – Welfare requirements 26:10 – Government subsidization of minimum wage workers with tax credits 37:20 – How education can help you with overcoming poor 53:20 – Femme's plans for the future Enjoy!

Chonce recently announced on Facebook that she and her family adopted a new cat, Emma, and we thought the cost of pets would make for a great topic of discussion on the podcast. Furry friends can be expensive, and since all three of us have pets or have had pets in the past, we've learned many ways to save money on pets. In this episode we discuss: 1:00 – Chonce's Cat Adoption Story 2:10 – Pet Expenses 6:50 – Cats vs. Dogs 10:45 – Pet Costs for Apartment Living 20:35 – Saving on Pet Food 27:00 – Litter and Waste Management 30:20 – Pet Toys and Spoiling Your Pet Related links to check out: Approximately 3 in 5 Americans own pets Comfort your Cat with Feline Comfort Spray Enjoy!