The Get Ready Money Podcast
The Get Ready! Money Podcast with Tony Steuer features insightful conversations with financial experts who are changing the way we think about money. Listen each week to catch up on the latest financial trends and hear practical advice from Tony and his expert guests aimed at demystifying the complexities of finance, so you can build healthy habits that ACTUALLY work.
Each episode will leave you with tips for implementing small changes that can have a big impact on your financial future. Tony’s podcast is perfect for listeners seeking to get ready, be prepared, and transform their financial future.
The Tony Steuer Podcast is one of the 20 Best Literacy Podcasts. The best podcasts about Literacy from thousands of podcasts on the web ranked by traffic, social media followers, domain authority & freshness.
The Get Ready Money Podcast
The Get Ready Money Podcast with Shehara Wooten: Change Your Financial Story
On the latest episode of The Get Ready Money Podcast, I spoke with Shehara Wooten, author of In The Meantime: Own Your Financial Narrative and founder of Your Story Financial Academy about changing the way we think about money and our financial story.
In this episode we discussed:
- Why you should own your financial narrative.
- Recognizing that money is a tool.
- Why the Black community’s ability to achieve wealth been excluded.
- The importance of knowing what is your why.
- Why giving is a great practice.
- Look at the possibilities of life.
Shehara L. Wooten, CFP® is a professional speaker and author of “In the Meantime: Own Your Financial Narrative”. Shehara is also the founder of Your Story Financial Academy, she is committed to helping mid-career successful, ambitious Black and BIPOC STEM Professionals who are feeling ashamed, stuck, and experiencing constant panic about their personal finances developing an action plan that inspires them so that they feel safe, secure, confident, motivated, financially independent and has peace of mind which helps them know that they don’t have to rely on anyone for their financial future and security.
Connect with Shehara Wooten:
Website: https://www.yourstoryfinancial.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shehara/
Book:
In the Meantime: Own Your Financial Narrative https://amzn.to/3whTOMZ
Mentioned on the podcast:
Tulsa Race Massacre Books:
- The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre: A Photographic History by Karlos K Hill (Amazon)
- The Nation Must Awake: My Witness to the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 by Mary E Jones Parrish (Amazon)
Also:
- The Art of the Sabbatical: A Money and Mindset Guide for Your Next Work Break by Cady North (Amazon) https://amzn.to/3znEmjO
- Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s newsletter website (here)
- Go Up For Glory by Bill Russell (Amazon)
The Get Ready Money Podcast and its guests do not provide investment advice. All content is for educational purposes. Guest opinions do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Get Ready Money Podcast and Tony Steuer.
Are you looking to get ready, be prepared and transform your financial future? Then you've come to the right place. This is the Get Ready Money Podcast with Tony Stewart, where Tony has insightful conversations with financial experts who are changing the way we think about money. Catch up on the latest financial trends and hear practical advice from Tony and his expert guests so you can build healthy habits that work, Be empowered with tips for implementing small changes that can have a big impact on your financial future. So sit back and get ready to hear from today's guest. So sit back and get ready to hear from today's guest.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Get Ready Money podcast changing the way we think about money. I'm pleased to be joined today by Shahara Wooten. Shahara is the author of In the Meantime Own, your Financial Narrative, and the founder of your Story Financial Academy. In this episode, we'll be discussing Shahara's insights on how we change the way we think about money and our financial story. Shahara, welcome to the Get Ready Money podcast. Thanks for joining us today.
Speaker 3:Yes, thank you so much, Tony. I'm so happy to be here today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, excited to have you on. So you know, let's get started Now. Tell us a little bit about yourself. What is your origin story?
Speaker 3:Yes, yes. So let's start. When I used to live in Philadelphia, I actually started. I'm an engineer by training, so I went to the Ohio State University, graduated from there with an electrical and computer engineering degree, university, graduated from there with an electrical and computer engineering degree, and after being a part of a corporate sales and engineering training program, I moved to Philadelphia and started in a role there. And while I was there there was an event 25 years old.
Speaker 3:There's this event hosted by the Urban League Young Professionals, and it was a financial empowerment event and I had never been to any type of financial empowerment that I can recall. I had never met a financial advisor at this point. So I was really excited to get to this event because there was going to be insurance people, there was going to be like mortgage and financial advisors and things like that. So I didn't know much about what a financial advisor could do, but I figured they could help me with one thing, and I'll tell you what that is. So I walk up because I'm not sure what to say to this financial advisor with a national bank. I walk up to him and I say, hey, my name is Shahara, I'm 25 years old and I want to retire by 30. What can you do? And so, in my mind, at that time, being 25, I was. That was you know.
Speaker 3:30 was ancient to me and and it's nowhere near ancient, right, but at that time it just seemed like it was ancient. Five years, I knew, was short, so I knew this was pretty aggressive, but I wanted to see what he could do. How could you help me? Is that what you guys do help with retirement, you know? So, um, and I didn't really enjoy what I was doing. So I ended up meeting with him, center city, philly. Uh, we, I walked away.
Speaker 3:At that time there was, you walked away with paper work, like literal paperwork, right. So I had a folder and I remember like a month or two there was some time that passed and I hadn't heard from him and I also wasn't sure that I opened anything up and, um, and I tried to call him but I never received any phone calls back. I didn't even know how to reach him. So I came to the conclusion that nothing was done. And at this point I started to read up on financial, like how to get out of debt. How to you know? And I did. I had student loan, like a little bit of student loan debt maybe, like, like, literally like $3,000. So I didn't have a lot of student loan debt, but I wanted to make sure that I was putting myself in the best position, and my church at the time was offering financial classes. Get your credit right All these things that I honestly didn't really know about as an engineer being an intern and starting internships, like my freshman year.
Speaker 3:After my freshman year in college, I did sign up for the 401k and so I knew that, okay, I'm going to save for retirement, save for my future, and I was okay with that being, you know, 18, 19 years old, I was like, yeah, I want to save for my future, but I didn't know about credit. I didn't know about, you know, debt. I just knew I never wanted to be in debt. I hated debt, you know. So I was trying to get my hands on anything I could to learn about just even just the day to day management of money.
Speaker 3:And with that I just really started to enjoy that topic, and with some prayer, obviously, reading. And then I read Purpose Driven Life. I read what Color Is your Parachute? To help me figure out what do I wanna be when I grow up? And because, again, I wasn't really enjoying what I was doing. So I was very much in that exploration stage and then, finally, after a few years of just kind of doing that research and digging. I transitioned and changed careers. So so yeah, so once I changed careers I said you know, I'd rather help people do this. So I'm at that place right now where I can help 25 year old Shahara engineer. You know, just starting out, I can help her answer that question you know, can I retire in five years or can I retire in 20 years?
Speaker 3:What do I need to do to make this a realistic thing? Or even digging into like, why is that so important? And maybe it's just more so, just giving yourself options and understanding that, and that's what the journey has been like for me and that's where I that was really the catalyst for why I decided to leave engineering and change careers and become a financial advisor leave engineering and change careers and become a financial advisor.
Speaker 2:Well, that's awesome. That's quite the story, and you know you said something there towards the end that I think is important. You know it's important to give yourself options. I want to walk back to your meeting with a financial advisor, and something you said about that meeting is that you weren't sure what was done at that meeting. If I understood correctly, Is that how you felt after the meeting with the financial advisor?
Speaker 3:You know, I didn't feel that way. I thought everything was done. I did.
Speaker 3:Oh okay, when I walked away with that folder, I thought we had taken everything, taken care of everything, but then when I started, you know, a few moments had passed. I don't know if it was like a month later or two months later or something. I'm like hello, you know, are we moving forward? I think it was more so looking at is there anything being pulled out of my bank account, like to deposit into this? And I believe it was going to be maybe a Roth IRA that he was going to open. But but that's when I started to question, when I started to see that there was nothing being withdrawn out of my account. So something's going on, something's wrong, and I could not reach him to determine what had occurred or what didn't occur, and you know. So that was, yeah, that was pretty, pretty annoying. And then that's when I decided to just I need to learn this myself and figure this out, cause obviously for me, I felt like I'm not going to get that kind of help that I need.
Speaker 2:Well, that's you know. I think that's so important for people watching and listening, because so many people have had that feelings. You know, after walking away from a meeting with financial advisors, thinking you're doing one thing. You know, after walking away from a meeting with a financial advisor is thinking you're doing one thing, you know, or an insurance agent, and something else entirely is happening and I'm being ghosted.
Speaker 3:You know, yes, and that's literally what happened and, honestly, what I think happened cause I'm not even sure that that person's in the industry anymore I think he might've got let go by that bank, but I actually what I heard is he went to another firm so maybe he wasn't opening enough accounts. Obviously, the account that I would have been opening was was going to be small, but you know, I don't know what that was about, but it was just like there was definitely a disconnect and maybe he didn't even know how to open an account. I think he was kind of new. So when I looked back, I was like, and I, when I got over to the other side, I was, I thought back to well, what happened there, and and so those were some of the conclusions that I was coming to is maybe he didn't know how to do it. Is he even still in the industry? That type of thing? He was just starting out, you know, and and and.
Speaker 3:To me it's kind of simple. But yeah, and I wish I sometimes I wish I would have kept that paperwork. But I do remember, like looking through those folders and I'm like, okay, I know I did something, but maybe I wasn't supposed to come home with the paperwork. You know at that time I don't believe it was a copy he gave me. I think he might have just given me the actual application, which is so strange, right, like it's the strangest thing. So yeah, so that was the catalyst for me to say let's do some digging and figure out, like, how does this work? And then I enjoyed it and decided to you know, this is the thing I want to do.
Speaker 2:Well, that's awesome and I think you know what you've said there is so important for people is you know, you, you decided to take control of the relationship and of taking care of this and educating yourself so this wouldn't happen again, because that happens to people as you know they, you know they just don't even know what to do. But it's asking the right questions and you took that upon yourself. I mean, it's become your career. Yes, you know, but you did decide to take control and I think people, oftentimes with the financial services, they're very passive and they don't. You know. Well, just take care of it. You know, you know, and that doesn't happen.
Speaker 2:You know, unfortunately, you ran into somebody who doesn't help you, but you're a CFP. We can talk about a CFP later, but you know, for video listening, it's certified financial planner, gold standard for financial planning. That's what certified financial planners do. They're professionals and take care of people. Absolutely yeah, yeah. So I want to make sure we talk about your story. If so, you know, one of the things you talk about is owning your own financial narrative. Why should people own their financial narrative, which which dovetails nicely to what you were just talking about?
Speaker 3:Absolutely I. It's important. I believe that no one's going to really know your situation more than you know it. They're not going to really understand your wants. They can't want it more than you.
Speaker 3:Obviously, we're here to help as professionals and guide you and come alongside you and we're going to know a little bit more. We can kind of anticipate things that could potentially happen, but there's got to be that buy-in from both sides. You know, if you're working with someone like a guide or a financial expert, you also want to be involved, to collaborate, to really share your why, to really understand the things you want, the possibilities that are out there and what your motivator is for getting things done. So I do believe that owning your financial narrative is so important to getting things done, to implementing and to really living the kind of life you really, really want.
Speaker 3:And then having that guide, that expert, to help you along the way is what's going to hold you accountable and really give you a little bit more fuel and education so that you are doing it right. So there's nothing like you know people who are like I know what I want and I'm going to go for it and I'm just going to seek out the resources to help me do that and it's, it's exciting. And so, like I said, once again, no one knows or or wants it more than you, or you don't want them to want it more than you is what what I would say. Want them to want it more than you is what what I would say you really want to. You know, dig in deep to know how do I own it for myself and how do I show that I want it.
Speaker 2:I want this um for myself yeah, that's so powerful, but you know, because you're the only one who owns your own story, and it's really interesting. I was just reading a newsletter. Um, kareem Abdul-Jabbar writes an awesome newsletter. I don't know if you've heard of it, but a shout out to everybody watching and listening. You can find Kareem on Substack, but he was just talking about that how you're the only person who really knows your own journey, and you know he was talking about that. You know you can have family and friends, but you're the person who knows yourself, and so that is so cool and it's just funny that I was happening to be reading that.
Speaker 3:Yeah that's so cool. I have to check it out. That sounds like a really good. I'm sure he has so many, so much wisdom, so many nuggets from his experiences.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's amazing. He's won, I think, like a couple you know, prizes for journalism. I don't think Pulitzer Prizes, but I think, like you know, internet journalism or something, yeah, he's quite the writer. For people who just think of him as a basketball star, and, you know, for other people, he was very involved with social advocacy, going back to the 60s with muhammad ali and bill russell. So check out kareem abdul-jabbar if you want some really thought-provoking content.
Speaker 2:So I love it now we were playing, talk about yes, I love that, I love it well, I'm a hoops head, because I was also thinking of dr j when you were talking about Philadelphia.
Speaker 3:So oh, yeah, right. So I really fast forwarded everything we talked about, right, and I'm obviously in my mind thinking about the land of cheese steaks and tasty cakes. So I'm always thinking about the food, yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm good with cheesecake steaks too, right right right. They are good food, that's right.
Speaker 3:They're a good compliment to the sports.
Speaker 2:Oh, a hundred percent, a hundred percent. So you know. The next thing I want to ask you about is can people find success by creating their own definition of financial freedom?
Speaker 3:Yes, so. So I you know, going back to what we talked about already, it's got to have that, that internal definition. You've got to dig into your why, to get deeper into how you define your own, your own definition of financial freedom. So what I tell people and I work with Black women in STEM, so I have them go through a process to ask themselves, ask themselves the question why, five times. So I say you know, ask, ask why the first time, and it's probably gonna be more surface level and it's going to be a more surface level answer. But then ask it again. And so you know why Because I don't want to work at this job.
Speaker 3:Why is that? Because I, you know, don't want to have to clock in every day. Now, why is that? Because I want freedom, I want to travel and then you'll get deeper and I want to be able to provide for my relatives and give them things. I want to take somebody on a trip, I want to be able to create my own schedule. And you just keep asking why. And why is that so important? Well, because I don't want to have to rely on income and trading time for money. And why is that? So you dig into your why and get really deep into what those answers are and be honest with yourself, and you may have to do it a couple times, but what I like to do is what I call smarty possibilities. So I took the SMART acronym for when you're creating your SMART goals. Smart acronym for when you're creating your SMART goals and I've taken that and added your why to it.
Speaker 3:So you want to be specific. Yeah, so you want to be specific, you want to be measurable, you want to make sure you have a dollar amount to it. You want to have that making sure it's attainable. So it's something that you could win at and be realistic, time-bound, put a date to it and then what is your why? So once you start digging into your five whys, then now you can get a better feel and be more motivated to attain that financial freedom that you're looking for, and so that has really helped people to and challenge people to really dig into it, because that usually that first answer is more surface. But then if you really really dig and you start to ask yourself these questions, that one question, you know, five times, you really will get to the bottom of what it is, what you really want. And it might be emotional for you, you know, to get to that, you know I.
Speaker 3:Some people will say, oh, I saw my mom working so hard and I want to be able to retire her. I want to be able to, you know, make sure that my, my kids don't have to work as hard as I do. And so there's different reasons that people will have. And, ultimately, what I've found is, when I talk to many of the women in STEM that I've talked to and reached out to, they've always told me they want options. That's, at the end of the day, and that's what my heart was crying out for, you know, was like oh my gosh, I'm doing this job, I know that I'm not really into it, but I want to have options, you know. And so so, being able to do that and think of your life as just this continuum, and and maybe retirement isn't the definition, Maybe that's not your, maybe you don't use retirement but work optional.
Speaker 3:Actually, I'll even shout out a book that I read recently, called the Art of the Sabbatical, and it's an excellent read by Katie North. So I got to shout her book out because it gave me a different thought about financial freedom and not really looking at retirement the way we're all looking at it. We're 65, 70. That's when I stopped working and then I live my best life. Well, you know, I feel like the book challenges people to think if I'm going to be living much longer than even my ancestors lived before, then why not take some sabbaticals? What would that look like?
Speaker 3:Being able to save for, having that freedom to try and even pivot or try something new in your life, Not thinking of your work life, as I'm just going to work this 40 years, do this career and then I'm going to be done. Maybe you can have several careers, several things that you get into and you try out, and not being pigeonholed. But I think that's a part of a definition of financial freedom really creating that, so so, so that's something that I do believe people need to challenge themselves with. Like, you know, what is financial freedom? Is it just I don't want to work anymore? Probably not. You know, we, we all do get a satisfaction from work and and that's okay. But and then for some of you it is. But really dig into the why.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that you know asking why and adding it to the SMART goals. You know I talk about people adding priority and you know that goes to the same thing. It's like is this really a goal that you want? Yes, and I love how you're asking people questions. But asking a simple question why allows people to talk and forces you, as an advisor, to listen. And that's the most valuable gift you have as an advisor is the ability to listen.
Speaker 3:So I agree, cause when you listen, you really start to get to the heart of the matter. You know what is really going on and and I have changed over, like I don't use goals as much I call them possibilities. So, really looking at life, what are the possibilities, what are the things, so that you're not limiting yourself and because sometimes people don't even know what their goal is. But ultimately the goal is, you know, give myself some options. I want to give myself some options, so let me explore all the possibilities that are out there, and what I find is some folks that I've talked to, they're so into the day-to-day and survival that exploring the possibilities has been a challenge. So I've noticed that too, because they're just like I'm just trying to.
Speaker 3:I just want to move like I just want to move to. You know, I want to move from Chicago to Detroit or something like that. So then that's where we can, you know, potentially set up more of a goal like, okay, well, how much is that? But digging into the why, why is it so important for you to move? Oh, because families nearby, I can be around, I can just have a better you know better life, better work, life balance, things like that.
Speaker 3:So it's it's really interesting when you kind of transition it from just a goal but to the possibilities, because now you're taking off limits and you're looking beyond what you have. But that's where I say, yeah, read some books to expand your imagination, because sometimes, you know, you're kind of stuck in the day to day and what I'm trying to do just to survive and pay the bills. But try to read some books, listen to some podcasts, do different things to get yourself out of that rut of just like I'm not. You know I have no creativity towards the possibilities, because I'm just trying to make sure I'm making ends meet, you know, and I have met quite a few women that tell me that, you know, and so that's what we're trying to get beyond.
Speaker 2:Well, definitely, and it's hard to find the time, but you have to learn new things if you want your life to change. So that's wonderful advice. So I want to switch gears just for a minute to make sure we we talk about this, because this is one of the things that you know, I connected with you over is. You know, how has the black community's ability to achieve wealth been excluded?
Speaker 3:spent some time writing a book about that, right? So, in the meantime, own your financial narrative and that is where I started to do some research and I didn't do. There's so many reasons, but I start the book talking about the Black Wall Street. So these are some examples of why there's been some challenges with Black wealth. So Black wealth actually is predicted to go to zero by 2053 unless we do something about it. When I start the book out and when I heard that fact, it made me think why would that be like wealth, the definition of wealth is assets minus liabilities. So when you're saying, or when these, when this statistic is coming out, that black wealth will go to zero by 2053, that means assets minus the liabilities will equal zero, which is astounding, you know, and so that means that you know as a whole, the whole population there's going to be some folks that are negative. Probably right, that's what they're predicting. Some folks are negative. Now there's going to be folks that are positive, but when we combine everybody together, that's where they're saying it's going to be zero. So that really bothered me and I just I couldn't yeah, so I had to.
Speaker 3:You know, I spent some time writing a book about some of the thoughts I had towards that and some of the learnings I had from a historical perspective. So I looked at a place like Black Wall Street, which is in Tulsa, oklahoma, greenwood, and when my book came out in 2021, that was the 100-year anniversary of the Tulsa race massacre, and when you think about the fact that they're you know this particular community, it was started by people who had been enslaved and or their ancestors recently had been enslaved 1921. That's, you know, not too far after you know 1865. So you know 1865. So you know, we just celebrated Juneteenth, right, and and so many people pretty much no one got reparations, right, no one got reparations who had been enslaved, and somehow they were able to take nothing and turn it into what we see as Black Wall Street, which had stores, theaters, there were doctors, teachers, lawyers, because everything was so segregated that they had to create their own community. And on that day in 1921, it was at the end of May to June 1st the whole town was completely decimated and there were about at least 300 people who were murdered and everything was burnt down and even as of the last few weeks, the two survivors that are left that we know about, they're in their hundreds now 106, somewhere like that they were told by Tulsa Supreme Court or Oklahoma Supreme Court that they wouldn't even listen to their argument. So there's been no reparations, no repairing of any of this. So when you and this and, unfortunately, Black Wall Street the one, the story we know about, we hear about a lot it's one of many cities across the country that that was destroyed, that these cities were destroyed because Of the evil Right, and so there's never been any, any reparations for that, for that.
Speaker 3:When you look at some of the cities too, there's been these communities. I'm from Columbus, ohio, and there's this Columbus Black History Facebook group and they're showing these pictures of parades and different things happening back, even like in the 19, early like around that time the 1920s, 30s, 40s these thriving communities. But unfortunately, when we started getting our highway system, when it came time for the US to decide, okay, where are we going to put these highways? Oh, you know what, let's just split up this Black community, and they've not turned around. You've got places in Miami, pretty much any city where you've got your highways. You can look and see. Was there ever a thriving Black community here and a highway came through and divided it. I presently live in Dayton, ohio now, and there's some documentaries about how redlining started and Dayton is pivotal to that. So when you think about redlining, which is where there was specific areas that were decided upon, these are areas that Black people can live and these are the areas white people can live in, and Dayton is a really interesting study. I don't have all the facts right now, but there's some really neat on PBS. There's some some neat documentaries about how Dayton has such a divide.
Speaker 3:House in certain parts of Dayton I believe it's like West Dayton, they're very similar was taken care of very well and it's being appraised for, you know, maybe 60, 70,000, whereas someone who's in the other part of town and more of the white part of town, their home is being appraised very similar home being appraised maybe four or five times as much. So all of those factors affect the wealth gap and when you go to these communities you can see like, okay, I can buy a house in this neighborhood, but my net worth won't be as high because they decided not to appraise it as high. There's people who have been very stealthy and said you know what I'm going to, I'm going to actually have a white person, be a, you know, be my realtor, be my representative, so that when the appraiser comes into the house, that's all they see and now the house gets appraised for a higher value. So there's a lot of factors. I think one of the things that I shared on LinkedIn that might have caught your eye and I share it often was how the wage gap between Black women so women as a whole there's a wage gap and then when you break it down culturally and ethnically, then you start to get an even deeper wage gap. So, in terms of and I'm just going to look at the number the average woman as a whole misses out $406,000 and some change over a 40-year career due to the wage gap, whereas a Black woman, her career losses are $946,000. And a Latina woman, her career losses are 946,000. And a Latina woman, her career losses mount to one almost over $1.1 million. And then it's worse for Native American. I mean it just there's this wage gap as well as a wealth gap. So you combine all of these factors and now you can see what's going on.
Speaker 3:And when I talk with Black women in STEM, stem professionals make more than any. You know anyone. I wouldn't say anyone, but it's a very, very lucrative type of career to be a part of. But even within STEM, there's those, there's those divides. So a male STEM worker will typically make more than a female STEM worker, and that's regardless of if they have an advanced degree. And when we, when I was looking at some of the stats in the STEM workforce, a bachelor's degree or higher, asian workers make $100,000. They had a high at the highest median average, followed by white workers make 80,000. And then black is 72,000. And then 70,000 for for Hispanic. So even within these communities, there's even the hierarchy, so there's so many factors involved in this.
Speaker 3:And so I just felt like, even when I wrote my book, I do believe you know there are some movements and discussions about reparations, but I said, you know what? In the meantime, we must own our financial narrative. So what, what do we do now, like with the situation we're in right now? And so that's where I started to started to look at you know, let's build. You know, let's build by building our net worth. Let's live. I have a framework build, live, save, give and so build our net worth. Live by understanding your cashflow. Save by working on your savings and your retirement and all those things that you want to do as well as protecting. So within save, I put in protection too, so you know making sure you have the risk management like insurances and different things like that, but then also giving.
Speaker 3:You know there's a pattern and I'll say I've learned that, as a whole, black people are philanthropic, so it's kind of ingrained in us. If you are a part of church, you might you know to give, tithing, offering, so you know those things and you do that and it's just a part of the culture for the most part. We're not a monolith, but for the most part. So that's why I broke it out. You know, and I do believe giving, no matter what level of wealth you are, it's still a great practice. There's a lot of studies that you experience more happiness and things like that. Just with the thought of being able to give to someone, just the thought of giving to people, the brain experiences more or is shown to be more happy. So, even with all those challenges, there's still, you know, that balance that I like to give people. You know you want to build, live, save and get.
Speaker 3:So that was a long answer, but that is just kind of giving that background to what I believe you know, is some of the the culprit to why there's that wealth gap, and and again, it's still being felt. You know, is some of the the culprit to why there's that wealth gap and and and it's still being felt, you know, even today. But again, and and I'll just show the book cover, just to show, but yeah, but it, you know, I say in the meantime, own your financial narrative. So until that day, until economic justice is served, what are you, what are we going to do? How are you going to take? You know, just take what you have and be a good steward of what you have. And so that's where the premise is of all my thinking and motivation.
Speaker 2:That's awesome and you know, one thing is, for those who aren't familiar with the Tulsa Race Massacre, it was a horrific event that you should go out and read about. And, cher, I don't know if you have any books that you can recommend that I can put in the show notes. Otherwise, I'll put something in there in the show notes for people. But I think these things that you're talking about, you know it's easy to not think about or overlook, but they all it's a steady drift or trip.
Speaker 2:People have been watching and listening to the show. You may remember my conversation with Romy Pickron, who's working to help black women pay off college debts, because black women have a disproportionate share of college debts and carry more college debt than any other demographic. So it's, while some of these things may seem small on their own, you add more college debt to lower house values, to lower lifetime earnings, and you compound all that and it's a huge burden that that is not fair and um, yeah, I, I don't have an answer for it, yeah, but yeah the more we can understand that this is a real issue.
Speaker 2:It's's not a political debate. These, these are numbers. We're talking about numbers here.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. Yeah, I do have some books I'll give you, but I just don't have on top of mine. I'm looking at one.
Speaker 2:Oh no, that's okay.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but I have a couple that I can provide.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, great, and so I'll make sure those are in the show notes for people who are watching and listening, so you can learn more about this, because I think you know we can learn from history and we're not doomed to repeat history.
Speaker 3:Exactly, I agree. I you know. I think it's important to have that knowledge of it, because you can find yourself going down the same path and it already happened before. But if you know that these are the things that have happened in the past, this is why it happened and you can identify it Now, you can make that change. So that's why it's so important to understand our history and understand what's going on, because it's like there's really nothing new under the sun, right? So when you can start to identify the patterns that got us to that place, you know where, where people felt that it was okay to come into a community and just shoot it up and throw. You know throw? Uh, what are those called?
Speaker 2:The, the cocktail you know the bombs or what have you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, like they just thought it was OK to do that to people. Where does that mindset come from? Right? So it's important to understand the history and understand, like, where people, where their minds are at, so that now you can counteract that and also protect yourself and protect you know what you're doing and your family and that type of thing.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, unfortunately, no one has been made whole from that, unfortunately, and there are some folks that have been able to come out and there's things that people are doing, but it's a lot more that needs to be done, because otherwise we wouldn't have this statistic that's saying Black wealth is supposed to go to zero. So my whole thing is Black wealth will go to zero by 2353 unless we do something about it. And that's what I'm trying to do, my part, obviously, I know I'm not going to be the only one to do it and it can't be the only one. And so there's, you know, black CFPs, there's activists, like allies, that are activists, you know, actively, you know, out there having these conversations and to make, to make change and to do and to take action, right, so yeah, oh that's what I'm trying to do with this podcast.
Speaker 2:So you know, for everybody watching and listening, thanks for supporting this podcast and the guests that I have on who are talking about these issues, and hopefully this will help you have conversations with your community. Absolutely, so you know, together we can make change. We can, I agree. So you know, I want to make sure we get to the get ready question. So let's switch gears again. I mean, we could talk about this for hours, yes, so the first get ready question is what basic money concept do you wish people knew?
Speaker 3:Yes, so one of the foundations that I start with. So I have a Wealth Gap Closers program that I specifically it's an invite only for Black women in STEM. But when we started talking about money concepts, after we dig into mindset because mindset is a big part of things, but I'm big on cash flow planning, so I don't subscribe to budgeting in the traditional sense. I love cash flow planning. People hate budgeting and people, when you look at the statistics, you know the CFP board. They have produced various studies and really, at the end of the day, people is showing that people majority of people are not budgeting. So I said, well, let me figure this out, come alongside people where they're at and see how we can make this work. And so I adopted a tool. It wasn't developed by me, but I did adopt the tool and what it does is it really helps people to dig into and split up. It helps them to split up their what we call committed expenses versus their spendable, and then our goal is to have money found and put that to work.
Speaker 3:So once we kind of automate some things and really you know, okay, we're going to take care of your mortgage those are committed expenses your rent, your utilities, really those expenses that have what I would call what we call non-emotional risk. They're not changing because you have an event to go to. They're not changing because you walk down event to go to. They're not changing because you walk down the wrong aisle in the grocery store. You know, it is just. This is the. You know electric bill changed because it was summer or versus winter, right, so you're going to pay your electric bill, you're going to pay your gas bill. Those are committed expenses. So we have money categorized and compartmentalized that way, and then from there, based on your income, based on all your committed expenses, I'm able to give you a recommendation for how much you should be able to spend. And so that's how I incorporate cash flow planning. So once people get that recommendation of how much to spend, I tell them what it is on a weekly basis. So this is what if you spend this on a weekly basis, stay within these parameters and you're you're spending the money on your, you're on your dining out, on your groceries, on gifts, because that week you had some parties to attend, some birthdays, and those are the things clothing, things like that. And so once people understand that they have some parameters and I'm not asking you to tell me, okay, how much did you spend on the latte. We're not doing forensic accounting. You're just staying within the weekly stipend or if we want to call it a stipend or allowance that I'm recommending to you based on the data you provided me.
Speaker 3:So what we call that is a behavior-based cashflow planning, and I believe that's a basic money concept that more people should know about, and it makes life easier because people are so busy. They're always there. They're being pulled so many directions and I do tell people because if you're the Excel spreadsheet person and you're good at that and you love that, continue to do it. But I'm talking to people who are just not, they're not having success with it. You know they're. They're like I don't know what to do, I don't know where my money's going. I know I make a lot of money, but I don't even know where it's going, what's happening to it, like, why am I not saving it? And it's because we don't have the behaviors figured out. And and you just need, you need some parameters, you need some boundaries, and that's what it does. I give them the boundaries. I tell them this is how much you're going to.
Speaker 3:You know be able to spend every week, and I break it out weekly because the designer of that particular program that I use they discovered that if we give it to you on a monthly basis, by the 18th day of the month you run out of the funds just because of your behaviors, how they work, how we manage money and how we think about money. So that leaves you 12 days to try to figure it out. So now you're robbing Peter to pay Paul, probably, or using a credit card. Now you're going into debt, and so I think a lot of people that's what's happening to them, and then they're paying the debt back and then they're like so they're just like, well, I'm figuring it out, but if you break it out, you know, on a weekly basis, you're, you're, you're dining out your gifts, give yourself a certain amount of an allowance that you stay within, and then, if there's any what we call money found, then now we're able to put that back towards some of your short term goals. So that's where now I'm like short term goals less than five years, three to six months, it could be, so less than a year. So up an emergency fund, six month emergency fund. That might take five, six years to do, but, you know, depending on the amount that you need to save, but the that this is where you create another account and you can take some of that money found or money left over to start funding an account towards just an emergency, you know. So just really getting organized with your money is what this behavior-based cashflow planning concept helps people to do, and then also helps them to take any extra funds and put it towards the things they enjoy, like if they're saying, hey, I want to. You know, take a trip once a year. Well, let's create an account for travel.
Speaker 3:I had a client tell me that they were feeling stressed out. They had more than enough money, but they had taxes to pay on their housing because their house was paid off. So they they still had the taxes, but they always felt pressure when the tax bill was due. So we said, ok. I told her, let's automate. You know how much you got to pay. Let's create that account or something where you're putting money into it for that dollar amount and now, when it's time to pay that, you know that property tax bill. You have the funds and you're not stressed out. You know that property tax bill. You have the funds and you're not stressed out. So that's part of that. It's a basic concept, but it is foundational to me towards building strong financial awareness and getting to that place of financial freedom.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. So one thing I loved loved it. You're not doing forensic accounting. That's great. And and what's interesting is when you're talking about the details and keeping in mind the people that you work with are stem professionals, who are more likely to be more detail-oriented than other professions. It's interesting that you're still finding that. Um, but one quick question are you open to sharing with the audience the name of the budgeting tool you use? I mean the cash flow planning tool.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so it's called Winson and it's only given through financial planners. So you have to work with a financial planner to get it.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay cool, so you know. One other question I want to ask you before we wrap up is what is one habit that people can change when it comes to their money?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I think you know. I think, going back to what I talked about with the cash flow planning and the behavior-based cash flow planning, I believe that some people are just making it too complicated. So, to make it simple, automate, automate as much as you can and this works very well for people who have a source of income that is more consistent. But you know, automate paying your bills, automate contributing to your accounts, whether it's saving for your retirement, saving for your, you know, midterm goals, like if you have something you want to do in the next 10 years or so, automatically put towards an account, towards that. Automatically save or pay, automatically pay your premiums for your insurance. I think these are super key For me. I'll give you an example, just personal example.
Speaker 3:For years I had life insurance right, and I still have it, fortunately but life got busy and the premium was due and I was in the midst of something like moving and life was super busy. And then, all of a sudden, I was getting these grace period notices and you know I was just like, wow, I've had this about 10 years and I'm not. I don't want this to lapse all of a sudden because I got busy with my, with life and so, um with that, that was a wake-up call. I called them and I said, hey, I'm gonna pay this now, right, so pay this now. But I also want you to help me automate this.
Speaker 3:So how can I pay this on a quarterly or automatically pay it annually, whatever I need to do, because life, what it does, what it does and it lives right. So life does what it does and you know, things get busy and there's so many things that can happen and you can have the best of intentions. But what would have happened if I would have lapsed on a policy that I had been paying for, you know, 10, 15 years? And now, all of a sudden, because I forgot or because life, you know, got in the way, I didn't have it anymore? So I just tell you, go through, do an audit, do an audit of your financial situation and see what it is that you can automate and automatically pay, automatically save and pay yourself. If you can automate, it's going to make your life so much easier, especially given that we're all super busy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that is wonderful advice, so you know. Last question is what is your number one tip on changing the way we think about money?
Speaker 3:Yes, great question. I love that because I'm always into like money mindset and I want people to understand that you don't always have to think, oh, I don't have any inheritance, right, I don't have an inheritance, I don't have windfall money coming to me. And what I want people to understand is that money is a tool. Really taking the time to see how can you make use this as a tool to help you, help you to live your life, help you to save, help you to build and help you to give. So that is my number one tip to really figuring out how to, how to change the way you think about money on how to change the way you think about money.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. That's a great tip how you can use it to live your life, build and to give and I know you talked about giving earlier and I think that's so important for people is you know there is a joy that comes from giving and you get to support people and you can weave it into your financial life. So, shahara, where can people learn more about you? Where can they pick up a copy of your book and where can they find out about the your Story Financial Academy?
Speaker 3:Absolutely so, where I post a lot on LinkedIn and that's how we met, and so that is where I'm sending everyone to go to Go there. If you are a Black woman STEM professional who is feeling frustrated, feeling stuck, feeling like you don't know, you all my links, and then also with my book. It's sold at Amazon, it's sold on Barnes and Noble. I've even seen it at Walmart. There's bookstores that can buy it for you. If you want to support a local bookstore, tell them that you want the book, though most of them will be able to order it and then get it for you. So that's a way to do it.
Speaker 3:I also recorded a audible like audio book, and it's it's my voice, so it's me reading the book. So feel free to buy the audio book as well. And then there's an e-version of it, so you can get a Kindle. You can get a copy of the e-book too. So those are various ways to to get a hold of the book. And and there's also paperback and a hardcover book, so for those collectors, you guys can get your hardcover well, that's awesome and you know, as you mentioned about it, I forgot you know.
Speaker 2:One other thing you can do is, you know, to share the books with your community. I personally have a little free library, so you can buy a book in your little free library or you can ask at your public library for your public library to stock the book and make sure it's available to other members of your community. So, shahara, thank you so much for joining us today and sharing your insights on the Get Ready Money podcast. It's been a pleasure.
Speaker 3:I appreciate it, Tony. I've enjoyed myself. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was an awesome conversation, as always. Thank you everyone for tuning in to this episode of the Get Ready Money podcast. If you learned something today to change the way you think about money, please be sure to subscribe and to tell a friend. Until next time let's change the way we think about money. Thank you.
