Episode 421- How to Stay Financially Grounded in Uncertain Times

Jamila Souffrant 0:02

We can plan our best, we can do our best, and things happen that's honestly life. And so it's our resiliency, it's our view of ourselves and the compassion we have for ourselves that really, I believe, get us through this. And that goes back to the mindset and habits, piece of things, the intangible t minus. 10 seconds, welcome to the journey to launch podcast with your host Jamila Souffrant as a money expert who walks her talk. She helps brave journeyers like you get out of debt, save, invest and build real wealth. Join her on the journey to launch to financial freedom in 54321,

if you want the episode show notes for this episode, go to journey to launch.com or click the description of wherever you're listening to this episode in the show notes, you'll get the transcribed version of the conversation, the links that we mentioned, and so much more. Also, whether you are an OG journey or brand new to the podcast, I've created a free jumpstart guide to help you on your financial freedom journey. It includes the top episodes to listen to, stages to go through to reach financial freedom, resources and so much more. You can go to journey to launch.com/jump start to get your guide right now. Okay, let's hop into the episode. Hey, hey, hey, journeyers, welcome to the journey to launch podcast. I am your host, Jamila Souffrant, and I'm so glad you can join me today. By the way, I call anyone on this journey with me to financial freedom and living your best life, to financial independent journeyers. And so once you start listening, you're here. You're a journeyer. You can't jump off the ship now, and trust me, I hope you like it here, because my goal is to educate, to inspire you to live your best life. Money is a tool that we need to learn how to use to get what we want from this life, and life is easier when you have money, when you know how to use it. So here you are. Good for you, tuning in and listening. Now, with this episode, I wanted to talk a little bit about what's happening in the current markets. Now, I know that podcast is the thing about podcasts that I love. They're long form content. They are evergreen, meaning I'm recording this now, and I'm going to be talking about some current events, but I do believe the tips I'm going to share will help you, no matter when you listen to this. So I'm recording this in April. So this episode comes out April 9, 2025 but I know someone is going to be listening to this in the year 2026 2728 and beyond. And while I'm going to be talking about some current events, it's going to be helpful, because the thing about money, and the thing about what I teach, and a lot of people within the personal finance space teach, is the things you can do to help yourself Self determination and responsibility as it comes to your finances, the things that are in your control and what's happening now in the economy and in the markets are things that are outside of our control. And I think that's probably one of the most annoying things about just life, is that you can do your best to plan, you can do your best to prepare. You could have done nothing wrong and everything right, which is, you know, typically not the case this. Usually, we all make mistakes, but it's something else, or someone else. Is someone else's actions that impact your life and all these things that outside of your control. How do you then do your best to navigate them? And that's what I want to talk about with you today. So with everything going on, there are significant changes to the stock market and to our economy due to President Donald Trump's economic policies and imposing tariffs, and the threat of tariffs, and potentially trade wars and all these things happening, and with that, it's impacting your finances, and here's how. So if you are an investor, meaning if you have a 401 K, 403 B plan, if you are a business owner, if you buy anything, if you work for a company, you will most likely be impacted by what's happening, or if you haven't already been and because of the uncertainty of the market, we have already been seeing dips and market losses. So if you have logged into your portfolio and you've seen losses like I have, or anyone else's have, like that is what's happening, and we have no clue what's really happening next, because it seems to be changing day by day. And I want to give you some tips on how to navigate this as best as you can. I actually. Listen to a podcast, a daily podcast, which I recommend. I love that podcast just because it touches on a variety of subject matter. But the title was, how Trump, I believe, wiped out ten trillion of wealth, and kind of goes through a bunch of this at a higher level. And I was thinking to myself, you know, for the average person. And one of the things they mentioned in the podcast that I thought was interesting is that for some people, especially like the investor class, the maybe upper class, the middle class, people who are investing, that you know you're going to be impacted by this. And there are a lot of people who actually have are not investing, do not have money in the markets or as much, and they haven't been impacted yet, but it eventually will trickle down, because we're going to see a increase in prices across a lot of asset classes, and have job insecurity, and that's how it's going to affect the average, maybe working class person, even if you're not an investor. So what can you do? So I want to talk about, and kind of go back to the basics here. I want to talk about the fi formula that I've mentioned in my book, The your journey to financial freedom, my book where I show and demonstrate the flow of money in reaching your goals into a formula. The formula is comprised of four tangible items and two intangible items. The intangible items are your mindset and habits. And I call them intangible because they're not always easy to measure or to see the impact right away, but it's, I mean, it's a through line. It impacts everything you do, how you think about yourself, opportunities, money and your habits, is what you consistently do to get to your goals or not get to your goals. Those are the two intangible things, mindset and habits. The four tangible things are your income, so that's what you bring in, your expenses, what goes out, what you pay for your assets, what you own and your liabilities, what you owe. I'm going to go through each of those points, those parts of the formula, and talk about strategies and things and questions to ask yourself as you navigate these uncertain times, to hopefully help you now again, remember, I know this is relating to the current market, but I do believe this is going to be helpful no matter when you listen to this. Before we get started, I want to remind you that I am holding my fire Cal class on this Thursday, April 10. This is my first time hosting a live workshop around this tool that I created that will help you map out and figure out the pathway to financial independence with your own numbers. And I find that this time is especially even more relevant for this class, because you can whether it is with the uncertainty of the market or uncertainty of your job, think about and plan out what it's going to look like for you to reach your goals. And this is the same tool I created years ago to help me map out how it was going to reach financial independence. It was the same tool that I showed and worked through with my husband to get him on board so he can see the numbers, he can see how it worked. And it's the same tool I used before I quit my job. Well, it was a tool that helped me decide that I could quit my job, because it allowed me to see how much we'd have if I took a break from investing. It allowed me to really map it out, and I saw that no other tool online was doing that. And so the benefit of this workshop and this offering is, not only do you get the tool right away when you purchase it, but you get the live class that I'm hosting on April 10. If you cannot join the class, there will be a replay, and you can find out more information by going to journey to launch.com/fire

calc that's journey to launch. Com slash fire, f, i, R, E, C, A, L, C, and there you can find out the information. So even if you listen to this after the fact, there may be a new offering, there may be another live class coming up, where you can get the replay. Now back to the subject at hand. I want to be able to walk you through how to navigate based on the formula that I just gave you and those tangible and intangible items, because the questions you might have are, how do I sustain myself? How do I control these things are not in my control, and they're impacting me right now. And so how can I do that? First thing, mindset and habits. Let's just touch upon that how you feel right now is very important, and any feelings you have are normal. So the uncertainty, the fear, there are a lot of other people going through that right now, so being fearful is not an issue being confused, not an issue. It's acting on those feelings in uncertain times, because then you can make mistakes. Now, we all make mistakes, but in these times, particularly, it's okay to take a breath and breathe and. To not do anything, at least for if you are itching to do something because of the uncertainty, we can make rash decisions that really will impact our lives and our financial lives negatively. So pause breathe and get clarity on your current financial situation. I'm going to show you, or tell you, some steps on how to get that clarity in the next assessments that I'm going to walk you through. But my first thing is pause breathe and know if you're breathing, if you're hearing my voice, you're alive, you're doing okay. Now the news and all the information, there's a lot happening right now. I would avoid Doom scrolling and panicking based on other people's opinions and what's going on, because that can heavily impact how you feel and then your habits around your money. So that's my first like, just overall advice when it comes to your mindset and habits around this is to not doom scroll, not obsessively look at your portfolio right now. I mean, it's good to obviously, be educated and to know what's happening with your money, at least to know what's going on, but you don't have to overly look every minute, every hour, every day. In my opinion, in these times, I certainly don't actually logged into my investment account at Vanguard. I have a few accounts there, you know, Roth, IRAs and taxable investing, and you know, my portfolio is down, but I know, and I'm going to talk about the mindset part. For me, I know that this is just temporary, well, for now, right? Like, I don't know what's going to happen, but for me, I know that I'm a long term investor, and my time horizon is long enough that I can withstand this. Meaning your time horizon means how long are you investing your money? If you are someone in your 20s, 30s and 40s, and you don't need the money invested right now, and you have 1015, maybe 2030, years left to invest, then you can write out what's happening in this market and be as concerned, because you're not going to sell your assets and realize whatever loss is happening in your portfolio. So that helps with my mindset and my habits, because I am not as panicked. Now, if you are someone who is about to retire or retired, and you need this money right away. There is a different strategy. There is a different way to look at that. But I'm primarily talking to most of the people who listen to this show I believe who should position themselves as long term investors. And so for me, that's what makes me feel like I can withstand what's happening, because I know I'm in this for the long haul. And really, market has declined, and there have been drops and crashes, and typically, over time, the market goes up. So just walking you through the feelings there. Hey, journeyers, if you are loving this podcast, then you will love my book, Your journey to financial freedom, a step by step guide to achieving wealth and happiness. I wrote this book for you. This book is for you if you want a clear and enjoyable path to having more money options and a rich life. This book is for you if you hate your commute and the fact that you need to seek approval or permission from a boss. I hated that when I worked this book is for you. If you weren't born into wealth, you didn't marry rich or win the lottery, but you still want freedom. This book is for you. If you're at a crossroads, a major decision or event is imminent, maybe a career change, marriage, starting a family, pressures are reaching a tipping point, and the discomfort and the desire for more can no longer be ignored, and this book is for you if you find yourself zoned out at meetings, looking out the window or daydreaming about the life you truly want. So go pick up your journey to financialfreedom.com. So I can show you how to map out how to get from where you are today to where you ultimately want to be. And enjoy the journey. While you're on the path, head over to your journey to financialfreedom.com. To see where you can pick the book up. It's available on Amazon, bookshop.org, Barnes and Noble, your local bookstore everywhere. Go to your journey to financialfreedom.com to get the book now.

Now let's get to the tangible stuff. Because I know you're like, all right, Jamila, that's nice to know breathe and all this stuff. But what about my money? Like, what am I supposed to do? So let's go to some of the tangible items and things you can think about. So first tangible thing is your income. Your income is the driving force to all of your financial goals and your financial independence journey. Your income determines how you can pay off that debt, how you can invest, how you can live and pay for all the nice things you want. So it's important, especially now, to understand. On how secure your income is. Now, I know you can't really again, have assurities on any job, whether it's even your own job, right, but there are some industries that are going to be impacted by these policy changes and uncertainty, more than others, what you need to reflect on is, are you in a job or in an industry where this is vulnerable? What's happening in the economy is vulnerable, meaning your goods and services. How are they going to be impacted? If your company has to raise prices on their goods, or you as a business owner needs to raise prices on your own goods, how is your company responding to this? How vulnerable do you feel in your job? And so it's really important to know this, to ask the questions, Are there signs of layoffs or slow downs where you work? You know, keep your pulse on what's going on, so at least you are not blindsided. Now, while you are looking through and thinking through this, is important to think about next steps. What happens after this? Again, we don't know how long this is going to last, what the lasting implications will be, but what other ways can you earn money? Think about any certifications and things that make you marketable in your current profession, what you can do, whether you're maybe you're not prepared to do that right now, but in the future, to help make yourself more marketable, to find different ways to earn money. What are some side quests you can follow to get side income? Not in panic, not in a panic mode about, oh, I need money. I need to start whatever, start to sell something or create a business. But what are your skill sets, and what are the ways that you can make money in case something happens to your job, or even in addition nothing? Maybe you do feel pretty secure, but you want to start thinking about how to bring an extra income in preparation. So think about, is there signs of layoffs? How will your job and your income be impacted by what's happening? What are the ways in which you can think through how to protect yourself, and are there skills you can develop? Side Hustle, side quest you can do? I love the word side quest that you can explore to help figure out how to bring in more money. So those are my suggestions on the income side of things, expenses. So this is a next tangible item. Expenses are really important. These are the things that we can look at right away, right now and make an impact on our budget. In order to know your expenses, and if you can cut back, and what you can cut back, you need to know them. You need to open up those bank statements, those credit card statements, and review your budget, even if you don't have a working budget that you're not looking at and using every week or month, you can sit out, sit down, and look through what you've been spending over the past few months to figure out what is it that you can cut? I believe that just coming up with what currently is. So a snapshot what is and then what's possible for you is important. So bare minimum budget is where we're looking at how little you can spend, cutting out all the fluff. So what do you need to stay afloat that's going to include things like your mortgage, your rent, groceries, transportation to work. Now I'm really talking about bare bones, and even when you dig down deeper into like a grocery line budget, you know, we all need to eat. But even that, for most people I know, for me, can be optimized better if I was more on top of only spending and buying the things I really needed. And so for you, what does your bare minimum budget look like? What is your actual expenses and what's your bear budget look like? Because that's where you're going to be able to see if I need to cut back, if something does happen to my job or income or prices continue to increase on daily goods, the way, you know, it was with eggs just for the past few months. How will I be able to sustain myself? And so just knowing what that bare budget is, even if you don't ever go to it, is important, because then you can develop a flexibility around how you spend now you may need to pause on things that you have been paying for, and it starts with the small stuff, the subscriptions, the impulse buys, dining out. It could also be big spending. Maybe you were going to take a vacation this summer. You wanted to save up for a vacation. And now there's some uncertainty, and it's better to save that money and have cash think through all the discretionary stuff that you are spending, and small items and the big items, and think about what can be cut back if needed. Remember, cutting back is not failure. It's not deprivation, especially in these times, it is self preservation. Is empowerment. Because what you're gonna want to have is money to do the things you really want. You're gonna want a security blanket, a security parachute, in case things happen to not go the way we want it to go. You want to be able to know you have something that's going to help you. And so these exercises, the actions that you're taking, will allow for that to happen. The next thing, assets. So the other intangible, this is the third intangible. We went over income, expenses. Now we're talking about assets. Very important here. Assets are the things you own. There are two assets that I'm going to talk about, in terms of your cash on hand, meaning in a savings account or high yield savings account, and your investments. Now let's first talk about investments. Let's get that out of the way, because I've had a couple questions about that where you're wondering, should you still be investing? The market is declining? Should you sell? Should you pull your money out of your investment. And so ultimately, this is the thing, if you can still invest, and you've been consistently investing, continue to do that, I know people like to talk about, you know, when the market is down, things are on sale, which technically is true the market, the stocks are down, you can buy them at a lower price, and then wait for the price increase. And if you have the stability and you've been investing, you've been sending that money to a 401, K automatically through your paycheck, you maybe set up some automatic transfers to your Roth, IRA, and you are okay with your budget that way, continue to do that, so that you can actually take advantage of what's happening in the market for when the market increases. Now, if you are living at the cusp or at the edge, you feel like your job is uncertain. You are really fearful of what's happening. You know, I would suggest that pause that breath in terms of before you make any raft decisions. But you may and if you have to pull back on investing in your account if you need the cash, if you need the money. So I'm not talking about selling anything you currently have in your investments. I'm talking about going forward, if you need cash because you're cash strapped, or because you are about to lose your job, that's a probability. Then thinking about how you can have more cash on hand can be beneficial for you. Remember, it's not a loss until you sell and realize loss until you sell your investments. And so if you don't need to sell your investments in this time when the market is down, don't if you can continue to invest. Do that. I also want to talk about just even the amounts that we're talking about. So investing, if you have to even pull back, maybe you don't have to go maybe you've been investing 100 or $200 a month. And instead of that, you have to pull down to 50 or 25 you know, continue to do something if you can. And now let's go to cash, because this is going to be important. Cash is key in these scenarios, because if something does happen to your income, you're going to want to be able to provide for yourself. And so the more cash you have in a high yield savings account, in a bank account, is going to be important. How do you find that cash? It is going to be through a combination of looking at your income, looking at your expenses, and being able to find more of a gap in that. And so that's where cutting back on your expenses come in during these times. That's where looking at ways to increase your income and using any difference, which I call the gap to then squirrel away in your savings and high yield savings account, in your rainy day fund, building that up so that if something does happen, your emergency fund can take care of you in an emergency. That is the point. Ultimately, I want you to avoid making impulsive decisions right now on short term market fluctuations, stay committed to the long term investment goals that you've had for yourself, and then also really focus on and think about how much money you do need if there is a job loss or there's an increase in your expenses due to an emergency, and try to plan for that, even if you can't get to the three to six month emergency fund of your expenses in a short period of time, which is most people, how much can you contribute? And if it's just 2550, $100 start doing that. Next up on the tangible things to think through and actions to take is liabilities. So liabilities are what you owe. That's what you owe. Those are your debts. I want you to know what your current debts are. So listing out your debt, your balances, the interest rates and minimum payments, you can continue to make aggressive payments if you are in the debt payoff stage, and you have been doing that, but if you find that. During your listening to this episode and doing the work that you actually feel you need to have more cash on hand, or you want to take advantage of the market and invest more then you're going to want to potentially look at scaling back on debt payoff goals. Doesn't mean that you're not going to pay off your debt, but if you have to and you need the cash, or you have some other goals that are more important in this time frame, remember, these are actually short term solutions. Right now, paying just a minimum payment is okay if you have a plan for the additional payments and the money that you were using it for, but you need to at least continue to pay the minimum payment, so focus on staying current to avoid late fees and hits your credit if needed, contact your lenders potentially ask if they work with you, if there are any hardships on your end that they can be sympathetic to or work with you to figure out and absolutely do not take on any new debt and make any big purchases right now that you cannot afford unless it's absolutely necessary. Listen, life happens. You know, we're sometimes you just, you need to buy something that is important, um, whether it's for your home or for work or whatever that is, and you need, you do need to use your credit you don't have enough money, but do not increase any existing balances unless absolutely necessary. You want to be lean right now with your expenses, you want to be able to be flexible. And so adding more debt, I call it adding more tethers with weights on it, it slows down your rocket. You know, I use a lot of rocket analogies and space analogies in my content, hence journey to launch, to financial freedom and independence, and in having debt and having things that you have to pay for, like leases and all these things that eat away at you reaching your goals of quitting your job and living the life you want and having control over your time. Having more of those tethers just make the ship harder to launch, or it takes more time. And if you want to be flexible, if you want to be able to get to those faster, it's just really important to pay attention to how you're managing your debt and how many tethers you have on this rocket that we are launching to financial freedom overall. I think that this and the tips in this episode will help regardless of whatever times we are in. And I hope that right now, whether you are in a more stable position or even if you feel a bit of instability about your finances, that you know that you are not defined by the number in your bank account. You're not defined by the decisions of the government and other people. I know that it's impacting us. I know that it's impacting you. It's impacting me, but realizing you know that all of this that we're working towards, ultimately, so much of it, while we can try to control is outside of our control. We can plan our best, we can do our best, and things happen that's honestly life, and so it's our resiliency, it's our view of ourselves and the compassion we have for ourselves that really, I believe, get us through this. And that goes back to the mindset and habits, piece of things, the intangible it is powering through. It is talking to someone, whether it's family and friends, and you know, if you do need help, or you need to change certain things about your finances, being open to the people around you that will support you if they understand what's going on. And so if I can leave you with any words of encouragement to help you through any uncertain times you may be going through, whether it is because of what's happening in the market or something personal in your life, it is to know that this is temporary, and while we do need money to survive, and we do need to use it as a tool to get to our goals, that we ourselves are our biggest assets, we ourselves are not defined by external circumstances that we cannot control. And so I hope this episode helps you. You can follow me at journey to launch, or at Jamila Souffrant, or both, you know, and on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter at journey to launch, and hopefully let me know how you feel, what's going on, what other questions you have. I think I want to start doing more Q and A episodes on the podcast. So you can hit me up with a question, and I will blog it and potentially use it. I can keep you anonymous if you want use it on future episodes of the podcast. As you can see, if you've been listening, I've been doing a lot of more solo episodes. So if you have questions, if this episode has helped you, take a screenshot, share it at. Me at journey to launch so I can see it, share it with someone that you care about, so that they can also be blessed with this information. And once again, if you are listening to this in real time, and you can join me on April 10 to experience the fire calc workshop, where you get the tool that will help you map out your financial independence journey and put in real numbers, and then you can be with me in a class, a live class to ask questions and to really walk through the tool and how to use it for yourself. Go to journey to launch.com/fire

calc for more information. All right, until next week, keep on journeying. Journeyers, don't forget, you can get the episode show notes for this episode by going to journey to launch.com or click the description of wherever you're listening to this and you can still grab your jumpstart guide for free to help you on your journey to financial freedom by going to journey to launch.com/jump start, you you if you want to support me and the podcast and love the free content and information that you get here. Here are four ways that you can support me in the show. One, make sure you're subscribed to the podcast wherever you listen, whether that's Apple podcasts, that purple app on your phone, your Android device, YouTube, Spotify, wherever it is that you happen to listen, just subscribe so you are not missing an episode. And if you're happening to listen to this in Apple podcasts, rate review and subscribe there. I appreciate and read every single review. Number two, follow me on my social media accounts. I'm at journey to launch on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. And I love, love, love interacting with journeyers. There three, support and check out the sponsors of this show. If you hear something that interests you, sponsors are the main ways we keep the podcast lights on here, so show them some love for supporting your girl. Four, and last but not least, share this episode, this podcast, with a friend or family member or coworker, so that we can spread the message of Journey to launch. All right, that's it until next week. Keep on journeying. Journeyers. You.

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