Episode 160- Four Tips to Help You Manage Your Money, Goals & Career Right Now

Jamila Souffrant 00:00

You're listening to the Journey to Launch podcast Four Lessons to Help You Manage Your Money, Goals and Career Right Now.

Recording 00:11

Welcome to the Journey to Launch podcast with your host Jamila Souffrant. As a money expert she 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 five, four, three, two, one.

Jamila Souffrant 00:38

Hey, hey, hey, journeyers. Welcome. Welcome to the Journey to Launch podcast. This is going to be a solo episode. I've realized it's been a little while since I've done a solo episode. So it's time for me to dig in and really just share with you my thoughts on a few things. So I'm excited to really get to talk to you.

Jamila Souffrant 00:57

So if this is the first time you're listening to this podcast, and you want more like technical financial tips advice you may want to start in another episode, but honestly, I think this episode would do just fine as your first one too. If you want the episode show notes for this episode, go to journeytolaunch.com or you can click the description of wherever you're listening to this episode to get the full episode show notes. Now if you are a new listener to the podcast or an OG journeyer I've created a jumpstart guide to help you on your journey to financial freedom. It includes the top episodes to listen to the stages to go through to reach financial freedom, resources to help you and so much more. Get it for FREE by texting launch to 33777 text launch to 33777 or go to journeytolaunch.com/jumpstart to get your guide for free right now. Okay, let's hop in to the episode.

Jamila Souffrant 01:59

So In this week's episode, I thought I would share some tips and some lessons that I have learned that I'm applying to my life, my finances that are helping me through these times. I'm gonna reference some of my history here of how I got to be where I am with Journey to Launch and working full time and I hope this is going to be beneficial to you, I think it will. But I really want to start with I know that times are hard for some people, a lot of people and when I say hard, I mean whether it is financially hard, or just mentally and spiritually, maybe hard because of everything that's going on. I find that while maybe some people aren't as impacted maybe with their career or money, you know, a lot of people are meaning they have their job has been taken away or their money is just not as consistent, but like also just like mentally having to change your lifestyle. I know for me, you know, I'm recording this still in quarantine, my life has completely changed being home with everyone, the kids and you know my husband and trying to figure out how to balance work and life. So we're sharing these tips because I feel like at the start of the year, or maybe last year, you may have had these amazing goals set for yourself, financial or not. And now that things have changed so much, it's just like, now what, maybe your goals have changed, too.

Jamila Souffrant 03:27

So I'm sharing some of the things that I'm doing to help manage my money and just like Journey to Launch right now. So if you've been a longtime listener of the podcast, so you've been here from the beginning, you know that the reason why I started Journey to Launch was because I wanted to really chronicle my journey to launch to financial freedom and independence. I was working in a full time job. I was starting a family at that time, and had a horrendous commute. And it was made even more horrible when I was pregnant one day and it took a really long time to get home. And I said to myself, I have to figure something out. And so that kind of prompted me to start looking into personal finance podcasts and googling, how do I quit my job and led me down this rabbit hole of financial independence and I just haven't looked back ever since.

Jamila Souffrant 04:15

And so here I am, like, a few years later, actually, I started I always get the dates kind of mixed up. But it officially started Journey to Launch in 2015. I think that's like when the first blog post appeared. And I then was like, okay, let me you know, start Journey to Launch and chronicle my journey to financial independence and freedom. And at that time, the goal was to save and invest as much as possible, because before then, I had thought, okay, you know, you're making good money. But how are you going to live off of this money forever? Like, how are you going to have enough money saved and invested over time so that you would never have to work again, like that's not possible you need to win the lottery. You need to start a huge business, some big business, but I just didn't see how that was possible until I found out about this thing called saving and investing your money aggressively, and being more optimized with your expenses and all this stuff.

Jamila Souffrant 05:11

With that in mind, you know, came home, talk to my husband and we decided eventually, okay, let's see how much we can save and invest. And over two years, we were able to save and invest $169,000. And that was due to a lot of factors. Obviously, we had the income to be able to support that. But we know we created a budget, we got really intentional about our goals. And so when I started journey to launch, the whole thing was alright, if we do this for the next seven years, by the time I reach 40, that was a goal when I was 40 years old, I will not have to work again because we would have saved enough money in our investment accounts, to have it go on autopilot. Like we wouldn't even have to like invest in them again. And by the time you need to touch the money, we would have what we needed. And then on top of that one of the goals was to also pay down or more It's like paid off like, ideally, because it's our highest expense. We live in New York City, we have three kids. So it's like, let's just try to also get our expenses down. So, because our earnings were high at that moment, we're like, we're just gonna do this for the next few years.

Jamila Souffrant 06:15

We'll do it. And then we'll be free in seven years kind of thing, because I was about 33 when I started doing this, and doing this all seriously. So then I started trying to launch and the blog and the podcast came along because I didn't like writing articles every week, and decided to use my voice as a medium. And something interesting happened. I realized, like the potential for Journey to Launch to be my full time thing was there. And honestly, it wasn't like Journey to Launch was making money, like a lot of money. It wasn't at the time when I started to really take Journey to Launch more seriously and think I can just do this full time. But it was seeing like my colleagues and people in the space, in the personal finance space, who were doing this full time, who had personal finance platforms, who, you know, were making money consistently. And I saw the potential for Journey to Launch because just the impact and the feedback that I was getting from you, the journeyers about what I was doing.

Jamila Souffrant 07:16

And so I realized really quickly that I could not juggle this all. I could not juggle working full time. And I had a job that was pretty intense. And you had to be on it when you were on it. And so I had a full time job had kids at the time. And by then when I decided I wanted to do Journey to Launch full time I was pregnant with my third like, as soon as I got pregnant, my, my third child, my daughter, I knew that I was like, I can't do this. So had the family had the long commute and then Journey to Launch which felt like a full time business because you know I'd come home and do all the work at night after the kids went to bed. Do it on my lunch break. It was so much.

Jamila Souffrant 07:52

So I realized that I needed to change my goals. I no longer wanted to wait until I was 40 years old to have the benefit of financial independence, I wanted to achieve that the freedom or more flexibility, like right now. And so my goals have changed. So one of the things that I'm recommending for everyone here is that your goals will change and you need to be flexible, you need to be adaptive to them. Because you can't prevent life from happening. You can't prevent your mind from changing and I'm a big proponent of it's okay to change your mind. It's okay to change your mind. I changed my mind every day. Um, sometimes I will like, Oh, I should share this with the journeyer. And I'm like, but I might not feel this way next week. Right? But it's important to understand that your mind will change and so can your goals. And that's what happened for us while I was really intent, and it seemed really just like amazing if we could just stick to this plan of investing and saving. I had this great job where I was earning all the money. If I could just stick with the plan. Basically, we would be good like we'd be good. And then life happened. And then I realized, you know what, I don't want to wait. I don't want to wait. Until I'm 40 years old to experience freedom.

Jamila Souffrant 09:02

And it started to like, have me think it what's the difference with you know, people who just work in a job that you know, they don't love for the pension or for you know that 30 years just to get to their retirement date? How is that any different from me not enjoying what I'm doing. And doing that for seven years, like anything had happened. They always say, you work all this time you think it's gonna be like, in 20 years, 30 years, you'll be free, but it's like, you're wasting so much time until then. Now, I want to make clear, I'm not suggesting that everyone just go out and say f it. I'm gonna quit my job because I'm living my best life now.

Jamila Souffrant 09:37

We took precautions to be able to do this. And that's part of what I mean when I say, be flexible with your goals. Because once we were able or I was able, because, you know, it really started with me wanting to change things and quit. I said, what do we have to do differently with our finances in order to make this possible? And so we reviewed our budget, we looked at our immediate expenses to see how could we really make this a reality. And I can leave my job because my income was more than half of our household. I actually had, like, you know, the higher earning potential because I was in a job that I got raises, and I got bonuses. And so the climb up the corporate ladder would have meant a lot more money over time, if I would have stayed and my husband's a teacher, and, you know, he makes good money, I think, as for a teacher, honestly, but still like for me to like walk away from that income potential, we had to make sure we could sustain our lifestyle.

Jamila Souffrant 10:29

And so instead of aggressively saving and investing, so if you go back to one of the early early episodes, I think it was like episode one. I talked about how we saved and invested all the money we invested like kind of where it went. So really, our strategy was investing in retirement accounts for maxing out our 401k my 401k. And then my husband because he's a teacher. He had access to a 403b and 457. And so we've maxed that out, max out our Roth IRAs, doing backdoor Roth IRAs. Again, if you go back to previous episodes to be able to kind of find out or get the breakdown of that. And so it was really just like investing our money into like a lot of these like accounts that were tax advantaged retirement accounts. And then we did some just taxable investing, pay down our mortgage, a bit kind of thing.

Jamila Souffrant 11:16

So with this new plan, we needed more cash on hand. Because if I was going to walk away from my job, we'd have my husband's income, you know, thank God, that would be great, but it wouldn't cover everything that would not cover all of our expenses. So we figured out how much was the deficit between my husband's income and how much we needed to spend. And we really didn't change our lifestyle. So I also didn't want to quit my job and then the family have to, like really change in terms of how we lived I wanted to be able to like least keep what we were doing, you know, we weren't doing anything extravagant. But it was more like I don't want to go from being able to go out in the summertime or go out to eat here and there to like not doing anything eating, quote unquote, for lack of a better term. Rice and beans all day and like no cable and like, we wanted to keep a certain lifestyle. So okay, how much money did we need? So figure that out. And I was okay, I was comfortable with two years, about two, three years, but it was really like two years of money saved up, that would cover our expenses, the gap from my husband's income. And so we had to change our strategy.

Jamila Souffrant 12:21

So instead of aggressively saving and investing and investment accounts that we couldn't touch or that were harder to get ahold of, we switched to saving in cash. And when I say in cash, it's really savings accounts, and more accessible accounts. So, for example, instead of investing in just my typical 401k, because my company had a match, I invested in my Roth 401k just to get the company match, because I just could not free money quote, unquote, so I was like, gonna invest up to that with the Roth. I knew that when I left my job, I'd be able to transfer enroll that Roth 401k money into a Roth IRA and Roth money, the contributions that you put in you can access at any time. So I was really going after it with, we just need as much cash and access to capital on hand in case of an emergency to help cover the expenses of our household because honestly, I wasn't expecting journey to launch to make a lot of money in the first couple of years. I wasn't expected to replenish my income and actually did another episode, because I had this post last year 2019 based on what Journey to Launch made, and what I was able to bring home like it really was, if you did the calculations, it was like less than minimum wage almost like for all the work that I did.

Jamila Souffrant 13:39

So really, I understood that I listened to enough business podcasts, and I read enough stories about people starting businesses that I did not expect to come out and personally be bringing home six figures with Journey to Launch. So we adjusted and we saved money in accounts that we can access and then save as much as we could I'm in cash over time, over the time that I was pregnant and decided, ultimately to leave my job so that I could jump leap with a cushion, there would be a life vest that I have on. It's not I'm just like jumping in without anything. And so that was really helpful. And I changed my mind on this journey. And I might change it again. And it's okay if I do and it's okay. If you do. I think it's important to keep that in mind. Because with so many variables outside of our control, you know, the one thing that we can only control are ourselves and the way we feel about things and our feelings change.

Jamila Souffrant 14:33

So, if you had an aggressive goal, to pay down debt, or to buy a house or something that was really important to you at the beginning of the year, it's not to say you can't continue to do it. If you still have the means and the drive and that is your commitment. Go ahead. But if for whatever reason something has changed in your life, you need to approach things differently. Maybe you need to keep more cash on hand because your job is not as stable. Then that's okay, do that. Don't get down on yourself or you know, kind of say, well, I made this commitment and I have to stick it out. It's okay. You have to constantly reassess your goals. Because during moments like these, it's important and it doesn't mean that you failed. You're just adjusting. You're giving yourself more room to maneuver. And it's something that I constantly do. And I'm okay with adapting, adapting my mindset, adopting my goals, adapting my approach to ultimately get me to where I want to go. Even if that point kind of changes. You know, I think the end goal for me is always going to be having more options and opportunity and to make sure my family is financially secure. But I'm not just stuck on one way to do that. I'm open to how that may look. So that's my first tip. Be flexible with your goals. That was a long tip.

Jamila Souffrant 15:46

Okay, second thing, invest in things that will help you value your time so for me, I did this when quarantine kind of began because I run Journey to Launch virtually so part of this whole thing of being home everyone's switching to more digital. For me like it's something that I've been doing. And because I'm in like the online business world, this is like nothing new to online entrepreneurs, like the whole Zoom thing. That's how I conduct most of my meetings, the Money Launch Club, our calls, and our meetings are all on Zoom. Anyway, so I was used to this.

Jamila Souffrant 16:19

But interestingly enough, I was working from a computer and a phone and they were pretty old. Like my computer., my laptop, I should say, was more than 10 years old, but I was making it work. So I had some money saved up from like, money that I made from the business that I was kind of afraid to spend because I was like, well, you don't know income is not consistent. So you need to keep all cash on hand. So you don't want to necessarily go spend money on a new computer right now. Let's wait.

Jamila Souffrant 16:46

But over like the last couple years, I knew I needed a new computer. Because this computer that I had, while I loved it so dearly. It would take so long to start up in like the beginning of the day, like literally 10 to 15 minutes, just to start up. And sometimes I have like last minute meetings or people who want to talk to me some opportunities. And I use my computer and I just like this is not gonna start up in time. I'm gonna like either be late or got an I have to navigate it without the computer kind of thing. So that would happen a lot during my working on Journey to Launch and in the business, but I was so kind of intent on, you know what, let's just wait. You're going to ride this until the wheels fall off. And then during quarantine when it first started, I was like, You know what, I need this now more than ever, especially because, you know, we have three kids at home. My oldest is in kindergarten, so he needs a computer to do his work. And so I realized like, now he's using the computer to do his work, I need to do my work, and we can't do at the same time. So I decided that I needed to invest in a computer. And at the same time, same thing with my phone. I think it was a fine you know, phone it was iPhone. I think it was like a seven which you know, it was working for me but there were certain things that could not do online that impacted my business. So for example, like Instagram would not work on my phone meaning like the stories, I couldn't go live with it. And I used to think like, what if Oprah calls me to do a live, I can't even go live on Instagram with Oprah, because my phone will not work.

Jamila Souffrant 18:17

So I was really dealing with some older technology that was impacting my business. And I finally shifted my mindset to see that buying these things. It wasn't just a cost, it was an investment. It would save me energy, it would save me time. And while I may not be able to, you know, pinpoint exact return on the money I spent, it would be beyond beneficial. So with that, I invested in a new phone and a new computer. And my life has been amazing in terms of technology because this computer that I'm on that I'm using, it like starts up in two seconds. It connects to my phone, I was able to go live I made a promise I went live once on Instagram, and I was I need to do this more often it was so easy. It wasn't cutting off all that to say, you know, you might be in a place or a position that there's something you can invest in, that would give you a huge benefit and return and the money spent on that will, over time, save you money or be able to earn you more money. So is there something that you can do right now, I mean, even with everything going on, right? It may be a sacrifice, you may have to like rejigger things in your budget to make it happen.

Jamila Souffrant 19:30

But if this is going to be an investment that will help you over the long term, give yourself permission to make that purchase. Even now, I always say I have no problems with spending money. It's just optimally spending money on things that matter that will improve your life that will make things easier for you. So invest in things that will help you, especially if it's gonna help you value your time. That's point number two.

Jamila Souffrant 19:52

Point number three, something that I've been doing learning more of and implementing is share what you're doing with your network. So we are in a space where there are opportunities out there. My friend is a career coach, I hear from her people still getting interviews, still getting opportunities and promoted in certain areas. And even like me, like there's things opportunities still coming my way when it comes to Journey to Launch, right. So there are opportunities out there. And I know it's not the same for every industry and for everybody. But I think what is important is to actually, like, share what you're doing with your network.

Jamila Souffrant 20:30

And so for example, I did a speaking gig late last year, it was like my first official speaking gig on stage. It was amazing. And I finally shared the footage because I had the footage that the organizers sent me but I never shared it on social media. And I was like, you know what, let me share this. I shared it on Instagram. And you know, saying I should share this on LinkedIn because it's part of Journey to Launch and the business model here is that now I also can make money from speaking engagements. And for companies that want to hire me. And so I said, well, LinkedIn would be the best place for me to post this video because, you know, that's where most of my professional network is. And I had that kind of thought in my head, like, I should post this video and like, then it was just like a short clip of my speech. And if you go to LinkedIn Jamila Souffrant you'll be able to see it. But I said, you know, I should share this and I shared it like, recently, like, into early 2020. So I did the speech got the video back late last year. And this was like the first time I'm now sharing this video with people and then you know, with my LinkedIn network, and literally, I think less than a week after me sharing it, someone reached out to me who was a friend so I wasn't connected to this person, but they were connected to a ex coworker, someone I used to work with. They were like, I saw that this person liked your video, I want to see it. And I was amazed because I'm working on this project and I think you really may be a good fit for it. And it just blew my mind. Like if I never posted this video, I would not be having this conversation with this man right now.

Jamila Souffrant 22:03

And so the conversation and what's still happening, nothing has come to fruition just yet. But it just goes to show that there's probably something right now that you're working on thinking on, sitting on in you're maybe afraid to share it or you just don't find the value in sharing it with people. And there's someone who's waiting for you to share it because they either can help you do that thing or support you somehow in it. Now you know, I know is talk about don't share things until you know you're ready or you don't want people like squash your dreams. So yes, only share things that you're confident about or you feel good about no matter what the feedback will be. But I think it's really important to share what you're doing what you're thinking with your network. You have no clue like who knows who who'd be interested in it. And I know it can be nerve racking, nerve racking to put yourself out there. But I found that the more actually share and then I'm vulnerable with the content and thoughts and ideas, the more opportunities I have. So don't be afraid to share what you're working on and what's important to you. It's something that costs nothing right? posting that video really just cost me a few minutes. And then but not anything monetarily. And it can really help you accomplish your money and career goals. I saw this floating around on Twitter. And you know, there's a lot of talk about why certain people make it to where they make it and the opportunities that they get. And is it luck? Or you know, hard work? Is it just chance or accident.

Jamila Souffrant 23:31

And sometimes, I think a lot of it is luck and chance, but you have to also create those chances and lucky moments. And creating them means putting more of it out there into the world for people to see like put that light out there. Right so people can see those planes coming in that potentially could could help you or your fleet will come to you but they won't see you if you don't have a light shining. Okay, so we went through being flexible with your coals, invest in the things that will value your time. share what's important we a network. Okay?

Jamila Souffrant 24:03

Tip four, this my last tip, prepare for the opportunities that you want. So even in like the real hard times, I have a mantra that I really try to stick to and it is act as if. Because there are things right now that you want to do, that you want to have. And you're thinking you have to have and do those things first to be the person you want, right? It's that whole, have, be, do model where you know, typically in our society, you got to have the thing first and do the work and then you can do the work. And then you can be the person and be all the things you want. And really I believe it's more of the be, do, have model that you have to become the person you want first. So who is that person that successful entrepreneur or businesswoman or mom or whatever it is like what does that person look like that you think that you have to have all these things first? These material things first, the circumstances and the situation to be right first before you can be that what kind of person is that person? And can you be that person right now prepare for those opportunities for who you want to be right now.

Jamila Souffrant 25:15

And so I really try to stick to that, for example, before COVID-19 all this stuff started happening last year, I got approached by a couple producers for a reality show. No, not like any, like, scandalous reality show more like, Oh, we need like a personal finance person to help with this content. And I was like, sure, why not? When they first approached me, I never really saw myself like going on like, reality TV, but in this sense, I was like, maybe I could be on TV. In a sense. I always thought I'd have like a talk show or the podcast would be kind of aired video style somewhere. But I was like, okay, I can start with like being a guest expert. And honestly, when the conversation started happening, and right now just to be clear, they're still happening or on pause, honestly for the moment, so I can't really share any updates with that yet. So just pray for me on it. But I really started to think, what if producers, someone called me for the show or TV show that I wanted to do? Would I be ready? Is Jamila, are you Jamila the person that you want to be right now to be ready for that opportunity? I was like, no. I felt like there was so many things that I would want to improve.

Jamila Souffrant 26:28

Like, if they call me like on Monday, and said, we're going to start filming in four weeks, I would do so many things between then and the four weeks I worked out. I didn't eat healthier, because I'd want to present my best self and be confident on camera. I probably take some speaking lessons and all these things that I would like that's how to prepare, because I want to like be ready and I'm like, why wait? Why wait for that call that the show is going to happen? Why not be prepared right now for those opportunities. So I really started to think what I could do right now without any of that happening without any show, any producer, someone selecting me to do something, what can I choose myself to do right now? And that's one of the things that prompted me to get back in shape. Because I said, why, why wait for someone else to do that, like I want to be able to do that myself. And even with speaking, and practicing being on camera more and being more aware of how I sound and I'm looking into hiring someone to help with my voice right now, these are all the things that I'm doing right now. Because I want to prepare for that opportunity.

Jamila Souffrant 27:31

And even if those opportunities don't come into play, they don't pan out. I am ready. I am ready if someone taps me if you know Oprah calls me for a show. I am ready. So what is something you can do right now? If there's a dream, maybe that's on hold or something that you're thinking that you want to accomplish? Who does that person need to be? What do you envision when you close your eyes? What do they sound like? What do they look like and open your eyes and look at yourself in the and you can be that person right now. So start working on it, start preparing for those opportunities right now so that when they come, you are ready for them 100%. So there may be a position, you want a skill set you need to acquire, you maybe want to feel more confident in certain areas of your life. Take this time to do that now, even though the economy and job market are in a flux right now, you owe it to yourself to still pursue those goals, to still pursue and be the person you want to be even without the physical manifestation of the goal.

Jamila Souffrant 28:33

Okay, so those are four things that really I've continued to do over my career, my life that I think have put me in the place I am today, and things that I think you can continue to do in your life or start to do despite everything going on to put you in a better position. So just to recap, be flexible with your goals. invest in the things that will help you value your time and get you to where you want to be. Share what is important with you to your network. And finally, prepare for the opportunities that you want.

Jamila Souffrant 29:10

So I hope you enjoyed that solo episode. I really want to do more of these. I keep saying this, I want to do more. So episodes, I want to share more of my thoughts, the personal things, right, like, how am I applying what I'm learning through this podcast because I'm learning to when I interview people, when I'm doing my research when I am formulating the path to financial independence, I'm learning so much and I want to be able to share more of my inner workings with you guys. So I'm glad that I was able to hop on to this episode, which by the way, I'm so proud of myself. I've been getting up early 5:30, 6ish in the morning so I can get things done before the kids get up. And so I'm recording this before the kids awaken and cause havoc in this household. But I want to share some things I've been doing that have been helping me just like mentally. I've been using something called the Insight Timer. It's an app, it's free. And it helps with meditation. So one thing I've been trying to get back with is meditating. So I get up in the morning, I meditate. And they have like five to 10 minute meditations, guided meditations. And that's more of my speed nowadays. So I've been doing that. I've been running, um, you know, I'm not a fan of running typically, I'm just like, why do people run? This is horrible. But we found this amazing path that is really not used or it's just social distance safe. I feel safe running this path. And so I've been doing it when I can with my husband. It's been amazing. And so I've been running more. I've been working out at home more. And so it's been really good. So those are some of the non finance things I've been doing that have been helping me get more clarity and feel more confident with my life, especially with everything going on. I want to share that.

Jamila Souffrant 30:57

Don't forget if you want the episode show notes, to get any the links mentioned in this episode, go to journeytolaunch.com or click the description wherever you're listening to this to get the link to the show notes. And if you want that free Jumpstart guide to help you on your financial freedom journey, text launch to 33777, text launch to 33777 to get your free guide today or go to journeytolaunch.com/jumpstart.

Jamila Souffrant 31:29

If you want to support me in 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 and 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 @journeytolaunch 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. Alright, that's it. Until next week, keep on journeying journeyers.