Episode 468: A Money System That Works When Life Falls Apart with Sahirenys Pierce

Jamila Souffrant 0:02

Hey, hey, hey, journeyers, welcome to the journey to launch podcast today we have siren ease Pierce on the podcast. She's the founder of poise, financial and lifestyle. Okay, let me do it again. All right, it's poised finance and lifestyle, right? Yes, yes. Okay, hey, hey, hey, journeyers, welcome to the journey to launch podcast today we have special guest syrense Pierce. She is the founder of poise finance and lifestyle and creator of the high five banking method. She's a millennial Latina mom and Financial Wellness Educator with a background in finance and financial planning. She's held roles at numerous companies, and now she is teaching us how to manage our cash flow, build wealth. She's also the author of a brand new book called The High Five banking method, a money system you can count on. Fun fact, she has been on the podcast before, but back in May 2020 so I can't believe, like the stats, like almost six years ago, and she's back on. So the episode number for that was episode 157 you can still listen to this one first, but if you want even more background, you can go listen to that. I'll make sure to link it in the episode show notes. So please everyone. Welcome to the podcast. Syrenice, hi. Hey, Jamila, how's it going? Good. It's so nice to reconnect with you. I know it's so funny because we're I would say, when you're in this world, the personal finance world, or just any on as an online creator, you like your workplace is virtual, and so, like, you have co workers in a way. I mean, you don't work in the same company, but in the same field. And so sometimes you see each other at conferences, if we go, but then if, like, it's been years since I've interviewed you, but I see you online, like, you know, Instagram, but not in person, like virtually. So it's like, nice to run into you.

Sahirenys Pierce 1:55

I know it feels so good. And I hope I can see you at FinCon this year. I'll be attending at Palm Springs. If you're there, I would love to reconnect. I originally met you was at FinCon at DC. Amazing. Yes, yeah.

Jamila Souffrant 2:09

So anyone listening who's really new? FinCon is a Personal Finance Conference that a lot of us go to. It's really what helped me a lot when I was building journey to launch in the brand, and I went, I haven't been in a couple years, but I used to go all the time, every year, and we'll see. We'll see, right?

Unknown Speaker 2:29

Keep me updated, yeah,

Jamila Souffrant 2:31

but no, I'm really proud of you that you know you have your first book coming out. Yes, yes, your first one, yeah. And what I really like about what you talk about and your methods is, I'm a framework girly like I like frameworks. I like being able to tell people exactly how to do something and break down steps. And I feel like you do a really good job with your high five banking method, which is now the book and how to help people logistically with their money. And so we're going to go into all those tips so people can help to get that cash flow going. But I do want to just touch upon your story just a little bit I mentioned in the bio, used to work for a couple companies, and now you're a full time entrepreneur. You're a mom. So can we just go back just a little bit to get a taste of your early career and how you found yourself now as an entrepreneur? Yes.

Sahirenys Pierce 3:19

So again, I am a transfer student from a community college to a four year institution at Cal State Northridge, and I'm someone who struggled or was a victim of the 2008 recession. My family ended up losing everything, our home, our cars, and ended up my parents ended up divorcing, so once I started looking for a career in the finance industry, I really felt tugged too towards financial planning, because it felt like that aha moment where I realized we don't always have to start from scratch. Every single time there's a recession, a family emergency or we lose our job, there are ways to protect ourselves. There's ways to learn about debt management, about budgeting, about investing, about, you know, protection planning, and I fell completely in love with this. And once I got out of college and I, you know, got into the industry, I started working at Merrill Lynch MetLife and Ameriprise met down the line. I really wanted to help my community and friends, because a lot of them also felt the same impact of Oh, eight. But I was completely shocked that when I told people the first step of financial plan is doing a budget, they thought I was cursing them out. I was saying like, the B word to them, and I'm like, No, you guys, we have to figure out where you're at before we can figure out where you're going. And they were flabbergasted, because, again, financial planning is a really new topic, especially for minorities, women and young people, especially. So I said, You know what? I'm not gonna take it to heart. I'm just gonna focus on, you know, focus on, you know, being the difference I want to see. So I started implementing all the financial knowledge I knew. Started budgeting, saving an emergency fund, paying off my student loans, cash flowing my wedding. And at my wedding, people started noticing that we were moving different. We were feeling there. Confident with our decisions. We were, you know, emergencies were thrown at us, and we were moving through them with poise. And I realized, you know, we are doing something, but I didn't know exactly how powerful it really was until my son. I found out during my second pregnancy that my son had a heart defect, and that's where the Hi Fi banking method was really created because I started managing my finances with purpose, not just because I read it in a book, not just because it made sense logically, but because I needed to gain control over my life. Because these there's things in life that you know we're having to face that are out of our control, like our health, our livelihood, these things are out of our control, and when it comes to these difficult moments, you really need to be very purposeful when it comes to your savings. What are you saving for? How are you managing your expenses so that you can actually gain control of your life, not just you know your finances, because the prices are important, but you know we have to be able to handle these emergencies with grace and compassion, and we need to add our emotions back into this financial planning situation.

Jamila Souffrant 6:06

Yeah, no, I love that. And talk about, talking about the being what you want to see. I feel like it's so important and so many creators who go on to have brands and businesses within the personal finance space always, it's always. It should start from, I believe, first changing your own finances, because then you can speak from a level of expertise, or at least someone who's been there and done that now. So just remind me again, what you went to school for, what was your

Sahirenys Pierce 6:33

degree in, in finance and financial planning.

Jamila Souffrant 6:37

Got it and so then you did go on to work and do financial planning in corporate settings, realize you can turn around your own finances, and then you at what point did you then quit your job to become a full time entrepreneur?

Sahirenys Pierce 6:51

I'll be honest, I actually quit before I became a full time entrepreneur, I wanted to have my kids, and I want to take a break from my industry. Here's the secret when it comes to financial planning and that all people don't know, this is the old man's game. So the older you are, the better. So because I was so young at that moment, I feel like I could take that break and not feel, you know, regret a later on in my journey. But once I was in my motherhood journey, I was like, You know what? I missed this. I miss sharing, you know, budgeting tips and financial planning tips and, you know, ways to they could start building wealth and 529, plans. So when I started getting a little, you know, missing that part of me, my husband was like, Well, you know, you could do that. You can definitely, you know, start talking about personal finance and start your own business and share on social media your journey and what you've experienced and the lessons that you've learned. And honestly, once I created the high five banking method, where I started saving specifically for my son's open heart surgery, and I then I once I had that experience of seeing how powerful it was to manage your money with purpose, that's when I created the Hi Fi banking method, and when I posted it on social media, it kind of took on a life of its own. It's kind of out of my hands at that point. And it was featured on Forbes women and all CNBC CNET, and it kind of just exploded. And it helped me, you know, really share my story and how I'm managing my finances with five bank accounts, which for some people, you know, it seems a little excessive, but, you know, once you start managing your finances and going through things in life, you start realizing I need more than one checking account and one savings account. I got a lot on my plate. I need to start, you know, clearing some stuff up and start getting organized. And this framework helps people do just that. Okay, we

Jamila Souffrant 8:33

are going to get into it. Because if you don't know what the high five baking method is, I'm like, I know. You're like, Well, okay, they keep mentioning it. What is this thing? So how, like, long ago or far back did you first like post about the Hi Fi banking method?

Sahirenys Pierce 8:46

It has to be about my son's eight now, so about seven and a half years. So he had his surgery at six months. So right after there, I started posting and talking about it. So it's been a while, but it's crazy, because I've always managed my finances after I got married. You know, a little bit separated on emergency fund here, the wedding money over there, our bill money is here. But it didn't catch on to me how important it was until things aren't going perfect. Because when things are going good, any system works, any way that you manage, your finances are good. But when times are difficult, that's where you're really tested. And your systems are, you know, under heat and they're starting, you start noticing that the way I'm what I'm doing, this framework actually does stand up to the test of time.

Jamila Souffrant 9:32

All right, so let's get into it. What is the high five banking method? Yes.

Sahirenys Pierce 9:37

So this is a money management system that helps you take control of your finances by having a fight. Let me start over. I'm so sorry.

Jamila Souffrant 9:46

It's all good. It's all good. I started

Sahirenys Pierce 9:49

that incorrectly, because it's like a little confusing, all right, so I'll let you ask me the question again.

Jamila Souffrant 9:53

Sorry. Okay, so what is the high five banking method?

Sahirenys Pierce 9:59

It's designed. Around five purpose driven bank accounts that helps you manage your finances with purpose. It's designed around two checking accounts and three savings accounts. The first checking account is going to be for your bills, because at the end of the day, we all have bills. The second checking account is going to be for your lifestyle. These are going to be all the lifestyle wants that you actually want to implement into your budget without feeling bad about it. Now when it comes to the three savings accounts, the first one is going to be for your emergency fund, because we all need an emergency fund, and it's the most important savings account in the system. The next one is going to be for your short term goals. This is going to be goals that you want to accomplish that take less than 12 months to to achieve. Now when it comes to the long term goals, this account is going to be specifically for goals that are more than a year, but less than five years to accomplish. This might be like wanting to purchase a home, planning a wedding or buying a new vehicle. Those are the type of goals that you want to put in there. Once you have all five accounts, you can give your finances a high five, because you are taking control of your money.

Jamila Souffrant 10:58

Okay, this sounds great because it physically or in a banking method puts what we talk about in the personal finance world all the time when we think about mandatory expenses, your bills, things that you need to pay, that are due, versus the nice to have and and excessive things we like doing. So I feel like we talk about this, and then what happens is people, for the most part, they understand that. And then when it comes to implementing how to separate and save, and while this could be done with like a budget, which we'll get into and tracking and keeping track like this is an additional almost, adding this to a budget, right? It works so well together, if you can follow this method. So let's get into now the we went over the five accounts, two, checking, three savings are these accounts at the same institution. Are some of them high yield savings accounts are like, what can you break down a little bit the logistics of what banks or what institutions? Yes, so I

Sahirenys Pierce 12:05

definitely recommend to work with more than one bank. It's kind of like what our parents should tell us back in the day, don't put all your eggs in one basket. That's what I did back in the day. I used to bank with Washington Mutual, and once I heard that they were going down, I was freaking out because I didn't know what FDIC insurance meant, and I didn't know, you know, the casualties of not having access to your money, even if it's just for one hour. So you always want to make sure that you're working with more than one bank. This could be a big bank or a local credit union, but it could also be very, very beneficial to also work with an online bank where you can get access to high yield savings accounts, you know, and different budgeting templates and bucket systems. All of these online banks are really implementing to helping you manage your finances a little bit easier, especially if you're younger and you're okay having a bank that's not in a physical location, but I am very pro also having a physical location that you can go to, like a credit union, a local, big bank, so you can have some variety in how you're banking, but definitely when it comes to the savings accounts, look into having high yield savings accounts, because it doesn't hurt you to earn a little bit of interest you know, along the way of your journey, especially when it comes to your emergency fund, a lot of times, you know things are going great. You don't have to pull from that, and that's an amazing accomplishment. You have to be very happy when you don't have to pull from your emergency fund. Your emergency fund. But if it can start growing a little bit, at 3% 5% depending on what the yield is, that is an awesome opportunity for you.

Jamila Souffrant 13:30

Yeah, and I would say just, I have a high yield savings account where my emergency fund is parked, and depending, obviously, it depends on the amount you have in it, but I, you know, I get hundreds of dollars a month for it being in there. And it's, you know, quote, unquote, free money. Quote, unquote. But it's versus, if that was just in a traditional savings account, earning, what is that point 05, or 005010? 1% versus earning 3.5 or 5% like, it's such a big difference. It can mean hundreds of dollars, depending on how much you can have in there. So I have a couple of episodes on this. I have an episode where I convinced one of my sisters to put her money in a high yield savings account. So you can scroll back to listen to that, but very important to understand, and they also insured and and beneficial for your portfolio of accounts. Now, absolutely, absolutely. How does one decide how much to put in these accounts so you have a paycheck, and I'm sure there are other things we're going to talk about, because you have some really interesting concepts that I think will be helpful. But okay, I'm listening to this. I'm like, okay, sigh. Can I call you Sai? Of course, of course. Okay, so you know, I understand these accounts. But what do i Okay, I have one paycheck or two paychecks a month. How do I divvy it up? How much do I know to put in each account? How do I even get ahead? Because I don't even feel like I have enough to put

Sahirenys Pierce 14:52

in all five. Yes, the first step is to actually list out all of your expenses, regardless of you know if they're fun or not. Fund expenses that you have. And what I really recommend people to do is to, once they list out all of their expenses, start separating it. What are your actual bills, and how much do they actually cost? This is actually going to cost is going to be equal to your minimum cost of living. This is a number that a lot of people do not know about, and when they're trying to figure out how much to save, even right for their emergency fund, they have no idea. Everyone says one month of your you know one month at three, six months, but you have no idea what one month even equals your minimum cost of living. Is your one month emergency fund is your minimum cost of living, and is exactly how much money you need to have in your bills checking account. Now, when it comes to your lifestyle, calculate that and you decide, okay, how much do I feel comfortable putting towards my lifestyle, like entertainment, hobbies, all of those fun things I want to do without it stopping me from contributing to my other goals and my other dreams and aspirations, because we don't want to, you know, sit back and be like, Oh, wow, I'm now living paycheck to paycheck because I'm spending all of my money. So you really want to make sure that you are giving yourself some guardrails to protecting how much money needs to go into each account. Once you know how much money needs to go into your bills, let's say you get paid twice a month. That's a, you know, a reality for some people, your goal is to make sure that all of your income goes towards funding that account, first, not your lifestyle first, not a little bit towards your emergency fund, or a little bit towards savings. Because what happens is you start putting little sprinkling money here and there, here and there, and you get nowhere. You need to make sure that your foundation is set. Then once that foundation is set, then you can contribute to your lifestyle account, then you can contribute to your emergency fund, then you can contribute to your other goals with confidence. That's the key that we're trying to help people achieve here. You want to feel confident that you're not going to start putting money towards savings and then transferring it back into your bills. You're going to put money into your emergency fund and transfer it out to pay off your credit card. That cycle is not moving us forward. So what I teach people in the book, once they have that foundation set and they're ready to start flowing their money through the accounts, you want to get two weeks ahead. I call this a two week gap, where you strategically get ahead of your bills by two weeks, so that when the first comes around, you have that account stacked and ready to go for your bills, and then you can competency, confidently say, Okay, I'm ready to start putting money towards my lifestyle for the beginning of the month. And then a few days later, you know, you know, make sure everything's still no bills are, you know, higher than you expected them to be, then you can confidently start transferring money to your emergency fund or other goals. And you know, for a lot of people, I'm assuming you as well. You get to a point where you're so confident with this routine that you can start automating your savings. Okay, on the fifth of the month, I'm going to start automating my savings, because I've been doing this and I know that I have enough money for my bills. I know I have enough money for my lifestyle, and I'm not going into credit card debt or anything like that. And now I could feel more confident to take that next step. You know, in finance, we hear so many people shouting, oh, the rich people are doing this. The rich have credit cards. They put everything on there. But we kind of take a step back. Let's make sure we're, you know, we're making sure that the foundation is set and that we are comfortable and confident with that before we start leaping forward. So that way, when we start getting using credit cards or, you know, investing, we're not going backwards, we're going forwards only. Right?

Jamila Souffrant 18:27

It's like, you want to ride a bike first, but you had never ridden before. Like, don't try to ride without holding on to the handlebars. Let's start. You can get there, not saying you can't, but let's start with the basics first, before you hurt yourself, and it really it goes bad. But a couple things I want to note so this is based more on managing your cash flow right the in and out of what's coming in and out of your household. I know net worth when it comes to paying of debt and building assets, is part of this. And I want to talk about that. Where would you put minimum debt payment? As would that be your bills?

Sahirenys Pierce 19:05

Yes, it would definitely go in your bills. You always want to make sure you're making minimum payments, even if you're doing like the snowball method, the Avalanche method, or if you're doing debt consolidation, you want to make sure you're paying the minimum always, and if at towards the end, once you already have that foundation set, then you again, you can choose how much do I want to push towards extra debt payments, and how is this going to affect my lifestyle account? How it's going to affect my savings? But you are making a decision, and you are in control of it, and that's where I want more people to feel like, okay, I get to choose how much money goes towards there. I'm not just randomly guessing $100 here, $200 there, because a lot of times that's not a strategy. You know, you need to remember, if you're trying to move forward faster, you need to have a strategy in place, right?

Jamila Souffrant 19:50

So remembering that we are just trying to understand the basics of your living expenses. So it's not to say you can't pay additional debt, but when we are. Thinking about cash flow, think about just the minimum amount that you need to pay for your debt, and then all your expenses for that account. Then once the dust has settled, you and you hopefully have extra money left over, that's when you decide, okay, I want to put extra amount towards my debt here and then towards saving. Question investing now, right? So depending on how you invest, if you work for a company where your money comes out, like pre tax, before you even get your check or post tax, you are manually putting money towards or automatically putting money towards a Roth IRA. What does that look like? Where does that money draw from? Which account does it go into?

Sahirenys Pierce 20:36

So the first thing again, a lot of people, you know, they start a job, and they're like, how much do you want to contribute to your IRA or to your 401 K and they're just like, I don't know. Like you feel like you don't really can confidently answer that question. So I want people to again, know what their minimum cost of living is, and know what flexibility they have with their excess income. And that's going to give you the opportunity to say, You know what? I can confidently say I can put away 5% and it's not going to affect my livelihood. It's not going to affect my ability to save and do the other things that are also important to me. Because a lot of people, they're like, you know, they just putting 1% 2% and they're not maximizing their opportunity because they're not sure, or some people are putting too much towards retirement, and then now they're in credit card debt because they're paying for groceries on there or gas on there because they can't actually afford their livelihood. So you definitely want to make sure that you're putting away enough that doesn't affect your actual livelihood. After that, you can put that money in your bills checking account, because that's going to be your main hub. You know, you get your direct deposit, and with a lot of big banks, you can avoid a lot of banking fees when you have direct deposit already linked in there, and you can have it set up, you know what, on the sixth of every single month, because my bills already taken care of, and I'm ahead of my bills, I feel confident that I can send over $500 to my Roth IRA at Fidelity, or Vanguard, or Charles Schwab. And that gives you the confidence, because you already have the money for your bills. And then if you have money for your lifestyle, you can say at the exact same time, it doesn't matter, as long as you are very clear on how much you are giving yourself for all into each account. Because again, a lot of people, they're just putting, you know, random numbers away, and it's not helping them strategically make a plan for their retirement or for their investment aspirations.

Jamila Souffrant 22:20

Yes, yes. The key words here are being intentional and understanding your cash flow and then also your like lifestyle, what you you want. Now, when it comes to thinking about this, right? I could be someone listening and thinking to myself, well, I don't have, I don't like, let's say I did the math, and when I actually sit down, I'm like, wow, I only have enough like, to put into the one bill account, maybe also the lifestyle account. And by the way, you have to be honest with yourself when you're separating your bills and your lifestyle, like, really be honest. Like, some things, while you feel like it's necessary for you to live, and they're not. And so you have to be honest and separate those things so you can understand. But when it comes to wow, I don't have like, I don't feel like I have enough to put in to cover anything else that I really need. What does one do there? Or with the rising cost of living now and everything going up, how do you get ahead of that?

Sahirenys Pierce 23:20

Yes, so there's a strategy that I have in the book called The key cup and reduce. So this is a strategy that you use when you're not liking what you're seeing. You know, you you separate your bills from your lifestyle. You're not happy that you're not having enough money to save, or that you don't have the flexibility that you want. And what the game plan is, I want you to go through every single line item in your bills category, for example, and you decide, what are you willing to cut, keep or reduce? And if you're seeing some subscriptions on there that you're like, hey, you know we're not using, you know, this, Amazon, like that. Do we need to actually have this in our budget anymore? Hey, we're not using these subscriptions for this or that. You can start making positive decisions to take control of how much you're actually spending on your bills. Because a lot of times when you, you know, put your numbers into a budgeting app, or use rocket money, or all these other budgeting templates you there's all telling you, hey, you have a whole bunch of expenses you had no idea about. You're paying, like 299 for Apple and then another subscription for 1099 and you start seeing that there are options on the table, but you just never knew about that you had this, you know, these expenses coming up. So taking control of figuring out what your actual expenses are and what you're willing to modify. A lot of times that may happen in your lifestyle account, you might say, Hey, I have a gym that costs $100 I might need to modify that so that I can open up more more cash flow, so I can feel more comfortable saying, Hey, I have some breathing room. A lot of times, people aren't giving themselves enough room for margin that breathing room so that they can feel confident in their decision making. So that's what I walk people through to cut, keep and reduce with their bills, and then their lifestyle is. Well, and that also makes it a lot easier. What some people find out is that they can reduce how much their bills are, and that alleviates how much money you actually need to save towards your emergency fund. You can be thinking, oh, I need to save $5,500 and that's a lot of money. And then you do a cut, keep and reduce. You're like, I want you to save 5000 Okay, 5000 $100 off my plate. That gives me some margin, that gives me some breathing room, and I feel more confident that I have some control over this, versus feeling out of control.

Jamila Souffrant 25:28

Yeah, talk about the emotional toll or work that it takes to do some of this stuff, because I'll just, like, for example, right? Like, I know that we have an emergency fund we right now, like, we're good in terms of being able to pay for what we want, right? But if there were some kind of emergency and we had to pivot, we'd have to really, like, buckle down so, and I feel like a lot of people, like, they know this in theory, that's what it's the money's there for that's what you're supposed to do. But a lot of it is maybe I don't want, like, people don't want to do it. Like, okay, I know that I spend, let's say someone sits down and like, wow, I spend, like, hundreds of dollars going out to eat, and they need to cut that down if they want to reach their goals, or even to do this high five banking method. But there's some resistance to that. Can we talk about, like, that kind of work that it takes to overcome the resistance, or to work through that so you can get to be where you want

Sahirenys Pierce 26:30

to be? Yes, you know, one of the most difficult things when it comes to even setting goals for people is that they're holding on to their childhood dreams and all the things that they wanted to do and buy and go to I want to travel the world. I want to go out to eat every single night, or, you know, at least a few times. My friends and we hold on so tight to that vision of what we thought success was in our childhood that we're not actually accounting for who we are right now and what season we're in and what goals we also want to achieve for ourselves. You know, when you're young, you might want to buy a mansion or a G wagon, and now you just want a very reliable car that's paid off, and you want a home that it's reliable in a safe neighborhood with a good school districts. Your Goals start modifying and changing as you proceed in your journey. So we need to give ourselves permission to kill our childhood dreams and to create new ones that actually feed us and give us more peace of mind. A lot of people are in this hunt of I need to make more money. I need more I need more of everything. But in reality, what we really need more of is more peace less things on our to do list, and when you start realizing you know what, I might go out to dinner a few times less this month, but I'm giving myself more peace of mind, because now I am saving up for my book buy, you know, as a busy mom and, you know, a business woman, I don't have time to be, you know, knowing if we're out of toilet paper or Windex or, you know, dish soap, I need to have those things stocked so I can take that off of my mind and focus on what really matters. And it's the moments in life, not if, you know I need to go to Costco or I need to buy more things, I need to go out to dinner to relieve my stress. So many of the things that we're doing is coping mechanisms for stress relief, and what we really need to be doing is, what can I do with my money to actually relieve some stress? And for me, you know, that's knowing, when I had my young kids, knowing I had enough diapers, knowing I had enough baby wipes and stuff like that, that actually relieves your stress, feeling confident that you have exactly what you need, and you're not out here desperate, having to, you know, get in the car in the middle of the night because you're out of, you know, anything that's happening in the house or you need to go buy dinner you want to relieve your stress. And a lot of the systems that I implement, like, the bulk buy, the meal planning. It helps you take that mental load off of your plate. And I think that really will help a lot of people right now.

Jamila Souffrant 28:50

Yeah, and reframing, because sometimes what happens too is like you think, well, if I give up on this dream, like I want to like this, I talk about this in my like, one of my frameworks is the guac lifestyle method, or knowing your guac lifestyle, and it goes from one to five. Five is the most extravagant, luxurious you have a guacamole factory like, that's why it's called guac lifestyle. And then level one is you would never buy guacamole at a restaurant. So it is a range, right? And knowing the kind of lifestyle it relates to in your life and how much you want to spend on certain things. And sometimes it can be an overall, like high level you just like living well in all areas. Sometimes there's certain things you like, right, that have you want to have quality in most and so for some people admitting or saying, Hey, I cannot. This is what I want, I think, or what I've said I always wanted, but I can't do that right now, and that makes me feel like a failure, or I'm giving up on my dreams, or why I'm worthy of that. Why can I have it too? And I think reframing it to understanding what the opportunity cost is like. Because as much as we want to have it all, we just. Honestly, I don't think you can not at the same time, at the same time, same time, and not at the same level, meaning everything's on 100 like so I do think there's just opportunity costs and things that we want. So it's not that you can't live a good life, but you do have to make choices. And so we're framing it versus seeing it as a failure that you can't buy the nice car right now, you can't do what the person maybe on the your friend is doing, doesn't mean you're failing, because, like you said, you're reframing it to say, well, this is providing me something else over here that is as much or more important,

Sahirenys Pierce 30:36

and it definitely helps, and especially when people are considering, you know, oh, I want to, do you want to eat out more, or do you want to, you know, move to a nicer neighborhood? And for a lot of people, they're going to say, hey, you know what, I actually want to move to a better neighborhood, better school districts, you know, have a little pickleball court outside of my house. You know, all the little fun things that you know, actually create your life. And it's very difficult for people to say, How can I, you know, increase my cost of living on my bills? Like, is this actually lifestyle creep or just upgrading your life? So I tell people, you know, be very cautious when it comes to upgrading your life, but also accept that. Yeah, I do want to live in this neighborhood. You know, I live in San Diego. It's an expensive city, and every day I'm making a choice. Yeah, I want to live here. You know, this is my hometown, so I feel comfortable here. But it's a choice. It's not mandatory to not feel bad about, you know, making the choices that you're making that are necessary, you know, for your livelihood and for your bills requirements. Don't feel bad about it. Make a choice. And don't sit here and be like, Oh, but now I can't go out to eat as much. Or, Oh, now I can't invest as much, or, Oh, I can't, you know, travel as much. You are making a choice, and that's where the passion and value comes in. Because you are saying, I value this more than that, and that's what really helps people, especially me. You know, I used to my husband's a foodie. He likes to go out to eat, but I didn't value it as much. And then, you know, once I started having more goals, he's like, You know what? I value cooking at home more. I want to buy nicer pots and pans and utensils and cutting knives. So we started investing in a different in a different way, to actually still experience the things that we actually want to experience, which isn't the, you know, going out and dressing up, it's having a really nice meal with the people that you love. So reframing how you do things is really important as well. Because, you know, sometimes you want to go out to eat every single Friday, but your budget not allowing it. How can you make it fun? You can do that at home. You have appetizer Fridays. That's what we do. You know, we decorate the food, make it look really nice, and the kids get involved and they're excited, like, Hey, we're having pizza and chicken wings and, you know, and you know they're getting they get into it. And I feel like there's so many other ways to live a beautiful, amazing life that doesn't cost an arm and a leg, you know, and doesn't stop you from living your other dreams or your other goals that you want to accomplish. Because you know, if you say you're safe for a house that's going to be a very expensive goal nowadays, especially,

Jamila Souffrant 33:06

yeah, and I feel like, just, you know, sacrifices need to be made, and not necessarily, again, reframing it from a bad way. Oh, I'm making the sacrifice, and it's miserable. But like, you know, feeling feeling good about like, getting through something and discipline, and you have to find the joy in that,

Sahirenys Pierce 33:21

yes, find the little joys, the micro tweaks that you can make to your routines, where you can add more of the fun in a realistic way. You know, that could be, oh, I might not be going out to dinner, to eat, to drink, you know, fine wine, but I'm gonna try different wines from different countries. And, you know, explore a little bit every single week. Just $10 $20 nothing, IMAX, you know, something too big, but just finding little ways to bring joy back into your life. And that's really what the lifestyle account is about. How can you bring joy into your life in little ways? It could be a hobby. It could be, you know, I want to try rollerblading. I want to try swimming, something that you did, and I'm going to put in my budget, because I want to experience that. But it's not costing me $1,000 it's costing me, you know, $100 maybe, and that's the little ways that we can, you know, make sure that we're living a joyless life during the process, not just, you know, once in a while, because people are, you know, putting living life, you know, kind of rough. And then they're escaping on vacation. They're looking for coping mechanisms. We want to reduce that to healthier coping mechanisms that aren't affecting your bank account,

Jamila Souffrant 34:27

right, and then making these changes. So for example, if someone wants to set this up like, they're like, Okay, I kind of want to try this method out. Obviously they should get your book, which is out now, and we'll link that. But what should they How long do you feel like, does it take? Because sometimes this could feel overwhelming for someone like, Wait, I got to go open up five different accounts. I mean, I'm hopefully you at least have one or two already. But how long you feel you feel like it can take someone to set this all up and get going.

Sahirenys Pierce 34:54

I think it might take 90 days only, because the whole process I make you do, you know. 30 day challenge, I make you verify your numbers, not just guess what they are. A lot of people are like, Oh, I don't spend a lot of money. Trust me, I don't. Like, okay, well, then how much do you spend? Have you tracked it? No, no, I don't do that. So I want to make sure that in every step that you feel confident and that you feel that you have, you know, you have something that allows you to say, Yes, I did double check this, and you feel like, okay, I can do this. But the first step again, when it comes to implementing this is to use what you already have. If you already have a checking in a savings account at x, y and z bank, how can you readjust those to fit into this method for you? So if you're just starting off and say, with the first three accounts, which I do recommend for everyone, no matter where you're starting at, you know, you might reassign your primary checking account as your bills account. You're like, you know what? I already get direct deposit here. I already have, you know, Bill Pay set up, or my bills get automatically paid for my this checking account. I'm going to rename this account, my bills checking account, and just leave it at that. And then the next account your savings came in. Like, you know what? I have some money already in here. I'm going to reframe this as my emergency fund until I feel comfortable to open up a high yield savings account. I'm going to, you know, I'm going to get there baby steps. It's all right, but I'm going to take that money and I'm going to name that my emergency fund. And you might be in the market for a new lifestyle checking account, and this might be your opportunity to check out, you know, online banks where they don't have, you know, these dramatic fees or minimum requirements for your checking account, where you can feel confident and say, hey, I can open up this, this checking account for my lifestyle. And no matter if I put $20 in there, 100 or 1000 I'm not going to get hit with any bank fees. I have the debit card available, I know where I can go to get cash if I need to. And you start getting yourself comfortable having that lifestyle checking account. And that way, at this point, you're not really opening up five all at the same time, you're re utilizing what you already have, and you're opening yourself up to having a lifestyle checking account that can be your anchor of how much money you're choosing to spend every single month on your lifestyle.

Jamila Souffrant 37:06

So you know, some banks, you can open up multiple accounts when you log in. Like for me, one of my one of the banks I use, I have multiple accounts when I log in, I can see it. Now, would you say that depending on your willpower or discipline like so for me, I can see multiple numbers and know, okay, that money is there, but it's not to, not to be touched. So I see that, would you say for some people, and that they needs to be separate, or it can be like, I know you want different banks, you just suggest that, just for diversity. But is there a difference in the kind of a person who needs to definitely have a separate account for the spending versus bills, versus someone who can see it all in one place.

Sahirenys Pierce 37:50

I think if you are you know, at your level, and even my level, at some times, where you can have all of your accounts in one place, that is fine. What I like to do instead is I have a budgeting app that I don't use for budgeting. Actually, I use it as like my money map to see where all my accounts are at check all my transactions make sure I'm not getting hit with fraud, because that happens, you know, so I'd like to do that, but when it comes to people who are starting off, I highly recommend for your first step is to actually have an emergency fund away from your regular spending accounts. The main reason I say this is because, you know, it's really hard to start saving and seeing that number grow and not feeling that urge to pull the money. So I want people to, you know, start not seeing that money on an everyday basis. That money is there. It's secure. You can check it once a month to make sure. You know, you have no issues, but you need to get used to not getting tempted to pull money from that account. And it's really important to have some distance so that you know that you know that money is there, but it's not available to be transferred over very easily. That's what usually happens with people. You know, we get still in our routines. We start easily. We put money to our savings and we put it out, put it back into our checking account and to our credit cards, and that's how you start draining it. So you want to start having some separation so that you can have that disability, that discipline up little by little. Sorry.

Jamila Souffrant 39:12

Go ahead. No, no, no, I was going to just hop in and say, you mentioned about budgeting app. So I think to the thing that happens is you think, oh my gosh, it's just more accounts for me to log in and think about and manage. But like you said, if you have a budgeting app, so for me, I use Y and a B, where it draws in and pulls in those accounts where I can see it in one place, and then it automatically updates where I can see, like you said, Okay, what's coming in and out? And you you said something interesting when I think a lot of people probably use this that way, probably use this that way, is you just look at it to map and to see that everything's okay and and, or you can do budgeting with it, but that kind of connects and helps the system work. When you have, like a separate banks and accounts, and then now you have a app or a kind of you. Yeah, you know, money management app as well, tool that brings it together now where you can direct and plan out how you're spending your money. Now, one of the things that you Well, this happened before we started recording, but I want to make sure we touch upon it is an all hands meeting. Can you explain what that is for anyone who is getting started or just wants to do this with someone or with their family?

Sahirenys Pierce 40:21

Yes, definitely. So one of the best ways to make sure that you are maintaining this system is to do it all hands, family meeting, and pretty much what this is, if you are married or if you have roommates, you kind of, you know, get together and start going over your finances. And this is a really good way to see what worked and what didn't worked in the past month. You know, you might have more expanding than you were expecting. You had to pull some money from savings. Have those conversations, but it also gives you an opportunity to look at moving forward, what's going to happen, what's coming up, you know, for the next month. Oh, do we have birthdays we need to attend? Is it someone's birthday or anniversary dinner or Christmas holidays and things like that. So you can start rearranging your your calendar based on what's actually happening. And a lot of times this gives you a better, realistic viewpoint of how much money you need to set aside for fun, for your lifestyle. You at that point, you might say, You know what I was planning on buying some new cute jeans, but I got invited to this baby shower. And you know what? I'm gonna wait to get my cute jeans, and I'm gonna go to this baby shower and buy this beautiful gift for the mama and for the baby, because that's what I want to do, not because I'm forced to, but because I want to do that. And it gives you the opportunity to start playing around with the numbers in your lifestyle account or even in your bills. Because sometimes you might add a new bill, your bill might go up and down, you have that forefront so you can start making adjustments earlier than later. And in the Alzheimer's meeting, we also talk about other topics that affect our finances, but also our livelihood, like we start planning out our, you know, our meals for the month. That's something that I do. I don't have time to sit here and be like, What am I going to eat? What are we going to cook today? I need that planned out for the entire month, and that's been very helpful for me. I didn't start off doing it for the whole month right away. I did it week by week. But as you start getting comfortable talking up in these conversations, you can start asking your spouse, hey, what? What do you want to eat this one? What are you interested in? What have we not had in a while? Ask your kids, hey, when do you want to eat pizza? I know you love pizza. My daughter, she'll be like, oh, I want to eat a sushi bake. And be like, Okay, well, next Friday, you're gonna help me make a sushi bake. And she's super excited. So it makes the whole family kind of get excited for the what's coming, instead of always, you know, talking about what's already happened or looking at the negative aspects of your life and your finances. A few other topics that we talked about in the all hands meeting is chores. You know, those are things that we all have to do, and they kind of slip away under us, especially when you're super busy, or also things that are coming up, like appointments, dentists appointments, doctors appointments, if your spouse are traveling for work, we all need to know what's going on so that we can start adjusting not just our finances, but our mental space as well be like, okay, this person is not going to be here, then I gotta do the trash out and all the mental load that happens in managing a household, not just your finances. And I feel like this is what actually reduces your stress as a person, where you're not just putting it all on you, especially us ladies, we have so much to it to do. Let's put that all up for the family to do as well, not just us. We don't have to do everything. You know, our spouses can help, our kids can help, and even your parents can help as well. Like, Hey, I know you're doing a podcast. I'll watch the kids this weekend. Awesome. Communication is key, and that's what that all hands meeting really does. It adds communication to maintaining your money system.

Jamila Souffrant 43:42

Yeah, I love that. I mean, and especially involving the kids and their partner. You know, one of the things that probably won't get to touch on here, but I think it sounds like your partner has been a true partner with like, through the journey with you, which I think is so helpful and such an asset as you think about like, the journey, you know, so with, if you're single, you can do this by yourself, for sure, it's you only are, I mean, outside of other obligations, whether it's family and maybe you do have children if you're single, um, it makes it a little bit, you know, harder if it's just you. But I'm just such an advocate for when you think about, like, navigating this life with someone and having, especially if you're having kids with them, like picking a partner, and sometimes you can choose wrong and not know certain things, but, oh, it's such, it's such an investment to how far you can go and how fast you can go. Because when you can pull things together and have meetings and pull people in to say, Hey, this is this is your task, or this is my task, and have help, it makes it's a game like, it's a game changer, like, I couldn't imagine, if, you know, I was married and didn't have a true partner on this journey, what that would look like. So I just wanted to mention that, because it's absolutely, it's important, no, and

Sahirenys Pierce 44:52

it also, you know, makes your kids not see you as Superwoman. I see you as a real person, as a mom, as you know, someone who is trying. Trying to do their best. And getting them involved is like, Hey, I would really help if you can, you know, I wash the clothes. You can fold them, and they can start learning responsibilities. You know, I have older kids now. They're starting to get a little older now, so having them have that experience and saying, hey, you know what? I can get involved in what we're eating. I can get involved in helping to do the chores. I can do my part. It might not be, you know, they're cleaning up the living room, but they're cleaning up their room. They know the standard that we have in the home. And as you know, as a person that's really busy, you need to make sure that you have these standards done. These things are they have to get done. You got to clean the bathrooms. You gotta, you know, cook. All these things have to happen in order for your survival and for your livelihood and your health. So you might as well take 30 minutes of the weekend one month, one day out of the month, and figure this out instead of complaining or stressing out about it every single day of the month. You know, because that becomes overwhelming again, thinking about what you're going to eat every single day. That's a lot once a month. That's doable.

Jamila Souffrant 46:01

Okay, yeah, no, I agree. So sirens, please tell everyone the name of your book again, where they can get it, and more about you, where they can follow you and find your work. Yes.

Sahirenys Pierce 46:14

So my book is called The Hi Fi banking method, a money system you can count on. It's going to be sold everywhere. The books are sold at Amazon, Barnes and Noble your local bookstores, and you guys can follow me on social media, poise finance lifestyle, and also my website, the poise lifestyle.com I'm here. If you have any questions. I do Q and A's, so come on by.

Jamila Souffrant 46:34

I will make sure to link all of that in the episode show notes. Once again, congrats on the book. I'm so excited for you and to see more people learn about the math, the method, and implement it in their lives. Thank you.

Unknown Speaker 46:46

Thank you so much. Jamila, you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai