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Love & Money

First of all, I just want to thank all of you that are watching and listening. I came home last night, I had tweets, I had e mails, I had phone calls, old fashioned phone calls, I had, uh, text messages really from people I don't know from people I hadn't heard from in years, people that just reached out to me, I good friends, I family, that just so clearly you guys are listening, which means more importantly, you're doing something with your money. I'm going to get to a summary and javier here, who have already done so much with their money, so I'm loving. And then, just even when I walked into the creative live studios this morning, so many people I talk to you just right away came up to me and said, guess what I did, I went on meant I organized my savings, so that was just just it's, so great to see what people are already doing with their money, and I would love to hear from you, so share what you have done and again, that's something that I want you to think about is your here you...

're showing up, keep the momentum going, so make these action steps right now because that's, when you're going to see the most results and let us know heather going so today we are going to roll up our sleeves a little bit more and really delve mohr on a detail oriented basis on our personal finance xyz yesterday was a little bit more of an over a few, and while we definitely got the budgets and there's no more detail than going on a budget today, we're going to do that even more in terms of retirement plans, taxes, mutual funds so we're going to get more into that nitty gritty. So yesterday set the scene, and it set the stage for what today's gonna bring, so I'm just I love it, I love this information, so I love this quote, you can be young without money, but you can't be old without it, so that was ah, actually, I thought of my sweet old artists that said, well, I'm gonna paint till the day I die, and I said, I hope you d'oh, I really do, but at the end of the day, it's about choices, and maybe when you get older, you want to have the option of not having toe work or working the way you want to work versus now, and then this isn't you know, I almost didn't put this up because I don't want to make people feel bad if they haven't saved because there's, a lot of us who haven't that are in her forties or fifties or sixties who haven't necessarily taken charge of our money or dealt with her finances I know I see them so this is not to make you feel bad about it but you are where you are today so put your feet on the ground and start dealing with your money you can deal with it, so don't focus on what you didn't do but know that you got to move forward. Tennessee williams I mean, what a great playwright for all ofyou playwrights that are watching and then voltaire I love this don't think money does everything or you are going to end up doing everything for money. So is somebody who worked on wall street and probably did a lot more for money than she should have. I know you you're an artist, you're talk about living your life for your passion, which is wonderful, but shells have to get paid for it, so don't forget that so I thought this was a good way of saying, don't forget who you are don't forget your passion don't necessarily, you know, put your standards so low you get paid for it so let's, just take a quick thirty second recap, I promise this isn't thirty hours one of the really messages that I hope got a cross to you yesterday and I know for me I I felt it again last night when I was looking at my notes is the confidence effect of taking control of our money and I saw it I have to admit with javi air and jean marie like I really saw your expressions change I saw how you were talking about money, which was different did you feel that at all it's like we stood up a little stronger? Did you find that understanding the nuance that's that's exciting and then learning from you just but more importantly just I did see it in your physical expression and then just talking with people yesterday that it wasn't as important that maybe they're not making the amount of money that they want to but mohr literally I rolled up my sleeves with one of the producers here and we got into nitty gritty on his retirement plan not you your next brian, but you know, I did my other producer and I you know, I didn't really give him a choice. I said, come on, give me your numbers I won't share um and he did and he walked away saying I could do this I'm not in such a bad situation fact I'm in a better situation than I thought I am so the confidence you feel good about it it's going to affect other areas of your life, so don't forget that and nothing else that's another reason take charge of our money we dealt with the thirty second snapshot one of the gentlemen on the crew here side oh, yeah I don't withy own in the oh, now I'll deal with the other two. So what are your four numbers again? If you're still stuck yesterday, focus on those four numbers what you own? What do you owe what you spend you earn right? Those four numbers write them down every month do manure on your iphone on your android on ever know do wantto I still like those old fashioned post its I know dinosaur, but nothing like having to write it out and see it in writing, tracking aps I mean everyone's talking about min dot com but maybe there's an apb out there they you don't know that I don't know about, so let us know, but put it on your phone like use it in the technology don't be afraid of it making your goals dollar specific and bite size why don't set yourself up for success instead of failure? Like why not say you know what? I'm just going to start saving this small dollar amount and again don't just be happy with that's all you're doing, but set yourself up that in a very short period of time you're seeing success and you're only going to move forward from there getting rid of debt we definitely got a lot of phone calls a lot of phone calls we got a lot of chats we've got a lot of response from people that were being weighed down by debt and I get it debt weighs you down I have had debt so I can relate firsthand but hopefully you walked away with the plan on how to get rid of it and move past it and not let it hold you back and maybe that's really the fire under your tush to make more money and take charge of it but more importantly to spend smarter we dealt with our fight go score a credit score hopefully you know what those initials stand for? I don't even put budget on here but we did it a lot of budgets we talked about the four different kinds of budgets the first one was just looking at where your money went the last few months and maybe that's all you can do maybe that's enough to say okay, I'm doing that then then I'm going to stop for a little bit maybe you found five places to plug orange on marie's case twenty places way which we are going to ask you to share with us later on maybe you said you know what? I'm just gonna take twenty percent of every check that comes in and put it in a savings account that I can't get teo we'll talk about that today where you can put that and then the fourth was coming up with the weekly cash and quotes spending plan, but the idea is having a weekly amount to live on and especially if you're really feeling nervous about your money about your income having a feast account and a fit of famine amount try cash first just to get yourself started and then you could move on to credit card or debit cards try the credit cards because that'll build your credit the debit cards don't necessarily build your credit score as much your credit report but come up with a plan it's again like I don't care what you spend your money on have fun go out I don't care what kind of budget used or spending smarter plan just have a budget I have something that works for you so one of the things that came across to me too that I heard from a lot of you yesterday is you had conversations you had money conversations with husbands with wise with partners with friends I heard a lot of you called I mean, I literally just in the studio here I pretty bill sharing me I heard that yesterday on twitter, just a colleague of mine said I finally had the conversation I've been so nervous tohave think twitter back real quick how did it go? Not an issue so I heard a lot about conversations, so hopefully this course gives you something to talk about because very often with a money conversation, we don't even know what to say, so hopefully this course gives you, you know, just take the course out, you know, I have ah, really great story um, for many years ago when I first started teaching a barnyard actually started teaching in their alumni program and was a program called the financial fluency, it was all alumni of barnyard in colombia, and they had these great weekend financial fluency courses, so I was one of the instructors and that was actually part of my curriculum is having that conversation questions ask your financial advisor conversations with your and the sweet, sweet little they came up to me and she's like I want to talk about this, but I don't even know what questions to ask, and I literally sat down with her and wrote down ten questions, and then she called me afterwards and she said I walked into my meeting with my financial advisor and I had the questions does she didn't even know the questions to ask so here she's ready to do it but she didn't even know where to begin because this sweet woman in her sixties had never really dealt with her money or talked about money she had let other people handle it for her so hopefully you're not at that stage but if you are this course is hopefully giving you the questions to ask or more importantly the topics to talk about obviously on a personal basis and it doesn't go away so if you don't want to talk about it it's going to come up sooner on and if you don't talk about it it's only going to get harder and worse so talk about it you don't have to maybe get into all the specifics we did or we're going to continue to get into but you can maybe just talk kind of some overall big picture goals so that's what we talked about yesterday so today I'm so excited we are going to talk about love and money we're gonna delve right into that we're going to talk about friends and money too because that was a conversation that I hadn't even thought I was going to cover and it just kept coming up yesterday so I know last night side of my computer and I have got a few fun things to talk about we are going to talk about making your savings automatic why that's so important and why freelancers shy away from it and get really scared about automatic savings so we're going to talk a lot about that and I'm not giving you a choice you've got to make your savings automatic so I'm just putting that out there we're going to talk about that we are going, tio, and then we're going to really roll up our sleeves and delve into retirement plans, and just in a really positive note, freelancers embrace your retirement plans because as a freelancer, you can actually put so much more money away and take advantage of so many more options and save a lot more money and investor money wherever you want. I love that, so it is a one advantage of being a freelance services working for a corporation is that you get to choose wherever you want to put your money. It's really a downside of the four one caves that therefore one case, the retirement plan, if you work for a corporation or a fourth reviews, if you work for a nonprofit and you have to go with who they pick, what if you don't like the options? Too bad or more importantly, what's really come under fire is a lot of these four oh one k plans, and for three beer charging a lot of fees, and that is being passed on to you. You don't have to do that, you can pick where you want your money. What if you want to do socially responsible investing, what if you want to do index funds, what if you want to do it t s you can you're probably thinking what is she talking about? And I probably see we'll explain all those investing terms tomorrow, but today we're going to talk about what kind of plan you need because there are lots of initials there's rot there set theirs I there's a, eh? So we're going to cover all those and then more importantly, we're going to talk about where you can open it and just give you lots of concrete suggestions on where you could do that and then we're going to finish the day with how much you should be saving and we're gonna you know, roll up our sleeves and get into the nitty gritty of the dollar it's not gonna be pretty but it's really important so that's today what a fun day I'm so excited let's start with love and money I was thinking yesterday about love and money and I have to admit it's a little corny so I write a newsletter every week or every other week and I've been doing that for since I started my business eleven years ago, so I got a lot of content and I usually write a love and money newsletter on valentine's day I know so corny and um I had a reader sent me a kind of a nasty e mail a few years ago and say, you know carly, I love your newsletters I love your writing but I'm single and I feel like I got your love and money newsletter and I was really angry that well I don't have someone and do I not count in this and and so that I was like thank you so much for sharing that and the one thing that I thought after this is so we are definitely focusing or targeting or thinking about people in a relationship because money can be a huge source of fights yeah I'm seeing lots of heads go up and I know I mean money conversations are not easy in a relationship but maybe love and money and I was really thinking about this is not just in a relationship it's loving yourself and treating yourself with respect and treating yourself with the money respect but it's also like I know I've got older parents and I'm dealing with my dad I think is watching so you know it's love and money for my parents especially like dealing with medical costs and how much money do they have and how can I help them so that can be love and money children you know, we talked a lot about yesterday if you've got kids out there and maybe you're a single parent is how we're going to raise our kids with the money values that we want to encompass and then we're also going to talk about our friends so love and money doesn't necessarily have to be just the relationship if you're in a traditional husband, wife, girlfriend, boyfriend, domestic partnership, it can also be love in lots of other areas, whether it's yourself or a friend or parent. So think about that, too. So start with keeping money. Secrets from each other are you? Can you eyes? Everything on the table is a za friend says, is the kimono open? S? So forget about thinking about where you want to go, just feeling and again, this isn't just about the money. What kind of other secrets are you keeping? But just do you really feel comfortable sharing your situation with who you're with? And if not, you might want to think about what can we do to work on that? And it's probably a lot of fear and shame involved in that which is completely normal, but the idea is just the secrets are around spending debt, credit, report those of the three, and then the savings, and maybe you have a lot of money saved, and you're embarrassed about that, or you're afraid that someone's going to take it from you so there's a lot of emotion around that, but those were really the key areas I should've had spend savings on there, so what are the money secrets, and again, like, I know, just personal note is that my husband and I who is watching this, too, and is praying that I'm not going to share too much eyes when we lived together for many years before we got married, I mean, we and we're both in money, we're both in finance, and we definitely had a few heated conversations, and, well, should we do joint checking? Should we not? You know, what does this mean? I can't do this and can't do that, and it really how we got through it was just talking about it, so that is the one thing is just keep talking about it, talk about your money, don't fight, but talk about it, and I always say that if you're going to have this conversation, not if when you have that conversation with your partner of the person in your life is don't do it when you're tired in our case, don't do when you just put the kids down and you're exhausted, but a big fat class, the wind are chai tea or a cup of tea or scotch, if that's what you need or chocolate, I have a wonderful woman that I work with who's does a lot of money therapy and she's a big fan of, like having chocolate around which I love chocolate, you don't have to ask me twice, um but to it, you know, and I know that especially when your beginning is, I always say go somewhere outside like goto a teashop goto a wine bar, go to a park, no whatever sort of works for you guys but treated as a money date treated as important as if you were going out on indeed. So what are the secrets and just start by sharing and then the money fights are not necessarily about like, I can't believe you didn't spend this it's that but it's really the mismatch goals. So a great conversation starter is where do you see yourself in five years with money? And I find that that's very often like, do you want to buy a tv, or do you want to buy a lake house, or do you want to go on vacation, or do you want to put money towards the roof? So, yes, obviously those things all costs money and those have dollar amounts, but it's really what you want to do with your money? What do you want to dio and how can we afford that? And again, I hate to generalize, and I just say this from experience, but meant and to think about the big picture, and women tend to deal with more of the daily tasks and the daily parts of our money. So a lot of women are really, really great as toe like handling their bank accounts and being organized where the savings air going, but are they thinking about how much they should save for retirement or are they necessarily thinking about what I really want to buy a house? This is how much I need to say for the down payment or am I thinking about I want to start a business? And as I was talking to somebody yesterday, I should have really raised money financing from angel investors or venture capital investors to finance my business women tend to not get into those big picture or if you've got kids, how much should you be saving for your kid's college education and men on the whole do think about that it's sort of like that hunter gatherer provider again, I'm not a therapist this's just dealing with couples for ten, eleven years, but men tend to think more about that they don't necessarily think about okay, what are the logistics of me saving? How doe I really keep a budget more like, wow, I've got to provide I have to buy a house I need to put more money in my house I want to save for retirement, so when you think about that, those air really mismatched, so how do you come together? Um, I put olivia malin she's fan tastic money therapy expert fantastic been following her for years she's got probably twenty years experience beyond what I do she's fantastic so on you could just google her you can go to my sight but she has a money quiz that comes up with what is your money type and if nothing else just take this quiz together because really looking at who you are with your money again you don't have to be in a relationship to do this can help determine what kind of goals you have or how you want to deal with your money are you ahhh order are you a spender? Are you a money monk? Are you avoider? Are you in a master? I'm not gonna go into the details and she's really the expert but it's a very simple quiz or maybe you're just looking at this and you're seeing what you are you know when I know for me I'm probably more of a hoarder money monk that's like sort of my personality like I you know I'm a little nervous to spend I'm pretty conservative I don't spend a lot it's kind of hard for me to spend you know my husband probably a little bit more of a spender and so we definitely you know, it's funny we were even talking on the phone this morning and I said something he goes girl, you just take the taxi you have that in your budget? I was like, you're right, I know I'm thinking I can take the taxi, I can't afford it, so I'm probably the opposite that I don't spend as much and he's like you've worked really hard spend that money, so I think just realizing what kind of money type you are, so maybe stop for a few seconds right now and just I mean, please go on, olivia, sight she's fantastic, but just stop for a second and think about what is your money type? And I think knowing who you are and finding out who your partner is can really big a big revelation as to how do we come together, it's gonna let that sink in for a second and then there's the avoider, there's the master, but we won't go there. A lot of us are avoiders, and we could be more than one. As I mentioned, I'm probably more than money monk on the hoarder communication, as I mentioned planning a money day, we still do that. I mean, I've been with my husband for seventeen years now, and we still have our money dates, we don't need to do them as often, but we will sit down, we'll respect the space, no electronics around. He's uh he's really and we just move from the city to a house and we have a fire place and that's always been his dream to have a fireplace and literally he texted me this morning a picture of the fireplace because it's snowing where I'm living we're having a snow day kids were home from school so that is my life right now so we've got the fireplace we always he lights the fire he gets me I'm wine he has his beer we sit on the couch and we did we do we talk for a now er just about okay we just got some extra money what are we going to do? Where is it going to go? How much do we want to spend? We want to plan a vacation in a few months is it going to be a driving vacation or we're going to fly and stay with a friend or we going to just you know all things to the wind and go and stay at a fancy hotel just have that conversation and just talk a little bit about you know I say, well, I don't really want to spend that money because I'm doing this or be like, you know what? We've worked so hard let's take that extra two thousand three thousand spend it we've really earned it so we definitely have our money dates I mean I just it's essential should you keep your money together separate that is a big big pandora's box I grew up you know I'm a real feminist I grew up very independent and you know definitely I had a really hard time doing things together I'll be honest with you there's no right answer but I think either extreme is not good so I think keeping everything separate where nobody knows anything is not healthy but then combining everything where nobody has sort of independent identity is not healthy either and so I know that what worked for me and what worked for a lot of my clients was that initially and this actually I would say like if you're just you could just be dating you could be thinking about moving in together like it doesn't have to be your married or it could be maybe you haven't done anything this is a way for you to start is a great way to start is just start a joint savings account so I had a couple that I worked with who did that they were living they were moving in together and they wanted to start combining their money but they didn't necessarily want to say ok let's throw everything in one pot so they started a furniture savings account she's actually an architect, a really talented architect he's a lawyer he works independently so they're both freelancers or business owners and they love furniture it's like mid century sort of that old vintage mid century furniture so they really wanted to save money to buy you know an eames chair of whatever you get the idea so they said let's start a joint savings account to say for it so if we have an extra fifty dollars if we have an extra hundred whatever the dollar amount is at the time it was I n g direct now its capital one three sixty but it was their joint account so when they had extra the end of the month they put it in there and when it built up to a certain amount they felt really good about saying okay let's buy that couch we were looking at or that chair or something like that on dh that's a great way to see how are you dealing with it? You know there's also should you because somebody makes two thirds mohr should they put two third moors and savings sure why not have that conversation there's no right or wrong answer should you go fifty fifty down the middle? I don't know I wish I did know the answer but I think you should just talk about it you know and think about what is important to you um again if everything's come on you know, I I I did another seminar here a few days ago and valerie coleman morris who's another just amazing amazing financial journalist she's been on cnn for seventeen years covering money and she's a real big personal finance person like I am um and she's just has a very strong voice on you should not have everything together this woman she's got grandkids I mean she's really got a lot of great experience lives out here in california on dh to your talk about it she's like girls because she definitely focuses on one then she says girls just make sure you got your own little pot and it just so I think again either extreme is not healthy but doing one or the other meeting the medal and I just give this example of each having hundred is that a great way just to get started to say you've got your mad money I've got my mad money let's agree on the dollar amount so we don't feel bad but I don't care how you spend on it like I have another client who her husband's a fireman and it's a cliche but he loves to cook and he's like the cook in the firehouse and she said but he comes home with like you know the turkey fryer the panini maker the those kitchen gadgets that you either see on tv or bed bath and beyond or something and she's like I I don't want it it's crazy don't spend our money so I had suggested why don't you say ok jo you've got one hundred dollars a month spend it any way you want, but she gets a hundred dollars a month to and maybe she buys a purse or she does whatever she does. She actually doesn't like to shop a lot, but the idea is that you have your money, there's, no judgment, because you shouldn't have to dictate what your partner spends money on, and he shouldn't, or she shouldn't have to dictate what you spend money on either. So give yourself that. What do you do if one's really into investments and the other isn't? We're going to talk about this tomorrow, you both gotta roll up your sleeves and get in there, don't take it don't make assumptions that you don't need to learn it, because what I see and I'm not an expert, but I have worked with so many people, and I literally had two clients just in the last month who were very, very smart, talented women. One is a she's, a construction engineer, she's that gal with the hard hat that goes into those buildings, those fifty storey buildings that really says, you know, the viability of the building. I mean, she's, I thought, scares the bejeebers out of me, so this woman does that, and she realized that she had never dealt with their investments and she's in her fifties now. So now she's freaking out and there there don't find but she realized how little she knew and what she had done is take a back seat for so many years with her money and she just let her husband handle everything she'd let their financial advisor handle everything and she's there happily married no problems necessarily, but now she had hired me to say let's talk about her money I need to learn about it. I need someone to teach me about my investments so don't wait for that fearful scare situation um swap duties, I mean it's such a cliche, but again, this could be really great like maybe you pay all the bills and he doesn't or maybe he pays the bills and you don't swap duties for a month you know you makes mistakes, there might be some bills paid late or money that hasn't been saved, but there's no better place, no better way, I should say, and then if you have a financial advisor that you're working with our financial planner, meet with that person alone because chances are if both of you have had that relationship together, the conversations usually one person dominating it. And I know I know that when my husband and I talked to our legal, our attorney or to the accountant, you also don't let him do the talking or sometimes he lets me do the talking, but all it meant that sometimes I don't necessarily talk as much as I know michael grade he's involved I don't need to deal with this and I also see it when couples come to see me all the time one person kind of talks a little bit more, so if your that person who's not talking and you have a relationship meet with that person you might realise you don't like that person on you need to get somebody on your own and maybe that's a conversation but more importantly have an independent conversation so before I move on to eleven money, I just have to share a really great story. So I first of all, I get a lot of couples who call me and say, can we work together and and right away and it's obviously one person who's calling me and they say, well, should I bring my spouse or partner? And I say if they'll show up yes, absolutely why wouldn't you bring them? I mean, if there's something you're trying to hide again, I'm not a money therapist I'm not a therapist, I don't have an msw or phd or which I feel like I should get thie issues that have come up but absolutely so if you are going to go talk to someone you should absolutely do with your so this woman called me and her husband was a famous sportscaster in new york and she said, well, he's going to come but he does not want to be there I was like, you know, part of you want to say, well then tell him not to come because so sure enough, the first meeting he sat there like this didn't say word arms crossed I mean again what does this mean? Oh yeah, great things account don't you know I'm giving my spiel and she's like so excited to be there and she's happy and all that so we do three sessions and second session the receptionist is like, oh, so and so is here and I come out and he's there alone and I said, oh, where is your wife? And he said, I realize how little I knew and that I wanted this session alone, so I was so proud of him and happy for him, but I think it was just such a great story that just because someone sitting there like this it doesn't mean they don't want to be there they're probably just dealing with so much fear and how little they know and he ended up being such a great client I loved working with them when I worked with them for years, so that was a really great story, so because the point is to show up show up to the conversation with your partner, show up to the conversation with yourself show with an independent theo only advisor. Okay, so we are going, you know, yesterday, um, a bunch of our online audience sent through their budgets for you to have a look at galya, and today we have a couple more, so we gonna sell more? Laura okay, great. All right, laura. Forty five hundred dollars gross monthly income okay. And total for fixed expenses. Two thousand six hundred seventy dollars total credit card debt is twenty, five hundred. Sounds so little compared to some of the numbers we heard yesterday, right on and then she says not included our business expenses like fuel, food and fund money, so she doesn't have business expenses. Okay, so forty, five hundred. So I'm going to take twenty percent out for taxes, so her income has gone to thirty, six hundred for fixed or twenty six, seventy so she's about a thousand dollars so we are, you know, I'm going to give her one fifty a week, which isn't a lot, but essentially so she's got six hundred for for her weekly spending, so she's got four hundred extra so with four hundred extra that's and she's got her business expenses and she'd do it for one hundred a month let her know yeah, that's tight, but we have about four hundred we've got to do a hundred for debt again I'm putting in the I r a the ira I'll do the what is that that's two fifty so one hundred for her savings, you know, maybe she splits into two and then one fifty for her business four hundred so maybe I'm taking up too much in taxes based on what she's making and writing off, so that might give a little more cushion there because probably the only thing I would need to reevaluate we did have a comment on taxes, and perhaps this is the time liz wrote it and said, I notice you assume texas of his lowest twenty percent maybe going to thirty percent in the examples I've been an independent contractor for more than a decade, and because the self employment taxes I find it much safer that's set aside forty percent texas absolutely and it's a great point, we're going to talk about tax, okay? We're dealing with some pretty low incomes here, so I don't think people are paying, you know, first of all, they're making maybe thirty, forty thousand dollars gross and they're probably able to write off, so I think they're going to be there g either adjusted gross income is going to be pretty low, so that's why I'm only assuming twenty percent but absolutely if you start to make forty fifty, sixty thousand dollars a year you are going to be paying more like forty thousand forty percent excuse me or thirty percent absolutely so it's just the incomes I've seen have just been a little bit lower than I'm so that's why I'm only taking twenty percent out again freelances thapa and by the way thank you for sharing I love that she's sharing that information I'm not a ck this is where you have to mean have here you said that yesterday or you said that from yesterday do you want to share that? Hopefully your cps know watching right why did you say that? Um I just think probably need somebody that um deals mohr with where I am at the stage in my life that I am and with freelancers specifically yeah get the expert can you actually go more into detail? We talked about getting a state specific c p a what's the reasoning behind that that's such a great questions so and we are going to talk about taxes today but you definitely need a state specific because you have state income taxes and so well first of all some states don't butt in california it's different than connecticut stuff from the new york it's stuff from the new jersey recently I did a seminar for a law firm that had offices in virginia and maryland and washington in california and florida in new york and so just from what I had learned preparing is that every status so different in terms of this state taxes I do not expect the new jersey accountant to know the california state taxes hopefully they do, but I don't expect them to that's not what they're expected to, and so you're gonna have to pay taxes in the state you're in no, obviously if you moved halfway through the year, they might have to know that, but you want them to know as much as you can in the state you're in to take advantage of deductions. The other thing is, if you are contributing teo ira's, if you're contributing, whether it's post tax or pretax meaning before tax or after attacks, they can really figure out what you can deduct in terms of the state taxes you're paying. Also, if you're contributing to a five twenty nine does that is that considered five, twenty nine years the kid's college education? Can you deduct state taxes from that? So having an accountant in your state, I mean, why not get the best professionals around you? Like, why settle for? So if you have a two businesses that are in different states recommend having, like you said that, you know, the head offices there there there did they have isn't an ongoing business into difference to different businesses you know, I might look for an accountant who's got experience in both, it might be an extra fee, but if you truly of businesses and to separate states I might hire one is a consulting basis. Ok, I have to say my count, one of the count's I work with the new york he's just amazing and what he'll do because sometimes, like, I'll have a client who comes to me and they have a good c p a, they're happy with them, but they want to check up my accountant will just do an evaluation and just charge in evaluating fee so he doesn't charge the full fee of doing a tax return for business and such, but he'll just hard like two hundred dollars or something like that just to do an evaluation exercise. So maybe you can hire an accountant in that second state where maybe you're not living or doing as much work in who just does like the sort of dot c I's crosses the teas to make sure that you're taking advantage of all the deductions that's great so it won't cost you as much as a full return when do another budget sure, I got a complex on for you from rightist guy rightist is twenty eight married do you have enough is enough? I think so, yeah twenty eight married full time moss, the student and graphic design husband would like to also go full time in engineering but is working currently full time going to school part time okay goals with seven goals and then got in common you want the gold you got gold pie off medical bills and credit card in six months how much is it they say a lot stand here and that isthe credit cards why don't I give you the figures first number two the girls because there's a few figures here all right? So we've got, um combined income twenty, seven hundred before taxes or after they haven't said I was soon after I feel like that's after we feel like that's so and you know, when we talk about the tax bracket that's thirty two thousand dollars it's not going to be a high tax bernard so I get it that you want to take this much out but you know, a lot of money, okay? Um fixed expenses which include the home the car insurance utilities is twelve, thirty other expenses internet, medical, whatever yada yada eleven fifty so in addition, another eleven fifty yeah, they're the other expenses medical gas, credit card interest right stuff like that so we're left with three twenty debt mortgage one eye for kay one hundred four thousand young student lines thirty five thousand so the debt mortgage is that most that's the mortgage that's not credit crossing the mortgage. Okay, it's. Not the credit cards. Credit cards ready. Come medical bills. So, credit cards are this a student loan? That line, right? Medical bills two thousand and three credit cards of next. Why have you got a magic wand? Three credit cards and mex at totaled two thousand dollars. Okay, that's. Not so bad. So, really, this is the big number to work with because I'm assuming this one of fourteen. Thirty five is in these budgets, right? So what? They have leftovers? Three twenty, like I and their goals. The goal is a pile of medical doesn't get uniform on the cordon six months high off the credit card and the medical bills, and launch the freelance business in graphic design, where she will make three thousand dollars enough. Yeah, great love that. But so one of the goals is to go back to school. If I recall that I don't already at school, he wants to go back he's right now, the ana, right? So they cannot afford not having two incomes mean, they need extra income. So hopefully there's just not a lot of room here because I'm assuming that we don't have money for food, so this three twenty I don't. Unless they have food in here. We have groceries in those other expense. Okay, so really, the three. Twenty again, you know, maybe it's not a lot, but I would put twenty five dollars towards a savings account, you know, they probably can't do the ira now and then just two, three hundred towards paying off their medical bill, you know, it's interesting, because yesterday you were talking about, look at what you have and cut into it. And so there is a breakdown off the various other expenses, but for instance, so find one hundred thirty groceries for twenty five, right? So they mean, and we could go through it, so if they're spending for twenty five and groceries, they could spend less, because that is, I mean, here is what they work with is that they have twenty five dollars, for savings, and they really only have three hundred. So if they're paying off four thousand dollars in three hundred, you know they'll be debt free and a little over a year, which is great in terms of the credit card debt. I mean, these are not going to go away again. I don't consider these bad numbers, the mortgage and the student loan they've invested in their education. Again, they're investing in their mind I think that's a great thing and this is a manageable number it's clearly you don't want it but it's manageable one hundred thousand dollars mortgage it's not a lot either so I don't look at that those numbers don't bother me and four thousand dollars if they really put three hundred a month towards that they could be debt free in a little over a year now what about if she had changed her goal in six months off getting her in complex he's going to start a graphic design business and is looking for three came up right? So three k month if she's I'm I am going to take some tax is out so let's say that's twenty five hundred again I'm just really estimated at twenty, five hundred they've got to start saving so I would if they really pay off the debt and she's earning that money they've got to start saving the good news is they have a mortgage they have so they don't necessarily have to save for a down payment but they don't have a safety net and they don't have retirement so I'd really take her money. I'd put themselves on a weekly amount which we didn't do here but I would give themselves a weekly amount just to live and have fun and then really put you know thousand fifteen hundred a month towards savings and ira be really, and split it up. Do happen. Emergency savings, half ira that's. Great. So, yeah, but this is the case, and I think it's great, that, you know, this is an incentive to earn more, because you see that it's really going to affect your bottom line. It sounds like she's already there.