EP87 Break Free From Financial Fear: Create a Sustainable Financial Plan with Nicole Stanley

Nicole Stanley shares her journey from experiencing financial panic attacks to paying off $30,000 in debt with her husband in just 10 months and eventually building a quarter-million-dollar net worth on an average income of $56,000.

• Using therapy to address financial anxiety while simultaneously taking financial education courses
• Supplemented income through various side hustles like flipping furniture, nannying, and teaching English online
• Identifies five types of financial problems: spending, fixed expenses, income, money management, and financial strategy issues
• Views financial stress as a positive indicator that there's an opportunity waiting to be discovered
• Recommends creating a "spending plan" rather than a "budget" to reduce resistance and negative associations

Visit www.arisefinancial.com for free resources including 5-minute money moves, free classes on setting financial goals, and information about one-on-one financial coaching.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Money Chisme Podcast
• 2:30 Nicole's Financial Journey and Background
• 6:57 Paying Off $30K Debt Strategy
• 11:46 Five Types of Financial Problems
• 17:53 Overcoming Financial Anxiety
• 24:01 Final Tips and Resources

Transcript

Violeta: 1:19

Hola mi gente, welcome to the money chisme podcast, where we spill the real chisme on building wealth without the bullshit. Whether you're trying to invest, grow that side, hustle finally get your money right or, my favorite, buy rental properties, you're in the right place. I'm your host, violeta, a first-gen Mexican immigrant real estate investor, entrepreneur and your financial hype woman. Get ready for tips, tricks and expert advice straight from nuestra comunidad, porque el dinero es power and we're here to claim it. Don't forget you can always find helpful resources down in the show notes and in descriptions, so make sure you check that out. Hola, welcome to Money Chisme, where we talk about personal finance, investing, entrepreneurship and really well, it's in the name Money Chisme. I am Violeta, and with me today is financial coach and founder of Arise Financial, nicole Stanley. Hi, nicole, thank you so much for joining me here today.

Nicole: 2:28

Thanks for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

Violeta: 2:30

Yeah, yeah. So again, we like to share our stories, our financial journeys, because I like to hear from, like when people were like struggling, I not like that. I I like to hear it. But it's nice to um people to see the journey because, like, people hear of the end, like the success and everything, and so it makes it feel like I can't reach that or whatever. Like it's it's unachievable for me, I'm never gonna get out of this debt whatever, and so I always like to bring people here to share their story, and so I want to start off with that on your financial journey.

Nicole: 3:17

Yeah, so I started my financial journey when I first got married. I got married really young and growing up I grew up in a Puerto Rican, american household. My dad and mom came to the states or stateside when my sister older sister was a baby, and so my dad always told the story of how he came to the States with $20 in his pocket and he had to get a pay advance on his first paycheck so he could buy diapers and pizza for his young family. And so my dad instilled a lot of hard work and pride into me as a kid, but he also, unknowingly, kind of instilled some fear, because he wanted me to be either an engineer like him, a doctor or an attorney. Those were the three options. And he had told me that, you know, the American dream is harder than ever to reach, and so you need to make good money. And so when I first introduced to him my boyfriend, who became my fiance, who was making 26,000 a year we were college, you know, sweethearts my dad had a lot of alarm bells go off. And so I remember telling him you know, money didn't matter and it was all going to be okay, and I was right, but I was also wrong, and so my dad. I remember him driving me through some of the rough parts of town and telling me that I was going to live there if I continued down this path. And so you know, I thought it wouldn't affect me, but I actually started to realize that it did. So when I was planning my wedding with my husband, I started to get regular panic attacks looking at our budget, and I remember telling him hey, you know, if we can't afford this wedding where our friends are doing the flowers and baking the cake and bartending, how are we going to afford a life?

Nicole: 5:03

At that time we had $30,000 worth of debt. We were just starting out. We didn't have an inheritance, anything like that or anything to really get us started. It was just him and I, and so I did two things at that time. The first was I started going to therapy because I realized I had a lot of stress and anxiety. But the second was we started to take financial courses together and start to get educated about personal finance. So once we started to learn more about budgeting and financial goals and planning, we ended up taking action quite fast. So we ended up paying off over $30,000 worth of debt in our first 10 months of marriage or not marriage, but in our first 10 months together, where we or not marriage, but in our first 10 months together where we were budgeting. And then we ended up over the next few years, building up our cumulative net worth to over a quarter of a million dollars, and our average annual salary during that time was $56,000 a year.

Nicole: 5:55

And so I share that, because that was a really big aha moment for me, where I realized that it wasn't just about how much money I made to make to have financial security, but it was also about the financial skills that I started to build. And so, before I knew financial coaching was an industry or it was even a thing, I just started helping friends and family for free. So I did that for a few years because I saw that a lot of people felt like their financial goals weren't or financial problems weren't fixable for whatever reason, and so I liked getting in there, helping people make a plan so they could start to fix their financial problems and feel less financial stress. So that is how I ended up starting my business in 2020. And since then, I've been able to help over 700, mostly Americans achieve more financial success, stability and confidence. So that's a little bit about my story and where it started from.

Violeta: 6:47

That's awesome that you were able to kind of, first of all, that you went to therapy off the bat. Like I didn't start going to therapy till like maybe two years ago, and it was just when, like I started having like a real decline, when, like, I started having like a real decline and you were able to recognize that pretty off the bat that like, hey, I got some some anxiety going on from finances and I didn't realize that that is what stemmed as well with the anxiety that I have now, the instability and things like that. So it's pretty cool that you figured that out off the bat and that y'all, um, y'all started to take action and created a plan and started, uh, learning about finance. Uh, and it started, like I, because I think, um, I saw recently, uh, somewhere where, like that's where people learn most of the their uh finances, how to manage their money and everything is through friends. So you were that friend, you were over there, like, hey, you know, I learned something new and I'm going to share it and I feel like that's where I'm at right now.

Violeta: 7:54

I was like I have this need. I see my family I have an uncle right now that I'm like I need to get in. I need to call him and tell him, but I also had to know that, like you know, all in with time too, because he might not be ready. You know, and so that's awesome that y'all overcame a lot of debt, that in 10 months that's. That's a big deal, thirty thousand. And so I kind of want to go in that and go over like what are some of the steps that y'all took?

Nicole: 8:28

Yeah. So when it comes to paying off that amount of debt really quickly, I know that we did it in a way that was a bit unsustainable, so I don't usually recommend this way, but we lived very simply in our first year of marriage this way. But we lived very simply in our first year of marriage and my goal was that I was working a cold call entry-level sales job, which was absolutely soul-sucking, Cold calling, right All the things. But I had a goal in mind. I knew that every commission check I could put towards debt and I was very motivated by that goal, so much so that the second we made enough money so that we could pay off all of our debt, I quit.

Nicole: 9:05

So it was a very not glamorous journey of living really simply as well as making some extra money by working a cold call sales job. And then throughout the rest of our financial journey, when we were single income most of it, with my husband being the main income earner at a church job, we did a lot of odds and ends. So I picked up some nanny days from a friend who needed childcare. I flipped furniture on Facebook marketplace. I taught English to Chinese kids online so that I could make some extra money, like whatever those little extra things you could do. I was doing them and that was a huge part, I think, in us being able to find that extra money was making it if we didn't have it.

Nicole: 9:57

So doing those extra things, making a budget and then living really simply.

Violeta: 10:10

Yeah, I find that's more effective finding ways to kind of like, bring in money rather than to just live frugally Like it's. It's especially when you're already kind of like at kind of like where you're only paying the basics already, so it's like okay, what more can I cut back to be able to pay this debt and everything so like. The only other thing is to find ways which flip furniture is one of the things I'm interested in doing.

Violeta: 10:35

So that's interesting that you said that I was like oh, whenever I have some time, but I want to do it as a as a fun hobby Cause I think it would be a fun to do, um, but yeah, those are several ways that you can uh find when you where you have some extra time, and it doesn't have to be something like you have to do like long-term. It's just like you said you had this goal that you wanted to um, pay off this 30,000 debt, this goal that you wanted to pay off this 30,000 debt, and then, once you got that done, then you quit your, your sales job and everything, and so that's one thing that a lot of people fail to realize. It can be a temporary thing. We're not saying like go out there and constantly do this, but I mean you could switch then later to like turning that into investing and things like that.

Violeta: 11:25

But I want to talk a little bit, give a little bit tips on budgeting, because I guess that's a new concept for a lot of people that barely start their financial journey. When I first had to start a budget, I didn't know what to do, and so I wanted to hear your, your tips and how you took that on on creating your budget. I didn't know what to do, and so I wanted to hear your tips and how you took that on on creating your budget.

Nicole: 11:47

Yeah.

Nicole: 11:47

So when it comes to making a budget, I always like to remind people that you want to make your budget with your goal in mind in terms of what is the problem that you're hoping to fix with a spending plan, which is what a budget is.

Nicole: 12:02

A budget is just a way to make a plan for your money. It's not a way for you to restrict yourself or feel overly burdened or overwhelmed in your life, and so a lot of people make a budget before they know what problem they're trying to fix. And so if you're listening right now and you've made a budget, it hasn't worked, or you're making it for the first time. I want you to ask yourself what is the problem you're trying to fix? Because every financial problem is fixable, but you want to make sure you're fixing the right one. So every problem falls into one of five categories or a mix of them, and the first is you either have a true spending problem, meaning you spend more than you're able to based on your income and your expenses. A lot of people think they have this problem, but it's not always their problem. The second is that it can be a true fixed expense problem, so housing, healthcare, childcare this is often a very real problem for people, especially with the cost of living today. The third problem is that it's a true income problem, meaning no matter how much we lower your expenses, how much we lower your spending, then math won't math, and so knowing if this is the problem you're trying to fix is really important. The fourth problem is that you can have a true money management problem, meaning you make enough money, your expenses are all right, your spending is all right, but you have no system, which is the budget or the spending plan, to hold you accountable or to keep the money from just leaving you, and so a money management problem is often a problem for a lot of Americans.

Nicole: 13:28

The fifth problem is that you can have a financial strategy problem, meaning the goal that you have is not actually the right goal based on where you are financially. So this is an example of you know, maybe, an elderly or an older couple who isn't investing at all and they have all their money in cash. That would be a financial strategy problem, right? Or they are putting all their money towards debt. Some person is putting all their money towards paying off debt, but they have no savings, so every time they have a financial trouble or emergency, they have to go further into debt. That would be an example of a financial strategy problem. To go further into debt, that would be an example of a financial strategy problem.

Nicole: 14:06

And so your mindset affects all of these. But when you make a budget, you need to know which of these is your actual problem. Does that make sense? And so budgeting with a goal in mind makes it less about the process of planning your spending and more about solving a problem, which I find actually keeps people motivated for longer. The second tip that I would give is that you should automate as much as possible if you can, because if you take the choice out of your financial goals and you just make it happen, you're going to have a lot more success.

Violeta: 14:38

Two of those that you mentioned were the main causes of when I first started my financial journey. One, I just wasn't tracking my money. It's like, yeah, I was like, look, every month I was like what did I spend my money on this month? Like I have the income, and it's more. It was, you know, more than enough to cover my expenses. I mean I was single with just like basic bills, right, and, but I didn't know.

Violeta: 15:08

And then once I started like budgeting, it got better, and one of the good things I did was like to start automating. But then after that is like, okay, so I know I'm sending money, sending it to an investment account, you know which. Later on I found out I was not actually putting it into a right stock. So I, the step was there, but, like you said, the goal, uh, then I had like the goal strategy, like the whole strategy. Um, I'm sending money to places, but it's not really doing what it needed to do, and, and so that was a hard lesson learned that I had to figure out and, you know, fixed it. So now, now, now my money is strategically being invested in places.

Violeta: 15:59

Didn't really think of breaking it down into those five issues, and it's true, like you have all all of those that affect how you manage your money or, uh, your budget differently, and so you do have to create a different plan for each one, because, yeah, if you don't have enough money, it doesn't make sense to like then budget for a investment or anything like that.

Violeta: 16:24

So, yeah, I agree this kind of the same way with real estate investing. I would say, like you know, find your goal first and then create your plan from there. And so one of the things that, when I went to like your website and you know through following you, I like that you don't cater to, like the whole frugality and like the stress because creating a budget which I did notice that you also called it a money plan, which I like to call it I think it's like a mind trick for myself that instead of thinking of it as a budget, I just think of it as a money plan, I just think of it as a money plan is like finding ways to create a spending plan that works for you, and financial anxiety and that stress that comes up when you start thinking about like oh my God, I got to look at where my money is going and all that, and facing the reality of what's going on with that.

Nicole: 17:36

Yeah, I love to just remind people that our stress about money is not something to be afraid of. It's actually a really great indicator that there's opportunity that you haven't found out yet, right? So if you feel financial stress, it's because your body is trying to tell you that something isn't right, and so often a lot of people can feel that they want to avoid that or that they just need to ignore that, but what happens is the stress gets bigger, the worry gets bigger, and it's because we're trying our bodies are trying to get us to focus on the thing that's bringing stress into our life. And so, if you're feeling stressed, think of it less as a bad thing and more of it like a mystery that needs to be solved Right, and so it's nothing to be afraid of. Like I said, every financial problem is fixable.

Nicole: 18:24

Go into looking at your money with that mentality, even if you don't know how to fix it yet, or you don't know how you're going to solve it.

Nicole: 18:32

That's going to be the key to feeling less stressed. So, really, if we know what the problem that you're overcoming is and we start making a plan, you're going to notice that, even before your plan happens, your stress is going to go down, because there's a difference in knowing okay, I know what I'm going to do one, two, three and I know this is going to help me move forward here. Right, when we see the full plan in front of us, our stress will naturally go down, and that's what a lot of people don't realize about financially starting to make a plan is that it's not just achieving it, it's even making the plan. That's going to see that stress go down, and so I would always encourage someone that, if you feel like it's going to be too much for you, I want you to remember that you're really smart, like you're super smart. You can overcome anything. You can overcome many things you already have in your life, so why not just make your finances a part of one of those things that you've overcame?

Violeta: 19:48

finance is a part of one of those things that you've overcame. Yeah, yeah, I'm glad. Yeah, that's definitely uh something to to remember is like you've got, you've gone through life and accomplished several things uh, and overcome a lot of things. Especially, uh, just especially now, with all the the high cost of living and everything like that. It's like, yeah, you uh can get this done. It's just like this resistance that we all feel at the very beginning, like I avoided looking at my budget or creating a budget for so long because I was like, whatever, as long as my bills paid or whatever. And then after that I saw like, okay, where's my money going? Then I just was afraid to look. But then, now that I overcame that mentality and I have my plan and everything, I I feel in some way, like you said. It's like now I feel like I have something to do. I was like all right, so now every month is easy.

Violeta: 20:45

And my husband had to overcome that mentality as well, because he had a lot of uh a debt as well. He had like about 40k of that and he did the same thing. He just did not look at it. He just was like okay, I'm gonna send money here, pay it off. And, like, once I got with him, then we sat down all right, we actually have to create a plan on how you're going to manage your money. So now he's not as scared to look at his. He still gets a little bit anxiety. It's just kind of like that. Something that kind of doesn't really go away. You have to slowly overcome and manage. And so now he's more consistent and able to look at our budgets and how he does our together budget and his individual budget. But he's more confident in that now.

Violeta: 21:34

So it does take time and it is, you know, something that you have to just like talk yourself through. And I always say, give yourself grace, like looking back through your mistakes, that your past money mistakes, or just, um, you feel like if only I knew this. Or I always try to like stop myself from going down that route of like, oh, if I had known this I would be here and blah, blah, blah. Um, you just gotta like, you just gotta go, go with it and give yourself the grace, like you didn't know at that at that time, but now you know. So now you move forward, you have your plan and all that, and so, um, just wanted to end with, like what final tips do you have for those that are trying to, especially now during the time of this recording? We just got through the season of the holidays and so there's a little bit of anxiety that's probably coming up of like scared to look at your, your accounts from the holidays spending, and just what are your final thoughts and tips for someone that's going through that?

Nicole: 22:42

Yeah, if you find yourself scared or wanting to avoid your money, what I always like to remind people is the problem is bigger when you avoid it. The longer you wait, the bigger it becomes right. The more debt you have, the more interest you have. And so the best way if you want to feel less stressed about your money is to start by looking at it and not to blame yourself or to be overly critical. Imagine if you're looking at a friend in this situation, a friend that you love, a friend that you respect. Try to look at it through those eyes, because chances are you would be a lot quicker to give your friend grace, a lot quicker to not blame your friend or be hypercritical. And so if you can look at it like that, you'll find that maybe it's not as scary as you think. Maybe, too, if you can imagine that it's someone else, you can start to think of ideas that you haven't thought of before. But it will get better. And it can get better, but it can't get better if you don't start by looking at it.

Violeta: 23:47

So give yourself that grace, but yeah, and with that like, uh, how can they work with you and how can you uh, what kind of services do you provide for someone that is looking to uh start? You know managing their money.

Nicole: 24:04

Yeah. So if you are somebody who's inspired by the story, our conversation, and you're ready to take action in your life, I always encourage people to start by listening to everything free and putting that into practice. So listening to books, podcasts, and you can also use the free resources we offer. So we're are super active on Instagram, on our website, as well as our newsletter, tiktok, facebook threads, and we host a lot of free classes so that you can start to get educated about where you are financially, what your next step should be, what your one financial goal should be. So we host two free classes where we help you identify which financial goal you should be focused on right now. And then our second class is around helping women understand how the investing world works. I know a lot of women feel overwhelmed by that, so that class is called investing demystified.

Nicole: 24:54

We also have free resources on our website, which is www. Arisefinancial, where you can start to take an action five minute money moves that can really improve your financial life in under five minutes a day. And if you find that free resources aren't cutting it, you aren't making the progress you want to make. You still feel stressed about money. Consider working one-on-one with one of our coaches. You can apply for financial coaching at arisefinancial and we'll have a conversation with you for free to talk about where you're at, where you want to be, and point you in the right direction to see if we're a good fit for you at where you want to be and point you in the right direction to see if we're a good fit for you.

Violeta: 25:32

Awesome, yeah, I went through your website. It's awesome Like there's a lot of a lot of stuff on there that that I will have linked down below. So definitely check out and the free resources and glad that you're out here like helping people and, you know, get their money right and stuff. So thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing your story and motivating and showing people that it can be done, cause that's what I like sharing this, these stories, like I mentioned earlier, was that it makes it seem more doable and more achievable and providing resources as well. So thank you so much for coming on here.

Nicole: 26:12

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Violeta: 26:14

All right. Well, that's it for this episode. I will see everyone in the next one. Bye.