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THE LOWDOWN

In this episode of Sex and Money with Jess, I delve into the importance of starting your financial journey, regardless of your age or past hesitations. I share my personal experiences and the realization that it's never too late to take control of your finances and work towards your goals.

I discuss the societal pressures and shame that often hold us back from pursuing our financial dreams. I reflect on my own hesitations about starting this podcast and how I overcame the fear of entering an already established market. This journey has taught me valuable lessons about growth and the power of starting, no matter how late it may seem.

I open up about my goal of buying a house within the next year and the steps I'm taking to achieve it, such as cutting back on expenses and saying no to certain opportunities.

I encourage you, to identify your goals and the reasons behind them, and to take small, consistent steps towards achieving them. Starting earlier might have led to different outcomes, it's the decision to start now that truly matters.

I believe in your ability to reach your goals and the importance of taking action today. I invite you to join me on this journey of financial empowerment and to share this message with others who might benefit from it.

Remember, it's not about where you could have been, but where you can go from here. Let's chase our dreams together and create the future we desire.

MENTIONED IN SHOW:

Website: www.lovealwaysjess.com/getstarted

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/love.always.jess

SHOW NOTES:

Episode begins at [00:00:54]

TRANSCRIPT:

[00:00:00] Welcome. We're officially on episode six, which has [00:01:00] me excited and in awe that we're already halfway through our money conversations. This was a project that I wanted to start a couple of years ago. I just never got around to it, and here I am taking a leap of faith.

And in your ear talking to you about a topic that I love so much. 

If you would've told me two years ago that I would actually be doing the thing, I would've probably laughed in your face. we're here and

it, I, I feel so. I'm grateful and I feel so, you know, honored to be able to be doing this. I hope that so far you've been able to take some key takeaways away. Found some moments in your life that maybe you want to change, things you want to be better at. I know I certainly have. I.

I have actually been listening back to my episodes, and personally I'm taking things [00:02:00] away from this that I didn't even think about, and I think that's really insightful for myself because I'm just like you. I get caught up in the day to day, I get caught up in what life is supposed to be like that I forget.

There are areas within my own personal finances that I wanna be better at, that I wanna change. You know, I forget how much I've grown over the past 10, 15, 20 years that I've pretty much had my own financial journey, and there's always lessons from my past self. I'm always trying to take away and be like, oh yeah, I've done this.

I've been here before. What did I learn in that situation? And what can I learn now? Which is why I think it's important for myself to listen back to [00:03:00] my podcast episodes to remind myself. When I get in those moments where I want to do quick fixes or feel shame around something, I can remind myself how to get out of that cycle and then make the proper decision that benefits my end goal.

When I say that I'm happy that I've started this, I truly mean it. Podcasts have been around for a long time and

the idea of stepping into a market that's already there and not being at the forefront of it is kind of.

I don't wanna say scary. Scary is not the right word. It kind of makes me feel sometimes as if it's a waste of time. Like why would I start now? There are already podcasts out there, on the topics that I wanna talk about, It's important for me to be here for myself, for you guys, [00:04:00] and that's kind of what I wanna talk about today is

it's never too late to start

when it comes to your personal finances, especially. As you start to get into your late twenties, your thirties, your forties, so on and so forth, you start to feel as if you've lost X amount of years to do better, to be in a better situation, to be in a better place, or maybe not better necessarily. Just different.

And I think. As humans, we sometimes look at where we could be we'd let that where we could have been potential. Stop us. From our actual potential.

I think about my life right now. I am thirty-five. I live in an apartment complex. I have a pretty decent retirement portfolio, but I don't have.[00:05:00] What I think would be a good investment portfolio. ' cause really it's nothing. Um, and there are places that I sometimes feel like I should be at as a 30 5-year-old.

I should own a house. I should have. Multiple six figures in my savings account. I should have a good investment portfolio and those should haves

and the place that the economy is at currently sometimes make me hesitate. And think, maybe I shouldn't start. What is the point of me putting a hundred dollars a month into a Fidelity account? What is the point of me saving up money for a down payment on a house? Because if I think about a it,

we all saw. In 2020, when the pandemic happened through 20 21, 20 22,[00:06:00] housing market soar. Like housing prices went up through the roof, interest rates came down.

It was kind of a glorious time to be both a buyer and a seller. Because if you're a buyer, you had really low interest rates. If you were a seller, you got a really good bang for your buck. And then when we started to come in to 20 twenty-three, we saw interest rates continuously creep up, making it more difficult to become a buyer.

And looking at the economy, I'm constantly hearing. You need to buy now because it's only going to get worse, or interest rates are supposed to drop in 2025 or any of anybody else's predictions, and it's those words, that feedback coming from the outside world [00:07:00] that's telling me you are too late. You should have bought a house in You should never have moved into an apartment complex. You should have gone straight into a house, or

when we saw the economy kind of dip during the pandemic, the investments, some stock prices went to a lower price. My brain is telling me You should have bought it that time instead of now. And it's really scary. It's really overwhelming hearing all of these external opinions and predictions when it comes to me.

Little old thirty-five year old, Jessica. Trying to be like, Hey, I want something different for my life, but what is any of it possible? You know, it's, it's, it's overwhelming.

So I sit here [00:08:00] and I ask myself, why do I wanna buy a house?

There are multiple reasons. This past week, um, my partner and I were getting a little frustrated with our apartment complex, um, because we'd been without hot water for a few months and him and I had a phone call with each other, and at the end of the phone call, we both said. This is the last lease, so obviously here I am feeling the pressures of I'm not extending this lease, at least not for another 12 or 15 months.

I might have to do one or two months depending upon where I am in the house buying process.

I certainly am frustrated and not looking forward to having to stay here , past January.

That [00:09:00] pressure is a little scary, but it's also, it's exciting because I know my why and there are a lot of other reasons besides the hot water issue that play into me not wanting to extend my lease, but

as scary as it is.

The idea of saving up all this money for a down payment and buying a house in about a year, it's exciting, and I know that if I don't start now, I'm not going to get there.

My brain tries to do a lot of quick math to be like, oh, I'm only gonna have X amount of dollars in my savings account. I've got to figure this part of my bank account out. I've gotta figure out my student loan debt. I've gotta figure out this area of my finances. it starts to ping through everything that I have to [00:10:00] do, and then I get overwhelmed again and I go, what am I doing?

Why am I putting myself through the stress? But also at the same time, starting now, 11, 12 months out from when I'm going to buy that house? Is going to give me the time and the tools and the space to figure all of that noise out,

and I can sit down and I can take the time and look at each individual scenario. Each individual account and massage what I need to massage, change what I need to change in order to be prepared

when we get stuck in that fear trap. And we

try to think about where we could have been had we started when we were [00:11:00] 25, when we were 18, when we were 36. brain.

Starts to panic and we start to kind of revert back to that shame feeling of, I didn't do it right. I'm not good enough. I don't deserve this, and that's not the space. We want to be in when we're thinking of our future, when we're thinking of our goals. It's not the space that we want to be in when we're trying to figure out how to make that goal happen.

Because when we're stuck in the fight or flight mode, when we're stuck in the fear and the foundation of. I should have done, I wish I would have done. We keep focusing on the past and that that needs to stay in the past, you can't change it. Would it be nice to get a time machine and go back in time and [00:12:00] change things around?

Absolutely. I would love to do that, but. I also know

that by sitting where I am today and saying, okay, it might take me a little bit extra time to achieve my goal because I'm starting later, but you know what? At least I'll get there at least. I will be able to achieve what I want to achieve when the time is right.

I started the preparation for this podcast back in October.

There's a part of me at that time who said, well, you could have started this two years ago, and where would you be now?

But by focusing on

2024 and what I wanted to present in 2024, that allowed me to sit down in October and November and December and kind of map out what I was going to do to show up here.[00:13:00] 

It allowed me to find the production team I wanted to hire. It allowed me to figure out what I wanted to talk about.

It allowed me to feel at ease. Speaking to a microphone, and also it gave me the time to build the confidence up to be here

if I would've stayed and focused on the, you should have started this X amount of years ago.

I would still be there. I wouldn't be here. We wouldn't be here today on episode six.

So pause for a moment.

Ask yourself, where do you want to be? I.

What is your goal? My goal is to buy a house in the next year,

forgetting about the past. What do I need to do today to make that happen for me? That looks like saying no to further education for this year. That [00:14:00] looks like saying no to paying other coaches.

I love working with business coaches and other life coaches.

But this goal that I want to achieve requires me for 12 months to say no.

It requires me to cook more at home.

There's a lot of things that I should be spending my energy on

instead of focusing on the what-ifs, where could I have been?

So I'm choosing. To spend my energy, um, what is right in front of me, what pieces can I change

outside of buying a house? I also wanna spend more time in the stock market. I. Understanding learning, growing my money there

because I'm in the process of trying to save up to buy a house. I don't just wanna dump a lot of [00:15:00] money into the stock market, but am allowing myself to play around a little bit. To see what can happen

because when we open that door for our money to grow and be used, not only is it fun,

but it could be beneficial in the future.

You know, I think back to my parents when I got my first job out of college, they told me to start putting away into a 401k, whatever the company matches. Make sure you're putting at least that amount away because , the stock market grows. We've seen crashes, but we've also seen recoveries, and my parents told me at that time, if I would've started at your age, I would be in a much better situation than we are now.

So I started.[00:16:00] With the minimum amount. I think my company at the time was matching 5%, so I started with the minimum amount, putting 5% of my pay, my paycheck at the time. I've since grown that to more, but similarly to me investing into my 401k, I'm choosing to put. A hundred dollars a month into my stock account, and I go in and I pick and choose stocks that seem interesting to me.

I try to spend time learning the ins and outs, but I'm starting small and over time. That money will grow and it'll accumulate. Sure, we'll see dips, we'll see rises, ebbs and flows just like life. The stock market follows that, but by starting small, it allows [00:17:00] me

wiggle room. To not blow all of my money, because sometimes that does happen, but it also allows me to grow knowledge, create a sound foundation, and learn more about the stock market. If I waited until I had all the information,

I would miss out on a lot

potentially. I don't know. You never know with the stock market, but if I waited until I was ready, one, I may never be ready. But two, I could have missed out on a great opportunity.

So not only am I choosing to start today so that I don't miss out on a lot of great things in the future, but I'm also choosing to start today so that I can learn.

So that I can continue to grow into the future. Me that has a great investment [00:18:00] portfolio that has a house,

 the beautiful thing. About starting today is that we have all the lessons we've learned in the past sitting with us. We have all the lessons waiting to be learned in the future,

and we have this golden opportunity.

To say, Hey, I'm going to be different. I'm going to create different who I am sitting here February of 2024 is not who I am going to be. Where I'm going to be, how I'm going to be in February of 20 twenty-five, 20 thirty-five 20, forty-five. However far out you think you're gonna live.

So what is your goal?

Why is that your goal?

And what about that goal [00:19:00] scares you?

Take some time to figure that out and then ask yourself, what do I need to do today?

To start making that goal happen, even if it's one small choice.

Make it today, repeat it tomorrow, continue it into next week,

and over time, that goal will happen. As I said, it might happen slower than if you would've started 10 years ago, or maybe by putting the energy into it and getting the ball rolling, it might happen quicker than you expected.

We don't know.

What the future is actually going to look like. But what we do know is if we don't start now, that thing is not going to happen.

' cause in order for that thing to happen, you have to start.

I think it's Elizabeth Gilbert who wrote Big [00:20:00] Magic. I know it's the book Big Magic, but forgive me if I have the author incorrect.

She talks about how there's these dreams. Floating around in the universe. And then they come up to somebody and they're like, you are my person. You are going to make me happen. And they keep pestering you saying, make me happen. Come on, bring me to fruition. And sometimes if you don't start. The dream will flutter away and find another person who's ready to start.

And other times it'll keep pestering you and pestering you and pestering you until you're ready to actually start. And then when you start, it happens like a lightning bolt, lickety split. Be that person. Be that person who says to the dream, okay, I'm going to start. We're going to make this [00:21:00] happen. I don't know how.

I don't know by when, but we're going to do it because that is much more exciting

than regretting not. Having ever chased the dream down the road,

I believe in whatever dream you are chasing. I believe in your ability and your power to make it happen.

You just have to start. Don't worry about if it's too late. Don't worry about if you would've started.

Just do.

Just do and believe and chase. Start and get after it.

We are all capable of reaching our goals

and yes, I do mean you. You are capable. So choose to show up for yourself today.

Believe in your [00:22:00] potentiality, and get out there and do the thing,

because you can either choose to stay exactly where you're at today, which. I'm sure you're not a hundred percent okay with, or you can be in a different spot this time next year, and trust me when I say

I have to take my own advice. On this topic because I want that house.

I can't wait 5, 6, 7 months. I can't wait until next year and start house shopping and being like, oh, I'm not exactly there with my finances. I'll wait a little bit more. No. I have to start today, so join me. Whatever your goal is, let's do this together. We've got it fam. I believe in us. I love you. I hope that the rest of your week goes well, and I'm excited.[00:23:00] 

To see where this energy, this freshness of starting takes you, it's gonna be bomb. I believe it. Have a great rest of your day. Love you. [00:24:00]