Jackie Gill went to school to become a public school teacher, obtaining a Bachelor's in Elementary Education. After only a few years of teaching, she transitioned into personal training (as a 'temporary' job) while she completed her Master's degree in Public Health. 14 years later, Jackie runs her own successful personal training business and loves working with golfers, yoga students and a wide variety of other clients. She helps not only her personal clients, but the many people who follow her popular Instagram feed: @joyful.fit. Jackie is outstanding at not only helping others with their physical health, but also their emotional and mental health, as she shares wisdom gathered from her insatiable learning activities. Jackie, her husband, 2 girls and new puppy reside in Overland Park, KS.

Find Jackie on Instagram

Money Talks are hosted by Lisa Clements, owner of Clear Springs Wealth. (www.clearspringswealth.com)

Lisa is a financial strategist and investment manager who specializes in helping professional female leaders secure their financial future. She builds ongoing relationships with her clients, helping them save money in taxes, build wealth through investments, and make sound financial decisions for the future.

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Transcript:

[00:00:00] Lisa: In money talks with female leaders. Join us. As we hear professional female leaders share their personal experiences with money, you'll learn. We can speak openly about money. It's not shameful to want to make a lot of money and that you're not alone. No matter your money struggles together, we will become stronger advocates for ourselves and other women through money talks.

Enjoy today's show.

Hello, Jackie.

[00:00:25] Jackie: Hi, Lisa.

[00:00:27] Lisa: Thank you so much for joining us today. I'm so excited to talk to you. I would love for you to start off by telling us your age, if you're married, or single, kids? Pets? And then your career journey. Would you mind giving us that as the introduction for today?

[00:00:46] Jackie: Sure thing. So you want to start with age?

[00:00:49] Lisa: Yeah, let's do, let's just start right there.

[00:00:51] Jackie: Just get right into it. I'm 38 years old, and I am married, have been married for 13 years now. Lucky number, [00:01:00] 13. We have two girls, third grade, fifth grade, and we just got a puppy, Luna, who's a three-month-old, I believe. Golden Doodle.

[00:01:11] Lisa: Oh, fabulous.

[00:01:12] Jackie: So, that's been keeping us busy. And then, I am a personal trainer, and I've been a personal trainer for the last 14 years. But before that, I actually went to college and got a degree in elementary education.

[00:01:28] Lisa: Okay, I was trying to remember, because I knew you did something before training. Okay, so you went to school to be an elementary school teacher?

[00:01:37] Jackie: Yep, I did.

[00:01:38] Lisa: Did you teach at all?

[00:01:40] Jackie: I did. Yeah. It seems like ancient history now, but I went to college for elementary ed. And I remember thinking that's just always what I wanted to do. And, very idealistic. I was like, I don't care about the money. I knew teachers didn't make a lot of money, but I was like, but I'm in it for the kids, for the children. And then I taught for a [00:02:00] couple of years and it was really like on the, in the middle, I would say of the "no child left behind" act. So it was right when education really started shifting a lot to being hyper focused on the tests.

And you hear it all the time, but when I actually started teaching, it was just, it was something that I knew pretty quickly that I would not be able to do forever in the capacity that it was currently being done... if that makes sense. So then at that point, it did slightly become about the money, because I was working really hard, as all teachers do.

But I was also not loving the job itself. So then, when you're putting that much time and energy into something, then I was a little bit like, okay, the return on this is not going to be sustainable. So I actually was like, I don't know what to do. I was slightly depressed.

Cause I was 24 after teaching a couple of years, I thought I had my whole life planned out. This is what I'm going to do. And then I was like, it's not. And by the way, [00:03:00] what do you do with an elementary education degree? Like, I had no idea. And so I remember doing some research. I ran cross-country and track in college. And I also got a minor in health. So fitness had been something that had always been important to me, had drawn me in. And I just looked into personal training which didn't seem like a real job to me. To be totally honest, I was like, I'll just get certified as a personal trainer.

And it was like a six-month certification program through MTTI Wellsprings. It was a great program because we had a lot of hands on experience, did a lot of anatomy, physiology, all of that stuff. I got my certification, and I was honestly thinking I would just do it for a couple of years, while I went back to school.

So while I was training, I was actually also working on my Master's in Public Health. I ended up getting pregnant. I had a couple of babies. And then I realized when I got my Master's in Public Health,

I don't wanna do a [00:04:00] 9-5 job. I was like, I have these two young kids, and training is actually awesome because you get to decide what your schedule is going to be. And I realized, I can make as much as I work. If I want to work my butt off, I can make more that year. If I need a little more time off, like with the babies, I can do that. And so here I am, 14 years later. And my Dad, like to this day, he'll still be like, so training is it really something you can do like forever?

Cause in his mind, he's that's not a real job. Like you can't, but I'm like, "Oh, in fact, I'm still doing it."

[00:04:34] Lisa: You completed your Master's in Public Health?

[00:04:36] Jackie: I did. Yeah.

[00:04:38] Lisa: What was your thinking when you did that? What was the career associated with having that Master's, in your mind?

[00:04:45] Jackie: There were two arms of public health to where it was either you could go into the epidemiology, study of statistics on different populations, which was interesting. But I really wanted to be more public-facing. And so I really thought I would go into more public health education. [00:05:00] Go into communities that might be, like, underserved and help promote... "Here's how you reduce your risk of diabetes." Right?

So it still had the health and wellness association with it. I think I was hoping to tie adolescent health into that, because like the child obesity crisis and those kind of things. I just thought that would be something that I could still do work that I felt like it was really meaningful.

But again, when I got the degree, I had a baby. I think I had my first baby at that point. And I was like, I don't really want to do something where I'm tied into this hourly schedule. It felt like that would be a little bit suffocating at that point, after having the freedom of deciding what my hours were going to be.

[00:05:40] Lisa: Okay. And then once you got your personal training certification, did you start off on your own right away?

[00:05:47] Jackie: No. So I started out, I did the gym route. I started out at Prairie Life Fitness in Olathe. So I had the experience of the big box gym. And that was actually, as I was working on my Master's, I was like, "Oh, thank goodness I'm [00:06:00] working on my Master's." Cause I hated working in a big box gym.

Nothing against Prairie Life, the people there were wonderful. But when you work at a gym, you basically get all of the leads of new customers that have signed up to join the gym. And you give them their free workout, where the poor customer is like, "Oh good. They're going to show me how to use the machines."

But then the personal trainer head is, " You're going to sell this person and convince them that they need a personal trainer." So coming from an elementary education background, I was like, "Whoa, sales no way."

This is not what I want to do. It felt really awkward. I, if I could go back and watch, if any of those like sales meetings were recorded, I think I would just be burying my face because I felt so uncomfortable during that entire time.

So I did that for about a year. And then I went to a place called Front Door Fitness, which was, they had their own salesperson, and then he would go in and meet all the customers first, and basically he would just say, "Hey, you have this client Monday, Wednesday, Fridays at their house." And I actually [00:07:00] drove all around Prairie Village. Where else were we?

I went to some different country clubs. I went to Indian Hills Country Club, and so I was just all over the place. I worked at Lockton for a little bit. I did that for about a year-ish. And then I don't know if you want to hear all of this, but then I got a job offer. It was actually a woman that I used to teach with, her husband worked for a car hauling company, which is like a trucking company.

They're those big vehicles where they stack six cars on them, and they drive them to different dealerships and whatnot. And he needed someone in charge of their wellness program. So in my mind, I'm like, "Oh, this will be really good because I'm getting my Master's in Public Health." So I'm working on wellness program coordinating.

But then the reality was, I showed up there and all of the the truck drivers, they were super nice guys, but they were super weary. They were in the Teamsters union. They were very weary of anything that came from the company. So it was a [00:08:00] really interesting dynamic, because I really liked these guys.

I would go out and BS with them while they were waiting to get their loads, and I would talk to them. But then I'd be like, "Who wants to come strengthen your back or stretch your back before you go drive your car for nine hours?" And they'd all look the other way, "No, we got to go get our car loads."The actual participation it was like, I did that one for about a year as well.

And so then I got a job offer at at the last job I actually had before I went off on my own, which was a small personal training-only gym. Which was a great experience because people weren't getting sold on the training, they were coming in because that's what they wanted.

And so for me, that felt a lot more authentic. So anyone that I was working with there came and they would just train with me X amount of times a week. And then, I did that for probably gosh, like seven years or so. I was there a very long time. And then that's when I hit a point where I didn't really see much growth opportunity in what I was going to be able to make there.

Cause anytime you're working at another gym, you're basically paying almost [00:09:00] 50% of what you're making to the person that works there. And I was I just, I feel like I can't do this forever, right? I need to have a little more expansion. And it was actually January of 2020.

So right before we all knew what COVID was going to be. I had my whole entire basement become my studio. And I remember, it was like serendipitous in some ways. COVID was awful. But the timing of everything that happened... Because at first I was like, "Is this going to be weird to have people come to my home to work out?" I wasn't sure how it was going to work out.

It was a leap of faith. And then COVID hit, and everything shut down, and it ended up being probably the best thing. Because people were like, "Oh, I love that. It's so private," right? "I love that. I don't have all these other people using the equipment." And so that's what I've been doing for the last three years.

I'm just training totally on my own. I'm going to some work sites as well and a couple of people's homes and mostly though, out of my basement. It's my studio, which you can see here.

[00:09:52] Lisa: Yeah, I love it. "Don't wish for it, work for it."

[00:09:55] Jackie: Yeah, that's my background sign. Yep.

[00:09:57] Lisa: See that. Yeah. Yeah. That's [00:10:00] fantastic. Thank you for walking through that for us. I appreciate that.

[00:10:04] Jackie: Of course.

[00:10:05] Lisa: And that's how you and I met was you were my trainer. Best trainer. Love it. Okay. So, I am fascinated to hear about money's influence in your life. Touched on it a little bit, but let's go back to the beginning, and tell me why money is important to you?

[00:10:25] Jackie: So for me, I think money really represents freedom. Like I'm really big on the idea of figuring out... I think this is different for all of us. But what you really want your life to look like. And so I've done a lot of different kind of meditations and thinking about this. And for me, it's not necessarily a super lavish lifestyle, but it's the ability to not have money be at the forefront of my mind for the experiences that I want to have. Right? And it's the ability to do [00:11:00] things out of like a spirit of generosity and not worry about the payback because I'm so worried about, pinching pennies, or can I pay the bills? Those types of things. So that's really, I guess in my mind, what money is like, you can't take it with you when you go.

So it's never been my goal to hoard as much money as I can have. It's really just been like, can I do the things I want to do and not stress about it?

[00:11:22] Lisa: Okay. Okay. I love that. Was money talked about at home when you were growing up?

[00:11:29] Jackie: Not a lot. And it's funny when you look back on it, because I had zero classes on financial anything, right?

Like on personal money management, on investing, stock market. I had no knowledge about that, whatsoever. I actually remember when I had my first teaching job, and I was 22. I was right out of college. I remember everyone was stressed about taxes come April, right? Everyone is, "Oh, it's tax season. File your taxes."

I called my Dad. It was probably April 1st or 2nd. And I'm like, "What do [00:12:00] I do, like, for taxes?" I had zero clue. And his answer was, "I buy the TurboTax software, and I upload it. I put it on the computer, and it'll just walk you through it."

And I remember the whole time I was doing TurboTax, I was like, "I don't, am I doing this right? Am I going to get arrested?" That stuff was just like, like never talked about. And so now, as an almost 40 year old, I look back on that in hindsight and I'm like, that's so crazy that like they don't teach that in school.

Maybe they do now, but just that when I was growing up, it was just never, ever discussed. I think the other thing was that I remember my Mom always talking about my Dad had a great pension plan with his job. And I'm like, "That's cool. I don't know what a pension is." Like at that point in time, I didn't, that was like the retirement plan. So there were these things like about money, but no one ever discussed it. I always felt like people were weird about money.

I remember my Mom would pay for a friend of mine to do something. Let's say we went to an amusement park or something like that. And I remember it was always [00:13:00] super weird about the friend's Mom would want to pay back. And it would be this game of her trying to give money to my Mom, and my Mom not wanting to take. I remember money just always seeming weird. Which I think is part of the reason why for me, it represents freedom. The freedom to just be able to like, not worry about that. To be like, "Yeah, I'll cover dinner. Or yeah, I'll get pizzas and if you want to chip in a couple bucks, that's fine." But I'm not going to cross, figure out exactly what every single person owes to me. I don't want it to feel that, that like weirdness around it at all.

[00:13:29] Lisa: So do you feel like you got any messages from your parents about money? Or was it more just a vacuum of messaging? Like it wasn't good, it wasn't bad. It just got weird at times? ,

[00:13:42] Jackie: I think. I think, yeah. There's a little bit of the weirdness around, you don't talk about it, right? Like it's rude to ask what people make, that kind of thing. I think the other message was like basically the idea of, "If you work hard, you'll be fine." Right? Cause both of my parents worked, and they both worked really hard. Like my Mom worked a lot of [00:14:00] overtime that she didn't get paid for.

So I think some of the messaging around that was, "You'll make enough money. You'll get it. You'll figure it out." Which that's actually something that I have deconstructed a little bit. As I've gotten older, the idea of kind of work smarter, not necessarily harder.

Because I think for a long time, because I didn't know about a lot of things about money, right? Like, how to properly save and invest and those kind of things. I think my go-to is just, "I'll just train more clients," right? "I'll just work harder. I'll just make more money. And then we'll always have enough to cover the bills."

But then, as I've gotten a little bit older, I'm like, "Oh, or we can put this money in a high yield savings account, and then we make money when we're not doing any, like those kind of things. So I think that those are probably like the biggest messages around it. And then, oh, okay. Last one that I can think of, is the idea of like I had said that I chose teaching.

[00:14:48] Lisa: I was like, "I'm not in it for the money." I think there was a little bit of that... I grew up going to church every Sunday, those types of things. And I think one of the messages that you often get is, wanting a lot of money[00:15:00] is not what like a good person does. It seems shallow. It seems like, "of the earth." It just didn't seem like it was, if that, I don't know if that's making sense. I love that you brought it up because it hasn't come up to date. It hasn't been talked about so far. Which is how your faith or your religion can influence your beliefs about money.

And often, especially in, I think, the Christian faith, there's that, "money is the root of all evil." And it's no, "The love of money is the root of all evil." It's, it's when it's out of priority order in what's important to you in life.

[00:15:38] Jackie: Totally. Though, yeah, if you're just hoarding it, and you just... you know, like it has control over you.

Yes, that will have a negative impact on your life. But if you have, if you make enough money that you can feel like very generous in spirit, like with that money... I actually have found, I feel like I can help a lot more people by making more money. [00:16:00] So, I don't feel like that same kind of money guilt I think that I used to feel.

[00:16:04] Lisa: That's awesome. Yeah. So some of your current day money beliefs are, "it's okay to have money because you can be more generous with it." Do you still hold the, "work hard and it will come?" or the, "work smarter not harder?"

[00:16:20] Jackie: Yeah. So my whole thing on that, that has changed is... I don't believe

that I need to always work super hard to have my abundance, right? Or to have money come in. One of the things I had to really sit down and do when I was running my own business... I realized that I had a little bit of lack of self worth. Because I had transitioned into training on my own. And once I had all the equipment bought for my basement, I really didn't have any overhead, right?

It's our mortgage. I'm not paying rent somewhere. And I think [00:17:00] in my mind, I was like, "Oh, all of my clients know that, so I need to give them a cheaper rate than they would be paying at a gym, right?" That was like this weird kind of logic that was going on in my mind. I was like, "Oh because it's not a gym and I'm not paying rent, I should have lower prices."

And then, when I really was feeling burnt out,

I sat down and I just envisioned what my perfect schedule would look like. How can I balance having two school age kids that I want to be involved with, not feeling totally exhausted and burnt out all the time, and feeling like I still have the me- time to regenerate my batteries?

And when I really figured out that schedule, I was like, "I need to raise my rates. That's what I need to do." And that's smarter, not harder necessarily. So instead of training 50 clients a week or 50 sessions a week, I could bring it down to 35 or 40.

But if I raise my rates, which I could do because I was at capacity, right? That was this whole [00:18:00] mindset that I had to figure out. Then I can actually work my ideal schedule and then make the same amount that I would have been making otherwise. But that took a lot of work around self worth, and I'm worth this. I'm a good trainer... in order to be able to do that.

But that was breaking the idea that I had to feel like I was working myself to the bone, right? That in order to make money, I felt like I had to do that in order to... to survive. I don't know. It was like, it ingrained in me.

[00:18:28] Lisa: It's so funny because I've heard that message over and over again, over time... especially as I've started my own business. And it's that whole, "Don't fall victim to imposter syndrome. You're worth it." And as much as you hear that over and over again... "Don't set your rates too low to begin with." For whatever reason, it feels like we all have to go through that journey ourselves and have that switch flipped for us to be able to get over the hump, and I don't [00:19:00] know why we can't just accept it from the beginning.

[00:19:02] Jackie:

I do think there's a little bit that ties into being a female, right? I think that there is still a little bit societally where it just felt hard for me to do. It felt like that wasn't being the appeasing like good girl. Again, I think some of these ideas that got ingrained in me when I was really young, I didn't realize how much they were impacting me in my business life.

The ability just to hold firm in my boundaries, and to charge what I felt like it was worth... like those types of things. And I would not have known that until I ventured out onto my own. Because in all my past experiences, the companies I had worked for set my rates. So...

[00:19:53] Lisa: I love that. Okay, you're running your own business now, how do you manage your finances now? Do you [00:20:00] outsource all your accounting and books?

[00:20:02] Jackie: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I can't remember what year this was... I guess that's not super relevant. But when I had my second training job at the Front Door Fitness place, that was the first time I was ever a 1099 independent contractor.

And I didn't really know what that entailed. I just was like, "Oh, I'll figure it out." Like at the end of the year, "I'll just figure it out." And I just walked into an H& R Block because it seemed complicated to me, more complicated than getting TurboTax and filling that out. And I got charged so much money because I was keeping track of the gas mileage that I was using to go and see the clients.

They charge you basically per form they have to fill out. Because they had to fill out so many forms, it cost me a small fortune. And then I felt like the way that I had gotten taxed, it was almost like you get double taxed, because you're independent contractor and then they tax your finances, and I was like, "Oh my gosh."

And then I wasn't paying in during the year either... I waited till the end of the year. So we got hit pretty [00:21:00] hard, which was a good lesson. So we were luckily able to pay everything. But for future planning, I actually work with Tracy. I think you maybe knew her from the gym that I worked at. But she does all of my accounting, and she actually incorporated me, which I didn't even know that was something that you could do.

I'm a business entity now, so I pay myself a 1099. But the way that it works out tax-wise is so much better for, finances. And I can write more off, those types of things... I had this realization of, I've been super into the fitness world for the last decade, but I have never studied taxes, nor will I. It's really not something that I'm interested in.

And so, why not have somebody, who I completely trust their expertise, to guide me and just tell me what they need? Because also, I feel like the tax code and laws are constantly changing and evolving, and it's very nuanced. And so, it was just something that like allowed me to focus on the things that I wanted to focus on while [00:22:00] still feeling good about... I'm not messing up this part of owning a business.

So it seemed totally worth it.

[00:22:07] Lisa: Do you think going out on your own has been the biggest career risk you've taken? Or would you point to anything else that you think has been a significant career risk for the sake of improving your earnings?

[00:22:23] Jackie: Yes, I feel like going off on my own was the biggest career risk to increase my earnings, because I essentially doubled what I made.

By going off on my own, I wasn't paying any overhead anywhere. So that was a huge jump in what I was making. I do feel like back in the day, when I was teaching, that was a huge jump for me at that point in time, because it was like, 2008-2009. It was like right in the big economic crisis that we were having.

And again, I remember having a conversation with my Dad being like, I don't think I'm going to be teaching. This isn't what I'm going to do. And he like, lost it. [00:23:00] He was trying to convince my in-laws to get on his side. He was like, "I just think you have a job, and you have health insurance, and a lot of people don't have jobs right now. You are crazy. What are you doing?" And he was trying real hard to convince me not to do it. But I just knew. If I continue to do this job, I'm going to be one of those very burnt out crotchety teachers, down the road. And that is not how I want to live my life.

And I don't want to have that impact on.... on the people around me either. And so I just knew that I had to make the jump. And so that was a huge jump to get into the industry, just cause it was totally foreign to me. I think I was young and dumb enough, that was okay. And then this more recent jump was scary. But also, I was pretty confident that it was gonna work. I was like, okay, at least for now, this will work. And it'll give me some of that expansion that I've really been wanting.

[00:23:54] Lisa: Right. Okay. What have you invested in, as far as [00:24:00] personal development, that boosted your earning potential?

There was the initial personal training education, but since becoming a personal trainer, is there any kind of professional development that you've pursued that you feel has made you more marketable or helped you justify higher rates?

[00:24:18] Jackie: Yeah, absolutely. So one of the ones I can think of is, I started training a lot of golfers at the last gym that I was at. And when you get a personal training certification, you learn a lot about anatomy and physiology, but the exercises that I learned were very basic, right? It was like, these are push exercises. These are pull exercises. And so I was just feeling stagnant. And I was like I train all these golfers.

And then NASA, which is the National Academy of Sports Medicine, where I got my personal training certification through. They had corrective exercise, which I also got, which is more about helping balance the body to reduce risk of injuries. And then they also had golf fitness certification.

So I got that [00:25:00] golf fitness certification and that was huge because a couple of the guys that I trained were members of Wolf Creek golf course. And then they referred a bunch of their friends. So that's actually when I started doing more like small groups. So I would train like four or five of these guys at a time, which then just in that one hour, tripled what I would have been making with a one on one client. So that was huge. That also allowed me the opportunity... I go out there probably four or five times in the summer, before their big golf tournaments, and I'll go out and I'll bring the Hypervolt, which is that kind of massage gun.

And I'll do Hypervolt stretching to get them ready to play. Which has been great for just like making connections out there, just a little, making extra something on the side. Over COVID, I actually got my certification in yoga because that was another side of the coin that I felt like I didn't have as much experience in... the flexibility, mobility, those types of things.

So I got that certification, which has been huge as well... working that in with my clients, but also taking it out. I'm [00:26:00] doing a fun yoga class, just a monthly class, at a friend's studio. So just to again, expand, I don't know. I think I'm a person that I get bored if I do the same thing over and over again.

So I just picked these different things to learn about based off of where I'm at, and what I think the need would be... where I could grow a little bit more.

[00:26:18] Lisa: I love that. When you specialize in a niche, something that you have specialized knowledge about, I feel like you can charge more for it too. Like you've got this unique certification that not a lot of trainers have.

[00:26:31] Jackie: Totally. Yeah.I think it does help as well, confidence wise. When I'm working with people, I never liked the feeling of, especially when I started out training, being like, I don't know why this person's back is hurting all the time, right? The body can be very complicated and nuanced. And so you go into something, just having a basic certification. And I was like, man, there's so much more that I want to know about this. And I remember one of my instructors actually [00:27:00] was talking about... with personal training, you're going to be learning the rest of your life, right?

And that if someone asks you a question, I thought this was really good advice. They were like, don't fake it, right? Don't pretend like you know what the answer is. It's okay to be like, I'm really not sure. Let me do some research and we'll figure this out. And so I think that has also helped guide me to what I wanted to learn more about.

And that's really where the yoga came in is you see how many people have so many chronic aches and pains. Andis there something that we can do? Is there a way that I can understand the body a little bit differently to help with this? And it's actually been huge. For my own body as well. I've done a lot more flexibility work and it's been a cool thing to learn about.

[00:27:40] Lisa: So cool. Okay. What have you outsourced in your life?

[00:27:46] Jackie: So, the accounting for one. And then, I pay someone to come clean the house. Every other week, we have cleaners.

What else have we outsourced? So basically, like anything [00:28:00] that I don't feel is a very exciting thing to learn about, I'm going to be totally honest even like handy stuff, like around the house, right? Like, when I was putting the gym together, we had this floor, you can see it put in, which is like that vinyl stuff.

I know a lot of people that would do that on their own. And I was like, that sounds like a complete headache to me and something that would probably not look as good if I try to do it, versus paying somebody to do it. So a lot of those types of things that are just not like a huge knowledge set for me, nor do I really

need to know a lot more about how to do it. So anything that's going to take a lot of time that falls in that category, we usually will outsource.

[00:28:38] Lisa: Okay, perfect. Do you and your husband have a bogey for retirement?

[00:28:44] Jackie: So, projections that we've done, with our financial planner or just online, are usually around I don't know, like 1.5, 1.6 million. Is that what you're asking? I also feel with inflation and everything, I don't bank on those numbers. But one of the [00:29:00] other things that I feel pretty strongly about too, is I'm always going to want to do something where I feel like I can use my things that I'm excited about and passionate about, to help people in some capacity. So retirement for me is never really, " Oh, I just want to do nothing all day." I assume that whatever I'm doing, even if we feel like, "Oh, we'd like to have a little bit more money." I think I'm probably going to consistently be putting myself out there and having an income source coming in.

So that's our ballpark, but on top of that, I don't know that I'm ever going to really stop working. So...

[00:29:35] Lisa: Yeah.

[00:29:35] Jackie: I trained one guy who's 93 years old, and he still does pro bono work. He's a lawyer and he is amazing. And he's been super inspiring to me because he's the sharpest 90-something year old that I know. And I think a lot of it is he's has his purpose he's contributing to the world, and he doesn't even do it for money anymore. But that's how I feel like I'm like, "Okay that's how I want to be."

[00:29:58] Lisa: Yeah, absolutely. [00:30:00] What do you think are some key financial goals that you would advise women and their thirties, forties and fifties to set for themselves?

[00:30:09] Jackie: Okay, 30's. So I'm at the end of my thirties now. And I would say the thirties for me were huge for figuring out where I had any lack money mindset. Because my twenties were really, like I said, I was just working my butt off and just, "Okay, we're just going to save what we can, cover the bills."

And I felt like I couldn't do much else. I didn't have the capacity to even think about the big picture. And so in my 30s, I really was like, "What am I avoiding even learning about or knowing or understanding?" And that was when I really got into what would my ideal schedule look like? What would my ideal life look like? And then figuring out, "Okay. So now how do I make the finances work for me?"

So I feel like it's the first time in my life I have my ducks in a row, [00:31:00] as far as that goes, right? So I guess, from personal experience, my forties, my goal is that now that I feel like I have my ducks in the row, we can just up our contributions to everything.

My goal is we have the 529 plans going for the kids that I want to be able to fully fund their college. Cause they'll be going to college. Gosh, which is crazy. Like in another 10 years, when I'm in my late forties. And so I would like to have that done, and paid off by end of 40s. And then by the time we get into the 50s, I think is when I'm really hoping that we have the financial freedom that... I don't want to be retired, but I just want to be able to not feel like money is holding me back from anything I want to do. I want to be totally financially free in regards to, I don't know, if I decide I wanted to do life counseling, or something like totally random. I don't want to be like, "Ooh, I just don't know if it's going to cut, cut it. I don't know if I'm going to be able to pay the bills." I'm hoping by that point, we've saved enough that I feel like I have more flexibility.

So I don't know if that's exactly what you're looking for, but that's [00:32:00] like in my mind, what I'm hoping the next couple of decades bring.

[00:32:03] Lisa: I love that. Absolutely. What really resonates with me is the sitting down and thinking about what your ideal life looks like. I think it's really easy to get, at least for me personally, to get very excited about achievement and what could this earn? And what could I, what can I do with that money? But to stop and go, "Okay. But what's your daily life like trying to earn that kind of money?

[00:32:34] Jackie: Yeah.

[00:32:35] Lisa: That's the daily life, day-in and day-out that you want to be living. Is that fulfillment?

[00:32:41] Jackie: That was it. Like I was like, I just, I think because I trained so many people who have so much money, I've realized like, that's not the end game. It doesn't solve any issues. When you think about that, you could have millions, you could have thousands, right? But if your day to day is... you're saving a little bit of [00:33:00] money, but you're actually able to be excited about that day... you're not just waiting for something way off in the future. In my mind, that's such a win.

And that's really, I don't know. That's the way that I view money again, is is the freedom of it. Like, can I have an hour a day of total creative freedom time? Which is what I built in... where I have my ideas for things that I want to work on. I get new ideas for the yoga class that I'm teaching, those kind of things. That was important to me to have that. More important than having another client.

So...

[00:33:30] Lisa: It's amazing. All right, I would love to head to our speed round, with the last few minutes of our conversation. I have a list of questions that I'd love to go through, get your gut reaction to. I think they're fun. I'm excited to see what your answers are. Do you feel ready?

[00:33:49] Jackie: I'm ready. Let's do it.

[00:33:51] Lisa: Okay, here we go. What is one thing you'll splurge on?

[00:33:56] Jackie: Experiences, vacations.

[00:33:58] Lisa: Okay, what is one thing you're [00:34:00] super frugal with?

[00:34:02] Jackie: It's a good question. Okay, I'm gonna say furniture. Like at this point, can I know this isn't speed, but just we like, because we have kids and a puppy, right?

I'm not gonna spend a ton of money on furniture. And so we got our kitchen table off of Facebook marketplace. It's just like beautiful table. We got it for $150, including all of six chairs and two extra bar stools. Cause there was this couple that was moving and they had to get rid of it, out of Leawood.

That's the stuff that I'm like, why spend thousands of dollars when you can get it for $150, and it's just fine? So I'm pretty frugal with that kind of thing.

[00:34:32] Lisa: Oh, I love that. Yeah, that's a great example. All right. What's the right percentage to tip?

[00:34:40] Jackie: At least 20%.

[00:34:42] Lisa: Okay. What's the right amount to spend on a car?

[00:34:46] Jackie: Okay. I feel like this is so dependent on the individual. Okay. I am gonna say $40-50K.

[00:34:54] Lisa: Okay.

[00:34:54] Jackie: For our family car.

[00:34:57] Lisa: Okay, for the family car. Okay.

[00:34:58] Jackie: Yeah, like the nice, yeah, [00:35:00] toting around all the kids.

[00:35:01] Lisa: Okay. What's the right amount to spend on a bottle of wine?

[00:35:06] Jackie: I'm really good with my like $12 bottle of wine. I'm not going to lie. But if it's a special occasion, I will spend like $20-30.

[00:35:14] Lisa: Okay. What's the right budget, you've said it's about experiences for you, so what's the right budget for a one week vacation? With the family?

[00:35:23] Jackie: Again, dependent. So we just went to Universal Studios. So we splurged. It was like $8-10K, right? It was a super expensive trip. But again, we paid for the fast passes. We paid for all the extra stuff. So it would be a really awesome experience. So that's where I'll splurge, because I'm like, I don't want to spend all that time waiting in line, right? It's worth the extra thousand dollars or whatever you're going to spend on that.

[00:35:45] Lisa: You're the second person that has said that. That's so funny. It's worth the fast passes.

[00:35:51] Jackie: Totally worth it. But then on the other hand, like if we ever just wanted to get out of Dodge, I've done super cheap trips to Fayetteville, [00:36:00] Arkansas before. Bentonville, Arkansas, where it's nothing, and you can have a great time hiking outside. So it doesn't have to be that much money. Sorry, I'm bad, I'm bad at speed rounds.

[00:36:08] Lisa: No, that's good. Good qualification. I like that. How much Jackie, would you spend on a purse?

[00:36:16] Jackie: I think the most I've spent on a purse was like $400. It was like the only Coach bag I have. Typically, I will get a Target bag for $25. So that's my normal.

[00:36:28] Lisa: What's the most extravagant purchase you've ever made for yourself?

[00:36:32] Jackie: Can I say the vacation? Can I say Universal? Can we do the same answer for both of those? Yeah, that was probably the most, it was just one of those we have no rhyme or reason to do this, but let's just do it now.

[00:36:47] Lisa: Okay, very cool. To close this out, do you have a favorite money related quote or mantra, or anything that you'd want to leave as a final thought?

[00:36:58] Jackie: Okay, this comes from a [00:37:00] book. I did not make this up. It was by Gay Hendricks, and it's called The Big Leap. And he basically talks about any time we are about to transcend wherever we've been thus far, right?

Like we're gonna make more money. We're gonna have a better relationship than we've ever had. Typically, a lot of people will self-sabotage, right? Because they don't feel like they are worthy. They don't want to outshine somebody. He has all these reasons why. Okay. So he gives this mantra in the book, which I do every single day in a meditation.

And it's, "Every day I expand in abundance, love and success as I inspire others around me to do the same." And so it's this idea of, when you're walking your path, you're living the best that you can live. Don't think about it as being something that it's going to put other people down.

I think that's ingrained in a lot of us that, "Oh, if I'm living my best life, and I'm doing this thing... other people are going to see it and be judgmental." Instead, it's, "they could see it and be like, I want to do that too." And so, as I'm [00:38:00] trying to expand in all these different avenues, the hope is like other people can be like, "Oh, that's cool. She's going after it. I want to do that too."

So I liked that mantra, cause it includes all of those different areas of life.

[00:38:11] Lisa: Can you say it again for us?

[00:38:13] Jackie: Every day I expand in abundance, love, and success as I inspire others around me to do the same.

[00:38:21] Lisa: Every day I expand in love, abundance, love, and success as I inspire others around me to do the same.

[00:38:33] Jackie: Yeah.

[00:38:34] Lisa: Okay. Oh, I love that.

[00:38:35] Jackie: From The Big Leap. It's an amazing book.

[00:38:38] Lisa: Okay. Very cool. Very cool. How can people find you? Because I have to share that you have a very cool Instagram account where you share a lot of your mobility stretches, golf stretches actual exercises to do. I really enjoy it. So how do people find [00:39:00] that?

[00:39:00] Jackie: It's, so it's all lowercase. It's just joyful. fit.

[00:39:04] Lisa: Okay. Joyful. fit.

[00:39:07] Jackie: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:39:08] Lisa: Perfect. Thank you so much for spending the time with us today. I really appreciate it.

[00:39:14] Jackie: Thank you, Lisa. It was fun talking to you.

Thanks for listening. Money Talks are hosted by myself, Lisa Clements, owner of Clear Springs Wealth. If you enjoyed this episode, share it with someone you think could benefit from talking more about money. Make sure you leave a rating, a review and subscribe, so you never miss an episode. You can find show notes at clearspringswealth.com /moneytalks. Thanks so much.