Kay Yarnevich Smith: Money Talks with Female Leaders
After 21 years as a Speech Language Pathologist (15 years with the University of Kansas Medical Center and 6 years with Infant Toddler Services of Johnson County) , and simultaneously founding and running 2 small business', Kay Yarnevich Smith has taken on the challenge of full-time entrepreneurship. Kay has taken her love for psychology, the brain, technology and helping people and focused 100% on running her own franchise business. She aspires to help her clients achieve their true potential and highest level of well-being through the therapeutic technology of Cereset.
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.
Lisa can be reached at: lisa@clearspringswealth.com
How To Connect with Lisa:
•Download 3 Free Savings Hacks 1 Page PDF
•Ask Lisa a question on Instagram
•Submit a money question for Lisa to answer in an upcoming episode: Email lisa@clearspringswealth.com
Transcript:
[00:00:00]
[00:00:00] Lisa: Hello, Kay Smith. How are you?
[00:00:25] Kay: I'm wonderful. How are you?
[00:00:28] Lisa: I'm good. Thank you. I was thinking back to when we met each other, and we were actually introduced through a friend, weren't we? 10, 15 years ago? Something like that?
[00:00:38] Kay: We were, a chance meeting. I love it.
[00:00:41] Lisa: Yeah. Chance introduction between two entrepreneurial spirits.
[00:00:45] Kay: Gotta love that.
[00:00:47] Lisa: Yes. So I am so appreciative of you taking the time to be with us. I will dig right in. I love to find out for our listeners, give them a sense of who you are, [00:01:00] like how old you are. Are you married or single? Do you have kids? Dogs or cats? Hamsters? Any of those things... years of career experience and what you're doing right now.
[00:01:12] Kay: Okay. I am 49 years old. I am married and I have two sweet boys. My 17 year old, Ethan, is a junior and my 14 year old, Nate, is an 8th grader, and they are lovely and fun and hilarious. So they're awesome. And we have a wonderful dog, Jude, and all of those folks are currently with my husband and uncles and cousins and all of this, hunting in South Dakota.
So I have some time to myself, which is actually fun too. I'm loving it.
[00:01:43] Lisa: Nice. Oh, good. We can talk all day.
[00:01:46] Kay: I know, right? Yeah. I love it.
[00:01:50] Lisa: Good. Now tell me when you went to college, what did you think you were going to be?
[00:01:56] Kay: So initially, I thought I was going to be a psychologist.
I wanted [00:02:00] to be a therapist. And then I started taking some classes and realized that I had a hard time seeing kids, little ones, having gone through some trauma. So I did a little pivot and decided to be a speech language pathologist.
And, the only thing really driving my career choices was the fact that I wanted to help people. So I didn't really think too much about, how much money I would make, or any of that. I just wanted to be in a helping field. So that's how I, and I, a friend of mine said, "Oh, you should try speech language pathology."
And I said, "Okay, I will." So that's how I ended up there.
[00:02:34] Lisa: And how many years were you a speech language pathologist?
[00:02:38] Kay: I spent 21 years as a speech language pathologist working with little babies birth to three. I like to call it like baby school district. So I worked for the state. And we basically saw kids before they ended up in preschool. So we got to see little ones in their homes, and it was about the best job I could have handpicked for myself. I loved every second of it. It was [00:03:00] rewarding and, soul-filling and all those things. So I couldn't have asked for a better career for myself after pivoting in college.
Pretty, not too big, but a little bit of a pivot.
[00:03:10] Lisa: Okay, now, zero to three years old, they're not really talking a lot, are they?
[00:03:16] Kay: Yeah. Basically, what we're trying to do is lay the foundation for talking and also help parents navigate life with a kiddo who might have a syndrome that they were diagnosed with, or might have a little bit of a delay in speech and language.
So we try to catch kids early and help families really early to get those kids on the right track so that later in life they have some foundational skills that they can build on. Instead of, if we wait until they're three, there's a lot of things that we can could have done from zero to three to help them talk.
So we didn't really work on specifically, "Oh, repeat after me, cat." That's not what we did. We mostly worked on communication and trying to help the family support their child and communication and sensory. Pretty much anything that a [00:04:00] child was doing. We were helping with that ...behavior, anything...
[00:04:04] Lisa: Oh, very cool. Okay. So of course, my question is going to be, you have this soul-filling, wonderful career as a speech pathologist and you recently changed careers and made a big turn in your own professional life. Can you fill us in on that?
[00:04:22] Kay: I did. It was a real kind of crazy situation. I just basically, after 21 years of doing what I was doing... I still loved it, and I still want to do something that was soul-filling.
A friend of mine just approached me with this opportunity and she said, "Kay, I think you would love it. You love the brain. You love helping people. You've wanted to own your own business. Kay, you would be the best fit for this company. And I was like, "What is it? I don't know." Like I wasn't ready to make any commitment. I loved my job. I've always done little entrepreneurial side gigs. I've had, all sorts of little things [00:05:00] that I've done to try to bring in some extra income, but I hadn't ever really considered a true career shift just because I loved my job so much. So this was a real scary thing.
So at first, I just let it go. And I just was like, too much. I can't do it. Yeah. I don't want to take out a loan. I don't want to have to do all the things. I'm too scared, whatever. And he sold it to somebody else, and I was then devastated and called those people and said, "Oh, my gosh, I feel like I missed the train on this. I really want to be a part of this. What can I do? Can I help you? Can I support you? Can I, what could we do?"
And they said, "Let's partner. You seem like just this, vibrant person. I think we'd like to work with you."
" Okay, great." So we were on the track of partnering. And at the last minute,halfway through my training, they basically said, "Kay, we see your passion. We see your love for people. This is really the best fit for you. And we want you to take this as our gift. I had to still buy the business, but, "This is our gift to you. This is a wonderful [00:06:00] opportunity. You need to take advantage of it."
[00:06:01] Kay: And so at that point, I thought, I can't say no to this again. I've said no to this once... I was stomach-sick, heart-sick, that I did not say yes. I just was too scared to, to make that big of a leap. So this time I said, "Yes."
I was definitely walking through some fear because when she first said, "This is my gift to you." I was like, "okay," I wasn't like, "Oh, my gosh, you're the best. Thanks so much."
She said, "No, this is a gift. You need to run with it. I'm going to tell you right now. You're going to love this." And she had experience with this franchise before and just loved it. But they felt like I was a better fit for this one, so they went and bought a totally different franchise.
And so they just pivoted themselves and let me do this, since it was more my passion and my, my new kind of soul-filling work. It took me back to my roots of psychology, which was a huge piece of it. Because even in birth to three, I was doing a lot of parent coaching and a little bit of [00:07:00] psychology in there, too. So I had been doing that, but this really took a whole 'nother turn where I got to do work on brains and incorporate psychology and coaching all kind of in one thing. All of my 3 basic loves is helping people, technology, brain, psychology. I guess those are four things.
But anyway, those four things are passions of mine, and I studied them outside of my job. So it was a perfect fit. And I had to say yes, and I did. And I definitely was scared, and I definitely had to work through how am I going to purchase this thing? What am I going to do? And I immediately called my friend, who's an accountant and said, "Okay, what do I do, Jason?"
And, he advised me like, "Kay, you need to buy this now. Here's my friend who's a banker. Get a small business loan. You got this. Just buy it. Don't waste any time." Cause I had thought, I was going to work and save money and and then buy it later.
And he said, "No, absolutely not. Go get a loan." And so I did, which is [00:08:00] another scary thing, but it ended up working out beautifully. So I got this loan, and bought it and then was profitable from kind of day one, and it's been soaring ever since.
So I was so grateful that I had that accountant, advisor, friend, to really lead me or suggest that because if I hadn't done that, I would not have been able to accumulate the amount of savings to start my business
in a very positive place. So it just all worked out perfectly. Everything was just lined out.
[00:08:32] Lisa: Okay. Now let me step in and say, cause I'm sure our listeners are like, what did she buy? What is this? It's a franchise that you purchased and have the office or the, you bought a region or explain to us, first of all, what is the franchise? And where you're located? And then what it is...
[00:08:56] Kay: So the name is Cereset Overland Park, and I'm the [00:09:00] only one in Kansas City. There's another, there are others scattered around the Midwest, but I'm the only one in Kansas City. It's a neurotechnology franchise, and our of motto is, we help your brain help you.
And basically what we do is we look for imbalances in a brain. We use sound to show the person their own brain... show their brain itself, like an acoustic mirror, and then the brain can self-optimize. And it is this amazing technology. I've now seen it help hundreds of people and it's one of those things that first, I was like, "I don't know this is so it's Sci-Fi." And it made me nervous. Does this really work? But now I can say with confidence it's been amazingly life changing for a lot of my clients so, I've really enjoyed it. And I discovered that it's like my new best favorite thing I've done in my life.
So I always thought I could never top my working with babies. But man. Now I do miss babies. And when I hear a baby somewhere, I'm always like, "Oh, where's the baby?" And [00:10:00] I want to hold, play with, be around those darling little ones.
But I tell you what, this has been so rewarding to see people go from suicidal on a Monday to Thursday feeling like they can do life. With mom's laying down grief that they've been carrying with them because they lost their son or their child. And I think the best part about it, is I can see in the graphs what they're feeling, and I can show them. "Okay. This is why you're feeling this way. Obviously you've lost a son so you're going to have grief, but also there's an accumulation of energy and we can, I can help you get that out of there. So you're not just burdened and just feeling so heavy with these things."
So, it's been really well documented by Wake Forest School of Medicine for energy, mood, sleep, stress, and thinking ability. () And the Department of Defense for PTSD. So it's well documented. That's another thing... as a speech language pathologist or scientist type minded person. It was really important to me that this technology was well documented.
So I wasn't going to just jump into something that was who knows [00:11:00] what. I needed to make sure that it had research behind it. So deciding whether or not to move forward with this. That was part of the process of looking at that and making sure it had research behind it.
[00:11:08] Lisa: It sounds so unique and different. And when I checked into it myself, I was just blown away by the success stories that I read about it. I could spend the whole podcast learning more and explaining what you do to people. It's really fascinating.
But let's shift to talk about money. I think it's great to get your perspective because you had a traditional career with a steady income and thentook a 180 and got a business loan and took all this risk to buy a franchise and make it profitable or continue its profitability.
So anyway, so let me ask you about money in your upbringing, money in your career and how it's guided these decisions of yours, and then how you spend money now.
Is money important to you?
[00:11:59] Kay: [00:12:00] I think money is important to me because I really want financial security. I think everybody does, but I want to know that I can do what I want to do. So I can give money to people if I want to. And with my new career that I've taken on, I do have the capability more so than I used to send people money or to, donate to something, which has been a real blessing. And that's probably ultimately what I want to do with money. I also want to house on the beach. There's that. But, I definitely, I definitely want to be able to have money to help and do. So, that's basically why it's important to me.
I, I grew up, my family had money. My Dad had a very secure income,
it was an abundance mentality at my house. My mom had a budget, but we didn't really know about it. She didn't really talk about it much. Now I did have a budget growing up for clothing. So they would give me a certain amount of clothing. And in the nineties, I'm telling you, a polo rugby was where it was at. So I really wanted a polo rugby. So I remember my mom saying, "Here's your a hundred dollars for all the clothes you're going to [00:13:00] get to spend. Or $200, maybe. If you want that polo rugby, you're going to have to pony up."
So I remember shelling out that $120 and think, it was a lot back then. $120 for a shirt? But boy, I, I loved that thing. And I wore it all the time. But my parents are, they're very practical, having me pay for half of my car... There was never a, any kind of a scarcity mentality. I never had any kind of negative talk around money in my life.
There was a lot of investing. There was a lot of spending money on experiences and travel. There was not a lot of money spent on cars. My Dad would drive his Toyota Camry or whatever, until the wheels literally fall fell off. He just didn't prioritize that. He also would come home with his $5 shorts he got at Dillard's and be super excited because they were 90% off, and they were regularly $50. Now, would anybody wear those shorts? Maybe not, but he got them for $5.
So, I do feel like I have carried that along a little bit. I don't care too much about my car. Though, I did just get a new [00:14:00] car, which is fun. It's not new, it's just new to me, but never really had a nice car, so to speak, so it's fun to have that. But anyway, it was always pretty positive. I didn't walk away with too much, and I also didn't walk away with a ton of debt, which was really helpful.
My parents paid for my school. So I had an ideal situation, but I also didn't get whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted it. I think they did a really nice job of making sure that I had to pay for what I wanted, especially if it's outside of the parameters of the budget. And so I thought that was a healthy way for me to grow up.
[00:14:30] Lisa: Do your kids have an allowance? Do you do the same thing with them that your parents did with you?
[00:14:37] Kay: That's a really good question. They don't have the same taste in clothing, so I can literally go to a thrift store and get them a shirt, and they're fine. They don't really care about clothes and they spend their own money on pretty much everything else that they work on.
So they, not everything else. So if they want a record, so for instance, if my son wants a record or something of his own, they buy that themselves. We don't really have allowance [00:15:00] systems, an allowance system. We just all work together. And if there's something, I'll help them out with stuff if they need it.
But my younger son is more likely to ask me to buy something. We just went to an antique store the other day and my older son was like, "I've got this Mom." He's 17. He's, " I got this. I've got my own money. I'll buy this." And he's very frugal. So he's not going to spend much money, okay. But my younger son was setting this little coin on the counter that he wanted to buy from the antique store, and I did buy it for him. But yeah, so it's just funny. I think that's an interesting thing. But no, we don't have a real true allowance. And they don't really have a budget for clothes.
We did have Ethan pay for half of his car. So we did do the same thing.
[00:15:39] Lisa: Okay.
[00:15:40] Kay: For his gas, we've been making him send us... the currency that we're using for that is creative projects. So he is a creative kid, but he doesn't want to put himself out there. In order to encourage him to put himself out there, at least share with us. As long as he sends us 1 project a week, basically of something he's done... a [00:16:00] poem he's written or a song he's working on or a video he's taken.
It doesn't even have to be finished and have to be great... just has to be something. We'll fill his car up with gas. So that's the way we do that.
[00:16:10] Lisa: I have never heard of that before. I love that.
[00:16:13] Kay: So I feel like, yeah, that's our currency with him and just encourage that.
And he's not driving all over kingdom come either. He's going to school and back. So if he were going through 2 tanks of gas a week or something, we might reconsider that. But right now, we can get through a couple of weeks on a tank of gas. So we're good. And he's, preparing for scholarships and stuff.
My parents did just from the get go say they were going to pay for my schooling. So I think that's unfortunate a little bit, because I didn't even try to get any scholarships at all. I don't even think I wrote an essay. I didn't write out an application. I just went to KU and, my parents paid for it.
So that was 1 thing that I think they wanted to make sure I didn't walk away with any debt. Ethan will be needing some scholarships. We'll probably help him, we'll help him out, but it won't be a full ride [00:17:00] situation at our house. So he's been figuring that out, and so I do think there's some value in having to pay at least for part of your college education.
[00:17:08] Lisa: Yeah.
[00:17:08] Kay: But anyway, but it's also really helpful that I didn't have to walk away with a bunch of debt. So I, we were able to start our lives pretty, pretty quickly and buying a house and kind of start our family and all of that.
[00:17:18] Lisa: When working as a speech pathologist, did you manage your family's finances or did your husband or how did that, how'd you work that out?
[00:17:27] Kay: Yeah, my husband generally manages the finances. I'm not a real detailed oriented person. I'm going to say yet. So I'm going to add the yet on the end because I don't want to put myself in that box. But I tend to freeze up when I see big spreadsheets or, anything like that.
[00:17:44] Lisa: Okay.
[00:17:46] Kay: So I therefore have an accountant who takes care of my finances, even though it's not that complicated.
And I have a tax person. I just, that's the 1 thing. It just makes me freeze. And my dad was a lawyer and a tax lawyer. So he always did my taxes. So Matt says that's the problem, is that [00:18:00] I've always had someone else doing them. But it's, it's a lot. So anyway, yeah, my husband really is and has been in charge of paying the bills and that kind of a thing throughout our marriage.
[00:18:10] Lisa: What role does money play in how you manage your career? Did it influence, you mentioned side gigs, but did it influence which speech pathology jobs you took? Or, was it much of a driver in your daily life, in your career life?
[00:18:29] Kay: It really wasn't. There wasn't enough variation in salaries that it would really have made a difference.
If I wanted to start my own private practice... but I wasn't really equipped or didn't feel equipped to do that when I started out, so I loved this. This was the job that I had for 21 years was an internship first. So I had that to start with, and I loved the flexibility. So the flexibility of that job really was what sold me on that specific job. I made my own schedule.
[00:18:56] Lisa: Okay, you mean time flexibility?
[00:18:59] Kay: Yeah, [00:19:00] time flexibility. Yep.
[00:19:00] Lisa: Okay.
So that was really what drove me into that specific position, because I could have made a little bit more money at a hospital, but then I had to work Christmas. Okay.
[00:19:09] Kay: Time flexibility was a big driver and independence in my job was a big driver. So I've always really valued independence and being my own boss in a way. By, if I wanted to go to a field trip on a Tuesday morning, I just didn't book anyone that day. And as long as I worked the hours I needed to in a year, it didn't matter.
So I really appreciated that about my previous job. So that's really what drove me. I wasn't, I'm not making minimum wage at the same... I knew what the mean salary was, but it wasn't like I chose my position based on the salary.
[00:19:42] Lisa: So then you mentioned side hustles. What drove you to pursue side hustles and what were they? Any, anything you'd feel comfortable sharing with us?
[00:19:51] Kay: Yeah, I'd love to share my side hustles. They were all out of necessity or somewhat of a necessity. So what drove me was... as a speech [00:20:00] language pathologist, I'm on a teacher's salary, so I wasn't making a lot of money. I wanted to just contribute a little bit more to our income, and I wasn't going to get there with my current job. And I really didn't see myself wanting to do anything different. I really loved my job. So I thought, okay, how can I make some more money without changing jobs or changing careers or fields?
It was more, "Oh, this is a fun idea. I'm going to make a side hustle out of it and maybe make some more money." That's how it went. It wasn't like I was searching for side hustles.
[00:20:28] Lisa: Oh, okay.
[00:20:30] Kay: For instance, I was trying to find artwork, personalized artwork for my son's room, and I had a certain design I wanted, and I couldn't find 'um. It was just always like an animal print or you had to use the wooden letters or something. So I created a little company called Artful Names, and I designed a whole bunch of different artwork that basically just incorporated a child's name.
So you could go on the website, and you could type in the child's name and preview what that would be and pick some colors that were in your child's room. So that was my first gig. [00:21:00] And it was so time consuming that I was like, it was not expensive and I didn't lose any money on it, but it was just really time consuming.
So I had to create every single canvas and it was just like, this isn't going to work. It was fun and it was a passion to create the canvases. But then, the marketing and the business side wasn't as fun. And I think that's pretty typical of entrepreneurs. Like we like the idea and the start and then the business thing and marketing is more of a
struggle. I sold some of those, and I went to the Holiday Mart and sold personalized Christmas canvases, and it was a lot of fun. And I made some extra money, but it just wasn't going to sustain what I needed it to. It was taking too much time. The other idea I had... it was a Jayhawk costume company. So I started a company called Collegiate Costumes, and I had initially thought I would do all the schools acrossall of collegiate land. I would do every little darling mascot. And so I had this great vision of doing them all, but it ended up that I didn't really have first of all, the [00:22:00] ROI or the margin, the profit margin wasn't super big. So it was a tricky business because I had such a huge royalty fee I had to pay. And there was a lot of moving pieces to that. And I also found out when I was going to have a manufactured, I wanted to do Jayhawk, a Wildcat, and a Tiger, from Missouri. And it was going to be cost prohibitive, so I had to do just Jayhawks, which, that's my alma mater. I wasn't going to pick anything else. So I ended up with 3000 Jayhawk costumes and, and it was great for a while. I had a sales rep. I had a shipping place, and I felt, oh, yeah, here we go. But it just wasn't enough profit margin. I would have had to had a lot more money to be able to expand to a lot more schools and have a lot bigger program than I was really capable of doing... interested in doing.
I'm sure if I really would have sought out more money, I could have done it. But it just was something that I enjoyed the process. Again, I loved the process of creating and the rest of it was... it wasn't what I [00:23:00] wanted to do.
Over this time, I'm thinking, oh, I'm having these failures. It was hard, and it was emotional. But as I look back, I can see those were all just stepping stones to getting where I am and understanding more about what I want to do and having the confidence to try something because you can try something and fail and then try something else, just you just have to keep moving forward.
You can't let it get to you. And so anyway, that's, that was that. And I tried an MLM, but that wasn't really for me either. It didn't really fit my personality. An MLM is a multi-level marketing. It wasn't Mary Kay that I did, but I did a different one, but it didn't fit my personality. I didn't like selling to my friends basically is how I felt I was doing. I didn't like that. I love the products and I took them in forever. But anyway, so yeah, so those were the kind of things I was doing. And I did that MLM up until this other opportunity came along.
And I had people who loved the products, and they just bought products from me, but I didn't push anything that much. So I was always looking for something. I also had some side gigs that I did. [00:24:00] I worked for a different agency. So I worked for one agency, almost full-time and then I worked for a different agency part-time, so I was working two jobs for a while. So all sorts of different kind of side gigs or something to help, bring in extra income.
[00:24:13] Lisa: Supplement, yeah, bring in extra income. What would you say brought about your biggest pay increase? Would you say it's becoming a franchise owner? How long have you owned the Cereset franchise?
[00:24:31] Kay: Yep. So I purchased the franchise in January, 2022, so 18-ish months.
Has it fundamentally changed your income level?
Oh, yes, absolutely. It has tripled my income level, probably. Yeah, it's tripled my income level. It's been a huge financial blessing for us. Now I do have months where it's slower, but over all of the year... if I'm looking at the full year, it's tripled my income. And I got [00:25:00] really lucky because I bought an existing franchise, and he sold it to me for less than I would have had to purchase a new one because he had been doing it for a few years, and he got what he needed out of it. So I got really lucky on that. And I was profitable literally from the very 1st day. And I don't know that that's very common. When you're starting a business, I think it's hard to be profitable that first year. So yeah, it all worked out. It's been beautiful.
It's allowed us to do some things... We've gotten to travel more than we got to do before. I've got to have some extra money to give, like I said, away a little bit more. I want more to give because that's one of my favorite things to do. But, I have had some little extra to give and it doesn't feel so stifling or so stressful.
[00:25:40] Lisa: Have you paid off the loans or is that an ongoing process?
[00:25:46] Kay: So the only loan I have left is for Cereset. I had a loan for Collegiate Costumes, the other company that I had, and I had to pay that off abruptly. I had to put some of that on a credit card, and that was not comfortable. I did not enjoy that, but we did get that paid off.
All I, [00:26:00] really, the only debt that we still have is the house, and this loan that I got for the business and I'm paying that off gradually. The percentage is so low, it's 2% or something. It's really low interest rate. And I'm just gradually paying that off.
[00:26:14] Lisa: Can you give us a sense for how much that loan, how much you had to take out in order to buy a franchise?
[00:26:20] Kay: Sure. I was able to do this one for it was like $60,000. And generally, if you're going to buy a new one, it's more like $150K for one chair. And I got two chairs for that. So I have two treatment rooms that I get to use. So that was one of the deciding factors. This is a no-brainer. This is a lot less than I would have to pay for a new one. And it already had established kind of some roots in the area and had some customers already. So it was a no brainer for me.
[00:26:49] Lisa: Did it require a lot of retooling for you? How much professional development did you have to do to be able to do this?
[00:26:56] Kay: Oh, yeah. Luckily, the whole process started around the [00:27:00] pandemic.
And so I had all this time... I didn't have sports games to go to, or, any of that. So I was up in this office that I'm in right now, just studying and studying. But yeah, you have to do a couple hundred hours of training to do what I do.
We're analyzing data and we're choosing protocols and doing all these things. So yeah, it was a couple hundred hours of training just to be the owner and to do the work.
[00:27:22] Lisa: Did you pay to do the training or did they pay you, or was it just neutral? You invest, you give your time, and then you're skilled to do it?
[00:27:31] Kay: Yeah, I had to pay for the business and the training.
It's $2000, and I ended up getting another employee under me, and she had to pay for her training, and it was well worth it.
And it's been an awesome having her around. The only way you can get a franchise is to go through the training so that you can do the work. I was very interested in the information because it was something I was already passionate about the brain, and balancing the brain. So it was a lot of fun.
[00:27:54] Lisa: Yeah, I think that makes a huge difference... like, as I've gotten into finance, and there's [00:28:00] so much to read and so much to learn and so many certifications I want to get... but it makes all the difference in the world if it's something that you're naturally interested in, and going, Oh, isn't that fascinating? Oh, like it just makes the time go so much faster.
[00:28:15] Kay: I love that. Yes, absolutely.
[00:28:18] Lisa: For sure. So with the franchise and being a business owner now, and that being your full-time gig, what have you outsourced in your life?
[00:28:34] Kay: I definitely have someone who helps clean my house. That's definitely something that I've outsourced personally. And then professionally or business-wise, I have an accountant, and I just basically just send everything to him and he does my taxes, he does payroll, he does everything. And my accounting isn't that complicated, but it's just not something I want to be in control over in charge of. So I pass that along to him.
I think those things are probably the main [00:29:00] outsourcing.
[00:29:00] Lisa: Okay. Do you and Matt have a bogey for retirement? As you look to the future, have you guys said, once we hit X million dollars, then we'll sell the business and we'll move to Bermuda? Or, any particular bogey that you guys are shooting for as a couple?
[00:29:22] Kay: We don't. We really haven't done that work right yet.
That's definitely something that I feel like I have been looking at, how you look at your life goals and all the different aspects of your life and, oh, this is going well, and this is going well, and this is going well. And then that financial piece... We have plenty of money saved up, but we definitely need more to feel comfortable when we retire. It's not, "Oh, we're sitting pretty." We still have plenty to get. So we haven't had that conversation. His parents recently passed away a year and a half ago, and his mindset's a little bit different. He's definitely shifted in terms of wanting to acquire, tojust wanting to live life. So he left his job in [00:30:00] May, to get to travel. So from May through August, really, we spent 6 or 7 weeks traveling, camping, going everywhere... together as a family. And it was so valuable. It was just like, you couldn't replace that. My parents would take us on vacations, but I never spent money on travel.
And it was so incredibly worth it. So we had a beautiful time. So anyway, it's an interesting conversation. And he and I both are at a place where we need to talk to someone about that. We have a financial planner, so to speak, but we don't really have those kind of, we have somewhat that conversation, but but honestly, we'll have to set up an appointment with you, Lisa... a little side note there.
That's on my agenda. So just know that.
[00:30:42] Lisa: I love to hear that. I love to hear that, let's plug that again.
[00:30:47] Kay: I felt a little funny saying that, but I'm like, "Okay, I'm gonna be honest," that's actually on our plan. So that's on our agenda, and it's been on our agenda. So I think we're in a place now where things have settled down. We're home; the kids are at school. And we have [00:31:00] some time to just, make some plans and make some goals. But we don't spend a ton of money, but we just don't do a great job of, setting those goals and, having something we're aiming for.
That's something that I wish I had sooner, or I wish that's something that we talked about as kids. What's your financial goal? It's something that's driving me more than it used to.
And I think it's mainly because the kids are going to school and we're getting older, and there's just becoming this kind of time that we're transitioning into more of a empty nester. We're not there yet, but we need some more money than we've needed before. So anyway.
[00:31:35] Lisa: Do you want to help the kids? I think you alluded to this. You can see, like you've had them share in the car cost. Do you see them sharing in the college cost?
[00:31:48] Kay: Yeah, yep, I do. My son's already. He's a junior. It's high time he's doing these things, getting things ready and doing his essays and getting his resume built up and doing things like that.
They will definitely be [00:32:00] participating in that, scholarships or whatever, and we're encouraging that. We have not told them that we'll pay for whatever they don't get paid for, and I think that's what we probably will do. But we're just going to let them move forward until they know, or until we know how much money they've gotten. And all that.
[00:32:15] Lisa: And now they can't listen to this podcast...
[00:32:17] Kay: That's a secret.
[00:32:17] Lisa: Yeah, we don't want them to know.
[00:32:23] Kay: That's the plan. I've been putting some money away in 529 or whatever.
Yeah, so we started that process and we have some put in there. The cost of college these days, it's not going to get him all that far yet. So he's definitely going to have to put some in there, put some money towards his education and we'll support him too. I don't want him to walk away with a ton of loans either, just because that was a gift my parents gave me.
And I really feel it was nice.I don't know if it made me more financially responsible. That would be a question. It sure was made me comfortable, more comfortable than having to pay that loan payment off every month too. So yeah.
[00:32:59] Lisa: All right. [00:33:00] I would love to shift to the final segment of our conversation, which I call the speed round. I want to get some just gut reactions from you. I think it's interesting to hear how much people spend on certain things and you, you feel ready for this? You feel good?
[00:33:21] Kay: Bring it on..
[00:33:21] Lisa: Alright, here we go. What is one thing, Kay, that you'll splurge on?
[00:33:28] Kay: Okay, so mainly a purse. Like I will spend more money than I think I need to on a, like a bag. But I've never spent more than $300. So it's not like I'm spending $10,000 on a Louis Vuitton but don't put it past me. If I had that much money, I might buy something like that.
[00:33:44] Lisa: Okay. What's one thing you're super frugal with?
[00:33:47] Kay: I hate spending a ton of money on clothing. I want to get things on sale. I'm shopping the clearance rack or, someplace like that. I hate paying full retail for something.
[00:33:58] Lisa: Okay. What's the right [00:34:00] percentage to tip?
[00:34:00] Kay: 20%.
[00:34:02] Lisa: Okay. What's the right amount to spend on a car?
[00:34:06] Kay: That has changed.
I'd say $45,000. If you had asked me a while ago, I probably would've said, I don't know, $10K, $15K, like I wouldn't wanna spend that much money on a car, but yeah, $45K.
[00:34:16] Lisa: Okay. Can I ask you what you got?
[00:34:18] Kay: Yep. I got an Acura MDX.
[00:34:21] Lisa: Oh, nice.
[00:34:22] Kay: And I love it. And it's not like super "over the top" fancy, like my purse. I'm going to get a Coach, not a Louis Vuitton. I'm going to get an Acura, not a, Maserati or something. But it's just nice. It has things that I haven't really had before. So I've really enjoyed it. It's been fun.
[00:34:37] Lisa: Oh, good. That's amazing. All right. How much, or what's the right amount to spend on a bottle of wine?
[00:34:43] Kay: 20 bucks.
[00:34:46] Lisa: That's funny. That's like the consensus, the growing consensus.
[00:34:49] Kay: Is it really?
[00:34:49] Lisa: Yeah. What's the right budget for a one week vacation?
[00:34:54] Kay: I'd say $5,000.
[00:34:57] Lisa: Okay. And you mentioned you [00:35:00] guys have been having a lot of travel experiences. Is that kind of what you've been averaging for a week vacation?
[00:35:06] Kay: Probably not quite that much on average. When we're paying for ourselves... When my parents are paying for it, we're probably like $20-$15,000 or something as we stay at really nice resorts and things. But our little week of camping was not close to $5,000.
It was probably $1,000, maybe, and that included activities... whitewater rafting and things like that.
[00:35:27] Lisa: Yeah. Yeah. Okay, I love that. So the question was, how much would you spend on a purse? But you already said, not more than $300.
[00:35:36] Kay: Yeah right now, if I had more money in the bank, I might spend more, but I don't know. I don't know that I would. I've gotten away from that a little bit. So I'd say $300 is probably still it.
[00:35:45] Lisa: Okay. What's the most extravagant purchase you've ever made?
[00:35:50] Kay: I'm going to have to say my car. That's not extravagant. But unless it's some dinner out to some fancy place, but really I'd [00:36:00] say my car is probably the biggest purchase besides my business, that's the biggest purchase I've made.
Okay, alright. Do you have a favorite money related quote or mantra?
[00:36:13] Lisa: I
[00:36:14] Kay: read the book, Badass at Making Money, I think is the name of it, by Jen Sincero. Anyway, she just is real straightforward.
And basically, that whole, "money is coming to me." "Money will come to me." Like, I don't need to worry about this. Money will come to me. And I try not to put the worry part in there, but money is coming to me every day. Money is flowing through me, so that kind of a thing would probably be my main mantra.
So if I'm starting to feel a little bit stressed, cause I don't have as many clients booked this month, I say, "It will all work out. Money flows through me." So that's what I usually say. Yeah.
[00:36:48] Lisa: I love that. I think that's a really significant viewpoint to have about money being something that flows.
It's [00:37:00] not something that you collect and stop up behind a dam and store up into the, the storehouse and just let it sit there. I do love that perspective that money is always moving. It's always flowing, and we are stewards of it. It's, it comes through us, and it goes away, and it comes again, and then it goes away, and it comes. I just, I love that cyclic nature of it.
[00:37:23] Kay: Yeah. It's dynamic. It's not stagnant. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:37:26] Lisa: Yeah, I think that's I think that's a large part of how it's intended to be. Alright, what should I have asked you that I did not ask? Is there anything about money that you would want to share that I haven't touched on?
[00:37:41] Kay: I think I would just say... start early, having a vision of what you want when you're young. The younger you can start that, the better. The younger you can envision yourself with what you want and... I just read a quote that said something like, "Envision your [00:38:00] higher self and then be her every day." "Show up as her."
And I think that's so good, because if you have a vision of what you're trying to accomplish, you're more likely to get there because you know what you're going towards. And I recommend getting started as early as possible, across the board, not just with finances, but just as a person, just showing up as your higher self, envisioning that and moving in that direction.
[00:38:25] Lisa: I love that. Thank you so much for sharing that. Thank you for spending time with me today. I really appreciate it.
[00:38:33] Kay: You are so welcome, Lisa. It was my pleasure.
