Vol. 1 - Please Let Us Introduce Ourselves
The Nurses on Fire Podcast will now have Monday episodes with you in mind. Joined by Certified Financial Planner and CEO of Keep It Simple Financial Planning, Jason Hamilton we break down all things nurses and finances. In this episode, we are sharing our backgrounds and touching on some money issues commonly faced by nurses.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Jason Hamilton: 02:14 All right. Hello. Welcome everybody. I think we are live. I'm here with my good friend Naseema McElroy. And we're going to talk about nurses and finance. My name is Jason J. Hamilton. I'm a certified financial planner. And if you're on my page you probably know who I am. If you're not and from Naseema's page, you probably haven't met me yet, so great to meet everybody and Naseema, you want to introduce yourself real quick?
Naseema McElroy: 02:33 Sure. So I am Naseema McElroy of Financially Intentional. I am known as the nurse that paid off $1 million in debt in two and a half years. And so yes, I'm just a nurse, a labor and delivery nurse, mom of two girls and I love to share my journey of paying off debt and what I've learned along the way and also where I'm at on my path to financial independence. So, yeah, that's what I'm all about.
Jason Hamilton: 03:00 That's awesome. So, Naseema paid off a million dollars in debt in two and a half years, right? So that is insane. I've never done anything like that. I have my own get out of debt journey. But where I'm really at now is that was maybe a decade ago. And since then I've gone through the process to become a certified financial planner. And now I coach people on their finances generally more towards the retirement end. But I think what we wanted to do, we just, actually, by the way, if you guys don't know, we connected last week. We've had one conversation and we decided just to start this.
So if it's a little bit, you know, clunky our first one, then it is what it is. But we're going to roll, you know, we're going to keep going through it. And what we really want to do is the, to just wanna introduce yourself today and then going forward start talking about you. You know, and this is for nurses, right? We're really focusing on, on nurses specifically because Naseema's a nurse. She sees a lot of problems in there. I have two sisters that are nurses. My mom is actually going back into her encore career to become a nurse again at 63 so she's in school for that right now. So, I have over a dozen clients that are nurses. And so what my thought is, you know, is just really drilling down into some of the challenges that Naseema has opened my mind to that I haven't even seen yet. We're trying to help people in this profession because Naseema maybe you can tell me, but from what I've seen, most nurses are generally like the first generation that are coming in making six figure plus salaries in their family and a lot of times they don't come from a background of how to handle this big money when it comes to taxes, planning for the future and just making sure they do things the right way. And in general, a lot of people are getting off track because they don't know how to do that. Is that fair to say or like can you give me some insight on that from your experience?
Naseema McElroy: 04:39 It's definitely been my experience that nurses are coming into a profession that's highly lucrative, but also usually they're the first in their families to do many things. So the first to get as high degrees or the first to earn as much money as they earn. But also a lot of nurses that I know have obligations to help other family members because of their financial position or are typically the breadwinners in their family. And so that does two things. It works against them in setting up planning for their future because they're never at a point where they can actually accumulate wealth. And then the other thing is that it's kind of like the status thing because you're seen as the person that's got it. So, of course, you have to show that you've got it. And so you know, you do the things like I did like that everybody expected you to do like buy the house, buy the luxury car, you know, buy the bag. And so then again, you're working against yourself in accumulating wealth because you're always in this consumer culture. And so, that's what I see a lot of, especially in the nursing community.
Jason Hamilton: 05:53 So, you know, I see a lot of the same things. And what you described to me is typically what I see from people that have came from lower income backgrounds. Is that fair to say?
Naseema McElroy: 06:04 I think that's a very fair assumption because you have this idea of what you think rich is. And you know, I came from West Oakland and then I went to USC. So, University of Southern California, if you guys don't know what that is. And so I saw these two different paradigms and like money and what rich and wealthy meant. And for me it meant like what you could afford. And it wasn't until I really started on my processing paying down debt that I realized that the wealthiest people are those millionaires next door or the ones that really had money, were the people that didn't have the floss to show it. And that was major for me. And I think, you know, that's the mindset that a lot of nurses are in.
Jason Hamilton: 06:55 Yeah, I experienced the same. Very similar thing. I shouldn't say the same thing. Very similar. I grew up, you know, single parent household. My mom's single mother, four kids. And so we grew up having the hustle for everything that we got right. I've had jobs since I was like eight or nine years old. Things like, you know, newspapers, we would go to the 49er Stadium up at San Jose where I grew up and they did their practice at Santa Clara and the summers. We would jump in front of their cars, get them to sign us cards and then we'd go sell those so we can buy parts for our bikes or get a new, you know, get new clothes and things like that. And so when I came here to Orange County, 'cause I came from San Jose, came to UC Irvine and live in this Orange County lifestyle, it's probably different than almost anywhere in the world I have ever seen. There was a tremendous amount of pressure to live at a status quo. Right? Having a certain type of car or certain type of clothes. You mentioned the purses, right? I've seen people literally go in debt tens of thousands of dollars so that they can have certain types of purses or clothing because they feel that pressure. I actually experienced the same exact thing is when I talked to people that were kind of that mid range of wealth, so maybe that high income job, they're making two, $300,000 when the mine had $1 million or something like that. Those are the ones that are trying to show what they have. They all have the flashy cars, the flashy clothes, you know, they call it peacocking, right? It's like to show off these things that they have, but when you talk to people, you know, these are more of kind of the, I don't want to come old money, but there's kind of an old money versus new money mindset, but there are folks that that I would meet that owned 10 properties for example, or 20 properties on the coast in Newport beach, which means their net worth is probably in a 20, 30, 40 million dollar range. They would just show up wearing tee shirts, flip flops, and a pair of shorts to doing what they wanted to do. It was a really interesting perspective and it's actually a friend's father who passed away recently, but his father, what he said was the reason wealthy people work so much isn't because they love to work necessarily. Maybe some do, but he's like the reason they're wealthy is because they work so much and not out spending money all the time on stupid stuff. Right? And so that mindset shift really brought in a different way for me to think about things. I used to have to BMW. I used to have the fancy stuff and don't get me wrong, I like nice things, but what I've come to learn is if you want to be successful with money long term and be a, you know, wealth accumulator, right? Not a consumer and just a of wealth accumulator, you need to lay your foundation first. You need to take care of your own house first. And like what you mentioned, the pressure around you can be tremendous to help friends, family, whoever because you got it and now you're the one. When I see that a lot, I deal a lot with the Latino community in East LA. I do a lot of work there. It was some coaching nonprofit work and I see that as once someone gets a little bit of money, they buy the new car, they have the fancy clothes and then they start spreading it around and they've never really laid their foundation. So getting out of debt I think is a great foundation, but I think it's, that's one point on the map. We also got to talk about other things. What do you think is missing from what I just sort of laid out there?
Naseema McElroy: 09:54 No, I think you hit like all the important points, but to just add on to the point like a lot of us think that okay, like getting out of debt is like such a tremendous thing, but then we miss out on a lot of opportunities where we're actually like building on that debt. Paying off debt is just like starting at zero, right? So that should be your solid foundation. But after that there's so much that you have to do in order to build wealth. And then what I find in our community is really this risk aversion but kind of naively because like we're willing to risk money on some so many like ridiculous, so many liabilities, right? But when it comes to things that are gonna build wealth, even if it's simple and simple and pretty straightforward and easy to understand, like there's a lot of hesitation and rightfully so because especially in my community, I feel like, and speaking just like other African American woman, we've been taken advantage of a lot. Like when it comes to investment products or things that we feel like are things that wealthy people do because we'd been sold things at a community that have not necessarily been beneficial to building well, but have been like hoisted up as like this pinnacle of something that rich people do. So you should deal with it even though it's probably not to your best interest. It's probably to the best interest of the person that's selling it to you because they get these upfront commissions and things like that. And so we have a lot of hesitation around that and I feel like it just holds us back so much. Another thing that I want to touch on about nursing is because nursing is probably one of, you know, just a handful of women predominated workforces and you know, although traditionally even though women are better investors, once we get investing, the kind of barrier to entry is pretty high. And so we don't invest and it's just because of a lot of fear and this false sense of security that we need to have like this financial cushion that we can't touch or like investing is so intimidating that we keep on putting it off and we don't even want to address the situation or those people that are in charge of our investment accounts at our job, you know, are usually this big beardy white guys that, you know, talk in these words we don't understand and we meet within one time and it just like, you know what, this is just not for me 'cause I don't understand this. This is kind of scary. He's not speaking my same language. And so, those are the things that I'm seeing over and over again to the detriment of black people, to the detriment of nurses. And so hopefully, you know, this medium that we're coming through or this information that we get to share with people and seeing our different faces and experiences and backgrounds and bringing that to the table can give people the perspective to understand that it's possible for them. And so yeah, that's why I'm super excited that we're doing this because I really feel like it's going to be relatable and be able to touch so many people right where they are without that intimidation and a place where they can feel comfortable asking questions and being able to learn and grow.
Jason Hamilton: 13:24 Yeah. So you actually hit on quite a few things there that I would like to talk about. Yeah. So you know, from a high level, what we want to do here is get questions from people in this community, break those down, help you break through those mental barriers. I think a lot of it is a mindset barrier when it comes to, when you say things like, you know, starting to investing is a high barrier. It's really not actually, we're going to talk about exactly how to do that. But I do agree and I actually don't think it's just a black community by the way, that has product sold to them. I see in Latino community big time, big time, big time, big time. It happened to my mom, right? I'm a white background or whatever, but my mom was so multiple whole life insurance policies. Right? So what I found, there's actually a correlation between people that come from like a low income, a low wealth background and these types of mistakes. I think it crosses over all sorts of lines, but I do think people, you know, feel that they see a more in whatever's around them. And so whatever you are around more than you probably are going to relate to that. That's totally fine. But I will take full ownership of my profession. Right? There's a reason why I became a financial advisor and tried to get the top certification you can get basically as a CFP, right? I mean it's kind of, I notice things that are more specialist beyond that, but that's kind of our gold standard or whatnot. And then I've committed to what's called a fiduciary standard where I don't sell products because there is a lot of money in these products to be sold. In all honesty, it's a transactional relationship and I don't think that's what helps people build wealth long term is by selling the product. I think people really need that ongoing guidance assistance because your life is not a static moment. Your life is changing. You may have gotten a raise, you may have a job opportunity, you may have gotten inherit answers, all kinds of things that could be going on where your wealth, the wealth advice you receive should be basically adjusted over time and integrated over time. And so when you get to this whole world of product sales, which I 100% agree, that is overwhelming in these low income communities, there's been a huge reputation that has been developed around financial advisors. I read something that financial advisors are less trusted than like used car salesman, right, in general. And I don't think that is unwarranted by the way.
Jason Hamilton: 15:30 I think this industry, it's a dumpster fire as a whole and if you really study and look into what's going on. So at the same time, financial advisors are some of the nicest, caring, helpful individuals. I know some great people, I know thousands of them, right? But the majority of the industry is incentivized towards things like sales contest, product sales, and getting people to put their money in things or to do things with their money that benefits the broker versus the client. Right? So it's a huge conflict of interest. And we'll talk more about this as we go when it comes to helping you find a good investment advisor, a good financial planner, because I really do think pretty much everybody could use one in their life because the things that I've seen, you know, I speak to hundreds of millionaires a year, right? The things that I've seen and that I can kind of whittle down for somebody into very simple steps to follow based on what I after analyze their situation is a lot more efficient than spending, you know, 40 50 60 hours, maybe a hundred something hours trying to figure it out on your own and then really not being sure how to put all those puzzle pieces together. So I do think there is benefit when you get somebody that knows what they're talking about. But I do think it's a minefield when it comes to finding somebody. So we'll talk about that. The other thing as you mentioned that you know there is I think a mindset where people, I didn't understand what investing was. I didn't know what stocks were. I didn't know what that meant longterm. But people will take on a $700 car payment with, you know, like if nothing so they can have the car that they want. To me, that's 10 times are a hundred times more risky than putting, you know, 10 or 15% of my pay into the market long term. And knowing that that will grow over time. Because when you look at the data, as long as you can put something away over periods of time, the market has never ended up back at zero. And if it does, what I tell people is you either invest and go with what the market's done in the past and if it doesn't, you're going to end up needing gold bars, bottled water and bullets 'cause that's what people think is gonna be valuable anyways. So we're at that point, nothing matters. But if you don't make the decision to get started and planning for yourself, then no one's going to do it for you. Right? So we want to talk about that and some things around there when it comes to things you see Naseema like before you went through your journey, what are some of the mindset barriers you had to getting started on you know, looking at $1 million in debt and wanting to like get that out of your life.
Naseema McElroy: 17:49 Yeah, let's talk about that. Because people always, like, the first question people ask me is like, well how can you like even have $1 million in debt? Live. [laughs] First of all, I have to preface it by saying that I live in the San Francisco Bay area and so it's expensive to live here. And so that million dollars in debt did include my house in San Francisco Bay area, which you know, I'm looking at houses right now and the house that I bought that was included in that million dollars is like even like a poverty level house right now. So let me just say that because the median home price here is $700,000. It's probably gone up now to closer to a million because it's just getting super ridiculous. But let's talk about like the thing that I just learned from my like school, like kindergarten. I remember it being drilled in me to go to college by any means necessary. Your ticket to wealth, to even being anything and life was to go to college. So it was no doubt in my mind that I was going to go to college. And to me that meant I would be successful and that I had made it. And so for me, because I was always the smart girl, right? Even though I was from the hood, you know, I was the nerd and so I was expected to go to the top schools. So like when my aunt told me that I should even consider going to community college, I was like, do you think I'm stupid? Like why would you even come at me like that? Because like why would I do that? I believe level. Okay. Like, and so I wouldn't even, like, I couldn't even wrap my head around not going to the best institution because for me that meant success. That meant that I was making it and I was doing the things that I was supposed to do. And with that came this price tag that for me, I remember getting my first financial aid package and that was the first time ever in my life I had ever seen that many numbers written out like that with my name associated with it. And it was so unreal that it was like reading a Harry Potter novel. Like it didn't even resonate with me. All I knew was I needed to go to this school because this is a really, really good school and I will figure it out because that's what I'm supposed to do. And they'll figure it out. And every year that I went there, something magic happened where some funds were exchanged and you know, things I've had before, and so when I graduated I didn't even realize the debt that I had accumulated because it wasn't real to me. You know, and then like later down the line and you know, you talk to other people, they were like, Oh yeah, I have student loans, I have student loans. Yeah, everybody has student loans. And so it becomes like this normalized thing. And so like, let me just say like, it wasn't something that was intentional, right? And the other thing is, is that I was just living, I was, you know, that car I was supposed to get, the house I was supposed to get. I was doing all the things that I was expected of me. I wasn't like outside of my means in the traditional sense because I didn't know any better. And I was just doing, you know, what every nurse around me was doing. And so those are some things that I had to shift and understand. And that's why my platform is called Financially Intentional because a lot of these decisions around my money I was just making because these were things I was supposed to be doing. And it was not done with intentionality and with understanding because I just had no example to follow. It was nobody else around me that was doing these things. And so I was blazing my own trail. And in that, you know, I made a lot of mistakes, but who was I learning from? You know, so.
Jason Hamilton: 21:48 Yeah. And while you were talking, I just Googled the current student loan debt clock. It's over $1.7 trillion trillion. Okay. You know, credit cards or at 882 billion and auto loans are 750 billion, but student loan debts are almost double those together, 1.7 trillion. And so I think you touched on a couple of things there. That is probably the reason why people end up so deep is because, well, okay, let's just start back with college, right? I have a hard time saying everybody should go to college anymore because we're seeing so many people get out. Unless you want to be like a professional, right? So nurse, you have to have a college degree to be CFP, doctor, lawyer, accountant, dentist, things like that. I have a really tough time saying everybody should just go to college because it's the right thing to do. You know, I did the community college for two years as you mentioned, and I transferred and that was great. But I still ended up in debt. Not because I didn't make enough money, I had enough money. It's because I just spent extra stuff wanting to have fun and I did work all the way through and I still ended up with student loan debt. Right. But that was my fault. But to what you said about seeing those numbers on the paper and then somehow the money just transfers over and then your school is paid for and you don't feel it. Right. I really think that that is the, probably the foundation for most people, why they end up so deep is because they've never experienced numbers like that. You know, like for me, I was lucky to get 20 bucks or 40 bucks from my mom to like go out and do things like that. So like, and let you know and I earn hundreds of dollars or whatever work in my job, like nothing big, but I've never seen ten thousand, fifteen thousand, a hundred thousand, whatever that number is in one place. And so you don't really feel it. And then you just think that everybody, your program, like you said, your program thinking that this is what we need to do. This is the only option. And no matter what it takes, no matter what it costs, we just need to sign up for it and it'll just work itself out. And unfortunately, we're seeing, this is probably gonna be the next financial crisis. I don't think it's going to be housing, I don't think it's going to be any of these other things. It's going to be student loans that people can't pay back. What we're talking about is 1.7 trillion is just federal by the way, we're not even talking about private. You can add another trillion dollars on their probably in private at least. But, federal student loans are non-bankruptable, right? They will follow you to the end of your life and you can even have your social security deducted if you can't pay.
Jason Hamilton: 24:11 The great thing is there are, you know, many government sponsor repayment programs and so I like this for nurses because if you're a nurse, you can choose to work in a hospital that's a 501C3 for example, do your 10 years and then have an income-based repayment program that can get those loans forgiven. You just make your payments over that 10 years, but 10 years is a long time as well. It's a decade. But the great news is there are things out there. But what I've seen and, and you know, we're coming up on this 10 year mark 'cause it, it was um, established I believe in 2008 or nine where the original payment plans were started. And now people are getting a lot of denials. But what, when I look at the cases, it's actually because they didn't follow what they need to follow.
Jason Hamilton: 24:53 The program hasn't really been shown to be a failure at this point yet. People just aren't following the proper processes and, and you know, keeping track of everything. And in the nonprofit space where I work a lot, a lot of people will have new jobs every year, every two years, nonprofits, clothes. They can't have records of it. So you have to have records and you have to turn in this information every single year to make sure your payments are getting counted 'cause your 120 payments will be tracked. And I think it's the student aid, whatever system NSLDS or whatever it is NLSDs. So that's all tracked in there. But people aren't doing those things. They're just showing up after 10 years saying, hey, I made my payments. Should these get forgiven? And it's not quite that simple. So ideally we want to avoid all this debt in the first place. And I'd actually like to get a breakdown of what your $1 million in debt was so people can understand like what you overcame. Because I think for some reason student loans feel a lot worse to pay off than a house 'cause you already have the education. It's kind of behind you. The house at least like you're living in it, you get to enjoy it. And you know, feel a part of that. But can you give us a breakdown of that? So people can understand where you came from on that.
Naseema McElroy: 25:52 So both of the million dollars was my house and I actually ended up selling the house. So that was about five hundred thousand dollars. My student loans were $200,000. I had taken out loans against my retirement account to pay for my house, my down payment of my house. I had car loans that were in there. I had another house in Southern California that was included in there. And then just lifestyle stuff. You know, I was married at the time when I started paying off this stuff, so it was a little bit of his debt, mostly my debt. He didn't really have a lot of debt. But yeah, just those kinds of loans and just lifestyle. And I mean, a lot of it was interesting. I mean, I just remember looking at my student loan payments, like, and I was like, I'm making such great progress. I like paid $20,000 down this year and then I'll look at it like, and $3000 of that went to the student loan. And then it was just disgusting to me when I realized that just an interest, I was paying $50 a day. Like what do you spend $50 a day in your life on like seriously? And like, and so, Oh, that was a lot of my debt, but the interest was killing me. My student loan payment a month was $19,000. Actually, it was in the public student loan forgiveness program. Actually, when I started my repayment journey, but I just felt like 10 years was a lifetime and I was so done. I mean like it's an amazing program and probably if I could do it again, but knowing what I know now, I probably would game-ify that a little bit to my advantage. But all I know was this payment was kicking my behind. I was tired of dealing with these loan services because honestly they're not the most intelligent people and the easiest people to kind of deal with. And so I was just like, I was beyond like aesthetic to get rid of my student loans. But I mean now that I know better and I've done like the math, I actually figured out that by kind of paying my student loans off so aggressively, I probably made like a $80,000 mistake as far as how much I could have like saved and all that kind of stuff. But you know, hindsight it's 2020 and I don't regret doing what, you know, I'd see it, but now I've made the mistake so other people can learn from me. And so like you were saying, what about the public service loan forgiveness? A lot of the reasons why people aren't qualifying because yes, it's a new program, but you have to have a specific type of loan to qualify. Like all my older loans from USC, and let me tell you, so I went to USC for six years and I graduated with only $40,000 worth of debt. When I went to nursing school. That's when I accumulated the rest of my hundred and something thousand dollars, $160,000 worth of debt. But those older USC loans needed to be consolidated and turned into a different kind of in order to qualify. And I think a lot of people don't understand that and they just think, Oh well it's about 10 years I've been paying off these loans and so I should qualify. But they haven't actually gone through the process. And believe me, it was like a very hard process to go through. So yeah, I remember going through the process every year having to recertify. So, yeah, I can understand why people are falling off, but people are getting their loans forgiven. And in hindsight I could've gained that. But you know, but yeah, so most of my debt was the house and the loans and just like lifestyle choices and things that I was doing just because they were things I was supposed to do.
Jason Hamilton: 29:37 Yeah. You know, it's hard to say, right, because from a financial perspective, maybe be 80 K ahead, but at least for me, I had the same wake up call. It was like four years had gone by. I was on kind of what payment plan. I had no idea what I was even on. I just know that they made it so I can afford it. And then looking back now I know it's a 20 year. That's what it was on. Four years later, I looked at my paperwork and I owed the exact same amount of money as I did previously. But I've been paying on it for four years. Right. Cause that's what kind of pissed me off and got me upset enough and to feel disgusted. Cause you have to feel disgusted sometimes to make massive change and until you're disgusted, sometimes people aren't going to move forward from that because they're just happy being content. But you know it depending on the size of the loans, depending on what else you have going on. You know, I have worked with clients on these strategies where, cause if you max out things like your 403b, you know, or 401k or four when a, whatever you have it at your job, you can put up to $19,000 if you're below 50 and 50 and above, you can do $25,000 it's going up another 500 this year in 2020 but if you can reduce your income by $19,000 a year, by putting that money in there, you can actually lower your loan payments so you can really game it to get a ton of money forgiven. I've seen doctors with, when you work it out, they're going to be getting forgiven close to a million dollars. You know, in student loan debt. So then there's the whole, you know, I guess integrity part of it is like, well you know, should the tax payers pay that off for you? 'Cause that's who's doing it at the end of the day, right? Somebody's paying for it. It's not free. No such thing as free or should you do it yourself? So I think that's another question really. So you know, you paying it off, I think you probably are a different person, a different mindset today because you went through that. So the person that you are going to be the next decade or you're probably going to make up the $80,000 that you quote unquote lost because of other things you're doing and the way you think about the world now. I mean, that's what I would think. And that's what I've seen from people like you.
Naseema McElroy: 31:32 Right? I like to agree with that, but you know.
Jason Hamilton: 31:35 Yeah. So you know, we're going to be talking about this type of stuff you know, consistently. Our goal to do this every Monday, 10:00 AM Pacific time. So we'd love for you to join us live. Doing things live like this is a huge risk by the way, because we can be wrong, you know, and we can say things that people get pissed off by, you know, just it is what it is, right? So we're going to do it live just to have that engagement with some of our audience. And there's some people here that are asking questions that I want to bring up actually before we transition out. But we want to engage with everybody here. We want you to be a participant in this community. We want you to ask your questions because honestly this is what we're doing this for. You know, we both feel passionate about giving back to this particular community and we know the problems are facing and I don't know anybody that is serving nurses in this way right now. And I've just had a lot of nurses come through my firm. Some are young, right? And some are planning for retirement and that's okay. There's no such age, there's no real specific problems. It's really the nursing field. What are you dealing with? Are you dealing with you made too much money, you didn't pay your taxes, so now you're dealing with some tax that you've got to pay off. Are you dealing with a $300,000 income that you're not sure how to optimize. What you should do first, second, third, and fourth? I mean, we'll go with the whole spectrum here on these issues and with Naseema, she's really going to help you with your mindset and getting you on the right track so you're thinking about this, right? Because again, working in many, many low income communities is there is the people around you and even the people around me, by the way really affect how your outlook on life is. And there's a very famous saying that you're going to be a combination of the five people you spend the most time with. If you're spending your time with broke people, frustrated people, people that are putting a bunch of things that on debt and credit cards, you're probably going to be the fifth, right? But if you're spending time around people that have done things that you may think are impossible, like paying off $1 million in debt in just two and a half years, if you're spending time around people that are, that have come from where you're at, that have made it out and are now doing successful things, then you, that's going to rub off on you. So we want you to be here, we want to rub off on you and we want to help you get out of this because there's so much potential and a lot of people really focus on what they don't have, right?
Jason Hamilton: 33:41 They really focused on the opportunities they don't have or things that have happened in the past. So they're looking at the rear view mirror, right? So the rear view mirror is like this big, right? But what if you decided to look out the windshield about all the opportunities you have going forward? Because if you're making $100,000 $200,000 or more, all you should be thinking about is opportunities you have the next year, five years, 10 years, or 20 years. Not about all the garbage and mindset trash that you experienced as you're growing up. You know, I grew up, probably not as bad as a Naseema, but you know, I've been jumped by Mexican gays. I've had my cars broken into multiple times. Okay. You know, I've had 40 bottles smashed over my head. I've been in situations that are places that are not good and now I'm in a much better place. And so what I've come to realize, it's definitely starts with what you think and what you tell yourself about what is possible for you. And like Naseema, like you mentioned, some people have never seen that example, which is why we want to both come on and be this example for you. And they want to start guiding you step by step through on so that you know how to overcome and get to where you need to be and to serve the purpose that you were called for. Right. And I know maybe some people are religious or some people are not, but I believe we're all called for a purpose in this world. We're all here for a reason. And if you believe God called you to that or the universe call you to that, whatever we accepted it, it's not a big deal. But if you're sitting there in fear and if you're sitting there with anger because of all the things that you didn't have in the past, instead of focusing on what's coming in the future and how you can take advantage of every opportunity, that's where I say, I probably can't help you. You know? So we want to get you out of that. We want to work with people and help people that are just saying, shit, where I'm in this place. I know I have opportunity, I don't know what to do and I need some help. We want you to reach out and we're here to do this. We're doing this for free. It's complimentary. We're not charging anything for what we're going to do here. And that's what we want to do. I mean, do you want to add anything to that, Naseema?
Naseema McElroy: 35:32 No, I just, you know, I really want people to understand that. Like you're saying, everybody is brought here with unique gifts. Like there is only one you. God didn't make a mistake or the universe, whoever did not make a mistake. And who are you to deny other people of your gifts? So just think about that because when you're operating from a place of fear, you're shielding your gifts, your God given universe, giving gifts that you're put on this planet for. And so living in this space of lack and of not feeling that you are enough is really a detriment to other people around you. And so the reason why we share what we go through is because we're just like you. We have doubts, we have imposter syndrome, we have all these things going on. But at the same time, if we're able to inspire one person, then you know we're fulfilling our purpose. And so you know, we're here for you so that you can live up to your full potential.
Jason Hamilton: 36:39 Yeah, I love it. So there's a couple of comments that have come in that actually are pretty cool for us to talk about. You want to pull them up. Let me pull them in and chat a little bit. So let's see if this works here. Okay, cool. So I don't know if you can see this on your side. Let me see if it's actually showing on my side. Anyways, I'll read the comment and then if we can't see. Okay, so it is showing on the video so people will see it when they watch this later. So that's a comment saying "it's sad when parents don't have the financial knowledge to lead their children." Right? And here's the thing though, like our parents, right? So let's say I just turned 39. It's not polite to ask a woman how old she is, but let's just say you're somewhere in the range of this or is that fair to say? 20s, 30s or 40s. Our parents, like they were raised by a generation that grew up mostly with pensions. Right? So when you worked in factories, when you work for some of these big companies, a lot of people had pensions, you know, and they worked for the same company for 30 years. And they got the gold watch and that's really going away a lot. But you didn't really have to plan for the future too much because between social security and your pension, a lot of people ended up having enough just to kind of make a buy. And this is for our parents that are maybe in their sixties and seventies you know, at this point. So that knowledge wasn't really necessarily needed. And there was plenty of folks that are good, frugal folks that grew up in the great depression right where you had nothing. And I was like, my grandmother grew up there and were very frugal, ended up just, you know, being pretty smart with their money overall. But most people just never really had the plan. And so the children that are in their twenties, thirties, forties, even 50s, their parents didn't really get that knowledge as they were growing up. And we're seeing a huge crisis right now in retirement because the average retirement savings just over $100,000, you know, for people in this country or around the retirement age. So that's not enough. And even people with $1 million these days really feel stressed out. I want to talk about that for young people because I think we need a different plan than the traditional. But the question is, yeah, your parents didn't teach you, right, but what are you going to do about it? With the internet now there's no excuses. There is probably, you know, 200 million blogs, right, on personal finance, there's hundreds of books. There's resources like we're going to bring to you here. So the question is what are you going to do about it now going forward, are you going to continue where with what you were raised with and what you didn't know or are you going to now take control of your current generation and then lead your children and your future legacy into a better position because maybe you didn't grow up with it, but we all have an opportunity to go forward. I mean, those are my thoughts on that comment. What are your thoughts, Naseema?
Naseema McElroy: 39:11 You know, I think that's interesting that you said like the pension, like my grandfather worked for the city his whole life. He had a high school education and he worked for the city of Oakland. He drove streetsweeper truck. Like I remember waking up in the morning, my grandfather would go by and clean our streets with that. That's my memory. So that's so cool. But my grandfather was probably taught just to buy real estate like that. That's what they did. And that's all he knew. And then also the other thing that he had was a GI bill. And a lot of people, you know in the military they had their GI bill. Same thing with my dad. He went into the military, had his GI bill. So these were their financial plans. But then you think about it right now, like where do we get financial education? How many times have you heard, I was never taught this, they don't teach this in school. But that's like a big thing for me is making sure that financial literacy is more readily available from a trustworthy source. You know, you can Google anything that you want and you can kind of come out with any kind of direction. But you know, I mean that doesn't undermine the fact that there is plenty of free, trustworthy, reliable sources out there. But personal finance and knowing how to deal with personal finances and not something that's common, it seems super common to maybe me and Jason because this is the space that we're in. But for most people, like who taught you that? So how do you expect your parents to know what to teach you? They can only pull from their experiences. And so that's why, I mean if they didn't grow up in financially savvy households, what did they learn?
Jason Hamilton: 40:45 Yeah, no, it's true. And when I was growing up, we were just hoping to pay the rent and eat and do those, both those things in the same month. Right. So it's kinda hard to think about, think about the future with that. So, you know, absolutely. You mentioned something I wanted, I did want to touch on, but anyways, the, Oh, not learning personal finance in school. Right? So something you guys may learn about me over time is I am kind of like a conspiracy theorist in a sense where it's like you see so many things that just come out to be true. And when you listen to people, there's a gentleman named, he wrote rich dad, poor dad, Robert Kiyosaki, overall good book. A lot of things I disagree with. That's okay. But he makes it a point that they actually, they as in, you know, the people that control this country, whatever it may be, intentionally don't want you to learn how to do your finances. The whole point of going to school is so that you can learn to just be a worker and just do a job for the rest of your life. And if you are kept in a continuous cycle of paying off credit card debt, a continuous cycle of not saving and planning for the future, then that's where you're going to be. And so it's very intentional that we don't learn these things in school because, you know, I know exactly everything about parallelograms. I was an engineering major, but I didn't learn anything about how to change a tire, how to do my taxes, how to, you know, invest and plan for the future. I didn't learn any of that in school. But what if we did learn those things in those ages, right? And the nonprofit work I do, this is what we teach, right? We teach a financial, they call it financial, I guess financial capability, right?
Jason Hamilton: 42:11 Because literacy is kind of a derogatory term, like you're literate. So they've kind of moved that to make sure that people are capable, right? They know how to do a budget, they know how to save. They know how to plan out their money so they don't go negative every month. But that's all gone into the nonprofit space from what I'm seeing. So there are tons of organizations teaching and stuff. A lot of it is kind of just not really helping people. It's kind of a, you know, a weekend type of seminar type thing. Cause you really need this ingrained over time. But if we got this in schools, I think our whole country would change. But the problem is a credit card industry, which is a major industry will go bankrupt. Right? And so there's a big incentive from lobbying dollars for you not to learn this. So we're going to be teaching you the things here that you should have learned in school, but you didn't. And so we want you to tune in, you know, every week. If you can't make it on Monday at 10 'cause you're working. That's okay. Naseema, being a nurse, I think you worked last night, right? An overnight shift. Yeah. Yeah. So if you're doing the overnight shifts, like you know, some of our nurses here, maybe we can be what you listen to, falling asleep, you know, and this will go into your brain while you're sleeping. You'll wake up and be a little bit smarter every single day. But we want to make this stuff available so that you know, you can be the parent that is now teaching your next generation. And a lot of times you need to do that by example, right? You need to do the things yourself and then that energy will just come over to people around you. Like I said, the five people who spend most time with will absorb that and you'll start to be one of these people that is a wealth builder and a wealth accumulator versus a consumer and a spender. So any other thoughts on this?
Naseema McElroy: 43:39 No, I think that that's good. But yeah, I'm definitely a fan of making sure your network or the people that you surround yourself with are always doing what you aspire to do. You should aspire to be the dumbest person in the room basically.
Jason Hamilton: 43:53 And that's a conversation we'll talk about too as you probably need to get rid of some of your friends, you know, or even family members 'cause they're the ones that are causing all the problems by the way. So that's a tough conversation to have. We'll talk about that later. Maybe we'll spend a whole episode on that. But this comment here, I'd like you to actually comment on it because you probably have more experience. So what it says is that lots of nurses are going back for their masters NPs, I'm guessing as nurse practitioner delay paying loans. And then sadly they're going deeper. So, Naseema, what do you think's going to happen if they continue that?
Naseema McElroy: 44:23 Well, okay, this touches a special place in my heart because I didn't actually go back to school to be a nurse practitioner. I am a nurse practitioner, but for me it was an, I have a very unique program, probably the only program like this in the country where in order to get a degree in nursing, because I went back after I already had another degree, I had to complete a master's degree. And so anyway, I'm a nurse practitioner that doesn't use my NP. To me it works here. But yeah, I see it all the time. Like people are like, these loans are coming due, and I don't know if you remember this, but especially during the recession, like people were like, well I might as well go back to school. And so they came up the recession in a worse position financially than they went into it. You know, like when you know smart people were stacking and investing and buying houses at like rock bottom dollars, like, you know, like they were really making good financial decisions. But a lot of people were going back and digging themselves deeper into debt. And the thing is these degrees don't necessarily mean more money. For me actually as a bedside nurse in Northern California, if I was to step outside and you work in my NP role, I would lose a minimum of $20 an hour to work in that capacity. And then basically, so I paid like, you know, six figures for this degree basically in order to lose money. And so I think we need to really evaluate why we're doing that. So like to avoid paying off debt, it's kinda like a shallow reason, but that's another fear based decision, especially when a lot of healthcare organizations will just straight up pay for your degrees or at the very least make sure that you get some tuition reimbursement for your education.
Naseema McElroy: 46:13 And so I think that it's a pretty weak argument to go back to school to advance your education, especially when there's no monetary benefit. I'm not saying that you should just go to school for the amount of money that you make. But once you understand the correlation between really like how much you're actually spending, what it's going to bring you in the end, it just doesn't make any sense. And also just the words that slipped in my mind right now, but what is it called? The amount of time, like you could have just been working and investing the money that you make versus you know, going back in debt. I can't think of the phrase right now.
Jason Hamilton: 46:52 Opportunity costs.
Naseema McElroy: 46:53 Thank you. Exactly. I don't know why that slipped my mind. But yeah, the opportunity costs of not actually accumulating wealth during those years that you're in school, even if you do make more money in the end, you won't be in a better position ultimately. So.
Jason Hamilton: 47:12 Right. And that's, you know, again, I see that in many communities where people are going back to school, getting a bunch of debt. But if they would adjust then a apprentice for somebody and something they enjoy to do, you know, they could be a lot further ahead. And I'm seeing a lot more plumbers, electricians, carpenters, making a whole lot more money than people that with these college degrees are just starting from zero, you know, at that time. And so just, I think there needs to be a big mindset shift around this whole subject, but we're going to talk about this with nurses mostly here. I want to add one more comment and we'll wrap it up for today. Does that sound good? So the comment here says finances taboo, rude to talk about bills and money growing up. Right? So you want to start with that and then I'll kind of share my thoughts on that.
Naseema McElroy: 48:00 Yeah. You know, like I grew up here in the face like you can just stay out of grown folks business and finances with definitely grown folks business. So you don't talk about money, you know, you probably don't got no money. I know that I had $20 to spend for the week on lunch and then that was it and everything else, you just kinda gotta figure out. So yeah, like that is rampant in a lot of communities and it was definitely my experience.
Jason Hamilton: 48:28 Yeah. So I actually think this is a detriment, right? In our society and when you get to like the very, very high levels of wealth, you know it is considered rude to talk about money, right? But I really think families should be communicating more. And so in our nonprofit programs called Ideal Wealth Academy, we work with the parents and the children at the same time in different capacities. But they're basically learning the same things but at different levels. Right? So the parents at a higher level, the kids are at a lower level, mostly high school juniors and seniors that we've worked with before they go to college. But we actually want the whole family to be working together to talking about the household budget, to let the kids understand how much it costs to maintain a household, how much are spending on food each week. And what we've seen is that there is a whole new appreciation of how money is treated by the children.
Jason Hamilton: 49:18 For example, before we started talking about money, kids would just break an iPhone or two per year and expect our parents just to go buy him. Another one, right? And these are very low income families. There's are like 33 to like 44,000 kinds of the average. This is in Los Angeles by the way. So 33 to 44 and you know, I was a lot different than in Los Angeles. It's very low income and the parents would just feel guilty, right? And they would just go buy it and then they're continuing to put things on debt themselves or have payments or whatever. But once the kids started participating in the small business finances in the household finances, we started seeing the children become much more aware of what was going on and being a team when it came to managing the household finances properly. So if the family had a goal to go on a vacation, let's say at the end of the year, and our vacation was going to cost $1,500 and they had to save just over a hundred dollars a month to do that, maybe $120 $130 well, the kids were really bought in to making sure that that money was saved first because they learned that delayed gratification for that larger goal, which was that vacation, and we'll talk about this as well because they're late.
Jason Hamilton: 50:18 Delayed gratification is the number one key to success, in my opinion, with finances. But because they all sort of working together and talking about it, the success of the family was accelerated a lot more. So I think, yeah, and we need to overcome this subject being taboo and being something that we don't talk about because if we don't, then we're going to continue in this cycle of frustration because a lot of people think that because of where they came from because what they look like, but that's the reason it's always going to be poor. It's not true. 100% guarantee. I can prove that, but if you believe that to be true, then it probably is. Yeah. So you know, these are things that people are going to get mad. I'd already know where to get some pissed off comments and that's okay, we're going to deal with that, but people have an unhealthy relationship with money in general, when we have the richest country in the world that's ever existed, people are fighting and beating down the doors to get here, but 76% of people are living paycheck to paycheck.
Jason Hamilton: 51:10 That's a problem, right? Yeah, and I've looked at thousands of people scenarios and sure, once in a while people do have an income problem, but the majority of cases, it's a spending and a planning problem. People are swiping and praying, right? They're swiping your credit card or their debit card praying that money's going to be there versus setting a proactive plan in place saying, Hey, I have X number of dollars. I have $200 a month to spend on groceries or $300 a month spent on groceries, and this is how I'm going to lay it out, 60 bucks a week or 50 bucks a week and I'm going to go to the store with a plan and what I'm going to spend on, I'm not going to spend a dollar more. And if you do that over time and you put that same, you know, savings away every single month you will have money and all that starts, all you need to start is 1% right? You can start at 1%. increase that, you know, once a year, once a month or whatever it may be, but you will get there. So yes, we know we're going a little bit long here, but I really hope everyone that watching this has enjoyed this. I don't know. I have fun doing this. Naseema, what do you think?
Naseema McElroy: 52:07 This is great. This is awesome. It's just like, you know, having those honest money conversations with your homie. Like, I feel like I can be really candid and open and I really feel like it'll provide value for people who don't really get value out of traditional money conversations. And so this is why we're here. This is awesome,
Jason Hamilton: 52:29 I love it. And our last comment is Barbara put up Liz, she loves this and she's also going to listen as well, right? So, you know, I will try to keep the profanity to a minimum. I want to make this really honest. I feel like sometimes know when I talk about retirement I just, I'm so formal with things and that's okay. But I think we need to have some really honest discussions so that people can deal with the truth, not their perception. You know, what is going on, what the real truth is with their financial situation is. Are you not managing it well? Are you really not making enough money? What are the real, what's the real problem you're facing? It is a human behavioral issue or is it an uncontrollable financial issue. And I think the majority of people will be under the human behavior. And I think we can help with that. So, so every Monday, 10:00 AM Pacific time, do you want to talk about your page? 'Cause we're going to be kind of simulcasting this in different places. So I want you to want to talk about your page and your group, whatever.
Naseema McElroy: 53:19 Sure. So I'm going to be streaming this on my Nurses on Fire page and Nurses on Fire is my podcast where I share my story. And other stories of nurses or people adjunct who nurses in the financial independence space or people on their journeys to financial freedom. Just so people know what's possible from a diverse array of people, but probably someone that you can resonate with or someone that your coworkers can resonate with. So, if you're a nurse or you just wanted to hear some financial advice from our financial... Just stories from people, just average everyday people and just to know what's possible, then you're free to join the Nurses on Fire Facebook group, listen to Nurses on Fire, where you stream your podcast. And this is also coming to YouTube. So just search Nurses on Fire there. And I'm happy to include these segments also in the podcast as well. So excited to see you guys in the community. So yeah, reach out.
Jason Hamilton: 54:25 Awesome. And so I'm going to be sharing this on my Facebook page. You can find it at Retire Simple. That's at Retire Simple, just under my name, Jason J, Hamilton CFP Financial Planner. And then also I'd invite you, if you're watching this or listening to this somewhere else to join my free Facebook group. It is called Retirement Planning for Nurses. So we'll be focusing a lot more under retirement planning in that particular group. So depending on where you're at in your journey, you may find that you resonate, you know, in one place or another. But you're welcome to join us everywhere and then just, you know, show up where you want to show up. This is not about competition. This is just about Naseema and I coming together, having being aligned on a lot of things and just really wanting to bring this information to this community because it's just, it's a big miss.
Jason Hamilton: 55:08 And I think if we can get this community doing things well with their finances, I think generationally we're going to see such a positive outcome from it. So wherever you find, you know, you must come through with just show up and watch and I'll probably get a podcast going. I'll tell you, I'll talk about that is I like the idea so far, but what we're talking about Nurse Your Wealth, talk about the Nurse Your Wealth Podcast. So if you guys have ideas for us on that, the titles we're open to that and then keep a lookout because we're going to be sending out emails or making posts inviting you. Then if you want to have your questions answered, if you want us to talk about your situation. We'll Keep everything anonymous, right? So we're not going to talk about your personal info, but we will share your financial info if you'd like to get some feedback and we'll dig in and break down your scenario and help you get on track.
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