This Nurse Talks Smart Money - Ep. 87
I haven’t done a solo episode in a while so I wanted to use this opportunity to catch you guys up with what’s been going on in my life. In other news, I’m making a MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT. I wrote a book. I appreciate you in advance for all your support. Getting a handle on personal finance can be confusing and stressful. Get unstuck and start saving now with this streamlined, holistic plan for financial wellness. Smart Money makes it simple to ditch debt and jump-start your wealth in nine practical steps. Learn how to avoid money pitfalls, correct any wrong turns, and save and spend the right way to build wealth.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Naseema McElroy: What's up guys. So I wanted to take a moment and do a solo episode. It has been a minute since we have caught up. So I wanted to do a couple of things here. I wanted to just give you an update and a little bit of insight in what's happening in my life. What's going on. Catch you up. And also to make a big announcement and drum roll.
You guys, I'll tell you what the big announcement is, is that I am now a published author. That's right. I wrote a book, but I'm going to dive into that a little bit later right now. I just want to take a few minutes to kind of like bring you back up to pace. And I'm kind of going to start from the beginning, just in case you guys are new listeners.
Which I'll have quite a few. So , right now I live in Brentwood, California, and that is where Financially Intentional was born. So in 2016, I was having a slumber party with my friends. I was in the midst of kind of going through a divorce. My friends didn't actually know it at that time, but my , husband at the time was actually incarcerated, but that's another story for another time, but I was going through a divorce and I was having a slumber party and I had been on this path individually and working with my husband at the time to , pay off my debt.
Yeah. And , I was getting really, really empowered about my money. I was learning things about money that I had never known, and I felt so empowered and inspired. I wanted my friends to have the same feelings and plus most of us had daughters and I was like, man, if we can teach our daughters is we can really change their trajectory of their lives.
So I was like, girls, like I'm working on this thing. And , if I create a platform or a blog around it, would you guys read it? And they were like, yes. And so Financially Intentional was born. And I was in my house that I had in Brentwood, California.
So part of my big , paying off a million dollars in debt journey was towards the end of my debt pay off. When I out a little bit for my divorce, from the IRS debt and I had , under 20,000 left on my student loans, I did in fact sell my Brentwood home, which allowed me to be a hundred percent debt free. I didn't have housing debt. I didn't have. Any student loans debt no more debt. So after a total of four moves, I am back where it started in Brentwood.
We moved back August, 2020, just three years later, we moved from Brentwood to Oakland, Oakland, Reno, Reno to Oakland, Oakland, back to Brentwood, needless to say that was a lot of moves and a lot of expenses over the three years. And. But I digress. So shortly after moving out here purchasing, we got a new home built.
My partner and I , actually split and , actually got into another relationship almost immediately after that. But it has been challenging. It's challenging for my daughters. And recently just started to cope with it even though. This would happen around October, but , in coping with those feelings and making sure that I put my daughters first, I felt like it was important that we learn how to co-parent better.
And so , we've been doing counseling around that, which has been really successful. And I encourage everybody in that situation, especially , For the kids to learn how to co-parent and to bring in an intermediary if that's what needs to happen. So that has been more really well.
Now I kind of just want to give you like what a day in my life looks like. And of course, things have drastically changed since covid and shelter in place. And since I've added homeschooling mom to my job title , in order to make that transition work, A little bit easier for me. I now work as a labor and delivery nurse mostly on the weekends, Thursday through Saturday.
So that when I come home, I'm not exhausted and not able to teach my daughter or watch my kids. My two year old is in. Daycare full-time hallelujah and has been in daycare consistently since the beginning of the pandemic. So that hasn't changed, but that has been a lifesaver. And the other lifesaver is on the weekends.
My kids , are able to go to their grandparents' house and they helped me a lot. So that mitigates a lot of , childcare costs for me. And so. On the weekdays. Usually I'll wake up at about five 30 in the morning and I hop on a call with , my trading friends. It's called in the money crew with my Invest with Teri group.
Like if you guys don't know what I've been learning, how to day trade, and that has been quite the journey, but another. Level of awakening as far as how money works and how you can make money work for you. So those are really good calls and they have become my family. So shout out again to my, In The Money Crew.
On every Monday I have a weekly team meeting. And if I can tell you how. Amazing. My team is like they have helped me free up so much of my time, especially right now, when I want to focus a lot of time on personal development and taking care of my girls, they are really holding me down. So I want to shout out all my team members.
I want to shout out Shaquana who is my business assistant slash integrator. Elizabeth, who handles all my social media, Brittany who handles all my affiliate relationships and Fritz, who is my podcast editor. They have really been amazing. They have really accelerated my brand and I am super grateful for them.
So that's every Monday I have a meeting with them and we usually discuss things and goals outside of homeschooling. I usually do podcasts interviews. I have partnership meetings, I have trainings and then I try to work out. Yeah. At least 20 minutes. Part of the Peloton crew , I do have the bike and the treads, so I try to get that in.
Another goal for this year is my optimal physical wellness. And so I really have been working on that. If you guys have been following me, you know, I did a whole 30 January, I just got finished doing a master cleanse for about 12 days. So I'm, your girl is trying to keep it tight and , also have , like I said, the one or two counseling sessions a week, I do counseling with my , ex for co-parenting and I do counseling actually with my current partner, just to have a healthy relationship.
So I do that. And then , in the evenings, I usually make time so we can watch a family movie. And that is pretty much my life. So work on the weekends and doing those things during the week. And so work has been interesting. I am of course, in labor and delivery. And so , we haven't actually had , that many COVID patients, but when we do, we usually have them coming back to back.
But like I would say. As far as national averages, ours have been pretty low hospital-wide. We did see a big spike in COVID patients. Like we went to like having 70 patients COVID positive consistently. Just this week it went down to like the 10. So we would probably have like, 17, but in January we had a big peak.
And so I'm happy to say that those numbers did come down. And there's some interesting guidelines that have been put out by the CDC as far as isolation, so that once somebody is tested positive and they've been positive, For over two weeks, they actually don't even have to be in isolation. They can kind of go back into the general patient population.
So that's some new stuff , that we're working with. So we'll see how that transitions care. But mostly I work. I'm usually the charge nurse which means that I do everything. Especially at night, there's always emergencies. I'm usually taking those patients that walk in the door. It's been pretty busy, but again, I love my job.
It's very rewarding. And I love like, The difference between being here and at home and working on this wealth building stuff, and then going to work and be able to bring life into the world. I think it's a perfect balance. And even though I'll always talk about working towards financial independence, I know that I still have a lot of passion around my job.
So. Let's transition into this book. So the book came about ironically last may and , I got this random email about writing a book. And at first I thought it was spam and I was like, no way. And so I had my ex look at the email, he did a little bit of research and he was like, no, I think this company is legit.
And I was like, well, they want me to write a book. Like, of course I always thought like, yeah, one day I'll write a book. But it was like up there with like ending like world hunger and like winning a Nobel prize and maybe getting a PhD. Like it was something I thought about, but never really thought I would do.
And so he was like, no, I think they're legit. And so what, what really , Convinced me to go with this company is that they were actually locally based. Their offices were in the next city over from Oakland in Emeryville. And I was like, all right, that's cool. I think I can rock with them. Let me see what they're talking about.
And so it was a non traditional kind of publishing company, and I actually liked their model. And I was just like, okay, let me do this. And the thing that I liked about it was that it forced me to do it because it gave me a very short timeline to write the book. Like eight weeks. And I was like, okay, I know that this is the only way that I'm going to write this book.
And I actually wrote it, you know, that, that was like major lockdown time , right in the middle of COVID and it was challenging, but I knew it was the only way I would be able to get it done if they gave me too much time to do it, I wouldn't have got it done. And I'm happy to say, obviously I did knock it out and I have to give a lot of credit to my ex at that time, because he really held me down , during the times and making sure that I got time in to write the book, but this was definitely a labor of love you guys.
Let me walk you through the book and I'll just read the section in the book. That's called how to use the book. So this is a progressive step-by-step guide for you to grow up and grow your money. So I take you from. Money novice to a wealth builder in nine steps. You'll learn skills that will soon become second nature to you. The key is to remember this journey is a marathon and not a sprint. So if you feel like you've mastered one or more of these nine steps prior to reading the book, Is written so that you can hop around to the part that you need.
So here's what the book will cover in step one. You'll figure out what you owe, this is the first step towards financial freedom to reach that light. You'll need to calculate how far down in the hole you are. Okay. And at the end of every chapter, we have actionable steps that you can take to ensure that you're putting those lessons you've just learned to work.
Step two is knowing what's coming in and what's going out. So we'll talk about how to bridge the gap between your take home pay and your spending that gap will determine your wealth building speed. In step three you'll put your money in the right bank. The banking industry has made some major shifts in the last decade. Choose the bank that will maximize your wealth in the way that's right for you.
In step four, you'll make your credit cards work for you. Credit can be an excellent tool, but with great power comes great responsibility, and you have to learn to use credit wisely. The consequences of poor credit management are swift and long lasting.
In step five, pay your taxes or go to jail. So you're going to maximize your take home, pay and avoid the legal consequences of making tax mistakes. In step six, we'll invest in your retirement, but only if you like money, get in early, the more you invest now, the less time you'll have to spend trading time for dollars.
In step seven, we'll play the market long game infusing excess cash into the stock market or other lucrative investments is another major, key to wealth building that can last generations. Step eight, prepare for big ticket expenses. No, what you're paying for and how to cut back while maximizing your return here, you'll learn how to get the most out of big ticket things you spend money on, and in step nine must show you how to live your best life.
We'll put all the pieces together to create a solid system that gets you what you want out of life, at least from a financial perspective. So you guys. This is a nine-step plan. These are things that I wish I would have learned growing up at the very least something that I should have learned before graduating from college.
But honestly, this stuff should be taught in grade school and high school. But nonetheless, I put down everything that I've learned about money in this book, and I know you guys will get something out of it. I'm very proud of it. I've gotten , early. Really positive feedback. So the book is available on Amazon right now, as we speak again, it's called Smart Money. The step-by-step personal finance plan to crush debt. And I know it says crush debt, but it's really about much more than that. Right. Go ahead and pre-order it. The book will be released on March 16th. I am looking forward to your feedback. I can't wait for you guys to get your hands on it. Please share, discuss, and I'll be having more conversations around the book on Clubhouse.
So make sure you guys are following me on Clubhouse. There's a link in the bio to get a text when I'm going live on Clubhouse. So you don't miss it. So make sure you sign up for those alerts. We'll be going in depth in the beauty of Clubhouses that you can ask questions, learn more than you normally would, and get a little bit more insight on the books.
Thank you to all my early reviewers. Thank you for people who have offered me endorsements. And thank you for the publishers for trusting me to write this book. All right. You guys be safe out there. Can't wait to get your feedback.
Hey there I’m Naseema
My dream is for everyone to know that financial independence is attainable with a little intentionality. Learn how I can help you finally break the cycle of living paycheck to paycheck.
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