This Nurse Touting Miserly Behavior is Well on the Path to Financial Independence- Ep. 6
Through a little peer pressure and gentle coaxing, Tara has been able to get her coworkers to invest early in their careers setting them up to have a nice nest egg. From an early age, Tara has been taught about frugality and it has served her well. If only her hospital retirement advisor hadn't told her that retirement at the age of 45 "wasn't a thing" she would have invested 50% of her income from the time she started working in her 20s instead of the 15% and been fatFIRE by now. Tara also discusses how her multiple side-hustles has helped her turn her passion into profits, further growing the gap between her income and expenses.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Tara Goesch: 04:12 So, I've been at the same hospital for almost 20 years. I have shifted around in the hospital in different areas from inpatient to emergency room to surgery to outpatient. Right now I'm an outpatient, you know, we all take that pay cut to get those better hours to get those Christmases off. And, I'm in there now and I have made it to where I'm working 30 hours a week because as a previous staff nurse in the unit three days a week has always been my jam. Like I need long three days and then to decompress and to let my mind reset. I need those other days off. And, so I've gotten my shifts down to 30 hours, three days a week in clinic. And, I have been working towards retirement ever since. I read David Bach's book, Smart Women Finish Rich when I was 24 years old.
Naseema McElroy: 05:24 So what's your retirement goal?
Tara Goesch: 05:25 My retirement goal was to actually, it's hard because I have small children still, you know, so I could pound it out and work overtime and weekends and holidays and do all these things to make that extra money. But I love to be home with these little creatures and I don't want to look back and miss out on this because when you look at a child's life, you know that first 18 years of their life, you're gonna get 90% of your time with them. And so, if I hit it hard and worked really hard, yes, we could do everything quicker and be financially independent quicker, but I don't think it would make me happier.
Naseema McElroy: 05:57 So yeah. But, the same thing with me, like I had calculated that if I wanted to technically like retire early, I can grind it out with my two jobs like I had been doing and do it in two and a half years. Or I could just keep my savings rate really high, go to work a couple days a month and then enjoy time with my family. And I think there's a balancing that with that. And I think the power of nursing is that you can shift between doing either or depending on just how you're feeling or whatever stage of life you're in. So I think that's incredible. So where are you right now?
Tara Goesch: 06:32 So right now I'm 30 hours a week and my plan is to do this for the next four years or so. Our house gets paid off in three and a half years. And so then I'd like to go down to 20 hours and then I feel like I could work forever 'cause I can do anything two days a week and feel so much joy and be able to give compassion and care and to interact with patients. I enjoy it so much that I feel like I could do it forever.
Naseema McElroy: 07:00 That's the sweet thing about nursing too. It's like we actually love our job. Well, most of us do. I mean there's no, the burnout is real and I think that comes with because you can work as much as you want to. A lot of people do until they get burnt out. But, I think that like two days a week is so perfect and you can still live your life by design. But yeah, I've heard so many people say I probably work forever, but two days a week is usually or less than 20 hours is usually kind of where they end up.
Tara Goesch: 07:32 Because it's mentally and emotionally fulfilling in so many ways and so yeah, then I can choose what I want to do and if we want to pull the trigger and retire sooner I can. But if I don't, I can continue to work and enjoy what I'm doing. My biggest thing is to just be there for my kids, not only when they're little, but to be there around when they're 13, 14 making those crucial decisions in their lives to be just hanging around. That way when they are ready to talk and want to talk, you're available. If you're working 40, 50 hours a week, you can't be that parent that here's what's going on and has some insight and can give good advice when they ask for it. You are so in the dark when you're working all the time with teenagers. And so I... That's when I really want to be available as well is when they're teenagers and where my husband and hopefully we'll be able to cut back his hours and at some point as well and we'll be around for them to grow and ask us questions. You know.
Naseema McElroy: 08:28 I think that's an awesome position to be in just to be there for your kids. So have you, I've always been good financially? Have you always just been naturally frugal or what was the turning point in your life where you knew that you wanted to do better financially and with your career?
Tara Goesch: 08:43 Oh I came from a family that I thought was poor but we were not. They tricked us. They were really good about making us feel like, oh we can't afford that. We can't afford that. But really it's, we're not going to spend our money on that 'cause we spend our money on other things or we had another plan. And so both my parents were very frugal. I mean to the point of dumpster diving for tortilla chips because they're fine, their packaging just wasn't good. So we would do these silly things and you know, it's not like we couldn't afford a bag of chips. It's just they wanted to instill the value of recycling and reusing and not being wasteful. And so, I was raised in that mindset. And then, when I graduated from high school, I graduated in the top 10% of my class with honors. But nobody noticed, nobody noticed. And so I didn't get any scholarships. And so I didn't apply for scholarships. I didn't apply for things. I went to college, but they thought it was a waste of my time. You know, you're not gonna actually finish. And so I had to make a decision on how I was going to go through college 'cause I wasn't getting financial support. [Naseema Says "And they taught you not to take out debt. Right?"] Yeah. Never take out a loan. I mean that would be just the worst thing you could do for your life is to ever take out student debt. That's just horrible. And so I was taught to work full time through college and then I went to college full time and there's some things I would've done differently. I would've gotten my associates first and then started working sooner 'cause I didn't have the quintessential college life where I partied and lived in the dorms. I lived at home and I worked and I struggled because so many of my hours were committed to making money and not necessarily studying. And so once I graduated, I ended up taking out a Perkins loans, which was a $5,000 where the state paid it back if I stayed as a nurse for five years. And so it was $5,000, which is nothing to a college career, but it was good enough. And so, that was all I graduated with when I became a nurse. And, I met with the financial advisor of the hospital when I was 24 and I said, I want to retire when I'm 45 and he laughed in my face and said, that's not a thing. You can live a good life. So, just put 10, 15% and then you'll do be doing better than everyone else around you. And that's what I did because that's what this old white dude told me to do. It was just so if I would've just met with somebody different, someone that had a little more insight, you know, everything would be a lot different right now. But it's still good. You know, I don't, there's no regret, no remorse, it's fine. But just for that to have it be the conversation that started my financial investing attitude. I mean I just, it was just, it is what it is, you know? And, so that's what I did. I spent more money on, you know, going out, eating out, doing things that most 20 year olds do that's not always smart. I did take out a car loan, which it was a like a 1.5% car loan for the first 12 months and then it went to like 6% and so I paid that car off in 12 months doing crazy things, you know, like oh my gosh, you need me to work for two hours on a Sunday, I'll come in for you for two hours on a Sunday. And I would come in, I'd work for two hours or I picked up everybody's Mother's Day, everybody's Christmases, everybody's holidays because I wanted that extra percentage, that extra differential. And yeah, I bought a Toyota Corolla, paid it off in a year. [Naseema Says "It must have been brand new to get like that low interest rate."] I think it was just some crazy bank deal. I'd know it was like a year old. I didn't bother. [Naseema says "Oh so you got it from a loan from the bank. Okay."] Yeah, it was some deal that came out that I jumped on. But, so yeah, so this has always been kind of in my blood. But then, you know, you go through that lifestyle inflation and you go through that fatigue of I'm saving just to save. What am I doing? Like why am I doing all this to stay in this financial position, which, you know, in the Midwest I started off at $14 an hour as a nurse.
Naseema McElroy: 12:44 Can't even imagine.
Tara Goesch: 12:47 I mean, I wasn't saving a ton of money, but I was saving a ton of my paycheck, you know? So there was a big discrepancy there. So you know, you start to think, why am I doing this? You know, I could die tomorrow or I could get hit by a car tomorrow. What am I doing? And, so I kind of did lapse a little bit after I had my first daughter and we weren't saving as much. But then, we kicked things back up when we started to find the financial independence movement because it's like, oh, it's not just to like retire when you're 60 like we can do this in our 40s or 50 you know, an early 50s like my parents did.
Naseema McElroy: 13:19 So when did you discover the movement? 'Cause It sounded like you were like, I want to retire at 45 you already had the concepts of what a lot of FI is about, but when did it, what year actually was it that you found the movement?
Tara Goesch: 13:32 So, it's about two years ago. 1 to 2 years ago. Yeah. It wasn't that long ago, but I was, we're saving between at all times of our, since I was 24 I was saving between 15 and 20% of my income from the time I started working. And, so it's always been, I've always been saving, but it was more, the things of it was more the cutting the expenses. I didn't really recognize I could cut even further without any, it was like a no pain cut, you know, oh I wanna call our insurance company because we haven't called them in three years. And renegotiate. We're going to cut our cable, we're gonna cut these little things that made no difference in our life, no quality of living for us. And that was a huge chunk of money we were able to save every month by just making these little tiny tweaks.
Naseema McElroy: 14:14 And that money went into investing.
Tara Goesch: 14:16 Yes, and also think about 2004 when I started investing, I went through the 2008 slump. I told my friend and take your money out of the stock market, I won't help you suction your patients. [inaudible] To two people each time was, I was trying constantly begging my friends, like, don't even look at it, don't even look at it. Keep investing in, keep dumping money in. It's on sale. And so we went through that whole 2008 slump and just kept putting money in.
Naseema McElroy: 14:41 Wow. And then you saw that big climb, I mean because you started with a good foundation at that point. So damn, it was like, yes, up from there. That's awesome. That's so cool.
Tara Goesch: 14:53 Living debt free can make is just, that's makes all the difference too.
Naseema McElroy: 14:55 Definitely. So what tools, I mean you just talked about debt freedom, but what specific tools are you using to optimize your career and also optimize your finances?
Tara Goesch: 15:08 So obviously with everybody, we're all trying to save on taxes, you know, and so optimizing maxing out our 401ks, maxing out our Roth IRAs. And it wasn't until I found the financial independence movement that I was like, oh my gosh, why am I not maxing out my HSA and why am I sending the receipts in and cash taking money out of those account when I could be saving my receipt maxing out our HSA. And so that was a big, big difference when we started saving for retirement is not realizing how important that HSA would be for us in 10 years
Naseema McElroy: 15:41 Do you have access to a 457? [Tara Says "We do not."] Okay. Okay. I know you will be maxing that out if you did. Yeah, that's awesome. I actually have access to a 457 because of the unique kind of community hospital that I work in. So, I think that that's pretty cool. But, because I've been been per diem there, like eight out of the nine years that I've worked there, I haven't been able to tap into it, but soon come, soon come. I think it's something that is coming up soon. So, so just maximizing those retirement accounts have been really key factors in growing your wealth [Tara says "And paying down on the house as much as we can."] Yeah. And those are also saving on taxes as well because you're decreasing your, what is it called? You're decreasing your take home pay. Right? Your taxable income.
Tara Goesch: 16:35 Yeah. And then not creating debt, you know, that is a huge expense. Anytime you create debt for yourself, that's a huge expense. And so we are not depriving ourselves, but we're holding off on those purchases until we have money in the bank to pay for it.
Naseema McElroy: 16:51 Delay gratification is a beautiful thing.
Tara Goesch: 16:54 That's probably made one of the biggest difference is just not taking out those loans like everybody else.
Naseema McElroy: 16:59 Right, right. So where do you see yourself in the next 10 to 20 years? What would be the optimal position for you to be in financially and with your career? I know we talked about that two days a week and working forever, and you being there with your kids for whenever they need you, but financially in it, like with your money, where do you want to see that grow and where are you taking your career?
Tara Goesch: 17:27 So, in 10 years, I don't know that I will still be working. I was, I would be doing, you know, two days a week. But our big goal then, so in 10 years, so actually we'll say 13 years from now, most of my kids will have graduated from high school and will be out of the nest. And, so we've talked, my husband and I have done a lot of brainstorming. We actually call it front porch financials 'cause we sit on our front porch and drink beer and talk about our plans. [Naseema Says "That's awesome."] And, so what we would love to be able to do is we've been looking pretty aggressively for a home that has an apartment basement, walkout apartment basement. And we'd like to, you know, grow our family in there, live there, get our kids off to college or wherever they want to go, and then move into that basement apartment for next to nothing, rent out the upper level. And just live for free. And use the rest of that money to travel and to just enjoy life or help our kids more because the house isn't that important to us. Once our kids are gone, now we need the space. I mean we have a beautiful home and a beautiful neighborhood, but that space and necessity won't be as important in 13 years. And, if we buy that type of a home it's going to be in a beautiful neighborhood again, with the beautiful neighbors and the beautiful suburbs, you know? And we would be the, we just want to paint, right? Cause you know, when you look at cheaper housing, you know, especially in Nebraska, if we were to find cheaper housing, that changes the type of neighborhood you're in, you know? And so, we would still try to be in the same type of affluent neighborhood that we're in, but just living a little differently than everybody else.
Naseema McElroy: 19:05 But in Nebraska, in an affluent neighborhood, what's the average housing costs?
Tara Goesch: 19:11 Probably $300,000. Well you're looking at $6,000 in house taxes every year. [Naseema Says "That's a steal."] That just blow your mind.
Naseema McElroy: 19:22 No, because no, because I lived in, I mean you know my house in northern California and it was in the suburbs of northern California. I think I was paying $18,000 a year for taxes.
Tara Goesch: 19:36 Are you kidding me? [Naseema Says "No girl."] 'Cause Warren Buffett constantly talks about how his little house in Omaha has higher taxes than his house in California.
Naseema McElroy: 19:44 It depends on what part of California. Like even if I would've bought across the street, my taxes would've been lower. Yeah, because it depends because the subdivision I lived in had parks that were ran by the city. Right? So, we got tax more like, and I'm talking about parks with water and like all the stuff is really nice, but I didn't feel like I needed to pay another a few thousand you know, extra in taxes because of it. But yeah, I mean, I understand what you're saying, $6,000 a year in taxes. And that's one of the things that people do not calculate when they look at the housing cost and the cost of renting versus our buying versus renting is that those taxes can eat you up. And that's forever. Like even if you pay off your house, like that's forever. So yeah, I think it's super important to know. But yeah, it is crazy. That in with a house that you're paying $300,000 for, you're paying six a thousand dollars a year in taxes. Yes. But taxes aren't like the bane of my existence, and especially in California. So I'm just like, ewww.
Tara Goesch: 20:45 Yeah. And we've been looking to try to buy a rental and every time we calculate the taxes into the cost of the rental, it's makes it so much harder to pull the trigger.
Naseema McElroy: 20:54 Why are the taxes so high in Nebraska?
Tara Goesch: 20:56 We have great school systems maybe. Our roads get completely destroyed every winter, so we have to pay a lot of money for roads. It's, and then with all the flooding that we had, that took out a lot of streets. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know where it all goes, but we definitely pay a lot in our property taxes every year.
Naseema McElroy: 21:16 Wow. That's crazy. But in going back to where you see yourself in 10 years, I think that's amazing that you would basically just live for free. You have no housing costs, you can travel the world, you can support your kids as you want to. Like to me, that's like the American dream. Like that's everything. That's where I want to be too. I just think it's amazing. I love that.
Tara Goesch: 21:40 But we want to be able to still be around when they're little, you know? So I would say it's so hard to say, I am gonna do these things, but I still want to be available. So you know, why am I even working right now? Right? Should I be working or should I just be enjoying my children or should I work harder and then have more time in that backend? I mean, it's just your, that's that constant struggle I have as a mom of what am I really doing with my life?
Naseema McElroy: 22:08 I think what keeps me kind of saying in that area is just maintaining my savings rate and making sure that that's really high. So that at any time where I feel like I do need to step away, I still feel like I'm still in a good place financially. And, if I want to lean in more, my savings rate is even higher. So I mean, I think that that's what gives me a little bit of that balance in that area. But yeah, I totally get it. Like, you know, it's that mom guilt, like we should be here for these important fundamental years of our kid's life and we're working. So, it's definitely a challenge.
Tara Goesch: 22:44 One of the things that I believe is the true tragedy of nursing, and I think I said this to Doc G on Doc G's podcast was nurses arrange their lifestyle based off their differentials for weekend and nights and their holiday pay, and inpatient unit and when you develop a lifestyle based on that income, how will you ever be able to explore other areas of nursing when you started in a night ER weekend position, working overtime, working extra to find yourself later on in life because there's so many nurses I know are so miserable. Working nights are so miserable, working in the patient unit when if they had just set up their finances a little different in the front end of their career, they could take that pay cut and work Monday through Friday or become a school nurse or become a home health nurse or just do something different that didn't have such a high pay rate, but they can't. It's so hard to back down once you've already established those lifestyle, the costs of that lifestyle.
Naseema McElroy: 23:44 I think that's super important. Like I've heard it phrase other ways. It's just like live off of one income if you're, you know, if you're married or you know, in a partnership with someone just like off of one income, but I think that is also super important to live off of your base salary. Don't let the shift differentials, don't let that overtime pay become like what you're used to getting paid because that's how lifestyle creeps up on you. That's how you end up working night shift and you're 75 years old and you still, I mean like and you know, you know nurses like that. I mean I know of nurses like that that are still stuck because it's the lifestyle that they chose and it's the lifestyle that they're still funding.
Tara Goesch: 24:25 When I left nights, I had lost 30 pounds. I was so sick, I was so sick and I, it took about two to three weeks of being on day shift that I all of a sudden I was like, oh my gosh, this is what you're supposed to feel like. Is this a normal life? Again, this is what waking up in the morning and not thinking yourself like, oh, I can't do this. I can't go on, I can't move. You know, it just, it was such a transition and I'm mad at myself for staying at it as long as I did because I definitely suffered physically during that time.
Naseema McElroy: 24:56 Well, I cannot empathize because I am a lifelong night shift nurse. I actually had like some real challenges going into day shift. It was just too much noise. There was too many people around. There was too many visitors. Like I couldn't and I got paid less. I was really upset. I like my nights, you know? And I understand that the toll that it takes on you physically. So, it's something I don't plan on doing forever. But I definitely like night shift and I know I'm few and far between in the way that I feel about that. But you know, there has to be somebody in the night shift.
Tara Goesch: 25:34 And there's plenty of people who from the age of 22 getting into nursing until their 30s then they're like, Whoa, what? Something happened. I can't do this anymore. You know, they do. They thrive on night shift for their early twenties but then there's a moment and that's why you look at night shift and they're all young learning the job at two o'clock in the morning because you just, a lot of people physically can't, can't manage after a certain age.
Naseema McElroy: 25:59 Let's talk about just nursing for a second and the diversity that there is in nursing and what would you recommend somebody going into nursing or somebody thinking about nursing. What would you recommend that they do or think about?
Tara Goesch: 26:13 I think it's important to do as much shadowing as you possibly can because once you start those classes, unless you stay in the health care profession, it's really hard to transition to a different role or different major. I... I went through nursing school very, I hated nursing school. I hated it. I mean, I was not a pleasant person during nursing school because I just hated the way we were taught. I hated the curriculum. I just didn't feel like it was an acceptable education for me, for the way I learn and the only reason, the only reason I stuck through it was because I was also working in the unit as a care partner, a CNA and I loved the unit I was in. I loved the patient population, I loved the nurses and they kept me going and it's so, it's would have been so sad. It had been so devastating to have dropped out of nursing school because I thought it wasn't for me when really it was the program and it's just the growing pains you have to go through when you're in nursing school. If I hadn't had my niche already figured out, I wouldn't have finished. I would have found I would have been something else. I would have found somewhere else to go. And so I do think shadowing or just CNA.
Naseema McElroy: 27:26 Okay. Sorry about that. I, sorry. Fortunately went to nursing school as like my third degree. I already had a master's degree before I went back to nursing school. It was by far the most challenging, unnecessarily challenging degree that I had. So, I really second your sentiments like just get through nursing school, just get through it and then come out on the other side. Because the world of nursing is so dynamic and there's so many opportunities and there's so many areas you can go to go into depending on what your interests are. So I think that keep your eye on the prize and know that there's something better at the end of that rainbow. So yeah, there's so much out there being a nurse, but I'm sorry, what were you gonna say?
Tara Goesch: 28:10 And I also feel that if you can find a hospital that has a nursing residency program that actually floats you to different areas of the hospital as a new nurse to give you just a really good insight of where your fit is, you may think that you would be the best critical care nurse and that might be true. But at that hospital you don't jive with any of the other nurses. But then, you went over to the med surge unit or the surgical unit and you're like, wow, I enjoy the work. And the nurses that are here are my people. These are my people and I think you can find your happy place and find a really good space for yourself when you have that time to get to know that everyone in that hospital instead of just walking in, having a 30 minute interview and the next thing you know is you're a critical care nurse on a unit where you would, you would have thrived if you had the right people around you. That's huge.
Naseema McElroy: 29:05 These are, I think those are huge. But I'm finding that they're few and far between, at least in my experience in the bay area. How common are they by you?
Tara Goesch: 29:14 In both, at least both of the major hospitals in Nebraska that I've been exposed to and they've decreased our nursing turnover rate with the new grads too significantly. So, I think financially it's the best thing for the hospital to do. Oh yes. And it changes your culture because you're bringing in like-minded people cause they've gotten to know you, they've been around, they know where they want to be after having some exposure to the staff versus just getting thrown in with a bunch of strangers and hoping you fit in.
Naseema McElroy: 29:43 Yeah. I think that the only one that we had like that was during the downturn in the market and I think you actually had to pay to be a part of that program, which is insane. Yeah, but I do want to switch gears here and I want to talk to you about the several businesses that you have in areas of expertise that are nursing related that you've done on top of being a dynamic mom, on top of being a fantastic nurse, you also have these exceptional businesses, so why don't you go ahead and share with our community, what are some other things that you're doing? You know, on the side, just for fun like people do.
Tara Goesch: 30:26 One of my passion projects I started working on is after I listened to Choose FI podcast that said, you should start a website. I thought, huh, I could start a website that would be interesting to learn how to do. So I went to the library and signed up for some free courses on how to build a WordPress website and you know, you start working on it and you think to yourself, okay, what, what expertise do I have in the world? You know, most of us know a little bit about everything, but not a lot of us know a lot about something. And what can we bring to the table to put out there? And what I came up with was I was seeing so many patients that were having these inaccurate ideas of how to cure their child's bed wetting. They would come in and tell me they were using cypress oil. They were telling me they were having their kids chew on cinnamon sticks, which is not healthy by the way. They were waking their kids up every night for every hour, every night, you know, just to get them to wake up. And all of these things are either detrimental to the child or not effective. And they were finding this information from friends from Facebook, from Pinterest. And so, I thought that I would do a service in the sense of putting some actual literature out there on bed wetting that is proven and supported by evidence based research and then put together all the products I recommend to patients so they know they don't need to spend $200 on a bed wetting alarm. They can spend 30 bucks and get just as good of results. And so www.Bedwetting.support is my website that I've been working on and I give little blitzes on the research that's available, information about some behavioral therapy that you can do to help your child along the path. And then there's a workbook available.
Naseema McElroy: 32:11 And this is all really good information. I mean we spent our pre-call talking mostly about this because I'm experiencing issues along those same lines too. And you also have a resource to share with us in regards to that, right?
Tara Goesch: 32:25 Yes. So, I do have a workbook that kind of goes through the same process I share with my patient. So on the website you can put in a Promo Code of a FIRE 2019 and then you can have access for free to the workbook so that you have actual evidence based research supporting what you do with your child. And having that accessible to people I think is really important because when you look at a lot of the bed wetting websites, you're, they're asking for $200, $300 to help your kid cure bed wetting and that's not necessary.
Naseema McElroy: 32:57 Right. Okay. Let's talk about your more fun venture.
Tara Goesch: 33:02 So, the other thing I do, because I've gone to Disney nine times in the last seven years to Disney world in Florida, I am just, I think what it is is when I go, I turn off my email, I turn off epic, I'm out of office, I don't look at it and I am 110% engaged with my family. And so I feel like I have made Disney world the most magical place in my life because I am so disconnected because I've spent a lot of money to focus on my family. And I don't know that I always do that for every vacation we go on. And so after doing that so many times I learned that there was actually, you could become a travel agent that booked Disney trips and so I became a travel agent that booked Disney trips and it's the same price as you would pay if you went to the Disney website and booked your trip that way only we give all the resources on which fast. We actually book the fast passes for you at six o'clock in the morning central time. And...
Naseema McElroy: 34:01 That's golden. Golden by the way.
Tara Goesch: 34:07 Oh you didn't tell me that. That is...
Naseema McElroy: 34:11 Not some, but they were like whack.
Tara Goesch: 34:15 There is a system, I mean there's a very specific system on how to get the Avatar ride. I mean you don't, you have to book that day on a certain day of your trip so that you have the highest chance of getting a fast pass for it. I mean there's very, you have to do it often to know how to make it work the best for your clients trip. But, so that's my side hustle. It's the only thing the only side has I actually make money off of because it's just super fun and I feel like I'm going on the trip with them because I get so excited when I get all the best rides. It's inappropriate how excited I get.
Naseema McElroy: 34:49 Oh you've actually been to Disney hundreds of times.
Tara Goesch: 34:51 Yeah, it feels like it. Right. And then as they post their Facebook pictures, I get so excited. And so I, the website for that is 402vacations.com.
Naseema McElroy: 35:01 And all of these will be in the show notes so you don't have to worry about writing them down if you're driving or running around. Like I do when I listen to my podcast. And also you have the RN to Wealthy Facebook community, which is a phenomenal community where you post a lot of resources and articles which I am enjoying.
Tara Goesch: 35:19 Yes. So the reason that started about, so in 2004 like I said, I read David Bach's Smart Women Finish Rich. So I read it. This is how frugal I am. I sat at Barnes and Nobles and read it there because I didn't want to buy it. Two nights I read it. After my ICU shift I went over there and sat there and then of course was an expert. Obviously, I read a book about money so I know everything that means everything. And so, I harassed all of my friends in the ICU and said you have to set up your 401k right now, like you have to do it today. And, at the time we were not automatically enrolled in for our 401ks. We had to specifically get into the website and set it up. And so many of my colleagues were terrified to do anything like that because they didn't even know what buttons to click, what it meant, what to invest in. The investments were super simple 'cause it was like I want to retire in 2040 and you click that button. It wasn't hard. It was just, they felt so fearful to take the plunge and start giving their money somewhere that they didn't quite know.
Naseema McElroy: 36:24 It can also be that, you know, they also saw that big white guy that told you you have this 10% actually, in all honesty, that's the exact same experience that a lot of nurses at my hospital have this. This big white guy, that is our investment advisor for the hospital and people are legit intimidated as there talk to him. And so they just do nothing about their retirement. That's not acceptable, you guys. It's not acceptable. You know the big white guy is a little bit nice too.
Tara Goesch: 36:53 Yeah. Oh my goodness. So I did that again, 2004 and I would say, I am going to teach you how to do CPR. I'm going to teach you how to run a code. But then, when we're done with that, I'm going to teach you how to set up your retirement account. So anyone I trained, I forced to set up the retirement account and then I kind of badgered them in the sense of only cool people put in at least 10% so, and then I automatically enrolled them for the automatic increase every for 1% every year automatic.
Naseema McElroy: 37:24 Awesome. They didn't even notice it.
Tara Goesch: 37:25 They probably. I feel like I was honest, but I bet they didn't know what I was doing. And I had someone grabbed me in the hallway about, I don't know, this six months ago or so, and said, "Tara, I have to tell you I have $200,000 and I don't know how it happened." Because we had set up their accounts so long ago, they didn't feel the money coming out. They didn't really pay any attention because the paperwork we get sent to our home is not very clear. It doesn't give you this actual amount. So they, they were like, oh my gosh. And my new husband and I were looking at finances and he thinks I'm a genius. And, so it was so simple. It was such a, back then again, we were starting at $14 an hour. So it was such a tiny amount going into these accounts. But over time, you know, with our pay raises and market adjustments and their 1% increase every year, it made a huge difference. And again, it was through 2008 crash. And then, we went back up. But a lot of friends of mine, actually after I had started the RN Wealthy Group reached out to me and said, you're not going to believe how much money I have. And it just kind of trickled down like, oh my gosh, so many of my friends or previous coworkers are doing so well right now. And it just took one person to say, please click this button, please do this. You know? And so that's where this kind of started where I thought, well maybe if I can get some information out there and I post stuff on Midwestmiser.com when I want to explain something to someone, I'm like, well I'm going to type it up and then I'm gonna send you the link. And then, that's kind of how we communicate a little bit rather than me telling the same story and explaining things the same way over and over. And, it's been super fun. I've had a lot of really positive feedback. I don't get a lot of activity on the page. I know everyone's reading it 'cause they send me personal messages instead of responding. Yeah. I've made the diff, I made the change. Thank you for posting that. It's like, oh you need to put it at, you need to put your wins. You need to put your successes on here so everyone feels I can do it too.
Naseema McElroy: 39:24 Yes. I know from having a Facebook community for some time that it could feel like you're talking to yourself but hang in there, it'll get better.
Tara Goesch: 39:34 Yeah, I'm fine with it 'cause I know it's sinking in cause I have friends at work that are like, oh man I made this change or I finally switched my cell phone plan. Thank you for posting that. You know, you just need that little encouragement here and there to make these little changes that do not affect your life. It does not mean you don't need to live frugally like me. You just need to make little changes that will make big impacts.
Naseema McElroy: 39:56 It's not about deprivation. It's about the aggregation of marginal gains. Well, this has been amazing Tara and I just wanted you to give the opportunity to just, you already mentioned how people can get in contact with you, but just sum all that up because you have so many different places, but where's the best place that people can get in contact with you?
Tara Goesch: 40:17 Probably through the RN to Wealthy Facebook group.
Naseema McElroy: 40:19 Okay, that's awesome. And anything else you want to share with our audience?
Tara Goesch: 40:23 I do. So, I might sound like a crazy person by doing all these little things here and there and having kids and working. But I want to remind folks that if you have kids and they go to bed at eight o'clock, I go bed to bed at 10 o'clock I have two hours every night to get stuff done. And when someone tells me I'm crazy that I'm working too hard and I need to just take a break, I remind them that they just told me that they had binged on Netflix for the last two weeks and they are all caught up on Games of Throne while they could have been doing other things with that time. Or it's like I just saw you scrolling through Old Navy clothes for the last 45 minutes and he didn't even buy anything you could've been using that time to do. It'd be doing something amazing or learning something or reaching out to somebody who had spoken to in awhile. You could be doing such more enjoyable things with your life instead of just following the status quo, which is watching TV and shopping online and not, not living your best life. And that's my personal opinion on that. But I think we could all do so much better with reaching out and connecting with people and at the same time working harder on educating ourselves and the things that we don't understand or things we're uncomfortable with such as finances.
Naseema McElroy: 41:41 I could not have said it better myself. We'll put the kids to bed early, even if it's just an extra hour to yourself to get things done, girl, I know you don't, you don't watch Game of Thrones 'cause you took all the Games of Thrones. I love it. But this has been awesome. You are amazing, Tara and I thank you so much for sharing your story with me and the Nurses on Fire audience, and with that I'm going to close it out.
Hey there I’m Naseema
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