This Nurse Was Burnt Out - Ep. 35
Emma Geiser paid off $46,000 in student loan debt and along the journey became passionate about personal finance. She now helps fellow nurses with money management under the moniker Nurse FERN which stands for Financially Enlightened Nurse.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Naseema McElroy (00:00): All right, Nurses on Fire. I am honored to have Emma Geiser joining us to talk about her story of debt freedom. Hey Emma.
Emma Geiser (00:12): Hello.
Naseema McElroy (00:14): So Emma, let's start off by talking about how you got into nursing.
Emma Geiser (00:20): I think I was destined to be a nurse. My entire family is in the medical field and I honestly tried to avoid it as hard as I could. I really didn't want to get into it, but I knew I was good at science, so I ended up getting a psychology degree and while I was obtaining that degree, I got a job in a local ER, good way to make money. And so I was a unit clerk. I really liked it and something just clicked when I was doing that job that I realized, you know what? This is really where I'm supposed to be. It's not a cop out if I follow my family's footsteps and now I'm celebrating 10 years as a nurse.
Naseema McElroy (00:58): Wow. Isn't it funny that we think that it's a cop out because it's something that we know. Even though once you get into nursing you're like, how the heck did I think that this was a cop out? This is like the hardest thing ever.
Emma Geiser (01:12): I'm such a millennial. I was worried about being predictable, not unique.
Naseema McElroy (01:18): Were you more interested in like making less money to pursue creative passions?
Emma Geiser (01:23): I honestly had no other avenues since nobody in my family does anything other than medicine. I'm like, I don't know how to make money. I just, I'm going to have to become a nurse.
Naseema McElroy (01:32): Well, I'm so glad your sister recommended you become, you worked in the ER as a tech or what were you doing?
Emma Geiser (01:39): I was a unit clerk.
Naseema McElroy (01:40): Oh, unit clerk.
Emma Geiser (01:42): I still stand that's my best job I've ever had.
Naseema McElroy (01:45): You know what? I think that gives you really good insight without being clinical of how a nursing unit works, especially the ER. ERs are freaking crazy. One of our unit clerks just graduated and got her and passed her NCLEX. So she's an official nurse. And so I know she's gonna make a phenomenal nurse whenever she gets that first job. But yeah, I think that it gives you so much just understanding that you can't get if you've never worked in a medical profession. And even like before I became a nurse, I was in like healthcare administration and I don't think I would've gotten the same insight that a clerk would have gotten because I never did the day to day admitting and saying like transitioning people through their levels of care and things like that. So I think that that's great.
Emma Geiser (02:34): Oh, I was going to say there's so much value in being able to page your own phycsian.
Naseema McElroy (02:39): Yes. And especially at night, it's just like you need to know how to get in contact with people and I have to apologize to be like, listen, we need this. You've been working as a nurse for 10 years. At what point did you reach what you state is level of burnout?
Emma Geiser (03:00): It really started around year two as a nurse, I had gotten over that hump of being a new grad. Things weren't as exciting anymore because I no longer was just trying to survive and I was just trying to figure out where I fit in and I started to realize that it didn't have much to do with fitting in so much is that I just wasn't coping with everything going on. And it's still hard to explain what that all means, but it's just this overall flooding sense that you get. All of a sudden I have this moment that I remember being in the ER in the back hallway, standing up the ice machine and I stood there, looked to my left and I could see the ambulance bay doors and I was like, man, if I just walk out right now, would anybody remember? Like would they know, would they care? Like so that was when I realized that something probably needed to change, but like anything I struggled for a while longer before I finally did anything about it.
Naseema McElroy (04:02): When did it like click that it was more or less your finances that was kind of getting you to that place of burnout?
Emma Geiser (04:09): It didn't click until I was probably a few months into my student loan payoff journey. I had stumbled upon personal finance information through family members. My brother in law is an ER physician and he was working to pay off his student debt. And so through him, I learned about some things and I knew with my income I can do it. So it kind of became a new pet project for me to pay off my loans 'cause I looked at my cashflow and realized that I didn't have much leeway going on to do fun things and buy fun stuff even though I was really wasn't there and I want as choices and opportunities in the future. So I decided why the heck not, I'll throw my extra income at paying off my student loans. And a few months into that, all of a sudden I had a purpose and work became more enjoyable. I realized slowly that if I wasn't dependent on work because they were paying for my life, then it was more enjoyable for me to show up and care for people.
Naseema McElroy (05:10): I love that. I feel like that is so underrated and a lot of times we don't get it until we really get it. That the way that you show up at work when you are stressed about money is wholly different than when you have financial freedom and it's tangible how much you just feel like you're able to really focus on what you're there to do as opposed to having to make a living or having to meet a certain financial obligation. It's so freeing because you can fully be in who you are as a nurse without having to worry about all these other considerations that might come into play because you're going to work for financial reasons and so I love that you said that because that's why I do what I do so that we can fully be in who we are as nurses because that's why we got into the field. That's why we ultimately became nurses because we love serving our patients, but there's something to be said about the capacity to serve when you're worried about financial stress. I love that.
Emma Geiser (06:17): It was really nice to realize that if I needed to, because work was becoming too much, I could take a step back and I could work less and show up more, or I could take a break without it affecting my entire personal life.
Naseema McElroy (06:33): So how much debt were you able to pay off and how long did it take you?
Emma Geiser (06:38): So I had $46,000 in student loans and when I finally got serious about paying them off, it took me 16 months, which just serendipitously happened to be the same amount of time I was in school for nursing.
Naseema McElroy (06:54): I love it. But you know, when most people think about paying off student loans, they think about being in debt for the rest of their lives. So I think that is phenomenal. But it also speaks to the fact that once you really get intentional about whatever it is, financially, paying off debt, saving, investing, once you really get intentional on average, I find that most people hit their goals within like this two year period. I don't know what it is about being like close to two years on average. Like a little bit under, a little bit over most of the times, but once you really get intentional, no matter what, how much debt you have. Like for me, my student loan debt was $200,000 but it's all relative, right? Yeah, exactly. But it's all relative, right? So it took me about two and a half years to pay off my debt. And so it's all about intentionality. It's all about really focusing on that one thing and getting that momentum and then having that purpose, right? And so I really find that all it takes is just the willingness and then putting the action behind it. So congratulations on paying off your debt. Having paid that off, where are you now, financially?
Emma Geiser (08:04): I am in a really good place. I fully am still growing and learning and finding new things and it's really become a passion. But the step of tackling my student loans really just morphed then into what's next. Like what can I do to make sure that I am set up and the, my husband's set up if anything happens to me, things like that. And I really worry about little grandma me now, I didn't use to care and now I'm like, okay, how's that retirement going? Do I have life insurance? What are my best areas to invest and how can I simplify it? So it's just happening for me.
Naseema McElroy (08:43): I love that you get to focus on your future self instead of just living to pay off debt, like living to pay off your past mistakes. And then I want to take a step back because I need to ask you, what steps did you employ to pay off your debt?
Emma Geiser (08:55): So I actually love talking to nurses about paying off debt, mostly because we have such an amazing capacity to up our income if we want to. And doing it, knowing that it's a temporary thing is also very motivating to bring in extra income as a nurse. So once I start getting some like really got a budget together, found all the extra money I could, I was motivated enough that I wanted to get a second job. So I started working as a CCT nurse and through that I was working a lot of hours waking up really early at like 3:30 in the morning, but it didn't feel like a struggle because I had a purpose and I always knew at the end of that goal I was going to step back to doing normal things like I was not a huge fan of the hustle and this was all to improve my lifestyle and if I could temporarily up what I was doing to make things happen faster, I was totally willing to make that happen.
Naseema McElroy (09:53): I love it and I love like the flexibility within nursing that we have that we can scale up and scale down typically in most positions to meet financial goals if we're really intentional about it. A lot of times people just do it to buy a purse.
Emma Geiser (10:10): I did not want my lifestyle to inflate to the amount I was working. I knew it was not sustainable, but it could happen for a short term period to make my life way better.
Naseema McElroy (10:20): Right? And I love that you mentioned that because it is lifestyle inflation, but lifestyle inflation isn't like something that we do typically intentionally, right? It's just that the more that you make it's like, Oh yeah, it's, Oh well I could afford a nicer car. Oh yeah, well I could afford a nicer home, but these are the things that are expected. So it doesn't seem like it's something that you're not supposed to be doing. It just seems totally normal. So thanks for mentioning that lifestyle inflation.
Emma Geiser (10:48): I have to share that I have always driven BMWs and the entire time I was paying off my debt, my air conditioning was out in my car and I refused to fix it. So I drove to work with my windows down every day and it was hot. That's probably the most struggle I endured to pay off my loans. Like that's as hard as it got. I have no difficulty admitting that.
Naseema McElroy (11:21): So in order to pay off your debt, you basically increased your income. Did you use anything else to help you?
Emma Geiser (11:29): No, I had a little bit in savings so I pulled that down by a few thousand dollars to get things moving, initially. Aside from my student loan debt, I had a small amount of credit card debt. It was probably a couple grand and then I also had a $10,000 loan to my dad 'cause he helped me with a down payment on a house. And so I also paid all that off in that time period. But the student loans, are really what I'm proud of.
Naseema McElroy (11:55): Wow. You were able to accomplish a lot in a short time period. So any kind of budgeting techniques you use to help you prioritize your money where it was going?
Emma Geiser (12:06): I was fully a pen and paper person. Wow. I got married and then two people are involved. So I was all about the notebook. I still have it. I'm not a saver in memento sense, but I still have that book and I created a zero-based budget so that I really knew I was maximizing what I could do because if I wasn't maximizing my efforts, it wasn't worth all the extra work I was doing.
Naseema McElroy (12:33): And can you briefly explain for the two people out there that haven't heard me say it a million times, what a zero based budget is?
Emma Geiser (12:40): Of course. So zero-based budget is when you give every single dollar that you make a job. So I would line up exactly how much money I was bringing in and I then write down exactly where it was going. Nobody got to run away and just do its own thing.
Naseema McElroy (12:57): I love it. And you do that in advance, so zero-based budgeting and increasing your income, making sure that every one of those dollars has an assignment is assigned is how you knocked out that debt in 16 months.
Emma Geiser (13:11): Yep, and I still went on vacation. I just planned it in my zero-based budget.
Naseema McElroy (13:16): Thank you for bringing that up again too, is that a lot of people think that budgets represent deprivation, but it's just a spinning plan. It just tells your money where to go. A big thing for me when I was paying off my debt is making sure that I still spent quality time with my daughter and because my daughter is spoiled, that quality time was that Disneyland, every other month. And so I just budgeted that in and so you still get to live. But it also was really freeing because the way that people typically live is that they don't plan things and they spend their money on little things like here and there at Target or fast food going out and then they don't have the money at the end of the month or when they really need it for the things that they really want to do. And so, now you're letting money dictate how you are living your life instead of the other way around. And once you can reverse that relationship, you have true freedom over your life. So, I love it.
Emma Geiser (14:20): That's so important. My husband and I every year have a meeting where we list our top values for the year for what we want to be doing and spending money on it. And we make sure that those get hit first. And if there's something that sneaks in, it's not as important. We kind of check each other, say, Hey, we weren't planning on really doing that because we want to do this instead. And it's really fun when you get to do the things then that you want it to be doing. Like Disneyland.
Naseema McElroy (14:46): Yeah, like Disneyland. But a lot of people ask like how can they get their partner on board? Especially if you come from different financial backgrounds. You don't think the same financially. What do you think the key is for that?
Emma Geiser (14:59): So I got lucky. I got to mind early when I was in college. He knew there was no other option when he saw me starting my debt payoff and he got interested like we were in a partnership, he loved me. He was interested in what I was doing, what mattered to me. And I think that's really important. He knew this mattered so much to me that even though he didn't totally understand it yet, he was willing to give it a try. And now that we've been doing this for so long together, he's really on board with it too.
Naseema McElroy (15:30): So you're debt is all paid off, you're in a good position, now you're planning for your future self. What are you doing now in your nursing career?
Emma Geiser (15:39): I have transitioned away from the bedside and that was truly something that I was able to do because of getting my money together. If many people who are listening are bedside nurses and don't know this, when you transition away from the bedside, it typically comes with a pay cut. One of my biggest pet peeves, but it's just something that happens and I was at a point that I really wanted to try something new and I saw an opportunity pop up, paid less. I was able to transition and it didn't affect my lifestyle at all because I wasn't tied to all of these debt payments. So I now am working remotely in a separate state from the hospital I work in and it's amazing. I've learned after the fact that I'm actually doing geographic arbitrage. I didn't know this term before I moved. We moved because of my husband's work, but I actually live in a state now that has no income tax and I still work for a state that has high cost of living, so I'm able to earn that income but live in a lower cost of living area and it's been a fun ride. I would definitely recommend it didn't plan at all, but it's totally worked out for me.
Naseema McElroy (16:50): Have your hours that you have to work per week reduced?
Emma Geiser (16:54): No, I still work 40 hours a week.
Naseema McElroy (16:56): But you're able to take that pay cut because your expenses have dropped substantially because of where you live now.
Emma Geiser (17:02): I took the pay cut while I was still living in California and we just made it work because even though I was bringing in a little less money, it didn't actually affect anything we were doing. It really just affected our savings rate at that point. Everything else was covered and then when we moved it was just an extra bonus that I no longer had a commute. So I have basically no gas or car expenses anymore. Just like housing, so much less expensive. So it was like getting a pay raise and didn't even plan on it.
Naseema McElroy (17:32): Also, you weren't tied down to working to staying in a place because of your job. Like you can move wherever you want to. You could live internationally if you wanted to.
Emma Geiser (17:43): Ah, the next horizon. The dream only in the FIRE community does everybody like an exPat living.
Naseema McElroy (17:52): Exactly. So what are some money mistakes that you've made?
Emma Geiser (17:59): Oh man, I've made a few. So in college, this is probably my first big money mistake. I got a store credit card and I didn't understand anything about interest rates, minimum payment, statements, nothing. I was totally oblivious. I just knew that I got gift certificates if I spent a certain amount of money. So, I dragged this $2,000 in credit card debt along for a while, just because it didn't make sense to me. I didn't know that if I just got rid of it, I'd be good. And it did stress me out, but I really was lost. I had no clue that that was actually what the problem was. So that was my first big mistake and I'm very vocal about making sure you pay your credit cards off every month now. So my second one that worked out in my favor, but it could have gone horribly wrong because I did not understand it, was that my private student loan had a variable interest rate and that worked out like me who took out loans around 2010 with the way interest rates have gone. But it also could've gone opposite if the fed had raised interest rates. So I got lucky cause I was able to pay it off and have a very low rate that I recognize now that I definitely played with the lottery since I didn't understand what it was at the time. My third big mistake, is putting money in my Roth IRA and forgetting to invest it.
Naseema McElroy (19:19): So let me, let me share why that's a big mistake because people are like, what'd you put money into your Roth IRA? But a Roth IRA is just a house for that money. It has to be put into a room, it has to be invested so it has to go somewhere. So there's different rooms, right? So typically when you drop money into an account like that, it goes into basically like a money market account. It's like a savings account, but like a little bit higher interest rate. But in order for you to invest it, which is the goal for it being in an investment account, it has to be actually put into investments.
Emma Geiser (20:00): Got halfway there, but not quite.
Emma Geiser (20:06): So for anybody that didn't get that kind of went over your head, don't feel bad if you don't know much about investing. It's a common mistake. But now you know, so make sure that your money is actually invested.
Emma Geiser (20:21): Luckily, I already had an investment plan. I just transferred it and then I got busy and told I didn't have it on automatic. So I'd go back in and it took me a little bit shocked when I logged in and went, Oh no, I have so much in cash. What happened?
Naseema McElroy (20:36): And I can't say that that hasn't happened to me. So don't feel bad. So you sharing your story about debt payoff, budgeting and all those kinds of things. Talk to us about where you share that, who you share that with?
Emma Geiser (20:52): So I have an Instagram account and I also have a website. I like to operate under the name Nurse Fern Online. It's a little bit cheeky, but being, having been a former ER nurse, I always associated it with the acronym that shall not be named, but one day I just thought Financially Enlightened Nurse, I'm very sarcastic. If you know me, you would laugh if I said that to you. Just kind of this thing and go online. I had been operating under my name and I was working as a financial coach and things just weren't clicking in that arena and when I started really focusing on nurses and just embraced this new fun thing that I was enjoying, that's when everything started to work.
Naseema McElroy (21:46): I love that. Financially Enlightened Nurse, just like Financially Intentional. The Fern, that's so dope. I'm not that creative.
Emma Geiser (21:56): Every once in awhile. It took years for that to actually happen.
Naseema McElroy (22:04): What question do you hear nurses asking over and over again when it comes to their finances?
Emma Geiser (22:11): There's two. People want to know how to start investing and they want to know the quickest way to make the most money.
Naseema McElroy (22:21): I also hear the less risky way, too.
Emma Geiser (22:25): Less risky, quickest, and then student loans usually filter in eventually in the questions, but it usually starts with the investing and making money.
Naseema McElroy (22:34): Well, I'm glad that at least people are more interested in investing. A lot of times it's not really on our horizon until a little bit later, a little bit too late for some people, so I'm glad you're seeing them where people are interested in talking about that.
Emma Geiser (22:51): I just think it's so cool because then if you ask if they have the company 403b or 401k and if they're getting the employer match, usually people say yes and then it's just really fun to tell them that they actually are already investing and then they get really excited and smile.
Naseema McElroy (23:10): I love that. You start off by giving them a win.
Naseema McElroy (23:14): Yeah, it's a fun one.
Emma Geiser (23:17): Yes. All right, so for a new nurse starting off in their first job, what's the best thing that they can do, financially?
Emma Geiser (23:28): I really think it is to immediately sign up for your benefits because it is usually an afterthought when you go to the health care orientation, your hospital one, it's kind of just thrown in there like, Oh Hey, by the way, make sure you log onto your benefits portal and you're like, what the heck is that? And sign up for this. And you're like, I've never signed up for a retirement account before. What does that even mean? You usually end up calling dad. Maybe you get questionable advice there. Maybe you get good advice and it can just be so confusing that people just don't do it or they don't seek out sources because there's so much else going on with you trying to figure out your new job. And the other piece of advice I actually got from my manager when I transitioned into my new grad program and she was just really funny because she's at, I'm really excited for you. You got a job, yay. Don't do something stupid and buy a new car. And year after year I watch new grads rolling in with their brand new luxury leased vehicle and I'm like, Oh man, you really needed her in your life.
Naseema McElroy (24:36): Yep. That's like one of the biggest things that I do see nurses doing commonly, especially after, I mean they're making more money than they've ever seen. And so that lifestyle inflation!
Emma Geiser (24:46): I'm actually at the point now where I'm looking at reducing to one vehicle for our family, which is unheard of. I'd never be able to do it if I was still in California, but it is one of those things where I'm like, man, I'm really at that point. Or I'm looking at what is costing money that does matter. And our vehicles are one of the things, like we just don't use them. So do we need to, probably not.
Naseema McElroy (25:12): All right. So let everybody know where they can reach out to you on Instagram and on your webpage.
Emma Geiser (25:19): So you can find me on Instagram @nurse.fern. And then my website is www.nursefern.com.
Naseema McElroy (25:27): Awesome. And what kind of stuff do you share on your website?
Emma Geiser (25:31): I like to talk about all things nursing outside of work life, everything that just affects us and it's definitely geared towards the nursing world. It's a newer site, so I do have a little thing up there. If anybody is a freelance nurse writer or wants to guest post because I don't want it to be a one woman show. I want everybody to be financially enlightened, so that means anybody can be Nurse Fern. It's not just me. You're welcome to borrow my alter ego.
Naseema McElroy (25:59): I love it. So you guys out there, if you have some great nursing content you want to share, reach out to Emma and get your stuff be featured on her website. Anything else you wanna share before we close out?
Emma Geiser (26:12): Just a little bit of encouragement and I'm not really the person that usually throws that out there, but I really think that any nurses can do this. There's no reason why you can't be, have your finances together as a nurse and be enjoying your work and your life outside of work. It's scary to get started, but there's plenty of us out there that can help you start making those first steps to get to this place.
Naseema McElroy (26:40): I love it. Just change your circle of influence just a little bit, and I feel like it's so much easier to do right now with social media, Facebook groups and all that kind of stuff. So just make sure that Nurse Fern is part of your world. Thank you so much for joining us on the nurses on fire podcast. I know that a lot of the people in the community will be inspired by your story because it's totally relatable and I love what you're doing and I am cheering for you and your continued financial success.
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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