[PODCAST 268]: Fun Financial Wins (with My Sister Laura!)

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A fun interview with my sister Laura that will help you to strengthen yourself financially. And I know this is a different type of topic for us here at LearnDoBecome. We talk about helping people stop drowning in piles—creating systems to get out of the overwhelm.

We teach people to build a Command Central in our STEP program to organize all the “stuff,” and that is a great place to start. However, we also have our ARISE membership where we then talk about how to architect a life of excellence once you DO have your system in place, and ARISE covers 6 categories: Organization, Relationships, Health, Higher Power, Purpose, and Finances.

We rotate through these topics, and back in August, Eric led a class about preparing for an extraordinary retirement. Laura listened to the class replay and seriously jumped right in and started applying what we covered, and it was so awesome to hear her success that I asked her to join us on the podcast to share her story!

We’ll go ahead and jump in, and then I’ll share more at the end on how you can move forward with us, as well, if you’re feeling excited.

Laura: I’ve learned so many things in ARISE. I loved your financial planning month that you had us focus on because I that’s something I’ve always wanted to get more organized in my life but I kept putting it off because I just thought it would take too long and be too complicated. One of the things that you recommended was this was the book Start Late Finish
Rich by David Bach, and I started reading that and it got me really excited.

First of all, I should probably say I was sort of drowning in piles like you had helped me so much It’s hard to focus on on things when you’re full of piles So I’m so thankful for the program that helped me get my piles organized, my life organized so that I could tackle some financial challenges that I was having. So I’m really grateful for that.

Here are a few examples of things I started doing after reading that book and going through the ARISE resources:

During COVID, I needed to sign up to have a Zoom account and my own private Zoom account and it cost $15.99 a month. A couple years later, I tried to cancel my Zoom account and there was no easy way to cancel it. And I got really frustrated every time I went to cancel the Zoom account, I couldn’t figure it out. And so I just put it on hold for a long time.

I ended up talking with your daughter, Grace, and she helped me figure out how to log in, reset my password, and quickly cancel it. That’s $15.99 I’m saving every month now!

So I got a little momentum after cancelling my Zoom account, I got a little excitement. And then I started actually listening to “Start Late, Finish Rich” by David Bach on my drives to work. And the one thing he was talking about is this latte factor where people spend $5 to $10 a day on lattes.

It was really interesting that he said that specific dollar amount, $10 dollars a day, because I work for the city of Long Beach and there’s a McDonald’s right across the street. When I drive to work, I’m usually in a hurry and I haven’t eaten before.

I was thinking, yeah, I could save $10 a day. I don’t need to order food every morning, and April, you had just told me that you were starting to make oatmeal every night. I thought, I can make oatmeal every night. So I started with that and I don’t really need to drink and the other stuff. So I did that and I’ve been saving $10 a day.

Eric: It’s true because you might think that’s just a small thing, but, you know, when you think about this quote I heard “little leaks, sink a ship,” little leaks of little spending here and there, it can really add up.

To clarify, I think David means you don’t have to give up everything every day. I mean, you might still have a latte once or twice a month, but there’s a lot of ways you could cut back simply and save $50-$70 a month. Looking at your subscriptions and stuff can sometimes open up $300 a month. But if we’re careful and kind of evaluating our spending, we can find this kind of money and then he talks about what to do with that.

It isn’t hard to just do a simple review and audit and a basic adjustment, not depriving ourselves of everything we love, but just a few adjustments, right?

Laura: In the book, he also says to just look at your bills and see if you can knock off expenses and just be aware of your expenses. I realized one of my most expensive bills was our TV, internet and phone that was a bundle package. And we got it a long time ago and it was $350. And that was a long time ago when things were a little more expensive, I’ve continued to pay this amount and I knew it was too much.

So I finally got around to calling and what David Bach said to do in the book, it’s like call your competitor first and see what they can offer and then go back and tell them. So that’s exactly what I did. The competitor said, “We’ll do it for a hundred.”

I called my provider back and told them this, and they said, “We’ll take off 150 right now.” They didn’t want me to leave and they wanted my business. I decided to stay with this current provider so we wouldn’t have to get new routers or change any of our existing setup.

They were also able to give me some additional information on how to save even more money by switching to smart TVs that don’t require separate cable boxes–boxes that I’m paying about $10 a month for right now.

Another exciting thing I had happen was David Bach wrote, “Hey, whatever bill you’re paying, just call and say, ‘Is there any way I can reduce my bill? Is there anything you might be able to do?'” You know, whatever it is, just call and ask, and so I happened to be paying my car insurance, and I didn’t know if I could reduce my car insurance.

My insurance was reduced by $100 because I drive less than I did when we first got our quotes, and the insurance person was also able to tell me a little bit more about our coverage and benefits with the insurance.

My husband had been in an accident where he was hit by a drunk driver, and the driver didn’t have insurance or any way to cover the damages. I found out that the whole accident was covered by my insurance, and we had no idea earlier!

And now my husband, Jim, is getting the back of his car repaired. And it’s like $3 ,000 of damage that the insurance company is paying for that I didn’t know about. I wouldn’t have known had I not made that phone call. So anyway, we’re really excited about that. And I kind of started making a game out of it now because it was fun. Like, what else could we do?

I also decided to look into my health insurance coverage, and I learned that we have more dental coverage than I thought we had. Now I am getting the work done before the end of the year so it will all be covered!

And I found out that we have pet insurance through my work as well!

The thing that really helped me too, it’s like you and Eric have talked about this word before–about momentum. And you know, if you just gain a little momentum, like Grace gave me that little momentum when we cancelled the Zoom account together. It gave me the confidence to make the next call, which turned out to be so easy, and then I just made the next call. And it spanned over a period of a couple months, but just gaining a little momentum really got me excited and positive energy going in the right direction. So I just want to say to your people and just get a little momentum going and it’ll happen!

April: Thanks for being here with us! I hope that you got some empowering ideas as you listened to Laura, and we’d love to hear your additional wins in the comments on this page. And if you’re interested in joining us here at LearnDoBecome in our ARISE membership, please visit LearnDoBecome.com/ARISE. We also have our STEP program to help you get organized and stop drowning in piles, and you can find out more about that at LearnDoBecome.com/STEP. We are so grateful to have you here with us!