#63: The Inside Scoop - Remote Month With Julia
Episode Summary
This week, we touch base with Julia, the Head of Brand at Factora, to see how she's spending her remote month. Julia also provides an update on her own #WealthyWoman status, and touches base with Fernanda, a Factora alum who is hosting Julia during Remote Month.
Episode Notes
Listen to Fernanda's previous interview on Coffee & Coin.
Apply to the Fall 2020 Wealth Circle.
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Transcript
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Hi, this is Julia the head of brand at factoria. In this podcast episode, I'm gonna be giving you the juicy juicy rundown of my remote month my personal financial goals. And I also bring my best friend Fernanda on to talk about her wealthy woman life. And we get into the details of how she's budgeting for her wedding, her financial strategy, how we've inspired and empowered each other. And she actually joined the wall circle. So she shares a little bit about her wealth circle experience from last year. I love this episode. It was so fun to record. I really hope you got something good out of it, too. I will literally mention this in a couple minutes. But I think podcasts should be more of a conversation. So let me know hit me up on Instagram. And let me know what you think. Let me know what you guys want to hear on the podcast. Let's get into it.
This is a letter of the wet Brantley and you're listening to the coffee and coin podcast where women talk well, I'm the founder of factoria, a company on a mission to lead 1 million women to 1 million in net worth. On this podcast, I sit down with factorial alum to share their financial stories, real numbers and how they've transformed their financial lives to prove that it's possible for anyone listening.
So it is remote month and I am reporting live from Portland, Maine. I am here visiting my best friend Fernanda called her fair for short. And she lives in Portland with her fiance Dan and this gorgeous home that they built from scratch. And it's such a treat for me to be here. Because as much as I love my home in Austin, it's a great investment. We bought it in October for 345k. We put about 30k into it so far by getting new floors, redoing the kitchen and the bathroom and converting the garage into an Airbnb, which now covers our mortgage and on good months cash flows. It now is valued at about 450k. So I love my home. It's a great investment. But you know, it's an investment home. It's not perfect. It's not my dream home. So being here in a brand new 2500 square foot lovely home with new windows and new hardwood floors and twinkle lights and a patio is such a treat for me. So in just a little bit, I'm actually going to bring fare on so we can have a friend money chat, because she joined a wealth circle last year. And Allegra already interviewed her on the podcast and it's a fascinating episode, we will link it in the show notes. It is all about how she creatively structured her finances, with her fiance and his two kids from a previous marriage. So for any step moms out there, highly recommend. So before I bring her on, let's talk about remote month, I'll sort of talk to you about how I structured our travel to be wealthy woman style. And then we can talk about why travel is important to me building my future wealthy woman self and then we'll do a quick check in on my personal financial goals. And the weird thing about podcasting is it's a complete monologue, and I always prefer dialogues. So I would love it. If you reached out to me via Instagram. I'm at Toro Jules to ROJU le s, or you can reach out on at factoria underscore wealth on Instagram. I want to hear from you. I want to know what you guys want to hear about on the podcast. I want to know what your personal financial goals are. It's very It feels weird to just be talking just straight up for a long time. I haven't done a monologue since I took like an improv class in like 10th grade. And that was really awkward. So hoping this goes better. So in terms of how we structured our wealthy woman travel, basically we paid for the flight with points I'm here with my partner Jeremy, my big guy, Jeremy, if you've listened to previous podcasts, and that was free 99 We are staying with my friend fair, which is also free 99 our Airbnb unit is still running. We are paying a friend to come flip at once while we're gone, and we dropped our sweet dog Rosie off with a couple of friends. I'm thinking while we're here, our expenses are going to be probably similar to what they are at home. So I figure we're probably breaking even minus all of this incredible lobster. I'm about to eat as we were like getting off the plane. All of the T shirt shops had lobster puns on them. Tons of just lobster pun mirch I don't know we'll see how I feel when I'm leaving. But on a quick side note, if you guys have ever seen the movie Grand Budapest Hotel, you know there's a lobby boy in the movie, the guy who wears purple. My friends that live in Maine, they call themselves lobby boys when they eat a lot of lobster. So I'm about to turn into a lobby boy myself before I leave. Maybe that's a T shirt that I should make for myself. So why is remote month so important to me? Well, the first reason is stress. Say Hey, oh, if you feel me, I get stressed. You know we all get stressed. I also have a pretty sensitive stomach. And stress affects it a lot. And to be honest, I'm not great at managing stress. Currently I do yoga, and I stay away from caffeine and I meditate and I do essential oils, etc. But I still get anxious. And if any of you guys have tips about stress management hit me up. I'm not kidding, please slide into my DMS, I'm also looking into CBD. But anyways, wild travel can be stressful, you know, just like getting the house ready getting prepared, I always actually feel like it helps me relax. I don't know if anybody else feels this way. But you kind of get to be somebody else. When you're in a different place. Like you kind of get to try on a semi new persona. And I already feel less stressed and less bloated since being here, which is a dream, which is a true dream for me. Because bloat is like, one of the ways my body reacts to stress. So I don't know if any of you guys have seen those tiktoks or those Instagrams that are like, all bad bitches have stomach problems. So if you're out there, and you have some problems, just know, it means you're a bad bitch, just like me. So I think this is partly also due to the fact that our physical patterns are so closely tied to our mental patterns, I wake up, I go to my study in my house, and I'm basically all there all day, unless it's time to eat, and our brains tire thoughts to visual experiences. So it makes sense that if I'm in the same bed, and I wake up in the same place every day, I'm going to feel the same way every day. So mixing up my environment kind of helps me shake off those mental patterns, and helps me bring some new fresh perspective back home with me. Another reason why travel is so important to my wealth building is that I get a chance to look for more wealthy woman inspiration. I am such a big believer that that you have to believe it to see it. And that's kind of why factor is so awesome too is women share their money wins in slack. And we talk to each other about our successes, and you kind of start to realize, Oh, she can do it, then like I can totally do that to spending time consciously gathering wealthy women inspiration is really important because I see my friend fair in this gorgeous new house. And I'm like, if she can do it, that I can do it too. And I love just seeing how my other my friends live, how they've structured their lives and finances and what they choose to spend money or save money on. And so we are going to get a full download from fair about her wealthy woman life in just a little bit. In terms of my financial goals. If you listen to previous podcasts, you know that the strategy that my partner and I have been doing is to live off of my salary from Victoria and then use my partner Jeremy's commission for investments. And we're still doing that, but full transparency, because that's what this community is all about. We haven't had a money date in a long time. And money date, we used to have once a week where we sit down and review expenses together, we go through we were using you need a budget as a budgeting tool. And I haven't checked my app or been logging my expenses in a month. It's just been a little hectic in our personal lives. And that's okay, because I know that we'll get back into the swing of things. And I'm intentionally choosing to not be mean about that to myself, because I'll never get back into the budget swing of things if I just choose to beat myself up about it. Yeah, full transparency, we've kind of fallen off the budget train. I mean, we haven't been spending like crazy, but we haven't been as as deep in our finances as we normally are. But our goal is like when we get back from Portland to reinstate our money dates. And my partner and I are actively looking for an investment property outside of Austin. Again, if you've listened to previous podcasts, you know that I've been talking a big game about Richmond, Virginia, which is where my family is. And I think I still think you could make a great investment, but with our current time and resources, and the way that the market is so crazy, right now, we need to be able to make a move quicker. And in order for us to purchase something in Richmond. My partner, Jeremy has to get his realtor license there. So we can donate his commission to the downpayment, and we just don't have the time to frequently fly to Virginia. Unfortunately, because my parents are there, I'd love to be able to go there more. But it doesn't make sense for us to be looking remotely right now. So Texas it is. And I think this also makes sense for us because we are partnering with a friend who has a job in a small city outside of Austin. And so it makes sense for him to buy a home there. So he sort of has a home base that's like close to his place of work. So we're looking for a three bed, two bath in that small town, where we can build it into an Airbnb, we are partnering with this friend. And what he brings to the table is cash and a W two, neither of which Jeremy and I have currently, we have a little cash. But mostly we are bringing our real estate expertise and our Airbnb experience to this partnership. And one of the lessons that we teach in the wealth circle is that everybody has at least one time talent or money. If you don't have all three, find someone who complements what you don't have. And that's how the most successful partnerships are formed. We are bringing the time and the talent and our friend is bringing the money baby. We are splitting the property 5050 and we'll draw up a side operating agreement that outlines what will happen in the event someone wants to sell and other legal lilies as they say, but as of right now we're both aligned by This will be sort of a long term buy and hold situation. Another recent financial change for us is usually when my partner gets his commission, we split it into a chunk. So we'll split it into different percentages. So Jeremy gets 20% to invest how he chooses, I get 20% to invest how I choose. And then we allocate 40% to our golden Opportunity Fund, which is what we titled our like, next investment property. And then we put 20% into trips into our trips fund, but we are increasing the percentage of cash. So we're increasing, but we are increasing the percentage of money that we're putting into that golden opportunity fund, because we are getting ready for the next investment. And it's always really hard for me, it's against my nature to not be investing a good chunk of money every month. But I stay focused on watching the cash grow in our savings account, which is just as fun. And like I said, we purposely named it, that account, we named it golden opportunity. So it's very extra satisfying to see that grow. We have been touring a few properties, but nothing has really jumped out at us yet, which is totally fine because we're in no rush, but send us some good energy that we find something really great. I will definitely keep you posted. And the other thing that my partner and I are working on is optimizing our Airbnb. So like I said, it covers our mortgage every month, but it would be awesome if it cash flowed. So we're making a few minor upgrades. In terms of homeownership, you know, my first real estate property purchase was brand new. And she's so pretty new. And there's like tons of Windows. It's kind of like Pharaoh's house on a smaller scale. But the second house, this was more about the location. And so we It was built in 2010. But the windows are super old. And we just found out that there's no insulation in the attic. So we have to install insulation and get new windows and install a mini split into our Airbnb unit. In order to make it not be so hot. It has been reaching over 90 degrees in Austin. And the past week, we actually had to refund to guests because it got up to 80 degrees in the house and there was nothing we could do about it. So you know, my dad, my dad is a very cynical man. And he was like, Ah, you're finally experiencing the joys of homeownership. But it doesn't bother me because we have money saved, we have an emergency fund saved for things like that. So it was no big deal. And we're getting insulation installed, we're gonna get new windows, which is going to be amazing, and is only going to increase the value of the house. So that's kind of why I'm really excited to travel to get wealthy women inspiration and to break out of my mental habits and have a chance to de stress and D bloat. And in terms of my financial goals, we are increasing our cash we are hoarding cash stacking paper, as they say. And we are also looking for an investment property outside of Austin and stacking cash. And we are making a few tweaks and optimizations to our current Airbnb aka making it so it's not 80 degrees, huge optimization, so that we can continue to increase that cash flow margin for Airbnb. And so that's kind of what's going on in my personal financial life. Now I would be thrilled to bring on the one and only Fernanda Alvarez
fair. Welcome back to coffee and coin.
It's so good to be back. Thanks for having me.
I am currently in fairs. Step son's room and she is in her bedroom. Right. Um, so I wanted to bring you back on the podcast because I want Well, obviously, we're here together. So why would we not record a podcast together? But we've been friends since 2016.
And how did we meet? We met through our mutual friend Jeremy, who saw that I was feeling really nervous about my move to San Francisco and said, You have to meet my friend Julia. She's a gem. And this was like maybe my fourth friend ate that blind friend date that somebody had sent me up on and it was my only successful one.
So there you go. Blind friend leads are so hit or miss.
They really can be just like real blind dates or any kinds of dates. You know, not all humans are meant to get along, I guess be best friends says
so Drew. I think that when we sat down at dinner I was I immediately felt like I could talk to you about anything.
Oh, yeah. It was like we connected on an energetic level. Yes. I feel
like on such an energetic level. So we were friends for a long time. And then I moved to Austin, and then you moved to New York. No, you moved to New York first. I did. Yeah. And then I moved to Austin. And then while you were in New York, you decided to join the wealth circle.
That's right.
So what made you decide to join the wealth circle?
It was you actually, I remember talking to you about your experience right after you finished the wealth circle. And after you started getting involved with factoria. And I felt like there was just such a shift in you in terms of your passions and your finances, and you, you know, started looking for a house to buy. And just like within I feel like a week you were a homeowner, which was so shocking to me at the time, because I, I couldn't even imagine anybody in my immediate friend circle, owning a house, and all of a sudden, you were a homeowner. And I also saw you kind of grow and find this community in Austin, which I felt like you, you know, in a way that you really hadn't in the past, which was like, really cool to see that. And just the way that you were talking about wealth building and your goals, it was just a completely new thing for you. And it's definitely not a conversation that you and I had had in the past or that I was really having with other friends, or other women. So that really inspired me to take it.
Yeah, it's funny, I feel like I because you mentioned that I sort of said casually, offhand, it was life changing, you should do it. I wanted you to do it so badly. But I didn't want to like push you because like, I didn't want to like pressure you. But I was trying to I was very purposely trying to keep it like very casual. And I'm so glad you joined. I feel like for being able to talk to you about like anything I feel like money was one of the things we just didn't really talk about, right. And now I feel like we do. And I love that for our friendship, because I feel like it's made it even like deeper. Because now like I would say we really do talk about literally everything.
Exactly. Yeah, no topic is off the table, which is awesome.
So what was the biggest thing that surprised you like, once you joined the wild circle, what was like the biggest thing that you weren't expecting?
I feel like in order for it to be successful, and for it to be a good experience. And for you to get out of it. What you need to you have to be like really vulnerable with other people. Yeah, you certainly have to be honest with yourself about kind of your habits and your, you know, mindset and your goals. But you also have to be willing to share that. And I think that was a really surprising piece of the web circle, like both how obon other people were and how vulnerable they were, but also kind of how willing I was, to all of a sudden kind of lay it all out there on a topic that I have felt in the past is extremely personal and private.
Yeah. How did you feel like sharing your net worth was not scary at all.
I kept remembering like, this is so silly. But like at the beginning, I was just like, Oh, I hope I'm just not like bottom of the pack. Like, you know, it just it feels like such a competitive personal secret thing that you just like you hope like you like land somewhere in the middle. And I think after that first session after we were like all done sharing our network, you know what our salaries are like all these things. I was just like, that's a silly way to think about it. You're on your own journey. And like sharing helps inspire you and like, you know, push you and things like that. But it's really not about competing. It's really about I don't know, even like taking tally, I didn't know what my net worth was. I was just hoping that wasn't at the bottom of the list.
What was your net worth when you started? Do you remember?
Yeah, I think it was close, like $120,000.
Okay, and what is it now?
It's $380,000.
I think it's so funny to talk to women about their networks, because it's crazy. We all decide to feel shame about it, whether it's because it's too low or too high, right? I've talked to women that are like, I was nervous to say my net worth because it was negative. And other women that were like I was nervous to say my net worth because it's like very high. Either way, who cares? your net worth is not we always say your net worth is a measure of your self worth. And it's also really interesting to see how how much it varies and how little salary has to play in that you see women making six figures and their net worth is very small, or women who are on a smaller salary whose net worth is really big. And I think it's a kind of it's an empowering conversation because you realize that, you know, I think people think that their salary is really the only way to build wealth. At least I think that first before they join the wealth circle. But once everyone shares the numbers, it's just kind of like you just take all the tension out of the room. And then you're kind of like all on the same playing field.
Yeah, I think that was maybe the hardest session to get through. And then once that happened, it was like, okay, it's all out there. Let's just do the work. I guess.
I also love how quickly you knew your net worth like that. You said you didn't know. Oh,
yeah, no, I like keep track of it pretty religiously now.
Do you use Do you still use the wealth circle spreadsheet that we give you?
Yeah, I use that spreadsheet and then I have kind of a more automated version of that with personal capital. So I keep both kind of like my manual spreadsheet and then something that's like kind of pulling and I compare the two Because there's there are some discrepancies at times. And that's
where you look for like little mistakes.
Yeah, like kind of where I'm missing. And, you know, sometimes it's like the software that's wrong, actually. So there you go,
Oh, I love that. So we are heading into the next season, like we're going to open the wild circle in September. And referrals are like really big for us. You know, we want to grow our network in the way that a network actually grows, which is like you have a node and then that node like brings in its other nodes and like it grows that way. Do you have any friends that have joined the wealth circle?
Yeah, I mean, a lot of people I know have joined the weld circle, one of my close friends. Chandler joined the weld circles. Yes.
Do you feel like it has changed your relationship at all, like your friendship?
So one thing that was really cool was we basically got our group of girlfriends. Chandler is one of my really good friends from college. And we have this group of girls that we were closing college, we're still in a group chat, whatever we call it, the girls room. We like organized everybody in the girls room to talk about money, which was awesome. We basically did like a little bit of that first session where we all said, what we made and what our net worth was. And like we kind of talked about it. And it was again, before this, I would have never thought to do it. And like after it everybody's been sharing like stocks that they're buying or like things that they're changing. And we're like talking about money in that group chat, which used to be like not about that. What was it about? Yeah, the girls room is a closed, private, but it's part it's part of like what we talked about now, man is so cool. I
love that so much. Okay, so how do you think being in the wall circle has changed our relationship?
I think a little bit of what you said about like, now there's nothing that we can't talk about, you know, I feel like we've it's brought us closer. There's like no taboo, taboo subjects in our relationship, which is really great. I mean, personally, I feel like you've really inspired me to like dream big and build wealth and not just spend money. Yeah. You've like you've made some risky choices, and really brave choices that I totally admire. And so I think having that language, in our friendship, to talk about those things, and it's kind of inspire each other on those, like additional layers, I think has just brought us closer.
I totally agree. And I just have to say like, I feel the same way about you in terms of like admiration, for those of you who don't know, fair makes $240,000 a year, right.
It's 260. Now, but yes,
oh 262 makes $260,000 a year and and you have stock options. And you get bonuses.
So the 260 is my on target earnings. So I can make a little bit more or a little bit less, depending on if we hit our sales goals. So okay, potentially,
I think that is so cool. Like, you are definitely my highest earning friend. And I think it's so you know, when you're younger, you kind of think like, like, maybe one day, maybe I'll make $100,000 a year, and it's like, oh my gosh, it's kind of like that office episode. Where did you ever watch the office? Yeah, Yeah, I did. Where Dwight is telling Jim is like dream job. And he's like, So Michael, and I co own a hotel in hell. And Jim is like, even in your dream you like co owns you. You're so right. And he's like, Yeah, but I haven't even told you my salary yet. And Jim's like, well, what is it and he's like, 80,000 a year. But like 100,000 was, like, huge for me. And when I broke the six figure club back when I was at my previous job, I was like, so ecstatic. But hearing your salary has been truly one of the most empowering and eye opening things for me, because it's more money than I ever even thought was possible for myself
is more money that I even thought was possible. I you know, I agree with you that it's I remember when I first started and I made $35,000 Yeah, I feel like if I just just like you said, like, I feel like if I make 100k by the time I'm like, 40, like, I'll probably good. That's great. That's gonna be awesome. And obviously, like, 100k is amazing money, but it's just, you know, sometimes you don't know how, how big to dream. It's like, your brain. You just described it perfectly with the Office episode. And but it happened to me too, you know. And,
yeah, that's why I think it's so important to surround yourself with. Yeah, with people that are doing better things than you because you're like, wait a minute. I didn't even know that that was in the realm and like totally. And another amazing example of this is, you know, Steph from open house. We were talking one day about like, what our wealthy woman goals are. And you know, she has a real estate portfolio of like 1.5 million, it's probably it's way more than that. It's probably two or above, but she said she wants to have a private chef. And I was like, I think Like, no that that was, you know, on the table.
Yeah. Oh, I can dream of a private show. Yeah.
That's why I love this conversation so much. So anyways, I was earlier in the episode I was talking about how I love travel and I love seeing what my friends because I love gathering like wealthy women inspiration, like we're talking about where like your salaries amazing you built this house custom. My friend stuff, you know, she wants to have a private chef. So tell us more about your wealthy woman life? So this question is a fat question because it comes with like, so what do you choose to really spend money on? And what do you not really spend that much money on? And then let's talk about like your current financial strategy, like, what you're investing in what you're saving, and all that good stuff?
Yeah, I think I am now so definitely like, so in terms of like, what I spend money on and what I don't spend money on. Right now, I'm definitely spending a lot of time in my physical environment, which is something that I didn't do prior to owning a house, I sort of didn't care about too much about like what furniture I had, or kind of like investing at all in physical things. I feel like now that you know, we've built this house, and we have our family living here. Like I'm just spending a lot more on things. And I think it's also partly because of this past 18 months, and like the pandemic, just spending so much time in your house. Like I think it's important to me that this is a place that feels comfortable and like me, and like it's an extension of my personality and my style and things like that. So lately I've been spending money on that. But that's I think one day, it'll be done. And I and I hope to like mostly then spend on experiences. So I'm from Mexico, I've lived in Austin and San Francisco and New York. And like now I live in Portland, and I have friends and family and people I care about all over the place. And I just always want to be able to be there for the big moments without having to think about it. You know, my sister lives in Berlin, my brother would live in Houston, like there's just there's so much that I don't want to miss because I'm far away. Like, that's just something that's important to me. So I think thinking about like, wealthy woman dreams, like I just want to be able to, with little notice, get on a plane to go to my niece's third birthday party, because that's important to me, you know what I mean? Like, that's kind of what I but I dream about. And obviously, like traveling is is amazing. And I hope that we get all get to do that again. But yeah, kind of like building on those experiences. And being there with people is what I spend money on right now and spending a lot of money on my wedding, which I would say is like squarely in that category of experiences, you know, kind of a once in a lifetime thing.
Well, let's give the people some juicy details. So yeah, what's your wedding budget? Where are you having it? Like? Why are you choosing to structure your wedding in the way that you are?
Yeah, so we are getting married in Mexico City. Our wedding budget fluctuates, but right now is like $80,000. Nice. So it's a pretty expensive wedding, I would say Mexican weddings tend to be kind of fancy. So I'm like kind of going with my culture on that, like sit down menu type thing. is a small wedding. We'll have like 150 guests, which I don't know for some. Yeah. Like, I feel like I get reactions all over the place. Most of my friends in Mexico are throwing like 300 person weddings and above. So like mine in comparison is like pretty small. Yeah.
So okay, so that's your budget? And then how are you? Right? Like financing it? Like, how are you and Dan contributing to the wedding? Really, Dan and I are paying for all of it.
My mom gave us 10k gift, which was very generous. But that's about it. So Dan and I are Yeah, paying for all that I had some money kind of saved up for from some of the stock that I sold last year. And we're just putting like $2,000 per month away. And we've had we've been engaged for a long time, like a year and a half at this point. It'll be like over two years by the time we get married. So we've had some time to save up for it. So yeah, we just have a schedule of how much money we're putting away. We had to have some to begin with because like most vendors require like a 50% deposit. So I love that.
So what started us out was a Dropbox talk.
It was on slack. Stop, stop. Yeah.
Okay. Nice. And so Okay, so you're putting away 2000. So you're each contributing like 1000 a month or do you guys 2000 per month?
So 4000 total? Oh, got it. Oh, that's good. That's very good. So it's aggressive. If we have kind of extra I'll go to the honeymoon or to another financial goal that we'll have after after the wedding. Totally. Yeah.
So what are you doing? So if you're saving 2000 in cash, are you saving or investing anything else outside of that, or is that? Yeah, I
am. I'm I'm investing about eight, almost $900 per month, additional to like the 2000 that were like putting away in cash for the wedding right now.
And where do you invest that?
So I have most of it on Titan, and then a little bit on a wealthfront account that I have I been doing like zero, picking stocks or anything, it's all just kind of going to be managed that way. And then, I guess I didn't mention on my 401k. But I'm gonna have a 401k. And like, that's just I think, I don't know, I think there's like another 800 that's taken automatically from each paycheck.
So good. Do you get matching at all?
Yeah, I do get matching, I think like up to 3000 or 4000, or something like that with
slack. That is amazing. So you are saving for your wedding while investing almost $1,000 a month and feeling your 401k maxing it out and getting that match. You're hitting all the categories, you're doing retirement, you're doing investing, you're doing cash savings for a near term goal. I love it. So before you were really like gunning for the wedding, I feel like you've almost made an investment purchase. And I would love to sort of tell the people about that. And about like what happened and what we were looking for what the price was,
yeah, I was looking for an investment property in Maine, something that would be close to my house so that I could manage it for short term rentals was the goal. And so I found this condo, near old Orchard Beach, which I don't know if anybody knows anything about Maine, but it's a pretty hot tourist spot near Portland. And so it was a block away from the beach, it was $190,000. And it was a two bedroom, one bath. And I basically like showed up to the day of closing like we almost closed on the condo. And then the the night before some issues with the code came up. That gave me a lot of pause, because on top of that very specific issue that kept us from closing throughout kind of the process, which was like really long, because I mean, the real estate market has been crazy lately. So it just took a long time for us to like actually get to our closing date. That time I kind of discovered some things about the condo association that weren't like disclosed originally, there were just like a bunch of red flags that were giving me kind of a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. And then I just sort of felt that that day that we showed up. And there was a problem with the code, it was almost like a sign or like the gas or the drop that that's not an expression that broke the camel's back. I was about to say a Mexican expression and translate it which is it's a legato girl was also the drop that spilled the water, I guess that overflowed the glass right? So that was like for me like the the last I feel sign that I needed. I just had an increasingly bad feeling about it. And I think especially because it was a condo and I was going to be seeing these people for a really long time. I just wanted to feel really good about the condo association, and I didn't. So we ultimately I mean, I say we I ultimately backed away from the from the investment.
Yeah, I remember you calling me and being like, I don't know if this is like a thing where it's like, like a test. Like I need to like be pushing through this. Or if I this is a sign like from the universe that this is not right. And it ended up being the second one. And I also feel like when something you know, because it looks so good on paper, like it's 190 they had like receipts from renting it out on Airbnb before I think right previously, right? Yeah, like they showed me what they were earning.
Yeah. So on paper, it was it was really amazing. And I think it would have made money. Like I think from an Airbnb perspective, it would have been been fine. I think it would have just been a pain in terms of like being part of that condo association and like being getting transparent information. And there were like, again, structural problems that like you've just become a larger issue down the line.
Yeah, I feel like intuition is something that we don't talk about enough in the realm of money. Like, you just had a bad feeling about it. And like even if the cash flow or the like the numbers worked out, it's like if you feel bad about it, it's never worth it's never worth it. Right. But I feel like you are still interested in buying property. So after the wedding, do you guys have like a next financial goal, like already laid out?
Yeah, I mean, we're honestly we're saving so much in cash. It's like almost painful. Don't feel bad for you for the record. So yeah, we definitely do. So there's a couple of things that we want to do. One is actually finish out our basement, we're going to add some bedrooms down there so that we can expand our family. So that's definitely a priority. Just not really a new investment but I think adds value to our home. So excited about that. And then we want to start looking again for another similar type of investment near the beach or potentially like near a lake, or the slopes in Maine. So, you know, with Dan can chime in, we could probably get something slightly more expensive than 196. I was buying that on my own. Yeah. So yeah, that's, that's those two are like big investment goals for us. Post wedding
man is so exciting. Okay, so last question. What is one piece of advice that you would have for any woman who's combining finances with a partner who has kids
talk about every kind of scenario and situation? You know, just really talk about it and agree on what your financial combined responsibilities and separate responsibilities are? I think it's it doesn't have to be a stressful or contentious thing, if at all, you just be you do have to talk about it. Because there's just a lot that comes up with kids that I think can be gray area. So I think you just want to talk about it. What worked for me was like having a financial system of different cards, so that we know like, what we're splitting 50 versus like, what he's taking for the kids versus like, what's individual. So that works for us, and like the way that we're doing our family, we might have to redo at once we have, you know, kids that are both of ours. Yeah. And But yeah, I think I think really talking about like what you're comfortable with taking on versus what you're not comfortable taking on and then putting a system in place is key.
Totally. And I feel like you guys have handled it with such grace. Truly. It's amazing. You're amazing.
Hey coffee and coin listeners. This is Whitney the head of product at factorial wealth. It's currently the month of June which is factoria Hq remote month. That means we have scheduled no in person meetings for four weeks in order to get outside of our city limits and become reinvigorated and re inspired by new scenery before our next well circle begins on September 8, I am recording this podcast from beautiful Lake Tahoe, California, where I right now have a clear view of the mountains and the water and the boats. And it's truly breathtaking. Needless to say, I am feeling reenergized even though I'm still working a full time plus more schedule. But I think there's just really something about, you know, forcing yourself out of your normal routine. So a couple of reminders for you this month, I will be hosting and investing a one on one put your money to work webinar on Tuesday, June 22 at 2pm Central Time 12pm pacific time, it's completely free. So make sure you register and invite your friends you can do so in our show notes or from the Instagram bio link in factory's Instagram. Also, don't forget to enter in our best self summer giveaway. three winners will receive our six figure savings course on in the city simplify and thrive course, a three month membership to flourish nutrition and a $100 athletic gift card. So winners are announced every Friday through the end of June.
This is a leg up in a wet Brantley, and you're listening to the coffee and coin podcast where women talk well, I'm the founder of factoria, a company on a mission to lead 1 million women to 1 million in net worth. On this podcast, I sit down with factorial alum to share their financial stories, real numbers and how they've transformed their financial lives to prove that it's possible for anyone listening.
The last inside scoop podcast that team factorial recorded we all shared our personal values, which you know, obviously feed into all aspects of our lives, including, you know, professionally and financially. So to recap, my values, our movement, which encompasses exercise and travel, balance, living a steady low fuss, life, insight, finding the deeper meaning of things, commitment, just knowing that I can count on you and you can count on me, and productivity, living my 24 hours a day to the fullest. And I think the concept of remote man, and getting away, you know, in one way or another really hits on every single one of my values, which is a big indicator for me that I am working for the right kind of company with the right kind of people. Now I want to get into some tips that I've learned for how to plan a successful remote month while still working full time. But first, I wanted to brief you on my background, if you don't know it already, so that you just understand why having this kind of flexibility is so important to me. I entered corporate America as soon as I graduated college, like many of us do. And my vision for the next 10 years was to continue to get promoted, get pay raises, you know, manage a team, max out my 401k and then hopefully retire on the earlier side of things. At age 16. I was always going to be working for someone else I was going to have to be available when they said I needed to be and just you know always having someone else in charge of my paycheck. But I was okay with this structure for a long time because I believed it was the safest route to making a living and being able to enjoy my life and my retirement. And I also prided myself on the work I was doing because I definitely thought it was innovative and ultimately a great learning experience. But we get tired. We're humans. And after about a decade, I became exhausted. And I felt my physical and mental health really starting to decline because my schedule was just completely owned by someone else. And by age 30 All I wanted to do was retire I couldn't think about anything else and I had 30 plus more years to go so that was not a good mindframe to be in at all. So I was just naturally feeling a little bit stuck, which is actually the time I came across the factorial wall circle and it really couldn't have come out.
a better time for me, because the well circle pushed me to expand my money mindset and come up with a new goal, which is to hit financial freedom by age 45. And just setting this new goal got me pumped about my career again, because although it's a bigger goal, it seemed more in reach than waiting till age 60 to retire. But I knew that I needed to make a significant investment to, you know, help me reach my goal. Now, I am not much of a risk taker at all. So entrepreneurship had never been on the table for me, I never considered it until you know, that moment when I realized I wasn't going to hit my goal, playing it safe. And that's when there was, you know, a big shift in me, the old me had always valued money and security above all else. But the new me now values freedom, above all else, this is really a monumental turning point in my life. Because now here I am, going all in, in the business asset class, as a founding member of this, you know, wonderful startup factorio, which I love so much. And I wholeheartedly believe in its vision and purpose. And just even aside from being driven by the company's overarching mission, I'm excited about my business investment. Being a business owner, just being able to gain back more control in my life, and building systems that I'm planning will allow me to work less as the business becomes more and more mature. So this is a very different way of thinking from my old self, when I was in the corporate world where I would, you know, the more experience I would gain, the more money I would gain, but also the more responsibilities I would gain. And ultimately, the more time I would have to commit, aka my freedom would shrink as my experience grows, which when I stopped to think about that, it really felt backwards. For me, I want you know, my freedom to increase as my experience grows, don't get me wrong, there is a lot I miss about my w two job. For one, I knew I was always gonna get paid. That's not always a given when you're a business owner, you know, no business, no money, and to at least have the option to shut my computer at night or on the weekends and let my brain take a break or even take a week long vacation. factoria is not quite in the place where I can do that yet. But the systems we are designing are meant to get us there. You know, just to say entrepreneurship is not for everyone, there is a lot of risk involved. And there is a lot of upfront time. So going the corporate route is going to be the better option for most people. But just keep in mind that whatever your work environment, your intelligence and your experience is extremely valuable. No one can take that away from you and is what is going to give you the power to be selective about working for companies that align with your personal values, which I think is truly important. I also realize that's a lot easier said than done, especially when you have corporations luring you in with their big paychecks. I think it was harder for me mentally than financially to give up my $140,000 paycheck and benefits for zero income for six months, I had to continuously remind myself and I still do sometimes that I'm investing in an asset in order to hit financial freedom by age 45. And I'm 35 now. So I have 10 years ago, to reach this goal. What I'm shooting for is $15,000 a month in passive income coming from my paper asset accounts, I real estate investments and my business asset. So I know that it is a big target. But if I don't put it out into the universe, how will I achieve it? So even though I do have a ways to go until I'm fully free, what this remote month has reminded me of is that it's not an all or nothing thing on our way to financial freedom, we get to experience financial flexibility. I mean, that looks very different for people that could look like working from wherever you want to around the globe or transitioning your role to part time doing a job share taking a sabbatical, you name it, but I think having your eye on reaching financial flexibility before financial freedom will help break up you know, your five to six decades of working hard and earning an active income. And it's truly possible in any kind of work environment. You just have to be creative. All right, let's circle back to Lake Tahoe and talk about some of the lessons that you know I've learned in in planning a successful remote month, disclaim
This is not a vacation. So you can't wing remote months. Like there's a lot of thought and and coordination involved, which is why I compiled my learning so far into seven tips that I want to share with you all. Tip number one, which may seem a little obvious, but it's a good reminder, pick a month that works for your work team, your partner and your family. So factorial HQ collectively picked a month that was outside of well circle season, which is our craziest times of year and agreed upon having virtual only meanings, whereas normally we do in person collaboration two days a week. So this month was, you know, good for my work family. With a lot of heads up, my husband was able to plan his schedule around being remote with me this entire month, which is awesome. And obviously, if you want to include your kids or your parents, you'll just have to make sure that that time works for all of their schedules as well. So yes, a lot of coordination involved. Tip number two, choose your location strategically. My husband and I are active people. So we knew that if the only activity location had to offer was sitting on the beach all day, we wouldn't be too inspired. So we wanted a place that had a lot to offer. Other things we thought through or you know how many grocery stores are there around us what kind of grocery stores we've been trying to stick to a gluten free dairy free diet as much as possible. So being close to a natural grocer was key. And Fun fact, I discovered my new favorite miso hummus from New Moon natural foods in Tahoe City, I need to figure out how to smuggle some back with me to Texas. Is there a hospital close by for emergencies? Is there a pharmacy nearby? Does Amazon and FedEx deliver to our location within the first week of being here an important package was able to get to me which was key and you know, so I had no issues there. Tip number three, consider all your costs. Are you able to offset your housing by short term renting your place back home? Or can you do a house swap? Or can you stay somewhere rent free. Our primary residence is not Airbnb proof yet, meaning we don't have an easy way to lock up all of our valuables or important documents in one space to comfortably let strangers roam our house yet. So short term renting was a great option for Allegra and Juliet to subsidize, you know their rent this month. But my husband and I weren't quite in position to do that this time around. So we limited our search to a location where we wouldn't have to pay rent. And so we naturally had to tap into our family resources. And my grandfather bought this adorable lakefront condo in the 1970s I believe and it's been in our you know, it's been in our family ever since has been our family vacation spot ever since. And he's kept it in amazing shape. He did a remodel in the early 2000s. And I'm just so grateful he encourages our family to use it as much as as we can. So this is an amazing taho situation that we have, I recognize we are very fortunate. This is also a tourist destination though. So eating out is very overpriced, which is another reason we are really trying to cook our own food and eat in every meal. Except, you know, on some weekends, we'll definitely go out but my main money goal while I'm here is to stick to my normal budget and my normal expenses not having to withdraw anything additional from my emergency fund. I definitely want to keep that intact or having to withdraw from my investment accounts because I absolutely want to keep those compounding Tip number four, go for a substantial amount of time, you know, where you can really have the opportunity to settle in and get into a new routine remote month is not a vacation, you know, we still have to be productive, get all of our work done, hit our deadlines, and moving around every few days adds a lot more stress and time. I mean, this also means you're gonna have to look for a place with a washer and dryer, closets, kitchen pantry, AC heater. Yes, even in mid June, we had to run the heater a couple of mornings. But these are all things that we typically take for granted. But, man, if we don't have these things when we show up like it's going to be a very difficult month. So definitely think through all those little details. And then you know, we really wanted to feel like we were living here like this was our home. Something important for my husband was being able to sign up for a month membership at a local gym and that's part of his routine back in Austin which he wanted to carry over to remote month and I absolutely agree with it.
The cool thing is he found a gym right in town and it's within jogging distance, which our gym at home is not. So this is an even better routine. Okay, tip number five, know how you'll get around. And we knew that we were going to need a car for a month. But the drive back and forth between Austin would take at least six days for us, which would cut almost a week off of our times. That was not really an option for us. We probably needed to rent a car. We looked at the bus system here, but it was pretty limited. And we kind of tried to think through who might have a spare car they could let us borrow in California, but we couldn't really think of anyone either. And if you are aware of the rental car situation these days, it is very difficult and expensive due to the increased demand and decreased supply of of you know the pandemic. So we ended up using Turo, which is like Airbnb for cars. You know, it's an app where people list their personal cars that you can rent. And so we looked at our Turo options if we flew into Reno, but they they didn't really have good options. It was kind of limited. So then we decided to search Turo, and the if we flew into San Francisco, and someone in the Bay Area had this awesome four wheel drive Audi available, so we were able to snag that it's been fun driving that around. So we have a car for the month, which has been extremely helpful for all things. That brings me to Tip number six, check the internet and cell service at your desired location. Ideally, before you arrive, I know that's kind of hard to do. But I have to give a few video presentations this month. So this is a big factor for me. And guess what? The Internet here in our condo is actually pretty terrible. It tends to give out if my husband and I are both on video calls at the same time. But our cell service is really good. So one of us can jump on our hotspot, you know when needed because we have unlimited data, thank goodness. For those who don't know, you can test your Wi Fi speed by just typing into Google Wi Fi speed test. And it'll tell you how strong your connection is. So that's always the first thing I check when I arrive. And sometimes my hotspot is stronger than the Wi Fi in the house. Side note something to consider if you and whoever is joining you for remote month have meetings at the same time, make sure you can figure out space where you both can go and you don't interfere with each other. My husband and I had overlapping calls on day one and we are sharing a workspace. So we quickly had to come up with a solution that one of us would either go upstairs or outside if we had overlapping meanings. Okay, and my last tip for you tip number seven. Think about if you're going to invite company, when you know you're hyped about remote your remote mountain plans and you're sharing the news with your family and friends, they're undoubtedly going to someone's undoubtedly gonna want to come with you. So hosting can be so much fun, and it can be extremely exhausting. At the same time. If your main goal is to recharge, you may have to decide that you will invite guests only for one weekend or maybe not at all. And if you're wanting more of an adventure, go go go situation the whole time, then you'll just have to coordinate who comes up when so we decided to host one weekend of Texas friends. And when we can have California friends and the rest of the time in our free time. We want to spend relaxing, reading, exercising, and you know exploring. So if you have the opportunity to take a remote month, I just encourage you to do it. It's an enlightening experience. And it really just gets you unstuck, especially if you're interact. And just remember too that anything is possible as long as you put it out into the world, get creative and then just take incremental steps to achieving it. And if you want to bring more freedom into your life through building wealth, definitely apply to the wealth circle. You won't regret it. It was a life changing experience for me and I'm confident it will be for you to enrollment begins in August and spots tend to fill up very quickly within just a few days. So if this is something you're planning to do, be ready as soon as enrollment opens up. And other than that, thank you so much for tuning in and happy summer