Business: How Cheryl Grew Her Net Worth by $730k in ONE YEAR
Episode Summary
Wealth Circle alum Cheryl Bailey grew her net worth from $50k to $780k in a matter of one year. Today she talks to Allegra about the financial principles that guided this journey, and why she thinks every woman could gain something from taking the Wealth Circle, regardless of their age or experience.
Episode Notes
Wealth Circle alum Cheryl Bailey grew her net worth from $50k to $780k in a matter of one year. Today she talks to Allegra about the financial principles that guided this journey, and why she thinks every woman could gain something from taking the Wealth Circle, regardless of their age or experience.
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Transcript
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So March 2021. When I did the first review of where I was, we were at $52,717. And net worth, and our March 2022. Current net worth is $783,902. Whoa.
This is Allegra Moet Brantley and you're listening to the coffee and coin podcast where women talk wealth. I'm the founder and CEO of Factora. Of company on a mission to leave 1 million women to 1 million in net worth. Because when women have more money, we'll have more power to be the change we want to see in the world. If you're ready to hear real women share their real numbers and investment journeys and have a sneaky feeling you should be doing a little more with your money, you are in the right place. Just sit back, relax and turn me up.
All opinions expressed by Team Factora and podcast guests are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Factora Incorporated. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be used as the basis for investment decisions. Team Factora and podcast guests may maintain positions in the securities or investments discussed in this podcast.
Welcome back to another episode of Coffee and coin. I have Cheryl on the podcast with me today. Welcome Cheryl.
Hello.
I am so excited to be talking to you. Because maybe a month ago, I opened up my inbox one morning on the way from getting coffee with my husband. And just ended up in complete tears from a very long and solicited email testimonial of Cheryl explaining how Factora impacted her life and her family's life. And really that we were not the beginning of her wealth journey, we definitely aren't going to be the end because she is off to the races. Y'all just wait. But we had a very integral moment that helped her in a lot of ways. So I thought it would be so awesome to bring you on and have you tell that testimonial in your own words to women who are really interested in changing their financial life a lot. And you all just wait till you hear these numbers because it is a lot. So I almost feel like we should just start there. And wow some people with how much your net worth was when you first joined a while circle and how much it is a year later. Okay.
So March 2021. When I did the first review of where I was, we were at $52,717 and net worth and are March 2022. Current net worth is $783,902.
Whoa, I hope people are just like snapping. I was gonna say in their cars tapping their steering wheel, but I you know, no one drives known commutes we all stay at home. Okay, before we get into how you increase your net worth by about $730,000 in a year, because that just seems not even feasible. But it is because you did it. Let's introduce who you are. So can you give me a little context? Who's Cheryl, where do you live? How old are you? And what do you do for a living? Okay,
so I'm 44 years old. I am an incentive and destination wedding Travel Planner. So I basically plan group travel and events to Mexico primarily the touristy areas. And I have two, three technically adult children two that I birthed 19 Excuse me, 20 and 21 right now, and a 29 year old stepson. And so my husband and I both work together. We've been 13 years in the event industry and six years with a focus and concentration on Mexico.
Amazing. Okay, so I do you remember the game of life? Did you ever play that? Okay. I always wanted to be the Travel Planner.
It's actually really hard work.
I would fight people for that card. And then I remember when I was going through college, and it was like suddenly, travel planning was, you know, Travelocity and all of these websites like suddenly it wasn't a person that you called, it was just like a website that you went to. So already I'm very interested in your line of work. How did you get into
that? completely by accident, used to be a corporate and wedding event planner, and I started getting more requests for events in Mexico. which I knew nothing about. So I thought that I would get a certification to be a destination wedding planner. So I signed up to go to a conference and Mexico and the Cancun Playa Del Carmen area, six and a half, seven years ago. And that is where I learned how to do the travel and of things, I went thinking I was going to be learning how to just plan these destination weddings. And but by the time I left, I realized that most of the destination wedding has to do with the travel element of it. And I came home and said to my husband, hey, we're adding travel on to our business. And he was like, okay, because he knows by now to just go along with whatever I've got going.
He's like, it's just easier, whatever, whatever she wants to add now, it's probably gonna be okay, let's go for it, which is really great. Which is great to have a husband that's so supportive of this business, and I'm sure, same boat for you. Well, I
was about to say it probably has served both of our husbands Well,
indeed, indeed, I tell him all the time. I'm like, so your life so much better. Not just because of me, but because he was really, I always joke, he was our first angel investor, in Factora, because I wanted to do this full time. And so I kept giving myself little, like, Okay, if I can tell this many well, circles, if I could do that, I can do that, then I can quit my job, but then I'll go and get a part time job. And he was like, why are you gonna get a part time job? You already know what you want to do? It was like, Oh, I love that. Yeah, that's fair. So he totally supported us while I started Factora took no took no income for 15 months.
That's amazing. Well, I mean, it's good to have partners like that as well. And the same thing with my husband, like, he knows that I am the salesperson, I'm the marketing person. And that's really my strength. And his strength is on the back end, like all of the logistics and, and, you know, spreadsheets and whatnot, he is really, really good at that into things. And so I really lean into my strengths. And he leads kind of into his strengths. And because of that, we both have our own zone, and we know what we're really good at. And we do it really well. And it works really well together.
I love it. I feel like I have a book that I want to write in me very, very far in the future, because I need to prove out some stuff. But on partnership, because I do think that it's already so innate, that humans want to be connected and walk the path of life with someone else, right? Because there's more joy, when there's two of you, it's easier to deal with strife when there's someone to lean on. But it's also really great for business, to be able to have two heads more than one to figure things out. Just like you said, you got your zone of genius. He's got his same with myself and my husband. So all right, enough partner talk. I would love to know, why did you take a while circle. And one of the things that stood out to me and your testimonial was, you kind of said, I'm not really your core demographic. But I took one anyways. So what do you mean by that?
Well, as you mentioned, the beginning like you weren't my start, this will not be the end. But it was a really integral part of our kind of financial journey I had written to you that kind of mid 2018, we were living like paycheck to paycheck with our business kind of feast or famine, had $100,000 but $105,000 in credit card, car and business loan debt. And then I just one day was like, I'm done with this. And so I read this book called rich bitch. And and I thought, Yes, this is what I need. And but then with that, I'm like, okay, but now how do I do that? Like, where do I start? And so I started learning more about finances, and then was just kind of frustrated overall. And then I was like, well, maybe I should start paying off our debt. So I started there. And I went on what a lot of people do with the Dave Ramsey program, and sort of paying off the smallest debt, and then snowballing it and what have you. And then by the end of the year, that first year, we had come across this profit first accounting method in our business. And so we started applying that to our business, which I would highly recommend all small business people that you look at the profit first method, amazing. By the end of 2019, after we had kind of made that commitment of like, we're going to do something better with our finances. We had paid off all of our credit card debt and our car, which is like $35,000, in literally less than a year. We still have part of our business loan remaining, that we thought this was going to take us like Asus on like a three year plan, you know, to pay this off, and it took less than a year. In this time, we were able to put aside six months of living expenses and savings as well. So on top of paying off 35k We've now got six months of living expenses, and then 2020 hit so and I'm in trouble. So you can imagine what happened to my income. It went away nosedive Yeah, and so thank God we had that six months and savings. And honestly, because of what we had planned for, we actually hardly touched our six months in savings during that time. But we went through, you know, from the end of February through November of zero and come because no one is traveling. But then this was, you know, truly for us the worst year and I told my husband like, hey, if if something doesn't change by December, we might want to look at a different career path. But then by December we had had in that last two months, like the biggest year in business we had ever had. And so we were able to get past all that, again, paid off our credit cards, put six months and savings went through hell of you know, months without an income, you know, what, nine months or so without an income. And then, by the end of 2020, had the biggest year in business yet. And then 2021 was even bigger in business. And so it was once we had kind of decided this is what we're going to do, and put our focus into it. It just went from there. And so in September of 2020, we had this big long road trip, 17 hours drive, my husband's grandmother had passed, and we were going to her memorial service and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. As we're driving out of the driveway, I said to my husband, like, hey, I want to I want to listen to this coffee and coin podcast I've been hearing about this Factora thing. And so he's like, Yeah, put it on, because we love to listen to podcasts while we drive. And so we listen to 17 hours of coffee and coin
are so embarrassed that someone had to people had to listen to my voice for that long.
Well, well, you do get to know a lot about someone's mannerisms in life and 17 hours of discussion. So I feel like I know a lot about you. But by the time we had gotten to South Carolina, we already like on the car on the way there had set up a titan account and had made like plans for what we're gonna do. So like the thing about Factora that came in here was that we had been doing some things we're supposed to do, right? So we paid off our debt, we put money into a savings account, we kind of knew what we were starting to want to do in the future. And we wanted to start doing some investing. But we had no idea what to do with that money. Like now we're starting to have money, we have no idea what to do with it. So I had a giant savings account at one point that had like, I don't know, like $150,000 in it. In addition to our six months savings account, it was just like sitting there. I'm like, I don't know what to do with this money. But I guess it'll just be in a savings account, which I think is where a lot of people are so through, you know, coffee and coin, that we had also decided like, Okay, I'm joining the next world circle, but from there that really propelled us into like, Okay, well now what do we do with this money? What is our future look like? What are other things we're going to do? Are we always going to have this business? And so it really set us up in this place of being excited about talking about our money? And not just like, yeah, money? Yeah, let's discuss that. But now it's like an excitement about it. And you know, we, from there had set up a titan account, we now have a s&p 500 fund with fidelity, I have stock investments a small amount in. I completely forgot where my stock investing is. But anyhow, so we, you know, we have like money all over. And I had put a large sum of money aside in a business account, that's just for a year of payroll, which may sound crazy, because it's a lot of payroll for us. We have five employees now. But it just, that isn't even a financial thing so much as a peace of mind is that if something happens in this industry with me again, I know that, I mean, I will continue doing travel planning as long as possible, because I love what I do. It's the most work I've ever done in any business ever. But I love what I do. But at least I have a year runway if something like this ever happens again, like if travel crashes again, and I don't get paid for a year or something. You know, terrible happens with our business. I have a year runway of payroll where we learn a new business and I can pay someone for a year to get that ramped up, which again, sounds kind of kind of wild. But I so one of the things you're always saying is that personal finances exactly that it's personal. And so I would say that's the most like weirdly reckless thing that we're doing with our finances who is holding this big chunk of money in a in an account that's making no money. But yeah, so that was long and rambly. But just to give you an idea of kind of where Factora landed there, I think that it hit us at such a time that it it helped us have a future financially where I don't know maybe you would have blown through this money. Had we not found Factora.
So there's so many things I want to dig into. Let's start with Dave Ramsey, shall we?
Dave Ramsey did a lot of damage to us.
And that's what I actually want to point out. I think Dave Ramsey is very good at getting people out of debt. I do I think that that's, that's his specialty, and there is a need. And that's great. But I have always been on the side where I have seen after people get out of debt, and similar to you, they actually have savings. But they he doesn't teach about the next level the investing right now. And so people just come into the ceiling. And they're like, Well, what do I do? And I've seen a lot of people go back into that debt spiral, because it just feels so intoxicating to have all this cash saved up, and nothing to do. And then, you know, there's kind of a bucket mentality and boom, back into debt. So one, I'm so glad you avoided that. But I'd be interested to know why. Why are you saying Dave Ramsey was not great for you.
So for years, my husband and I have wanted to buy a house. And for years, quite frankly, we could have bought a home. I live in Kyle, Texas, right outside of the Austin area. And obviously, if anyone in the area knows anything about real estate right now, they know how absolutely insane it is. And for several years, we had been like we should buy a house this year, we should buy a house this year and have been in a position where we could have bought a house. But we didn't because of Dave Ramsey, and you should have all the money saved up before you buy a house. So for years, my like lifelong dream was to pay cash outright for a house. And so because of that we never purchased a home like to this day, I still actually don't own the home I'm in my rent is ridiculously low. And there are other reasons I travel a ton. I do have some property we just recently purchased in another state. So but this year is the year we're like, Okay, well, we're just gonna go ahead and purchase our own personal home this year as well. But I think that did us a lot of damage. Because right now we could be sitting on, you know, hundreds of 1000s of dollars in equity, had we purchased any one of the homes that we like seriously looked at purchasing over several years. But Dave Ramsey said, no, no, no.
And this goes back to personal finance being personal. And individuals should have autonomy over their financial life and choices. And what I don't like about the gurus are the experts which by the way, I would never call myself because I have not I'm just someone who is learning right alongside and applying and iterating and taking those strategies, the successes and the setbacks and sharing them out loud, in hopes that it's helpful to someone else. Because there are no rules, there are no rules. And when someone like Dave Ramsey says you should only buy a house, if you have 100% cash to put down. That's a rule. And that's a wild one. Especially if you're talking, you know, Dave Ramsey is, is known globally. So the people who are listening to that in New York, how are they ever gonna get, you know, to the amount that they need? That's very different than buying property in Kyle, Texas. So I appreciate you sharing that because I just want the audience to know that even if you follow someone, or if you follow someone who says it should only be done like this, be wary one of Factora’s values, and my personal values is to question the quo. Don't just question status quo. But question someone who says I'm an expert. And this is the only way to do it. Because there isn't only one way to do something, otherwise, we would all be the same. You know what I mean? Like, that's just, that's absurd. There's some other financial experts who say very similar things like literally don't buy a house ever, or only buy if you can afford it in cash. And I just think that that's very narrow minded. You'll also hear things like you should only buy a house if you have 20% to put down but we have so many women, in fact, Laura, who are putting 5% down, or 3%, down or 0% down, and they're running the numbers, so they know what their monthly net is going to be. And that is arguably the more important thing, can you afford this ongoing liability? Not just when you buy it, but in a monthly manner? Is it going to choke you? Or is it going to support your other goals? So, okay, I'll get off my, I'll get off my loudspeaker about that. But just just be wary if people tell you and that's not just for experts, like if you have a, you know, Father or parent or you know, just person in your life who's telling you you should only do it this way. Why, why why, why ask a lot of questions just because someone did something that way doesn't mean it has to be the way that you do it. Okay, Ray it Um,
can I say something on that actually, please? Okay. So it's funny that you're saying that about like, just because you know, someone does it this way or says this. Since spec Torah. I've also questioned a ton of things and it's led me to have many conversations with people like questioning their reasoning. A friend of mine recently purchased a house in Mexico is where she lives has lived for many years, but she's Canadian. And she said, Well, I got this loan. And I'm like, Laurie, why did you get a loan, that it's just a loan for no reason to just sit there to have this loan money? And she's like, I don't know, my dad said I should probably do it. And I'm like, Well, what are you going to use it for? She's like, I don't know. It's just sitting there. I'm like, Well, wait, are you paying interest on this loan? Well, yeah, like Laurie, what are you doing? But she's like, Well, my dad's that, you know, like, Oh, my dad said so and he's really good with money. And I'm like, I know, but your dad lives in Canada, and is an old man. Sorry, who doesn't? Oh, man. Yeah, I'm like, in your like, you know, 30 something year old young person just got married living in Mexico, and you just bought this like dream home and, and you're in a different field. And so I'm just trying to get her to look at it and go like, but But what are what is your future look like? What are your values? What do you want to do? Because she's like, really stressed about this loan and didn't want to get this loan. And if she ever listens to this, she's gonna laugh because she knows exactly what I'm talking about. But I was waiting. But don't you don't have to get that loan just because your dad says, and she's like, well, he's really good with money. I'm like, I know, but are his goals, your goals? So really, because of you guys, I say you guys like factor in general. I have really started questioning people's, you know, conversations about money and be like, Well, wait, why are you doing that? Why are you doing it just because someone said what is important to you?
Isn't it so interesting? How dangerous that one line is? But they're so good with money? Yes. So if they're doing it, I should do it. Yes, I used to take calls with every single woman that was going to come into the wall circle. That was really, I learned a lot. I learned a lot about my customers about just everything. But one of the things that was so interesting is I would ask people, where do you currently go for financial advice and mentorship? If you're having a financial question or issue or concern, like, Who do you go to? And it was literally one of two answers. And remember, I'm talking to all women. So it was about 70%? Dad, 30%. Google? Well, we all know, Google is a rabbit hole, and you don't know what to trust? Or what journalists, you know, okay, so that's already dangerous. But dad's just as dangerous. Not that he doesn't mean well, just to your point, he is older. Now, the financial system was different than he may have had a pension and worked at one job his whole career. But it's very hard for someone to look and say, Oh, well, I'm in tech switching roles every 18 months. And I don't even have a 401k at my startup, but I should do what my dad did. Yeah, when we're in a very different environment. So that's, that's why I just caution people to not say, Oh, they look like they're good at money, or they seem to be or they say they are. So I should do what they're doing. You have to do what's right for you. And the only way to do what's right for you is to get education, and learn about your goals and needs. And a lot of times, we just don't sit down and figure those out. Like you said, you had a breaking point, I don't want to be in this debt anymore. And you went, and you made a goal. And you figure that out. And then you got to another level where you're like, I got all this cash, I got 150k sitting in savings. And that's done, including my six month emergency fund. Where do I put it? You know, like that was your need, and then you went and you sought answers? So first of all, I just commend you for being a very curious person, and clearly a extremely successful business person, because you've made a lot of money. And now you're able to put that money into assets and put it to work. So let's talk a little bit about that. I know you're you and your husband love talking wealth building now. And you mentioned you bought some property out of state, like what are the financial moves you made to get from 50 grand to 780 grand in a year? Yeah.
So first off, I recognize that that big leap is a little unusual, and a lot of cases and you know, our business has happened to be poised to do extremely well when things pick back up. Because we were able to make it through this very difficult time where a lot of people disappeared in our industry, but we made it through and then on the other side of it, we're able to really capitalize on that extensively. So with that, we were like, okay, like you said, now we have this money, oh my God, holy shit, you know, like, what do we do is $783,000. So we have goals. And something you talk about a lot. Obviously, it's very important to have goals. I even tell my kids now each of their checking accounts that they have, or savings accounts or whatever they're doing. Each one should be attached to some goal and to think of their money is that way. So like their regular checking account. I'm like, What is the goal of this checking account? What is your savings account goal, and then once you hit that goal, then great then you move to the next goal. So we've done the same thing. We've set up some goals for what we want to do and most of your goals have some kind of price tag attached to it. And so we would like to build more long term even generational wealth. So we have purchased right now a piece of property in Tennessee, which is a little wild since we're in Texas, but my husband Sam lives in Tennessee and let me tell you if you think the property prices are insane in the Austin area, you should just go check out some country place is in Tennessee because it'll blow your mind. Because we just purchased an acre of property in a subdivision for $25,000. It's insane. Wow, an acre. And it's beautiful. And it's like I can walk to the lake because it's like a block away, or to the river. But we're going to build a spec house on this property and sell the spec house. And then we also purchased like 4.4 acres within seven minutes of a lake here called Dale hollow lake. And it is, I mean, just massive traffic. And so this property is within seven minutes, both directions, left and right, have two different boat docks on the lake. And our longer term plan is to build cabins at this property and turn it into like a little mini retreat center. And then that will be hopefully our quote unquote, mailbox money, I laugh about it because to me mailbox money is money that just shows up. And when you have property and houses, that money does not just show up you you're still working for it. But it's our retirement mailbox ish money that will hopefully be there for us. And you know, like, right now I know how much money it's going to take for me to retire, I know how much cash I want. Or like we're either wanting to hit like $2 million in cash assets and investments. Or, you know, one point I think $2 million, plus 10 to $15,000 in income generating assets every month, plus our house paid off. Like we know, we have very specific goals. And now all of our monies are being used to go towards these very specific goals. And we're also able to have some enjoyment in life as well.
I love it so much. Okay, so first of all, I actually really like the adjusted term from mailbox money to mailbox ish. Because it's true, we talk about passive income as if it's the best thing on the planet, but it's usually active before you're still working, you're working, you gotta get it right. And real estate is, is a hard, it's a hard game. It's a great one. Because the way we teach it in the wild circles, there's three main asset class buckets, paper, so primarily the stock market, real estate, which everyone knows, because they live in, and business, which you and I know really well, because we make a lot of money in our businesses. And so we can actually bring that into our life. Like we can take the you know, revenue that we've made out of thin air in our businesses, well, with a lot of hard work, actually. And then we can apply that to our personal wealth. And a lot of people if they don't have a business, they're capped at what their salary is. So that's definitely one of the reasons that Cheryl is saying, like, I know, it's a little crazy that it's, you know, three quarter million change. But she has a business and there's no cap on that, which is incredible. And now she's taking that money, and she's putting it into assets, so that they can action, their retirement plan in one of the few ways which I love that you even have a few options like we either need just the 2 million outright or the 1.2 plus the 10 to 15,000 coming in monthly. I love it love just hearing people talk like investors. And when I say people, I mean women. are we kidding? Okay, with that said, this retreat center, you've bought the land, how soon do you want to put the cabins on it? And is that a place that you would live? Or is that you would, you know, have a manager there?
I want to build cabins yesterday. So my plan is kind of twofold. We are building the spec house on the one acre that we purchased. And so with the profit from the spec house, whatever that profit is, will be utilized to build the first cabin. And so our plan is for each of the spec houses that we build. And so to build one cabin, at least. And then I have some other things I can actually do in my own business like I this past year created a course to teach other travel agents about this one particular resort that I do a lot of business app that's kind of hard to work with, and has lots of different elements. It's like the Disney of Mexico, so to speak. And so I put together this course, and I combined together with a friend of mine, and I believe we've sold over $20,000 from this one course alone. So each of us and we just split it down the middle. So each of this I think I'm at 11, or $12,000 right now is what we've made. So with that, it's made me think of other things I can do. I mean, our business is very, very streamline. And we're very focused on always being very efficient and making things much easier. And our process itself is something that a lot of people want. And so I am working on right now putting together a course all about our processes and workflow. And so I will probably sell that. And then I'm actually thinking of doing like a little financial workshop for business. And so there's so many different things that I can sell courses on. So that was kind of my other thought is that I could generate additional income with those courses and use that course money that would all go into the retreat for later. So there's a couple different ways that we can generate income for that but I will be building the first cabin pretty soon, probably by the end of this year,
I really love the idea of an asset waterfall. So basically Cheryl saying she's building a house in the Tennessee property. And when that sold, they're going to use those proceeds to build a house on the retreat property. So that's literally an asset paying for another asset. This is my favorite hack in the world, it's it, it might be as cool as passive income, it's not passive, I mean, you're working to get that house up to sell it. And then to build another one. But basically, you're pulling money from one asset to another instead of having to pull it from your personal income. Alright. And then I also love your other ideas of creating digital properties or courses that can bring you additional income so that you can track towards your goals even faster. I'm constantly telling people in the wall circle, when we get to the business, asset class, a lot of people like I don't want to be an entrepreneur Shush, no, absolutely not. That's so dangerous and terrible and awful. Well, look at Cheryl, look at me, we both run lean organizations, we don't have outside funding, there is a very again, it's really trendy. So if it's super trendy, and everyone's doing it, probably should question it. But there's a lot of companies that are raising millions of dollars that you're seeing go kaput in months. That, to me is horrifying, that's really bad use of capital, capital allocation and management is was lost the plot with venture capital. But there are so many businesses that can be small and lean and create incredible lives for the owners and the employees of that business. So I love they're like, I've already proven what I can do with a lean, operational structure. Let me frame it up and help other people who want to do that. That's like, give back and make money. It's like the chef's kiss. Oh, and I gotta make the clip for Instagram. But it should. It just makes me so excited. Because I really think that even if you have a job, and you're not interested at all and leaving it, and by no means, you know, should you I'm not saying everyone's cut out for entrepreneurship. But I'm sure you have a skill set that you could turn into a course or a webinar or something. It doesn't even have to be a digital thing. But like, what do your friends constantly ask for your help with? Or what do people always seek your advice on, there's something there, if you are looking for more income to track towards your goals. But you know, what motivates you to do that? The goals and a lot of people still don't stop and write those down. We're going into session six of the wall circle. And we ask women when they come in, how many of you have your goals outlined and written down. And it's so interesting, because like more than 50%, don't even have goals. And then like 40%, say, Oh, I have goals, but they're not written down, which means they don't have a why a win, who's gonna hold me accountable. They're not really concrete goals. You are sitting here saying not only you, but your children have accounts with goals attached to each of them. That's very motivating. There's like, there's a topic, you know, you can discuss that with your family with your friends and say, I'm working towards this, you know, whatever it might be. That was a new rant. While I caught on to it.
So I want to extend onto that too. Because something you said about the goals. And this is I don't know who said this, but it's been said for many, many years. But a goal is just a dream written down. And that's exactly if it's not written down, you just have a dream, you don't have a goal. Because the goal is you know, and you can track. And you know, just last week, my my son is 20, or actually oh my gosh, I said he was 20 Earlier, he's 19. He's about to turn 20. In June, you actually said no, you did i Okay. I know. Okay, this is how you get when you get older. You're like, how old are they? But he so he is 19. And he'll be 20 in June. And he is wanting to he still lives at home. And he has a full time job. So he's wanting to move out. And I know he has a savings account, I can still see what's in his checking and savings account, because we are so connected because he's had that checking account for you know, before he was 18. And, and so I'm trying to get him to understand like, what is the goal of your checking account? What is the goal of your savings account? And he said, Well, I'm just trying to save like a bunch of money and so that when I move out, I'll have the money. I'm like, Well, how much is a bunch of money. He's like, I don't know, just like a whole bunch of money just whenever I couldn't save. And so less like a week ago, I got him to sit down and really put actual numbers to it, so that he could see how much money he needed to be able to move out so that he would have six months of savings, you know, sitting there just in case he loses his job or something happens, and that he would also have the money that first last and, you know, all your deposits and everything to be able to move out. And so now he has $1 goal on it. Because he had called me saying, I just got my tax return. Or he said, I'm $3,000 richer from his tax return, and wanted to buy a gaming laptop. And he's What do you think? And I said, Well, that's totally up to you. Is that the best use of your money? Is that what you want to do? And he goes, I hate it when you do that, like, should I buy it or not? And I will well, that's up to you, like, Are you financially in a position to buy it? Have you met your financial goals? And he's like, Well, I don't know, I don't, I don't know what that's like. And so I really, you know, even though we talk about money all the time, and you know, for 19 years old, he has a really solid savings and actually a titan account, and he's in crypto. So like for a young person, because we talk about money so much, he has actually put money away. But now he has real goals attached to each one. And so when we were finished with that hour and a half long phone call, he was like, okay, so you know, here's what I should have in my checking, here's what I need to have in my savings before I move out. Okay, so by September, I'll be in a good place. And then you know, this other friend wants to move out in February. So they all go together and rent this house. And the three of them, you know, would do a better job at renting and have less to pay. But it was just like, I don't know whether I should buy this gaming laptop. Hopefully my mom will say yes. Yeah, he was like, Man, I hate it when you were like giving me options. But ultimately, because of his goals and where he went, he could buy the gaming laptop because he was in line with where his financial goals were headed. So I just thought was really funny. He's like, Ah, I hate that. That's why I called you because I knew you're good with money. And he's like, but but I knew you were gonna say that. But I want him to make his own choices, whatever they are, and hopefully good ones.
Okay, you're such a good mom. Truly, truly, I really hope that I can have my kids thinking about money that way, and calling to talk it out. I mean, he's saying, Oh, I hate I hate that. I know, you're saying that. But like, that's why he's calling because he knows he could do it. But he also wants to like, figure out what it would feel like if he did do it and didn't continue tracking towards his goals, because he's gonna feel so much better if he hits his goals, moves out and then gets his gaming equipment.
That's exactly it is it that he had a plan and a goal for it. And it wasn't just this pie in the sky dream of like, one day when I move out. But after that hour and a half phone call, he now knows when he can move out and he's prepared for and he doesn't have to stress about it. And I love that because again, his personal finances are different than mine. But he was able to set goals for himself based on you know, kind of having some guidance and and now he knows whether he can or cannot afford that laptop, and that he can still track towards his other goals that he's trying to reach.
Can everyone listening? Just imagine being 19 Right now, and having six months of savings. And knowing the number that you need to move out, like to rent to lower the rent if you were to have friends move in to get so motivated by this because you're actually doing the work yourself? Otherwise, it's just so haphazard. I mean, I know it was for me, I had no idea there was never like a planning element to my financial decisions for probably until I was like right about at 30. Which is a little horrifying. So I really, I hope so much to impart differently to my children, and to talk about money all the time, so that they think that it is a great tool, and it's something that they should pay attention to and absolutely have goals around. So, okay, you mentioned profit first. And you mentioned it being a little crazy that you have 12 months payroll sitting in account for your business. Well, I'm gonna do the same thing that you did to your son. I don't think it's that crazy. I think you were very clear on why you want to have it. Because if something were to happen to your industry again, you could still pay your employees and take that year to figure out what you want to do next. So it is like priceless peace of mind. Yes. So I just I just wanted to acknowledge that because I mean, in fact, who are we're constantly saying like if you don't need the cash, don't leave it on the sidelines, get it, get it move and get it work and get it making you money. But the truth is, is like your business is your biggest wealth generator. And if for some reason your business were to hit another COVID situation, and like how amazing that you had that money stored to begin with, so that you guys could last the nine months when all of your competitors went out of business so that when the world did wake up, you were available and got all their business. They were gone. You know what I mean? Like that's incredible. You've already proven to your Self, you should absolutely have that payroll there. So I'm not too worried about that. I just wanted to acknowledge it. But I did just want to ask you a little bit about profit first, because there's probably some business owners listening, or just people who are like, What the heck is that? So I to think Profit First is really, really interesting. Can you share what it is?
So profit verse is just an accounting method of what you do with your money. And I think a lot of people do some variation of this. Now, if they're in business, they're like, Oh, well, honestly, a lot of people in business, just throw everything into one account. And then they like pay their bills, and then they're hoping to have money to pay themselves. Or they'll say, Oh, well, I do put some money in tax or aside for taxes, or I put some money in savings. And then when you start asking people, like, how much are you setting aside in savings? They're like, Oh, gosh, hopefully enough. But they're not really, truly setting like a set percentage, or what have you aside. So what profit burst is, is a way of just managing your money so that every penny that comes into your business is divided into, let's say, accounts, or let's just say buckets. Like if you had $100 came into your business, you would want to put some immediately into profit first, which is the whole point of the whole thing is that you want to have your own profit before you do anything else. Pay yourself first. That's right. So you want to have profit first. And then you want to have different accounts. So an operating expense account, a tax account, and a oh, now I'm like on the spot Anywho. It's several different accounts that you have to have, I think there's like four different accounts. And so and then they have this kind of method or this theory of when in doubt, add an account. So if you're like, Well, what about payroll like, Okay, well, if that bothers you, and you don't want an OP X and add an account, like, Well, what about you know, contractor expenses, okay, great, add an account. And I know it sounds crazy of all these different accounts. So you would think that it would be really difficult to keep track of everything, it's actually extraordinarily easy. The hardest part of the whole thing was just going to the bank and setting up the like five accounts originally. But then the income account, that's the the fourth account, it's the account that all your money goes into. So all your money goes into one account, and then you disperse it, I do mine twice a month, he usually says the 10th and 25th. But because of how long it takes my bank to send a check, I had to move mine to the eighth and 23rd. So every eighth and 23rd of every single month, I do all of our finances all of our investing, do my net worth spreadsheet at the eighth of every month. So I mean, it really is a very simple process. And so I know that I have to put a certain percentage in taxes, a certain percent and operating expenses account a certain percent in payroll. And I do not deviate, it goes exactly through every time. When we first started using the program, we kind of had to adjust it to figure out like what was going to work best for us. But now I mean, it's a set it and forget it kind of thing. I have my exact percentages, and it always goes there. So I always know, I'm going to have payroll, operating expenses. I know my taxes, which if we're being real open about numbers, I just paid $292,000 and taxes. Yeah, that because last year 2021 was our biggest financial year ever. I paid more in taxes last year than I used to make in a year, which is insane to me. But I had the money there. And so instead of just being like, gosh, I hope I'm putting enough aside in taxes, I knew that that money was there. So the profit first method is a method of basically kind of setting up accounts so that you know that your business funds are going into the right place. It's it's simple. And it sounds like oh, well, this facility like why would this help you get through like a pandemic. But it really does, it's very different mentally focus than just having one business account and just paying everything out of it. And so I really highly recommend it. It's a very easy read. It's just a simple book. And honestly, the entire book can be broken down into like, one PDF, that you can actually get on the profit first website if you want it to a very, very simple method and very effective.
Yeah, I love that. I think that a lot of people starting out, do the very simple open up a business account, put it all in there, but then it's very nerve racking when taxes come up, because you're not really sure Oh, I think I have a lot. Oh, wait, that much is gonna be monopolized by taxes. I didn't have as much as I think to make additional investments in my business. So with that Profit First method, you can have big months, small months. And since it's percentages, it's the percentage that you're giving back to yourself, paying yourself first or that profit, that's going to change a lot. But your payroll should be pretty much the same. If you're not hiring, you know what I mean? So there's a lot of things you can know and it just gets you a lot clearer on like when you can continue to invest in your business and when you need to take a step back, whereas if it's all sitting there in a lump, you're not really sure you might think you have way more More than you really do, because Uncle Sam's always gonna get his. Well, thank you for sharing that I wanted to just I don't think we've ever discussed Profit First on the podcast. I know, we did use it initially, we don't use it as much now, but we have like a full accounting and my husband is like our CFO. So we use a version of it. Let's just say that. All right? Well, in order to wrap up this incredible conversation, I guess I would just love to know if there are any learnings, either from Factora, or just generally that you would want to share?
Hmm, that's a really good question. I've honestly learned so many things, I might give a piece of advice. If anyone out there is like, I don't know if this Factora thing is, for me, I would say, no matter where you are in your financial journey, even one thing that you learn can be the difference. And what I mean by that is sometimes I've taken courses from business, or different trainings and spent 1000s of dollars. And if I learn one single thing, if I've spent $5,000 on a training and learned one thing, and I knew everything else in the whole training, I feel like that training was worth it to me. Because if I've learned one thing that can impact my business, it can have, you know, financially future ramifications, time savings, all kinds of things. So I would say, no matter where you are in your financial journey, I feel like being a part of Factora or taking a well circle, even if you learn one single thing, or make one connection with someone in the full circle to me is worth it. Because that's something you didn't know before or didn't have that connection before. And you just don't know what that one thing will be. You know, I listened to 17 hours a podcast, I want to you know, over two days, and I still, you know, which is a great information on coffee and coin, but I still took the wealth circle. And honestly, I took the wealth circle, I'm just going to tell you something that I have not told you the wealth circle, actually, because I just felt that I owed it to you. Because I thought my God, I've learned so much from this, even if I learned nothing from the well circle, I just feel like that I should pay them for it. So I took the wills circle, partly because I just felt like slightly indebted to you. Because I'm like, oh, gosh, I've learned so much from them. I can't just not do the world circle.
That makes me so happy. Because I think a lot of times people can look at our course and be like, Oh, that's a lot of money. You know, why did they think they can charge that? I mean, you know, because you've taken the wall circle, we put a lot of effort into not just teaching a course. But having a community that is real, like you are going into breakout rooms, you are learning an investment topic, you are talking about it, you are flexing those muscles, we are trying to do something different than I've seen anywhere else. And it's very hard for a small company to do but it is so worth it. Because of women like yourself who are just like, I learned, I implemented I'm you know, it's passing down to my family, my kids, my friends that I'm talking to, it's so huge, but it makes me feel incredibly good that there's so much value and all the free things we offer before well circle, because well, circle doesn't have to be for you right now. But to your point, I really do think we built it in a way that everyone should get something out of it, including just some of these nuggets that we talked about that feel very qualitative, like question status quo, and, you know, don't blindly follow experts. That's a big deal to have thought that way before and to change that thinking after a few month period. But I cut you off, continue continue.
No, no, I really, I really did take the walk because I'm like, Well, I've learned so much through coffee and coin, like do I really need to take this full circle with us at this point. And I was like, You know what, I've learned so much, though, I feel like I owe it to them to continue on and take the wealth circle. And even through that, you know, I picked up again, like little nuggets through the wealth circle. So even if you're at a place, you're like, Well, I'm already savings, I already have the savings account, I'm already looking at real estate and as as an investment, even though you're in those things, and already at that place and your journey, so to speak financially, I still think that it is worth it. To do it. I think that people will find benefit in this program, no matter where they are. You know, and just like with savings, like even if you're, I think I had written to you like I feel like even if people put $10 a week into a savings account or doing something on $10 a week that $10 A week is still impactful because you're doing something and the same thing with the wealth circle. You're at least moving forward and continuing to make your finances an important part of your life.
Yes, yes, I always say what you pay for you pay attention to. So that is another reason that there is a There's a price tag on this because we want you to pay attention where you put your wallet is what you care about. So with that, Cheryl, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Thanks for sharing all your numbers, your background, your incredible business success and I so look forward to following you and all of your early retirement goals. Thanks crushing them along the way.
I'm so glad to be able to be on the podcast. It's not something I ever thought that I would do. So I'm really very excited to be able to share with other women and hopefully inspire them to do great things with your finances.
I know that you have today. Thank you. Thank you. If you enjoyed this episode, come join us in a well circle. It's our live online 12 week course and community where we teach you how to create a personalized financial plan alongside hundreds of other women building wealth. It will change your life and your money for good. You can apply at factorawealth.com forward slash wealth circle. That's factorawealth.com forward slash wealth circle. See you in the next episode.