Wealthy Women: This Money Hack Will Help Whitney Take a Yearlong Sabbatical

Episode Summary

Our beloved head of product, Whitney L., is taking a step back from Factora to pursue some much-needed time away from the hamster wheel. Today she talks to Allegra about how she's taking a yearlong, unpaid sabbatical without touching any of her savings.

Episode Notes

Our beloved head of product, Whitney L., is taking a step back from Factora to pursue some much-needed time away from the hamster wheel. Today she talks to Allegra about how she's taking a yearlong, unpaid sabbatical without touching any of her savings. 

Apply to the Fall Wealth Circle.

Listen to Whitney's older episode with Coffee & Coin about how she saved a million dollars. 

Apply to become our next Director of Growth Marketing!

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Transcript

  • Quick update before we get into today's podcast. As you know, Team Factora is small but growing, and every person we hire here is key to our success. So we are officially on the hunt for an incredible performance focused marketing director. Our listeners are some of the smartest best bunch I know. So I wanted to ask y'all if you know someone who might be a fit for this role, we're looking for an analytical data driven b2c marketer who can help us build effective sales funnels. And we're offering $1,000 finder's fee for anyone who sends us the person we ended up hiring so link in the show notes to apply or share with someone who might be a fit onto the episode. This is a Lego toy Bradley and you're listening to the coffee and coin podcast where women talk wealth. I'm the founder and CEO of Factora, a company on a mission to lead 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 Miss Whitney on the part of me today. Welcome back with

    Thank you, hi many friends.

    So many friends, we are going to be talking about why it pays to be a millionaire. Because I want to inform you all about a little few changes here at Factora. Being that Whitney has actually moved into an advisor role for us, which is very exciting. But it comes with a whole backstory that we're gonna fill you in on. Whitney has previously been our head of product. I met Whitney in 2019. Is that right? 2018 2018 2018. And she took her well circle that spring. I believe you're in well circle number five.

    Yes, I was in well, circle number five, just because my schedule is crazy. So I couldn't make a while circle beforehand happen. But I vividly remember meeting you in fall 2018, as you explained to me, you know this company Factora which you were started and I was just like, let me get in on that. Because I mean, as as you know, personal finance is my passion just like it is yours. Yes. And

    for listeners just to take you back on well Factora history. I used to do a phone call with every woman who had come into a wall circle. And so obviously Whitney came into the fifth. That's still very early on. But she found us before we had even launched the first and I remember being on the call with her. And I'm like, Okay, we have another one coming at this time. Does that work? And she's like, No, I'm going to Africa with my mom. And I'm like, oh, okay, well, how about this time? And she's like, No, I'm going on another trip. So one thing you should know about Whitney is that she really values travel, that is one of her highest values. And it's something that she is not willing to give up for anything or anyone and it's something I really respect about her. And we're gonna talk a lot about that today, I'm sure. But from there, she took her wealth circle. And this is back when we did them in person. I remember we were at a co working space in Austin and she would stay after her wealth circle to talk to me about product. She's like you this is a product like this course that you're doing. It's a product and you need to you know, have updates and talk to people about it. And I had never even heard of a head of product or what a product person does at a company because I had come from a pretty traditional marketing and sales background and just had no clue. So that was so eye opening to me and she was so generous with her time and with her knowledge and it's Experience and lo and behold, we needed a head of product. And she was the automatic shoo in for that. And she is the reason that the wall circle is what it is today. It is the reason that 430 Women can be going through the spring 2022 Well circle and having such a an intimate, incredible high touch high value experience. That is all because of this lady, right here. So thank you Whitney,

    Oh, stop, you're making me blush back here.

    Well, it's true, I couldn't have done this on my own. I have a vision, but I needed someone to put it together. And that has been used. So we have been working together now for a few years. And I've said this on another podcast. But that has been such a rewarding experience to me, not only because of what I've learned from you, but because of the devout trust that we have built. And I think there's nothing more important than trust in any relationship. But man is extremely important when you're building a company, and you need people that you can trust to be builders alongside you. And that's what Whitney has been to me. She's been my right hand woman since I met her basically even before we were able to hire her. And now she is moving on to being Factora’s advisor and taking a sabbatical. So let's let's talk about that. Let's talk about why it pays to be a millionaire so that you can be taking a sabbatical right now. And taking a break from from this or from any other job. Talk to me about what that means to you.

    Well, again, just a backup when I met you. I think the first thing I said was I'm ready to take a sabbatical. As you're as you're starting this business, like yes, I want to be in involved in Factora. But I wanted to take a sabbatical. And that's when I was really, you know, living the corporate life working a ton. And then the, the opportunity came for me to jump on board. I'm not Factora. So that's quite the opposite of taking a sabbatical

    indeed, jumping into a fledgling startup that had me at the helm with a billion ideas and no product experience and Whitney having to come in and be like, Okay, we could do some of that, but not all of that, and we need to prioritize it. And, again, this is how we build trust, because Whitney has her own vision, which is to do things smarter, not harder to simplify, not what is it that you call me, I'm verbose. I like to add, add, add and Whitney's. Like just batting things away. No, no, no, not necessary. Not a priority. But you're right. I do remember a car ride. We were driving back in your little Beemer from an event and you said you wanted to take a sabbatical. And I thought, What a shocking thing to say for for like a young woman, like, who just says that? I mean, I had one friend who had taken a sabbatical. And she works at Lululemon. It was because she had worked there for a decade, that they didn't pay her, but they allowed her to reserve her job and take a sabbatical for a time. So I was like, who just takes one on their own, like you have to put in tenure and like, have yours at a company to get that. But turns out, you can do it if you actually have options and money gives us options.

    Yeah, so at that time, I wanted a sabbatical to fulfill my number one value in life, which is movement, travel exploration, all that, like you said, there's just so much of the world I haven't seen. I did put that on hold to help build Factora because I also thought this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. But you know, as life has it, it has its own plans. And as we were, you know, building the company, I experienced just traumatic traumatic loss in my family. My younger brother passed away unexpectedly. And then 20 months later, my younger cousin passed away unexpectedly, as well. So, at this point, as I think most women feel, when they have to take care of sick parents, when they become a mother, when they experience traumatic loss, we put our head down, and we chuck forward. But what a lot of people don't realize and what I have learned through all my grief therapy is anytime you go through something like that your brain changes, your brain actually changes, your memory changes, you cannot handle everything that you used to be able to handle on and so building a company, trying to be there for my family, all of it finally, came you know, to ahead and, and 2021, where I really had to step back and say it is time for a sabbatical and not for the original reasons that, you know, I thought, but more for mental health for healing. And for me part of that is is travel, that's how I definitely heal, relax, and rest. But really, it kind of was a forcing mechanism to to take this sabbatical and I had a great honest conversation with you, who understood exactly where I was coming from. And I'm so grateful to still be a part of the company, but be able to take a step back, because we worked hard to build the product. So it was in a good place, you know, to bring on other team members to help run it and for me to to take a step back. But I am also very grateful for my situation, because if I didn't have the flexibility to take this sabbatical, I think, you know, I'd be stuck in the same position of not giving myself the space and the time to be able to heal, I would, you know, have to keep my head down. And it's hard, because I think that's what society expects you to do. And these type of type of flexibility isn't really built into our working system. So we really have to be responsible to build them for ourselves. So it, I had been working on saving up for a sabbatical for a long time. And, you know, I was, I was in position to do it. And I know in the wealth circle we talk a lot about before you hit financial freedom, which can seem so lofty and far away, you hit financial flexibility. And that brings a lot of opportunity. And you can use that opportunity however you want. And it's, you know, I'm in that financial flexibility state right now. And I can say, it's been great, it's been helpful, and I'm really enjoying it.

    So I want to dig into a few things, starting with what you said about if you experience something in life, especially loss or something traumatic, how your brain shifts, and that feels really important to just talk through a little bit further because I agree, the way that our at least American western society and culture is is that you are supposed to present your best self at work all the time nine to five. Try not to have down days. And if you are, don't show anyone just conceal, compartmentalize, shelve it. And I remember my experience working for big Corp America, back in my early 20s. And sure, there were some times where I was hungover and I didn't bring my best self to work. But there were also times when there was just really stressful things happening in my family, or really unfortunate things happening to my friends. And that emotional weight did carry with me to work. And I couldn't necessarily shelve it, and yet, I tried. So I think if you go on and do that for years and years and years, it's so easy to break. I mean, we are not rigid humans, we are soft bodied, complex animals. And it takes a toll if we don't allow ourselves to fully feel our feelings, and I know in work a lot of times we're like, this isn't a feelings place. This is a place of business. So we can't bring our emotions here. But that's bullshit. Like we all have emotions, we're feeling them all day long. And we're gonna feel them worse later on if we don't allow them to be felt at all. So I just I thought that was worth stopping and talking to because I think especially women were just told you can handle it all. You can handle things happening at home things happening at work, all of it stressing you out. And you just waking up and doing it again the next day and the next day and the next day, one foot in front of the other right all those you know, stupid terms, but there is a price you're gonna pay eventually. So I am really proud of you that you stopped and said, even if I'm not taking a sabbatical for the original reasons, I need one now more than ever. And when we had that conversation, you know, talking about not bringing emotions to work. We were both in floods of tears, because, you know, it meant loss for me that I was losing you but it also meant

    that you were losing me full time.

    But that still feels like an arm, limb getting cut off. But it also meant that you are gaining you and like we're friends but For were colleagues, like just, that's, that's just the truth like and that should be everyone's truth. I know that's not at every place of business. But for me, it's really important that the people who are employed here, if we build a personal relationship like that comes before our working relationship. So that was a very emotional conversation that then led to many more conversations. So we could figure out what it would look like for Factora to still have a little bit of Whitney but for Whitney to be able to go and do what she needs to with her healing journey, her mental health, her just ability to refocus on yourself. And something else that you brought up to me, that has stayed with me was that we both got married at the same time, we both got married in summer of 2020. We both did elopements. We did them in very different ways. I didn't tell the world did it in like our backyard, and then was like, Oh, shit, now we're gonna hurt a lot of people's feelings by not having told them you are the one that was like You haven't told your parents. It's been months. And I was like, I know, I didn't really think it through. But, you know, I'm not as some simplified and intentional as you. And then you went and got married in like, the most beautiful place with just the two of you like you made it an adventure. And it was all aboveboard. Everyone's knew that it was happening. And then you said to me, when you were talking about wanting to take the sabbatical, you said, I also want to make sure that I'm very present and able to enjoy these first early years of marriage, which I can never get back. And I was like, Oh, that is so true. You know, people get married, they take off a little time from work, and then they just move on with their lives. When really, if you think about marriage, you just took one life on one path, and put two lives on the same path. And there's a lot that comes with that like a lot of intangibles, and just changes emotional, behavioral, etc, that you don't want to miss out on you want to be very present for so I loved that. That was another thing that you said, you don't want to wait on, because you can't get this time back.

    I mean, everyone always says your your marriage, honeymoon is like the first year of, of your marriage. And I just, you know, part of me was grieving, during that time dealing with PTSD working on a business day, night, weekends. And it took a minute to realize, like, whoa, I'm never gonna get my honeymoon phase of marriage back. And it's so easy again, for us as women to push things aside, like the self care, the marriage, like whatever to get, you know, put other three things in front of that, but the time always has to be now the time to work on your marriage is now even if it's going great and smooth, like it's still now the time to take the trips you've been putting off is now the time to be with your family is not like it's it's now is always the time because I think we are very good at pushing things to, to the back. And you know, one thing I think that came out of the pandemic is people are starting to realize that more health benefits mental health days are being added to, you know, company policies. So I just want to say, take advantage of that if your company is recognizing the mental health toll that the pandemic and other things have taken and you know, time with family is never guaranteed. So, like I was saying the time to do things to work on things is today is now don't put it off.

    It's so true. Yeah, we just added a Wellness Benefit, because we were like, look, the only way to be a good steward of your life is to make sure that wellness is put first and you know, a lot of companies are getting on this bandwagon. But for us it was just like, Yeah, we don't even really care what it's for put plants in your office, anything that's going to make you feel better and put you first needs to be a part of like the daily chores. I just I constantly think back to New York and how bizarre my life was. I actually opened up Instagram the other day and stole a video about a woman kind of spoofing her New York Life and I totally knew everything she was talking about. She's just like, I used to go to sleep so that I could wake up at five in the morning. I had my lunch packed. I had my workout clothes ready. I had my work outfit prepared in a bag. I would jump into my workout clothes, I would run out the building, jump on a subway, get to the workout class, do the workout class get changed there into my second outfit run to be at my desk by 7am. Then I work all day, until 7pm Not moving physically in one spot for most of the day, I eat lunch at my desk, and then do it all again the next day. And then she just looked into the camera and was like, that's crazy. Like, that's absolutely wild. That's not a life. And of course, it's gonna break. So I too agree that there are some really good benefits that came out of the pandemic, most of all a recalibration of what's important, like, Is it that important to be tethered to a desk all day long? Or could you be just as efficient if not more so, working from home, living where you want and taking more time outside and expending more energy on things that fill you back up with energy. So anyways, that was a little bit of a divergence from our original topic. But I know that all of our listeners are going to want to know a little bit about this financial flexibility you mentioned. So I think it'd be helpful to catch up the audience in case they haven't heard one of your previous episodes on your investing history and your portfolio as it stood in 2021. When you made this decision, and how you're tactically going about taking a year off, and affording life because Factora is not paying Whitney in dollars right now, in this advisor agreement, we're doing it in in equity. So if you're not making money from us, how are you affording your life,

    so I started investing at the age of 21 in the stock market, really not exactly knowing what or but just knowing I would need this money. So just loading it in there, added some real estate finally to my portfolio in 2018. And then, with Factora, adding some business assets, so kind of working on diversifying my overall portfolio. So in 2021, you know, my portfolio is out about altogether 1.6 million. And I had the opportunity also in 2021 to go in on a real estate investment deal with my husband, we don't share portfolios. So when we go in to deal in on a deal together, we put in, you know, it's it's 5050, we put in the same amount. And my father in law, because he is a homebuilder and a general contractor. So we found a lot out in Texas Hill Country, fairly cheap, bought it, we're in the process of building house, we plan to sell it in the fall of 2022. So my plan for income for 2022 is to use the proceeds from the house. Again, I don't know how much we're gonna sell the house for we don't have the final cost breakdown of what we're building the house for it, but my goal is to get $100,000 from that deal. Now, what are we in March?

    Right? I'm thinking okay, but that sale doesn't happen until fall. So how are you affording life till then?

    So that's a good question. So here's my big thing. I, like you know, Warren Buffett always teaches understand the power of compounding returns. And you know, with the market being so crazy this year, the last thing I wanted to do was pull money out of my brokerage account to live on. So, you know, I have a financial advisor that I've been working with ever since I started my portfolio. And I was talking to him about strategies. And he mentioned this thing called a liquidity access line. And I don't know if every brokerage firm offers it, but Morgan Stanley does. And what that is, essentially, is that you can take a loan, basically using your brokerage account as collateral, where you know, the Morgan Stanley would give you the money upfront, and then you can set really set your own terms. It's extremely flexible to pay it back at a certain date. So I was like, this is perfect. I crunched my, you know, nut down to $80,000 for the year. So Morgan Stanley gave me that money upfront at a 1.95% Right.

    Well, that's better than Mike Car loan,

    which is extremely low. And I got to set my term that I'm going to pay back the $80,000 plus the interest in one lump sum in February 2023. So I can live off of that money for 2022 and not have to borrow against my brokerage account. So this I know one of your values, Allegra is leverage. And this was such a cool opportunity to leverage basically a bank product to be able to do this. Yes.

    So I want to double click into this and ask a bunch of questions for our listeners, because they might be thinking what I'm thinking. So just to recap, you knew you weren't going to be making an income for 2022, during this sabbatical. So you were talking to your financial advisor, and he shared that there was the ability to leverage against your brokerage assets, take a loan for this fixed, very low rate under 2%. And then you created the terms to pay it back in one lump sum in February of next year, when you know that or you hope that your real estate will have been sold. And it sounds like you're giving some buffer time because if that house is supposed to be ready in the fall, you have until you know, late winter, early spring, before you even need to pay back the lump sum. And I heard you say you're planning to make around 100,000 from the house and you only borrowed 80,000. So these are all things that she's worked out to be able to afford her life this year and then pay it back. After what is what's 1.95% on 80 grand.

    It's like 1500, a little over 1500. Okay,

    that is awesome. You all did you hear that she's paying $1,500 to borrow 80 grand for a year, and it doesn't actually take the money out of her brokerage account. So that means everything that's invested there is still doing its job, it's taking advantage of time in the market compound interest, I'm assuming you pretty much do you take dividends or do you reinvest that

    I reinvest my, my dividends, but one strategy that my advisor brought up is to pay my interest monthly from my dividends. But I decided against that because I like to get it all reinvested. It's also so little

    like $1,500, like, okay, so what did you call this a liquidity access line of credit?

    Yes, that's what it is referred to by the brokerage firm. And I guess one thing I do want to point out is all of this is a risk, right? Like, maybe the house doesn't sell maybe, you know, we go over budget on the house, come February, I don't have the amount of money to pay it back, right. But the thing is, I sat down and calculated everything. So I'm taking a very calculated risk, you know, with such a low rate with giving myself buffer time to sell the house. So no investment comes without risk. But we talked about making it calculated.

    Absolutely. And that goes for anything that goes for buying a house that goes for putting $1 in the stock market. But without risk, there's also no potential for reward. So to me, a life without risk is actually not a life at all, you know, like when you took a risk coming here from a corporate job, when you taking a risk with this line of credit, and with this real estate investment, but without any risk, there isn't reward, right, you have to put capital on the line to potentially earn more capital. And that goes for like humans, you have to put yourself on the line to maybe end up in a great relationship or to end up with this job that you want. So I'm a big fan of risk, I come to love risk more and more as I get older. And I know, you know, oftentimes people say, well, the older you get, the more the less risky you should be, and the more conservative but I'm like, Man, the more I do it, the more I'm just like, I'd rather lose at something then not try at all.

    And the other thing we talked about too is not all debt is bad debt. So like using leverage in your favor. And, you know, I think this is another good example of just having an opportunity to use leverage that is going to help add assets to my portfolio.

    Yeah, and making the decision to not pay back the interest early, which I would have probably done the same thing. I mean, we have a car loan for 1.99%. So it's not as good as yours. But I would never pay off that car loan early because I would rather be contributing money monthly to the market now then to put a lump sum to wipe out that car loan when the interest is so low and I could potentially be making more with my cap to low risk. So really the point is for women to learn about all of this so that they can make confident, calculated decisions based on their needs at that time. And the other thing I want to say is that whether it's called a liquidity access line, or you know, I've heard it called an SPL, there's different things that it's called at different brokerages that does this. But these financial vehicles are only available to you if you have assets to leverage against, which is one more reason why I want women to be wealthy to be knowledgeable, and to have those assets so that if and when it comes time to make a decision, like Whitney did, I want to take a sabbatical, I'm going to take it now. She's also able to leave her investments going in the background, and get access to something like this. This is why people are always like, well, the rich get richer, rah rah, rah. And it's like, yes, but you have that opportunity to if you put in the time, and I want to be very clear, Whitney was pretty concise about her investment background, but she has been investing as much money as she could since she was 21 years old. I sure as hell didn't get that memo. I didn't know. And I love that you share that you didn't really know what you were doing, but you still did it. So you got to take advantage of the 2008 2009 spring back up longest bull market in history. Because even not knowing exactly what you were doing, you were still willing to do it, you were still willing to be investing, to make mistakes and to make gains. And it's really made you a lot of gains, because you've been unwavering in your investment strategy over all these years. One other thing I want to point out is that you mentioned that you use a financial advisor. Now, in fact, tomorrow, we talked about the different ways to invest in the market. And you can either use an advisor, which is definitely the most one on one boutique service, because someone is professionally investing for you, you can DIY or you do kind of a combo, which is robo advisor. A lot of women see the fees that are associated with financial advisors and are like, I'm leaving mine or I'm never getting one. And we're not here to say that having a financial adviser is bad or wrong. It is it's more expensive than doing it yourself. But can you talk a little bit about your financial advisors fee and why you've stayed very loyal to that strategy?

    Well, I do use all three strategies in my portfolio Robo DIY, and my advisor. But really, when I started investing robos weren't a thing. And I was in the financial services industry. So it just was the easiest lift for me was hiring an advisor, there weren't too many other, you know, options. And so I've been working with him for a very long time. We are good partners, in building my portfolio. You know, he's also very creative with me and figuring out income and other investment options. So and, you know, he's giving me a big discount for sticking with him. So, you know, I view it more as a strategic partnership. And as this liquidity access line example, that I've given, like, there's been some benefits of me working with an advisor, you know, a robo doesn't, and a DIY account doesn't do the same thing.

    Yeah, there's no one to call if you're doing it yourself, obviously. And you have to have a certain minimum with robos. I for most of them to get access to human advice as well. So I know for Whitney, you know, there was someone to talk to when she wanted to utilize or repurpose some of her paper assets into real estate, she had a human to help her figure out that strategy and how to distribute it, et cetera, and that there was going to be tax implications, like all things you'd be looking up on your own. If you didn't have an advisor,

    not all advisors are created, created equal. I will say like for sure, you know, my adviser invests in real estate investment, business assets has the same mentality as I do. So the conversations are very fruitful. So anyone who's looking to hire an advisor, I would say that definitely interview at least three advisors to make sure you feel a partnership with with one of them.

    Yeah, and we talk about too that, you know, an advisor is typically getting you into the stock market, so that is where they're strongest. But to Whitney's point, try and find one who does investments outside of the stock market so that they have that wider breadth of, of financial assets and how they all kind of work together because, yes, an advisor is going to want you to have the most amount of money in the stock market, if that's the job that they do, but you still want to live in a house, or maybe invest in properties and do these other creative plays. So I have seen it where financial advisors have kind of detoured people from those ideas, because it's not a safe zone for them or something that they have comfort in talking about. So they kind of just say, like, I don't know about that. And then you look at this advisor, and you're like, well, they're the experts. So I should just do it, they say, so it's totally true that not all advisors are created equal. And you didn't answer the fee question, how much do you pay your advisor?

    Oh, point, point, 5%. So half a percent, you know, usually, the average is like one to 2%. So it's still a chunk out of my portfolio, I'm not gonna lie, but when we're doing like, really strategic things, you know, like trading options and like access to a liquidity access line, to me, that's worth it. So it's all opportunity costs.

    Totally. I mean, he also focuses a lot on your individual stock portfolio, right? Yes, yep. And that's just important to note too, because, you know, if you have an advisor, they shouldn't necessarily be putting you into mutual funds, you could buy yourself, because then you're paying advisor and also paying for a fund that's actively managed, that's going to be more expensive that you could have just put yourself into,

    that's exactly the conversation we had, I was like, if you're going to be picking index funds for me, I can do that myself. So I want to basically build our own personalized index fund by investing in stocks and bonds directly, because that's going to be a cheaper fee. But that is something I don't feel comfortable doing myself. So it makes, you know, hiring a professional who is analyzing these PE ratios, and all that good data every day worth it. But it's you know, just back to the point we were talking about earlier, having assets and building wealth, at the end of the day, it's going to bring you more options. And one of the other things I want to bring up is, you know, I have a primary residence, which my husband and I live in right now. But we want to do a lot of traveling this fall head overseas for about four months. And because I have this wonderful primary residence asset, you know, my goal is to turn that into an Airbnb so that I can subsidize the you know, quote, unquote, rent that I'll be paying over in Europe when we're doing traveling. So I'm in the process of, of turning my my house into a rental. And, you know, that takes a lot of work. That's something I probably underestimated, but the cool thing is that I have the option to make money from my real estate asset while I'm on vacation.

    And I have no doubt that you won't make good money from that house, because we just flipped our primary residence into a short term rental and it is doing good rate in Austin, and you have better location. And we all know real estate is about location. My house was also built in the 50s. And the floors are not great get get splinters from walking around your house was built, what, five years ago?

    2016. Yeah,

    so you know, no splinters very nice. So what we're saying money friends is learn how to invest, get comfortable with buying assets, because when you have enough assets in your portfolio, you have more financial flexibility to do what you want when you want to. And you also have access to creative financial vehicles that you wouldn't otherwise have if you're just kind of cash in cash out which a lot of people are. But you don't have to be that way. Even if you think you do, even if you're someone listening, saying Oh, but I make $60,000. And it's impossible to live for less. I lived in New York on $40,000. And I sure as heck made it out to nice restaurants because that was my value at the time, and didn't put away money into my investment accounts. Meanwhile, you talked to Whitney about her early 20s. And she was like, I can go with one pair of sheets. I need all the money into my investment accounts. And I was the opposite. So it always comes back down to your values, which is why in fact when we start right there, like we're not about budgeting and frugal living, we're about getting in alignment with what matters to you now and in the future. And knowing that there's always an opportunity cost for things that you get now that are going to affect your future or you can flip it and get less now so you have Have more in the future. And there is no right or wrong, there's no judgment, there's just you understanding the different investment opportunities, making your investment strategy, implementing it. And then knowing that that's not the end that you're going to continue tweaking it and tweaking it. As things come along. Whitney could not have known five years ago that she was going to be taking a sabbatical year after a worldwide pandemic, with a real estate investment that was going to pay her back for this time. And, you know, access line against her brokerage account that was gonna pay that. So the whole point is, she wouldn't have any of that if she wasn't focused on her financial life, and trying new things and taking calculated risks.

    So use your values to build wealth. building wealth brings you flexibility, opportunity, freedom, take calculated risks, use leverage to your advantage. Those are probably my biggest takeaways from this podcast.

    I love it. Well, is there anything else you want to say about women taking sabbaticals or life on a sabbatical?

    I just want to remind women, you don't have to do it all. And don't underestimate the time and space that you need to be even helpful to other people. Like we think, Oh, I have to be there everywhere to help other people. No, in order to help others you have to really take care of yourself first. So use those mental health benefits. Give yourself that space, this free days, take a sabbatical if you can. Pay attention to yourself.

    I love it. And before you take that sabbatical, if you have access to unlimited PTO, which so many companies do now, just take random days off, just take a life admin day, just take a no technology day just do the little baby sabbaticals on the way to being able to take a bigger break. And that's all we have for you ladies and gent. If there's one of you listening.

    Thanks, everyone.

    If you enjoyed this episode, come join us in a wealth 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.

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