213 | Client Rewind: How Ashley Paid Off All Her Credit Cards and Saved $15,000

My client Ashley found herself in a position where she was making good money but not really paying attention to her finances. She was in a state of passivity, as she calls it.

During our work together, she got out of passivity and started taking big action to turn her finances around.

She paid off all her credit cards and has implemented a plan with her husband to build their savings and start investing.

In this episode, Ashley and I talk about our work together, including her thoughts on the importance of taking action.

• • Ashley’s money journey before coaching

  • why making more doesn’t fix everything

  • what she was expecting to get out of coaching vs. her coaching experience

  • how she feels about money

  • managing your money well and living your life

  • Ashley’s plans for her money

  • how she manages her entertainment spending

  • having the confidence to make decisions for your finances

  • some of the things Ashley has accomplished with her money

  • words of encouragement for others working on their finances

You’re listening to Wealthyesq. We are a community of lawyers who believe that true wealth is having control of our time. I’m Rho Thomas, and as a busy wife, mom and former Biglaw associate, I know all too well the tension between the culture of the legal profession and pretty much everything else you want to do in life. That’s why each week, I’m bringing you the information and tools you need to improve your money mindset and manage your money to create true wealth. Because ultimately, it’s not about the money. It’s about the freedom and flexibility the money affords.

Hey friend. Welcome back to the show. I hope you’re doing well and having an amazing day so far. Throughout the month of June, I’m bringing you bonus episodes, where we’ll revisit interviews with some of my clients who have been able to pay off significant debt. In each of these bonus episodes, you’ll get to hear directly from my clients all about their journey with turning their finances around and starting to get out of debt. As you listen, I want you to use their stories as examples of what’s possible for you, too. If they can do it, so can you. With that, let’s get into this week’s bonus client rewind episode.

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Rho
Welcome to the podcast. Ashley, how’s it going?

Ashley
I’m good, thank you rho.

Rho
Good, good. Well, for all of the people out there, just so they know you are in house counsel and also one of my former clients. So I am really excited to share your story today. And we’re gonna dive into all the things starting with your money story before we started working together. So tell us a little bit about what your journey with money was like before coaching.

Ashley
Okay, so my journey with money before coaching was one of passivity. I wasn’t really paying attention to like what I was doing with my money. I felt like, I knew some things. But I didn’t know a lot of things. I felt like I was kind of adrift, I didn’t really have like, a set plan and like framework of what am I going to do about retirement? I have the 401k at different jobs. But what does that mean? Am I doing the right thing? Should I be investing? So I feel like I was just kind of adrift at sea?

Rho
Well, and I love that word passivity. Because I think it’s so characteristic of how a lot of people manage their finances. You know, it’s one of those things that it tends to be something that people are afraid of. And so they’re like, oh, yeah, it’s just here. I’m doing what I can. And I’ve got this money here. So let me pay this. And there’s no real plan behind it. And so I love that you said that, because I think a lot of people can relate to that.

Ashley
It really was just passive, graduating from law school, and then my first few jobs not making that much money, and then going on to make more money at firms. And as in house counsel is just kind of like a bigger change. So I figured I needed to start paying more attention.

Rho
Yeah and I think a lot of times people think like, oh, if I just made more money, then things will be better. Right?

Ashley
But you have to know what to do with it.

Rho
Exactly, exactly. And I think that’s the piece that so many people are missing, right? It’s like, oh, I’m making this money. But I don’t know what I’m doing with it. And they don’t have the intentional plan with how they’re going to manage it. And so that’s how you ended up getting into that cycle of, you’re making more, and then it starts feeling like not enough again. So if I could just make a little more, and then you get to that more it feels like it’s not enough and just keeps going like that until you figure out how to be sufficient or how to feel sufficient with what you have and how to manage what you have. It’s never going to feel like enough. Tell us a little bit about your experience with coaching and like what you were expecting from coaching.

Ashley
Coaching was definitely a wonderful experience. What I was expecting is kind of what exactly what I got and I feel like I got even more because we talked about not just like money issues but just kind of life issues as well and career issues just because all of that is intertwined. I definitely got accountability which is what I was meeting like someone to sit with me and say Hey, pay attention to this and then also the deep knowledge. So someone that’s done this before someone that was in a similar situation of okay, like I need to get my money together, did successfully and can kind of lay out that roadmap.

Rho
And you mentioned on the front end feeling like just passive about your money. How do you feel now about your finances?

Ashley
I definitely feel like I’ve taken a one eighty. So me and my husband, we are kind of in the same boat. We’re both lawyers, we’re both kind of, you know, doing the same thing. Like we go to work, we get money in our paycheck. And we would just be like, totally passive, it would just be like, you know, you’re just living life, you’re busy with working firm hours, and trying to keep up with family and friends. And now we actually have weekly Money meetings as an impetus from my coaching, because I was like, well, I need to bring him on board. I need him to pay attention to this too. So because this is a partnership, so definitely a big change. We have a roadmap, we have a budget, we even were, I thought you would might like this, we’re opening up HSAs.

Rho
Oh, I love it.

Ashley
I was like look at us. Last year around this time, around open enrollment time, I think we just picked whatever insurance option and didn’t worry about it, you know, we’re young, and we don’t really go to the doctor. And now I’m like, Well, maybe I need to use that to my advantage, I should probably be doing a different health plan, enrolling in the HSA, the company is putting money into the HSA. So definitely thinking about these things like building up our emergency fund, funneling all of his paycheck to that. And then funneling after that, after building it up after like two or three months, then going to be funneling his paycheck into index funds.

Rho
Oh, I love it. I love it. And the way that you’re laying out this plan, right? It’s definitely not passive anymore. You’re like, yes, we are thinking intentionally now about open enrollment, and not just picking whatever the default is, like, let’s think about what we actually want to do. And oh, let’s take this check. And actually use it for the specific goals rather than passively spending it not paying attention to what’s going on.

Ashley
Absolutely. Because as you know, we were we were over here we eat out, we were eating out. Where does Bollin we’re just.

Rho
Look your worst shenanigans.

Ashley
Yes, we were shenanigans. We were not paying attention. We were just like living. And it was just like, well, if you have goals, yes, living is good. But you know, kind of putting certain things in check, and then also making sure we’re preparing for the future.

Rho
Are you still living now? I think a lot of people, you know, a lot of people are still like, oh, being better with money, it means I can’t have any fun. I can’t go out to eat and just gotta sit at home. And, you know, whatever. Are you still living?

Ashley
Yeah, no, definitely, like, still living still going on trips, still doing all of that, but just paying more attention to it. You know, like, I don’t necessarily need that random Amazon purchase, or putting away the money on the front end. Like this is something that we did during coaching. So during coaching, I opened up a separate account for like entertainment. And that’s been going better. Because I feel like at first I was like, I don’t need my entertainment budget, I’m just gonna go be here. But we have been more disciplined with time, I feel like, you know, we’re building that muscle and paying more attention to it. And especially these last two months, where we’ve been like putting Daniel’s paycheck into another account has been really good.

Rho
And even just the way that you’re talking about, you know, the plan and how you are building in the entertainment, right, like using that separate account, so that you can keep the entertainment in check. And that kind of fudging it, because like you said, it would be like, Oh, I spent everything in this account. Let me just pull a little bit more over here. And so it was like using that account, you know, more intentionally being disciplined. And it sounds you didn’t say these exact words. But something that we talked about a lot, something that I’ve talked about a lot, are the trade offs that you’re making when you’re spending money, right? So the more money that you spend on X thing, the less money you have available to spend on y thing. And so you were saying that you are you’ve got these goals that you and Daniel are working on. And so now it’s let’s keep this entertainment in check so that we can have more money available for those goals.

Ashley
Absolutely. Yeah.

Rho
Yes. So what were some of your biggest takeaways from our work together?

Ashley
So my my biggest takeaways were just definitely that it is not as intimidating as it seems. It’s just that I am unfamiliar with this at this time, and putting in the time like, you know, having the scheduled calls just having the time to work at it really did wonders. So that’s kind of the biggest takeaway that you know, I don’t need to be scared of like, Hey, I don’t know like what index fun and what brokerage accounts open. And, you know, just kind of like, action is better than no action.

Rho
Yeah, you know, I don’t give like specific investment advice, I want to make sure it make that clear. But I think a big part of it and something that one of my other clients has said recently is like having that confidence to be able to look into the different things that are available and make the decision that’s best for you. And I think that that’s unbeatable, right? Like just having that confidence to make decisions for your finances. Because so often, people shy away from doing any of that, because it feels scary, it feels overwhelming, unknown, right? And so being able to look into the different options available, and be like, okay, yes, I want to do X or I want to do Y, I’m going to open this brokerage account, and I’m going to do these types of investments. Like you probably wouldn’t have done that if you hadn’t built up your confidence with the other pieces of your finances first.

Ashley
No, absolutely. Right. Because, yeah, I wouldn’t have been thinking about that, because I probably wouldn’t have had any, I wouldn’t have known where there was room in the budget to put money into the program. I didn’t have a budget, because I was thinking about it. Yeah, just different things.

Rho
It all comes back to the budget. Like I say, the budget is like the foundation, right? When you get your budget down, then it doesn’t matter what your financial goals are, you’re going to be able to accomplish them. Because you’re able to manage your money the way that you want to, and direct it intentionally to the different goals that you have. Alright so as much or as little as you want to share, tell us where you are now, with your finances, like some of the things that you’ve been able to accomplish.

Ashley
Some of the things we’ve been able to accomplish, we’ve been able to save 15,000 for an emergency fund. And we’re still building that. But I’m glad that we have that and that it’s tucked away in a different account that we haven’t touched, yet is positive. Another thing that we accomplished was we opened up brokerage accounts. And so starting at the New Year, we’re wanting to start funding those with Daniel’s paycheck. So we make kind of similar amounts of money. So my like, my pictures check is gonna go to like our kind of daily expenses, like, you know, that’s where like our rent, and all of those things are gonna come out of from and like our entertainment, and then his paycheck, we’re just like, not going to spend that at all. It’s been going, we switched even the payroll, it’s gonna go like directly into savings so that there’s like no temptation to touch it. And after we’re finished with funding the emergency fund, because we decided to do 30,000, we’re going to go ahead, and then the putting that into the brokerage account.

Rho
Love it. And then you also paid off some debt. Now, I know that was a while back, but you also were able to pay off some debt as well. And so I love that you’re making these moves to save and pay off debt. And now you’ve got the eye toward investing in building wealth as well.

Ashley
So yeah, during the coaching program, we kind of got things into gear where I was just paying off silly. I feel like why did I have this like credit card debt that both of us had? So that’s all paid off. That’s like all gone? Yeah, yeah. Just the student loans.

Unknown Speaker
Forgiveness, like no, no forgiveness for you.

Rho
But yeah, you are able to make a plan for how you’re gonna handle the student loans. Right, as you know exactly how you’re gonna manage your money going forward.

Ashley
Right. So yeah, like at the beginning of the year, we’re going to figure out what the allocation is going to be exactly. But the most important thing for us was to get that money out of our checking. The money like Daniels paycheck, so half of our earnings. So that’s been working. I know, we discussed this before, while we were doing coaching. So I don’t know exactly what the split will be. Between student loans and the brokerage account. But

Rho
Yeah, like you’ll be able to make that decision.

Ashley
Yeah.

Rho
So what words of encouragement do you have for anyone who is where you were back earlier this year, when we started working together?

Ashley
The words of encouragement I would have would just be to keep trying to keep taking actions. I feel like that’s been the theme of our money journey. So passivity at first and kind of, you know, knowing different people or doing different things, being kind of interested but not taking that step. And that’s exactly why I did coaching because I was like, I need to take action. I need to do something I you know, you can read enough books and listen to enough podcasts and be like, okay, all those things sound great and fine, but it’s not until you take action and it doesn’t have to be perfect, you know, you need to fail faster. So that would be my thing. My advice and words of encouragement, do something.

Rho
Right. But I think, to your point, coaching is so helpful when you’re in that place where you’ve been reading all the books, you’ve been listening to the podcast, but you’re not actually implementing the things that you’re learning. There’s always something there, like some mindset, something that is keeping you from actually taking the action. And then you also mentioned the accountability piece of, we’re meeting every week. And let’s talk about what’s happened over the last week. And so having that coupled with looking at any of those limiting beliefs, or the way that you’re thinking about money that maybe isn’t serving you is so helpful to get you actually moving forward on the things that you’re learning. So you’re not just consuming information. It’s like, let me take in this information and decide how I want to use it in my actual finances to achieve the goals that I have.

Ashley
Exactly right. Just move forward.

Rho
Yes, yes. All right. Well, is there anything else you would like to share with the people before we go?

Ashley
Like I said, Keep trying? You know, keep keep at it. That’s it.

Rho
Yes. Well, keep going. Keep trying. Keep taking action, all wonderful words, all great advice for the people. Well, thank you so much, Ashley, for coming on and sharing your story. It was so great working with you. And I’m glad that people will be able to hear the things that you’ve been able to accomplish, and be able to apply those things in their own lives.

Ashley
Thank you. And thank you for having me row. It was great.

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I hope you enjoyed hearing about my client’s journey, and I hope you can see the possibilities that are available to you, as well. I will help you get there.

Enrollment is now open for The Wealthyesq Group, my 6-month group program to help lawyers get out of debt and get control of their money. I will guide you step by step through my proven process to pay off your debt and improve your finances. You get weekly group calls to get all your questions answered, personalized reviews of your finances complete with custom strategy, daily written support, a private community, on-demand video trainings, and downloadable resources. Join us to learn how to get out of debt in the most sustainable, most enjoyable way. Your investment is only $3000, and it’s risk-free. You’ll pay off at least $5000 in the program, or you get your money back. Join us at rhothomas.com/coaching.

Alright, that is it for this week’s bonus episode. Meet me back here on Friday for our regularly scheduled episode, and I look forward to talking with you then.

As we close out friend I pray that you take the information you learn here apply it in your life and open up to the realization that wealth is available to you. As you do that consistently week after week. You’ll continue to take steps to regain control of your time, build wealth and live the life of freedom and choice you deserve. Talk to you later.