Crushed by Law School Debt? Escape Velocity is Possible!
Drowning in student loans while juggling a crazy law career? You're not alone. But listen up, because financial freedom is closer than you think.
This episode features Rho Thomas, the money coach who slayed a monstrous $678,000 debt. Yes, SIX HUNDRED SEVENTY EIGHT THOUSAND DOLLARS.
Law school grad. Big Law associate. Crippling debt. Rho's story is one you NEED to hear. She'll show you how she:
But wait, there's more! We'll dive deep into:
By the end of this episode, you'll have a battle plan for financial freedom. Ready to ditch the stress and build a life you actually love?
Hit play and let's do this!
Bonus: Get even more Rho wisdom! Connect with her on Linkedin: iamrhothomas and her website: www.rhothomas.com/. Don't miss out on these powerful tools to conquer debt and live your best life!
Free Download! 5 Mistakes That Keep Lawyers in Debt (and How to Correct Them). Get your FREE copy and start your journey to financial freedom today! Grab the ebook here: www.rhothomas.com/beyond/
____________________________________
Brian Glass is a nationally recognized personal injury lawyer. He is passionate about living a life of his own design and looking for answers to solutions outside of the legal field. This podcast is his effort to share that passion with others.
Want to connect with Brian?
Follow Brian on Instagram: @thebrianglass
Connect on LinkedIn
Crushed by Law School Debt? Escape Velocity is Possible!
Drowning in student loans while juggling a crazy law career? You're not alone. But listen up, because financial freedom is closer than you think.
This episode features Rho Thomas, the money coach who slayed a monstrous $678,000 debt. Yes, SIX HUNDRED SEVENTY EIGHT THOUSAND DOLLARS.
Law school grad. Big Law associate. Crippling debt. Rho's story is one you NEED to hear. She'll show you how she:
But wait, there's more! We'll dive deep into:
By the end of this episode, you'll have a battle plan for financial freedom. Ready to ditch the stress and build a life you actually love?
Hit play and let's do this!
Bonus: Get even more Rho wisdom! Connect with her on Linkedin: iamrhothomas and her website: www.rhothomas.com/. Don't miss out on these powerful tools to conquer debt and live your best life!
Free Download! 5 Mistakes That Keep Lawyers in Debt (and How to Correct Them). Get your FREE copy and start your journey to financial freedom today! Grab the ebook here: www.rhothomas.com/beyond/
____________________________________
Brian Glass is a nationally recognized personal injury lawyer. He is passionate about living a life of his own design and looking for answers to solutions outside of the legal field. This podcast is his effort to share that passion with others.
Want to connect with Brian?
Follow Brian on Instagram: @thebrianglass
Connect on LinkedIn
And so my husband and I are working. My husband was a resident at the time in family medicine. I was a junior big law associate and we have this infant. And the firm that I was working with had a part time policy where you could do a percentage of the billable hour requirement for that same percentage of your salary. So I was interested in taking advantage of that maybe doing 70, 80 percent, something like that, in taking advantage of that, maybe doing 70, 80%, something like that.
Speaker 1:And when my husband and I looked at our finances to see if we could make it work, that's when we calculated up all of that debt and realized that we had $678,000 of debt. The majority of that, unfortunately, was student loan debt, so it wasn't like we could just sell something and get out of it. We were going to actually have to pay it. So we started looking into all of the information about getting out of debt, about managing your money, because we thought we were doing the right things, like we were managing our money to the point that we weren't overspending. We weren't running up credit card debt Like we would use our credit card and pay it off. We were contributing to our retirement accounts, like all the things that you're supposed to do, right, but we weren't paying attention to the big picture. We didn't realize how much debt we had Free from the legal chain. Brian and a team of pros Talking about the hustle and the real life pros.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to Life Beyond the Briefs. Today's guest is Ro Thomas. Ro is a money coach, former big law associate. I have so many of these former big law lawyers coming on here. It's funny. Like nobody from mid-law I think has ever been on the show. It's either big law or solo and small law firm owners. Anyway, ro hosts the wealthy. You're going to have to help me with this.
Speaker 1:The wealthy-esque or wealthy-esque.
Speaker 2:Nope wealthy-esque, the Wealthy-esque podcast, and she's the author of a book called Five Mistakes that Keep Lawyers in Debt. Ro, welcome to the show.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for having me, Brian. It's a pleasure to be here.
Speaker 2:I am excited that you were here and we were just talking before we got on. Jen Deal, who I just recorded with, used to work with you and I got the impression were you a couple of years behind her.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So Jen said Roe was my favorite associate ever because she said something to a partner one time that was like I don't answer emails after 7 o'clock and we all just kind of looked at her and said wait, we could do that said, wait, we could do that.
Speaker 1:Oh well, I don't recall actually doing that, but that is something that I would do, so I'm not surprised.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was very big on boundaries at my firm and, you know, part of that actually came from when I was in law school, talking with a partner not at that firm that Jen and I worked at, but at another firm who was telling me that a lot of times associates put pressure on themselves but they think that it's external pressure. And she was like you can set boundaries, you can set the time that you're going to work, be available during those times, don't be available during other times, and people will respect that. But no one in big law, in any firm environment, is going to come to you and say you know, ro, you're working a little too hard, you should take some time off, you should take a vacation. And so I took that to heart and it felt really uncomfortable at first you know, being a first year associate and not answering emails after certain times. But I did it and it was fine. I didn't get fired or anything like that.
Speaker 2:So yes, you can absolutely do that, getting worse, and I don't know about big law, but in small law firms we've all introduced what sounds like a good vacation policy, which is take as much vacation time as you want.
Speaker 2:But if you actually track down the data, people are taking even less. Because now you've asked them as the employer, I'm asking you to infer what I think is a reasonable amount of vacation for you to take, and people are taking less and less and less. And along those lines, one of the things that we did in our firms we say, okay, you have an unlimited budget, right, we'll buy whatever you want for inside of your office. And people weren't buying anything because they again they they weren't sure what we thought was a reasonable spend for furniture. And so when we said, okay, you have $1,500 to outfit your office, now everybody knows, okay, I'm going to spend $1,450 and I'm going to be the big saver in the firm. So those boundaries are important and it's important to talk about them both from a management and from an associate perspective, because having a clear understanding between the two of us about what is and isn't acceptable is just so important. And it's a failure inside many, many law firms.
Speaker 1:Oh, I completely agree, and I appreciate a number of the partners who I worked with who explicitly told me you know I'm a night owl I might send you an email at 10 pm. I don't expect you to respond, right, I'm just doing this so I can get it off my brain while I'm thinking about it. And I know that I've instructed you and I expect that I will receive a response. But I don't expect that response at that same time, and so that gave me a lot of freedom too, because it's like okay, people are reasonable. Now, there were some people who weren't so reasonable, but a lot of people I think are reasonable in that way where A lot of people I think are reasonable in that way where, if you are working in reasonable hours, you're getting things done, you're doing the things that they're asking you to do, they're okay. If you're not responding in five minutes, that's so true, all right.
Speaker 2:So you're on here today so we could talk about money, and what I love is your story right and I'll let you tell it, but from a high level almost $700,000 in debt, and I think the story is you and your husband dug out within maybe five years. So go ahead and correct me on any of those details, but give us your background and how you ended up as a money coach.
Speaker 1:Yes. So, as we have talked about already, I started out in big law and I was two, maybe three years in when I had my first child, and so my husband and I are working. My husband was a resident at the time in family medicine. I was a junior big law associate and we have this infant, and the firm that I was working with had a part time policy where you could do a percentage of the billable hour requirement for that same percentage of your salary. So I was interested in taking advantage of that, maybe doing 70, 80%, something like that and when my husband and I looked at our finances to see if we could make it work, that's when we calculated up all of that debt and realized that we had $678,000 of debt. The majority of that, unfortunately, was student loan debt, so it wasn't like we could just sell something and get out of it. We were going to actually have to pay it. So we started looking into all of the information about getting out of debt, about managing your money, because we thought we were doing the right things. We were managing our money to the point that we weren't overspending. We weren't running up credit card debt Like we would use our credit card and pay it off. We were contributing to our retirement accounts, like all the things that you're supposed to do, right, but we weren't paying attention to the big picture. We didn't realize how much debt we had. We kind of had compartmentalized it where it's like oh yeah, I know I have about this much and I know you have about that much and we've got this much on the car loan, all of that. So this calculating, adding it all up and seeing that number was a huge gut punch. It was just like, oh man, so we start getting on our plan with actually creating a budget, with deciding how we want to use our money on the front end, paying off the debt as we go along.
Speaker 1:And I started a blog in 2018 sharing our story. I had read a number of blogs in the research and I came across a lot of people who were getting out of debt, but a lot of them were like you know, I paid off $30,000 or I paid off $50,000, you know, like these smaller amounts. And although I did find inspiration, I did think that those stories were, you know, helpful. I was like I know that we can't be the only people who have multiple six figures, so maybe someone would find some sort of inspiration in our story. So I started that blog sharing what I was doing. Started it anonymously at first because I was so ashamed of where we were. But I started that blog sharing what I was doing. Started it anonymously at first because I was so ashamed of where we were, but I started sharing the story, eventually gained the courage to put my face on it. All of that.
Speaker 1:And then, as I was having conversations with some of my friends in law school, some of my colleagues, I realized that a lot of lawyers were in similar positions maybe not the same amount of debt, but wanting to make changes, but felt like they couldn't afford to because of their debt or that kind of thing. So I was thinking like, oh, I should do something to help lawyers. And it got put on the back burner, truth be told, because life, there were all kinds of things going on. And then 2020 hit and the world is falling apart and I've got this idea that's been in the back of my mind that I still haven't acted on. So 2020 was when I first started telling people that I could help them, apart from, you know, here and there having a conversation with a friend, helping them map out a budget. Like I started a social media and it was posting on there and then was like I can help you random stranger who doesn't know me, I can help you with your money.
Speaker 1:So that's kind of how I started in the financial coaching space and then, along the way, I was doing both through 2020 and most of 2021. And I decided that I wanted to try coaching full time and I was very nervous to do that. I had always wanted to be a lawyer. I wanted to be a lawyer since I was seven, but I ultimately decided that I didn't want to look back, wondering what if? And so I decided to try it. I was like worst case scenario if it doesn't work out, then I'll just have to get a job. And here we are three years later, still going strong.
Speaker 2:I love that you had read other blogs. You know off $25,000 or $30,000 and you thought hold my beer, I'm going to write a blog about $700,000. When you started, did you have a sense of where you fell in peer group wise, in other words, that's a lot, that's a big debt load. But did you have a sense of the other associates that you were with, or opposing counsel? Are they at 100, 500? Where are most lawyers four or five years out of law school?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I didn't have a sense at that time. Doing the work that I've done over the last four years, I have more of a sense now. Typically, what I see is in the $200,000 range and I was actually on the lower end of that. The majority of our student loan debt was from my husband's medical school. Mine was about, you know a little over a hundred. So I think I was probably around the range that most people were or maybe even on the lower end of it. But I'm typically seeing around 200, maybe a little less.
Speaker 2:I was really fortunate because mine was about 80. I graduated from a William Mary at a time when Virginia was still subsidizing higher education for in-state residents, and so I think my tuition, my second third-year law school, was like, I want to say $13,000, $14,000, $15,000. It was dirt cheap, and now it's $40,000, you know, plus your living expenses. And so if you have somebody who's had to pay for college my parents paid for college deal is we'll pay for four years of any in-state school and you figure out everything else. So I was fortunate to graduate only with about $80,000. Your job choices when you graduate with $200 are a whole lot more limited, right? I mean, it's either big law or you have this crushing weight on your. Maybe you go to public service and hope that in 10 years you get that public service debt forgiveness. Is there a number or a formula beyond which you're like I don't know what to tell you?
Speaker 1:I don't know that there is a specific number or formula. I think your general sense of things is kind of how I think about it as well. Like, when you've got a larger debt load, then you want to either try to have a larger income that you can manage, or if you're interested in something like public interest or government where you could take advantage of public service, then you can go that route as well. But no, I don't have any specific formula that I use in considering what job people should go into.
Speaker 2:Out of the $500,000 in student loans.
Speaker 1:Wait, I'm sorry I missed. Yeah, how long did it take, you and your?
Speaker 2:husband to dig out of the student loan debt.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so the majority of the debt was the student loans and that's what we finished in 2021. And so we still have our mortgage. Our mortgage was it's a little under 200. So we still have that, but what we paid off was the student loans. There was car loan and then maybe like one or two other loans.
Speaker 2:About like three years, though right From 18 to 20.
Speaker 1:About like three years, though, right From 18 to 25 years, yeah, so we started in 2016, but I started the blog in 2018 after reading others blogs.
Speaker 2:And did that come with a drastic reduction in lifestyle?
Speaker 1:No, it didn't. Actually, it did come with maybe not increasing our lifestyle, the way that some of our colleagues did.
Speaker 1:So like, for example, the house that we got. It's, you know, a nice house, but it's, you know, it's 2000 square feet versus like some of our colleagues had, you know, these really nice, like 3500, 4000 square feet in this type of area. You know that kind of thing. So, like we made some choices in that regard, the house was almost like a luck situation because we actually weren't on this whole debt journey when we bought our house. But you know some of the other decisions that we made, for instance with travel, you know we didn't necessarily travel abroad, we did more local things. We made sure that when we were going out to eat like we were watching how often we were going that we weren't going, you know, as often as maybe we could have, because we wanted to make sure that we use that money for paying off debt. So we didn't have to reduce our lifestyle but we just didn't expand our lifestyle.
Speaker 2:Yeah, especially when you're a young lawyer, using your bonuses and your raises to pay off debt instead of increasing your lifestyle. Early in my career I got a year-end bonus and the partner who gave it to me was like, well, I could give you the cash or I could use it as a down payment for BMW. I was like what? That's not really a bonus. That's like here's a $600 payment you're going to have every month. I would rather have the cash, thank you, but I think many, many lawyers you know you look around the courthouse and you go that guy's got a nicer car, he's got a nicer suit, and we do kind of struggle to keep up with each other. And so good for you for opting into the house that fit your budget and your lifestyle and not chasing everybody else's big mansions, especially down in Georgia with the Real Housewives of Atlanta.
Speaker 1:Yeah, cause, you know, funny enough, when we were searching for a house and we, you know, went out and got the pre-approval for our mortgage, they wanted to give us something like $800,000.
Speaker 1:And at the time I was making maybe 140 and my husband was making like 45 or 50 cause he was in residency. And so it's like, how do you get to 800,000 from this, this income? And so, you know, we decided that we didn't want to be fully stretched, you know, to our limit, this $800,000 mortgage, because it's like, okay, if we get into this mortgage, we're not going to have any money for anything else. And so we decided to do a smaller percentage of that so that we could still be able to live life. And again, I think it's almost luck that we were thinking about it in this more strategic way, because we did not see the debt journey that we had ahead of us, but being in a house with a much lower mortgage payment allowed us to put a lot more money toward the debt, which was why we were able to pay it off so quickly.
Speaker 2:Other than lucking into the more economic house and opting for the domestic vacations instead of international? What kind of tactical things did you all do to approach that $500,000 in student loan debt?
Speaker 1:So one of the first things was my husband got a second job because he was in residency. He wanted to get some practice practicing without supervision because he was going to be finishing soon. And so, you know, he got that second job and that helped us financially because it gave us money that we weren't used to having that we were able to put straight toward debt. So that helped us financially because it gave us money that we weren't used to having that we were able to put straight toward debt. So that was one thing. The second thing was I mentioned that we were contributing to our retirement accounts. When we were looking at the numbers of it, because of how much debt we had, the interest that was accruing on the debt was basically like canceling out what we were doing in the retirement account, and so we didn't want to completely stop contributing to retirement, but we dropped it down. So my husband's job offered a match. It was something like 3% and so we're like, okay, well, let's do 3% into your retirement account.
Speaker 1:I actually didn't have a match, but we decided to do 3% in mine as well, so that we were still contributing to retirement and we could still benefit from the compound interest of our investments, but we had more money coming home in our checks that we were able to put toward paying off debt as well. And then, beyond that, like the overarching thing was just managing our money better, like planning it. Because before that we were like, okay, is there money in the account, let's go and buy this thing or let's go do that thing. And so we decided to plan on the front end like, okay, this is how much money that we have coming in this month, this is how we're going to spend it, and so we should be able to put this much toward debt. So I think those three things were the biggest tactical things that allowed us to make that progress. And then, as we made more over the years, we again didn't expand our lifestyle, so then that meant more money that we were able to put toward the debt.
Speaker 2:When you paid the last debt payment on the student loans, at least was there a celebratory trip dinner. What did you do next?
Speaker 1:So we actually did. It kind of coincided with me leaving my firm it was right before Labor Day in 2021. And so we decided to take a trip. We actually hadn't been planning it before that, but it was like we should do something to celebrate this, like we have been, you know, doing things like in this kind of responsible, strategic way for five years now.
Speaker 2:Like why?
Speaker 1:don't we do something to mark this. This is actually, you know, something to celebrate, and so we decided to take a trip. We went down to Hilton Head and it was just a long weekend with our boys. We went to the beach and just hung out and it felt very relaxing. Freedom, you know, peace because there's, so, you know, the ocean is so expansive, it just feels very freeing, and so something about being there, on top of knowing that we no longer had this student loan debt on our heads, just felt really good. So that was, that was the celebration for us.
Speaker 2:Some of your money goals now, now that we're beyond negative net worth what are you working towards now?
Speaker 1:So one of the biggest one is getting to a million dollar net worth. We recently reached a million dollars in assets and so that felt like, oh okay, this is, this is an accomplishment, and so we're working toward a million dollar net worth. So we are maybe like 150, $200,000 from that because of the mortgage.
Speaker 2:You need another bull run? Yeah, it would be nice. One of the things that you say frequently on social media and on your podcast is the money is just a tool to buy back time and I think that's so important, especially if you're growing a practice or growing a career is recognizing all of the little places where you're clipping coupons still, but you've saved $15, but it's taken you an hour and a half to get through the stack. So where have you used money as a tool to buy back some of your time along the way?
Speaker 1:have you used money as a tool to buy back some of your time along the way? The biggest one and I still cite this as one of our best investments was hiring a company to clean our house. In my mind, that was something that rich people did. So all of my coworkers were like, oh, you don't have a cleaning company. And I was like, no, we just clean it ourselves, and it used to take us forever.
Speaker 1:Brian, I promise you, I felt like I took the entire Saturday just cleaning the house, and so we hired this company to come in after our second son was born, because at that point you're trying to juggle a toddler and an infant and you're tired from work. But then you still got to clean the house, and so we hired this company. They came in, they cleaned the whole house in like three or four hours and they're like all right, we're all done. It was amazing. So, yes, we still have that company come in. They come in every other week. They clean the house and I don't have to worry about it. It's just it's there, it's clean, and that is 100% a good use of our money to get back our Saturdays.
Speaker 2:I had a similar experience with the lawn care company. You know, it's like I don't want to go out and I don't have a very large lawn but I don't want to go out on Saturday and mow the lawn, right. But then the cost of having somebody come in at the time was like 80, a hundred dollars, not huge. But also, you know, we were, we were paying off debt, we were working towards our own financial goals. I was like, well, I don't if, unless I'm going to put that 80 or a hundred dollars um to use um in a better way for my time, if you know, if I can use that hour to make more than a hundred dollars, okay, and so like, literally, when they showed up, I would go sit at a computer and start to create something to try to get past. But there's something to just not having the mental block of the heavy thing that you don't want to do. And so it might be mowing the lawn, it might be cleaning the house.
Speaker 2:There's so much now availability in the economy of people to do these kinds of things. Instacart is another one right People to do these kinds of things. Instacart is another one right People that do these kinds of things for you. But sometimes you do have to get over that hurdle of like it's a cost and not necessarily an investment in my enjoyment or in my own bottom line. So has your relationship with money kind of changed? How has your relationship with money changed along this journey?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I think one exactly what you just said. We're thinking about things in terms of cost versus investment. Like I see the investment value of things like hiring the cleaning company or, like you said, having a lawn care company. We're actually fortunate in that our HOA hires a lawn care company to cover the entire community, so that's like packed into our HOA fees.
Speaker 1:But I think my relationship with money has changed in that it doesn't feel so heavy, which is how it felt when we first started, you know, that debt journey especially. There was a lot of shame there. There was a lot of, you know, feeling like there was a right and wrong that you know we should be doing with our money and we were doing money wrong. And you know, over time I've realized that personal finance is truly personal and that we all get to make our own rules for our finances and what makes sense for you might not make sense for me and vice versa. Right. So like there are things that I spend money on that other people would probably think is silly. For example, one of the biggest sticking points for my husband, I mean when we first got married, like first started managing our money together.
Speaker 1:I like makeup, I like to buy, you know, mac lipstick specifically, which can run like $20. And he's like are you spending all this money on this makeup? Right At the time he's not as big into coffee anymore, but he was spending a bunch of money at Starbucks. He would go to Starbucks like every day and it's like you know, hundreds of dollars, or at least a hundred dollars, you know, in a month, on Starbucks. That's something that was important to him. The makeup is something that's important to me, and so I think we all have these things that we value, that are important to us, that we are willing to spend money on, and it's okay if other people don't agree, right? So I think just recognizing that has been helpful for me.
Speaker 2:Rameet Sethi is right.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:I will teach you to be rich guy. Yeah, he talked. He talks about this concept with money dials, right, you have. You have certain things that you spend money on that really are important to you and there's other things that you you don't care so much about, right, um, and being able to turn up your money dial on the things that actually give you pleasure by scaling it back on the things that you don't actually care so much about. And so how do you work with your clients to figure out for them what are the truly important things, that things that they want to be able to splurge on and that they can splurge on, and in which categories maybe they should be scaling back, because it's just not that important.
Speaker 1:So one of the first things that I do with my clients is I have them do a look back of where they've spent their money. I say three months because I think three months gives you a really clear picture of what's going on. Like you know, a lot of fluctuation can happen in a quarter. One month. Things might be, you know, lighter and you might be heavier in this category, et cetera. Most of them only do one month.
Speaker 1:Brian, they don't listen to me but it's fine, because one month still gives us some data to work with. So we'll look at their finances for the last one to three months where they've spent their money, and then I also have them write down, like, the top five things that are most important to them, that they truly value. And it can be monetary things, right, like for some people it's self-care like you know, getting a monthly massage is non-negotiable, or you know that kind of thing. But for a lot of people some of those things are not tangible. Right, it's my faith, it's being around my family, it's, you know, things like that.
Speaker 1:But we look at that list, whether you know, it's typically it's a mix of, like, tangible and intangible things and then we compare that against what they've actually spent their money on in the last month, because a lot of times those lists don't match up, right. And so, looking at this list, how do we, you know, tweak what's going on with your finances so that you are spending more toward these things that are more important to you and these other things that didn't make the list? Maybe we're going to cut those down some, because it seems like that's not going to affect your enjoyment of your life. So that's how I do that with my clients.
Speaker 2:But I love it is like, if I want to and I'm going to butcher it, Um, but if I want to know your priorities, I only need to look at your calendar and your checkbook.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right, um, because don't tell me that you love something when you haven't devoted any time to it, or you haven't spent any money on it. Uh, so, as you were going through that, I was like oh, I wonder how often there's a disconnect between where people are truly getting joy and where they're spending money, and so I assume your, your process with that is okay. We, like I, want to reduce the guilt of you spending the money on the things that you actually enjoy spending money on.
Speaker 1:Exactly, and one of the things that I always have my clients do is set up a fun money account or a fun you know, whatever you want to call it.
Speaker 1:Give yourself permission to spend that money, because a lot of times we feel guilty buying things that we enjoy. It's like, well, that's not fun, like I'm paying for this thing or spending on this thing that we enjoy. And it's like, well, that's not fun, like I'm paying for this thing or spending on this thing that I love, but then on the back end I feel guilty about it. I feel like I should have done something more responsible, right? It's always oh, I should have saved that money or I should have used that money to pay off debt. If you set that money aside in this fun money account, it's literally for you to spend on fun things, and so then I find that that guilt often doesn't come up, because you've already accounted for that in your monthly plan, you know that your bills are paid, you know that you've got money going toward your goals, and now I've got this money that's set aside over here in this fun account and I'm going to go spend it on something that I want to.
Speaker 2:I had to do that recently. So within the last year or so, I set up just a vacation account and then I auto draft from my paycheck into the vacation account because I wasn't saving it anywhere specific to that, and then I was having exactly that. Like man, I don't want to spend 8,000 taking the family somewhere because it's going to be pulling out of my little army of dollars. It's out finding more, more dollars. Um, but when you have it compartmentalized like that and you go, okay, I now I have to spend it Right, and I've I've even gone so far as to make a rule that if we, if I, don't spend it by the end of the year, I've got to do something else with it. Right, either Either charity or sometimes what I would call, like the anti-charity right, the opposing parties, the opposing political parties donation fund, just so you have incentive to spend the money that you worked so hard for.
Speaker 1:No, I love that, and one of the reasons that I have my clients put it into this separate fund is so you can get that rollover effect right. I put this money inside. You know, let's say I put $500 over here that I'm going to spend on something fun this month and not only spending 400 next month. I get another five, but I still have the hundred from the previous month. So now I've got six that I could spend if I wanted to.
Speaker 1:Right, like you, you still have that money that set aside for you to have fun, and you know and some people do exactly what you're saying where it's like, oh I didn't spend my entire fund money, so I'm going to put some of that toward my savings or toward my debt or whatever goal they're working on. But a lot of people just keep it in that account and keep it going. That's actually how I bought my first pair of luxury designer shoes. My husband and I set up the fun money account. It actually came out of the tension between the Mac lipstick and the Starbucks. So we set up this fun money you know where.
Speaker 1:We each had this money coming out of our joint account into, like our fun, you know personal accounts, and I would just not spend all of it each month until I had enough to buy these shoes. They were like a thousand dollars, but I really wanted them. I've been looking at them since I was in law school and so I, you know, spend like you know. I go out to brunch or I would buy a lipstick, you know, or whatever it was, but I would not spend all of that money and I would let that leftover keep accumulating. And then, when I had the money, I went to buy the shoes, and let me tell you, when I first went to buy the shoes, it was like have you ever seen on TV where like someone, like is holding onto their credit card? That was the experience with the shoes, but I still have them.
Speaker 2:I still love them. When did you buy them?
Speaker 1:It was during our debt journey, so it might've been like 2018, something like that, but like right there in the thick of it. But that's why I was able to do it, because we set aside this money for fun, and so I was able to buy those shoes without worrying about you know. Oh well, I should be using this money to pay off debt. It's like, no, I should be using this money for what I want to because that's what it's for. You've worn them in the last six years.
Speaker 2:Oh, a lot so many times. Yeah, yeah, I'd be. Yeah, I don't do expensive shoes and. I would be worried about nicking my $1,000 shoes.
Speaker 1:No, I've worn them so much I had to get them resold, Like the top, the front part of the toe resold. Yeah, I wear them all the time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've got friends who are sneakerheads and friends who are car guys, and none of that ever really did it for me, for I would just feel like I was depreciating the asset every single time I wore it. But that's, you know it's. It's like nobody's crazy. Everybody just has their own set of things that turns them on.
Speaker 1:So that's awesome. I love that story. Everybody has things that make sense for them, right? It doesn't make sense to you for me to buy this you know thousand dollar pair of shoes, like that's not your thing, but that is my thing. And there are other people who you know would think that's crazy, but they would spend you know some amount on something that I, I don't care about, right?
Speaker 2:Who do you watch or pay attention to in the financial world? So I mean there's Dave Ramsey people, there's Ramit Sethi people, there's Choose FI people Like where do you think you fall in?
Speaker 1:I don't know that I really have anyone, especially like now that I am doing the work myself, but I am familiar with all three of those. I guess choose if I is more than one person, but I'm familiar with all three and listen to all three during our debt journey. These days.
Speaker 1:I don't listen or watch too much in terms of, like, what's going on in the personal finance industry because I want to have my own thoughts.
Speaker 1:But a lot of the things that I do teach, you know, kind of come from those different things that I learned during that journey.
Speaker 1:Right, like I really like the debt snowball method and I learned that reading Dave Ramsey's book or, like you mentioned, ramit's money dials concept like that's a big part of how I came up with this idea of like, okay, what are the things that you a big part of how I came up with this idea of like, okay, what are the things that you value and how does that match up with what you're spending on?
Speaker 1:Right, I remember reading his book his was actually the very first personal finance book I read and there was a story in there about a woman who loved shoes and she I think she lived in like a really tiny apartment or something like that so that she could spend money on shoes. She didn't care about the place that she lived, she wanted to be able to buy her shoes and like that was the first time that I had heard of that kind of concept of making these trade-offs with your money, of spending less on something that you don't care as much about so you could spend more on something that you do. So I know a lot of the concepts and things that I teach draw from a variety of the people within the personal finance space, because that's what I learned from when we were on our own money journey.
Speaker 2:Incorporating all of those, because I really think there is a continuum of you know, from Dave Ramsey, all debt is bad debt through Rameet, through, you know, alex Hermosi maybe is on the other side of it. It's like debt spending is not the problem. The fact that you don't know how to make a million dollars is the problem. Right, and I've been in all of those phases, sometimes more than once. But figuring out you know kind of where you are on the journey and then what the next step is, and that's the importance of coaching, because you know so many of us.
Speaker 2:You go through this on your own and you go through it listening to a podcast or reading a book and you never really have the feedback of running ideas past the coach and being you know there's kind of a couple of ways to do it, like okay, that's maybe not the best idea, let's try this over here, or that is a good idea, but let's make this tweak. So I'm curious what your process is with your clients. From somebody who comes in after they go through the kind of the three-month look back, what's the cadence, what does the coaching kind of look like?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I work with clients weekly and a lot of what I do is not so much this is a good idea or this is not a good idea. Let's try this, let's try that. I do teach the things that I did. I teach, you know, the things that I learned. But a lot of coaching is helping people figure out what works best for them, and so, of all the clients that I've worked with, none of them have finances that look exactly like mine. Right, it might have been based on what I did, but then they've taken it and they've made it their own, because personal finance is personal, right, so they're able to make those decisions about their own finances, maybe with a little bit of guidance, maybe with a little bit of questioning.
Speaker 1:Like, a big part of my job is helping people to question the things that they believe, just because they've always heard it right, like you mentioned, for example, all debt is bad. I don't believe that, and I tell my people, like you know, let's think about that. Like, is that really true? Maybe somebody says that, maybe you know society says that, or the media says that all the time, but what about the good things that have come from your debt? Like, even with all of the debt that I had, I wouldn't have been able to go to school if I didn't take out that debt. I wouldn't have been able to buy my house if I didn't have that debt, right? So like just questioning these things that we've just taken as true that aren't necessarily true and then deciding, like do we still want to believe this? Is this how you want to approach this? Because you don't have to? You can if you want to, but let's make that choice intentionally.
Speaker 2:So that's the value of coaching Ro. Your book is Five Mistakes that Keep Lawyers in Debt, and you got a special offer for our listeners.
Speaker 1:Yes, I do, how do?
Speaker 2:they find it.
Speaker 1:Yes, If you go to rothomascom slash beyond you can get a free copy of the book. It just lays out the five most common mistakes that I've seen after talking with over 100 lawyers that are keeping people stuck, keeping them from getting out of debt.
Speaker 2:And we're going to make sure that we link to that in the show description. Where else can people find you if they, you know, are in this situation where they're not sure what is the next thing to pay off, or they're not sure how to get out of the hole that they've gotten themselves into?
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can find me on my website at rowthomascom, or come connect with me on LinkedIn. I'm just rowthomas there and that's R-H-O.
Speaker 2:All right, Make sure we link to all of that stuff Row. Thank you so much. This has been great.
Speaker 1:Thank you, Brian. It's been so nice talking with you. I appreciate it.