The Art of Money Management in Herbal Entrepreneurship

Ready to secure your future with sage wisdom? That's precisely what we're unpacking on the Heart of Herbs Herbal School podcast with me, your host Demetria Clark. Our community of herbalists and alternative health practitioners often lacks the traditional financial safety nets, so I'm taking you through my own journey of realizing the power of early retirement planning. By weaving personal anecdotes with critical lessons, I guide you through the intricacies of making modest yet impactful contributions to your nest egg, all while managing the immediate needs of your own business.

As we traverse the landscape of financial planning, I shed light on the underestimated value of seeking professional advice—no matter the size of your wallet or business. In the world of small business ownership, understanding the correlation between retirement savings and tax savings is key, and I'm here to demystify that process. Together, we champion a culture of open money discussions within our families, fostering not just individual success, but an industry that's resilient and prosperous across generations. Listen in and arm yourself with knowledge to blossom both your business and personal financial security.

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The content provided in this podcast is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease or medical condition. It is always recommended to consult with a qualified healthcare professional

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:37

Hey, hey, hey. This is Demetria Clark from Heart of Herbs Herbal School and today we're going to talk about because it's January and it's the start of a new year, so now is the time to start making habits for your business that will affect and secure your future. I talk a lot about this with my students and I feel something we as an alternative health community need to speak about a little bit more. I'm seeing more and more herbal school owners and herbalists having to crowdfund, sometimes for basic things, because our industry doesn't have a lot of information and access to retirement planning or people that we can talk to about these things, about the specific needs of our community, and so I really want to talk about that more and I want to make herbalism something that is sustainable and equitable and it's something that can sustain future generations. This could be a business that our children continue or we can sell as a viable option as we get older, so we're not working forever or depending upon a partner's or children's help in our retirement, like we can set up retirement for ourselves. I'm a little bit unique in the way that I've kind of been thinking and talking about this for a long time, but, to be completely transparent. I haven't always done the best job in securing retirement funds and stuff like that, so I felt like you know what I can do something for my students, and that is passing this information on and getting them to do things when they start their businesses from the beginning.

Speaker 1: 2:49

So retirement planning is an important option for alternative health practitioners, because often they're self-employed, often they don't have access to employee-sponsored retirement plans and options and, like all small business owners, it can be so hard to put aside money for retirement when your business needs you to invest in it. Without, though, proper retirement planning, you may not have enough money to support yourself during retirement years. Additionally, alternative health practitioners may have shorter careers due to the physical demands of their jobs and needing to stay current with new treatments and techniques, and it can be a lot to stay on top of things, especially if you're a smaller business and you don't have lots and lots of staff or you don't believe in using students to work for free and volunteer, and you're not set up that way. So it's important to plan for retirement as soon as you can in your career and I start talking to our students about this before they've even started their business, because if that is something that you do from the beginning, it's really easy to keep doing it. It was really hard for me to say, okay, I need to take this amount of money each month from my business and start putting away and invest in me, because I had children and I had, you know, a home and cars and college bills and you know all these other things that everyone has right. But what I'm going to say is, if you can do something from the beginning, even if it's 1% of your income, even if it's just a few dollars a week, just do that for yourself and start making it a habit and start living without it from the beginning. And I even give my children this advice. I'm like maximize your savings when you're younger. It's going to grow throughout the rest of your life. I mean, that's what every financial guru out there says. Now, to be clear, I'm not a financial guru. I am not giving you legal or financial advice. I'm just sharing with you things and ideas and tips that may make it easier for you, as you grow older in your business and your business matures, to make sure that your business is going to also take care of you and not just everyone else in your community.

Speaker 1: 5:07

It can be really hard to save for retirement when you're investing in your business. I understand that. Failing to plan for retirement, though, can leave you without enough savings to support yourself when you retire. When you retire, also, as you start paying taxes on your business, make sure that you're paying into your contributing into social security, and look, hire an accountant if you're not sure how to do this. There is nothing wrong with having an expert help you figure out how to maximize your income and your contributions to make sure that your taxes are working for you.

Speaker 1: 5:43

A lot of people will say things like oh, they're just trying to find loopholes or whatever, and it used to really embarrass me because I didn't want to think of myself as like someone who was just trying to get everything I could for my money. But then I started thinking about it differently and saying, hey, these are not loopholes, these are tax laws, and people call them loopholes because they do tend to benefit people who make lots and lots and lots of money like oodles of money, but they're also there to benefit you also. So having someone who can help you with your taxes is really important. It will pay for itself. You'll definitely know how to implement and strategize and plan better from the beginning.

Speaker 1: 6:28

That was something that I put off for years and years and we overpaid in taxes for a long time because of that because we weren't working with a professional. So I'm really being honest and transparent here. I'm telling you, don't make the same mistakes I did, because I'm still managing to save and put the money away that I want to have for retirement. But the reality is is I could have been doing this a lot sooner and I could have made greater changes in my financial future as I'm getting older if I had started much younger. So I want to again say welcome to our podcast and I want you to make a commitment with me today that if you have a business or you're getting ready to start a business, that you are going to make retirement savings and investing in your future a number one thing that your business is going to do like you are going to let your money start working for you from the beginning.

Speaker 1: 7:27

So you can start small. You don't have to have tons of money. Any amount saved every month is amount saved every month and, depending upon what, you're putting it into high interest savings account. There's other options. We'll talk about those in a second. Your money can at least grow and work for you, and it doesn't have to be tons and tons. When you start working with an accountant and you start working with a financial planner, as you start, you know, if you save your first $10,000 or whatever and you're like, okay, I need to go talk to someone to help me make this money grow faster and make this money work for me in a way that I feel is helpful to our world or I'm going to invest in things that I think are really important for the future. You know, those are the kinds of things that you can do when you start working with a financial planner and go to a fiduciary and a fiduciary is someone whose only goal is to make sure you're making the most money, because they only make money if you make money. You can also choose risk options, so you can have high, medium, low risk, and they'll work with you with that and they'll talk to you about implementing strategies from the start that'll help you make the most gains.

Speaker 1: 8:40

When it comes to working with your money, the first thing you should do is to set a goal. So, whatever your goal is, set that and try to get there. If it takes you a year to get to your goal, congratulate yourself for getting to the goal. If it takes you a month to get to your goal, then congratulate yourself for that. Do not give up on your goal if you don't make it right away. Just keep going towards your goal. You can look at different investment options that will fit your budget and your lifestyle, so you can look at a Roth IRA, a simple IRA or a solo 401k plan. These plans offer tax advantages that will help your money grow over time.

Speaker 1: 9:19

Start with small investments. You don't need to invest a lot of money to start seeing results and diversify. Don't be afraid to just have a little bit in a few different places when you first start up. There's a lot of different programs out there that will help you save, and there's even apps that'll help you save. There's all kinds of things that'll help you make this whole process more of a habit and a lot less painful. So when you start by investing a little bit at a time and those things grow, what you're going to find is that it almost becomes like a gains reward. You're going to see how your money's growing and you're going to reward yourself by saving more because you're going to be so proud of yourself for doing it.

Speaker 1: 10:05

I, my youngest son, when he had his first job, he was working at um, a small like civic organization, and he was assisting like elderly people to go throughout their morning routines and stuff like that, and he was only making a few dollars an hour and I was like just start saving now. And he really bucked up. He was like come on, you know, he's finally has his own money, he's ready to rock and roll, right, and he actually is a really good saver now, because we really talked about it from the very beginning Save your money, save your money, save your money. And when you start saving small or you take it away from those checks right away, eventually you learn to live without it. So, really talking to yourself in a way that's kind about savings, like, ok, I only save $10 this week, but next week I'm going to save $15. Or I only saved $100 this week. Next week, you know, we're going to keep doing our $100 and we're going to stick with that, but in six months I'd like to be able to, you know, have enough income from our business to put another amount of money away.

Speaker 1: 11:13

Now, the reason why this is really important is because, as small business owners, you have to have money for taxes, so you have to have that money saved also, but some of your taxes that you pay can be offset by your retirement savings. Talk to an accountant about this. I don't want to give you any kind of advice. That isn't good and solid. But what I'm trying to say is you can decide okay, I can pay this much in taxes, or I can defer some of that and put that into my retirement and pay this to myself, so the money that you're saving can also benefit you, and not just the community and just being taxable. So there are ways that you can also save and strategize. That is good for both scenarios. So I talked a little bit about diversification, and so you don't necessarily want to put all your money into one place, one stock or one bond, so you can consider investing in a mix of stocks and bonds, mutual funds, efts. This will help minimize your risk while maximizing your returns.

Speaker 1: 12:17

A financial planner can be really helpful with that. A lot of people think a financial planner is only for rich people, and the goal is is for them to start with you early and that you will eventually be one of their rich people, that they're helping one of their higher interest accounts or accounts that just have, like you know, more diversification. They want to work with you. They actually, you know, I haven't met a financial advisor, because I've had a few because I've lived in different states, so you know you have different ones and they're not all licensed in the same state. Looked at different states, so you know you have different ones and they're not all licensed in the same state, and I've got to tell you that I really have never gotten the impression that I was a pain in the butt for them. I've always got the impression that they really want to help me and they really want me to be successful in my savings and in my planning in reference to savings. Be patient. You're not going to see results overnight, but stick with it. You'll start to see and understand how your money is working for you better. You will start to be feeling more secure.

Speaker 1: 13:20

I know a lot of alternative health practitioners are also married to people who have small businesses or have partnerships with people who have small businesses, or they themselves are also farmers or herb growers, or you know they're. Often the jobs can complement each other, and so this is something that you guys are doing together. If you have a partnership or a marriage, that you're trying to maximize these things together so you can, you can do things to gamify these things and make them funner. Get your children involved, be really open to talk about money. If you run a small business, I think part of the problem is is we all have dreams about this small business and then our small business becomes a bigger business and it's supporting members of our family and it's something our kids can maybe take over one day. But we've never talked to them about money. We've never talked to them about any of the implementation and the strategies that they need to do to carry this through.

Speaker 1: 14:18

So start this from the beginning. You know I used to before you know, there was like the internet, the way it was early, early 2000s, like 1990s, a lot of my business was conducted over the phone, and my kids knew that when I was on the phone, I was working and that they needed to be quiet. And then this was because this was then too, and we talked about money and we talked about how this was something that was for everyone, even though mommy's job was different than other people's jobs. This is what mommy's job did and this is what we did as a family to work together to have this business grow. Having those conversations about money has really allowed us to invest in and cooperatively do things with our children, because they understand how things ebb and flow, even though they're not in the same industry as me, they understand how it works and so there's a lot more respect and mutual understanding, because they don't always see the same kind of hard work and so people will think there isn't hard work because you're not, you're doing this or you're doing that, and they don't understand that.

Speaker 1: 15:35

You know, if you're in a small business, sometimes you're working a lot more than anybody ever can tell, and so I try to be really clear, and have been really clear with my kids from the very beginning, on how we collaboratively work as a family and business. So I know it's the beginning of the year and everybody's getting all their stuff together and they're really excited, and I want to say that all of our students that are doing this right now I am so freaking proud of you. I love hearing how your businesses are growing. I love the students that we're mentoring and they're talking about growth and sustainability and doing things differently and making change in their community, and I think that's something that we all really need to be proud of. So go get a financial planner, read some articles, do what you need to do to inspire yourself to start saving for your future.

Speaker 1: 16:32

Sometimes it's just a matter of like opening a high interest bank account that you dump money into and you don't really think about, and then you see the growth and you're like, oh my gosh, this is incredible. So I really want you to think about that, and I really want you to think about how you're going to transform the herbal and alternative health industry by making it something that's a lot more sustainable and something that is a business and a philosophy and a lifestyle that we can pass down to our children and help create intergenerational wealth. Thank you so much for listening. This is Demetria Clark from Heart of Herbs Herbal School, and I really appreciate you taking the time to check this out and hopefully it was helpful for you, and I'll put some resources or some links in the little bio. I'll be honest with you I'm still trying to figure this all out, so hopefully there'll be some good information for you. Thanks for listening and have a wonderful day.