[00:00:00] Speaker A: In this episode, we give a sneak preview of our upcoming 30 Money moves challenge. 30 financial moves to radically transform your finances in just 30 days. Let's get started.
[00:00:10] Speaker B: Let's get some money from new money new problems. It's the new money new problems. Um, podcast, a show for successful professionals searching for the tools they need to navigate financial opportunities and obstacles they've never seen. You negotiating compensation, purchasing your first investment property, helping your family with money. The highs and lows of entrepreneurship. New money brings new problems that require new solutions. Join us as we work through them together.
I'm Brenton Harrison, and this is the New Money New Problems podcast.
[00:00:49] Speaker A: Hello. My name is Brenton Harrison of new Money new problems and your host for the new Money New Problems podcast. On last week's episode, we teased the upcoming start of our 30 money moves challenge. And as a reminder, the 30 Money Moves challenge is a video email series that we actually created a couple of years ago. And it's typically something that you can do at any point. It's available on our website. You can click the link, start getting the videos and the emails, and it's a series of tasks that you can complete 30 minutes or less each day. And we also shared that while you can typically do it at any point during the year, April is financial Literacy Month, and we wanted to have a group that does the 30 money moves challenge together. So we definitely encourage you, if you haven't already, to sign up for the group in April at, uh, the link in the show notes, and more importantly, invite some other people. It's nothing like doing something like this together with people that you love. And along those lines, in this episode, I wanted to give you kind of a sneak preview of some of the things that we do in the challenge by taking five or six of the specific days, telling you the task and why that particular task is important in the grand scheme of the challenge itself. So let's start with day four. Day four of the challenge is to find a dedicated virtual and physical space to keep your important financial documents. I cannot tell you the number of different bits of information that we require from clients when it comes to things like their tax returns, uh, their homeowners insurance, an old life insurance policy, anything that you can think of that comes to you physically in the mail in terms of an important financial document. And when we're trying to ask them where it is, they have no dedicated place where they keep important financial matters. So, for example, now you have a lot of life insurance policies that will issue the copy of the policy digitally it will be a PDF format for that policy. But it used to be that all life insurance policies came to you in paper form. So let's say that you have a policy that has $250,000 of death benefit. You're the owner and you're the insured. That means that all of the information related to that policy comes to you. And more importantly, if you're not paying that premium, you're the one that gets notified that the premium hasn't been paid. Well, not only does that present a problem, if you happen to be incapacitated, maybe you're suffering from dementia. Maybe you have had a serious medical event and you're just not around. You could be in the hospital, you could be in a coma. You never know what lies ahead for you in terms of your health. But for various reasons, if you're not paying that premium, you risk that life insurance policy lapsing. Or if the policy is still active and you happen to pass and your family knows none of the details about that policy, you could literally have a quarter of a million, half a million, a million dollars worth of death benefit that's sitting in some random folder laying around your house. But because nobody in your family knows where the policy is, what the policy is, or where to even start looking, you could literally have a morning family that is going months and months and months not knowing that that money exists. If only they knew where to go to start the claims process. And when it comes to a virtual space for things like life insurance policies that may be issued digitally or even a copy of your will, it can just save you time being able to call upon important documents by having that physical and digital space that you can point to in a quick fashion. Day nine is to place a dollar value on an hour of your professional and your personal time. We have talked ad nauseam on this podcast. We devoted a whole episode to determining the value of your time and honoring the value of your time. We talked about me finally giving up the ghost and dropping off my laundry for wash and fold, which I have been doing consistently since I made that pledge, and it has saved me countless numbers of hours folding a five year old's little underwear and pajamas. It is definitely worth the expense that we pay. But I also want you to have an understanding of the value of your professional time. So when I look at the value of your professional time, and there's something at the end of this episode where we're going to address increasing that value to me, you want to know what the marketplace considers the value of your professional time. And there can definitely be scenarios where in your mind, you think that you are positioned to take advantage of a certain pay raise or to take over a certain department. But if you ask people around you, hey, look at my resume, look at my experience, or you work for me, look at my skill set, I want you to be transparent with me about what you think my salary requirements would be, and then you can back out from that salary requirement. What is your true hourly rate? And if you're dissatisfied with what you hear, then later on in this episode, we'll talk about some things that you can do if you're dissatisfied. But I also come across people who get outside opinions about what their hourly rate should be, and it is far above what that person is currently being paid. The task that they're being asked to complete, or worse, the task that they are choosing to complete when they could be paying someone else to do it. And that was actually the point of the episode where we talked about the value of your time. If you're someone who considers your hourly rate to be $100 an hour, and you are voluntarily taking on tasks that could be done by somebody who makes $15 an hour, you are putting yourself in a position where you are not as efficient as you could be, you are not as productive as you could be because you're spending time completing tasks that do not meet your hourly rate. My mentor, Marcus Henderson, he talks about the concept of your unique ability. And there's all different things that a person could do, and there's things that you could be very talented at doing. But your unique ability is something that you do better than anybody else that is so specific and unique to you. And it's something that if you would just do nothing but that thing, your earning potential would just explode. And the goal is for someone to find their unique ability and to structure their life so that they are spending as much time doing the tasks that speak to their unique ability as possible and delegating as many tasks as possible that take away from the time where they're using their unique ability. Speaking for myself, I love to teach. I love to teach on this podcast. I love to teach with clients. I love to be spending time with clients, working through some unique things that they may not be aware of and kind of exposing them to different financial concepts. So I'm on a journey to make sure that my skill set is sharp enough so that when I am teaching, I'm teaching valuable things that are worth paying for. But I also want to make sure that I am stripping as many tasks from my day that do not involve me teaching in front of clients or on this podcast. So if there's something that can be delegated, I'm trying to make the commitment to myself to delegate it, to not look at it and say, oh, well, I don't want to pay that extra money. I'll just do it myself. No, because if I pay that extra money and I increase the time where I can use what I feel is my unique ability, in the long run, I will make more revenue. And the money that I paid for that delegation will be peanuts. Day twelve of the challenge is to actually read through your employee benefits booklet in full. I cannot tell you how many times, especially when it comes to high income earners, we have come across employee benefits packages where they have disability insurance through their employer and they think that their income is covered if they're ill or unable to work. But they find out that there are several things that that policy, through their job, doesn't cover. You also will see people who get really overwhelmed when they're reading through the options, like health savings accounts and flex spending accounts, independent flex spending accounts, because they think, oh, that's too complicated, I won't be able to keep up with it. And some employers now will literally give you a debit card like tool where they just load up the money that you have on your health savings account or your flex spending account. And when you go and you buy things that are eligible for those purchases, you can just use it just like you would a debit card or a credit card. You also will see people who look at things like life insurance, and they'll see life insurance, and then they'll see a policy called like, accidental death and dismemberment, and they'll say, oh, this policy is the more cost effective one. So I'm going to get the ad and d policy. And they won't realize that life insurance pays you when you die. Accidental death and dismemberment policies only pay you if you die as a result of an accident or if you are dismembered in a particular set of circumstances. And if you're asking, yes, we have come across people who have passed and they thought that they had purchased life insurance, and when it comes time for their family to file that claim, they find out that they actually had accidental death and dismemberment policies. And because of the way that that person died, the policy doesn't pay at all. But there are some positives because oftentimes, especially with larger companies, when you dig into the details of those benefits. You'll also find, uh, resources that you have at your disposal that you're not even taking advantage of. We've had couples who have been struggling with fertility issues who find that they actually have financial resources that are made available to them through their employer for just those concerns. There are organizations that provide funds to their employees for adoptions. You'll also see things like networks for mental health support where if you're wanting to talk to someone and you just haven't wanted to write that check or build it into your budget, you may find that you have a certain amount offered to your employer where you don't have to, or there's a network where if you talk to people in that network, it's at no expense to you and the employer will cover that expense. It is worth reading through your booklet in full to make sure that you're not missing anything that you don't need to miss, but also to make sure that you can take advantage of the things that can benefit you both financially and benefit you in terms of your health and your fulfillment.
[00:10:07] Speaker C: This is the new Money New Problems podcast, a show for successful professionals searching for the tools they need to navigate financial opportunities and obstacles they've never seen. We'll be right back.
[00:10:25] Speaker B: Are you wondering what new money problems you might be overlooking in your financial life? If so, we've got great news. We've crafted the new money new problems gap finder to identify potential weaknesses in your finances in areas ranging from budgeting, investments, insurance, and even the threat your extended family's finances could pose to your household. Please head to newmoneynewproblems.com gapfinder to complete it today. Again, that's newmoneynewproblems.com gapfinder to take the assessment.
[00:11:04] Speaker C: You'Re listening to the new Money New Problems podcast. Subscribe
[email protected]. Welcome back.
[00:11:15] Speaker A: Day 23 of the 30 money moves challenge is to research your student loan options. This is one that is a bit time sensitive because of all the different developments that are going on in the student loan space right now. We're going to share more of these resources with the group that's taking it in April. But there are all these things that have been going on with federal student loans. You've probably noticed that there are a ton of people who are getting their student loans forgiven right now. That's the result of two different waivers that are simultaneously working to give people credit towards forgiveness. The income driven repayment plan waiver and the public service loan forgiveness waiver. Both of those waivers end in April, and there are some steps for people who currently have loans that are not eligible for the waiver. They can take them before April and be included in that number, and they also can put themselves in a position to either get much closer to forgiveness or to have their loans forgiven well short of the length of time that they thought they had to make payments. There also was an announcement a couple weeks ago about the Department of Education continuing to kick the can down the road to no earlier than late September when it comes to when you're going to have to recertify your income for your federal student loans. So if you have an income driven repayment plan where you're making payments based on your income, your loan servicer was not supposed to ask you to give updated income information until six months after student loan payments resumed in last October. However, there were thousands of student loan borrowers whose servicers just ignored that guidance and asked them to recertify their income m anyways, and as a part of that announcement, not only are they saying that if you haven't had to recertify yet, you won't have to do so until at its earliest, late September, but they're also saying the borrowers whose servicers made them recertify their income necessarily, that they are going to knock them back to their pre pandemic payment, which is potentially hundreds of dollars, if not thousands of dollars, of some cases of savings in those student loan payments. So day 23, research your federal and private student loan options. And then lastly, day 28 of the 30 money moves challenge is to find one way to increase your earning potential, to improve upon that hourly rate that we talked about at the beginning of this episode. And I think this is crucially important. I would say that everybody is always thinking of ways that they can increase their income. I would also say that that thought probably occurs to entrepreneurs and small business owners a little more frequently because you're constantly trying to increase revenue or increase your recurring revenue as compared to your one off revenue. And it's one of those things where I'm actually very happy that it's something that's always at the forefront of my mind because it always gives you that idea of continuous improvement. What skill set can I add that increases my value? What service can we offer, or how can we restructure our services? How can we make what we're already doing more efficient? How can we be more valuable to.
[00:14:04] Speaker B: The people that we serve?
[00:14:05] Speaker A: And that exercise can bring to mind some things that are already sitting in front of you that are just easy pickups. An example is when we started offering our services and shifted to a model where we charged an annual fee, we stopped doing one off engagements. We stopped saying to people who didn't want to work with us for a year, hey, we can just work together for one or two months, and we can figure out what you might need. And a lot of that was because just time at the beginning, we were trying to make sure that we structured the annual agreement in a way that was valuable. But we also come across people every single week who say, hey, I want to work with you. I can't yet afford the annual fee, but I would love to pay you, uh, to take a look at some of my items, whether it be a tax return, whether it be a will and estate planning documents, whether it be an investment account, and we've just been turning those people away. So when we sat down at the beginning of the year as a firm, and we're trying to think of ways to increase revenue, one of the things that we realized is, hey, we have some systems in place that would offer those limited engagements in a way that's more manageable and digestible in terms of the time that we put towards it as a firm before the meeting, and also a way where we can structure it, where we can do it, and also know that we're providing something that is beneficial to the client. So we brought it back, and if we have five or ten of those limited engagements this year, that's revenue. We have found a way to earn in an efficient manner that increases the amount of money that comes into our firm and increases my hourly rate. If you're a w two employee, then a lot of the ways that you can increase your hourly rate may be something that you're doing in your company. It may be volunteering for a project that you typically wouldn't have volunteered for, so you can get some FaceTime with somebody who's a level above you or a hiring manager. It may be joining a committee that you typically go home right after work, but you realizing that the people who are in this committee are seemingly getting hired or promoted faster than you are, it could be certifications like you see people taking on LinkedIn all of the time, free courses. But the fact of the matter is, if you are waiting for the marketplace to just look at your current resume and say, now we've decided this person's going to be paid more, it's not going to happen. And while there are scenarios where you may be underpaid because people aren't respecting what you're bringing to the table. In many cases, it's up to you to take that bull by the horn and add that certification, add that degree, add, ah, that experience, or restructure the things that you're already doing in a way that increase revenue without increasing time. So to me, I want you to truly think about the structure of your hourly rate, how much you're earning now, what your career prospects look like. And on day 28 of this challenge, we want you to be introspective and just sit and think about some things that you could do to increase your value in the marketplace, whether that's you as a business owner or whether that's you as a w two employee who just simply wants to take that next step in income in this stage in your career. So that's a sneak peek into the 30 money moves challenge. That's just five of the 30 days challenge. We are really excited about getting a group together. We are already at about 20 people who have signed up for this group by April 1. We would love to have 50 people in this group sharing what's working for them, sharing the value that they're receiving. We're going to be in that group as well, doing the challenge with you, giving you additional resources, doing giveaways for gift cards, doing giveaways for people who want a session to sit down with me and go over their finances. So, like I said, sign up for the challenge in the show notes. And more importantly, invite a friend to do that challenge with you because I truly hope that you will be in that room when April 1 comes around. Talk to you soon. Bye.
Mhm.
