Growing Up Broke, Breaking the Cycle: How This Single Mom Transformed Her Money Mindset with Kallai Plummer | 524

0:00Kallai Plummer:And I decided to venture into commercial insurance, which again, anybody that knows me is like, I'm sorry, why did you do that? And I wrote that out until probably January of 21. And I was super burned out. We were still in sort of this back and forth COVID time situation. and I remember going into the office on my last day and the gentleman that owns the company who just kind of thought everybody was their admin no matter who you were didn't matter sent me an email that asked me to print and staple some pages for him. He had a printer right next to his computer that did the exact thing. And for me, for whatever reason, that was my very last straw.

0:55And I killed it.

0:57Kallai Plummer:I sent him an email back and said, actually, I'm not going to be able to do that. I'm packing up my desk and today is my last day. And I went home and I said to my husband, I said, I'm going to make it work. I'm going to do whatever research I need to be able to do, I'm going to do whatever findings I need to have in order so that I can have the freedom that I want to be able to have and have the financial freedom that I know that I'm capable of achieving. Do you make good money but have nothing to show for it? Are you tired of living paycheck to paycheck? Do you have big dreams for your financial future?

1:32Do you want to get debt free but you don't want to live on beans and rice? Or you don't want to give up those pumpkin spice lattes hey it's okay if you don't already know how to budget or if you're using credit cards to get through the month hey it's okay if you want to seem like you have your finances all together or you're not on the same page with your spouse when it comes to finances we know what you're doing probably isn't working but guess what you're in the right place we're Shana and Vanessa we're best friends business partners and master financial coaches trained by Dave Ramsey we've been in business since 2019 helping hundreds of amazing people like you create budgets, get out of debt, stop living paycheck to paycheck, and know exactly what to do with their money.

2:12In this podcast, we'll share with you everything we know plus everything we're working on with our clients so that you have the best chance at reaching your financial goals. We want to help you take the guesswork out of your budget, improve your marriages, and even bring your kids in on the conversation. We can help you no matter where you're at, whether you're the single mom who's never had$500 in her savings account or the millionaire who's paid off four real estate mortgages. And we're not going to shy away from the tough love. We'll tell you what you need to hear and encourage you at the same time.

2:40This is the Financial Coaching for Women podcast. Welcome, Callie, to the Financial Coaching for Women podcast. Good morning. How are you?

2:48Kallai Plummer:Good morning. Thank you for having me. I'm amazing. Oh, good. That's great. We were just talking about how our lives are definitely going to settle down super soon as a collective. You can say that all you want. Yeah, it's a lie that we're feeding ourselves. So we are excited. We're going to, we're doing a little podcast swap here because you have a wonderful podcast too, that we're going to go chat on. And we were talking about how you could best serve our audience because they come to our podcast for financial coaching for women. And guess what? You're a woman and you have this whole story that, that you have climbed through and worked your way through when it comes to finances.

3:22So why don't you tell us how, like get us started with that. Tell us how it started.

3:26Kallai Plummer:Sure. So the short of the long version is that I was raised by a single mom. So as many of us could probably relate, when you're raised by a single parent of any capacity, you do have a financial situation, whatever that is. And for me, that looked like I was part of a poverty situation that my mom never really let on because she just made it work, right? Whatever her kids needed, that was just, she made it happen. And so I never saw the struggle that was happening behind the scenes. And she also came from a family of money that you don't talk about money. Like you don't ask about other people's finances.

4:12Kallai Plummer:That is just an invasive topic. To the point where when my grandpa passed away, like it took us a good like 10 years to get my grandmother reintegrated into how to pay bills, how to function with life because she didn't handle any of the billing. And so I struggled the same way. I was a single mom for many, many, many years. And when I, quote unquote, did what every millennial was taught to do, which is you go to school, you go into university, you get a four year degree, you get a nine to five, you work Monday through Friday. with your weekends and your PTO, you make it to retirement and that's your life, right?

5:04Kallai Plummer:Like we were all taught that if you're a millennial, like death to me. Yes, absolutely. And so the one sliver of entrepreneurship that I had was that my mom ran a daycare for over half my life. And so my mom was always home, right? She was, we didn't get to sneak into not doing our homework. That wasn't a thing, right? We didn't get to sneak out. My mom was always there. So I say that because in the back of my mind, I always knew that I could do something. I didn't know what. And so I went on the trajectory, right? Because I had a child to pay for. So. Well, hold on, hold on. Let's, let's pause.

5:50Yeah. Pause on the timeline. Let's pause on the timeline because I heard you say my mom was a single mom and then I was a single mom and I was thinking about my own story because I'm, you know, thinking about myself like that. But I just think it's crazy how sometimes we repeat these patterns, even though maybe we saw it and we thought we thought that we didn't, but it's like, maybe it's also because we don't have the conversations. Yes. It's sort of like we just kind of repeat what we were shown, you know?

6:16Kallai Plummer:Yeah. And it's this piece of survival that you just learn how to do. And you're taught from a very young age, subconsciously and consciously from your parent or parents that you just need to make it to the next day. You just need to make it to the next paycheck. You just need to make sure that your bills are paid and life is fun. Right. It's all that reminds me. Yeah. That reminds me of Vanessa's story when you were saying you didn't know, you didn't know what was going on in the back background. You have, you have a similar story. Yeah. My parents never, I never saw them fight ever. I never saw them talk about important conversations.

7:00Everything was behind closed doors, which, you know, it was one of those things where they were trying to protect us, which is fine. I mean, I'm very, very close with my parents, but growing when I got married, I didn't even know how to have a conversation with my husband, a disagreement. I had no idea how to have that. And so when Shana brought, when, when you guys were talking, I was thinking this conversation of not talking about your finances with your kids, of not knowing how to have that conversation bleeds over to so many other areas of your life of, you know, look at my mom, love her. She never had intimate conversations with me while I was a teenager.

7:33Okay. And my dad did that, but that wasn't my mom's thing. Right. But I think about how much that affected her not being comfortable having those hard conversations affected me in so many other areas and you don't realize it. I was sitting here listening to us. Oh my gosh, this is so connected. And it's so important to have these conversations that with your kids, with your young adults or, you know, whoever, because it is going to affect them in more areas than you really think. Yeah. And the, the make it work, I was thinking about Vanessa's parents did they while you were in while you were at home did they file for bankruptcy yeah my mom literally ran the bank off of the yard with the foreclosure sign and we ended up staying the night at a hotel I thought it was super fun I had no idea that our water got our water and electricity got shut off and I was just thinking like make it work that's a mom motto right there it's a make it work and and and shield your kids which I do think is important you do want to shield them but there is got to be a balance here is what we're all coming to the inclusion where we do share some of this journey with our kids so that they aren't left figuring it out on their own when they're when they are when they get the chance to well and i'll just share

8:36Kallai Plummer:too with with my daughter specifically from a very young age i remember having conversations not just about money but about body autonomy about you know people that you let in inside of your circle. Because as I learned and grew the same time that I was a baby raising a baby, I had her when I was 20 years old, right? So I'm learning and growing at the same time that she's learning and growing. And I thought at every turn, how can I position this in her language at the time of whatever age that she is to help her understand that I don't want her to be this way. and she's not and that's the beauty of it is I think it's when you show up for yourself in such a different way and you love your parents dearly right like I love my mom with all of my heart and soul but I'm also allowed to look at her situation and say okay what are the good parts that I'm going to carry on with me and then what are the things that I need to change because I know history repeats itself if you let it and so finances was definitely one of those conversations that I had to actually start having conversations with my mother and my daughter simultaneously me acting as kind of like the mom in between them right like they call that the sandwich generation Right.

10:10Kallai Plummer:Where I had to kind of get my mom on board of like, it's OK to save money. It's OK to have things in your savings account for a rainy day. You don't have to spend it all. And on the same factor, the same conversation is true for my young child. Right. So you can see kind of how if you don't take care of it when you're little, you still have the same conversation with your 62 year old mother in a totally different way and so my daughter she's she's 19 now and she's got money in the bank and pays for her own car and you know she's a saver and it's not from a place of scarcity but it's a place of ownership and so I think that when we talk to our kids and we're so open about money and both my husband and I are with all of our children, you're able to really help them understand that this isn't something that you just put in the closet and try and work through on your own because nobody should be doing this alone.

11:19Kallai Plummer:Yeah. And, you know, I really think that when you, as scary as it may be for some parents to have this conversation because they may both feel like their kids are going to look down on them or whatever that shame is that the kid is not going to have. Right. I remember when I finally found out all of this after I was married, I was 21 young. I had my son at 21. Right. So I was really young when I found out everything, when it all started coming to the table and I, it completely changed my life. Like my, the trajectory of my financial life. And that's what I think is so important because I didn't shame them for doing that.

11:56I praise them for wanting to shelter us. I understand where that love and care was coming from. I get it. But I feel like had I known a little sooner and I don't, I'm not saying 21 is old, but I'm like, had I known that growing up, maybe through my teens, cause I made some dumb decisions with my first job. I blew all my money, whatever. It was fine. It wasn't until after I got married and I had my kids that I was like, Oh, I, I, we will not be in that same situation. Yeah. Yeah.

12:20Kallai Plummer:It's hard to really find the balance when you don't have your frontal lobe fully attached right like let we just it's hard and when you have kids and you feel like you are just talking to the void I can understand why some parents are like well then why do I repeat myself why do I you know keep keep on keeping on but I do want to say like we have a son that is moving into his middle 20s and you see them kind of circle the bend you see them you know so I I think for the parents that are like well I do talk to my kids and I do share this information but they're still out blowing money and they're still you know living furiously that has nothing to do with you as a parent that has everything to do with maturity and and everybody's different you know and they do come out they do come out different they do that's really yeah i think i wouldn't have known that i'm an only child and i have three kids and i it's been hilarious watching like we're the same parents we've been the same parents to all three kids and they're so different it's really fun but i think it's i love that we're having this conversation because what i heard vanessa say is because her parents opened up, it gave her the education, like very quick, like faster in education to do something different with her life and her finances.

13:45So everybody listening, just think about that. What can I share so that they can go further faster? That's what we want for them. We want them to not have to relearn or repeat history, everything that we did necessarily. Hopefully we can teach them some things so that they can get to the next step that we were aiming for sooner. I always think about that with my kids And there's plenty of ways to do that. I was just thinking my youngest daughter is she she does pet sitting to earn some money for her travel sports that they are kids have expensive hobbies, very expensive hobbies. And they, you know, they have to have some skin in the game.

14:17I think that's really important. The other thing is my girls do the weekly grocery shopping with the budget, like the budget that we have so that they can see, you know, they're younger, see how it all kind of adds up when you want everything. Like you said, when you want everything and it's like I'm repeating this over and over. Anyway, so there's a lot of different conversations to do that. I love that for you, a little bit of your conversation was the entrepreneur or a little bit of what you did learn from your mom as far as that, all of that was entrepreneur. So maybe you could tell us a little bit about that.

14:45Kallai Plummer:Yeah. So I, again, did the trajectory of you go and get a big girl job and you wear the heels and the suits and you end up in a corner office. That's what you do. And I want to pause really quickly. Right. People who like, okay, my husband, he's been working in his job for 20 years. He's loved it. It's wonderful for him. No shame in that. Right. There is no shame in it. If that is for you, I quickly realized in my twenties that I was very unemployable because I just, I'm very, I'm a rebel. Yes. Yes. Very quickly. I realized that. And I'm like, oh, I can't work for people. They don't, they don't, nobody wants me to work for them.

15:26I'm, I don't make a good employee. Yeah.

15:28Kallai Plummer:And I got a degree in HR. So anybody that knows anything about HR behind the scenes is probably giggling right now because they're thinking your personality inside of HR and you're also a rebel. That doesn't. Here we are. Hence the reason. Right. So, yeah, same same thing. Like if that is your trajectory, same. And my husband goes to an office every day. He loves his job and he has a wonderful culture. And if you find a good fit for that, you do that thing. I'm with you. I, I'm good, you know? So anyway, I did my bits inside of corporate, COVID hit, and I had three kids at home that were in their pivotal teens between eighth grade and sophomore year.

16:23Kallai Plummer:And I quickly realized how much my mom being at home and still being able to run a business, still being able to bring income was something that I needed to figure out and do for myself because my kids needed me. And so I decided to figure out whatever an online life looked like and put boots to the ground and I made it happen. And so I made a career switch when I decided that I was going to leave corporate because I got super cold feet and I got really scared. And I thought to myself, I don't even know how to budget a business. How am I going to do that? that was kind of my first step of being able to understand like what does this all take because it's a totally different animal than just getting your w-2 and filing your taxes and going about your life and when i started to research that i got super scared and i thought no i'm i'm good i'm gonna go find another job and i decided to venture into commercial insurance which again Anybody that knows me is like, I'm sorry, why did you do that?

17:46Kallai Plummer:And I wrote that out until probably January of 21. And I was super burned out. We were still in sort of this back and forth COVID time situation. And I remember going into the office on my last day and the gentleman that owns the company who just kind of thought everybody was their admin, no matter who you were, didn't matter, sent me an email that asked me to print and staple some pages for him. He had a printer right next to his computer that did the exact thing. And for me, for whatever reason, that was my very last straw. And I killed it. I sent him an email back and said, actually, I'm not going to be able to do that.

18:38Kallai Plummer:I'm packing up my desk and today is my last day. And I went home and I said to my husband, I said, I'm going to make it work. I'm going to do whatever research I need to be able to do. I'm going to do whatever findings I need to have in order so that I can have the freedom that I want to be able to have and have the financial freedom that I know that I'm capable of achieving. All right, Budget Besties, it's time for some real talk. You don't need another budget. You need a budget system. Our simplified budget system is what you've been looking for. It's going to allow you to be bougie on a budget.

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19:51Yeah. So head on over to budgetbesties.com forward slash budget and grab yours. Now back to today's show. This is why finances we were just talking about in another podcast. It just ties into everything because you being able to figure out how to make how to make it work. You have to look at the numbers. You have to look at the numbers and you have to look at your home numbers first. So we teach business budgets, too. But you have to know what your family, what your home life costs first in order to be able to figure out what a business needs to bring in. Right. And so you were talking about you before, you know, before we came on, you have had you had to go through some stages to figure out what my money habits, like what my money scarcity mindset, like all of this kind of stuff.

20:35And I'm sure all of that reared up when you were making this transition.

20:39Kallai Plummer:Yes, definitely. One of the things that I've really had to come full circle with is to understand that, again, it's okay to save money. Like it's okay to have a righteous bank account, it is okay to pay myself first and pay everything else second. And once I started to understand, and there's a million different ways that you can do it, right? You can look up percentages that might fit into your lifestyle and all of those things. But I had to understand that my business had to get paid first. And then I had to get paid first or second. And then And anything that is left over, that is the bucket that is the fun stuff, right?

21:30Kallai Plummer:And for a while, I didn't have the fun stuff. And I really had to make sure that I was okay with that because I was building something that was super sustainable. And I was able to have the freedom that I didn't otherwise have by traveling to an office or whatever it is. the other thing that really helped me kind of get a grip is reaching out to other people that I felt super aligned with to you know people like yourselves that teach the simple basics that there's no shame when you show up inside of their corner it's just here's what it is here's how we do it and then see yourself thrive, right?

22:22Kallai Plummer:And I had to get just super, super simple, black out all the noise of, you know, you can go down a million and one rabbit holes on the internet for whatever reason. And they'll all tell you that you have to be a millionaire overnight. And there's this hustle culture that you have to work 24 seven in order to be able to achieve that. and that can get really daunting and it can get you in a place of again scarcity just like you mentioned earlier in terms of like that same framework of financial scarcity now is turning up in other ways so when I felt like it was bleeding into other moments of my life I got off the internet and I just came back home to the pen and paper and started to really work on what it is that I need for my family and I need for myself and what does my business need for me?

23:17I think that that is so good. I want to go back to really quick. You were talking about savings and you said it's okay to save. I think it's really hard for people who have never had any savings or even like if, you know, coming from a single mom situation from your mom and then your past, they never had it. You may have never seen it. So when people start to bill, we see it all the time with our clients, when they start to build money in their savings accounts, they kind of freak out. They're not, they don't really know what to do because there's all this money in the account. And their first reaction is, oh my gosh, I have to, I have to, or I can, or I will go spend it all because they've just never seen that there before.

23:59And like, just really trying to work through that with them takes a minute. It's like self-sabotage, but they don't know it. And because they're used to having to panic about money. So they, so, you know, we teach to set up separate savings accounts for your savings buckets. So they are like, oh, I have money. This isn't normal. Let me spend it all so that I can get back to where my nervous system is used to being, which is freaking out, trying to figure out how to solve all these money problems. And it's so crazy to, to, to watch the transition from them. Like you said, they're, they feel weird having money to being okay.

24:31We have to tell them it's okay to have money in your bank accounts. It's not supposed to all go away. It's actually okay for it to stack up.

24:38Kallai Plummer:There's power in watching the number grow, right? And I think that's a mindset shift that comes a little bit later on. But when you can get yourself in a mind frame of chasing the number that's inside of the bank account, instead of chasing everything that's in the outside world outside of your bubble, is super helpful in order to, again, shift your nervous system that when you get up in the morning, you feel like something's missing, right? Or did I miss a bill? Or all of those feelings that come that you already have right now when you wake up in the morning, those all start to go away. And you start to kind of find this new blend of yourself that you almost feel comfortable sitting in a room.

25:29Kallai Plummer:I remember feeling like people could see my dollar signs or the negative balance on my bank account when I showed up in a room of executives because I was a single mom and I was just trying to make it. Right. And my first year in corporate was excruciating because I was trying to catch up from all of the years that I didn't have anything. And there were things that I had to build. Right. Like we didn't have a Christmas tree for many, many years. And I remember like being able to go and buy that and pay cash for it and not having to swipe a card. And I just thought, is this what normal people do?

26:09Kallai Plummer:Like, is this actually what people with history? You know, and so it's a weird feeling when you start to see the numbers grow on the back end. Because I, again, I just remember thinking like, can they see my bank balance? Like, I hope they don't comment on my shoes or, you know, do they know that this suit is not a Calvin Klein because that's all I saw people wearing, you know? And the reality is, is nobody's paying attention to you. Nobody's paying attention to your bank balance. Nobody is looking at what kind of shoes that you're wearing. But the reality is, is like, you have to, you have to go to bed with that every night.