426 - Take Control of Your Money with Kumiko Love

0:00I've got something so exciting to share with you and if you're a business owner you're gonna wanna pay attention Dream Business Bootcamp is back and it's completely reimagined for 2025. This isn't just any workshop, it is a free three-day experience designed to help you take control, take action, and get the money and the freedom that you deserve. It all starts February 11th and trust me, you don't want to miss it. Head to dreambusinessbootcamp.com right now to save your spot. 2025, this is your year, so let's make it happen together. Stressed about money? You're not alone. In this episode, Kumiko Love shares her expert tips to face your financial fears, take control of your money, and live a life you love on a budget you can actually afford.

0:50Kumiko, thank you so much for being here and congratulations on your book. Very well done. It was fantastic. Thank you. So let's start with your journey. I'm so curious, How did you go from being a divorced single mom who was eating dinner on the floor with your son and you had right over seventy seven thousand dollars in debt to being someone who runs a business teaching other people how to manage their money? Well, it has been a journey, a very long journey. I really started sharing that journey publicly in 2016. and ultimately throughout the last 10 years, this has really been a self-discovery journey for me.

1:34I kind of had to step away from this mindset of, oh my gosh, nothing is working to, you know what, I'm not failing at everything. There are some areas where I am succeeding and it was really kind of like a game of operation. I was pulling things apart. I was digesting what was working, what wasn't working, learning more about myself. You know, what type of learner I am, what clicks in my head. I learned I'm a visual learner. I am motivated by seeing things visually. And that was in going through this self-discovery journey of learning more about myself is what ultimately led to me being successful with my money today.

2:19Hmm. And so were you working in finance at the time? Like what was your understanding of money period? Oh man, my background's a little crazy. So I graduated college with a major in economics and finance. And then I graduated college and I started working directly in the finance industry. I went to work for an investment advisory firm right out of the gate. And when I had my first week there, my financial advisor sat me down. He says, you need to create a budget. And no one's ever asked me to do that before. And it's funny because I graduated with a finance degree, right? And so really, that was my first experience with personal finance.

3:06It wasn't through college. It was someone asking me to sit down saying, hey, you need to do this. And so, Yeah, I worked in the finance industry for a little over nine years. And so I'm curious, was he asking you to set a budget for the department? Was he just telling you, hey, you need to understand how to set a budget personally if you're ever going to be working in our team? Like what was the context there? It was personally. He wanted me to understand my own financial situation because in that job, you are telling people what's the best thing to do in their financial situation. And so he wanted to know if I knew my own financial situation, which I didn't.

3:43And if I did, I was too scared to look at it. And so really, that was that context. That's amazing. And so I think a lot of people, you know, you tell this great story in the book about you finding yourself in this moment, right, when you were at McDonald's and you were considering charging this ice cream cone for like$1.09. sense. And you had this big wake up call. Can you tell us what was that moment for you? What were the thoughts that were going through your mind? What was the emotion that you felt? And what was the first thing you did after leaving there? That was by far the biggest aha slap in the face moment that really turned this financial transformation around for me.

4:28It's true. I just got done going to the park with my kiddo. At that time, he was really young, probably two or three years old. And he wanted to stop by and get an ice cream cone from McDonald's. And I went to the drive-thru. It came out to$1.09. And when I was pulling up to the drive-thru window to pay, I pulled out my debit card. And then I hesitated. And instead, I put my debit card back in my wallet and gave them my credit card. And as I'm driving and pulling out of that drive-thru and I'm sitting and waiting for traffic, it just kind of dawned on me like, oh my gosh, I just financed$1.09 because I did not know if I had$1.09 in my checking account.

5:11And I'm like looking in the rear view mirror and I could see my son's face. And it was like, this is not the life that I want to live with him. This is not the life I want with my son, where I'm constantly worried about if I have enough money in my checking account to pay for such a small expense, right? Something that I shouldn't even have to think about. Being having all this anxiety and worry and not being truly present with him because I'm worried about how I'm going to pay it off, how I'm going to pay off my credit cards. It was just this constant battle of self-doubt and shame and guilt and anxiety and stress.

5:55And it's not what I wanted with him. And in that moment, it was like, I have no choice. I have to make this work and I have to be able to do it in my own way. Yeah. And so when you got home, and this is, I was like putting myself in your shoes. And I was like, I wonder what Kumiko did. Like, did you pick up a finance book? Did you talk to your boss? Did you listen to a podcast? Like what was that first step? And the reason I'm asking is because I believe that many, many people in our audience have had an experience like that or may find themselves in the midst of an experience like that and may feel so filled with shame or fear or anxiety and they don't know what the first step does.

6:37Now, obviously we want them to get your book, but I was curious about your particular experience after that moment. I literally went home and I started digging through all of my paperwork. In that moment, I became an investigator of my world, of my finances, of myself. I wanted to sit down and get a clear understanding of exactly where I was starting. Where was my money really going? Not what I was telling in my head where it was going, but where it was truly going. How much income did I have going in? What was the total picture of my debt? And so it really started with a place of understanding and awareness.

7:23And let me tell you, it took me about a week to get all those financial statements, all of that financial information in one place. Because before, at that point, my finances were chaos. They were very unorganized. I didn't have a system. I didn't save statements. It was just kind of like chaos all around me. And so it took me a while to organize myself enough to understand what I was looking at. I think you just highlighted on something that actually I had organized for our next question, which was most of us realize that we can't change something that we're not aware of. And so would you suggest as a first step, if someone finds themselves listening to this conversation, nodding their head saying, yeah, everything is in chaos for me.

8:13And I don't know where I stand financially. Let's talk about step one, which you suggest in the book is this notion of tracking your spending for a month. Is that what you think would be an amazing first step in addition to what you were describing? Like, hey, let's just gather it all on the table, look at it and just see exactly where we're at right now. Yeah, absolutely. It's tracking your spending. But I also think that in this that moment, if you are here listening to this podcast, and you're saying to yourself, I want more in this life, I want more for my money. The first thing that you have to do and ask yourself is, what are you truly trying to accomplish with your money.

8:59If you are listening to this podcast right now, there's a reason why you are listening. What is your purpose? What is your why? I call it your why. Why are you on this financial journey? I think that is the number one step because that motivation is going to be with you, that whole financial transformation, that whole journey, and it's going to remind you why it's important that you're doing what you're doing. It's this constant reminder like, this is it. This is so important to me. Giving up is no longer an option. Once you get past that, then it's tracking your spending. And yes, I say to do it for a month, but heck, go for two months.

9:46And if you're like, Nico, I don't want to wait two months to find awareness in my life. This is where your bank statements come in. anywhere there is money movement in your life, money going in, money going out, take those statements and start highlighting them. Now, like I said earlier, I'm a very visual learner, but it helps tremendously in the beginning of this process. I literally took out all my bank statements and I started highlighting like transactions. So like all my food purchases were in blue. All my clothing purchases were in purple. All my gas purchases were yellow. And when I was done, I'd add up all the different colors.

10:32And that really brought awareness to how much I was kind of spending in each category. And my categories kind of formed themselves when it came to my budget based on what I was realistically spending. I think that that's so huge because most of us, you know, we're using our credit cards or we're using our debit cards and it just flitters out the door so fast and you're never really stopping to pay attention. I love spreadsheets so much. And I remember I think it was like two years ago or three years ago. I was just really curious how much Josh and I were spending between eating out, groceries, you know, all the things.

11:06And I still, Kimiko, have our spreadsheets on my computer. And I've kind of tracked how things have increased or decreased over time. And it's just so empowering to have that information, to have it clear, to understand, to be able to make empowered choices moving forward. So I love that. And I love that you emphasize that you really do need to know your why. And I could see listening to you tell the story of you looking in that rearview mirror and seeing your little boy and having that be, okay, I want a different life for him. And I think everybody listening right now, there's something in their heart, a big why that they can really hold on to and visualize and keep connecting to emotionally to take them through this journey.

11:51because like you, I remember being piles and piles in debt. And I remember how difficult it was, the years it took to kind of climb out of that. And it was really having that clear vision in my heart that helped me make it through the hard times. So thank you for mentioning that. One of the next things that you emphasize is the fact that once you start becoming more aware of your money, everything can almost start to feel like a priority, right? Like, oh my goodness, Should I be saving for retirement? Should I be paying down my debt? Should I be putting money away from my kid's school fund? There's all of these different buckets.

12:25But you say that one of the first things everyone should do is focus on building an emergency fund first. I agree, but I'd love you to talk a little bit more about why. So an emergency fund, it's true. And we're talking about those short-term priority goals. The reason being is because real life happens, right? And when you are on a journey of paying off debt, the last thing that you want to happen is something to pop up in your life and kind of derail you and set you back on that journey. That's why that's really important. It's all about giving yourself stability. And stability comes from creating financial options in your life.

13:11and I think that it's really important to mention here an emergency fund yes is important but stability is even more important and what I mean by that is everything that pops up in your life is not an emergency right emergency funds should be used for true emergencies but what about day-to-day real life living okay your kiddo coming to you after school and saying mom I forgot to tell you about a birthday party I'm supposed to be at tomorrow morning, okay? I have to get a present. Or a girlfriend calling who's from out of town saying, hey, I'm in town. Let's go out to dinner, right? This is living in the now, the things that we enjoy.

13:56How do you pay for things that are unexpected, that pop up, that aren't emergencies? This is financial options. And I go through in the book, all of these different ways that I've set up stability in my life when it comes to dealing with unplanned, unexpected expenses. I think that's so helpful. And one of the things I loved about the book too is how step-by-step you are in helping people start to establish what are those things for them and how do they start to align their values and their priorities with actually putting money aside for it. So you're known as the budget mom. So let's talk a little bit about some of your unique approaches, like the budget calendar and also the paycheck budget.

14:39What are these two tools and how do they work? So the budget calendar, it's funny, when you think about a budget, most people think about paying the bills, right? It's getting your expenses down on paper. What a budget calendar does is it's a constant reminder to have real life put into your budget. This is what makes a realistic budget. So what I'm talking about is doctor's appointments that you might have a co-pay for, dinner out with friends, maybe a date night with the spouse, maybe a wrestling tournament for your kiddo. You know all these things are going to be happening, but so often we forget to budget for them.

15:22We forget to actually write them down in our budget. That's what the budget calendar is therefore, for you to plan out ahead, all these real life things that are happening. If you're spending money on it, it goes on your budget calendar. That way you remember, hey, I need to figure out a plan for this in this budget. The paycheck, we call it the budget by paycheck method. It took me a long time to say out loud that it's okay to budget this way because for so long, when you go online and search how to budget, you're handed like a monthly template, right? This is how you budget. You budget monthly.

16:02My mind just didn't work that way. I was getting paid twice a month. I was paying my bills twice a month and budgeting, like trying to figure out a budget around these paychecks. And it just clicked in my mind, like, why aren't I just budgeting every single time I'm paid. Like I'm paying my bills at that time. Enter the paycheck budget. And so it's creating a budget literally every single time you are paid. You're budgeting fixed expenses for that paycheck. You're budgeting variable expenses, savings, investment, debt goals. And you're going to prioritize different bills for each paycheck based on when you are paid.

16:43So it's really clear and it's actually connected to when money's actually coming into your account and going out. So you don't feel like the disconnect, like, oh, it's once a month, but you're actually getting more money. I love that. And with the budget calendar, one of the things that I really appreciated you writing about was the fact that you like, hey, I know Christmas is coming up every year. We know that's going to happen, right? It's going to happen every single year. So why not start planning for it now so you don't have that anxiety? Or as I think you've shared, not putting yourself back in a sliding back position of going back into debt when the holidays come around.

17:18It's just such a smart idea. I was just thinking about the fact of how I plan every year when I know Josh is having a birthday, like all of the planning I do going all the way up to that. It's like, why not include the financial aspect of well? It's beautiful. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. It's funny because Christmas was my first, we call them sinking funds. It's saving a little bit from each paycheck for a planned or expected event or purchase in the future. Christmas was, as a single mom, for me, the hardest holiday emotionally and financially because I would literally go out and spend all this money on my credit card for Christmas.

17:53And then the next Christmas would come and I was still paying off my credit card from the Christmas before. It was this endless cycle of debt. And that's why it occurred to me like, this is the one holiday a year that constantly over and over puts me into debt. Let's take care of it. Let's plan for it responsibly. Let's prepare for it in cash. That way I'm not constantly in this cycle. Yeah, really, really smart. So a lot of people who give financial advice recommend that we focus on achieving one financial goal at a time, right? Whether it's paying off our debt or saving for a particular thing like a house or going back to school.

18:35Yet you have a different opinion here. You say that we can save for multiple goals at once. Tell us more about that. Yeah, it's true. You should always prioritize your savings or financial goals in order of importance. And you're always going to have a number one, but that's not real life. Okay. I don't care who is telling that. Like for instance, and this is a perfect example. I got a comment or a message from a reader. She said, Miko, my number one goal is to pay off debt. I have to get this debt gone, but I am currently eight months pregnant and I'm going on maternity leave. I've had some health issues.

19:12I don't know if I'm going to have enough paid leave to cover the full maternity leave I'm going to need. And that's coming up like soon. And I'm stressing out because I don't know, I don't have anything saved for it. But I'm being told I should only be focused on my debt. No. This is the perfect example of when you have two goals or multiple goals in your life that are both really important. You can do both. And what I mean by that is paying off debt might be number one, and you can throw a majority of your extra income towards that goal. It doesn't mean you have to neglect everything else you have in your heart that you want to achieve.

19:55So for instance, in the example of the maturity leave, maybe$200 a month would go toward that maternity leave goal. The rest would go towards debt. And remember, it's okay to halt one goal while something that maybe pops up in our lives that's kind of detrimental that needs to happen. And then we can pick up on that goal again, once we kind of get over that hump, we should never feel like we have to do a financial goal because someone else is telling us you can only focus on one thing at a time. Yeah. And that, that was my big thing. I felt so much shame. I felt like I was doing it wrong. I had debt.

20:38And then my son was born in 2012. As a new mom, it was very important to me to save for his future, his college. As the years passed, he turned one, and I'm like, I want to start saving for his college, but I have this debt, and I'm being told I only need to be paying off my debt, but as a new mom, I'm like dying inside, right? Like, I wasn't feeling successful with my money, even though I was throwing so much towards my debt. I was making these ginormous debt payments, but inside, I didn't feel successful because I wasn't accomplishing what was truly in my heart and what I valued for my unique situation.

21:21Real quick, do you know the number one mistake even smart entrepreneurs make? Find out in my new free guide, 12 Entrepreneurial Mistakes You Cannot Afford to Make in 2025. Grab it now. It's totally free at the link in the description. I love this. And I actually, you know, my audience knows this very well. I love talking about money. I think it's one of the most important topics. And I also just love helping everyone actually, but particularly women achieve financial freedoms. And I remember there was a point in my journey where, you know, from a financial advisor perspective, people are telling me like, oh, you know, you don't have to pay off your mortgages, like just leave them there because you're going to earn more money.

22:05And I understood the math. I got it. But from an emotional standpoint, I wanted to be completely debt-free. And I remember that conversation so well of just saying, hey, look, I get the math. I understand the logic. I understand the theory that this thing needs to be free. And my soul is more important than the numbers at this point. And I remember paying off my mortgages and feeling, Kumiko, this surge of peace that was so much more pleasurable and so much more nourishing than those couple of percentage points had I said, okay, well, over here, it's going to earn this. And so I so appreciated that about your book because money is emotional.

22:49And we hear so many messages that tell us to take the emotion out of it, to remove that completely. And it's just not realistic. And I also loved what you shared too, because I found it to be so true in business. We have these goals. We're on our path. We're doing our best. And then something pops up that requires our attention. And we may have to hit the pause button on those previous goals. And no one listening should ever feel a sense of shame or a sense of failure or a sense that they're not strong enough or they're not doing it right. If you're being appropriate to your life, if your hand goes up, right?

23:23From maturity and perspective. Yeah. And I love that you said that about your house because just two years ago, I bought my house with cash and I literally got hate mail for days. People were telling me that I was stupid, that I was dumb, that I needed to invest that money, that I shouldn't be considered a money expert, that I shouldn't be a financial counselor. I mean, it was horrible. But you know what? I did not care because in that point in my life and still to this day, I knew exactly what my financial plan was and you cannot put a dollar value on peace of mind. Amen. And that, yes. And especially like you have to think too, like about my situation, like how I grew up.

24:12I grew up with the single mom who worked three jobs to raise me and my sister. We had nothing, okay? We didn't have a whole lot growing up. The ability and blessing and privilege to be able to pay for my house in cash meant so much to me to know that I would no longer have a mortgage and that I could focus on my passion of helping people without that mortgage hanging over my head. Because as an entrepreneur, it's scary sometimes when it comes to sporadic income. And I, like you said, when I did that and I had no mortgage, this feeling of calm, this feeling like I wanted to stand from a mount and say, you know what?

24:57I did it. And I was so proud of myself. And I think at that moment, that was one of the most, one of the most successful I've felt with my money realizing, hey, I hit this really big goal, but I learned so much along the way to reach that. And that's the most important thing. Yep. A hundred percent. And I think, you know, what the great thing about money too, is that it's a topic that we need to keep investing in, in terms of our own learning, examining, getting to know our relationship with throughout our lives. And right before we're getting ready for this interview, I was actually so excited.

25:37I was talking to an attorney about just updating my wills and all of my paperwork. And it's another piece of the puzzle, right? Of just going like, hey, I'm an adult. I can handle this. I can tackle this to make sure that not only everything is in order, but heaven forbid, should something happen, the people that I love, everything is taken care of for them too. So for everyone listening, you know, when I opened the show, which you don't know yet, Kamiko, I was just talking about how it's like, it's a tough topic. It can be a really challenging topic. There's so much guilt and shame and fear and scarcity.

26:09And the more that we can have these conversations, the more that there's great books like yours out there, and we can teach people that there are many different ways to approach it and that you don't have to be afraid and you can take it step by step. It's just a really beautiful thing. So another question for you, you've helped countless people turn around their money lives. It's one of the reasons why I was so excited to have you on the show, which I think that experience gives you so much perspective. I'm curious, are there any kind of rookie mistakes that you see people making when they decide in their heart, okay, I am ready.

26:43It is finally time for me to get a handle on this part of my life. I'm ready to go on this journey. Is there anything that you want to flag for people just to watch out for as they take their next steps? Yeah, I think one of the main things that I see is they allow, sometimes when we're just starting our journey, we don't have the biggest financial confidence, right? Sometimes we're like, I don't know what step to take. I don't know if I'm doing it right. So in that moment, when we're doubting ourselves, we get online or we start doing research on how to go about this and we allow other people to dictate and define what success and value means to us.

27:30Success and value when it comes to your money is something you should define yourself, period, full stop. The moment you allow someone to have that type of control and power in your life when it comes to finances is the moment you set yourself up for failure. And I'm a true believer of that. And this comes to do with the hard work. You know, I kind of look at money as robot work and hard work. Robot work starts, steps in when we're kind of just doing our day-to-day routine, we're writing down the numbers, we're maybe doing a step-by-step process from another person we read online, we're just kind of going through the steps, checking them off.