Conversation #130 | Surviving on Savings: The Making It Last Episode

🎙 Welcome Back to Season 4 of The Mindfully Rich Podcast! 🎙

New Series: "From Six Figures to Scraping By Rebuilding After Financial Distress"

This season, I'm kicking things off with a brand-new series that touches on the emotional and practical aspects of going from a high income to financial hardship, using savings to survive, and finding your way back to financial stability. Each episode will give you actionable tips and real-life advice on how to rebuild after financial setbacks.

Episode 2: "Surviving on Savings: Making It Last"

In today’s episode, we continue our journey through financial recovery. Now that we've recognized the fall from financial stability, it’s time to get strategic about surviving on what’s left. Even when the income stops, life doesn't. Bills keep coming, and responsibilities don’t just disappear. So, how do you stretch your savings? Here’s what we’ll cover:

🔑 Tip 1: Prioritize Essentials

• Start by identifying your non-negotiable expenses. What are the absolute essentials you can’t do without? Knowing this will help you cut back elsewhere without sacrificing your basic needs.

🔑 Tip 2: Negotiate with Creditors/Billers & Accessing Governmental Assistance

• It might feel daunting, but now’s the time to pick up the phone and talk to your creditors. Most companies are willing to work with you, whether it's lowering payments, deferring them, or finding other ways to help.

🔑 Tip 3: Seek Temporary Income

• Explore ways to bring in short-term cash flow. Whether it’s freelancing, gig work, or selling unused items, every little bit helps during tough times.

💬 Closing Thought:

Remember, tough times don't last, but tough people do. Surviving on savings is about being innovative, strategic, and unafraid to ask for help. It’s a temporary phase on the road to recovery—stay focused and keep moving forward!

📲 Connect with Me

If you're ready to take your finances to the next level in 2024, visit my website at www.iammindfullyrich.com to schedule a complimentary consultation. Let's rise together!

📢 Follow the Podcast

Instagram: @mindfully_rich_podcast

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Chapters

• 0:00 Surviving on Savings
• 6:02 Navigating Financial Challenges and Income Loss
• 11:34 Stretching Savings During Financial Crisis
• 20:57 Negotiating Debt and Generating Income
• 31:21 Financial Guidance and Empowerment
• 36:54 Booking Appointments for Financial Guidance

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello, hello and welcome back to the Mindfully Rich Podcast, your weekly look at life in finances with a twist, where we talk about improving your overall relationship with money and building better financial habits. On each episode, I'll discuss real life situations and give y'all practical advice. The point of this podcast is to help you stay in your financial lane so you won't end up broke. I'm the creator and host the Gina Ritchie Richardson. Now let's jump into today's conversation. What's up y'all? What's up we back, and we back on time period. Yes, if you're looking down, it is Monday. You should be listening to this, unless you are listening on another day. Okay, don't mind the voice. Okay, I told y'all, no matter what happened, I'm bringing a podcast to y'all. I've been singing yesterday, so this is what we sound like. I am drinking my water, being very mindful right now, but of course y'all know always got to start with gratitude. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Speaker 1: 1:03

Since the podcast has come back, I guess we'll say for this season four, y'all have been listening in droves and I truly appreciate it. I didn't been on my zoom, I didn't been sharing it. Your girl is excited. Okay, let's just say that. And so y'all just gonna have to put up with this raspiness right now, because I didn't want to put the podcast off. I told y'all I'm coming regardless to whatever my voice sound like, but I got my water, got my tea, got everything near me, but just wanted to say thank you, thank you, thank you to all of the Rich Gang for listening, for sharing, for doing all of the things to make sure that this podcast is a success. And if you're new here, welcome. We call ourselves the Rich Gang, of course, for obvious reasons, and you are part of the marketing team, okay. So if you're listening right now, I don't know what platform you're listening on, but it is our culture here on the Mindfully Rich Podcast to share. We share this with our family, we share this with our circles. We share this on social media because one woman team over here and I can't get this out to everybody if y'all not the ones who are sharing it amongst everybody, because y'all are everywhere.

Speaker 1: 2:18

I was looking at some of the stats and saying, okay, we got some new listeners and right now it's so interesting. For the last episode, the top places listening was the US and Germany. I'm like who over in Germany? What's up? No, for real, I know I'm not the one that's making that happen. Y'all had to be the one that was spreading this thing far and wide that the podcast would be in Germany. Okay, like when the podcast first started. Like I know you can find it when you're on any of the podcast streaming platforms. When you're searching for podcasts it may pop up. But when I first started the podcast, alaska was like one of my best listened places and I was like, okay, who is over there? Why are people in See? In my mind I'm thinking, okay, it's going to be Illinois because I'm from Chicago, or it's going to be California because I'm here in Sacramento. So the people, they're going to be listening in droves. It was Alaska. Alaska was listening, like, listening, listening, okay, but y'all get the point. Let's go on here to get to it.

Speaker 1: 3:26

Last week of a new series child and it's juicy. Okay, because I realized, going back through all of the episodes, I wanted to see what y'all have been listening to and I've also been paying attention to the economy, seeing what's going on, and I wanted to talk about something that was real personal to me as well. So I came up with this series. It's the Rebuilding After Financial Distress series. So if you're falling from high income six figures to scraping by, and that's exactly what I talked about in the last episode, where I talked about the fall the initial fall from high income to that scraping by. What are those steps that you need to do initially? And so, if you didn't listen to that episode, go ahead to that one. Okay, listen to the fall first, because today we're getting into something completely different but still associated with the overall topic, just because I know that there's a segment of listeners who are high income and I want to make sure that I'm making content that can be relevant to you as well.

Speaker 1: 4:29

This podcast has content that is relevant all across the board. It is literally for everybody. That's the one thing I love about being a financial practitioner the simplest thing can still go and apply to everybody. We all high income six figures, whomever. We all need to go back to the basics at some time, and so that's the reason why I love how diverse the topic span is of the 130 episodes that I've done so far.

Speaker 1: 4:59

So if you missed last week's episode the fall let me tell you, talking about the emotional and financial impact of that sudden drop in income You're going to want to go on here and listen to it after this episode. Ok, and don't forget, remember what we're doing next. We're sharing it with our friends and our circle. Ok, we got it. Now we're good.

Speaker 1: 5:20

So let's go ahead and move on to the mindful money moment. For those of y'all that are new, this is where we get into our topic of the day, and today's conversation is all about surviving on savings, making it last. Now, for some of y'all listening, this may be your reality. This was my reality. Okay, in certain forms, it is still a reality that I am living with. So I want to make sure that you are being mindful, that you are taking the pauses that you need while you're listening to it, because if this is hitting close to home for you, this whole episode is going to feel a certain type of way. But please know, this episode is to speak life. This episode is to educate.

Speaker 1: 6:02

Just because, as a financial practitioner, we talk so much about saving, you get to the point where you save the money and you don't expect, when it's time, for you to actually use the money, when it's time, when it feels like it's before the time, because we think savings is going to be for that vacation, for that thing that we're planning for, but we got to think back to emergency expense. When you have a drop in income, that is now your emergency expense account that you now have to use. That's the reason why people talk about having that three to six months of your expenses, of your income, whatever one fits your financial situation best, because some people do a method where they save three months of their income, or some people will save three months of just their expenses. It's all up to you, your lifestyle and what fits you best. So we're about to go ahead and dive into this topic and I'll be covering how you prioritize your expenses, your essential expenses, negotiating with your creditors, signing up for governmental programs if needed, and then discussing some creative ideas for you to find ways to generate short-term income in the interim. I know it sounds like we finna get into a lot of stuff, right? Okay, we are. We're going to laugh now, cry later. That's what I believe.

Speaker 1: 7:27

Okay, because this episode is going to touch on so many different points and once again, I want to say this it may be very vulnerable for a lot of you to listen to this, because I know that you're listening to this for a reason, and so let me just say this off top I am hoping that I can speak life into you. I'm hoping that I can motivate off top. I am hoping that I can speak life into you. I'm hoping that I can motivate you and I'm hoping that I can inspire you because I get it there's a lot of financial vulnerability around this topic. There is a lot of doubt, there's a lot of worry, there's a lot of anxiety that goes into being in a place where now you're living off of your savings, and so I'm hoping that I can make that a little bit more comfortable and, once again, I'm going to say this a lot that I can speak life into you, because this situation happens for a number of reasons, and today it don't matter how you got here or why you're in this situation. All that matters is the now, where you sit, and how we maintain in this situation and get out.

Speaker 1: 8:28

So I'm going to start off with some stats, and so I don't know if y'all have been paying attention to this economy. Right, I think we're in a recession and I've been saying this for a while, but I ain't been here to tell y'all about it, but there's been an increase in layoffs and company closures and I did some stats as of 2024, they're showing I'm going to have to read this one because this is the part where I don't really know. So I don't know if y'all saw all of the tech workers and so thus far, there's been 132,000 tech workers that have been laid off between the companies Cisco, intel, microsoft and Apple and, it said, leading the way in the job cuts. But that's not it. So HR leaders across different sectors, they are planning for further layoffs due to the economic pressures right now. Okay, so I don't know how that make y'all feel, but yeah, that don't make me feel too good. That's the reason why I'm like we're going to be above the curve and we're going to talk about this topic right now, and so there are a lot of companies that are closing, they're restructuring, the layoffs, the reductions. There's a lot going on, and I don't know if that's something that you face or that you know of someone facing, but I know many people who have been facing that right now and have been impacted Suddenly go in, suddenly no job and If you don't have savings, that definitely is something that's like okay, wait what?

Speaker 1: 9:55

What are we talking about? Because everybody doesn't get that. What is the plan called? Y'all, I can't even think of what the name of the plan is. Alexa, what is it called when you get laid off and they give you money for a certain time? Severance, severance, separation, pay. Look, if y'all don't have an alexa, you need this. Thank you, alexa. Alexa, thank you y'all. Severance okay, so get you an alex. That's number one. But no, if you are going through this type of situation and you aren't offered any type of severance pay, then you are stuck in a position where you're living off of your savings, and if you don't have savings, you're in a whole different situation. So we went over that stat.

Speaker 1: 10:52

Now I want to give y'all some stats of high income earners and six figure earners living paycheck to paycheck, and so this was, as of 2023, lending Club. They did a study and they revealed that 44% of Americans earning over $100,000 annually live paycheck to paycheck. I know a lot of people like how they do that, when they got all this money, depending on where you live, depending on the cost of living. Remember, we got lifestyle inflations. Debt is rising. It's a lot, okay, life is a lot. I never knew that it was as much as it is, but it is Okay. So those are two things and I'm y'all.

Speaker 1: 11:34

I'm crying inside, but please know, okay, you got paycheck to paycheck situations and then you have those sudden situations where there's an increase in layoffs, reductions, and you have company closures, restructures, what have you? How do we make our savings stretch if we're going through a situation like that? And so, first off, you're going to have to adopt a frugal mindset. I know, I get it. You probably thinking in your head I didn't get this far to get to this place where I'm making all of this money, to now being in a place where I have to be frugal, where you once were in a place where you felt like you had it all, where you can afford everything. You had disposable income.

Speaker 1: 12:17

But when you're in a situation where you're now living off of your savings, you got to be frugal. You can't do that because you have to make sure that you are mindful and being very intentional of every single penny that you're using, because you now need this to survive. We're going to get back to thriving later, but you need this to survive and you can't deplete your savings too quickly. So I want you to think of it like this I don't know how much you have in savings. So I'm going to use an example right now. So if currently you have $20,000 in savings and you're going through this situation where you're now in a situation of living off of your savings, so let's say you estimate that you need about $4,500 per month for all of your essentials, for you to survive, for you to still maintain while you're going through this predicament. So that's $20,000. You need about $4,500 per month and we are looking at this situation as if you are only using your savings to survive. So that will only get you about four and a half months before you're going to need some type of new income source. So that's the reason why you got to adopt this frugal mindset, because you got to make every penny last as long as it needs to.

Speaker 1: 13:32

Okay, in this season, this is mindful season. This is intentional season, intention being on our spending, intention being on our purchases. That we making no big purchases right now. No living life, no vacations, none of those other things going on unless somebody else they flying us out or they paying for it. Okay, we can't do it. Okay, because we're in a different situation right now. We're in a different season. We now in a building season, I got a whole episode about being in a building season. It's transitional and it's also building and while we in this season we got to track, we need to track our spending to the T. So that's going to be our first tip.

Speaker 1: 14:14

Our first tip is you need to create a detailed budget. That's the action that you need to put into this, just because when you develop that detailed budget and I know a lot of people they don't like budgets and I don't know what systems you use, I don't know if you write your budget down. I don't know if you use an app, an Excel worksheet, whatever it is that you do, whatever helps you best, because we're all different, but whatever it is, you need to make sure that you are looking at all of those essential costs that are in your life. What are your expenses, what do they look like, what's going out? You may need to pull your statement, your bank statement, your credit card statement, wherever it is that you're spending money, so that way you can see what expenses do I have going out? Where am I spending my money? I promise you, your bank statement will make you a liar every single time. You will write every single thing down that you think that you're spending money on, then your bank statement be like uh-uh, don't forget, you be spending money here too. Okay, so you're going to need to make sure that you are looking at those statements Once again your bank statement and your credit card statement so you can see what your lifestyle consists of, where you're spending your money, what are you spending money on?

Speaker 1: 15:29

Because while we in this season, y'all we got downsides. We got to simplify our lifestyle, we got to simplify our expenses. So that means we got to cut costs. We got to eat the low cost meals. Okay, let me tell you what your girl loves Thai food. I am in a Thai food, like frenzy, okay, like I love Thai food. Right now I can order it every single day. It's this place called Orchard Thai in Sacramento, and once I found out that they was on DoorDash and I could just get it every day.

Speaker 1: 16:01

But, child, the meal that I get is like maybe $31 a pop when I order it on DoorDash and if I go get it, it's like $21. So that $10, that make the difference, okay, but it's still expensive. So if I'm ordering $21 for five days a week, because I literally can eat it five days a week just because it's that fresh, it feels that good, it feel like it's healthy Okay, cause it's. It's a lot of veggies in there. But if I'm ordering that all week, I'm already out of $100. And I'm out of even more if I'm getting it sent by DoorDash every single day. So when I'm talking about eating more low-cost meals, that means we got to stop all the DoorDashes, unless you are equating it in there and it can be reasonable to the budget that you need to create.

Speaker 1: 16:52

But going from those high-dollar meals I love crab. I be at the Costco child, I will get some king crab in a second, but in going through this season, no more king crab. We got to make the meals stretch spaghetti, tacos, roast, you know the lower cost meals, the meals that you probably grew up on. When I was growing up child, I didn't even know that the salmon was a fish. Okay, we was eating salmon croquette out the can. I had no idea because they were making those dollars stretch. And that's exactly what you're going to need to do and a lot of times.

Speaker 1: 17:27

How we can do that the quickest is going to be with our food, because food is expensive. You can go get eight items right now from the store and spend a hundred dollars. You'd be like, okay, look, okay, what did I get? Okay, so, cutting back in your food expense and you're going out to get food expenses, you may need to start getting the generics y'all. Okay, like, and I hate that. Okay, let me tell you what I'm a Capricorn, I'm bougie. I'll be like the generics. Oh, my God, like. I'm a person who cooks and fries with olive oil, and you know how expensive olive oil is, because that's the blood of Jesus. Okay, that's the that's. I only want to fry with the best. Okay, I only, I only want to fry with the oils that bless you, okay. So in this season, we back to vegetable oil. Okay, at my house, everybody would know that I would have.

Speaker 1: 18:23

Costco has these. I don't want to say purified, but it's acaline waters. They have these acaline waters that are just bomb and I promise that's probably the reason why I sound like this Cause. I ain't been drinking them lately because they so expensive. It's like a pack of 24 and I think it's like 1499. I normally get those, but I ain't been able to just go get them and have them Like. I just would give them out. They'd be in my trunk. I would be handing them out Like I was handing them out, like they didn't cost 1499. You want to know what we drinking Regular water right now? Okay, you got to cut back. You can get the generic items.

Speaker 1: 19:00

You got to strategize those ways that you can make your money last, because it needs to last longer, especially if you're in a situation where you're living off your savings and so cutting back and cutting down on your electricity costs. I told the kids, child, look, my last bill from SMUD, I think, was like $280 because it's been hot and I had to tell them look, y'all got to be hot during the day. If you're here during the day, you got to be hot. That's just kind of where we at. We ain't got $280 bills right now. We ain't doing that. Okay, shouldn't have $280 bills ever, but we ain't got it right now. We got to cut back. Y'all got to be hot during the day. We'll run the AC at night.

Speaker 1: 19:43

Think about your electricity bills. You got to look at all of the areas If you're using a gas stove, all of the areas where you are spending money. How can you simplify that area right now? Because this is just a season. This is just a season and you need to figure out those ways that you're going to be reducing those monthly expenses. All right, so we're going to go ahead and move on to tip two, and that is going to be negotiating with your creditors, with your billers. And I had to throw this in there because I only want three tips, but this is kind of like two tips wrapped in one. It's going to be applying for those necessary governmental assistance programs.

Speaker 1: 20:26

Okay, now, I know, especially for people who are coming down from making high income six figures, you probably like, I've never been in a situation where I've had to do this, or I've been in this situation before. I never thought that I would be back here. But this is the thing, that's life. We can't control every single element. I know we have a false sense of control that if I'm in this good job, I'm going to keep this good job, the money going to keep flowing. Things happen. We talked about that earlier in the episode.

Speaker 1: 20:57

Now you're here. What can we do while you're here? So what does negotiating with your creditors and your billers what does that look like? That means not dodging them. That means getting on the phone and talking to them. That means that if you have loans, if you have bills right now, because your loans are associated with your credit, we got to keep your credit in order while you're in this season. So you're going to have to find those ways where you can pay less for your loans or you can now start skipping payments for those loans, and what a skip payment or a deferment on your loan means is you don't pay the loan this month, you don't pay it next month, but maybe you pay it the month after that. They may allow you to defer one to three payments all at once because you're going through a financial hardship. You need to tell them about that. You need to find out what do you do for financial hardship. You won't know until you ask.

Speaker 1: 21:49

A lot of people don't like calling because we already upset that we're in a situation, but this is the thing. Now we need help. Now we need assistance. We need to find out what is out there and what's available to us while we're going through this season. How can we cut our monthly expenses? And deferring a payment one to three months. That's something that will help you tremendously Because, remember, we're trying to make our savings last, and if we don't have to pay a bill and if we can keep more money in our savings to help us to last longer. That's what we're trying to do while we're in this season.

Speaker 1: 22:21

So you're going to want to get on the phone, look at all of your let's say creditors first. Look at all of your let's say creditors first. Look at all of those bills that are credit bills, like an auto loan, a personal loan, student loans, any other loans, credit cards. Those are going to be creditors bills that are on your credit report. You're going to want to make sure that you contact them and find out what are your financial hardship policies, processes, what do you do, your procedures, what do you do for people? In this instance, I'm looking to defer a month or two months, or how many months will y'all defer? What do y'all need from me so that I'm able to do that? Let them know I'm trying to still pay this bill, but right now I'm in a financial hardship. Everybody goes through it. Companies go through financial hardship, so there is something that that company may have that can assist you. You won't know until you contact them.

Speaker 1: 23:11

Then you can also get with your billers. You want to communicate with them Billers meaning your electric bill or whatever bills y'all pay. Think of bills. Okay, I just told y'all the difference between bills and creditors. Okay, figure it out. We're going to figure it out. Okay, everybody's smart.

Speaker 1: 23:26

Okay, you want to get with your billers on how you can make payment arrangements? You may fall back a month. But the thing with the billers versus the creditors if you fall back a month on a bill that's not on your credit report, you can make payment arrangements for that, because that's not going to be reporting. If you're late, every 30 days, billers don't. Billers aren't reporting to your credit report. And hear me good, because if somebody piece this the wrong way and try to play me, don't play me. Okay, bills Think of bills versus your creditors and your credit bills.

Speaker 1: 24:00

We know what loans are, the things that you have taken out, things that need to be paid every 30 days. Your billers you have a little bit more flexibility with those arrangements and I'm spending so much time on this because you're going to get caught up into what you think you heard me say so I want to make sure that I'm being very clear. We are talking about payment arrangements. We're talking about deferments, deferring loans, and we're talking about payment arrangements that you can make for bills to negotiate with your creditors, with your billers, while you're experiencing this season, so that way you can try to cut costs or delay costs for as long as you possibly can. So you're going to have to sit down, look at who you owe, who are my billers, who are my creditors, contact them. You may can't do it all in one sitting session. I get it. It's a lot. It's a lot. It's irritating too, because it's like I should have it, but right now we don't. Okay, you should, I agree with you, you should. Nobody should be going through situations where they have to delay payments, where they have to make payment arrangements. If it was up to me, if the world was perfect, we would all be in a situation where we can do everything that we need to do, pay all our bills when we need to, when they're due. But if you're in this situation, we got to do what we got to do. Okay, and doing what we got to do.

Speaker 1: 25:24

That also applies to applying for necessary governmental assistance programs where you may need it. Yes, I'm talking about your food stamps. I'm talking about those programs that the electric companies and the gas companies, that other companies may have where they. If you're in a specific income bracket, depending on the amount of people that are in your house, you can get a reduced bill of some sort Right now. We got to take the handouts. Okay, that's where we at. We got to take the handouts if we qualify for them. Where are those handouts at? What are those resources in your city? Look that up. Go to your city's website, the city of where you live. Look and see what are those resources. Look and see what are those resources. Look and see what are those reduced plans. I know the electric companies and the gas companies have it, and that tends to be a larger bill. What are some other reductions or some resources that you can use that can assist you while you're in this time?

Speaker 1: 26:23

Everybody needs assistance at some point, and I I struggle with this. I struggled with this, but I also understand. While I'm in a let me stop for a second because I felt it. I felt it, I too need to take the pauses while you're in survival mode, what are you going to do? We're going to get to thriving. We're going to get there, but right now, to get to thriving, we're going to get there, but right now we need to survive. How are we going to get there? And the immediate thing that we need to get there is cutting costs. The immediate thing we need is assistance where we can get it. So, with that being said, we got to apply and get any type of assistances that we can apply and get that we qualify for. And we also need to make sure we are negotiating with our creditors, with our billers, so that we can delay payments or defer payments for as long as we can.

Speaker 1: 27:21

All right, let's take a pause. How are we feeling? We feeling okay. Okay, I just want to make sure because, remember, we are talking about the tips to help you while you are living off of your savings. We already here, it don't matter why, it don't matter why we just trying to survive during this time. Okay, I want to make sure that that is being very clear and I hope that this is speaking life into you and giving you some type of instruction manual so that way you can use this. Okay, y'all ready to jump into our last tip? Okay, okay, I'm ready for our last tip too. Okay, cause I know this has been.

Speaker 1: 27:59

I'm looking at the episode. I'm like, ooh, I've been talking a long time, but that's okay. This episode probably should have been like a part one and part two. I'm going to figure out if I need to do that. All right, it's cool, let's go ahead and get into tip number three.

Speaker 1: 28:14

Tip number three is going to be us finding ways to generate shorts and alternative income streams. Okay, I want everybody thinking on the positive for this. Okay, because I got to tell you this is so funny. My alternative income stream has always been to my friends If times get hard, I'm getting on the pole. You better mind your business. If you see me, I am making it work. Okay, I am bringing money into my household. Don't judge me, okay, no lie. Okay, that's always been my alternative income stream if times got hard.

Speaker 1: 28:52

But on a real tip for real, looking for temporary or part-time work, freelancing opportunities, some gig work I don't know what it is that you do. How can you freelance during this time? How can you sell your expertise? What is that thing that you can do to bring in some additional money? What are those ways? What are those creative ways?

Speaker 1: 29:12

Just because we live in such a creative space, people are making money off of the craziest things. When I say crazy, it is crazy. There are people who pay just to cuddle with people now, okay, people who come to your house to hug you Y'all. Look, I'm not telling y'all to do any of those things. I'm just telling you that people are out here making money for literally everything. What can be that creative way for you? And no judgment shoo, whatever you gotta do.

Speaker 1: 29:40

Okay, I'm not telling anybody to do nothing. I wanna make sure that I'm being very clear. Disclaimer I am not telling anybody to do anything, because y'all probably hear alternative income streams. What's he talking about? I am talking about whatever it is that you decide with your adult mind to do to help you with bringing in some extra money. I can't even talk about this one because it feels like I'm I'm suggesting something else and I'm really not. I promise Ways that you can supplement your savings. Is what I'm trying to talk about. Okay, I guess I needed to lighten this up at some point. Right? Additional ways y'all. I'm trying to stop laughing, because this is for real. This is for real. Okay, let's get real. Additional ways that you can extend your savings is going to be bringing in some type of extra money. What does that look like for you If that's becoming a consultant? Because, look, check this out.

Speaker 1: 30:41

If you were earning high income, chances are you're an expert in something. You were doing something really well that they was paying you all this money. How can you sell that skill? What are your professional skills? What can you be doing? How can you consult? How can you do freelance? How can you do projects? I've done that. Like when I first lost my income, I was freelancing, I was consulting. I was doing all of those things because, look, your girl got skills and I know y'all got skills too, because you're listening to the Mindfully Rich podcast. Sell those skills. How much you going to charge, I don't know? Go to the chat GPT to help you figure out some prices, because I get it.

Speaker 1: 31:21

We in a situation where we need some money, but don't sell yourself short. That is one thing we are not going to do. Y'all are not going to do that. You may need to look up and research how much that service is going for so that way you can know where to price yourself. Okay, so you want to look? I don't know what that space is that you are going to consider or be in to make some money during this time to supplement your savings. But think about what are those alternative streams of income. And while we're talking about that alternative streams of income, of course, long-term, long-term, you're going to get there, but we're thinking about right now okay, right now. And long-term, if we can do it. I'll be honest with you. When I was in this situation, long-term always felt very hard to do because I'm thinking of the now, that savings would just be looking at me and be like all right, girl, this is where we at what you doing. So it's like I was always trying to find ways right then and now, what is the now? Because I don't know what the long term is going to look like, and so that's going to take me with my disclaimer.

Speaker 1: 32:23

Y'all know your girl is a whole financial guide over here and I am accepting clients for September and October. Y'all can check me out. Check out my website. I am mindfullyrichcom. Just because you may need to consult with someone to help you with developing a plan, helping you with managing your savings effectively, you may need someone during this period of time to help you come up with what that strategy is going to look like, to help you withstand saying, to be your accountability partner during this time, making sure that you are balancing your essential expenses during this time, and your girl can do that for you, okay. So if you want a free consultation and I normally don't like to call them free If you would like a complimentary consultation that's what we're going to call complimentary consultation Check out my website, iammindfullyrichcom. Get in touch with me there.

Speaker 1: 33:14

I have somewhere where you can sign up. You can book your appointment. It is very easy. I can assist you. We can see if I can assist you, okay, Because your girl look, I do it all, all right, and I've been guiding people for the last 18 years.

Speaker 1: 33:29

Your girl, your girl been in this business. I understand, but even I, I too, go through these things, but I, too, know those directions to go and I, too, have my accountability that I put into myself to be not only what I am talking about with everyone, but to be that in my own life, and so I can assist because I've been there, I've done that, I've learned it, I've been in these situations many of times, I've went through so many different life changes, and so if you need someone to help you with guiding you through this time, check me out. I am mindfullyrichcom. You can make a consultation appointment with me right now on my website. Set it up for whatever time and date is best for you, okay, and so, once again, I did this episode because I wanted to inspire some hope in you and child.

Speaker 1: 34:20

This episode is long, it is long, but I hope that I have encouraged you and helped you with changing your mindset during this particular time. Help you with being mindful of your finances so you can be very intentional while you are going through this time, and so I want to give you some closing thoughts. I understand how living off your savings it isn't something that you can do for long term, and so there is going to be a right approach, but everybody's right approach is going to be a right approach, but everybody's right approach is going to be different for their financial situation. So I want to let you know that stay positive. Stay positive as you can stay during this time, because long-term is going to come. Long-term is going to be applying out.

Speaker 1: 35:06

It's going to be figuring out where you go next, and I know right now it may not feel like you're going to get anywhere. You may not know where you want to go or where you should end up. I've been telling a lot of people right now, use ChatGPT, update your resume. Update your resume according to the job that you're applying for, so that way you can put your best foot forward, and also letting ChatGPT look through your resume and tell you what are the jobs that you should be applying for, because maybe you haven't thought of some of the jobs that are out there that your skill set could go for. There's going to be a lot of different things that you can do during this time Get on TikTok, listen to some of those career coaches for the free, okay. There's going to be lots of different ways that you can position yourself, to put yourself back out there in the market, so that you can get back to where you were or surpass that.

Speaker 1: 36:00

But this is the thing. Let me speak life into you right now. You're going to get back. You're going to do it. It's going to take some quiet moments. It's going to take some restructuring of your finances. It's going to take a lot of mindfulness and intention during this season.

Speaker 1: 36:13

But listen to me clear you can do this. You are. I'm about to go holy, y'all. I'm about to go holy. I don't know no other way to do it. I don't know no other, no way to do it. Okay, God will never put more on you than you can bear. This season is building you. This season is building us for the better. We are going to thrive after this season. We are going to be in a better position after this season. Okay, do y'all hear me? I want to make sure that y'all hear that very clearly. So, no matter what you're going through right now, you are building. Right now. You are building a muscle that you have never built and you are strong. You are building right now. You are building a muscle that you have never built and you are strong, and you are going to get through this, and I claim that in Jesus name for everybody.

Speaker 1: 36:54

Okay, now, this episode didn't been really long. Y'all already know what to do. Share, share, share. You want to book an appointment with me? I am booking for September and October. Check out my website, iammindfullyrichcom. Also, schedule those complimentary consultations with your girl. What am I missing, dang? I can't think of what I'm missing. All right, y'all, it's long until next time when I hit y'all with another one.