Conversation #129 | The Fall: From Six Figures to Scraping By

Welcome Back to Season 4 of The Mindfully Rich Podcast!

Did ya'll miss me? Well, I missed ya'll too, but I had to take time to focus my thoughts and get real with myself—and with ya'll. After spending some time in prayer with The Holy Spirit, I felt led to share my most authentic series yet, one that dives into topics I've never touched on before because of my own shame. But this isn't about me; it's about YOU. My goal has always been for you to feel seen, heard, and inspired by real stories and truth. So, let's get into it!

This season, I'm kicking things off with a brand-new series: "From Six Figures to Scraping By Rebuilding After Financial Distress." We're talking about 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.

Episode 1: "The Fall: From Six Figures to Scraping By"
In this raw and real episode, we explore how quickly financial stability can vanish, even for those earning six figures. Whether it's due to job loss, medical emergencies, economic downturns, or poor financial decisions, anyone can find themselves struggling. Today, I’m giving you three actionable tips to help you navigate financial distress:

• Tip 1: Assess the Damage—Get real about your finances. Calculate what you owe, what's in savings, and your essential monthly expenses.
• Tip 2: Trim the Fat—Cut unnecessary expenses immediately. Key steps include downsizing, selling assets, and eliminating non-essentials.
• Tip 3: Reach Out for Help—Don't let pride delay your recovery. Seek assistance through government programs, family, or financial advisors.

Closing Thought: Hitting rock bottom is tough, but the first step toward recovery is recognizing where you are, what needs to be done, and making a plan to change it!

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!

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Chapters

• 0:00 Rebuilding After Financial Distress
• 7:59 Navigating Financial Setbacks and Recovery
• 18:07 Overcoming Financial Setbacks Through Assistance
• 25:41 Growing Inspiring Breakthroughs

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello, hello and welcome back to the Mindfully Rich Podcast, your weekly look at life and 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 Richie Richardson. Now let's jump into today's conversation. Child, I know y'all looking down at the podcast like wait a minute, wait a minute. We ain't got an episode in a minute, okay, yes, I decided to shock y'all on this. What's today, august 19th? Yes, I wanted to shock y'all and bring it back because a piece of me was like you know, I should bring it back at the beginning of the month and it's like then I wasn't feeling too good or my voice was acting up, something was happening, and I was just like you know what it's going to come back. When it come back, it don't have to be on a special day, the first, just do it. Okay, we be in Nike right now, okay? And so what I can say is your girl has been deep in thoughts.

Speaker 1: 1:11

I have been experiencing life, like so many of y'all have been doing, and, of course, when you experiencing life, what's going on, you trying to figure out what's happening in your life, what changes you need to make in your life and what directions you're going in. And so that's what I've been doing and I needed to do that, and I'm glad that I was able to take that time away just because I decided I started a whole new season, because it's been some time and I wanted to come back correct and I got some real stuff that I need us to talk about. And so, while I've been gone, I've been looking at episodes that y'all have been listening to and re-listening to, and what I found is we're in an interesting time in life, right, and along with inflation and along with life costing a lot of money for a lot of people right now, and along with people going through different transitional times in life, along with my own life, all of the things that I've been going through I was like this season I want to talk about the realest stuff I've ever talked about and I want to make sure that I'm really digging deep and talking about some things that can really help y'all. And so I've done some changes, just a few changes, not too much, just because I want the podcast to remain y'all home, especially, you know Rich Gang, that done been here. Okay, for y'all newbies it's going to be something y'all getting used to, but I wanted it to still feel like what you're used to. But we getting real this season and this is going to be season four, and so I didn't just jump into it and see your girl been gone and you know I didn't. Who am I to start without thanking y'all? Okay, I mentioned it earlier. I mentioned it earlier that y'all have been re-listening, re-listening. I mean I don't know what it is about me being gone and y'all listening to the podcast, but y'all be on it and I absolutely love that. But I wanted to give y'all some insight.

Speaker 1: 3:07

So the episodes that I've been seeing that have been trending on an upward spiral since I haven't been making episodes since April. There's an episode titled Five Steps to Consider in the Pre-Broke Stage. That episode has been going up. So let me know y'all going through something, somebody out there going through something. There are the credit scenes that you have to relearn, also the last series that I did talking about when the check engine light is on in your finances. And also there's another episode setting clear financial boundaries in 2024. That episode has just been like off the charts.

Speaker 1: 3:45

So that made me think, that made me say you know what we got to put together, something that is in alignment with what I'm seeing, people are listening to, and also I'm online, I'm seeing what's going on with people. I'm a guide, I'm a financial guide every single day. Not only do I coach, but I'm educating people and in different areas of the US and seeing how people are being impacted by their finances. And I was, like you know, I had to talk to the Holy Spirit a little bit, because I'm always authentic, but I didn't know just how authentic I really wanted to be, especially coming back for this new series. And so I think y'all going to like this All right, coming back with the series, and it's titled From Six Figures to Scraping by Rebuilding After Financial Distress. Y'all like that right Period Period, okay, and so that's the title of the series.

Speaker 1: 4:46

And so we're going to get a chance to jump into the episode, get into our Mindful Money moment. But of course, I got to just express so much gratitude because without y'all, I wouldn't even think to come back, I wouldn't even have a place to come home to, to be able to share. And I want to get back to 2020 when I was just so excited about the podcast, when I was ready to share, and it's been hard for me to be able to do that because when you're going through it, it's hard to be creative, it's hard to want to share those things. And I've realized in my life my biggest blessings have come when I've been the most raw. The most authentic blessings have come when I've been the most raw, the most authentic. And I said you got to come back.

Speaker 1: 5:29

No matter what life is going through y'all, finna, just go through it with me and you know what. We're going to experience these ups. We're going to experience these downs, because I created this podcast to be a voice. I created this podcast to be not only digestible, so you can get real information from a real financial connoisseur practitioner. Like I'm in this thing. Okay, I studied this. This is my baby, okay, like I love this and I wanted to make sure that I'm giving back and serving in that way and being a voice. And so I want to continue being that voice and I'm like you got to talk about the ups, you got to talk about the downs, because a lot of people are experiencing down, and so we're going to go ahead and we're going to get into it. So, most definitely got to thank Rich Gang.

Speaker 1: 6:11

Y'all amazing, amazing, still been sharing. Okay, y'all still hey, although I've listened to these episodes maybe I ain't listened to all 128 of them and y'all been really in there because I know that y'all still wanted to hear that voice, but I promise I got something great for y'all. It's about to be something, okay. So y'all just get ready. Okay, so let's just go ahead. Let's go ahead and jump into our Mindful Money moment. And so, for those of y'all that are new, when I first started the podcast, I used to align the titles of the episode with a music title. I'm not doing that for this particular series just because it's so deep. I wasn't able to find no songs that went along with it. And there's 128 episodes and more than half of these episodes all have music titles. Ok, it's only so many titles out there.

Speaker 1: 7:08

So, in this Mindful Money moment, this is where we're going to get into the title of our episode, and we're going to discuss some topics, and what I've started now, rich Gang, is I'm going to give y'all three tips, three key takeaways, and I'm going to have a closing thought that I want y'all to ponder, I want y'all to be mindful about, meditate on and think of. What can you do with this closing thought yourself? What's your closing thought? This is my closing thought for everything, but I want you to be able to ponder that and so just giving y'all a little insight into what's to come. And so the title of today's episode is the Fall from Six Figures to Scraping Back. I know y'all feel it right there, right Okay, because I know I do. Okay, feel it in so many ways All right. And so let's get into that.

Speaker 1: 7:59

And I don't know exactly where y'all stand in y'all finances, and this is something that I can relate to, just because in the last two years I went through a lot of life. So the people out there who have went from making high incomes whether that was six figures, or you were very close, or you were in a high income bracket to now maybe you're not making as much money, maybe it's not feeling the same, maybe you are in that paycheck to paycheck mode right now. As I've said before, the financial the check engine light is on in your finances right now. Okay. So I want to get into that a little bit, because I don't think we've ever had an episode Nope, I can't even say I don't think We've never had an episode where we were able to really dive into that. And so the fall anytime you fall, it's going to hurt, but of course it depends on how far you fail. Okay, so if I fall down one step, that ain't going to hurt me as bad as if I fall down 15 steps. Right, and that's what it feels like. So if you coming from six figures or a high income of some sort, and you fall down a flight of stairs, you fall down that much that's going to impact you.

Speaker 1: 9:17

And let's talk about the fall. What does the fall look like? Because some people tend to think that, oh, you just had to do something, you made poor financial decisions. That's the reason why you're in this situation. But no, you can have a fall because you had a job loss. There's a lot of reduction going on, a lot of layoffs that are going on, a lot of companies are going out of business. There's lots of things that can happen. Whether that be something that you can control or you can't control, lots of people go through divorces, there's a death in a family, sickness there's so many different elements that can produce a fall.

Speaker 1: 9:58

And so, for my people out there who are experiencing a fall right now, you know what those reasons are that you experience in those fall and you know how much that's hurting you. Okay, I too have had a fall and in that fall I want to say, probably right now, I'm making at least at least 30 to $40,000 less than I'm used to making. That's a huge fall. Okay, let's acknowledge that. Okay, out there, you know how much your fall is and what that looks like and how you're trying to get yourself back up, because, I don't know about y'all, I didn't feel down stairs before in my house. Okay, and that tailbone be hurting, all right, right.

Speaker 1: 10:45

And so with the fall, financially the pockets is hurting because you feeling that, because you either may not you either you probably went from being able to have some extra money, some disposable money, to paycheck to paycheck, depending on how bad that fall is, and that's detrimental because we all have lifestyles, we all have created a lifestyle for our lives and most of us are in situations where we need to make more money because inflation is continuing to build every single year, everything is continuing to get more expensive. So we need to make more money, not reduce the money that we're making. And so, with the rising costs of everything. So when you're going through those different falls, it's like, all right, what am I going to do? How am I going to get myself back up? How do I get back to where I was, or surpass where I was? And once again you tackle with man, how did I get here? Because it happens so fast. And so I want to go ahead and jump into.

Speaker 1: 11:58

When you're in those setbacks, coming from that high income, going down, reducing, when you're having that fall, what are those tips that you need to think of? First, right. So, tip number one assessing the damage. Right, when you fall, you got to look around. All right, what you know? Everything, okay, did I break something? That's what you do when you fall. Normally. I love analogies, so we're going to keep this going, just in case it's bothering any of y'all. Okay, we're keeping this analogy going.

Speaker 1: 12:26

Okay, but assessing the damages, what was the fall that you experienced in your finances? How hard is it going to hit you? How many thousand is that for you? Because I just told y'all, it's about almost $40,000 for your girl. Okay, that's a lot of money. You got to divide that up yearly, that's a lot of money. What does that look like for you? Calculating that? Right, because, once again, how much did your lifestyle cost you before the fall? Are you going to be able to afford the essentials that you needed for that lifestyle before the fall?

Speaker 1: 13:03

Right, because just because you're experiencing this financial setback, your bills don't stop. You can't call the companies and be like hey, yo, I know I owe you some money, but I just feel they like, oh, okay, well, our bill is due on this day. I wish it was like that. There are some things that they can do. Sometimes they can give you a deferment on loans. Sometimes they can do skip a pays on loans. Sometimes they can work out new terms for your loan where maybe you can extend a term out. They may make you refinance something along those lines. Sometimes those things are available to you, but sometimes they're not. So when you're experiencing that fall, you need to know how much of a jump was that, how, how low did I go?

Speaker 1: 13:56

Right, assessing that damage, because that's going to affect you monthly, because if you're no longer bringing in that money monthly. What are you going to do? But what does that look like? First, and I get it. It's hard to do that because don't nobody like going backwards. That's the reason why, in the cause, you got the big mirror, because we supposed to always be looking forward. But sometimes life hits you where you're going backwards, you have a setback and you can't do nothing about it and it's going to suck. It sucks, your girl going through one. It sucks. It sucks for me to even admit that. And it's going to be hard. Yes, falls hurt, falls hurt. But this is the thing. We got to get up. We got to get up and we have to assess the damage.

Speaker 1: 14:45

So you need to absolutely understand where am I at financially now? How much can I afford? What do my essentials look like each month? Do I have enough? Where I'm going to be able to cover that? What savings do I have? What does that look like? So, assessing what that damage is.

Speaker 1: 15:03

And then, tip number two now we got to figure out how we can get rid of some stuff. Okay, we got to trim the fat, because that's the one thing about it when you fall down financially, I don't know if you can still afford everything that's in your lifestyle. So you may have to downsize. You may have to figure out. What can my situation now? What can we do? Okay, cutting back, whether that's on subscriptions, whether that's going out, and your girl love eating okay, I love food. Okay, whole nother conversation we're going to have to have. I went to the doctor. I got to lose weight Whole nother conversation. Okay.

Speaker 1: 15:44

But you have to start cutting back, because anytime you have this financial fall, some of the things that you had in your lifestyle now are unnecessary expenses and you got to get rid of them. You got to downsize, you got to cut some things in order for you to survive. We want to get back to thriving. We're going to get back there, but we have to look at the here and the now, which is assessing what do I need to get rid of? Can I sell some things? If that's a possibility for you, what do you need to do? Because that's an immediate thing, because what's going to happen is after you've assessed the damage and you see how much now you're making versus what you were making, and then you see the things that you can no longer afford.

Speaker 1: 16:31

If you don't start cutting back, you are going to fall behind. You are going to fall behind, thinking I can keep this, I'm going to keep going, I'm going to keep living the way I was. Hell, no, don't do that. It's a bad thing. It will stress you out quicker than if you just would have went through the process of assessing where you're at and just getting rid of some things and downsizing to the lifestyle that you need to live at that particular moment of where you're at. So hear me clear when I say that. All right.

Speaker 1: 17:07

And then tip number three reaching out for help. Who can help? Who can help you during this time? Now, that's the thing. Let me just go ahead and say this right, I'm not good at asking for help. Who can help? Who can help you during this time? Now, that's the thing. I mean. Let me just go ahead and say this right, I'm not good at asking for help because I've always been the person to help other people. So I understand that this is hard, this is hard. I've had to have help and that, ooh, it's hard, it's hard. I couldn't ask for it.

Speaker 1: 17:37

But those who are close to you, they're going to know when you're going through something, no matter how much you try to front. No matter how much you try to fake it, you try to still keep up, say you know, keep in face. Like things is cool, things ain't cool. We can't do that to ourselves. God can't bless who we think we are. We just got to show up and be who we are so we can say here I am, this is what needs to happen in my life. I'm not going to fake the funk.

Speaker 1: 18:07

So you may need to seek assistance, whether that's looking at governmental programs, because I don't know how far you fail. I don't know what that looks like for you. You may be in a situation where governmental programs may be the route that you need to take and the government may need to help you out right now. Okay, you may need family for assistance. You may need advisement. You may need a financial guide your girl, okay, because look, I'm still working, okay, fall or not, we getting up, okay, and so we still got this knowledge. Okay, and so you may need assistance to help you with getting back, because, once again, although you fail, that don't mean you can't still get to a place where you can thrive again or thrive even more than where you were at. But you got to get up and you may need help in the process of that. And once again, you're talking and hearing someone who it is hard for me to ask for help told myself if I get so, if I'm so bad down, if I'm so down, bad down, horrendous child, then I'm just going to have to do the reaching out and do the things that I'm going to need to do.

Speaker 1: 19:22

But help also can look like who is your network? Who can you get with? So let's say, if you lost the job, who can you get with? Tell them people hey, look, I need to get my resume together. Who them people in your network? That's HR people that can help you with getting it together, okay, who can you send out your resume to? Or who's your network and say, hey, this is my resume. Who y'all know? Let everybody know that I'm looking for a job, okay, or whether you're looking for another job. That can also be advice to assist you there. So just know what help could look like, whether that's actual financial assistance or whether that's just letting people know what your situation is.

Speaker 1: 20:03

But that involves and I'm going to say us, because I'm talking to myself too that involves us sitting our ego down, sitting our pride down and sitting our shame down so that we can let people know where we're at, because, once again, right, the blessing only comes when we're able to be truly authentic in who we are and where we're at right now and let people know I need help, because people can't help you if they don't know. They just can't okay, so I'm hoping that those tips can help someone, because I don't know what you're going through, but I know I'm helping a lot of people right now who are going through some type of reduction and they're going through some type of fall where they were making high incomes to now. They're not. So what are you going to do? And we need inspiration through that. So what are you going to do? And we need inspiration through that.

Speaker 1: 20:57

We do, because you can get back to where you need to be, but you need to figure out how to live in the here and the now, and that is normally the problem, because we can't believe it. We shouldn't be here. Those are the things that you're going through in your mind. I shouldn't be here. What did I do to deserve this? Why am I going through this? You'll be working your brain forever trying to figure that out. Just know that you're here, you can go through those tips so that you can get yourself in a place where you know this is where I'm at, this is what I can take, this is what I can do at this particular moment, and I'm going to work so that I can get back to where I was and thrive past that point.

Speaker 1: 21:37

So here's my closing thought. I've hit rock bottom quite a few times in my life. I've been through quite a few transitional life moments that have been devastating to me financially. So I know I can relate, I get it and I acknowledge how horrible that can feel. But the first step in recovery is going to be acknowledging where you're at so that you can get yourself back up and let this be inspiration for you. We have to do a mindset shift. Right when we're going through these things, we can think this is the end of the world, this is it for me.

Speaker 1: 22:22

No, you going through this, this is teaching you something, you learning from this setback. Going through this setback is just going to make you stronger. You building a muscle right now. So this lack is only going to build you up. Okay, I don't want you to feel like you regressing. It's going to build you up, even though it feels like you didn't went backwards, but you didn't went back.

Speaker 1: 22:43

But that comeback, you hear me, okay, I'm here to get, I'm here to inspire you. Right now, you building your resilience from this adversity that you going through, okay, you going to bounce back even better, because you're learning something. You're building a muscle that some people don't get a chance to build and you got a story and a testimony where you can talk to somebody else through them going through a situation like this, just like you've been through. Okay, I speak this to you as a person who is here, as a person who has went through this and as a person that knows I'm going to thrive from this. So I'm hoping that that helps you to feel some type of solace inside and know, although I'm going through this, this is not where I'm going to stay, because we going up. You hear me, you hear me, okay.

Speaker 1: 23:37

And so you go ahead and you take that closing thought and I want you to think about that and let that be something that inspires you. You write down what your closing thought needs to be and let that be your intention that you set for the week, so that way you can know you can be a survivor, okay. I hate to take back the destiny child you. You can be a survivor, okay, I take back the destiny child. You going to be a survivor, okay, we not. We not nobody's victim. And I tell you one thing we getting up from this fall, okay.

Speaker 1: 24:04

And so just to let y'all know what you can expect in this series, from six figures to scraping by I have three more episodes. The next one's going to be talking about surviving on savings, the climb back and long-term resilience. So, as you see, we got a lot of deep topics to talk about, a lot of good inspiration going to come from this, but I feel like a lot of good breakthroughs are going to come from this as well, and so please make sure that y'all are sharing these episodes far and wide. I want to make sure that this is heard everywhere, just because this is a topic that I know lots of people can relate to. So I want to make sure I don't know everybody, but you know somebody that knows somebody that knows somebody that knows somebody. So share this thing far and wide. And so, before we leave, if you are looking for a financial guide of some sort, because your girl is here.

Speaker 1: 24:55

I have been educating, I have been coaching, I have been being a guide to so many people, to hundreds of thousands of people, for so long, and so if you need assistance, if you need to talk through your situation, if there's anything that I can assist you with, I want you to check out my website. I am mindfully richcom so you can schedule a complimentary call with me. If you are looking for a financial educator to educate your group, your organization, whoever your audience is, make sure you check me out on my website and don't forget, subscribe to the podcast, write a review. Yes, I need a review Wherever you listening at. Review that thing, okay, and check out the podcast on Instagram.

Speaker 1: 25:41

I'm at mindfully underscore, rich, underscore podcast, and that's all I got. Y'all Ain't got no more. Don't forget y'all unofficial marketing Share, share, share. Keep listening. Any episodes you haven't listened to go on back, okay, and I'm glad to be back. It's a long episode, but I'm glad to be back. And so y'all, make sure y'all stay tuned to this series, because let me tell you what we about to grow, we about to be inspired, we about to have our breakthrough, and so until next time when I hit y'all with another one.