(Ep. 243) Getting Financial Help: Overcoming Challenges to Live Your Best Life

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of the Soon Loan Planner podcast. I'm Rob Bertman and I have the amazing, wonderful Lauren Williams with me. How you doing Lauren? I am having a lovely day and it's always better when I get to hang out with you. Oh same, I feel the same way. I love hanging out with you. Well today Lauren, we have a really important topic because people sometimes, even though they want to get help, they're not really sure how to get the help they need and sometimes they're there's something getting in the way, there's something stopping people from getting the help they need. So today we're going to talk about what's stopping you from getting the help you need to really revolutionize your financial life so you can live your best life ever and what you need to do to overcome it. So we've got five key points here but we're going to talk around a little bit some of these and would love to hear your feedback on this podcast. So you can write comments or if you're looking at this on social make sure to drop something in the comments or messages to us. We'd love to hear more about what you think about this. So Lauren, let's kick it off. Go ahead. Yeah this is something that comes up so frequently too I think with student loan planning because there's somebody out there that's been listening to this podcast for you know two years now and hasn't booked a consultation yet. They're just a little bit nervous, they're a little bit leery and you know you're one of the people that has been stopped from getting the financial help they need. You know you've been trying to gather this information but you haven't quite figured it out and so we are talking to you if you need to figure out how to overcome it me and Rob got solutions for you today. Definitely yeah if you've been on the sidelines and you're just kind of waiting for something you know there's this concept that called that I heard called the slow lane sorry the sidewalk slow lane and fast lane and the fast lane are people they know what their problem is and they know the solution to overcome it and they're just like once they hear what they need to hear they're getting the advice that they need and the help they need right. Then there's people in the slow lane where they know there's a problem but they're not really sure the solution to solve it and that stops people from making getting the help they need and then there's people on the sidewalk right so the sidewalk are people that are kind of floating around there they kind of feel that something's off or that they need help with something but they're not really sure what it is and they're not really sure the solution if you They don't even know what their problem is, let alone the solution to solve their problem that they're not even thinking about. So this concept to me is, maybe as you're going through this, are you on the sidewalk? Are you in the slow lane? Or are you in the fast lane? And just kind of think about where you're at. Can you identify that there's a problem that you need help with? Are you, do you feel like there's something, but you're not really sure if there's a problem? And do you know if there's a solution that can help you fix the problem you want? So just think about that as we're talking through here. So Lauren, you wanna kick us off with our first point here of the podcast? Absolutely. So I think one of the major things, and actually, like you said, the reason it's the first is because it's usually the biggest thing that stops people from getting the financial help they need is that there's some sort of stigma or shame or fear, or even just this feeling of hopelessness, like, oh my goodness, I have messed up my finances so bad, I am at a point of no return, or I made this mistake. And I mean, as we talk about student loans, so frequently someone gets on with us and they're just like, I am so anxious to talk to you today, like, I am terrified, it took me forever to book this call, I have made the biggest mistake, I cannot believe that I have $200,000 in student loan debt, I'm an idiot, you know, and it's just like all this negativity that they feel related to the fact that they, you know, got these student loans. And so it's what you've decided to tell yourself more so than the actual truth about what your situation is, because, you know, you're not the only person with $200,000 student loan debt, you didn't make a bad decision, I'm sure you, you know, made some new friends while you got that degree, you got the degree that maybe helped you get additional income, there's a lot of good things about this, but sometimes you just start to like, really, really hone in on, like where you feel shame or where you feel fear because you're not really clear. And I know for me, it's one of those things too, where culturally, it's not something that is talked about finances in general. And so a financial mistake is absolutely not something you're going to want to talk about with anyone. So that's where the shame and the fear kind of start to just really pile up on you because you don't have a space to share it. You feel like it's weighing you down, but you also can't figure out like, how do I navigate this thing to even get it up off of me? Absolutely. I mean, guilt is real. Financial guilt is real. We all carry it. A lot of times we're like, we don't even want to work with somebody because we're like, I can't believe, I feel so horrible that I got myself in this situation. And I think it's important, a couple of things. One is you're not alone. Okay, if you feel this way, you are not alone. I think what they say, 50% of people don't even have $500 in their bank account. Like this is affecting hundreds of millions of people, right? And that's why Lauren and I are here, and SLP is here, is to help overcome that and help people get better with their finances. And I think a lot of times we just have to let that guilt go. And a lot of times when I'm working with clients on the budgeting side and they're overspending, they always, oftentimes I hear, I don't even know how we got here, but I just feel so horrible about our situation. And another thing is, you know, we, I heard someone say this. I don't know if it was a comedian. I don't know, Lauren, but I hear stuff all the time because I'm always listening and reading stuff. But they said, we would never talk to our friends the way that we talk to ourselves. That internal dialogue in our head, we would never in a million years tell some of our friends, treat our friends the way that we treat ourselves. So give yourself a break. You're not alone. There are plenty of other people in your situation. There are solutions out there for you. So we kind of have to say, no matter what got us here, we gotta leave that. We can't change that. All we can do is change our mindset going forward so that we can get the help that we need. Yeah, and I think too that admitting that you made a mistake is like a step number one, you know, in AA and all the different programs to rehabilitation, like the first thing you gotta do is admit that there is a problem, admit that there was a mistake made. And I can speak from personal experience. Like to me, this was so freeing. So I've made a lot of financial mistakes over the course of my life. And I've talked about some of them on previous podcasts. You can go back and take a listen to some of those. But one of them as an example was buying a house that was just way too big. And I was just like holding on, holding on to this house, holding on to this really fat mortgage that I couldn't afford, you know, with my current income. And it was just like, oh, but I was just like plugging along because everybody else thought that like, Lauren's got it. She's got that really nice house down there. Like, oh, you still got multiple houses, Lauren? I'm like, yep, I still got multiple houses. But the shame and the fear of just saying like, this thing is getting ready to bury me if I don't do something about it could have potentially actually buried me if I didn't just speak up and say like, hey, I gotta figure out how to get this house off my back and move on to the next thing. And once I did and I started to take that action, I was like, whew, okay. And I started telling everybody like, hey, I'm selling my house, I'm trying to get rid of it. You know anybody wanna buy a house? And you just start to build this confidence and things start to take action and you get momentum from simply saying that you've made a mistake and then, you know, things start to happen. Totally. One final thing I'll say on this, just a personal example too for me, is I don't know if you know this, Lauren, but in my 20s, I used to be a day trader. No, I didn't. Yeah, I was a genius for a little bit and then I lost everything. So, and I cannot believe some of the mistakes I made. And even after doing that, even after like totally failing, I tried to dabble in it again in like my mid 20s and I failed again and I'm thinking, why am I even doing this? I should just kind of, I need to do things differently. But so we all make mistakes. We all not only make mistakes once, but sometimes we make them twice and three times and four times. And that's okay, right? The goal is, I heard, I think it was Hal Elrod, who's the Miracle Morning guy, talks about how guilt should be a signal for learning. And so if you're feeling guilty about something, use that as an opportunity to springboard you into learning how to do things better. So we'll leave you with that. But don't let fear, hopelessness, guilt, stop you from getting the help you need. It's okay, you're not alone. Yeah, so let's go to number two, Lauren. All right, number two is limited awareness around the long-term impact of not taking the help or getting the help that you need. So I see this frequently in health and in finances. So think about like not working out and what happens when you don't work out? You start to get fat. You know, what happens after you've gained a certain amount of weight? Like it's hard to even get moving again. You start to have health issues and the doctor says diet and exercise are the thing that's gonna change it. But by that time you're addicted to cookies and you can barely walk to the mailbox sort of situation. There's limited awareness in the moment as it's happening. The hamburger tastes so great. The French fries are awesome. You know, I've also just lived through this over the last 18 months where I had gotten physically unhealthy to the point where I was just like, oh my goodness, it hurts to move. But not really understanding what the long-term impact of things are that you're doing right now is a very dangerous place to be. And it's a reason that sometimes people will not reach out to try to get the help that they need. And so to bring it back to finances, think about something like life insurance. Like maybe you haven't even thought about it. You're like, I'm healthy, I'm alive, I'm fine. But you also have three kids and you pass away. Like no one's planning to kick the bucket. That's not on our list of things to do, but guess what, we all will at some point. And you just never even considered the idea that if you're not here, your kids won't have your income and they'll have to figure it out. They'll either have to live off your spouse's income. Someone will have to take them in. But the money that you're earning to be able to take care of your family is what you're trying to replace by getting some sort of term life insurance in place and the wealth that you're trying to build. So like not even being aware of the long-term impact is a big thing that you're just like, oh, life is fine. I don't have a problem, everything's good over here. But there's a lot of things that you could be missing out on financially that could have you on the brink of destruction. 100%, I think back to, most people don't make any changes until something drastic happens in their life or they see something drastic happen to someone else's life. And so we're kind of, it's like, oh my gosh, my friend just had a health scare. Maybe I should get in shape. Or my friend just declared bankruptcy. Or I'm about to declare bankruptcy. I need to start taking this seriously. I know that Lauren, you and I, there has to be, there's usually some catalyst, some sort of, we're getting to the event horizon, the point of no return, which is when people seek out help. And a lot of times people can't see, for example, with credit card debt or not having enough money in emergency fund or not investing, not putting enough money away to investing. What is the long-term implication? Sometimes I'm like, how does anybody even know, what difference does it make if I order an extra $10 drink when I'm out with my friends? What impact does it have on my overall wealth 30 years from now? And that is such a hard concept to see. But every decision that you make today matters for the future. Not saying that you can't live for the day or make the choices that you want today, but at least you need to kind of know where you stand and you need to know what impact that has. So like everyone always thinks, for example, it's going back to credit card debt. It's like, well, I've always had a little bit of credit card debt, it's no big deal. Well, let's take that 10 years, let's take that next year. What if you were in the same financial position next year? How would you feel? Okay, let's take it out 10 years from now. Okay, 20 years, 30 years. When are you gonna make that change? When are you gonna be aware that what you're doing is having a long-term financial impact? Is it when you're in your 50s and 60s when you're about to retire? Or if you're in your 20s, 30s, are you gonna make the changes today that's gonna have that impact? And I think the health and finances, like you said, Lauren, they go really well together in terms of parallel. It's like, you can do little things today with your health and eating and exercising that will have tremendous long-term impact, positive or negative. And so I would say, what do you think is a good first step, Lauren? You think, how do you think people would best get aware of what the long-term impact of where they are today would be? I think you first gotta take inventory of what's happening in your financial life. We kinda have these pillars in financial planning. So it's your cashflow, what's coming in and what's going out. That's also where you deal with your debt. This is the Student Loan Planner Podcast. So if you have not really created a plan, you're just like, oh, I make a payment every month, I'm on time, and that's my plan. You're not really considering whether or not you're doing the thing that's most efficient related to your student loans. Taxes, what can I be doing to be more tax efficient? Where am I missing the gaps? Insurance, like I said, who do I want to be cared for if I'm not around anymore? What is the contingency plan if poop hits the fan? And as we think about insurance, it's life insurance, it's health insurance, it's disability insurance, it's your property and casualty insurance. All of these things are areas where you can be optimizing your finances to make sure that you're making the most of what is available to you. Estate planning, you said you could build all this wealth and it'd just all go into a black hole, or me and Rob can find out that you died and go to probate and say like, hey, this was our best friend and they really wanted us to have all the money. You didn't have any documents in place, so maybe they won't give it to me and Rob, but it probably will slow the process down for it actually getting to the people that you want it to because you didn't have proper documents in place for it to go directly to them. So take inventory of your overall financial life. Investments in retirement, of course, is another piece of the puzzle. Am I on track for retirement? When do I wanna retire? Most people have not asked themselves that question. What does the word retirement even mean to me? If you don't have a baseline of understanding of where you are and where you're trying to go, it's hard to know, like you said, where the gaps are. And a lot of the minor decisions we make day to day, sometimes they can matter, sometimes they won't. It's a lot of times the big decisions, right? How big of a house we buy, where our kids go to school, who we marry, all these big decisions actually have a big long-term impact on our lives. And as it relates to student loans, if you're pursuing the wrong strategy and you don't even know it, that could cost a lot of money, especially if you're one of the 3 million plus people with six figures of student debt. If you decide to pay off your debt when you are two years away from PSLF or with this new IDR waiver, IDR, what's it called, the limited, the IDR- Adjustment. Account adjustment, that's it. The IDR account adjustment, then you could be missing out on valuable, you might be paying way, way too much, which could have an impact on your long-term wealth. Yeah, we don't want you to miss out on things that could be really important. So the first thing is to get some awareness. Well, the first thing we said was to admit you have a mistake or that you've made a mistake if you know you've made one. If you're in the bucket of not knowing that you've made a mistake and you don't have awareness around it, then the action item in this area is to take inventory of your financial life. There is a third thing that I think is a really important one that holds people back. And for me, this was a big deal and it's kind of why I became a financial planner. And it's distrust related to confidentiality or working with the financial professionals. I don't really want to tell anybody my money business. Money is personal. We call it personal finance. That's literally what it's referred to. I don't want to talk to a stranger about it. And there's a lot going back to that kind of the cultural piece of the puzzle. I come from a background where people are just like, don't tell people how much money you make. Don't talk about money. Stay out of grown folks' business is another thing that was said. All these money messages related to not having any transparency and that someone could take advantage of you if you share anything with them. So a lot of times people are nervous about getting financial help because they're like, what if this financial advisor steals all my money and runs away? Or what if they ruin me? But you also have to think about what happens if I don't get help and how can I get the help that I need? That's such a great point and such an important point. And I think some people, I don't know if you see this Lauren too, but they're either in the category of I will only work with my friends or I will never work with my friends financially. I don't want my friends knowing my business or I trust my friends, so why wouldn't they help me? You ever see that? Absolutely. So funny that you say that because this weekend I was out with some friends and like newer friends. So they didn't really know what I'd done. They kind of found out about the Olympian piece of the puzzle and they're like, well, what are you doing now? And I talked about doing financial planning and they're like, oh my God, I need you in my life. And so it was like, I'd already built this report and it was like, oh, I'm gonna go directly to her. But my close friend group will tell me nothing about their finances. And I'm like, I'm fine with that. I just want you to be in touch with a financial professional. And I have plenty in my kind of repertoire that I'd be willing to send you to and that would help you and I know would take good care of you. So it's still trying to figure out how to broach the subject of like, hey, you do need help even if you don't want my help. And hey, I wanna talk to you about this because I care about you. I have this information that I know and I want my friends to retire with me. So trying to break down that wall of confidentiality and the distrust that exists. I mean, across the financial industry in general is a hard thing to do, but like I'm fighting that fight every day. And I think we are at Student Loan Planner as well. Sometimes we get all kinds of questions of like, well, what if you guys do this? Or well, what are you gonna do with my TXT file? And there's all these different things in it. Like we know that it's not unfounded, that it's coming from a place of like all that people have experienced financially, all that they've heard, the narratives that have been had. But it's really, really important that you figure out how to feel comfortable trusting someone. And some of that is warranted too. I mean, let's just be honest. I mean, the barrier to become a financial advisor, financial planner is not really all that high. I mean, it's not like becoming- It's low. It's not like becoming a doctor or a dentist or a graduate level professional veterinarian, chiropractor, whatever. It's really easy, actually. All it takes, you gotta take one test that maybe you have to study three months for, and then you're in. Now, that being said, it is hard to be a good, really good financial planner, because I feel like anytime anyone asks me for a financial advisor, financial planner, because I only do the budget side, I would say talk to at least, just talk to three people. Talk to someone you know, if you're comfortable with that. Do some online research and pick somebody else, and then do a third. You don't want the person that has the nicest office or that dresses the fanciest. You want someone who can relate to you, who has real stories, and if you hear something that you don't know about, that they take the time to explain to you what that is and how it works. You don't want someone who's gonna try to impress you with all their knowledge and use all this terminology where you don't understand, because if they're using that, then maybe you shouldn't trust them. You want someone who can explain it to you in terms that you can understand. You want someone with experience, with advanced credentials in the financial industry, like a CFP, or a CFA, or a CSLP. Something with advanced credentials, aside from just being financial advisor. And if you do that, and you have to talk to a few people, you'll be a little bit more understanding of like, should I trust this person or not? But yeah, definitely do your research before hooking up with a financial advisor. Yes, that is a key piece of the puzzle, and that is the action item if you're suffering from this one. If you're suffering from distrust, and you're worried about confidentiality, and you're just like, ah, I'm not really sure how to navigate this world, I don't wanna share my personal information, the key action item is going to be to do the research. So we usually say CFP, we use fee-only, fiduciary, those are all terms that you should look into, better understand, so that you can feel a little bit more confident about what you're looking for. And then ask a lot of questions, like Rob said, how do you handle my documents? Is it private, is it encrypted? Who else will know my information? It is totally fine to ask those questions of someone as you're trying to figure out what exactly can I expect from this service? What do I do if I'm unhappy with it? All of those are normal questions that they shouldn't bat an eye about helping you understand. And I will also say fees. Fees is another thing that you absolutely, if your advisor acts like it's free or makes it seem as if it's like no big deal and you don't have to pay anything out of pocket, that is a red flag. They should absolutely be explaining to you how they get paid because everybody needs to make a living and they should be able to describe to you how they're gonna make a living from the work that they're doing for you. Absolutely. One other thing I'll say about this kind of like while we're talking distrust and the confidentiality and how this holds people back a lot is that what we get sometimes too is that people don't wanna give some of their info so they'll hire you and then they'll tell you kind of half the story. And telling half the story leads to you getting kind of half the advice or not the proper advice because there wasn't enough information and context. And so where this frequently comes up in Student Loan Planner is someone will fill out our form and we have an information for your information and for your spouse's information in addition to some other questions. And they'll leave the spouse completely off. And so it might lead you to believe that the person is single, that there is no spouse in the picture. So I do try to ask the question, do you have a spouse? Did your spouse stay at home since you didn't put any income down for the spouse? We kind of check there but sometimes people are skirting around it or they'll just say, I don't see how my spouse is relevant to my student loan situation. And it is absolutely relevant. When you get married, your finances do get married even if you all try to keep things separate. Your student loan payment will be calculated based on your spouse's income. If your spouse also has student loans, there are strategies that help make you actually optimize the situation based on the fact that you both have a big loan balance. So the distrust in the relationship and we know there's a large percentage of divorce that's related to finances but you absolutely want to provide people with the proper information so that they can give you proper advice. And one final thing on that too is that if you really don't want to work with somebody, there are plenty of other options out there. We've never been in a better, things have never been easier to do it on your own. So if you're one of those people that's like you totally distrust people, you do not want to do that, then don't. But there are plenty of other ways to get the help you need. So the confidentiality is stopping you from getting the help you need. There are other options for you. So there are plenty of like robo advisors, there's some planning tools that you can do on your own. So don't let that stop you from getting the help you need. Amen to that. So we've got a couple more for you. I think we've done so far. Number one, shame, stigma, fear. Number two was limited awareness of the long-term impact of the decisions that you are or are not making. And then we just talked about like distrust of a financial professional, distrust related to confidentiality and how to take action there. Rob, what's our fourth option for, or fourth thing that people come up against related to why they're not getting help? Oh, it's a big one. There's so much, I'm so overwhelmed, I don't know what to do. There is so much to think about that sometimes being overwhelmed can compel inaction, right? Don't not taking any action. And also we kind of questions are, we question ourselves too, where do we start? I don't know where to look. Changing is hard. I mean, there are all these choices out there. How do I know what to pick? And this will stop people from, because it's much easier to say, ah, well, I'll get to it later, right? Overwhelm causes people to say, okay, what's going on on social media? What's going on in my favorite podcast? Maybe I'll listen to a student loan planner podcast instead of dealing with my finances, which would actually be a good move. Overwhelm is real and it causes a lot of people to not get the help they need. Yeah, I think not only does it not help cause you, not only does it cause you to not get the help that you need, that overwhelm can create anxiety, which creates additional stress, which can also lead to things happening in your health. Once again, now you have to sleepless nights and we forget that everything we're doing in life is interrelated. And so you don't wanna get to a point where you're overwhelmed and so you got financial paralysis, but you're also causing yourself, like you said, physical illness, mental stress. We talk a lot about mental wellness nowadays. And when your finances are not organized and you feel overwhelmed in this area, like you might be trying to, like you snap at your spouse and now you're in counseling because you're mad at your spouse. But really the reason you're mad is because you're overwhelmed in general and that's why you snap. And the rigmarole continues on and on. So I think overwhelm is a really big deal because like I said, it kind of intertwines with all aspects of your life. So I think, you know, there's a lot of different choices and a lot of different directions. There's a lot of different things you can be thinking about, but kind of the action item for overwhelm is to kind of like stop, take a deep breath and think of like, what is the first thing that I can do? What is the first step that I need to take in order to be able to tackle this thing? Not, don't look at the 50 things. Like, yes, there are probably 50 things you gotta do, but don't allow yourself to be overwhelmed. Just say, what is the first thing I need to do here? And being an entrepreneur, I know you can relate to this, Lauren, but it seems like there's always something that we can be doing, right? Should I be working on my social media? Should I be getting prepared for client meetings, which we always do? But should we be doing blog posts? Should we be, you know, what about trying this new thing or that new thing? Or what about this course or that course to help us with our marketing or copy? There's any number of different options. And a lot of times I get overwhelmed with all the choices that I'm putting on my own plate. And you're totally right. My wife, Anna, is so good at just being like, look, just pick something and go forward. And she has a lot on her plate with work and everything and at home, but she always finds a way to get it done. She's like, just pick one and go. So let's use my wife's advice. And if you're ever feeling overwhelmed, just pick one and go. And in fact, I started using that concept of like when I'm organizing my day, and you can do this just with your overall life. Like let's say you're overwhelmed in life and in your finances. Just write down every single thing that's on your mind that's overwhelming you and say, which one if I deal with this one first will help me feel less stressed? Like get starting, it might not be the easiest, but I know on the other end of it, I'm gonna feel amazing and incredible and have this burst of energy. Which one of those will do that for me? And so when I started adding this like stress to do's to my day, like what are the things that are stressing me out? It really changed my energy, changed my attitude, and I was getting the things done that I was not procrastinating on everything because I was working on the one thing that was stopping me. There's this other concept called like this, there's like, okay, so there's a storm coming and you're either a bison or you're a cow, okay? And so, and I'm not talking to anyone in particular out there who's listening or to you, Lauren, or to me. I'm just saying, let's just say that you're looking out there in the field, there's a storm coming and you see a bison, I think it's a cow. I could be getting the other one. Anyway, what bison do is they charge through the storm, right, the storm is coming, it's traveling from west to east, and if you try to run away, you're just gonna prolong the storm, right? Because you're running with it. But if you charge into it, hit it head on, you're moving in one direction as fast as you can, it's moving in the opposite direction, you actually get through it faster. So, I totally butchered that, but. I got the imagery, that made sense for me. I'm like, oh, that's a good idea, the storm passes faster because you just go directly into it. Like, it's coming either way, so might as well jump in and figure it out. Like, that was a good story. I don't know where the cow fits in, but hey, the bison, we got it. You know, I don't know either about the cow, so I guess we're. But you brought up a really good point, too, about this idea. I always say write it down and make it real. That's kind of the way that I describe the same thing that you were just kind of conversing about, is this, everything in your mind is overwhelming, but what's in your mind is usually not as much as you think it is. Like, it feels that you, like I said, you create a stress reaction to all these things that you're feeling. You put them on paper, you've already released them. And now they live somewhere in real life, and it's like, okay, I wrote them down, I made them real, here's all the things. And then, like you said, it becomes a list, and it's like, okay, let me tackle this one thing. And before you know it, it's like, okay, got that done. All right, move on to the next thing. So now you've put them all in this box or on this piece of paper, on this iPhone note, whatever. You've gotten it out of your head, and it automatically, like, well, for me, it definitely takes my stress levels down immediately just to like, okay, these are 10 things I gotta tackle. Here's one, done, done, done. Before you know it, you're like, oh. All the things, like, my brain doesn't have to carry this, and also, it all got done. So that's a very, very good thing, I think, as an action item when you're facing overwhelm is just get all the stuff out, and then, like you said, back to that other part of the action item is like, find the first thing that you wanna do. Don't try to do them all at one time. And if we're talking strictly about finances, write down the things that are keeping you up at night. Let's say there's student loans, credit card debt, lack of emergency fund, feeling behind on your investments, needing to take care of your life insurance or trust in estate stuff because you feel like you're taking an international trip or whatever, which is when people normally do it. But write down all the things that are bothering you that you wanna see improve in your financial life and say, which one of these is really keeping me up at night the most? And just start with that, take a deep dive. If it's student loans, obviously, studentloanplanner.com. We've got the free calculators, or you can book a call with us. And just check that one off. And I don't know, you probably had these calls too, Lauren, where after they have the consult with you, they're like, okay, I feel like a big burden is lifted. Now I can actually move forward on my entire financial plan. I just couldn't move on anything because this was keeping me up. All the time. You'd be so surprised the number of time that people have come and they have said exactly that. We are not doing anything else until we figure out what to do with this debt because it is just the thing that is the roadblock in our life. And so, yeah, just moving on one thing and having a clear plan of action for that one thing will help you be able to move on to the next. Totally. All right, so let's move on to our fifth and final point here, Lauren. So you wanna take it away here? The last but not least is accessibility. So the idea is, is this thing available to me? So we talked about it a little bit when we were talking about the distrust and the confidentiality, doing some research, trying to find someone. But what if you're in a small town where a particular service is not available? What research do I use to find a person? Sometimes it's, depending on what kind of thing it is, I can't take time off of work to do this. At Student Loan Planner, we've got some consultants that work on weekends. We've got some that work at nights. But ultimately, too, even if it's a Monday through Friday, nine to five place for whatever it is that you're looking for, it's like you may have to decide that it is absolutely worth it to take time off of work in order to be able to do it. That stepping away during business hours to be able to tackle this is key. And I know we find that frequently in the financial industry. We do keep regular business hours. And so if you're looking for a full-time financial planner and you can't, you might, just like the dentist or the doctor, have to take time to make it accessible to yourself. Another thing, too, is transportation. So if something is really far away, now we're living in this virtual world, so a lot of things make life a lot easier. But maybe you don't have proper transportation to get to where you wanna go. Maybe it's a super long ride and you won't be back to pick your kids up in time for, daycare is closing or something like that. So you wanna be thinking about what problems you're having, accessing, accessing, there we go, accessing whatever it is that you need in order to be able to take control of your finances and then find ways to, or find contingency plans to go around those things. Lack of funds is another thing that is key from an accessibility standpoint. People can't come up with the funds to be able to pay for the service. My suggestion for that is always start saving up for it. We get people that save up for student loan calls all the time. They're like, oh, this is a little bit outside of my budget. I'll come back in a few months. And they do, because it's important to them. They realize that this advice is valuable and while they can't just drop the money overnight as soon as they think of the idea, it's something where you start to exercise the discipline. So now you're teaching yourself also the savings, the habit of creating savings. But yeah, we've also got a lot of different options for making financial planning more accessible. So Rob and I both run our own businesses and that's all we're about is making financial planning things more accessible to the masses. So we have a price point that's more affordable than you might find in traditional financial planning options. So don't be afraid to look around to see what else is out there because the first thing that you come up against might not be the only fee that is related to the thing that you're trying to get. It may be the market average. There may be something you can find. Also be careful too with cheaper is not always better. Sometimes you gotta pay for the quality that you're looking for. But that is one of the big things I see as well. Like I said, when we talk about accessibility is lack of funds to be able to pay for the service. And today there's a lot of people, they give out stuff for free on their website. So there'll be like a free, download this free five steps to whatever. On Student Loan Planner, we've got the free student loan calculators and you can do that for free and at any time that you have available to you, even if you're busy with kids and work or working multiple jobs. When you can carve out just the tiniest bit of time, there are plenty of options that don't require money to do it. And the other thing about accessibility is, if you're listening to this podcast, obviously you're accessing financial help, free financial help. But one thing you can do is if you come across a good resource and you have people, friends or people in your community that you feel like they need to hear this and you're not sure if they're hearing it, share it with them. If you find a good financial resource, then just share it. It's never been easier to hit that share button whether you're on something on social media or the podcast or a website to send them a text message. The way to help people increase accessibility is for people to go out in the community and show people that might not know that this exists, but it's also incumbent upon all of us, each of us as individuals to share with people that we feel like might not have access to this information. Yes, sharing is caring. That is a cliche, but it is so, so true. It is so hard for people to not really be thinking about like, oh, well, I got this thing going on and like, oh, you know, you kind of like, it's hard to stay focused on what you're trying to accomplish. And it's even harder to stay focused on the idea that like there's people around me that I care about and I want them to also have access to this thing. But we definitely need to be tuning into that. We don't wanna just gather all the knowledge and the information for ourselves. Sharing is caring. A few other things in the accessibility kind of category I think of is, you know, I talked about like transportation being a problem, childcare also being a problem. Like the great thing at Student Loan Planner is like your kids can be running around in the background. You know, we do Zoom calls, but the cameras are off. So you can be in your pajamas, be laying in the bed. You can, you know, have the spouse in the background trying to keep the kids corralled. So that's not gonna be a problem. But those are things that sometimes people come up against. And you just gotta find, like you said, good solutions or, you know, create the flexibility, give yourself the flexibility, permission to be like, okay, while this is a business meeting and, you know, my kids make me a little crazy, like I might need to multitask through this thing. And, you know, you can just ask in advance to the person that you're gonna be speaking to, you know, is it okay if like I don't have childcare? You know, you'd be surprised the number of times that people are gonna say yes, we were a lot more tolerant nowadays than previously. You know, after everybody had to work from home and COVID and, you know, parenting and teach from home. So don't let things like that stop you. Absolutely. I mean, it's never been easier, you know, to get investment help, to get financial help, to have access to financial resources. I mean, there's even the public library. You know, if you wanna read books, just go to the library. I mean, it's free. If you have a card in your community, you just go and we go to our library all the time here. Don't sleep on the library. And plus with a lot of times these libraries now, I don't know if anyone out there knows this, but a lot of times the libraries are linking up with video, or sorry, with audio book carriers. So you can actually like have an app on your phone and it's through the library. You don't even have to go to the library. You can just, you know, take it out or rent it on your, not rent, but like check it out on your phone. And then you just return it on your phone by clicking a button. So look, check out your free local community resources or ones that are close by and definitely take advantage of that because it's honestly never been easier to get the help you need. A hundred percent. I love that one about the library too. Cause you know, Audible's making a lot of money out of there but you can get the same information for free. You just gotta be able to do a little bit of research to figure out like where the free 99 version of the thing is. Absolutely. So wrapping up here. So we talked about how, you know, shame, fear, guilt, hopelessness might stop you. How not knowing what you're doing today can impact your long-term. Maybe not necessarily trusting the financial industry or want to keep yourself private. Talked about how overwhelm gets in the way and just not even knowing with accessibility that there is help out there for you. So with all that in mind, there's really, there are a lot of reasons we could all make to stop us from getting the help we need. But really, as we've shown you, as Lauren and I have shown you, you don't have to let these things get in the way. Use how you're feeling today about feeling overwhelmed or feeling guilty or not trusting people or not knowing your long-term impact. If you're still listening to this here, take this as your opportunity to, however you're feeling now, to have that springboard you into action today. So in sort of maybe the key takeaway from this is take the one thing in your financial life that you really feel is holding you back and start with only that one thing and start figuring out how you can get the help you need. And if you have any questions, obviously, on student loans, studentloanplanner.com, we're here for you, right? If you have questions with any other financial stuff, there's Google, right? And now there's AI. So there's any number of different ways to get the help you need. So don't let that stop you. Anything, any final words, Lauren? No, you covered it. Like you said, don't be afraid to take action. The time is now. Don't listen to this podcast for two more years before you get a consultation. Like tons and tons of changes are happening in the student loan system. And you wanna be on top of what is most pertinent and relevant related to your financial plan so that you can look at the other aspects of your financial life. So you guys know where to find us. If you don't know where to find us, it's studentloanplanner.com, very simple. All right, Lauren, thanks for being with me here today and love this conversation, love being with you as always. So, all right, y'all, we'll talk to you next time.