Foreign.

Welcome back to another episode of Getting Real with Bossy.

We are your hosts, Kelly Bush and Kelly Mattress.

How are you today?

First of all, it's your birthday.

What?

I don't know.

I'm in my office.

I don't know if you can see behind me.

That's my happy birthday sign from years ago.

I love it.

And that's Pacey Witter, Jonathan or Joshua Jackson from Dawson's Creek.

My Dawson's Creek poster with my.

My own picture cut out next to him because I'm obsessed with him.

If he's listening, I.

You're my hall pass.

Give me a call.

It's your birthday.

It's my birthday.

It's my 50th birthday.

I don't see any other reason.

And what are you doing today on your most important half a century birthday?

Well, I'm working.

Of course I'm working.

And talking to us.

I've got some interviews and I'm meeting with a friend who is actually so funny that we're doing this today and talking about money and financial planning.

She is working to get herself out of debt.

So I went through consumer credit consolidation when I was trying to get out of debt.

And I am now going to sit with her at 3 o' clock to help her go through that process.

And after that I am going to get ready for a paint night here at work.

Thanks.

And we're doing.

And we're doing a birthaversary dinner tomorrow because our anniversary's on Friday.

So.

Yeah, we're doing birthaversary dinner.

I like birthiversary.

Yeah.

It's like Aaron and I have the two anniversaries so we get to pick which day works better.

Yeah.

So you can be like, oh, it's our anniversary and my birthday so I could pick.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So we're doing birth anniversary dinner tomorrow and then we leave for Pennsylvania on Friday.

Awesome.

Oh, we're both going out of town.

I know.

Will the world still turn?

I don't know.

I don't think so.

I don't think so either.

But we won't be here to see it.

So stay tuned to find good luck Rochester this weekend.

Who knows what will happen?

No clue.

No clue.

But today we're going to talk about some super happy birthday topics.

Money, money, money, money.

Almost done with our money.

Our money.

Summer of money or summer of Money.

If we're not making.

We're making it.

We're gonna talk about it.

And we have Julie, Julie Laughlin Hares, who is the co founder of Breathe Capital Planning, who we both adore.

So she's gonna talk to us about what she does and all the crap she's been through this year and how it's made her even better if it's possible at her job and what she's doing.

Super fun way to spend your birthday.

So I hope all of the listeners out there appreciate that you've donated this time today for them.

Feel free to celebrate by sharing us and sharing the word of what we do at Bossy and sharing our posts.

And you're always welcome to make a financial donation to Bossy or get be a sponsor.

We would love that.

We're always looking for sponsors for our podcast.

Yeah, I think it'd be the best birthday present other than Joshua Jackson.

Okay.

Second best birthday present.

Second best birthday present would be to be a sponsor of our podcast.

We would love that.

You can reach out to us@bossyrockgmail.com.

that's bossy.

B O S S Y rock, R O C. Because we keep the K's for us.

Yeah, the K's.

Yeah.

All right.

We hope you enjoy this super upbeat episode.

Love it.

Okay.

And welcome back to another episode of Getting Real with Bossy, the podcast where we talk about what it's actually like to be a business owner.

And we're going to cover a bunch of things today.

We have our guest here today, Julie Laughlin Harris.

She is the co founder of Breathe Capital Planning.

She is a certified divorce coach.

She's about to give be a speaker about financial abuse.

Before we got started and hit record, we were talking about the dealing with the loss of a parent and running your business at the same time.

So I'll be honest, I'm not sure exactly what we're going to cover today, so you better stay tuned.

Welcome back.

Well, thanks for having me.

I'm so excited to be here with both of you.

So thank you for this time today.

This is exciting.

Very glad to have you.

Thank you.

We were just chatting before we actually started collectively about how challenging it is to be a business owner and experience a hardship like a family member getting very sick and the fact that you may have to step out of your business to temporarily take care of that family member and what is the impact going to be on that business?

And I was sharing with Kelly, and Kelly, I couldn't have predicted what happened to me about 24 months ago.

And what started with my mom getting diagnosed with dementia, followed by 30 days later my dad being diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer.

I couldn't prepare my business for it because I had no time.

Right.

Because happened and I was right on top of it.

There will, there is going to be an impact in anybody's business when you go through, you know, helping your family members.

I actually had to step out of the business quite a bit to help care for both of them until we could hire care to help us.

And we were blessed enough to be able to afford that.

And I just, it was a big eye opener for me guys and it's made me super passionate about thinking about a reserve fund in your business.

One thing, you know, to really think about just having reserves, maybe six to eight months of working capital, not a bad idea.

We typically would have three.

And then also the importance of long term care planning, which as a financial fiduciary, you know, that is something that I'm going to talk more about.

You know, I've, I'm like, you know, this is really something that needs to be addressed.

Well and I think that we expect to talk about it about ourselves as we age, but we don't think about talking about it with our middle aged children like those of us here on this call.

Like there's that age of women right now.

A lot of us had kids late in life because we were living and doing all of the amazing womanly things.

And then now you're going through like perimenopause or menopause and you have teens or you don't have teens, but maybe you have teens and you have parents that are aging and have issues and need help and you're running a business.

Yeah, it all happened, Kelly, like you said.

At the same time my son was graduating from, from high school which would have, should have been one of the happiest years of my life.

Turned out to be one of the hardest years of my whole life.

And just the emotions of that alone are overwhelming.

You know, you, you've nurtured this little person up to a, to an adult now and they're ready to spread their wings and fly and there's so many emotions that you go through.

But then also this sandwich generation that we're called, where our parents are aging and our kids are coming up, we're kind of stuck in the middle and it's so expensive.

It's the most expensive year I've ever had.

I'm like getting ready for college and all that comes with that.

And then, you know, just supporting my family the best way I could.

You know, it just, it, it, it was unbelievable.

And the emotion, you know, we don't even, we don't talk about this a lot, but the emotional impact that it has on you as a business owner too, I, I don't think we ever take a minute to stop and, and just kind of like be there for one another.

That's one thing that I do love about your group.

Bossy, is it?

There are so many of us that are entrepreneurs that when we come together, there is a shared space and a shared community to be like, just be real with each other and have a conversation about what's really happening in your life.

And I think there's a lot to be said for that.

I think what I found this year is that at times it was very lonely.

I mean, it is.

We talk about it all the time.

Being a business owner is one of the loneliest jobs in the world.

It's one of the reasons we created this.

Not to make light of all of these tragic things, but we know as entrepreneurs, things don't go wrong when it's easy.

The POS doesn't go wrong, go down on Wednesday at 2:00'.

Clock.

It goes down on Friday night at 7:30.

You know, families don't break down when it's convenient, when, when everything's running smoothly.

And this is just another reason to have all of as much as you can in order, have those, those rainy day funds, have those things in place.

And I don't want to move on from what we're talking about, but just to reinforce why these conversations we've had all summer are so important because these things just happen.

And you know, Kelly and I joke about it.

If you listen to our episodes, you know, back a year and a half ago, two years ago, when I literally was talking to my therapist about how, how we were going to Denver.

And that's when I was scheduling time to grieve the loss of my father.

My father passed in May.

We went to Denver in August.

And it was like, that's when I have time.

Oh, and did you.

No.

No.

This is.

Maybe, maybe, maybe when I'm out on.

I have surgery on September 9th and I've got to, I have to be in bed for two weeks.

I think maybe then I, I will.

But like these, these are, this is just how it goes because work has to happen.

And I think I, I appreciate you, Julie, for bringing up bossy and the, the support that we.

And that's why we are support first, everything else second.

Because we need that.

I need to be able to have people to go to and just be like, holy, yeah.

Dying inside.

But I still just also have to make fish fries tonight because I don't have a choice because everybody's out.

Like, let's just be real, you know, this.

We're all gonna go through stuff and it's, it's amazing to have other people to be able to turn to that are just there to like, listen to you as you're going through it.

Because you get it.

You guys, you've gone through it yourselves.

And I think that that is.

There's a lot to be said for that.

So, really glad that I'm a part of the community and hope to be more engaged this year, you guys.

I was kind of a missing person for the past year, so.

Well, and I think that another thing that we don't talk about because we do talk about money and obviously in the back of our heads we know about having reserves and we don't think about it as needing it for our parents passing, but you need it for whatever emergency arises.

And that's probably, you know, that might be the thing that comes up that you need it for, but the emotional tasking of it.

Anything that's going on that's a cool crisis in your, your personal life or even in your business.

And it's a financial impact of that.

Because like you said, we're integral parts of our business.

And when we're not all on, we're losing money.

Yeah, right.

We are.

You know, and it's, it's exhausting.

But we are human beings and when these things are happening and we're not able to put our full selves into it, whether it's time, energy, or money, it has an impact on your business, Business.

And that just adds to the stress.

Totally.

It does and it did.

I just feel grateful that I'm lucky enough to have a fabulous business partner that, you know, helped me maintain and keep going through really some really challenging times.

You know, really grateful.

Grateful to Noah, grateful to our team that really held it down in the days that I just couldn't be there because I was at the hospital or at my parents house, you know, I was either one of those two places and really blessed for the clients that I have and the relationships that we've built.

And I was transparent with what was happening.

I was honest about things.

Like I wanted them to know that I hadn't gone anywhere, but I was preoccupied a little bit, but that Noah was there and our team, our staff was there to help and support them.

And my clients were amazing.

That's great.

Yeah.

I'm so blessed to have the people that we have you know, as our clients, it's a huge blessing.

So, yeah, that was amazing.

And we've talked about that a lot, especially since the pandemic.

You know, the ability to be transparent, the acceptance, the desire for the community to actually see us as human beings and not just this mythical business owner, not person thing that nothing ever goes wrong with.

Right.

I mean, a lot of, I mean, it's permission, we have permission now to say it's just a little bit too tough to open today.

It's a little bit too tough to do whatever.

And I think that's really wonderful and I'm glad that that was received and it's nice to see that it's being received in all, all areas of business.

Even the more, the more, the more.

Professional corporate world than ours where we can just be like, ah, we need a break.

You can actually see how frazzled we are.

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

That's great.

I'm sorry you have to go through that, but has that affected the conversations you're having with your clients?

Oh my gosh, yes.

Because, guys, I've always been passionate.

I started in insurance and the reason I started in insurance was because insurance was the only asset that I had liquid to me at the time I went through my divorce.

So I was passionate about making sure that people understood insurance and how it can be used and like all those things.

So I came in to the business that way.

And then I learned about this product that not many carriers have, but a few do that has a whole life policy with long term care kind of wrapped into it as a rider.

The reason why the long term care standalone companies have pretty much evaporated out of New York is that the costs have escalated so high that even if you did have one of these policies, they're almost impossible to have because it's so much money.

Because the cost in New York, and this is staggering.

And I learned so much on this journey with my mother.

If you need memory care and your patient is immobile, meaning they can't really do much for themselves, you're looking at 20 to $25,000 a month for care.

Yeah.

And that was staggering.

And that was terrifying.

You know, if you don't need memory care right now in our area, our Rochester area, it's in the $15,000.

You know, anywhere from, I saw pricing anywhere from 11,000 to, to $15,000 a month.

Oh my goodness, those figures were just jarring to me.

It was a huge wake up call.

And I got passionate about sharing this information with all of our clients that are in their 40s and 50s and 60s and being like, hey, what's your plan?

Like, God forbid something happens to you and you become sick and you have to have care.

Do you guys have a plan?

Have you even, have you even thought of it?

So I became passionate about sharing knowledge, educating people.

Here's what's available to you.

You know, we work under best interest standards, so we don't, you know, demand ever, but we educate, we, you know, teach people about.

Here are your options.

What do you feel like is the best fit for you?

We have some clients that could self insure through an event like that, meaning that they could afford to pay through that.

But I also think, do you want to, like, do you want to go through all your assets at the, you know, maybe at the end of your life, or would you rather have a buffer between yourself and that facility so that you can transfer more of your assets to your next generation?

So, yeah, we became, I became kind of passionate about it and made sure that, you know, I actually went back and looked at some of our clients and actually called people and said, hey, I would love to have a follow up meeting with you to just educate you about some things that I've learned.

And they really appreciated it.

You know, just even the education alone about, you know, what I learned on that journey.

I learned a lot about the medical system too, guys.

My little journey.

And I learned that you, you have to be a very strong advocate for your loved ones.

I experienced some really good things in some of our local hospitals and some really tough things.

And I just learned a lot.

It's what I'll say about that.

I just learned a lot.

We've got some great doctors and nurses here in Rochester.

We really do.

And then we have areas for improvement.

So I learned that and everywhere in between.

So it was a great, it was, in some ways it was helpful, you know, to go through that learning.

Sure.

And in one of the must, must be nice situations, you know, we generally have some flexibility in our hours and we can, you know, I recently went through doctor's appointments for my dad with his health and, you know, it was a great opportunity and probably a marriage saver.

If you're listening.

Hi parents.

But we joke about it now because I was like their middleman.

So when they would fight about what the doctor said, even though we were all in the room, I could be like, oh no, this is what the doctor said.

And I was like the impartial person.

I had that flexibility.

And not only did I get to feel like I Knew what was happening, but also I got to help them with that.

And.

Yeah, that was nice.

Yeah, it is nice.

That is.

It is definitely a nice.

But at the same time, I think then left the appointments and went into work and pretended like everything's great and dealing with the public and my employees who don't understand the life that we're leading at this age because most of them are younger, you know, for my business anyways.

And it's like, oh, yeah, everything's great.

Don't know if my dad's gonna be alive.

It's cool.

Like, yeah, it's hard.

It is a.

It is a nice part.

I've always said the flexibility allotment is the nice part.

But sometimes that flexibility does cost us money and there are times that we are.

Cannot be flexible and we don't have a choice.

Yeah, right.

I, I feel grateful also.

I will give a shout out to my brother and sister in law because there are.

They know that I'm self employed and they are not self employed.

So there would be times where I'd be like, tim, I really can't miss this or that.

Like, this is.

I can't.

These are things I can't miss.

And he would cover me, you know, And I feel really blessed that I have a brother that has been like, I could get very emotional guys right now that has been in the trenches with me.

Wow.

You need that support person.

Yeah.

You can't do it alone.

I can't imagine going through all of that alone.

Yeah.

And you know, the support of my, my own child, you know, as he reaches adulthood and had to like encounter all the adult decisions that I went through.

He was amazing too.

Like, he would literally be like, okay, no problem, I'll go pick up grandma.

Grandma has to go see like a neurologist or had to do this or had to do that.

And you know, my brother and I are trying to.

It may be a day that we both had commitments, we couldn't leave.

And my son would get out of school early because he would, you know, had that flexibility in his schedule and show up and says a lot about someone's character at 19 when they can do that.

So really blessed.

And I'm sure, I'm sure about your character too.

Thanks, friend.

You raised him.

Yeah, thank you, thank you.

And my significant other, like, you know, holding it down for me.

I don't know if I would have fared as well as I did without all of these people.

So I feel really blessed for that.

I'm sure there's Listeners that are like, oh, you shouldn't ever have to miss any important family event or you shouldn't have to choose ever.

And.

And that's just not the life that we're living.

That's not reality.

No.

To the listeners that might be rolling their eyes at this point, point in the conversation, just take a moment to be empathetic.

You know, obviously we're going to make the best choices for us in these situations as we handle them, just like we are with our finances and how we're going to navigate the low points while we're dealing with everything else.

I think that knowing other topics we're going to get into today, I think this is a good resting point to remind everybody that whether or not you think you would ever get in this situation or handle this situation.

Situation that well, we all handle things as we can and we only know what we know.

And that this is a great opportunity to learn something new.

Right?

Absolutely.

Thanks, Kelly, for that.

That was, that was great.

The other topic that we were talking about off air, guys, that we were like, oh, this is a good one, is financial abuse.

And what, what is it and what does it look like?

I'm passionate about sharing this information.

And, and in fact, we'll be at the Willow Domestic Violence Gala this year talking on this very topic.

When is that date so we can say it a bunch of times?

Yep.

October 10th.

Thank you.

Yep.

And they told me location 2 TBD, but yep.

So really excited about that.

You know, what does that look like?

That can be.

Whenever you're hiding things from your partner, that is a form of, like, disrespect and that lack of transparency, especially if your partner is relying on a joint income situation to live.

So as we're, as we're coaching and as we're advising couples, we are very much like, you need to work in a financial system that works for both of you.

So we're open to people that like to do everything joint, people that like to do everything separate or a hybrid of that.

Right.

But I think when we get into trouble is when we keep secrets and hide financial information from the other partner that could, in fact, impact that partner.

And I'll give you an example of some of these things that I've seen over the years.

I had a person very close to me that she came home one day and there was all these tax bills in the mail, and she was in the middle of a divorce, and she said, what are all these tax bills?

And the husband said, well, I bought a bunch of property.

It's in both of our names without her consent, without her knowledge.

She, she was on the hook now for all this tax, taxes and property that she did not consent to.

And I'm like, well, that's gotta be illegal.

And in fact was.

But the bigger picture with that is like that lack of transparency and the lack of communication is really what can lead to really uncomfortable and borderline abusive financial situations.

So people don't always think of it like that.

Like, oh, that's, that person's not being abused.

They're, you know, they're, they're physically not being abused, emotionally not being abused.

But you can be financially abused.

You can.

And it can look like, you know, I had someone else very close to me also worked in a 1099 job only, you know, only got paid when she worked, went through a C section and was under duress from her husband at the time saying, oh, we're not going to make it if you don't go back to work.

And went back to work after three weeks after a C section and almost ended up in the hospital.

It's like.

And actually it was not.

That wasn't correct.

Like, that actually wasn't correct.

They actually were not in financial peril.

I'm like, oh my gosh.

Like they.

That sounds also crazy.

And things like, you know, just not having a level of transparency and not like being honest about, okay, here's our joint expenses, here's what we have those types of things.

The other thing that we encourage people to do is have expense accounts for ourselves.

So you have your regular bill pay accounts, right, where all your, you know, your money lands, goes in, pays all your bills and then you're going to have discretionary money that you're going to want to spend on yourself or on your family members.

We encourage people in a couple situation to have each partner have a discretionary account and then also maybe have a family account if you have children.

And that's where you put your extra dollars that you're going to spend on yourselves.

I think that that leads to less fighting about what dollars are going where and what's being spent.

As long as it's in balance with your total inflows and outflows.

There should be a place where you could create these expense accounts for, you know, one another.

And I find that this, we keep, we actually set a separate debit card.

We encourage our clients get a separate debit credit card, a debit card associated with this and use this card card like that because it just allows for more freedom for that person.

And everyone's.

Everyone's on the same page because everyone understands where the money's going, if that makes sense.

Yeah, definitely.

Well, money is power, right?

So if only one person has access to it, that's the person that is holding the power.

Yes.

And the other, the other, the other problem that I see, and I see this in the older generation is not having a knowledge basis, like not being included in financial decisions.

And then God forbid the party passes away and the other person has to make all these decisions.

And they're already devastated because they lost their significant other, but now they're having to learn all these financial terms they never knew about.

They may not have under.

Had an understanding of what their cash.

Cash flow look like because they weren't actually paying the bills.

And that's literally.

You're starting from ground up.

That is challenging.

I.

Those aren't necessarily financial abuse.

That's just kind of like the nature of the older generation.

However, Noah and I have chosen to specialize in that.

We specialize in working with people that have gone through divorce or loss of a spouse.

And because we know that there's a ton of education that's required to get someone back up to speed or create a new financial plan for them because they just went from potentially two incomes to one, even if they're retired.

You know, that looks very different.

Taxes look different.

Everything looks different.

It's completely overwhelming.

There's so many different variables that go into that re establishing of that.

And it.

I feel like that takes time.

That takes time and it takes really working with people on that one to one.

Oh, definitely.

It's still something I'm working with my mother on.

There's still things that come up that is.

Oh, wait, we didn't change that.

That still needs to be addressed.

So.

Yep.

It's unbelievable, the whole re education.

It's a lot of work.

And I, I encourage like people that are going through that, like, to really take the time to understand because I think once what we fear, we don't.

Sometimes we fear things we don't understand.

Right.

But if once we understand it and then we get some.

A little bit of knowledge under our belt, we're like, oh, okay, well, that makes sense.

But a lot of times if we've never done it, we're like arm's length.

Oh, gosh, I don't know what that means.

I don't want to get involved.

But like just stepping up and embracing, asking questions, not a bad thing.

Not a bad thing at all.

How about for you guys?

Have you ever heard any financial horror stories from friends or other people that you've seen people go through?

What, what have been some things that you've heard?

I have.

I have somebody close to me right now.

I'm trying to kind of.

When you brought up financial abuse and like, I'm trying to kind of educate, not educate her because I'm not educated in it, but just share as much as I know about it because there's like an imbalance where he certainly makes more than her.

And it's just really putting a lot of pressure on her about where she works, what she does.

And it's just, it is, to me, very, very abusive.

And you need to do more because I'm making more and you need to do this.

And it's just, it's that.

That imbalance because he makes more and directing.

It's just.

It's getting very ugly.

So I'm just writing it.

October 10th.

We're making a date to save that day.

We have a place to go.

Kelly.

Back to Kelly Mattress's comment about control and power.

A lot of people, unfortunately, will use it as a tool to control and take power away from people.

And when I was talking to, you know, the advisors at Willow, something that came up and overlaps oftentimes, not all the time, but oftentimes it does.

If someone is very controlling with the money and controlling with the resources, they can also be very difficult, difficult at home.

Someone who can be very controlling.

And that control, instead of just being like control, because I don't want us to lose balance or I want us to be fiscally responsible, slips into abuse, like very quickly.

And, and people don't.

And I said this to you earlier, ladies, and I meant it.

You don't even know you're in it and you're in a situation like that.

And I will, I will say I've seen it in all socioeconomic spheres.

I've seen it at the poverty line.

I've seen it in the middle class area, and I've seen it with a very affluent.

It can happen at any time in your life, in any situation.

And it's just.

It's just jaw dropping.

It really is.

And some of the older clients that I've had also, like, another thing that I'm super passionate about is trusted persons.

As, as our parents, right.

As our parents get older, we want to look out for them.

We want to make sure that they're okay.

Especially after you lose one parent, I think.

I don't know Kelly about you, but I've become Even more protective of my dad than I ever was.

You know what I mean?

I'm like, I lost my mom, so I'm like, the lady that used to look out for him isn't there anymore.

And he's pretty.

Pretty savvy.

He's pretty savvy.

But I can remember even just recently we had a contractor over to the house, and, like, my brother and I just show up.

We're like, what's up?

Y.

And.

And the guy was great.

And we're just like, hey.

We just would like a quote in advance.

You know, not trying to be difficult or anything, but, you know, this is important to us, and, you know, it works out great.

But, you know, it's interesting how that changes.

So there's so much I could say about financial abuse.

Well, and I think for people starting out, especially as women, you know, if you're in a relationship and you're starting your business and you've made the jump and you're not doing it as a couple, not that everybody should do it as a couple.

Kelly and I always say that there are plenty of people who should not be in business with their spouse, but you need a spouse that is going to be a safe person and an understanding person, because business ownership, especially in the beginning, takes a lot of time, energy, and money.

And if the other person in the relationship is controlling all of the money now, they're controlling all of the money and your business because you're going to be reliant on them to pick up the slack when you're down in sales or when you.

You're, you know, putting, you know, your first brick and mortar out there, and you're putting all the, you know, the down payment and all the other stuff.

You know, it's.

It's.

Or even working every Saturday to do every festival, and you need help with that child care.

I mean, there's just so many things that you need to do that you need that support for.

Very easy to fall into a situation where the other person is controlling at all and resentful.

You know, it is.

It is a life that is not for everyone.

It isn't.

I mean, being in.

Being in business with your significant other is not for the week.

It definitely isn't.

I mean, I feel like you have to have really open lines of communication, and you have to feel like you can be very honest with each other because you're going to go through tough times in.

In a business.

There's going to be great times, lives, and there's going to be tough times too.

But being able to know that, like you said, Kelly, that you can just be honest with that person and know that they have your back in those moments of, you know, whatever's coming at you is important.

Ultimately they're your, your first investor.

Whether they're technically giving you money, not giving you money, but you know, whether they're technically investing in your company, they're the person that's going to be financially and time investing in your company.

Right?

100%.

And like, the other thing that you have to think about is that person is a key per, that's a key person in your organization.

Right.

Are you guys, you know, I always ask people, are you set up properly, structure wise and do you have, you know, transfer legacy planning in place?

Because that's more important now than ever, making sure that, you know, the key person is insured.

And also, like, what would happen, God forbid something happened to the one, either one of you, what do you want to have happen with the business?

You know, thinking about it long term, not to be morbid or anything, but I always have to think about what is the, what is the future?

What does the future look like?

And our lawyer calls my partner and I at the end of every year and is like, okay, time to give me your number of what the business value is.

And it, you know, luckily for us, it's been going up every single year.

And he'll check with us and make, make sure you guys are insured because we have already, you know, realized that if one of us were to go down, the other one would need to replace the partner.

And that's gonna cost money, right?

You know, so like, oh, well, that.

Person can pick up the page pieces.

Well, no, they're already doing a full time job.

Exactly, exactly.

It's not going to work out like that.

The other thing is, is like, how do you also make the family whole?

Right?

Because the family has a vested interest in the business.

And how if you don't want family coming into that business and you want it to stay between the partners, do you have that planning in place?

That's a critical piece of planning that I think gets overlooked a lot of times.

I remember I was pregnant for my first child and Aaron and I were not quite together and a friend of mine's husband had gone through it with a different relationship and pulled me aside one day and said, I'm gonna tell you something, like, you need to get together and write this down.

What happens if you guys don't stay together?

Yeah.

He's like, because right now it's good.

You look happy.

You guys are talking like you have a good relationship.

Right?

Now is the time to do it.

And I think about that moment a lot of times in my life of, this is a moment where it's good, you know, even whatever.

This is a moment where we're not facing these things.

So this is the time you really.

And it's not the time you want to talk about it.

It's.

No.

We've talked a lot about finances the past couple episodes.

We don't want to take when things are good and I don't have to work 80 hours.

I don't want to put more things on my plate.

I don't want another to do list.

Right.

But it's very important that we're addressing these things when we have the time and mental capacity to think about it, rather than doing it when we're in crisis mode.

Right.

100%.

And like, to just think about, like, what would you want.

What would you want to have happen with the business?

Like, that's a huge decision, especially if your significant other is your business partner.

You know, is there a buyout?

Like, have you guys, you know, think that through and, like, actually put it.

Put it on paper and, you know, have your attorney work with you on that.

I think is a critical piece of business.

And what are you gonna do if your parent gets sick or if you get hit by a truck?

Like, what?

And for Kelly and I, you know, we talk about this sometimes, it's almost harder that our business partners, our spouse, because if something happens to one of us, we're gonna be needed to be there.

Yes.

So now we're down two people, and it's the two key people in the.

In the business.

So it's not like, oh, I can have my partner, hey, I need to go do this.

No, we both know need to do that.

Yeah.

I just thought.

I just.

Wow, you guys, that's so profound and so true, because I just thought about, you know, my business partner two years ago went through a mystery illness.

We didn't know what was wrong with him for, like, 13 weeks.

It was.

I. I'm like.

I was a wreck, and I just felt so bad for his girlfriend.

And I'm like, I can't imagine, like, going through that in one of your guys situation.

That's.

That's huge, because you want to be there with them as they're going through whatever they're going through, but you actually have to be in the business, you know, so you're torn.

That's a really tough place to be.

So that having a plan in place of what, what is that going to look like?

And that's why it's really important to build your team and to.

Even if your team is not, you know, necessarily full time employees, but who are the people that could step in at a moment's notice if something happens, Even if it's just to hold it down that day while you figure things out, you know, what is.

Yep.

Contingency planning is so critical.

Anything else guys that you've, you've seen like financial, like financial abuse wise or just financially that you're like, oh, just so interested in this or have a question about or anything like that.

The thing that I see the most often is women that don't want to participate participate in money.

Even as business owners.

Even as business owners solopreneurs, you know, not doing this with their spouse, just.

Handing it off and yeah, oh, I have a bookkeeper now.

My bookkeeper takes care of that.

The accountant does that.

Like oh, but, but what are you, do you, do you see your P. Ls do you look at that stuff?

No, but they take care of that.

It's, it's a very scary topic for a lot of women and that terrifies me.

That is terrifying.

You're right.

And I'm also, you know, another area that I think I'm passionate about is financial literacy for women.

Because of what I went through, the complexity of the divorce that I went through and the assets that were lost and I didn't have an understanding back then.

You guys of no, you don't want to take all your buy out money in a qualified rollover.

You actually don't.

You know why?

You need liquidity to start your new life.

And in order to get liquidity then you have to tap into a qualified investment which you're going to lose 10% plus taxes, you're going to lose 30% to access that money.

So things like that, things like people don't actually understand that.

And if as you're maybe going through a divorce or you're in a business, it's important to understand what those financial things are.

Just have an understanding of it.

You don't have to be intimately involved in it.

In our business and probably like in your guys business, we had to assign each other different roles and we based it on what our core competencies were.

However, we have oversight from the other partner.

So for instance, we have a meeting once a week on our financials and Noah is our CM cfo But I also am looking at the numbers as well.

So I think in a business, even if you have somebody that's doing the books and is very competent, you still want to have a level of understanding about what's happening in the business.

I think that's a critical piece.

Agreed.

Yep.

This has been fun.

Well, those are two very exciting topics to talk about.

I mean, this was not an upbeat episode.

Well, I also, I think if there is somebody.

Somebody who is dealing with these things.

I mean, Julie, you are.

You're very well rounded and you have a.

You bring a lot to the table.

You are.

You.

I mean, you do.

You do what you do well, but you.

You care.

And you come about this with a lot of care and a lot of feeling and a lot of.

You're wonderful.

You're a wonderful person.

I've always said that.

And I think that from what you've gone through, especially in.

I mean, we have to tell more of your story eventually anyway, from how.

I mean, you just alluded to it a little bit with your divorce.

Worse.

Yeah.

Because that's a whole other story we could go into.

But just with what you've gone through with the last year and what you've learned and now how you're bringing that into your business now, I think if you're.

If you are in this situation, you need to speak to.

To Julie and Noah and you need to reach out to Breathe Capital Planning, because they are going to go that step forward further and really help you learn more about this stuff.

Yeah.

More importantly, ahead of time, we want to think about these things and get them in place if we can.

Ahead of time.

Oh, my gosh.

We want to have a plan, you know, and people ask me, well, do I really need a financial plan?

Every person walking the planet needs a plan today.

In today's world, you need a plan.

And I'm so hopeful for the future because my son's generation is embracing the idea of a plan.

And I'm working with more and more younger people, which gives me a lot of hope for the future.

Honestly, people in their 20s, their first jobs, you know, we're working with people like that as well and just making sure that they are.

They have a plan.

And that's fabulous.

That's great.

Yep.

It's been my pleasure to be here with you guys.

It's so good to see you both.

Ah, we missed you.

I'm sorry that you had to go through all of this.

But if somebody.

If somebody does want to reach out to you, how.

How would they reach you?

Sure.

We have our Calendly link is right on our website.

BreatheCapital Planning.

It's BCP, so breathecapital planning.com there's a calendly link right there.

We do offer complimentary introductory session.

So for anybody that would like to, you know, hop on, they're able to book, book electronically with us.

It is a free 30 minute session.

If there's just, just a small financial question you have, we answer it for you.

Or if you'd like to learn more about how to engage with us, we.

We cover it then too.

Amazing.

So for all you listeners out there that are in your.

What is the joke?

If you had a New Kids on the Block dvd, you need to be talking about menopause or perimenopause.

Well, if you had a New Kids on the Block dvd, you need to be thinking about emergency contingencies for not only yourself, but your loved ones that you are going to end up responsible for.

Yes, yes.

Big.

It's a big responsibility and you want to definitely have a plan for that.

Well, thank you, Julie.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

So good to see you guys.

Thank you.

Have a great day.

You too.

She is such a wealth of knowledge.

Yes.

I've missed her so much.

I remember the Bossy hour she hosted where she broke down her story and how she got so passionate about women and money.

And that was because she needed to learn it on the fly in a hectic scenario that she could tell more about.

But I think that sometimes when we live things makes us realize how much we need to help other people get through them.

She's the first one that made me comfortable, like just sitting and talking about money.

Because there was an exercise.

Yeah, the exercise.

Yeah.

And she was like, how do you feel about money?

I was like, well, money, I hate it.

I don't want to talk about it.

I'm just gonna go over here and eat the pineapple off of this beautiful charcuterie tray you made.

It was the most beautiful charcuterie, but.

Yeah, but by the end of that, I felt so comfortable.

Yeah, she's amazing.

We highly recommend talking to Julie if you follow Bossy or you're part of the group.

You'll see some of the events that she's got coming up.

She's got a couple of different things I think that she's partnering on, but Willow is a domestic violence group in Rochester, New York.

I think that they're only in Rochester.

I think so.

But they do amazing work.

Amazing work.

So I'm happy that she's.

Yep.

She'll be at the gala on October 10th.

We don't know where yet, but she'll be speaking about financial abuse, and we'll share information about that when we get it.

So stay knowledgeable and transparent.

Make sure that the people supporting you are actually supporting you.

Yep.

And talk about money.

Talk about it.

Don't be scared.

Stay bold.

Stay brave.

Stay bossy.