From $47K in Debt to Financial Freedom: Money Mastery with Melissa Mittelstaedt

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Hey, my name is Teresa Hildebrand and this is Organized Chaos.

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We take a deep dive into living with intentionality, focusing on what's important in our lives so we can truly feel our best.

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It may feel chaotic at times, but with a little organization, the right mindset and a ton of self-love, we can still thrive.

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Join me as we talk to other busy moms and experts who will share tips and strategies to help you reach your goals.

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Hope you enjoy this episode of Organized Chaos.

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Now on to the show.

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Hey friends, welcome to this episode of Organized Chaos.

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So today I'm joined by Melissa Mitt, a money coach with an incredible story.

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Starting her post-college life with a daunting $47,000 in debt, she felt the weight of financial strain.

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However, a pivotal moment at her first job led her to confront her spending habits and adopt a budgeting approach aligned with her values.

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Through dedication and discipline, she not only paid off her debt, she also saved $15,000 for her dream wedding within three years.

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This transformative experience ignited her passion for financial coaching, leading her to obtain an accreditation and specialize, working with unconventional female earners who are eager to make a positive impact on the world.

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Join us as we dive into her inspiring story and get some valuable insights into achieving financial freedom.

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Enjoy the episode.

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You know I was just reading about your story and we were kind of chatting a little bit and how cool your story is, so I would love to start there and like really learn more about you and how you got to becoming a money coach.

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Thank you so much for having me.

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First of all, I appreciate the conversation.

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Anytime I get to talk about money is a good time.

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A little bit about me.

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So my journey to becoming a money coach really started with the fact that I got myself buried into some serious debt.

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I went to college in the era of, hey, sign up for this free t-shirt and you can get a credit card or a piece of pizza or you know, and that is illegal now for anybody out there who's wondering for their kiddos if that will happen to them, it will not.

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Legislation passed that that can't happen.

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But that was the era that I was in, and so I had student loans.

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I had all these credit cards, I got every new pair of jeans that I could, and then, of course, I needed to get a new to me car.

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When I graduated, and after I got out of school, I started.

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I got my very first job.

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My background I'm a sign language interpreter as well.

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That's my side hustle now.

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But I got my first job as a sign language interpreter and I was just like, so excited about this job.

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It it was the dream job for me at the time.

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And I get there and I get my first paycheck and I was like, well, maybe something.

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Like maybe my time like hasn't caught up yet.

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And then I get my next paycheck and I was like, oh.

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And then I got my next one.

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And my next one I was like, oh boy, this is a not going to cut the lifestyle that I was living on my credit cards.

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And then it also, um, like how was I going to pay everything back?

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And I just have this very vivid memory A friend of mine and I we'd walked into the staff lounge and there's this green sofa and I sat down and I just started bawling.

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I was like, what am I going to do?

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This is my dream job.

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And in that instant I was like, do I have to quit this job?

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Do I have to quit this job?

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Like I just got this job that I'm in love with and do I have to leave it already?

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And luckily, she was willing to talk money with me, and so we got to talk about money and I read every single thing I could about personal finance.

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I kind of got myself organized, I started to understand numbers and I was able to get myself out of debt.

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In about three years I was able to save like 15 grand toward my wedding and it really just changed everything for me about money.

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So fast forward 10 or so years after that.

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Fast forward 10 or so years after that, maybe 15 years after that, COVID hits.

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I had been interpreting full-time and everything that I was doing completely shut down, gone, because everything was on site, and I was like, okay, what other skills do I have?

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The great, pivot, right, I feel like that's what it's going to be called in the history books the great.

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And I was like, okay, I am, I'm good with money, I understand it, I've, I've got all this knowledge, I'll I'll be a money coach.

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So I set up my business.

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You know how we do that as entrepreneurs.

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We're like, oh yeah, build it, and people will come and you're like, okay, so I, I set up my business.

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But soon I realized that there's just so much to personal finance, so I ended up seeking a certification.

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I'm now an accredited financial counselor.

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I call myself a money coach A because that's easier to understand, but that is my credential and I yeah, I've been doing this work for a couple of years.

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That's fascinating and I know we were talking a little bit about this before we started recording.

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Can you talk about your lifestyle right now?

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with RVing and everything like that.

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Yeah, yeah.

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So my husband and I we are full-time RVers.

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We in 2019, decided to test it out and we went for about six or so months again COVID and then we were luckily we were able to rent from my grandmother until things kind of started to open up again.

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And then we looked at each other and we're like, until things kind of started to open up again, and then we looked at each other and we're like we really liked that.

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We liked being able to check out different spots.

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We love being on the water and staying by different lakes and seeing what else is out there and experiencing different food and all of that.

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And so we just decided that's it.

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We're going to go full-time RV life and it has been one of the wildest but most fun decisions that we've ever made.

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I still have people say what are you doing, melissa?

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But every so often we just check in with each other.

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I'm like are we still loving this?

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And the answer has still been yes, and we don't have an end date in mind.

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We just figure when the time is right, who knows, we'll make the transition.

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So we could be doing this for the rest of our lives.

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It could be for another year, I'm not sure, but we're loving it for now for another year, I'm not sure, but we're loving it for now.

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That's awesome and it's such a cool story because, like, yes, we have those moments where we just need to pivot right, sometimes forcefully, or it's just like we just want to do something different with our lives, right, yeah, and it's like I see that in your story where it's like you had to make a change because COVID hit, and it's true for so many people Right In that time, you had to kind of like either adapt or just like freeze Right and and then you had kind of like this moment where you're like, well, we want to make this pivot and it's like our choice right, like we love this and we're going to do it Right, so I love that.

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So I want to talk about money and the sense of a society as a whole.

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So do you think like there's, you know, still like this taboo about talking about money but also, in particular, talking about women making money?

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What is your take on that?

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Yeah, I think it's definitely getting better, but I read an article that was published in late 2022 that stated 60% of women would rather talk about their death than to talk about money.

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Wow, and as we know, death is a hard topic, but money is even harder.

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And then part of that article was also saying again, this is a few years ago, but it was saying of the publications for women I'm talking magazines, articles, kind of all that that are specifically geared toward women, 1% of them mentioned money.

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So, to think about, why do women struggle to talk about money?

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The exposure isn't there.

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It wasn't something that we were, like, really taught to do.

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Wall Street, you know, had been the boys club for however long, and so women just kind of had to say we're going to take a stand, we're going to take a stand and we want to start talking about money.

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And so I do.

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I am seeing things change, but one of the questions I first ask clients that I work with is how comfortable are you talking about money?

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And I'm yet to have anybody say five.

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I'm 100% comfortable talking about money.

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So it's, it's changing, but we're not there yet.

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Yes, like I think that it's as a society we like made it taboo simply because, like there's like this ick about money and how some people who have money like are not good people.

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But then we we associate that with like everything related to do with money.

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But I mean money is money.

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We need money, we need to survive, and I know there's a quote, I think it's Jim Rohn, who says money isn't everything, but it's up there with air Right, it's like we do need money to survive.

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So it's important, but it's not the most important thing.

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But it's not the most important thing.

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So I know there's a lot of.

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There's no shortage of financial advice out there, right, and some of it can be questionable.

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So what are some financial myths you see people are falling into?

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One of the most popular myths is to this is a kind of a technical piece of our financial puzzle, but credit scores, right, play a big part into can we get a loan, can we get a mortgage, et cetera.

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And one of the myths out there is keeping a balance on your credit card is better for your credit score, and that has been debunked over and over and over again.

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I wrote an article about it and, of course, I had several people reach out to me and be like that's not true.

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And I said well, here's the resources to say that it is true.

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We can pay off our credit cards in full.

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In fact, that's highly recommended to do that each month in order to keep our credit score as high as possible.

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So do not, if you can afford it, keep a balance on there in the hopes that it will increase your credit score, because it will not.

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Yeah, yeah, I heard, I used to hear that a lot as well and it's just, it's crazy how that evolves.

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Right Advice evolves, things evolve because I mean, that's the way it is right, things change so um one more, sorry, before we shift at one more.

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there's a very popular um personal finance guru out there who teaches that you shouldn't invest if you're paying down debt.

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And the personal finance community is.

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I don't know if that was kind of, because that person was the loudest voice and so everybody thought that that was the way to do it.

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But now the personal finance world is saying wait a second.

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But what if it's student loan debt that is lower interest?

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Or you've got a car loan that you were able to get at a lower interest?

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And if I invested, we know that the stock market has a historic return of about 10%, so why wouldn't I invest my money and make the 10% so we can grow over time?

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Because the longer we have our money in an investment, the more the compounding interest is going to work in our favor.

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So to those people who are like do I, don't I pay off debt first?

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Do I invest?

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What does that look like?

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Really, take a look at if it's high interest credit card debt, you know like you're sitting at 20, 22, 24%.

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Something ridiculous yeah.

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Then, yes, that you would want to pay down first, but if it's something in those lower ranges, then don't be scared of investing.

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And again, time, literally is money when it comes to the market.

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Yeah, and I know that I read on your website that, like your approach is it's personal, right, personal finances, and it's different for everybody.

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So for one person, it can make sense to go the route of the, you know, like the maybe popular advice, but it's so different for everybody.

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Everybody has, like, yeah, so many different, so many different things to look at.

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So I really love having conversations where it's like you're you're going against the grain, right, like of things that you thought for a very long time were the end all be all, but then it turns out it's not always the case, but it could also be that it's not the case for you, right, which is the beautiful part of it.

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So I want to switch gears a little bit because I want to talk about, like, most of the people who listen to this podcast are moms, busy moms and entrepreneurs, so they're juggling many different things and finances can be a real struggle, which is, you know, part of the reason why I wanted to have you on, because I am not the expert in this and I wanted to bring an expert to kind of share some light on some of these things.

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So I want to see if you can share some of, like the common financial challenges that mom entrepreneurs may face and what are some of the strategies that you would recommend overcoming them?

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Yeah, when it comes to entrepreneurs, the ebb and flow of our income is coaster.

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Then we're going to get sucked into like that, that gripping feeling that you feel, like that feast or famine feel.

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Yeah, and so my best recommendation in doing that, in getting around that, is to create like faux stability.

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And if you know on average you need about X amount to for your household to run on the high months, put money into a savings account so when the low months come, you can pull that money out of the savings account and put it in to your family's household budget.

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And for folks who just kind of like, well, all my money is just in one account, this is a perfect opportunity to say great, then I'm going to open a business savings account.

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If you don't have those yet, I highly recommend it a business checking account and a business savings account.

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They don't have to be officially a business account, it could just be a second personal account.

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But to separate that money and then use that savings account for cashflow to come in and out of.

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Second recommendation is to create a schedule for when you pay yourself.

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I'm assuming almost everyone has had a W-2 job at least at some point in their lives and you just get into a rhythm when you have that nine to five, I get paid every two weeks or I get paid on the first and the 15th and it seems like that rhythm.

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You can't have that as an entrepreneur, but you can.

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So when you're using that business checking account and that business savings account, you can keep it in there and then you know okay, I'm going to pay my X amount, I'm going to pay myself half of that on the first and half of that on the 15th.

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So that way you can really stabilize your cashflow, instead of dumping it all in at once or it just randomly comes in and then you're not really sure how to handle that cash flow.

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So those are my two top recommendations is save for the high or save when you have high, use it when you have low and then create a schedule to pay yourself, and that will get you to a place of stability.

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Yeah, I love that Because that's one of the biggest fears that people have when, for those that have a nine to five, have a W two and then they decide, you know what, I want to build this side hustle or this business into my full time job, for the flexibility or whatever reasons that you may have.

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But the biggest fear is but it's not, it might not be stable financially, right.

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So I think a lot of times we I mean in my personal experience I left my nine to five and the biggest fear was not being able to bring in money that we needed.

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At the time my husband was still working full time.

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Eventually we both left our nine to fives.

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But that is a really big fear of, hey, we don't know when the money is going to come in.

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But I love that.

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You, you know there are things that you can put in place, like you said, where you can create this faux stability are things that you can put in place, like you said, where you can create this faux stability and just kind of play around with it right and and find your flow so that you can create that stability, uh, or yourself, and and not have that in the back of your mind all the time, because that's not a great feeling right, yeah, yeah.

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And I was talking with a buddy of mine who's also an entrepreneur and she we were talking about the schedule and she goes yeah, then it would.

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Then it might even create that like that payday elation that folks got used to.

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You know, in the nine to five she's like, yes, today's, you know today's payday, so you can give yourself that little dopamine.

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Hit back in creating a schedule as an entrepreneur.

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Yeah, I love that advice.

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So I want to talk about actually going back to investing, but actually in a different sense.

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So it takes money to make money.

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I guess, know it, it takes, it takes money to make money.

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I guess, to put it simply, and I I know that the, the women that I coach, sometimes have a really hard time in investing in their business- and specifically investing in themselves?

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Yeah, because they they see that, like money really isn't coming in and they can't, they, they can't really make that decision to put money out when money really isn't coming in.

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So what would be your advice or what would be your insights on this, on how mom entrepreneurs can actually learn to invest in their business, and especially in themselves, so that they can grow their business?

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Yeah, then the number one thing that I see is and I mentioned this before but understanding our cash flow.

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And when you there's all kinds of different cashflow spreadsheets that you can use or an app that you can use, but what I call the checking account myth, oftentimes we look at our checking account and that's the only thing that we use to judge, to make our decisions.

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But that's just such a small piece of our financial picture.

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But when you can understand, okay, I've got this much money coming in this week and I know next week I need to pay the virtual assistant, and then the week after that I need to take care of this, and so you may think, oh, all my money is going to be gone.

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But when you really look at the cash flow of it, you're like, oh well, actually I've got a couple extra hundred dollars that really isn't allocated.

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I can allocate that to invest back in my business, or I can allocate that in getting myself a massage or something along those lines.

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But understanding the movement of your money is really going to help.

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You see, where can I make decisions and when can I make decisions?

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Yeah, yeah, I love that.

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So let's talk a little bit about budgeting.

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Yeah.

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Love it.

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So you're like yes, love it.

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So you're like yes.

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So budgeting can can be overwhelming sometimes, for especially for moms who are juggling so many different responsibilities what's like a tip that you can give for creating kind of like a simple and effective budgeting system?

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Yeah.

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And for those of you out there who hear the word budget and cringe, I ask for you to just replace that term with a spending plan or money management or something along those lines, because oftentimes I'll get people who are like, nope, I don't want to do a budget.

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They're like 100% opposed to it.

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But then when I start talking about, well, we're really just finding ways to spend your money in alignment with your values, what is your spending plan?

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And then they're like, oh, okay, yeah, okay.

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And then they you know, they shake that off a little bit.

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So, again, if the term budget is a no for you, replace it with spending plan.

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So one of the top ways to make it feel less complex is, if you use an app that already connects to your bank accounts, it automatically does the transactions for you.

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Like you'll have to bop in there every once in a while and categorize a few things, but it's right there for you.

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And then I recommend keep it simple when it comes to your categorizing.

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Too many people try to say I want to know exactly how much I'm spending on groceries and out to eat and Amazon and clothes and blah, blah, blah.

00:23:35.497 --> 00:23:45.642
And then all of a sudden they get like 30 categories and then that gets overwhelming to try to categorize with all of that.

00:23:45.642 --> 00:23:55.346
So if you're really just needing a restart or you've never done it before, I recommend know what your obligations are.

00:23:55.346 --> 00:24:04.269
So I'm talking your mortgage or your rent, your utilities, your car payment, what are those things that cannot be missed?

00:24:04.269 --> 00:24:05.257
What are those?

00:24:05.257 --> 00:24:09.496
And then if you've got any debts that you're paying back, what's the what?

00:24:09.496 --> 00:24:10.898
What are you paying towards those?

00:24:10.898 --> 00:24:14.186
And then you can just have a everything else.

00:24:14.186 --> 00:24:28.688
It's either called the one number or an anti-budget, but then all you have to do is keep track of that one number instead of trying to keep track of all these random categories.

00:24:28.688 --> 00:24:30.269
And did I overspend or underspend?

00:24:30.269 --> 00:24:45.759
It's just like oh okay, that's the one number I need to keep my eye on for this month, and it really just creates a simplistic view of a budget or a spending plan instead of throwing you into a tailspin.

00:24:46.779 --> 00:24:47.641
Yeah yeah.

00:24:47.641 --> 00:25:09.016
Like that one tip is huge, because we tend to overcomplicate things and sometimes we will kind of think, well, I have to know exactly where every dollar is going, right, and I mean, if that's what you want to do, that's awesome, but like first starting out, that probably isn't the best approach.

00:25:09.016 --> 00:25:11.938
So I love that simplification.

00:25:12.460 --> 00:25:20.550
Yeah, and if anybody needs permission to be like, really, I can just create a budget with one to two or three categories, permission granted.

00:25:20.550 --> 00:25:22.003
Yes, absolutely.

00:25:22.003 --> 00:25:23.348
Thank you, melissa, give it a try.

00:25:25.241 --> 00:25:25.742
Oh my gosh.

00:25:25.742 --> 00:25:26.804
Okay.

00:25:26.804 --> 00:25:38.979
So I think I want to kind of pivot to the mindset, because obviously that plays a really big role in all of this right.

00:25:38.979 --> 00:25:54.480
So what are some mindset shifts that you have that can kind of cultivate like a healthier relationship with money and give you the ability to achieve financial goals?

00:25:54.981 --> 00:26:11.189
Yeah, two of my favorite things to do open up your checking account and just look at where your money's going out and say thank you for each one of those things.

00:26:11.189 --> 00:26:25.773
Thank you AT&T for the ability to talk to my sister, thank you Subway for that sandwich that was maybe mediocre and kind of.

00:26:25.773 --> 00:26:30.112
Go through that because oftentimes we get so excited and we're so thankful for money that's coming in.

00:26:30.112 --> 00:26:35.477
Go through that because oftentimes we get so excited and we're so thankful for money that's coming in but then we forget the money that's going out and the gratitude in that.

00:26:35.477 --> 00:27:10.680
And there's one book it's called happy money by Ken Honda and he interviews I think it was billionaires, millionaires or billionaires, um, and the common thread was um Arig in arigato out, which means being thankful for that whole cycle, for the ins and the outs, and it really can shift your mindset instead of irritation for paying a bill, but like, okay, yeah, I'm thankful that I get to pay for this RV spot because it's gorgeous.

00:27:11.380 --> 00:27:18.605
I'm thankful that I get to pay for this RV spot because it's gorgeous and I get to see the lake from here, and just kind of flipping that script on how you think about your money.

00:27:19.760 --> 00:27:21.126
Yeah, I love that so much.

00:27:21.126 --> 00:27:26.672
I've never really thought about it that way that it's about gratitude.

00:27:26.672 --> 00:27:34.124
Right, you're thankful that you're able to have those, those things and even the littlest things.

00:27:34.124 --> 00:27:37.125
Right, like you know, I'm able to talk to you.

00:27:37.125 --> 00:27:38.767
You're you said you're in Florida.

00:27:38.767 --> 00:27:40.087
Right now I'm in California.

00:27:40.087 --> 00:27:49.034
We're thousands of miles away, but yet we can get together here and talk about amazing things and I this was awesome, melissa.

00:27:49.034 --> 00:27:51.756
I love all of these different.

00:27:51.756 --> 00:27:59.490
There were many, many different aha moments for me and, I think, things that people don't normally hear about.

00:27:59.490 --> 00:28:02.266
So thank you for that and thank you for coming on.

00:28:02.266 --> 00:28:04.507
How can people connect with you?

00:28:04.507 --> 00:28:07.470
Because I know 100% people are going to want to check you out.

00:28:07.470 --> 00:28:11.250
Where is the best place for someone to check you out?

00:28:11.839 --> 00:28:17.393
I'm most active on Instagram and my handle there is underscore Melissa Mitt.

00:28:18.361 --> 00:28:25.202
And I will definitely put that in the show notes for anyone who wants to check you out and they'll just click the link there.

00:28:25.202 --> 00:28:27.407
But again, melissa, thank you so much.

00:28:27.407 --> 00:28:30.643
This was an awesome conversation, happy to be here.

00:28:30.742 --> 00:28:32.730
Thank you so much for having me, of course.